Nixon once asserted: “Well, when the president does it, that means that it is not illegal”. The implication was not lost on Trump who has seemingly flaunted the law throughout his life and then appeared to shift into overdrive once in the White House.
Naturally, as has been evident as well, also even boasted “I don’t pay taxes because I’m smart”, and when money, especially free money gained at the expense of the less fortunate, it seems Trump and his “Jr. partner Jared Kushner might indeed pull out all the stops.
Therefore, it comes as no surprise that, once details on who received pandemic relief loans were revealed by the Small Business Administration, including the PPP or Paycheck Protection Program, multiple businesses linked to both were allegedly present.
NBC news: Over 25 PPP loans worth more than $3.65 million were given to businesses with addresses at Trump and Kushner real estate properties, paying rent to those owners. Fifteen of the properties self-reported that they only kept one job, zero jobs, or did not report a number at all.
While there have been many reports of fraud and abuse related to this and other pandemic relief programs, most stories on these were slanted towards shaming various individuals who had engaged in fraud to obtain the loans.
There were also numerous accounts of, in some cases, public companies with access to billions in capital applying for and receiving $100s of millions of dollars in forgivable loans. Names like Shake Shack, Ruth’s Chris, Potbelly Corp. and others were embroiled in controversy when some information leaked, and in some cases the companies, fearing public boycott or backlash, returned funds. While these examples show no specific wrongdoing on any particular company, the appearance of impropriety is nevertheless in question.
Now with more data the headlines are expanding to include potential impropriety , if not possible criminal action of Trump and Kushner seen as bilking the program at will, as well as massive and tragically-comical mismanagement of the “relief” funds with 100s of examples such as loans payed to companies that did not supply a name and many larger companies using multiple subsidiaries to gang together groups of smaller loans into sums totally tens of millions or more.
According to NBC, All these tricks and potentially more were employed (surprise!) by Trump and Kushner affiliated firms.
NBC: Sweeping [analysis of] data released by the Small Business Administration…found that properties owned by the Trump Organization as well as the Kushner Companies, owned by the family of Jared Kushner, President Donald Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser, profited from the program.
The potential abuses, beyond the obvious one that this money was meant to relieve business not connected to government officials, and those who’s business were damaged by the pandemic in general, followed a pattern where the money flowed to those that needed it least (due to massive wealth, such as stories that have circulated about Kanye West) or due to already having existing access to nearly unlimited capital (such as the public companies that lined up to access relief funds rather than use billions they had in reserve).
Other examples of Trump allegedly using and exploiting the presidency are so common as to make it almost redundant to cite these massive, and if true, unethical and potentially criminal abuses. So many have already been noted and cited in the press – from the profits flowing into his properties directly from taxpayer dollars or by diverting foreign officials to them, tax cheating, dirtying money to his daughter and son-in-law, on and on it goes.
The only question that remains is why there appears to be “no-one home” when it comes to holding Trump and his family of abusers accountable. Much has been made of his soon-to-be gone immunity from federal prosecution, but what about the family? Pardons and tra-la-la?
That can’t be the way this ends. Otherwise the rest of us are just as corrupt by letting it happen without a response of appropriate magnitude.
Apple software upgrades are now so deep and extensive that it will take months to absorb the potential benefits
Mac OS upgrades, which have been free going back more than 20 years, have been bordering on spectacular recently, but also do carry some dangers. Early adopters have been known to experience buggy not-100%-ready-for-primetime features that do, however, generally get fixed fairly quickly once live bugs are identified.
The upside is that there is, just as in the iOS systems, a literal cornucopia of free built in apps and features most of which benefit from the periodic upgrades.
As a matter of fact, many, many of the improvements are not detailed or listed in any manual and not used in the marketing materials for the free software upgrades. As the saying goes, they just “work”.
Probably the biggest of these invisible improvements, one that spans multiple apps and functions is the now, fully established, system known as iCloud. Born as “Mobile-me” and a nightmare until about 3 years ago, this system for syncing across all Apple devices, apps and software has become a powerhouse that has no comparable rival.
An evolving system nearly two decades in the making
The idea, sometimes maligned as overkill, is simple in theory. An Apple aficionado might own a desktop mac such as an iMac, Mac Mini or Mac Pro. For travel; a MacBook Air, Pro, etc, an iPhone (of course), an iPad and, whew, maybe wear an Apple Watch. There might be an Apple TV unit in the house and perhaps a HomePod mini (and so on!).
All of these can benefit from iCloud. Many functions, particularly with the Apple Watch, for example, are mandatory and help to link various functionality between devices.
But where this software enhancement has really begun to shine is when using built in apps that have a version on both the mac family and also within iOS and iPadOS, such as Notes, Photos and, of course, Safari.
Although these have been around since Yosemite and have had the benefit of iCloud Sync since at least that time, with Catalina they really started to function at a very high level. With Big Sur the potential is off-the-charts.
One caveat that is still a work in progress is the need for identical, or nearly identical, functionality across all devices (mac, iPhone and iPad at least). For the photos app this is nearly the case but for Safari and Notes there is still a way to go before all functions match on every device and OS.
Of course, this is the very lofty goal, already underway with the new M1 chips and the gradual goal of total interchangeability between macOS and iOS / iPad Os.
