How old was the world’s oldest dog? And how hard has Guinness World Records tried to confirm it? CC-licensed photo by Daniel Spils on Flickr.
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A selection of 9 links for you. Following a lead. I’m @charlesarthur on Twitter. On Threads: charles_arthur. On Mastodon: https://newsie.social/@charlesarthur. Observations and links welcome.
Signal facing collapse after CIA cuts funding • Kit’s Newsletter
Kit Klarenberg:
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On November 16th, Meredith Whittaker, President of Signal, published a detailed breakdown of the popular encrypted messaging app’s running costs for the very first time. The unprecedented disclosure’s motivation was simple – the platform is rapidly running out of money, and in dire need of donations to stay afloat. Unmentioned by Whittaker, this budget shortfall results in large part due to the US intelligence community, which lavishly financed Signal’s creation and maintenance over several years, severing its support for the app.
Never acknowledged in any serious way by the mainstream media, Signal’s origins as a US government asset are a matter of extensive public record, even if the scope and scale of the funding provided has until now been secret. The app, brainchild of shadowy tech guru ‘Moxie Marlinspike’ (real name Matthew Rosenfeld), was launched in 2013 by his now-defunct Open Whisper Systems (OWS). The company never published financial statements or disclosed the identities of its funders at any point during its operation.
Sums involved in developing, launching and running a messaging app used by countless people globally were nonetheless surely significant. The newly-published financial records indicate Signal’s operating costs for 2023 alone are $40m, and projected to rise to $50m by 2025. Rosenfeld boasted in 2018 that OWS “never [took] VC funding or sought investment” at any point, although mysteriously failed to mention millions were provided by Open Technology Fund (OTF).
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This is not good news. But it’s also puzzling: what has changed that has led the US to stop funding Signal? Klarenberg doesn’t know. And nor do we.
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Linda Yaccarino, Elon Musk and X: behind the mess, ad exodus • The Hollywood Reporter
Kim Masters:
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By now, Yaccarino has become one of the best-known CEOs in America, if not for the most desirable reasons. Amid all the noise and controversy, prominent voting-rights attorney Marc Elias posted: “I had never heard of Linda Yaccarino before her joining X, but was she this ridiculous in her last job?”
According to many former associates at NBCU, the answer is a qualified no. Though several describe her as a difficult and volatile boss or colleague, they say she was an extremely hardworking and capable ad-sales executive. Advertisers — who she was, of course, always courting — also praise her. In mid-November, after Forbes reported that marketing leaders were urging Yaccarino to resign, Axios quoted Lou Paskalis, founder and CEO of marketing consultancy AJL Advisory, saying that “the advertising community is now working to save the reputation of a beloved member of our industry who does not share Elon Musk’s views.”
In fact, it’s unclear what Yaccarino thinks of Musk’s views; after his Nov. 15 tweet endorsing an antisemitic trope as “the actual truth,” she touted the site’s “efforts to combat antisemitism and discrimination.” (Her views on Donald Trump are much clearer. Associates say she was an enthusiastic supporter. She was appointed to the President’s Council on Sport, Fitness and Nutrition during his administration.)
Based on conversations with multiple sources who worked with or for Yaccarino at NBCU, the word “beloved” is not one that many would use to describe the way she was seen internally. “She was good at ad sales but wrecked the culture,” says a former insider. “She was not collegial. She was a scorched-earth manager.”
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This is not, it is safe to say, a hagiography.
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Seven new features to express yourself on Google Messages • Google Blog
Sanaz Ahari, VP and GM of Android and Business Communications at Google:
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Today marks a new milestone that we are incredibly proud of: there are now more than one billion monthly active users with RCS enabled in Google Messages. We are grateful to our partners and our users that have advocated for RCS over the years — it’s been a lot of work to get here, and we want to thank you.
Beyond Google Messages, there are other messaging clients that use RCS and we are pleased that Apple also took their first step two weeks ago in announcing that they’re embracing RCS.
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One billion, but monthly users – so someone who uses that once in a month, just a single time, counts. And it’s not a huge proportion of all the Android users. Getting RCS onto iOS will certainly expand that number significantly… in the US. I suspect that in the rest of the world, people use WhatsApp and Signal and so on, and don’t get hung up about blue and green bubbles. (Or they just use WhatsApp or Signal from the off.)
