Linked List: October 9, 2017

Monday, 9 October 2017

Nice work by Dan Loewenherz, charting the charging time for an iPhone 8 Plus by charger. “Fast-charging” using Apple’s $49 29-watt charger and $25 USB-C to Lightning cable is only barely faster than using a 12-watt or 10-watt iPad charger. The only charger that really stands out is the 5-watt charger included with the iPhones.

One conclusion from this is that Apple is cheaping out and should put a 10-watt iPad-style charger in the box with each iPhone. Another — suggested on Twitter by David Barnard — is that Apple ships the 5-watt charger with iPhones because it’s so much smaller, and although slower, is fast enough.

I’m on the side that this is Apple cheaping out. But thinking about it, it seems possible to me that Apple has its finger on the pulse of iPhone user complaints. They might know for a fact that “I wish my iPhone charged faster” is low on the list, perhaps because most iPhone users exclusively charge their phones overnight. Also, a lot of people carry a charger in a purse/bag. They want something tiny and might not know or care why Apple made the charger bigger.

Update: I’ve heard from a bunch of readers who either prefer the small charger themselves or who have family members who do. It’s not just about a smaller object to put in your bag — a frequent comment is that the small charger fits into many outlets where the larger ones don’t.

Containment Won’t Solve the Problems Trump Poses ★

David Frum, writing for The Atlantic:

Among other insights, Corker’s Sunday interview forces Americans to confront some tough questions: By what methods is the president being contained? Is he, for example, being denied sensitive information by agencies that remember how he blurted a closely guarded secret to the Russian foreign minister and the location of U.S. nuclear submarines to the president of the Philippines? Are allies and potential adversaries being signaled that presidential statements do not actually represent the policy of the United States government? That was how National-Security Adviser H.R. McMaster dealt with Trump’s refusal to read aloud the endorsement of NATO’s Article 5 in the speech written for Trump to deliver at NATO headquarters in May. “He did not make a decision not to say it.”

To what extent does the president remain in the military chain of command?

In other words: what are the long-term effects of normalizing the idea that the military and intelligence agencies can ignore the president?

E.P.A. Photos Show What the U.S. Looked Like Before Pollution Regulation ★

Oil slicks surrounding the Statue of Liberty, smog suffocating Manhattan, rivers catching fire. This wasn’t that long ago. And today: “EPA Announces Repeal of Major Obama-Era Carbon Emissions Rule”. The world depicted in these photos is the world the Trump administration wants to bring back. No regulation is a good regulation to them.

Republican Senator Bob Corker Says Trump’s Recklessness Threatens ‘World War III’ ★

Jonathan Martin and Mark Landleroct, reporting for The New York Times:

Senator Bob Corker, the Republican chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, charged in an interview on Sunday that President Trump was treating his office like “a reality show,” with reckless threats toward other countries that could set the nation “on the path to World War III.”

In an extraordinary rebuke of a president of his own party, Mr. Corker said he was alarmed about a president who acts “like he’s doing ‘The Apprentice’ or something.”

“He concerns me,” Mr. Corker added. “He would have to concern anyone who cares about our nation.” […]

All but inviting his colleagues to join him in speaking out about the president, Mr. Corker said his concerns about Mr. Trump were shared by nearly every Senate Republican.

“Look, except for a few people, the vast majority of our caucus understands what we’re dealing with here,” he said, adding that “of course they understand the volatility that we’re dealing with and the tremendous amount of work that it takes by people around him to keep him in the middle of the road.”

Even Republicans are now saying, on the record, what has been obvious all along: Trump is mentally unfit for the job — an impulsive, angry, uninformed narcissist with a tenuous hold on reality who is a menace to the nation and the world.

Contrary to Trump’s (and his followers’) incessant bleating, the news media is in fact profoundly biased for Trump by pretending he’s mentally competent. The narrative as presented on the front pages of our major newspapers is that we’re still within the bounds of normalcy: Republicans holding both houses of Congress and the White House, but unable to advance any significant legislation because of conflicts within the party.

The real story is that we’ve elected a dangerous man mentally unfit for office — quite possibly both mentally ill (narcissistic personality disorder) and suffering from the early stages of dementia — and the only people who can do something about it are the members of his own party, who refuse to do so out of fear of angering those in the electorate who for whatever reason still support Trump.

I don’t agree with Bob Corker on politics, but I admire and thank him for breaking the seal on speaking openly of Trump as mentally unfit. If Democrats say it, it can be spun as politics. When Republicans say, there’s nothing to spin.