Many actions are still more functional on a mac than on iPhone or iPad: but that’s changing
Much attention is paid to the idea of using and featuring iOS apps on a mac, but for practical applications it is the ability of the software on iOS devices to have all the functionality of the macOS versions that is even more important and desirable.
A great example, and a glaring one, is Safari. Differences between browsing on a mobile platform (with iPad being a sort of in-between experience) and on a desktop or laptop can be frustrating and difficult.
For surfing news or browsing static content the differences are not significant, but if you start trying to do banking, or eCommerce or other more complex tasks you can hit a brick wall.
Much of this is on the server side where the websites themselves either block or are not compatible with all versions of Safari in every OS version.
However, particularly on iPad, there should be an eventual ability for Safari on iPad to emulate laptop / desktop browser specs for those purposes. And, with macOS Big Sur that is already nearly a reality.
Similarly when using the Notes app, which we do at Lynxotic extensively for story development and shared processing, the functionality is nearly seamless between macOS Big Sur and iPad or iPhone.
As a matter of fact, the differences are so minimal that, when switching between devices, finding a “missing” function, such as the ability on an iPhone to format the text into Title, Heading, Body and so forth, as you would do in WordPress or other text editing system, it is a shocking experience.
Beyond detailed individual features it’s the overall end-result that’s astounding
The overall experience from mac to mac – when using full iCloud Sync, is that you can move from machine to machine and a have 100% seamless transition. Although some files can be specially segregated by machine, if you choose, making them only available locally on that machine, this is up to the user.
You can have an expanded iCloud storage limit added to your account (2TB is currently $9.99) and have access to all files on all machines and devices.
Although still not 100% functional in all situations, even the files app and iCloud storage system on the iPhone can access and store all files and allow you to save or access many important documents on the go.
Starting with macOS Catalina, and now even more with Big Sur, the invisible and seamless “clone” experience when moving from desktop to laptop has been very functional and hugely beneficial, and now the iPhone and iPad are rapidly realizing a similar potential.
Shared Albums in photos, Shared Notes, Safari’s vast and ever improving ability to safely store 1000s of passwords and other site specific data, obviously the huge privacy upgrades, and soon, the identical user experience for all these apps across all devices, this amounts to a must-have success in software that easily matches the acclaim that the new hardware built-in with the new M1 chips have rightfully received.
The future is coming, faster than you think, and that’s a good thing (in this case)
Another big, I mean huge, factor that is coming into play with Big Sur and the various OSs, is the emergence of machine learning and “over-the-air” updates, including some that are unannounced and take place within individual apps without requiring user interaction.
The photos app is a huge example of this but the phenomenon is also spreading into other built in software.
This means that improvements in functionality and sometimes even added features are taking place faster and can be major, even between the official updates themselves.
In the end the “whole widget” approach will provide benefits so astounding that a user of Apple products will be in a “universe of capability” that has no comparable alternative and certainly no rival.
The improvements across all apps and functions are so vast that it would take thousands of pages to catalog even a fraction of them – basically it is better to do what we have always done with Apple system software; wade through while learning by doing and rejoice each time the “singularity”, that is now a stated goal, becomes a little bit closer.
With macOS Big Sur, your mac via iCloud and your other Apple devices are now already a vastly more powerful network of tools working together than they ever could be separately.
Wonder why all the news outlets seem to repeat each other’s stories? Google trends might have the answer
Google has any number of tools and software services for businesses and web developers. Some fairly well known like Google Analytics, Ad Words and Ad Sense, and others less so. Google analytics helps web site owners and businesses track and quantify the traffic and behavior of their products (physical eCommerce products or intangible products such as blog posts, etc) and can give insight into who, what when and from where people are responding online.
For media producers and news web sites they offer a tool called “Google Trends”. As with many google software products it is extremely deep in what it can do and somewhat inscrutable in how to use. If you want to see what topics are likely to be showing up on your news feed over the next 24 to 36 hours you can go to the page called “Trending Searches”.
What to tool is focused on is using the google search bar as a kind of barometer for what people and wanting to read about or look at online (This tool deals with the google internet search engine, YouTube has its own separate search engine for videos only). The idea is that if, say, 100k people are looking up Paul Walker (deceased star of “Fast & Furious” films) there must be a reason.
Various trending topics and stories can be evaluated and then create a tend among news producers, based on the initial trend by the public reaction to the first story
If you were a media producer or content editor, you could look at the number of articles on the subject that have been written so far and how many eyeballs are chasing those articles.
If the ratio is good, and you think the timing is favorable based on how long you would need to research and produce a similar article, you may get your crew to “pull the trigger” on your on entry into that days “Paul Walker Sweepstakes”.
Using this example live from Google Trends, it turns out that November 30th was the anniversary of Paul Walkers tragic death and there is an instagram post commemorating the occasion put out by his daughter who was only a small child 7 years ago when her father died in a car crash.
Her post has a massive number of likes (462,410 so far) and this, then, is likely to be a story that will take off like wildfire and more and more outlets jump on it to capture views and try to enlarge their audience.
This area is separated into “Daily Search Trends” and “RealTime Search Trends”. As you’d expect the daily trends follow the large slower moving search trends that have risen to the top of the heap and shows you a sort of greatest hit top ten of what people are searching for. RealTime does the same on a minute to minute and hour to hour basis.
There are ways to dig deeper (deeper than any human would want to) into the data and, of course, you can filter by topic / category and by various countries around the world.
