Linked List: March 31, 2022

Thursday, 31 March 2022

Tim Bray:

When I was working at AWS, around 2017 we started getting excited pitches from companies who wanted to be part of the 5G build-out, saying that obviously there’d be lots of opportunities for public-cloud providers. But I never walked away convinced. Either I didn’t believe the supposed customers really needed what 5G offered, or I didn’t believe the opportunity was anywhere near big enough to justify the trillion-dollar build-out investment. Six years later, I still don’t. This is a report on a little online survey I ran, looking for actual real-world 5G impact to see if I was wrong.

Bray collected a lot of comments from various readers. Most of them seem to agree with Bray (and me) that 5G offers no substantial practical advantages over LTE. There are some people who report getting good 5G coverage in remote locations that have poor LTE coverage, and 5G seemingly does work much better than LTE in places like stadiums and arenas with big crowds of people.

The Verge: ‘A Facebook Bug Led to Increased Views of Harmful Content Over Six Months’ ★

Alex Heath, reporting for The Verge:

A group of Facebook engineers identified a “massive ranking failure” that exposed as much as half of all News Feed views to “integrity risks” over the past six months, according to an internal report on the incident obtained by The Verge.

The engineers first noticed the issue last October, when a sudden surge of misinformation began flowing through the News Feed, notes the report, which was shared inside the company last week. Instead of suppressing dubious posts reviewed by the company’s network of outside fact-checkers, the News Feed was instead giving the posts distribution, spiking views by as much as 30 percent globally. Unable to find the root cause, the engineers watched the surge subside a few weeks later and then flare up repeatedly until the ranking issue was fixed on March 11th.

It really does sound like a bug, and some bugs really are devilishly tricky to track down and fix. But it seems a bit odd that it took Facebook six months to fix this one, given how intense the scrutiny of the company has gotten for the very problem this bug made worse.

Jon Fortt Argues Both Sides of Apple’s Original Streaming Content Strategy ★

Three-minute clip from CNBC’s Squawk Box, wherein Jon Fortt argues — compellingly — both sides of the “What’s the business case for Apple’s original content strategy?” question. Count me on the side of his second argument.

John Siracusa: ‘Independence Day’ ★

Finally.

LA Times: ‘Bruce Willis’s Aphasia Was Suspected by Coworkers for Years’ ★

Meg James and Amy Kaufman, reporting for the LA Times:

According to those who have worked with the elder Willis on his recent films, the actor has been exhibiting signs of decline in recent years. In interviews with The Times this month, nearly two dozen people who were on set with the actor expressed concern about Willis’ well-being. […]

Jesse V. Johnson, who directed the low-budget film “White Elephant,” first worked with Willis decades ago when he was a stuntman. But when the filmmaker and the actor met briefly before shooting began in Georgia last April, “it was clear that he was not the Bruce I remembered,” Johnson said. Concerned about Willis’ mental state, he said he approached the actor’s team — which is led by his assistant-turned-handler Stephen J. Eads — and bluntly asked about the actor’s condition.

“They stated that he was happy to be there, but that it would be best if we could finish shooting him by lunch and let him go early,” Johnson recalled of the conversation. Filmmakers proceeded to quickly film the actor’s parts, even as Willis questioned where he was: “I know why you’re here, and I know why you’re here, but why am I here?” two crew members said he asked aloud.

Sad story, but it explains Willis’s seemingly-odd low-budget film choices in recent years. According to The Times, Willis made 22 movies in 4 years.

I’ve been a huge Bruce Willis fan ever since Moonlighting (a show that, to my mind, doesn’t get nearly the credit it deserves for ushering in the modern era of “prestige TV”). Willis had the it that all great acting stars do: once you saw him in a role, it was impossible to imagine anyone else playing that part.