Linked List: June 23, 2021

Wednesday, 23 June 2021

Bradford Gauthier, in The Guardian:

Heather drove me to the endoscopy centre, where the AirPod was got back out via my mouth using a tube with a lasso attachment. It was extremely uncomfortable, but I was sedated and so only half awake. A few minutes later, I was given the AirPod in a neat little bag.

I tried it as soon as I got home. It works fine, although the microphone is less reliable than it was. I’ll never know for certain how I managed to swallow it; my theory is that it dropped on to the pillow, ended up next to my mouth and got sucked in when I yawned. In retrospect, I’m glad the “find my AirPod” attempt didn’t work — I would have freaked out if my throat had beeped.

Takes (more than) a licking, keeps on ticking.

(Via MacDailyNews.)

NYT: ‘Tech Giants, Fearful of Proposals to Curb Them, Blitz Washington With Lobbying’ ★

Cecilia Kang, David McCabe, and Kenneth P. Vogel, reporting for The New York Times:

WASHINGTON — In the days after lawmakers introduced legislation that could break the dominance of tech companies, Apple’s chief executive, Tim Cook, called Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other members of Congress to deliver a warning.

The antitrust bills were rushed, he said. They would crimp innovation. And they would hurt consumers by disrupting the services that power Apple’s lucrative iPhone, Mr. Cook cautioned at various points, according to five people with knowledge of the conversations. […]

Ms. Pelosi pushed back on Mr. Cook’s concerns about the bills, according to two people with knowledge of the conversations. When Mr. Cook asked for a delay in the Judiciary Committee’s process of considering the bills, Ms. Pelosi pushed him to identify specific policy objections to the measures, said one of the people.

You don’t have to read the dateline to know which side this leaked from.

At the end of the article:

Representative Pramila Jayapal, a Democrat from Washington and a co-sponsor of the bills, said the lobbying is “making our case that they have way too much power in terms of monopoly power and in terms of money and politics.”

“Small business and consumers have no hope of competing with this amount of money and power,” she said.

The fact that the companies are pushing back, and making their cases against the legislative proposals, is proof that they’re doing wrong? Maybe Jayapal’s quotes here are taken out of context, but if not, this is absurd. I mean of course a “small business” isn’t going to be able to compete against companies with trillion dollar market caps. And the core of the argument — from all of these companies, but Apple in particular — is that consumers aren’t being harmed at all by the status quo, and in fact would suffer if the legislation (particularly Jayapal’s bill) is passed.

Also, the Times’s capitalization of “Big Tech”:

Executives, lobbyists, and more than a dozen groups paid by Big Tech have tried to head off bipartisan support for six bills meant to undo the dominance of Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google.

is embarrassing. They’re not a cabal. They’re in fact intense competitors — most of their relations are hostile (Apple-Facebook), and at best are frosty (Apple-Amazon).

Morgan Stanley Bans Unvaccinated Staff and Clients From New York Office ★

Paul R. La Monica and Rob McLean, CNN Business:

Morgan Stanley plans to ban workers from its New York headquarters if they have not received a Covid-19 vaccine. The rule will apply to non-vaccinated guests and clients as well.

Get vaccinated or stay home.

Newsstand 1.0 ★

This is absolutely delightful: Newsstand is a new Google News RSS reader … for Mac OS 9. From creator Alex Robb:

I created Newsstand as a fun way to access the news on my vintage Macs. I have a two Apple PowerBook G3 computers, but older machines don’t work very well on the modern web. Their browsers can’t load https websites, and vintage hardware can’t keep up with the dynamic pages that make up the web today. I created Newsstand in Mac OS 9 using tools only available at the time.

He even made the website on Mac OS 9.

As a sidenote, this is the best new app icon I’ve seen in years. Newsstand’s exquisite 3D icon is a jarring reminder of just how boring today’s flat icon aesthetic is.