When browsing the RealTime data you can often find interesting articles from usual news outlets that are likely to be a big trend re-produced and written in various styles in a couple of days and seen by, possibly, millions. Or not.
That’s the fun part of this tool, even if you are now a big shot media producer you can browse stories that people are search for and finding interesting and get a glimpse of, potentially, tomorrow’s news today.
Witnesses of Evil and survivors deserve a decompression phase
For nearly all of 2017 the word “lie” rarely if ever appeared in an article written about the president. The reasons for this are more complex than it would first appear, and relate to the history of political journalism reaching back at least 50 years. The reason why, beginning in 2018 and early 2019, “lie” became a daily and oft used word in connection with this lying-president is a more subtle and interesting story.
As of this writing it is 100% clear that Trump has lost the election (odd to even have to say that, considering how obvious it is to any sane, rational observer) and that, ultimately, we will all benefit from forgetting about this attention-addicted-sociopath. However, with regard to something we all experienced, witnessed and endured over a period of four plus years; before forgetting there must first be a remembering.
And, for the benefit of those of us who have various forms of PTSD as a result of what he perpetrated and what we had to witness, that remembering is a healthy, necessary step.
For nearly all of 2017 the word “lie” rarely if ever appeared in an article written about the president. The reasons for this are more complex than it would first appear, and relate to the history of political journalism reaching back at least 50 years. The reason why, beginning in 2018 and early 2019, “lie” became a daily and oft used word in connection with this lying-president is a more subtle and interesting story.
As of this writing it is 100% clear that Trump has lost the election (odd to even have to say that, considering how obvious it is to any sane, rational observer) and that, ultimately, we will all benefit from forgetting about this attention-addicted-sociopath. However, with regard to something we all experienced, witnessed and endured over a period of four plus years; before forgetting there must first be a remembering.
And, for the benefit of those of us who have various forms of PTSD as a result of what he perpetrated and what we had to witness, that remembering is a healthy, necessary step.
Perhaps rushing forward to “fix” everything he broke, destroyed or tried to destroy must be combined with looking back.
Seeing some of the events that shaped the last four years through the eyes of the media and the press
The public perceptions and reactions to history during significant and extreme events are shaped over time, and meaning are not always clear until we look back. If this article was a typical “2020 Looking Back” year-end recap, and did not run 5000 words or more it’d be about the coronavirus, the election, and a skim through the various events on the periphery. Instead, we must begin on June 16th, 2015 when Donald J. Trump began his assault on America.
And, as we all remember, it started with “Mexicans”:
“When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best, they’re sending people that have lots of problems, and they’re bringing those problems with us [sic]. They’re bringing drugs, they’re bringing crime, they’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people.”
Donald J. Trump, as he descended on his golden escalator
This technique of viciously attacking a particular ethic group, generally, and pandering to negative stereotypes was just getting started.
Also couching broad statements, that often included boldfaced lies, within statements that could have a tiny sliver of truth would also be a propaganda technique he would use, sometimes dozens of times in a day, over the next nearly 4.5 years.
Then came the nicknames. Again, maybe “little Marco” was not the tallest guy and “Low-energy Jeb” was not the most exciting. But Trump’s character traits that would later expand and multiply were not pretty, and were on full display even during the initial phases of the election.
Belittling opponents in an ugly personal way, pushing all dialog away from substance and toward personal attacks of the lowest form was standard operating procedure. All the signs were there of a mental sickness, one that we would all later experience more intimately, but at the time it was all an amusing diversion, since most believed he had “zero chance” of winning the 2016 presidential election.
Phase 2, 3, 4 and beyond: testing the limits of outrage
Just making a laundry list of outrageous and disgusting behavior by this man is easy, but of little value, beyond our mutual sharing of “I was there” recollections publicly. More interesting, it seems, would be an exploration of how “we”, the media, and the public, reacted and adjusted to having such a malignant presence in the White House.
It’s easy to forget that, around the time of the 2016 inauguration, many in the media went on and on about how the outrageous tactics were just a ploy, and a successful one at that, for him to get elected, and now that the election was over, Trump would magically become “Presidential”.
Then the lies began to multiply. All during 2017, however, it was very difficult to find the word “lie” in any article from a mainstream outlet that was about Trump, well, lying. The lengths that journalists went to avoid that word was, in a word, incredible. To look further into the history of not saying the word “lie” when a president lies, this Politco article from 2017 is a great deeper dive.
In the final paragraph summation the overall view at the time was encapsulated:
“Using the word “lie” promiscuously may, in the short term, score a point against a president who has shown a contempt for the facts. But over the long-term, the authority and credibility of aspirationally objective mainstream news organizations like the New York Times are best served by scrupulously trying to report the news in ways that can be trusted by readers of any political viewpoint. And it’s by upholding and reinforcing that authority and credibility that the Fourth Estate will best guide readers to the truth amid the misinformation, propaganda and lies produced by the administration of Donald J. Trump.”
David Greenberg, a professor of history and media studies at Rutgers in Politico Magazine
This viewpoint, ultimately, disintegrated and was abandoned, generally, by the middle of 2018 into the beginning of 2019. Trump literally bashed down that wall of civility with thousands and thousands of lies.
Terms and phrases like “decorum”, “deference”, “non-partisan” and “civilized discourse” became meaningless in the endless assault of lies, hate speech and outrageous acts. At Lynxotic, we made a decision fairly early that this was not a “normal” president and these were not normal times. We seriously had to ask ourselves, if this was an emerging danger to this country and to democracy itself, who would we be serving by mincing words?
