If you’re a proper audiophile, vinyl is essential. For one man, so was remodelling his house at huge cost. CC-licensed photo by Steve Cadman on Flickr.
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A selection of 10 links for you. Time to turn over. I’m @charlesarthur on Twitter. On Threads: charles_arthur. On Mastodon: https://newsie.social/@charlesarthur. Observations and links welcome.
How this climate activist justifies political violence • The New York Times
David Marchese:
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With the 2021 publication of his unsettling book, “How to Blow Up a Pipeline,” Andreas Malm established himself as a leading thinker of climate radicalism. The provocatively titled manifesto, which, to be clear, does not actually provide instructions for destroying anything, functioned both as a question — why has climate activism remained so steadfastly peaceful in the face of minimal results? — and as a call for the escalation of protest tactics like sabotage. The book found an audience far beyond that of texts typically published by relatively obscure Marxist-influenced Swedish academics, earning thoughtful coverage in The New Yorker, The Economist, The Nation, The New Republic and a host of other decidedly nonradical publications, including this one. (In another sign of the book’s presumed popular appeal, it was even adapted into a well-reviewed movie thriller.) Malm’s follow-up, “Overshoot: How the World Surrendered to Climate Breakdown,” written with Wim Carton and scheduled to be published this year, examines the all-consuming pursuit of fossil-fuel profits and what the authors identify as the highly dubious and hugely dangerous new justifications for that pursuit. But, says Malm, who is 46, “the hope is that humanity is not going to let everything go down the drain without putting up a fight.”
NYT: It’s hard for me to think of a realm outside of climate where mainstream publications would be engaging with someone, like you, who advocates political violence. [NYT note: Just to be explicit about this: Malm does not endorse or advocate any political violence that targets people. His aim is violence against property.] Why are people open to this conversation?
AM: If you know something about the climate crisis, this means that you are aware of the desperation that people feel. It is quite likely that you feel it yourself. With this desperation comes an openness to the idea that what we’ve done so far isn’t enough. But the logic of the situation fundamentally drives this conversation: all attempts to rein in this problem have failed miserably. Which means that, virtually by definition, we have to try something more than we’ve tried.
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The British SF writer John Brunner imagined eco-terrorists in his book The Sheep Look Up (1972); the SF writer Kim Stanley Robinson imagined UN-slush-money-funded eco-terrorists in his book Ministry For The Future (2020). There’s an undercurrent there which wants something to happen. At some point, people won’t stop at blocking roads.
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Gigantic solar farms of the future might impact how much solar power can be generated on the other side of the world • The Conversation
Zhengyao Lu and Jingchao Long:
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In our recent study, we used a computer program to model the Earth system and simulate how hypothetical enormous solar farms covering 20% of the Sahara would affect solar power generation around the world.
A photovoltaic (PV) solar panel is dark-coloured and so absorbs much more heat than reflective desert sand. Although a fraction of the energy is converted to electricity, much of it still heats up the panel. And when you have millions of these panels grouped together, the whole area warms up. If those solar panels were in the Sahara, our simulations show this new heat source would rearrange global climate patterns, shifting rainfall away from the tropics and leading to the desert becoming greener again, much as it was just 5,000 or so years ago.
This would in turn affect patterns of cloud cover and how much solar energy could be generated around the world. Regions that would become cloudier and less able to generate solar power include the Middle East, southern Europe, India, eastern China, Australia, and the US south-west. Areas that would generate more solar include Central and South America, the Caribbean, central and eastern US, Scandinavia and South Africa.
Something similar happened when we simulated the effects of huge solar farms in other hotspots in Central Asia, Australia, south-western US and north-western China – each led to climate changes elsewhere. For instance, huge solar farms covering much of the Australian outback would make it sunnier in South Africa, but cloudier in the UK, particularly during summer.
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This could trigger NIMBYism on a global scale. Can Britons object to solar farms in Australia?
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Americans can no longer afford their cars • Newsweek
Giulia Carbonaro:
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Both new and used car prices rose to record highs during the pandemic, as the car industry was experiencing supply chain disruptions and chip shortages. Since 2020, new car prices have risen by 30%, according to data shared by AI car shopping app CoPilot with Newsweek. Within the same timeframe, used car prices have jumped by 38%.
In 2023—a year during which inflation slowed down to the point that the Federal Reserve decided to stop hiking rates—new car prices rose by 1% to an average of $50,364, while used car prices fell by only 2% to an average of $31,030.
But as things stand, cars are still really expensive for many Americans. Just 10% of new car listings are currently priced below $30,000, according to CoPilot. Things are not much better in the used car market, where only 28% of listings are currently priced below $20,000.
According to an October report by Market Watch, Americans needed an annual income of at least $100,000 to afford a car, at least if they’re following standard budgeting advice, which says you shouldn’t spend more than 10% of your monthly income on car-related expenses.
