Linked List: January 23, 2023

Monday, 23 January 2023

Ben Norton, writing for Geopolitical Economy Report:

If a student presented this in a statistics 101 class, the teacher would likely give them an F. But because it involves Washington’s public enemy number one, Beijing, the US regional reserve bank was awarded a Golden Star for exemplary service in the New Cold War.

The St. Louis Fed listed the world’s top six countries by military expenditures, but used two separate axes: the spending of China, Russia, Britain, India, and Saudi Arabia was depicted on the left axis, which went from $0 to $300 billion; but a separate right axis was created just for the United States, which went from $400 billion to $1 trillion.

This is one of the most deliberately misleading charts I’ve seen in a long time.

Twitter’s Infrastructure Continues to Crumble, Silently ★

David Frum, on Twitter:

I’m doing an experiment. On my computer, I am checking the latest tweets by people I follow. On my phone, I’m checking whether their most recent tweets are showing up in the “Following” column. I’m just getting started, but even in the first dozen cases, Twitter failed to show me an absolute majority of the tweets I had requested to see. That’s the reason your engagement is down, people: Twitter is withholding requested content from those who requested it.

For me, Twitter is most valuable as an information source. But Twitter is now rapidly mutating into a source that capriciously withholds information I asked for - including from such highly official sources as the Tate Gallery in London.

It’s as if, in the days of the old newspaper, my subscription were delivered with random stories scissored out by the publisher itself, for some capricious whim of the publisher’s own.

It’s worse than that, though, because if you were delivered a newspaper with random stories scissored out, you’d know that there were missing stories. You wouldn’t know what they were, but you’d see the gaping holes in the paper. With Twitter now, there’s no indication that you’re missing tweets — let alone a huge number of tweets. And to be clear, Frum is talking about the “Following” timeline, not the “For You” algorithmic timeline. “Following” is the timeline that dates back to Twitter’s very inception: you pick accounts to follow, then you see the tweets those accounts post.

Twitter is no longer able to do that. Here’s a speculative thread explaining what might be going on — sounds like a very solid guess to me. In short: after cutting back on servers and entire data centers, Twitter can no longer keep up with its own content.

I remarked over a week ago that I was no longer seeing mentions or replies directed at my Twitter account. For a day or two I was seeing a handful of them, but now they’re gone. At this writing I see a grand total of one mention for my account going back to January 5. My Twitter mentions are nearly completely useless. For well over a decade, Twitter mentions have been my primary way of interacting with the Daring Fireball audience. Obviously that’s no longer possible. So be it. All the good action is over on Mastodon now, anyway. I’m more active there now, and just like I used to at Twitter, I read all my mentions there. I’ve updated my Contact page accordingly.

The Lisa Turns 40 ★

Hansen Hsu, writing for the Computer History Museum:

Happy 40th Birthday to Lisa! The Apple Lisa computer, that is. In celebration of this milestone, CHM has received permission from Apple to release the source code to the Lisa software, including its system and applications software.

Access the code here.

What is the Apple Lisa computer, and why was its release on January 19, 1983, an important date in computer history? Apple’s Macintosh line of computers today, known for bringing mouse-driven graphical user interfaces (GUIs) to the masses and transforming the way we use our computers, owes its existence to its immediate predecessor at Apple, the Lisa. Without the Lisa, there would have been no Macintosh — at least in the form we have it today — and perhaps there would have been no Microsoft Windows either.

The Lisa was a bit before my time, and so expensive that I can’t even think of an alternate universe where I might have encountered one. To this day, I’ve never seen one. The Mac interface captured a certain magic that the Lisa’s quite obviously did not — I think the Lisa ultimately failed more because of that than its price. But its influence on the original Mac is obvious.

Here’s a gem of a comment a friend spotted in the source code (appw-prefmain.text.unix.txt):

{ Welcome to the ALL Create Preferences Window.

    Through the extensive use of hallucenogens I have found
    truth and beauty. However, those same hallucenogens have
    also made me incapable of getting to Dodge Ridge to sell
    reclaimed ski wax in the parking lot.}

No idea what that means, but the early 1980s were a different era. Might have made perfect sense then.

Update: The above comment is obviously the follow-up to this comment in appw-config.text.unix.txt:

{ WELCOME to the PREFERENCES WINDOW.
    Don't be alarmed by the mess, we're just moving in.

    The author apologizes for the lack of style and elegance
    exhibited in this code, perhaps someday truth and beauty
    will be mine and I will rewrite it. However, if truth and
    beauty ever does come to me I'll prabably just leave and
    sell reclaimed ski wax in the Dodge Ridge parking lot.
    See you there!}

Polygon: ‘Timothée Chalamet Even Makes Stumping for Apple Seem Cool’ ★

Ana Diaz, writing for Polygon:

The trailer basically serves as a giant sign trying to remind people about Apple TV and all of its projects, but it mainly just shows us that Timothée Chalamet is a phenomenal actor. In it, we get to see that even super successful actors like Chalamet can even be insecure about their careers or get FOMO! According to Puck, sources close to the deal disclosed Apple paid Chalamet the most it has ever paid for a celebrity endorsement. So it’s a good thing that’s he’s already charmed fans online.

This ad played during the football games this weekend, and I think it’s rather amazing. By paying a red-hot star like Chalamet simply to promote TV+, it’s a way of emphasizing the single most important aspect of TV+: that it is a quality-first streaming platform. Not the most content, by a long shot, but perhaps the best content. And inarguably, much of the best content.

That, in a nut, is the Apple way. They don’t sell the most computers or headphones or even phones, but they sell the best ones.

Windows Central: ‘Microsoft Has Laid Off Entire Teams Behind Virtual, Mixed Reality, and HoloLens’ ★

Jez Corden, reporting for Windows Central:

For Microsoft to cull the entire team behind MRTK, which was due to release a new version just next month, it paints a picture of a company that perhaps no longer believes in virtual reality. There are many who believe the “metaverse” represents the next big opportunity in human-computer interfacing, but even Facebook, who rebranded its entire company to Meta in the belief of this technology, is scaling back in this area as well — laying off 11,000 staff back in November.

I think it’s worth noting that Facebook rebranded as “Meta” just as much because the “Facebook” brand is so sullied as anything else, but clearly, Mark Zuckerberg hopes to establish their headsets as a major new consumer computing platform.

It’s curious too that Microsoft would seemingly abandon its own years-long efforts in the XR space on the cusp of Apple’s entrance. It brings to mind the original Surface — a $10,000 touchscreen table the company started selling in May 2007, only to eventually cede the entire touchscreen revolution in personal computing to Apple and Android.

Update: This parody narration for Microsoft’s promotional video is the best review of the original Surface. (Via Colin Weir.)

Tweetbot Is Dead; Long Live Ivory ★

Nice goodbye to one of the very best apps I’ve ever used, and a splendid illustration.