Linked List: December 7, 2016

Wednesday, 7 December 2016

Daring Fireball T-Shirts Now Available ★

On sale now through next week. U.S. orders will ship in time for Christmas.

Comfy and stylish.

Trump Picks Scott Pruitt, Climate Change Denialist, to Lead E.P.A. ★

Coral Davenport and Eric Lipton, reporting for the NYT:

Mr. Pruitt, a Republican, has been a key architect of the legal battle against Mr. Obama’s climate change policies, actions that fit with the president-elect’s comments during the campaign. Mr. Trump has criticized the established science of human-caused global warming as a hoax, vowed to “cancel” the Paris accord committing nearly every nation to taking action to fight climate change, and attacked Mr. Obama’s signature global warming policy, the Clean Power Plan, as a “war on coal.”

Mr. Pruitt has been in lock step with those views.

Here’s a story from just two years ago, on how Pruitt served as a lackey for the fossil fuel industry while serving as attorney general of Oklahoma:

The letter to the Environmental Protection Agency from Attorney General Scott Pruitt of Oklahoma carried a blunt accusation: Federal regulators were grossly overestimating the amount of air pollution caused by energy companies drilling new natural gas wells in his state.

But Mr. Pruitt left out one critical point. The three-page letter was written by lawyers for Devon Energy, one of Oklahoma’s biggest oil and gas companies, and was delivered to him by Devon’s chief of lobbying.

“Outstanding!” William F. Whitsitt, who at the time directed government relations at the company, said in a note to Mr. Pruitt’s office. The attorney general’s staff had taken Devon’s draft, copied it onto state government stationery with only a few word changes, and sent it to Washington with the attorney general’s signature. “The timing of the letter is great, given our meeting this Friday with both E.P.A. and the White House.”

Mr. Whitsitt then added, “Please pass along Devon’s thanks to Attorney General Pruitt.”

Inside Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte’s Brutal Antidrug Campaign ★

New York Times photojournalist Daniel Berehulak, who photographed 57 homicides in 35 days in the Philippines:

I have worked in 60 countries, covered wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and spent much of 2014 living inside West Africa’s Ebola zone, a place gripped by fear and death. What I experienced in the Philippines felt like a new level of ruthlessness: police officers’ summarily shooting anyone suspected of dealing or even using drugs, vigilantes’ taking seriously Mr. Duterte’s call to “slaughter them all.”

He said in October, “You can expect 20,000 or 30,000 more.”

On Saturday, Mr. Duterte said that, in a telephone call the day before, President-elect Donald J. Trump had endorsed the brutal antidrug campaign and invited him to visit New York and Washington. “He said that, well, we are doing it as a sovereign nation, the right way,” Mr. Duterte said in a summary of the call released by his office.

Beyond those killed in official drug operations, the Philippine National Police have counted more than 3,500 unsolved homicides since July 1, turning much of the country into a macabre house of mourning.

Gruesome images, but worth looking at to see just what Donald Trump endorses.

Pebble Is Shutting Down After Fitbit Acquisition ★

Pebble:

Pebble is no longer promoting, manufacturing, or selling any devices.

Pebble devices will continue to work as normal. No immediate changes to the Pebble user experience will happen at this time.

Pebble functionality or service quality may be reduced in the future.

Rough ending.

I love the idea of a plucky startup creating their own hardware platform, but Pebble was a dud. The first model was, perhaps, a decent proof of concept. I couldn’t stand it, personally, but I know a few people who wore it. The best feature was getting notifications on your wrist, but I found the way it vibrated to be unpleasant. Their e-ink displays were great for battery life, but terrible in every other regard.

But their follow-up models just weren’t big enough improvements. The Pebble Steel was a complete waste of the company’s time — their problem was that their technology wasn’t good enough, not that they didn’t look enough like traditional watches.

Bluetooth 5 Spec Approved ★

Jon Fingas, writing for Engadget:

Bluetooth is about to become a lot less hassle-prone. The wireless standard’s Special Interest Group has officially adopted the Bluetooth 5 spec, clearing the way for device makers to use the much-improved technology in everything from phones to wearables to smart home equipment. This doesn’t mean that you’ll see it right away, of course. The group expects Bluetooth 5-equipped products to hit the market in the next 2 to 6 months, or right around when the next wave of smartphones is likely to arrive.

Yours truly, one year ago:

“Next year it will work great” should be the motto of Bluetooth.