Linked List: January 23, 2014

Thursday, 23 January 2014

2014 Gates Annual Letter: Myths About Foreign Aid ★

An informative read and an attractive presentation.

Worth a re-read: Jason Snell’s interview with Steve Jobs 10 years ago, marking the Mac’s 20th anniversary. This bit from Jobs made me smile:

Like, when you make a movie, you burn a DVD and you take it to your DVD player. Someday that could happen over AirPort, so you don’t have to burn a DVD — you can just watch it right off your computer on your television set.

Ten years is a long time.

Apple Executives on the Mac at 30: ‘The Mac Keeps Going Forever.’ ★

Interview by Jason Snell with Phil Schiller, Craig Federighi, and Bud Tribble, commemorating the 30th anniversary of the original Macintosh. Lots of good stuff, but the key thing I took from it is Apple’s enthusiasm for and ongoing commitment to the Mac. The idea that the Mac is going away or will somehow be merged with or subsumed by iOS couldn’t be further from the truth.

‘OK Glass, Pull Out’ ★

Sex with Google Glass:

Just say “ok glass, it’s time” and Glance on Google Glass will stream what you see to each other. If you feel like stopping everything, just say “ok glass, pull out”.

Pretty sure this is not a joke.

‘Sunrise’ Calendar App Asks for Apple ID and Password ★

Michael Tsai:

These days, your Apple ID is the master key to all sorts of personal information and privileges, including the ability to remote wipe iOS devices and access your Mac, even if you didn’t share your FileVault 2 recovery key with Apple. It doesn’t seem prudent to share it with anyone.

The same is true for third-party email clients, though, too — and I can’t see Apple preventing you from accessing your iCloud email from third-party email clients. I’m not sure what the solution is here — but I’d be wary of sending my Apple ID credentials to any third party.

The Truths Behind ‘Dr. Strangelove’ ★

Eric Schlosser, writing for The New Yorker:

Half a century after Kubrick’s mad general, Jack D. Ripper, launched a nuclear strike on the Soviets to defend the purity of “our precious bodily fluids” from Communist subversion, we now know that American officers did indeed have the ability to start a Third World War on their own. And despite the introduction of rigorous safeguards in the years since then, the risk of an accidental or unauthorized nuclear detonation hasn’t been completely eliminated.

David Pogue: ‘How Sony Is Ushering In a Golden Age of Photography’ ★

David Pogue, on Sony’s industry-leading push to fit bigger sensors into smaller cameras:

In short, the single most important statistic about a camera is not the number of megapixels (which actually means very little to picture quality). It’s sensor size.

Worth noting: iPhone cameras use Sony sensors.

Arrest Made in Fabled ’78 Lufthansa Heist ★

Joseph Goldstein, reporting for the NYT:

The indictment reads like a greatest hits collection of the Mafia: armored truck heists, murder, attempted murder, extortion and bookmaking. But the crime that garnered the most attention was the Lufthansa robbery, where a group of robbers stole about $5 million in cash and nearly $1 million in jewels from a Lufthansa cargo building in December 1978 — the largest cash robbery in the nation’s history at the time.

The robbery, a key plotline in the movie “Goodfellas,” was also infamous for how it frustrated investigators; the only person ever convicted in the heist was a Lufthansa cargo agent, described as the “inside man” in the plot.

I said, no more shines. Maybe you didn’t hear about it, you’ve been away a long time. They didn’t go up there and tell you. I don’t shine shoes anymore.