And further, the news has always been, to a certain degree, opinion infused facts with a, sometimes, thin veneer of artificial authoritative eminence. And wasn’t the media often guilty of using “impartiality”, similarly to an arms dealer, selling ammunitions to both sides in a civil war?
As time went on, the incredible border “cages” scandals, then the impeachmentdrama came and went and on and on, until Trump’s massive coronavirus failures, and finally the election madness.
In the end all pretense of, and use for civility, any belief that a non-corrupt outcome was possible, revealed a truth that the choices for the nation were, and are, to jail the man famous for chants of “Lock her up” or let him continue until he destroys the democracy and possibly, ultimately the country itself.
The good thing that was bestowed upon all of us by a bad man
Of course, in all of this, he did do one good thing for the media and journalism. Not “ratings” or prosperity through scandal. No, what he did was to help us to remove the hypocrisy of the long standing “deference” to any and all sitting in the White House, just because they are there.
“When he “won” in 2016 it was on the shoulders of Russian hackers and social media “bots” that influenced the thinking of real, living, breathing humans. In 2020 those real humans showed up, 80 million strong, and took back the country.”
D.L.
The blurred lines between observation, opinion, facts and fiction are ones that have, in reality, always been blurred. To face that fact, and to grapple every day with the issues of how to communicate the hard truth, is also a legacy of this evil man.
When he “won” in 2016 it was on the shoulders of Russian hackers and social media “bots” that influenced the thinking of real, living, breathing humans. In 2020 those real humans showed up, 80 million strong, and took back the country.
That is also a lesson we owe to “The Donald”. That, if a pretender rises up, the rest of us have to rise up as well, to put him down.
The favor he did us all was to force us to examine the real facts, and make the real news and not the fake news matter, even if that news is that he is a liar, a grifter, a cheat and a criminal. And if any of his ilk come to power again, or continue to remain in power, they should be treated the same way, as needed.
Above:Content Discovery App – River video Clip Introduction
An Unlikely Holy Grail: User Sophistication and the Will to Exist Online
In late 2018 a small firm was looking into opportunities in organizing an online co-op for small businesses (CSSinc), similar to the co-ops created by farmers during the great depression. Where else to start than a trade show of more than 1000 small businesses in Las Vegas. In an informal test, they checked all the web sites listed in the show directory as an indicator of the state of web sophistication among the participants.
Naturally the 10% that were functioning, a few of which at a high level, were all the largest companies attending the show. With costs to set up, and even designing a company web site, at an all time low, why would so many pass up the opportunity to make use of this powerful tool?
‘This is Water’ and the internet dilemma that has swallowed the world
In 2005, David Foster Wallace addressed the graduating class at Kenyon College with a speech that is now one of his most read pieces.
In it, he argues, gorgeously, against “unconsciousness, the default setting, the rat race, the constant gnawing sense of having had, and lost, some infinite thing.” He begins with a parable:
There are these two young fish swimming along, and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way, who nods at them and says, “Morning, boys. How’s the water?” And the two young fish swim on for a bit, and then eventually one of them looks over at the other and goes, “What the hell is water?”
This oft quoted passage is about how the world around us can be easily misunderstood by lack of awareness. And, maybe, by the lack of any perceived need to notice what’s really going on.
The two most shocking things about the anecdote above, regarding 90% of small businesses lack of internet presence (or sophistication), are how this could be the case after more than 20 years of the internet being at the center of commerce and, well, life, and what it says about the “water” we are all swimming in.
2020 is the year that the internet became even more important for all our lives. Less obvious is that it is also the year that the problems and obstacles are more important than ever to overcome, and that starts with seeing the water we are all swimming in.
In this acclaimed documentary (available on Netflix) a lot of both problems and solutions focus on the dangers of the current giant-tech dominated internet environment on the “end-user” and the general public.
While that sphere of influence is a serious and growing problem, it is the control and domination by a few massive companies, to the virtual exclusion of smaller businesses, that, to a large degree caused the sick, twisted inequitable and unfair system in the first place.
The relative size imbalance is literally so massive that it is rendered incomprehensible, and, like water to the fish mentioned above, invisible.
A happy shiny logo of, say, coca-cola, looks just as harmless (or menacing, depending on the perspective) as that of Amazon or Facebook, who may be hundreds of times larger in market-cap than the soft-drink giant with long history as a “big” American company. Size of this magnitude is impossible to conceive of by most of us.
But the perception of the giants that control the internet as harmless, or even beneficial and to be admired, is rapidly changing. Therein also lies the potential for probably the only hope of positive change for small business and for society in the US and across the globe.
A Revolution of Perception is Required and already Underway
Part of the problem, one that is growing, admittedly, every day, is the sheer scale of the inequity and corruption. Why even try, as a small business, to go up against the giants that “own” the water we swim in?
Ultimately what is necessary is a sea-change (forgive the continued metaphor) within overall population, both consumers and small businesses. And that starts with the perception that it is the “people” that decide how and what the internet will be who will be “permitted” to interact. An Algorithm own as proprietary secret software by an internet behemoth? Or a decentralized more kaleidoscopic solution that was an inherent promise from the initial days of the internet’s creation?
