Reports suggest correction fluids such as Tipp-Ex, Liquid Paper and Wite-Out are a $2bn market annually. But who on earth uses them? CC-licensed photo by J B on Flickr.
You can sign up to receive each day’s Start Up post by email. You’ll need to click a confirmation link, so no spam.
A selection of 9 links for you. Friday’s Overspill arrived last Saturday. I’m @charlesarthur on Twitter. On Threads: charles_arthur. On Mastodon: https://newsie.social/@charlesarthur. On Bluesky: @charlesarthur.bsky.social. Observations and links welcome.
My school banned phones for the year. Here’s what happened • Fit To Teach
“Fit To Teach” is a teacher in an American secondary school:
»
Last year I was battling the greatest entertainment system the world ever unleashed. A student would listen to my pleas, say they would get up, and then immediately fuck off on their phone again. Why would you play in the gym when you could sit against the wall and watch endless entertainment personally curated for your tastes?
Now I battle boredom, and that’s a winnable fight. Now when I give my two chicks speech [telling pupils they might not like doing something, but they have to], they usually respond by participating. That’s because the other option is boredom. Sit there, do nothing, and look out the non-existent windows our school doesn’t have. I’m not fighting against brilliant social scientists getting paid millions to figure out ways to capture human attention, I’m fighting against sitting on your ass doing nothing. And my class is awesome compared to boredom.
Now don’t get me wrong. This isn’t a magic bullet. Banning phones won’t save Gen-Z. I once watched our dean hand cellphones back to students in the cafeteria. When she rolled the cellphone cart through, it was like watching a crowd of hyenas catching the scent of stinking flesh. Kids stopped conversations mid-sentence and lifted their heads to watch that cart roll by.
The moment a boy got up from his table, a storm of students jumped to their feet to beat him to the cart. The dean started screaming if you come near me without being called up you’ll go to the back of the line. It took ten full minutes to get everyone seated before she felt comfortable enough to call kids up table by table.
That’s the kind of addiction teachers are dealing with. The kids are not all right, whether we ban the phones or not.
But when I compare the seven years I had battling the cellphone in the classroom, vs almost an entire year of phone free schooling, there is no comparison. Our kids are smarter, more social, and more motivated to do the things they actually want to accomplish in this world when they don’t have a Pavlovian vibration derailing their attention every 20 seconds.
«
On a sort-of related note, I’m always amazed by the number of people who walk along streets gazing down at phones in their hands, hoping that peripheral vision will save them from calamity. It might, might not (your unlocked phone might just be stolen from your hands), but is it really so important you can’t make the choice between stopping to read and just walking?
unique link to this extract
Spotify is scrambling to remove dozens of podcasts promoting online prescription drug sales • CNN Business
Clare Duffy:
»
If you search “Adderall” on Spotify’s podcast page, you’ll find health podcasts about ADHD, shows about addiction recovery and comedy podcasts where hosts talk about using the medication. You may also come across multiple pages masquerading as podcasts that direct users to buy drugs from potentially dangerous and illegal online pharmacies.
The intention of many of these pages is obvious from their names. Podcasts with titles, such as “My Adderall Store” — which has a link in the episode description to a site that purportedly sells Adderall, as well as potentially addictive pain medications like Oxycodone and Vicodin, among other drugs — were listed within the first 50 suggested results, a CNN review this week found.
CNN identified dozens of these fake podcasts across Spotify, advertising sales of medications ranging from Methadone to Ambien, in some cases claiming that the drugs can be purchased without a prescription, which is illegal in the United States.
Spotify is now scrambling to remove these fake podcast pages, which violate its rules and which, at best, may be spam and, and worst, could direct users to sites that violate the law.
Within hours after CNN sent Spotify a list of 26 podcasts promoting online pharmacies that were live as of Thursday afternoon, the platform had removed them. A spokesperson said they violated its rules, which prohibit illegal and spam content. Still, even after Spotify removed the podcasts CNN sent on Thursday, others continued to appear on the platform Friday morning.