That means that more than 60% of American households currently cannot afford to buy a new car, based on Census data. For individuals, the numbers are even worse, with 82% of people below the $100,000 line.
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That probably explains why the average age of cars in the US is over 12 years, and has been rising for the past five years: people aren’t changing their car. The headline is wrong. Americans can afford their cars. They just can’t afford to change them.
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Apple Watch’s blood-oxygen sensor to be removed to avoid US ban • WSJ
Aaron Tilley:
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The US Customs and Border Protection agency, which is responsible for enforcing import bans, on Friday approved technical changes to the watches, including the removal of the blood-oxygen sensor, according to a Masimo filing on Monday. A decision on Apple’s request for a permanent stay on the US ban during its appeal is expected in the coming days.
An Apple spokeswoman said that the blood-oxygen feature would continue to be available on the watches for now.
If the US Court of Appeals doesn’t grant a permanent stay while Apple tries to revoke the US trade ban, the removal of the blood-oxygen feature would be implemented. But if the stay is granted, removal of the feature won’t be necessary during the appeals process.
The appeals process is expected to take a year or more, an Apple spokeswoman said.
Masimo alleged in a 2021 complaint that Apple had stolen technology related to the blood-oxygen technology in some versions of its watch, including the Series 9 and Ultra 2. Apple has included a sensor, called a pulse oximeter, in most new models of the Apple Watch since 2020.
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Most likely way to “remove” the pulse oximeter: software update that disables it. That would have to be applied to watches before sale, given that already-sold watches are clear of the injunction – aren’t they?
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Beeper Mini users find their Macs are banned from iMessage • Apple Insider
Malcolm Owen:
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Beeper mini users who used their hardware to register their app with Apple’s iMessage network may find their Mac blocked from the service instead, in what could be retaliation against the use of the controversial messaging app.
Following a cat-and-mouse race between Beeper and Apple to get around Apple’s security and allow Android device users to post to the iMessage network, it seems that some are finding out that they’ve got bigger problems with their own overall access to iMessage.
In December, one of the last fixes for access offered by Beeper was a method of using a real Mac to connect to iMessage, and use that registration with Beeper Cloud and Beeper mini. The logic worked, with the genuine registration data sourced from the user’s own hardware, or a Mac they had access to, allowing access.
However, not all is rosy for users, if the Beeper subreddit is to be believed. A number of posts claim that Apple is banning Macs from being able to make iMessage posts at all.
Pretty surely not “retaliation” but “loophole-closing”. This should be the final, last, ultimate coda on Beeper, may it please the gods. At least until the US Congress starts issuing subpoenas.
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The fight to control the headset market will intensify • The Economist
Tom Wainwright:
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Google may re-enter the headset race. A decade ago it launched camera-toting smart specs called Google Glass, which flopped. Plans for high-tech glasses called Iris seem to have gone the same way. Its latest gambit is a partnership with Samsung, a South Korean giant, and Qualcomm, an American chipmaker. The three are working on a mixed-reality project which may produce a headset.
Smaller firms are creating their own niches. Valve, an American video-game company, makes vr headsets for gamers, as does Pico, a Chinese-owned vr firm. Pico’s parent company, Bytedance, also owns TikTok, an app that has aroused suspicion in America—a situation that might make it hard to sell a device that tracks your eyeballs.
Don’t expect any headset to take the world by storm just yet. Worldwide sales of video headgear will grow by a third in 2024, but will still total only 18m units, forecasts Omdia, a market-research company.
(Smartphone sales will exceed 1bn.) Apple’s Vision Pro will probably sell fewer than 200,000 units, because of supply constraints on components, as well as the price tag. It “will be a hit with developers in 2024 and then consumers in 2025”, predicts Dan Ives of Wedbush Securities, an investment company.
The thing to watch in 2024 is what those developers find to do with the device. Smartphones took off only after the launch of apps that turned internet-connected phones from novelties into vital everyday tools. Headsets, used mostly for gaming, still lack compelling use cases for most people. But as programmers begin to play around with the Vision Pro, that could change.
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People who haven’t used the Vision Pro think it might be fun for Mac-style apps. Developers who have used the Vision Pro suggest thinking of something like an iPad app but viewed on a TV-sized interface. To me, that implies entertainment, moving content, that sort of thing.
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After US tech layoffs, Indian workers went home to a worse job market • Rest of World
Sanghamitra Kar P:
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Deepak had been working at Amazon India for six years when he was offered an opportunity for an internal transfer to the company’s headquarters in Seattle. In June 2022, he moved to the US with his wife to live the American dream on a company-sponsored L-1 visa, and a $160,000 paycheck, including stocks. But just seven months later, Deepak was among the 18,000 employees who were let go due to an “uncertain economy” in the largest job cut in Amazon’s history.
Deepak, who asked to be identified by a pseudonym to protect his future employment prospects, told Rest of World he had no option but to return to India immediately because his US visa was linked to his job. Back home, he struggled to find a job for two months. The biggest hurdle was his previous salary, which made him unaffordable for most tech employers in India. “I would tell [Indian] HR that I have no expectations and I am open to negotiations,” he said.
