Linked List: November 5, 2021

Friday, 5 November 2021

Austin Mann: ‘MacBook Pro M1 Max for Photographers’ ★

Austin Mann has a great review of the new MacBook Pros from his perspective as a professional photographer. I enjoyed this item from his wishlist though:

I really wish there was a matte/non-glare screen option. Years ago, this was an option on Apple’s laptops, and with the recent Pro Display XDR “nano-etch” anti-glare option, I was crossing my fingers we might see something similar on the MacBook Pro.

Clive Thompson: ‘The Metaverse Is Already Here — It’s Minecraft ★

Clive Thompson:

The truth is, a thriving metaverse already exists. It’s incredibly high-functioning, with millions of people immersed in it for hours a day. In this metaverse, people have built uncountable custom worlds, and generated god knows how many profitable businesses and six-figure careers. Yet this terrain looks absolutely nothing the like one Zuckerberg showed off.

It’s Minecraft, of course.

I think this is a compelling argument. But the big difference from Zuckerberg’s stated vision is that Minecraft isn’t even just one metaverse. Minecraft alone is like millions of metaverses. Zuckerberg is talking about One True Metaverse that connects the entire world. Something, obviously, akin to Facebook’s position among “social networks”.

Thompson:

This hackability is part of why the game has remained so vibrant: Players are constantly revitalizing Minecraft and inventing new things you can do inside it. Third-party folks build tools like skin editors to make it easier for players to be creative.

As a piece of software, Minecraft isn’t open-source, but it’s very friable and gas-permeable around the edges. Mojang was willing to give their players a lot of control, and it’s part of why people are devoted to the game.

I could be wrong, but I honestly can’t imagine many of the big tech metaverses allowing this sort of Xtreme tinkerability.

I would argue that Minecraft’s sensational and enduring popularity isn’t despite the fact that it is not open source, but because it is not open source. Open source is not a panacea — far from it. An open source Minecraft would likely, in my opinion, devolve into something akin to Calvinball, where the only rule is that there are no permanent rules. A closed system that encourages and enables a rich amount of user hackery within a set of reasonable constraints is almost certainly more fun and rewarding to most users than an anything-goes free-for-all.

(Via Kottke.)

Ars Technica on Intel’s New Alder Lake CPUs ★

Jim Salter, writing for Ars Technica:

If the AMD fans in the crowd are looking for something to crow about, this is it — both raw power draw and performance-per-watt for Intel are still much worse than on competing AMD designs. The higher core count in Alder Lake translates to a higher power draw as well — nearly back up to Intel 10th-generation levels, and well north of either the Ryzen 9 5900X or 5950X.

We saw more than a 300W system power draw at the wall for the i9-12900K — that’s over 100 watts higher than our Ryzen 9 5950X at full tilt. About 230W of that draw is accounted for by the i9-12900K’s CPU package itself, as reported by its own sensors to hwinfo64. Power efficiency is a somewhat different story: although the i9-12900K guzzles more power than the i9-11900K did, it offers stunningly higher performance — about a 50 percent net gain. (Though it’s still nearly as far behind the Ryzen 9 5950X as it is ahead of its own older sibling, unfortunately.)

The lack of overall efficiency here is somewhat surprising given Alder Lake’s hybrid big.little design, which we expected would give it an edge over AMD’s traditional all-performance-core setup. We suspect the culprit is Intel’s 10nm process — the company claims that it’s basically similar in density to the 7nm TSMC process Zen 3 enjoys, but something has to account for the discrepancy.

Intel is seemingly only capable of operating at the extremes: very fast “performance at all costs” chips that consume inordinate power, and power-efficient chips that run very slow. The sweet spot is clearly a proper balance in the middle.

Google Announces Plan for Compliance With South Korean ‘App Stores Must Offer Alternative In-App Payments’ Law, and It’s Something ★

Wilson White, senior director of public policy, on Google’s Korean developer blog:

Service fees for distributing apps via Android and Google Play will continue to be based on digital sales on the platform. We recognize, however, that developers will incur costs to support their billing system, so when a user selects alternative billing, we will reduce the developer’s service fee by 4%. For example, for the vast majority of developers who pay 15% for transactions through Google Play’s billing system, their service fee for transactions through the alternate billing system would be 11%. As another example, certain categories of apps participating in our Media Experience Program, such as an eBooks provider, will pay a 10% service fee for transactions made via Google Play’s billing system, but only 6% for transactions on an alternative system.

If you just start reading from the beginning, it sounds like they are proposing what many of us thought Google (and Apple) might have to offer to comply with South Korea’s new law: the option for third-party apps to completely circumvent paying Google a fee on in-app transactions. But what they’re actually proposing is that if third party apps want to offer their own credit card processing, they can, but (a) only alongside Google Play, and (b) they still owe Google for most of the fees.

As Ben Thompson observed on today’s episode of Dithering, for small transactions — like the ones typically offered in games — credit card fees are likely in the 5-6 percent range. So if this flies, Google’s revenue per in-app transaction for apps from the Play Store isn’t going to effectively change at all.

Is it going to fly? Like I’ve said, stock up on popcorn.

PETA Calls on MLB to Drop ‘Bullpen’ in Favor of ‘Arm Barn’ ★

Danny Prater, writing for PETA last week:

As the World Series turns into a pitching duel, PETA is pitching a proposal to the baseball world: Strike out the word “bullpen” — which refers to the holding area where terrified bulls are kept before slaughter — in favor of a more modern, animal-friendly term. PETA’s suggestion? The arm barn!

And people wonder why independent voters suspect that Democrats on the far left are ridiculous ninnies.

‘World Series Rings: Everyone Wants Them, No One Wears Them’ ★

Fun story by Tyler Kepner for The New York Times:

Yet even George Steinbrenner, the longtime Yankees owner who loved lavish gestures, probably did not spring for 1,332 rings, the total that Crane distributed in 2017 to Astros players, staff, front office members, trainers, clubhouse attendants, broadcasters and so on.

The Braves were similarly generous in 1995, awarding rings to minor league staffers like Brian Snitker, who is now their manager. Snitker keeps it in a lockbox.

“The things are not real comfortable to wear, if you want to know the truth,” he said.

That Braves ring — engraved, perhaps prematurely, with the slogan “Team of the 90s” — is the last one without a team logo on top, though naturally there are dozens of diamonds. Even so, John Schuerholz, the architect of the 1995 champions, did not wear it in Atlanta during this World Series.

That “perhaps prematurely” is impeccable Times house style for delivering a zinger in a news piece. (Another team went on to win in 1996 (over the Braves), 1998, and 1999 (over the Braves, again).)

Glad to see the Atlanta Braves win this year, though, against the cheaters on the Houston Astros. Hell, I was even pulling for the Red Sox — the goddamn Red Sox — to beat the Astros in the ALCS.