«
Always the same story: the scale’s too big to manually check it first, so you only check it if someone objects afterwards, so spammers and other miscreants exploit it, and then you discover you’ve been enormously compromised, and the journalists do the objection, and your reputation takes a hit for about 15 minutes, and then you ignore it all again.
unique link to this extract
Keep calm (but delete your nudes): the new rules for travelling to and from Trump’s America • The Guardian
Arwa Mahdawi:
»
Searches, to be clear, are still very rare. “Claims that CBP is searching more electronic media due to the administration change are false,” CBP assistant commissioner of public affairs Hilton Beckham said in a statement last month. “CBP’s search numbers are consistent with increases since 2021, and less than 0.01% of travellers have their devices searched … Allegations that political beliefs trigger inspections or removals are baseless and irresponsible.”
If you’re worried these allegations aren’t quite as baseless as CBP insists, Wessler says: “The safest approach is not to travel with data you wouldn’t want the US government to access.”
Let’s say you’re a British citizen who has been outspoken, on social media and elsewhere, about your pro-Palestinian or anti-Trump views. Would it be a foolish idea to travel to the US right now? “I wouldn’t say ‘don’t come,’ but I’d say evaluate your risk and risk tolerance,” says Wessler. “The government is being extremely aggressive with students and activists, and there’s always a chance a border agent might act on something they find politically disagreeable. Most travellers are still fine – but the risk is real and well above zero.” So, basically, nothing is very clear? Pretty much, says Wessler. “The law is a complete mess, and people’s options are a complete mess. People just have to make a risk assessment based on extremely imperfect information.”
The first step in making that risk assessment is to thoroughly understand the rules for the specific visa you’ll be travelling on or your immigration status. “The Foreign Affairs Manual is a great resource,” says immigration lawyer Tahmina Watson. “It’s what consular officers use, and it’s publicly accessible. It lays out what officers are looking for, visa by visa. We’re now advising clients more than ever to understand the B1/B2 visa rules. B1 is for business, B2 for tourism. When CBP asks why you’re here, they’re listening for key phrases – ‘I’m visiting my grandmother,’ ‘I’m going to Disneyland,’ etc. The manual also talks about proof of ties to your home country – job, house, bills. That stuff matters.”
«
Bluesky: the online cone of silence • Commentary Magazine
James Meigs:
»
How did a site supposedly designed for respectful conversation become so toxic? A sociologist would point to the strong incentives that drive people to identify with their in-group—such as a sports team or a political party—and to denigrate the out-group. In a diverse social environment, people usually keep these expressions within acceptable bounds. A Yankees fan might display a bumper sticker reading, say, “Beat the Red Sox” but stop short of “And Drag Their Entrails Through the Streets.” But when a social-media commu-nity defines itself as a refuge for the virtuous—one that is surrounded by enemies—that social restraint disappears. If you believe that the only people reading your post will be those on your own team, you are more likely to let loose. In fact, you will be rewarded for it as other users like and respond to the most performative expressions of outrage.
In real-world social circles, being a total flaming, um, jerk brings social costs. But in a hermetically sealed social-media bubble, it’s a way to build your status. Bluesky adds another perverse incentive: Anyone adding nuance or pushing back against violent statements risks being ridiculed and even mass-blocked by the online community. This combination of positive and negative rewards creates a one-way ratchet, always pushing users toward extremism.
Yes, a similar dynamic exists among some conservative X users, and you can find plenty of ugliness on the far right. But on X, in my experience at least, the nasty stuff doesn’t crowd out more balanced conversations. Thomas Chatterton Williams, another heterodox thinker, recently conducted his own inadvertent experiment testing this thesis. An Atlantic article he wrote about the so-called woke right was criticized both by the New York Times’ lefty columnist Jamelle Bouie on Bluesky and by conservative activist Chris Rufo on X. Being attacked from both sides comes with the territory for a centrist like Williams. “But the two experiences were not equivalent,” he noted (on X, naturally). “If I’m honest, it wasn’t even close to the same thing.” Williams says he found “far more good faith, graciousness, nuance, sense of fair play and diversity of thought” from Rufo’s followers on X than in the Bluesky comments inspired by Bouie.
«
This comes from a somewhat right-wing view (as with anything American) but the general dynamic is correct. Bluesky’s “nuclear block” makes the site less useful because it hides so many opposing views, whereas in retrospect Elon Musk’s change to the Twitter block – which renders tweets from people who have blocked you visible, but you can’t interact with them – is actually useful in continuing to show you opposing views.