The signs of change are all around. The “direct to consumer” trend that has produced massive success stories also paved the way for the emerging system of smaller companies being able to reach out directly and actually do business with customers with, sometimes, minimal involvement of the giants.
The signs that this can work are gradually being seen – shopify’s success in offering software and services to businesses wanting to establish a direct connection to buyers is a growing trend. There are many other companies that have recognized the trend and are trying to ride this wave toward a different method of communication between businesses and so-called consumers.
Here are some examples of companies that are taking a new approach to the way we communicate and interact online:
However, the ultimate driver of positive change in the internet will be the increased sophistication of users, both professional and at the individual level.
User Sophistication and Trust: an unlikely but all-important Grail
Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, Twitter, TikTok and more have all embraced direct in-app-shopping as a way to expand beyond content. Even Google has started a program to allow buyers to purchase from search results without leaving the platform. While these initiatives are all coming from the giant tech firms themselves, they are, ultimately, sowing the seeds of their own demise.
They are, in essence, teaching buyers to forego the now standard system of choosing between Amazon and “the rest” in online shopping. This choice, helped along by billions in losses to subsidize “impossibly low” prices plus free shipping paid for by Amazon’s loss-leader strategies, was never a fair or realistic one and created the massive, unsustainable imbalances in online commerce we see today.
The massive and very real paranoia of the giant companies is based on the clear and deep understanding that the competition is always “1-click-away”, which is the unfulfilled promise of the internet in the first place.
D.L.
The greatest obstacle has never been the massive price-dumping schemes or even the sell-at-a-loss free shipping concept that kept buyers from having a second choice in e-commerce. It has been the lack of user sophistication of the sellers and the buyers in the online forum which prevented easier movement from one online option to another.
The massive and very real paranoia of the giant companies is based on the clear and deep understanding that the competition is always “1 click away”, which is the unfulfilled promise of the internet in the first place.
So called “moats” and systems to block users from initiating and exercising choice are built-up and keep getting deeper and more complex. But sophisticated users can, and eventually will, easily just opt-out at any time, when alternatives that they prefer begin to proliferate.
And there is a growing and invisible ocean that already exists all around us. As far-fetched as it may seem “the ocean we swim in” will one day be in no way similar to the deeply problematic one we swim in today and a thorough a change from the bottom up as well as the top down will, finally, bring about a new era in online communication and commerce.
If you like winning, this is your chance to do it, over and over and over…
Never before has a presidential candidate won his election so many times. Never before has a loser found so many ridiculous ways to avoid conceding to the winner. Of course, it is the very fact that a loser has brazenly lied and fabricated nonsense reasons and accusations to contest at every opportunity that has created the possibility for Biden to win, again and again.
First, Joe Biden won what appeared to be a relatively narrow victory on election day with enough confirmed electoral votes, along with a lead in enough other states to create an impossibility for Trump to get to 270, the margin of votes needed to prevail.
Next Biden was declared winner in states which had held back in declaring a projected winner. Then the re-counts, court challenges and and final tallies commenced.
Pennsylvania gave him a win. That was a big win and he became President-elect. Then the Georgia re-count was another time to celebrate his victory. And Arizona, a state he flipped for the first time since 1996, and before that a Republican won there since 1948.
So, get ready everyone, on December 14th there will be another win for Joe Biden. Tired of winning yet?
In the end Biden will have, barring any absolutely and totally unlikely changes, 306 electoral votes. “A landslide” according to Trump when it was his exact winning number. Of course he did not get more than 80 million popular votes, or vanquish his opponent by more than 6 million. That’s only another unique and first in all history – big big win for Biden.
Trump lost the popular vote by 2.9 million votes in 2016.
So far, 54 of his 306 Electoral College votes and Trump 73 of his 232 votes have been officially certified by a total of 16 states. They have awarded President-elect Joe Biden 54 of his 306 Electoral College votes, and Trump has been awarded 73 of his 232 votes.
Florida is the only one of the four most populous states that has, as of yet, already been certified. Early in December there’s a deadline for the other large ones: California, Texas and New York. None of them are at all in doubt, of course.
Talk of “faithless electors” being put into action by Trump is becoming les and less likely by the day. Not 100% off the table but around 99.9999% not gonna happen.
I wonder if Trump is tired of losing yet? Gas-up the private jet. Moscow’s waiting.
Electoral College meets on Dec. 14, and all states must be certified before that, while any challenges to the results must have been resolved by Dec. 8.
Above: Snippet Video of Rudy Giuliani Dripping / Press Conference Video
Though these clowns are a stale putrid joke, all citizens must, nevertheless, remain vigilant, no matter how hard it is to take them seriously
Rudy Giuliani’s dripping head took center stage at his self-congratulatory press conference where he continues the string of fantasies regarding alleged voter fraud that he and his team have been claiming.
Speaking from the podium alongside the other Trump campaign lawyers, Sidney Powell and Jenna Ellis, Rudy began with attempts to appear sane, only to have his planned “show” devolve into a caricature of his own twisted image. He not only burst into an out-of-body “My Cousin Vinny” moment but then was seeming to literally melt, with sweat and what appeared to be hair-dye-goo dripping profusely down his head and the sides of his face.
After all the court cases cut short and nearly laughed off the docket, the gang that cries crooked and tries to prove that their own manipulation was a mirage, while at the same time inventing fraud and malfeasance at every turn by anyone that did not vote for Trump.
