Linked List: February 25, 2012

Saturday, 25 February 2012

Teller Reveals His Secrets 

Teller:

You will be fooled by a trick if it involves more time, money and practice than you (or any other sane onlooker) would be willing to invest.

So great. (Via Michael Lopp.)

Setting the Record Straight on Google’s Safari Tracking 

Jonathan Mayer, the researcher who first uncovered Google’s circumvention of Safari’s cookie privacy settings:

Apple’s purpose was not messing with Google. The default cookie blocking feature that Google circumvented was implemented in Safari 1.0, which shipped in 2003 — long before Google was in the third-party display advertising business, and long before relations between the companies soured over smartphones. Furthermore, Safari has repeatedly been a pioneer in browser privacy. Safari 1.0 included a simple “privacy reset” choice for clearing browser settings; the other major browsers followed with similar features. Safari 2.0, released in 2005, was the first browser to provide a “private browsing” mode; again, all the other major browsers followed.

Overall, a rather scathing indictment of Google’s explanation for its behavior here.

The Death Star Is a Surprisingly Cost-Effective Weapons System 

Star Wars mixed with economics? Count me in. (I seem to recall, but can’t find, a long-ago analysis of the Death Star which suggested that the real cost wasn’t the construction of the space station itself, but rather the energy cost of the planet-destroying weapon.)