Meigs also makes an interesting point: the lack of opposition on Bluesky makes it harder to road-test ideas to see how well they travel beyond a left-wing bubble. And that, he points out, is a bad thing.
unique link to this extract
They paid $3,500 for Apple’s Vision Pro. A year later, it still hurts • WSJ
Joseph Pisani:
»
Early adopters of Apple’s Vision Pro headsets have one thing to show for the year they’ve spent with their pricey purchases: regret.
“It’s just collecting dust,” Dustin Fox said about his mixed-reality headset, which looks like futuristic ski goggles. “I think I’ve probably used it four times in the last year.” The $3,500 device sits in a bin with other gadgets he no longer picks up.
The Vision Pro launched in February 2024 with great promise. It was Apple’s first major product release in years! It’s the first device you look through and not at! Typing can be done in the air! But buyers who wore them in the wild say they got nothing but dirty looks and sore necks. Now, the devices are daily reminders of their misplaced bravado.
Fox, a realtor in Centreville, Va., had to have the Vision Pro as soon as it launched. “I’m like a little boy when something new comes out,” he said.
The 46-year-old thought he’d use it for work. Then he put it on his head. “It’s way too heavy,” Fox said about the device, which weighs just over a pound. “I can’t wear it for more than 20 or 30 minutes without it hurting my neck.”
Tovia Goldstein was excited to wear his set to watch movies and TV shows. But he ended up needing breaks. “After 60 minutes, you can’t, you just have to throw it down,” he said. He hasn’t touched it in about four months.
Weight isn’t the only issue for the 24-year-old New Yorker. There also aren’t enough apps to make the Vision Pro worthwhile, he said.
Goldstein thinks from time to time about getting the headset out of the closet and dusting it off to see if any new apps have been added. But the pain in the neck he gets, plus the painfully long three minutes it takes to plug in the battery and wait for it to turn on, make him think again. “I wouldn’t recommend anyone buying it,” he said, “unless you’re really rich and you don’t know what to do with your money.”
«
Fair number of them for sale fairly cheaply on eBay in the UK. Expect the same is true in the US. Just goes to show Apple doesn’t need Jony Ive to screw up design on something. Although speaking of Jony Ive and design…
unique link to this extract
A decade with the Apple Watch • The New Consumer
Dan Frommer, who has been using an Apple Watch since the launch in April 2015:
»
I use mine to: Pay almost everywhere, track my runs and steps, never miss a phone call, wake up silently for early flights, monitor coyote traffic on the driveway cam, time six-minute eggs, read email newsletters, see the AQI, find my phone, ride the Shinkansen, take an EKG, rewind the podcast, use as a flashlight to navigate a dark room, and intercom to the HomePods. Oh — it also turns out that it’s very convenient to know the time without always having to fish out a phone.
They look dorky in photos, but are regrettably worth it. My titanium Ultra is the wristtop computer that my high school self would have gone nuts for.
Rather than status, the Apple Watch’s popularity is really because of its utility, which is the purest form of success.
In our research, Apple Watch users use it, in part to live a better, healthier, more active life.
More than half (57%) of Apple Watch users said they’ve tracked their steps over the past year, compared to 34% of Americans overall, according to our latest Consumer Trends Survey of more than 3,000 US consumers, conducted in late February by Toluna. (This poll was part of my Consumer Trends research series, produced in collaboration with Coefficient Capital; this is the first time we’ve published these stats.)
«
I was reflecting on the Apple Watch the other day, and how people thought they would be fashion items (guilty). Instead they’re just little computers, doing computer-y things, and we’re fine with that. Though Frommer is right to point out that they’re “Apple’s most aesthetically customisable product” – you can change the watch face, get different colours and sizes of watch, change the watch band. Might that be part of the attraction?
unique link to this extract
China launches first of 2,800 satellites for AI space computing constellation • SpaceNews
Andrew Jones:
»
The China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC) announced a fully successful launch, revealing the mission to have sent 12 satellites for a space computing constellation into orbit.
Commercial company ADA Space released further details, stating that the 12 satellites form the “Three-Body Computing Constellation,” which will directly process data in space, rather than on the ground, reducing reliance on ground-based computing infrastructure. The constellation will be capable of a combined 5 peta operations per second (POPS) with 30 terabytes of onboard storage.