Although the vast majority of sane individuals in the country are seeing this as a clown show and distraction, more than any real threat, the seriousness that lies beneath is not insignificant. Every day that goes by is another day that Trump ad his cronies are able to twist and turn through various lies and false accusations hoping to find something that sticks, just enough, to get to the Supreme Court, where they believe the cronies they just appointed there, for this very purpose, will ultimately bail them out and start utter chaos.
Highly unlikely, since, I mean, look at these guys, but Nixon and his henchmen got away with many, many crimes in plain sight, for years, before finally being brought down. Although we are all sick and tired of Trump and his infected, demented, corrupt band of idiots, it’s not advisable to stand-down just yet.
Subscribe to our newsletter for all the latest updates directly to your inBox.
The Origin of Everything is Shrouded in Mystery – looking at Apple’s history yields many clues, however…
PART I of a 3 PART SERIES:
Given the sheer size, breadth and power of the various “Tech Giants” as they have become known, many, if not most would be skeptical if an assertion were put forth that all of them were a direct product or outgrowth of Apple.
Click to see “Steve Jobs” and help independent bookstores. Also available on Amazon.
Although there is almost constant complaining that Apple is not the innovator it once was, or that they sell overpriced and overrated products, with more marketing than substance, tracing back through the history of tech a very different story emerges. Further, all the way to the present a pattern holds true that traces all big tech back to Apple in a direct route from at least 1984 or earlier.
The whole story is long and somewhat hidden; and it diverges from the accepted notions of how the massive empires of tech came about. In the end it is almost impossible not to see the behemoths now known as Microsoft, Google, Facebook and others as little more than incidental occurrences, spawned the wake of Apple’s growth and innovation.
Apple is an entirely different company from what it seems from the point of view of the masses & the media. For example, just as now we have Biden vs. Trump we once had Jobs vs. Gates. You can decide which is which. Perhaps today it seems like a stretch, but up until around 1998 the two were considered opposites and as compatible as oil vs. water.
Above: vdieo Clip from the “One More Thing 2020 Event and Video Still Photo Collage / Lynxotic
There have always been a huge number of people who are offended by the high-price high-quality ethos that Steve Jobs created and that the company carries forward to this day.
Steve Jobs Steve Wozniak with the Apple 1 prototype
Much like Tesla owners are heckled by Toyota, Ford and Chevy pick-up truck owners, Apple has always had an army of detractors. And while for many years it was Windows / PC users now it is Android and Samsung. But if you set aside the Apple-derangement Syndrome, sister affliction to the fabled “Reality Distortion Field” there are some fascinating theories that could be put forth showing that Apple and Steve Jobs are the ultimate source of all tech since the Garden of Eden, or at least the 70s.
[Readers note: there are many accepted truths and fabled stories that will be addressed in this article. These are, at times considered “fact” and at other times questioned openly. If it bothers you when either of those choices are made to suit the narrative, you may, of course, opt-out at any time. All attempts have been made to remain true to historical fact, but no claims or guarantees are made of perfection.]
In The Beginning there was… XEROX?
In the beginning there was Xerox Parc. From that private think-tank of a copy-machine company emerged two incredible discoveries; the Graphical-User-Interface (GUI) and the Mouse (mouse). In the fable Steve Jobs is invited to visit in late 1979, to gather knowledge from the computer scientists and R&D gurus and later decides to “steal” everything he sees. Xerox, on the other hand, continues to believe that copy machines are the real future.
Click to see “iWoz” and help independent bookstores. Also available on Amazon.
This fable / anecdote is often used to illustrate that Steve Jobs and Apple deserve no credit for the ultimate ubiquity of the software that emerged from the GUI concept and, the mouse that came about cause of the… mouse. It is also said, or at least implied, that Microsoft was fully justified in stealing anything and everything they could from Apple software innovations because “Steve did it first to Xerox”. These kinds of rationalizations are the reason why Apple is still, to this day, not recognized as the source for all tech in the universe.
The more accurate take on this origin story is that Steve Jobs was the first to recognize the ultimate importance of the GUI and mouse combo (after all Xerox never made any real commercially viable attempt to make and market the discoveries from its own R&D) and that the future of the tech world would be built on the bedrock of these early innovations.
“…In fact, turning expensive, hard-to-use, precision instruments into cheap, mass-producible, and reliable commercial products requires its own ingenuity and creativity. This marketplace intelligence is different from, but not inferior to, the intelligence of the laboratory; it just gets far less attention by journalists and historians. In the case of the relationship between the work at PARC and the development of the Macintosh, this blindness leads us to underestimate the originality of Apple’s own work, and the differences between the Alto and Macintosh. “
Further, at the time Bill Gates was madly in love with the wonders of MS-Dos and in particular the money he could bank in licensing it to IBM and all bidders… It was only years later in 1985 when he famously decided to steal the GUI_ Mouse based system software apple was using, in spite of his promises to refrain from stealing when he was shown the secrets during his fabled meeting with Steve Jobs to discuss word and excel, early versions of which were already on the Macintosh. Hence the echos of “Steve did it first to Xerox” became the rallying cry for all those that seemed to justify the direct theft of Macintosh OS to create the clunky-named system called “Windows”.
This story carried on throughout the 80s and 90s and, all the while, a 1988 lawsuit was pending resolution, which has at its center the accusation, by Apple, that Windows 1, released in November 1985, was directly copied, a.k.a. inspired by the Macintosh OS. In the end, in another famous fabled incident, the suit was settled out of court in 1997, by then obscenely rich Bill Gates, for $150 million, thus rescuing Apple from almost certain Bankruptcy.
