Linked List: March 31, 2021

Wednesday, 31 March 2021

Rachel Levine: America’s First Openly Transgender Federal Official to Win Senate Confirmation ★

David Crary, reporting last week for The Philadelphia Inquirer:

Voting mostly along party lines, the U.S. Senate has confirmed former Pennsylvania Health Secretary Rachel Levine to be the nation’s assistant secretary of health. She is the first openly transgender federal official to win Senate confirmation.

The final vote Wednesday was 52-48. Republican Sens. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Susan Collins of Maine joined all Democrats in supporting Levine.

Levine had been serving as Pennsylvania’s top health official since 2017, and emerged as the public face of the state’s response to the coronavirus pandemic. She is expected to oversee Health and Human Services offices and programs across the U.S.

It takes courage and a thick skin to be a trailblazer like Levine. She’s more than qualified for this position — the votes against her are as shameful as they are transparent. I’m so proud that she’s from Pennsylvania.

President Biden, today:

Today, we honor and celebrate the achievements and resiliency of transgender individuals and communities. Transgender Day of Visibility recognizes the generations of struggle, activism, and courage that have brought our country closer to full equality for transgender and gender non-binary people in the United States and around the world. Their trailblazing work has given countless transgender individuals the bravery to live openly and authentically. This hard-fought progress is also shaping an increasingly accepting world in which peers at school, teammates and coaches on the playing field, colleagues at work, and allies in every corner of society are standing in support and solidarity with the transgender community.

Living openly and authentically shouldn’t require bravery. Today it does; someday, it won’t.

The Talk Show: ‘Toaster Fridgey’ ★

Rene Ritchie returns to the show to speculate about pending Apple product announcements and events. Lots of guessing, no wagering.

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Apple Is Adding Two New American English Voices for Siri ★

Matthew Panzarino, writing for TechCrunch:

Apple is adding two new voices to Siri’s English offerings, and eliminating the default “female voice” selection in the latest beta version of iOS. This means that every person setting up Siri will choose a voice for themselves and it will no longer default to the voice assistant being female, a topic that has come up quite a bit with regards to bias in voice interfaces over the past few years.

As Panzarino notes, in some countries, like the U.K., Siri’s default voice is male, not female. So “Why is Siri’s default voice female?” is not applicable worldwide. And my hunch has always been that the defaults in each country were selected by perceived quality. But making this an explicit choice during setup is the right answer — take the question of cultural bias out of the equation.

I believe that this is the first of these assistants to make the choice completely agnostic with no default selection made. This is a positive step forward as it allows people to choose the voice that they prefer without the defaults bias coming into play. The two new voices also bring some much needed variety to the voices of Siri, offering more diversity in speech sound and pattern to a user picking a voice that speaks to them. […]

“We’re excited to introduce two new Siri voices for English speakers and the option for Siri users to select the voice they want when they set up their device,” a statement from Apple reads. “This is a continuation of Apple’s long-standing commitment to diversity and inclusion, and products and services that are designed to better reflect the diversity of the world we live in.”

Here’s a screen recording I made of the new lineup of voices. Both new voices are very good. Interestingly, in addition to adding the two new voices, the Siri preferences no longer label any of the voices as “male” or “female” — they’re just “Voice 1” … “Voice 4”. That makes it harder to remember which one is which, but, it opens the door to nonbinary voices in a future update. There’s no reason Siri’s voice needs to be decidedly male or female. The diversity of the two new voices is subtle, but they don’t label them as such. You either hear it or don’t. The same could be true for the gender of future new voices.

I wonder too if the order is randomized? There doesn’t seem to be a pattern to how mine are ordered, and randomizing the order would further eliminate bias before each user makes their choice. Update: I checked with Apple and they confirmed: the order of voices is randomized (voices 1 and 4 are the existing ones, 2 and 3 are the new ones). It’s the same order on everyone’s device, but the order was chosen to mix old and new.

15 Million Johnson & Johnson COVID Vaccine Doses Spoiled by Factory Screwup ★

Sharon LaFraniere and Noah Weiland, reporting for The New York Times:

Workers at a Baltimore plant manufacturing two coronavirus vaccines accidentally conflated the vaccines’ ingredients several weeks ago, ruining about 15 million doses of Johnson & Johnson’s vaccine and forcing regulators to delay authorization of the plant’s production lines.

The plant is run by Emergent BioSolutions, a manufacturing partner to both Johnson & Johnson and AstraZeneca. Federal officials attributed the mistake to human error. […]

The mistake is a major embarrassment for Johnson & Johnson, whose one-dose vaccine has been credited with speeding up the national immunization program. It does not affect Johnson & Johnson doses that are currently being delivered and used nationwide. All those doses were produced in the Netherlands, where operations have been fully approved by federal regulators.

“Pilot of Ever Given Takes New Job at Baltimore Vaccine Plant”.

Jason Snell: ‘The Mac Needs Shortcuts’ ★

Jason Snell, writing at Six Colors:

This is yet another reason why Apple should start the Mac on its transition to the user automation of the future. And the good news is, there is a clear path for Apple to take. The future of user automation on all of Apple’s platforms should be Shortcuts.

There were a lot of people who thought Apple might announce Shortcuts for Mac last year at WWDC. They didn’t, but they did make Shortcuts on iOS a lot better and noticeably faster. So now there are even more people hoping for Shortcuts for Mac this year.

I don’t think the path is that clear though. This piece by Snell is a great overview of Apple’s severely splintered automation story across iOS and MacOS. It just seems chaotic and unplanned.

Activision Reveals Malware Disguised as ‘Call of Duty: Warzone’ Cheats ★

As a first order priority, I’m against malware, of course. But if someone has to get hit by malware, cheaters are high on the list.