The satellites feature advanced AI capabilities, up to 100 Gbps laser inter-satellite links and remote sensing payloads—data from which will be processed onboard, reducing data transmission requirements. One satellite also carries a cosmic X-ray polarimeter developed by Guangxi University and the National Astronomical Observatories of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (NAOC), which will detect, identify and classify transient events such as gamma-ray bursts, while also triggering messages to enable followup observations by other missions.
ADA Space claims the 12 satellites represent the world’s first dedicated orbital computing constellation. This marks a shift from satellites focused solely on sensing or communication to ones that also serve as data processors and AI platforms.
«
Can’t help wondering why China wants to do this stuff in space. It’s not as though it’s easy to service or upgrade. Sure, you get free power and cooling isn’t the worst problem. But.. that’s a lot of satellites. No doubt the US will now feel obliged to do just the same.
unique link to this extract
2019: Why do Wite-Out and Liquid Paper still exist? • The Atlantic
David A. Graham, writing in 2019:
»
Christmastime is when the pens in my house get their biggest workout of the year. Like many Americans above grammar-school age, I seldom write by hand anymore, outside of barely legible grocery lists. But the end of the year brings out a slew of opportunities for penmanship: adding notes to holiday cards to old friends, addressing them, and then doing the same with thank-you notes after Christmas. And given how little I write in the other 11 months of the year, that means there are a lot of errors, which in turn spur a new connection with another old friend: Wite-Out.
The sticky, white fluid and its chief rival, Liquid Paper, are peculiar anachronisms, throwbacks to the era of big hair, big cars, and big office stationery budgets. They were designed to help workers correct errors they made on typewriters without having to retype documents from the start. But typewriters have disappeared from the modern office, relegated to attics and museums. Even paper is disappearing from the modern office, as more and more functions are digitized. But correction fluids are not only surviving—they appear to be thriving, with Wite-Out sales climbing nearly 10% in 2017, according to the most recent public numbers. It’s a mystery of the digital age.
…As early as 2005, The New York Times pondered the product’s fate with trepidation. Somehow, more than a decade on, it has kept its ground. According to the NPD Group, which tracks marketing data, sales of correction fluid grew 1% from 2017 to 2018, though they fell 7% the year before. (Correction tapes were flat, while correction pens are fading.) From 2015 to 2016 to 2017, Bic, which makes Wite-Out and Tipp-Ex, reported that correction products increased in share from 5% to 6% to 9% of the global stationery market.
Who’s still buying these things? All the best answers are mostly conjecture. AdWeek suggested that sales might be buoyed by artists using fluid as paint. A Bic spokesperson pointed to a series of weird and entertaining interactive YouTube ads for Tipp-Ex in Europe, and said that Wite-Out is launching “colored dispensers that will appeal to younger consumers.”
«
OK, it’s a six-year-old story. But I looked up market reports: this one says it was $2.1bn worldwide in 2022 and is expected to grow 1% annually to 2029; this one says it was worth $2.0bn in 2023 and will grow at 1% annually to 2030.
Which brings us back to the original question: who the hell is using this stuff, given that the printer market is shrinking?
unique link to this extract
FBI warns of ongoing scam that uses deepfake audio to impersonate government officials • Ars Technica
Dan Goodin:
»
The FBI is warning people to be vigilant of an ongoing malicious messaging campaign that uses AI-generated voice audio to impersonate government officials in an attempt to trick recipients into clicking on links that can infect their computers.
“Since April 2025, malicious actors have impersonated senior US officials to target individuals, many of whom are current or former senior US federal or state government officials and their contacts,” Thursday’s advisory from the bureau’s Internet Crime Complaint Center said. “If you receive a message claiming to be from a senior US official, do not assume it is authentic.”
The campaign’s creators are sending AI-generated voice messages—better known as deepfakes—along with text messages “in an effort to establish rapport before gaining access to personal accounts,” FBI officials said. Deepfakes use AI to mimic the voice and speaking characteristics of a specific individual. The differences between the authentic and simulated speakers are often indistinguishable without trained analysis. Deepfake videos work similarly.
One way to gain access to targets’ devices is for the attacker to ask if the conversation can be continued on a separate messaging platform and then successfully convince the target to click on a malicious link under the guise that it will enable the alternate platform. The advisory provided no additional details about the campaign.
«
Does at least give Americans another reason to ignore anything their government attempts to tell them.
unique link to this extract
| • 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 