Moral of the story? Windows, PC’s and everything Microsoft ever became, can be directly traced back to Apple. This is the most obvious of the various lines of creative attribution leading back to Apple and Steve Jobs.
The next saga: Google’s connection and the debt owed to Anti-trust and Apple, will be more subtle but all the more timely. Timely as in right now this minute. Stay tuned for Volume II of “How Apple Created the Entire Tech Universe and it Finally Makes Sense”
Can you miss something bad because it became familiar?
Are we going to miss DJT? He has predicted many times that we would, or at least that the media would miss the “ratings”. Now that, ever so slightly and with a surreal subtlety, his influence fades and begins to seem like a drunken nightmare from which we are awakening in a groggy stupor, bizarre thoughts appear.
Controlling the news cycle has been his thing from day 1. And, if this man has any real talent, it is for dominating the news with lies, nonsense and outrageous acts. Initially, like hostages with Stockholm Syndrome, we will struggle to adapt to a life with less drama from the White House, and, eventually, less doom-scrolling.
Click to see “Humans” and help Independent Bookstores. Also available on Amazon.
Was he a clown or a monster? Both, of course. It is hard to admit or even comprehend how we were all, even the anti-trump “libs”, on some level captivated by the show and the drama.
At times laughing at him, tragic and bittersweet, as we suffer from his brutal senseless acts and incompetence, we still felt some strange enjoyment in being appalled. Ultimately, that was never anything we could accept or live with.
If only he had been even more incompetent, perhaps his buffoonery would have been harmless enough and we could have somehow tried to just go about our lives without thought of politics. But that was never the case.
Anger and Rage belie the criminality that is at the core
It was, in the end and still today, the anger, as Bob Woodward put it, the “Rage” beneath it all that made it so dangerous, so intolerable that a culture war had to happen to oust this comical criminal.
Meanwhile, 70 million are still falling for his childish nonsense conspiracy theories and his mirroring and projection of all his own negative traits. He tried, in plain sight to “rig the vote” even as he screamed constantly that the Democrats were the ones doing exactly that (they weren’t).
Click here to see “The Truths We Hold” and help Independent Bookstores. Also available on Amazon.
This tired playbook – a man lies constantly and at the same time shouts that the actual truth is “fake news”, which sycophants like Kellyanne Conway explain away his obvious garbage with terms like “alternative facts”.
In the end, as his toxic anger grew, the 75-150 million that are not Trump followers had to rise up and do something, no matter how entertaining his schtick might be, at times.
The remaining 70 million, those that were mesmerized or star-stuck (really?) or just shallow and dim-witted, will also have to adjust to a political landscape without the magic-clown they so love and adore.
Loving him as anti-communist Vietnamese and Cuban immigrants accepted the nonsense idea that Biden and all Democrats are communist loving socialists and that only DJT could save them from a return to the horrors they escaped under actual communism. Never mind that he is an obvious Putin lover and exchanged lovely letters with a certain North Korean dictator.
Or buying into his boasts about the economy virtually none of which were based on fact (other than the massive tax cuts for huge corporations, that the majority of his followers would not benefit from). In virtually every case there is a superficial nonsense reason that these individuals expanded into a justification for blind allegiance and even hero worship.
It’s unlikely that many of those people will be open to rethinking their views anytime soon, unfortunately.
All twerking aside, there a deeper story here
First, the imminent victories for Biden-Harris in Georgia and Arizona, after the huge win in Pennsylvania have a huge message to the GOP and all wannabe racist-tyrants.
The demographics of America do not favor populist leaders like Trump and the shift away from racism and all that Trump stood for will inevitably accelerate across the USA in the coming years.
Both Georgia and Arizona were lost to the GOP due to a demographic voting shift, one that is unlikely to reverse course.
The future is now embedded in the minds of the young after they witnessed the horrors of Trump
Tiktok recently exhibited a shift away from being a lip-syncing dance and entertainment platform to becoming a showcase for the thoughts, intelligence and gifted viewpoints of the young and politically aware.
Click to see “A Promised Land” and help Independent Bookstores. Also available on Amazon.
While “Trump trolls” also posted plenty during this election season, it is the depth and quality of the discourse among the left or liberal leaning that is most impressive.
A generation of Americans, particularly those currently between the ages of 15-25 have come of age during a brutal, ugly time – the last 4 years, and many have come away with a new awareness of the real costs of political apathy.
And it is precisely the challenges that affect them most – like the possibility that the planet may not survive long enough for them to live out their lives, which inspires them to be vocal and active.
Apathy will not be an option in the future, or all is lost. The young see this most clearly of all, and are demonstrating, on platforms like TikTok and Twitter, how they are going to become a bigger factor in the future of our country. Amen to that, brother.
Subscribe to our newsletter for all the latest updates directly to your inBox.
Almost exactly four years ago to the day, on November 8th, 2016, Trump shocked America and the world by defeating Hillary Clinton. There was already a sense of foreboding among many, based on having witnessed Trump’s behavior during the campaign and throughout his public life before entering the political arena as a candidate.
The full extent of the danger and menace he would come to embody and represent was something that unfolded, nonstop, during the years he clutched onto power like a rabid dog.