In March 2023, Deepak finally started a job where his salary is less than a fourth of what he had earned in the US — and doesn’t even match up to what his peers make in India. “I am now getting close to 30 lakh rupees [approximately $36,000] per annum while my peers get around 35–40 lakh rupees.”
Many Indian techies like Deepak, who worked in critical roles across companies such as Amazon, Microsoft, Google, and Meta in the US and Canada, have been forced to move back home over the past year following widespread layoffs. They have returned at a time when Indian companies are also laying off employees, and told Rest of World they have been struggling to navigate the tepid job market.
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Lazy use of AI leads to Amazon products called “I cannot fulfill that request” • Ars Technica
Kyle Orland:
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Amazon users are at this point used to search results filled with products that are fraudulent, scams, or quite literally garbage. These days, though, they also may have to pick through obviously shady products, with names like “I’m sorry but I cannot fulfill this request it goes against OpenAI use policy.”
As of press time, some version of that telltale OpenAI error message appears in Amazon products ranging from lawn chairs to office furniture to Chinese religious tracts (Update: links in the story now go to archived copies, as the originals were taken down shortly after publication). A few similarly named products that were available as of this morning have been taken down as word of the listings spreads across social media (one such example is archived here).
Other Amazon product names don’t mention OpenAI specifically but feature apparent AI-related error messages, such as “Sorry but I can’t generate a response to that request” or “Sorry but I can’t provide the information you’re looking for,” (available in a variety of colors). Sometimes, the product names even highlight the specific reason why the apparent AI-generation request failed, noting that OpenAI can’t provide content that “requires using trademarked brand names” or “promotes a specific religious institution” or, in one case, “encourage unethical behavior.”
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There’s a product pictured in the story whose function I can’t quite figure out. The text itself doesn’t help either because it’s all ChatGPT refusing to help the user – who, one guesses, didn’t speak English and so didn’t know what the response actually meant. (Rather like this Welsh road sign.)
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Ken Fritz built a $1 million stereo. The real cost was unfathomable • Washington Post
Geoff Edgers:
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Ken Fritz was years into his quest to build the world’s greatest stereo when he realized it would take more than just gear.
It would take more than the Krell amplifiers and the Ampex reel-to-reel. More than the trio of 10-foot speakers he envisioned crafting by hand.
And it would take more than what would come to be the crown jewel of his entire system: the $50,000 custom record player, his “Frankentable,” nestled in a 1,500-pound base designed to thwart any needle-jarring vibrations and equipped with three different tone arms, each calibrated to coax a different sound from the same slab of vinyl.
“If I play jazz, maybe that cartridge might bloom a little more than the other two,” Fritz explained to me. “On classical, maybe this one.”
No, building the world’s greatest stereo would mean transforming the very space that surrounded it — and the lives of the people who dwelt there.
The faded photos tell the story of how the Fritz family helped him turn the living room of their modest split-level ranch on Hybla Road in Richmond’s North Chesterfield neighborhood into something of a concert hall — an environment precisely engineered for the one-of-a-kind acoustic majesty he craved. In one snapshot, his three daughters hold up new siding for their expanding home. In another, his two boys pose next to the massive speaker shells. There’s the man of the house himself, a compact guy with slicked-back hair and a thin goatee, on the floor making adjustments to the system. He later estimated he spent $1 million on his mission, a number that did not begin to reflect the wear and tear on the household, the hidden costs of his children’s unpaid labor.
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You read these piece and always wonder: can the music possibly live up to their expectations?
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Federal Trade Commission sanctions location data broker X-Mode • The Markup
Jon Keegan:
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The location data broker X-Mode has agreed not to share sensitive location data as part of a settlement with the Federal Trade Commission, which had accused the company of selling information that potentially revealed people’s visits to medical facilities, houses of worship, and businesses catering to LGTBQ+ communities.
The settlement, which was announced this week, also requires X-Mode to honor opt-out requests from consumers and more clearly disclose the collection and use of location data. The FTC had accused X-Mode of collecting identifiers and location data even after users had explicitly opted out.
X-Mode was rebranded as Outlogic as part of a 2021 acquisition.
The FTC action follows a 2022 Markup story listing 107 third-party apps from which X-Mode was collecting location data, including LGBTQ+ dating apps. The Markup also revealed that X-Mode was one of about a dozen location data companies that purchased precise location data from family tracking app Life360, which limited the sale of such data after our reporting.
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From the FTC settlement:
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For at least one contract, X-Mode provided a private clinical research company information for marketing and advertising purposes about consumers who had visited certain internal medical facilities and then pharmacies or specialty infusion centers within a certain radius in the Columbus, Ohio area.
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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. |
Errata, corrigenda and ai no corrida: none notified
The Overspill: when there's more that I want to say 