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A new kind of solar cell is coming: is it the future of green energy? • Nature
Mark Peplow:
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A few niche perovskite-based PV products are already on the market, but announcements this year signal that many more are set to join them. Case says that end users should get their hands on solar panels made from Oxford PV’s cells around the middle of next year, for example. In May, a large silicon PV manufacturer, Hanwha Qcells, headquartered in Seoul, said it plans to invest US$100m in a pilot production line that could be operational by the end of 2024.
Silicon is the workhorse material inside 95% of solar panels. Rather than replace it, Oxford PV, Qcells and others are piggybacking on it — layering perovskite on silicon to create so-called tandem cells. Because each material absorbs energy from different wavelengths of sunlight, tandems could potentially deliver at least 20% more power than a silicon cell alone; some scientists project much greater gains.
Perovskite supporters say that this extra electricity could more than offset the additional costs of tandem cells, particularly in crowded urban areas or industrial sites where space is at a premium. “Our biggest initial demand is from utilities, because they simply don’t have enough accessible land,” says Case.
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Back in August 2020 I linked to a Guardian article about perovskites which said they’d be in production by 2021. Oh well, a few years here and there.. though the problem is degradation, which might delay things by another couple of years. Again.
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Your 2023 WebMD Wrapped • McSweeney’s Internet Tendency
Like Spotify Wrapped, but for your hypochondria. McSweeney’s is always a great read.
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Streaming apps are trying to bundle their way out of customer disenchantment • Ars Technica
Scharon Harding:
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A Netflix-Max bundle through Verizon and a potential bundle with Apple TV+ and Paramount+ follow a trend that sees streaming apps partnering with other apps (including rivals) and other types of companies with subscription-based revenue to ultimately offer TV streaming at a lower monthly price.
Similarly to Verizon, T-Mobile offers bundles for its mobile services with Netflix and Apple TV+. You can get Disney+ with Hulu and ESPN, and Disney, which will soon own all of Hulu, is launching a unified Disney+ and Hulu app. HBO’s Max and Discovery+ merged into Max. Paramount+ offers Showtime content, and Showtime’s Anytime app (for people subscribed to Showtime via a TV provider) is shutting down on December 14. Other streaming-related bundle deals currently being pushed include Paramount+ with Walmart+ and Peacock with Instacart+ or Xfinity.
Striking a deal between multiple conglomerates is complex, though. Companies see less revenue per user when adding customers through promotions and bundles compared to direct sales, WSJ reported in October 2022. Involved companies need to agree on how to divide monthly subscription fees, customer data, and advertising sales. As a result, “such talks in the industry have progressed slowly,” The Washington Post reported at the time.
But over a year after WSJ’s report, streaming bundles are happening “faster than we thought” and are “here to stay,” Erin McPherson, senior vice president and chief content officer at Verizon Communications, said, according to WSJ’s report Friday. Verizon’s CEO, Hans Vestberg, added at a UBS conference today that creating new types of bundles is a company priority, as per The Hollywood Reporter.
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So basically, there were terrestrial channels, then cable bundled lots together, then streaming unbundled them, and now streaming is bundling them back together again. Place your bets on when the cycle turns around, and what prompts the next unbundling.
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Thieves rob DC Uber Eats driver, reject Android phone for not being iPhone • KATV Washington
Carl Willis:
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After working into the early morning hours, a woman who asked not to be identified said her husband insisted he meet her outside of their apartment in Northwest [Washington] D.C. and go park the car.
“As soon as he parked the car two masked gentlemen came up to him, armed,” she said. “They robbed him, took everything he had in his pockets, took the keys to my truck and got in and pulled off.”
She said one of them approached on foot in the 2400 block of 14th Street, NW. The other was in a black BMW, both of them armed with guns. She said the robbers were bold taking her husband’s phone, but then giving it back because it wasn’t to their liking. “They basically looked at that phone and was like ‘Oh, that’s an Android? We don’t want this. I thought it was an iPhone,'” she said.
The bizarre encounter lasted only seconds, but she said the impact turned her life upside-down.
“That [truck] was my income,” she said. “That was the way I made money. I did Uber Eats and Instacart so, that was our livelihood.”
