Linked List: April 27, 2021

Tuesday, 27 April 2021

‘Imagine There’s a Car Alarm That’s Been Going Off for a Long Time and Suddenly It’s Quiet’ ★

Alex Roarty and Adam Wollner, reporting for McClatchy on Joe Biden’s popularity:

Sarah Longwell, a former GOP operative and founder of the anti-Trump Republican Accountability Project, said her studies of voters who supported Trump in 2016 and Biden in 2020 show they are “the most optimistic group in the history of focus groups I’ve done.”

She said that has been due to the perceived chaos of the Trump administration coming to a close and a sense that the coronavirus pandemic situation is finally improving.

“Now there’s a sense of relief,” Longwell said. “Imagine there’s a car alarm that’s been going off for a long time and suddenly it’s quiet.”

(Via Political Wire.)

Ride Out the Storm ★

From chapter 87 of Basecamp’s book Getting Real:

When you rock the boat, there will be waves. After you introduce a new feature, change a policy, or remove something, knee-jerk reactions, often negative, will pour in.

Resist the urge to panic or rapidly change things in response. Passions flare in the beginning. But if you ride out this initial 24-48 hour period, things will usually settle down. Most people respond before they’ve really dug in and used whatever you’ve added (or gotten along with what you’ve removed). So sit back, take it all in, and don’t make a move until some time has passed. Then you’ll be able to offer a more reasoned response.

Good advice.

‘Buying a PC With Dell: My Journey Into Hell’ ★

Long Twitter thread from YouTuber Eyepatch Wolf that is simultaneously heartbreaking and hilarious. I don’t want to spoil a word of it.

Renowned Internet Security Researcher Daniel Kaminsky Dies at 42 ★

Lovely obituary by Nicole Perlroth in the Times for Daniel Kaminsky, a security researcher who was both deservedly much-respected and well-liked. He died far too young from a complication of diabetes. Here’s a delightful story from his youth:

His childhood paralleled the 1983 movie “War Games,” in which a teenager, played by Matthew Broderick, unwittingly accesses a U.S. military supercomputer. When Mr. Kaminsky was 11, his mother said, she received an angry phone call from someone who identified himself as a network administrator for the Western United States. The administrator said someone at her residence was “monkeying around in territories where he shouldn’t be monkeying around.”

Without her knowledge, Mr. Kaminsky had been examining military websites. The administrator vowed to “punish” him by cutting off the family’s internet access. Mrs. Maurer warned the administrator that if he made good on his threat, she would take out an advertisement in The San Francisco Chronicle denouncing the Pentagon’s security.

“I will take out an ad that says, ‘Your security is so crappy, even an 11-year-old can break it,’” Mrs. Maurer recalled telling the administrator, in an interview on Monday.

They settled on a compromise punishment: three days without internet.

Now that’s a good mom.

Roku Says It May Lose YouTube TV App After Google Made Anti-Competitive Demands ★

Sara Fischer, reporting for Axios:

Roku says Google is threatening the removal of YouTube TV to force Roku to grant preferential access to its consumer data moving forward.

It says Google has asked Roku to do things that it does not see replicated on other streaming competitors’ platforms, like creating a dedicated search results row for YouTube within the Roku smart TV interface and giving YouTube search results more prominent placement.

Roku says Google has also required it to block search results from other streaming content providers while users are using the YouTube app on Roku’s system.

Roku alleges Google has asked it to favor YouTube music results from voice commands made on the Roku remote while the YouTube app is open, even if the user’s music preference is set to default to another music app, like Pandora.

Maybe Roku shouldn’t have made all those remote controls with dedicated YouTube buttons.

How Safe Are You From COVID-19 When You Fly? ★

This piece from The New York Times last week is both good news — air travel has proven to be surprisingly safe, COVID-wise — and good design. It’s a fascinating animated illustration showing how air circulates on a modern passenger jet.

Updated CDC Guidelines Relax Outdoor Mask Recommendations ★

For the vaccinated, the CDC is only recommending face masks outdoors for crowded situations like concerts or sporting events. And even for the not-yet-vaccinated, they’re relaxing outdoor masking guidelines.

We’re not going to have a snap-our-fingers moment when things suddenly “go back to normal”. It’s been a traumatic, dramatic year — and our path back to normalcy (even if it’s a new normal) will be incremental, one step at a time. Relaxing these requirements for outdoor masking is a great next step.

President Biden:

Because of the extraordinary progress we’ve made in the fight against COVID-19, the CDC made a big announcement today: If you are fully vaccinated — and if you are outdoors and not in a large crowd — you no longer need to wear a mask.

That’s keeping it simple: vaccinated, outdoors, not in a large crowd? No need for a mask.