Linked List: August 23, 2017

Wednesday, 23 August 2017

CrashPlan Exits Consumer Backup Business ★

Joe Payne, writing for CrashPlan parent company Code42:

Today we announced our decision to no longer offer the consumer version of our product, known as CrashPlan for Home. We will honor all of our existing agreements with consumers, but we will no longer renew any consumer subscriptions, nor will we sign up any new consumers for CrashPlan for Home.

Allow me to take this opportunity to endorse Backblaze. Now, Backblaze has sponsored this website and my podcast so many times that I’d be a fool not to disclose that fact up front. But I’m not posting this because of that. They’re not paying me to say this. I’m just a delighted (and paying!) customer of their service, and I recommend it wholeheartedly.

Really, the fact that Backblaze is a frequent sponsor made me hesitate to post this, to avoid any appearance of playing favorites for sponsors, but online (and thus off-site) backups are so important that I’m doing it anyway. If you don’t have an off-site backup system in place for your Macs, I implore you to check out Backblaze.

iOS 11 Will Strip AMP Garbage From Shared URLs ★

Nice discovery by Federico Viticci: when you share an AMP URL (or copy it), iOS 11 will strip the AMP garbage so you get the URL that points to the original article. Great feature.

‘You Must Go Offline to View This Page’ ★

Thoughtful bit of cleverness from Chris Bolin.

Jason Snell’s Notes From a Road Trip ★

Jason Snell, reporting from an 11-day family road trip:

Two of the three places we’ve stayed on this trip have been rentals, rather than hotels. (They’re mostly ski condos repurposed for the summer months.) Both of them advertised Wi-Fi as a feature, but that’s an incredibly vague concept that can encompass a lot of different experiences. The first place was connected to the Internet via DSL, which is quite slow, and the connection was unreliable on top of it. The second place offered cable internet, at pretty fast speeds, but once again the Internet seems to keep dropping and then resuming. The Wi-Fi at the hotel was fast and reliable, which isn’t a given.

In the meantime we’ve blown through a giant chunk of our cellular data allotment for the month. Oh well. Life on the road.

He’s got a lot of good observations about the changing state of what he travels with (he took no Mac on this trip, which would make me feel naked) but this bit about internet access matches my experience as well. I almost solely rely on cellular networking while traveling nowadays. This, rather than using Wi-Fi at home, is mostly what I was talking about when I linked to that XKCD comic on Wi-Fi vs. cellular a few weeks ago.

Public Policy Polling: 45 Percent of Trump Voters Think Whites Face the Most Racial Discrimination in U.S. ★

Public Policy Polling:

The reason Trump hasn’t lost more ground for his widely panned response to the attack is probably that many of his supporters agree with some of the beliefs that led white supremacists to rally in Charlottesville in the first place. Asked what racial group they think faces the most discrimination in America, 45% of Trump voters say it’s white people followed by 17% for Native Americans with 16% picking African Americans, and 5% picking Latinos. Asked what religious group they think faces the most discrimination in America, 54% of Trump voters says it’s Christians followed by 22% for Muslims and 12% for Jews. There is a mindset among many Trump voters that it’s whites and Christians getting trampled on in America that makes it unlikely they would abandon Trump over his “both sides” rhetoric.

The idea that white Christians are the most discriminated against group in America is both bonkers and disgusting. And that’s how we wound up with a bonkers, disgusting president.

Overall 89% of Americans have a negative opinion of neo-Nazis to 3% with a positive one, and 87% have an unfavorable opinion of white supremacists to 4% with a positive one. Just 11% agree with the sentiment that it’s possible for white supremacists and neo-Nazis to be ‘very fine people,’ to 69% who say that’s not possible.

These numbers are much less depressing. But I’m really curious about the people in the middle, who have neither a positive nor negative opinion of Nazis. Who is neutral or undecided on Nazism and white supremacy?