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The opening paragraph is a bit confusing. I interpret what happened as the following: the husband arrives home, and parks his car. The two thieves confront him: they have had their eyes on the truck, so they tell him to call his wife (because he doesn’t have its key) and get her to come outside; she does. Et voila.
And the Android phone? Insufficient resale value.
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Misinformation researcher Joan Donovan accuses Harvard of bowing to Facebook • The Washington Post
Joseph Menn:
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A prominent disinformation scholar has accused Harvard University of dismissing her to curry favor with Facebook and its current and former executives in violation of her right to free speech.
Joan Donovan claimed in a filing with the Education Department and the Massachusetts attorney general that her superiors soured on her as Harvard was getting a record $500m pledge from Meta founder Mark Zuckerberg’s charitable arm.
As research director of Harvard Kennedy School projects delving into mis- and disinformation on social media platforms, Donovan had raised millions in grants, testified before Congress and been a frequent commentator on television, often faulting internet companies for profiting from the spread of divisive falsehoods.
Last year, the school’s dean told her that he was winding down her main project and that she should stop fundraising for it. This year, the school eliminated her position. The surprise dismissal alarmed fellow researchers elsewhere, who saw Donovan as a pioneer in an increasingly critical area of great sensitivity to the powerful and well-connected tech giants.Donovan has remained silent about what happened until now, filing a 248-page legal statement obtained by The Washington Post that traces her problems to her acquisition of a trove of explosive documents known as the Facebook Papers and championing their importance before an audience of Harvard donors that included Facebook’s former top communications executive.
Harvard disputes Donovan’s core claims, telling The Post that she was a staff employee and that it had not been able to find a faculty sponsor to oversee her work, as university policy requires. It also denies that she was fired, saying she “was offered the chance to continue as a part-time adjunct lecturer, and she chose not to do so.”
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The timing does look suspicious, but at the same time it’s all coincidental; the money from the Zuckerberg foundation is (as the filing says) for “a university-wide centre on artificial intelligence”. One suspects that any nudges and winks about Donovan’s position, if they occurred, happened verbally behind closed doors.
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Was Bobi the world’s oldest dog—or a fraud? • WIRED
Matt Reynolds:
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On October 21, 2023, Bobi the dog died. As with most celebrity deaths, the press coverage was wall-to-wall, but Bobi’s demise wasn’t unexpected. At 31 years and 163 days (or 217 in “human” years), he was old. So old, in fact, that in February 2023 Bobi had been crowned the “oldest dog ever” by Guinness World Records, which is the authority when it comes to these kinds of things.
Or is it? Shortly after Bobi’s death, experts started raising questions about the Portuguese mastiff’s advanced years. “Not a single one of my veterinary colleagues believe Bobi was actually 31 years old,” veterinarian Danny Chambers told The Guardian. “For the Guinness Book of Records to maintain their credibility and authority in the eyes of the veterinary profession, they really need to publish some irrefutable evidence.”
The reputation of the world’s foremost Irish dry stout turned recordkeeper was on the line here. Someone needed to establish the truth about the oldest dog to ever have lived. That someone—it turned out—was me.
A quick email to Guinness World Records would clear this up, I thought. This is the organization that verified the fastest time to eat a banana with no hands (17.82 seconds) and the longest human tunnel traveled through by a skateboarding dog (30 pairs of legs). For more than 60 years, Guinness World Records has cataloged the stinkiest flowers, widest mouths, and largest chicken nuggets. It had the receipts for the world’s oldest horses, cats, flags, trees, headstanders, llamas (in captivity), customer complaints, working post offices, and road surfaces. Dating the world’s oldest dog would be child’s play.
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Of course it wasn’t, and the trail includes questions about a conspiracy by Big Dog Food. (That’s not food for big dogs, it’s.. anyway.) An entertaining read. Note in passing: the average confirmed dog age at death is a bit over 11 years.
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| • Why do social networks drive us a little mad? • Why does angry content seem to dominate what we see? • How much of a role do algorithms play in affecting what we see and do online? • What can we do about it? • Did Facebook have any inkling of what was coming in Myanmar in 2016? Read Social Warming, my latest book, and find answers – and more. |
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