Click here to see “The Truths We Hold” and help Independent Bookstores. Also available on Amazon.
Like traumatic witnesses to a heinous crime, many of us who have wished for the day he would be defeated are experiencing a mixture of relief, elation and post-traumatic-stress on the news that his (first) day of reckoning has finally arrived.
On the announcement that Joe Biden had won Pennsylvania and its 20 electoral votes, and would be the 46th President of the United States, jubilant celebrations broke out across the country.
Starting around noon on Saturday, November 7th, the various news outlets began to confirm that the threshold of 270 electoral votes required for victory had been surpassed by the Biden-Harris ticket.
Unbridled joy almost instantly swept across the land, at least among the nearly 75 million that voted blue, and likely among many of those some 70+ million that did not take the time, or were unable, to mark a ballot.
Unlike other political victory celebrations, this was not a “lesser of two evils” situation for any of those mentioned in the previous paragraph. Some of the internet memes, like the brilliant “America Endgame” video mash-up that mythologizes the election as an Avengers inspired clash between ultimate good and almost unspeakableevil.
The clip, for many, was an emotional and inspirational confirmation of what they had been feeling for fourteen-hundred and fifty-nine days as a dark shadow of racist ignorance and hate cast a shadow across our lives.
Looking ahead: days to reflect, heal and rebuild
Next we must all begin to take the sudden feelings of empowerment and democratic vindication and apply that energy toward reclaiming and rebuilding all that the would-be tyrant had spend 4 years undermining and trying to destroy.
No small task, no easy road, but, nevertheless, a chance to learn from this close encounter with a near-collapse of our system and what it has meant throughout the best moments of our history.
The damage wrought by the 1,459 days of terror-tweets, and more dangerously, the behind-the-scenes dismantling of the skeleton that holds our system upright, can finally begin to be reconstructed and reclaimed.
Symbolically, the ending of our participation in the Paris Climate Accords, which ended, literally, hours before Trump’s loss was announced, marks the end of an era of destruction, and the beginning of one pointing firmly toward a possible future of survival and repair. Biden has pledged to re-join the accords as his first act as President.
And now for the 70 million + souls that, who, out of a susceptibility to propaganda and the spell of a fascist cult of personality, voted for Trump, the avalanche of lies will go silent (other than from the sycophants that remain in positions of power). Next, the country and media can, hopefully, allow real facts and information (remember those?) to flow again and reclaim at least some minds where possible.
Sadly after more than 4 years of hard-line indoctrination, only individuals under a certain age or who were only partially damaged, will be receptive to any kind of a return to a more civil national discourse.
These are all thoughts for a later date, but for now a well deserved moment of relief and celebration, and thank our stars for the 75 million of us that rose up and made it possible for the chance of a better future to emerge.
Subscribe to our newsletter for all the latest updates directly to your inBox.
One of the most shocking elements we witnessed during the dawning hours of the post-Trump era is how quickly the media is pouncing on the opportunity to restore truth and sanity, pivoting to reporting and observing what lies ahead.
Click here to see “The Truths We Hold” and help Independent Bookstores. Also available on Amazon.
How disorienting it is to see reporters and opinion pundits speaking openly about the Trump induced horrors of the recent past, while simultaneously looking ahead to what the possibilities are, now that the constant terror-tweeting and chaos mongering has finally come to an end.
Seeing Joe Biden speak, uninterrupted by a raving madman, attacking his son and spouting made-up accusations is also a shocking experience. Many are likely seeing this for the first time.
And no “gaffs”, no stuttering just an eloquent “normal” victory speech, with special attention paid to the need to rise above the chaos of his predecessor.
After 4 years of Trump, amid massive and very real global threats, the path toward healing is not a simple one
Problems? Of course, possibly bigger and more than ever before – extinction-level threats from the climate crisis (not a hoax) amid a world-wide raging pandemic (also not a hoax) and, oh yes, the precarious financial recovery, all of these and more are looming and will not be easily or quickly solved, even without the madman-in chief harping in the wings.
But the strange custom of expecting attack-tweets and vile statements and actions round-the-clock, like some kind of cannibalistic-ritual murder-sacrifice of the ideals and norms of decent behavior, are GONE.
Trump can tweet but nothing he can say will be of any importance. The yanking off the air that took place on November 6th, as Trump was speaking in a prearranged press conference, while he veered deeper and deeper into irrelevant lies and insanity will be seen by history as the final moment of any mandatory coverage by the media.
The End is Neigh, but 73 Days of Trump’s antics remain
We may still see a Nixonian-peace-sign-wave goodbye-in-disgrace moment sometime before January 20th, and Trump may prove to be his own soothsayer and prognosticator, and “leave the country” sneaking away on his private jet to a country with a non-extradition treaty (my bet is Russia). However, it is already time that we must all live without his madness, and without using him to blame for all that’s wrong with our world.
Click to see “A Promised Land” and help Independent Bookstores. Also available on Amazon.
As the feeling of relief recedes, the work on the first draft of history regarding the Trump era will begin. And, thankfully, it is taking the form, in these first fragile and dawning hours, of an immediate purge of the madness and the lies, finally without endless pushback from the liar and his minions. The propaganda machine has lost its all pervasive influence, at least for now.
Indeed, it was Fox News that famously projected Arizona as a win for Biden before nearly any other news outlet – rendering the madman furious and beside himself, and that fact is a harbinger of the enormous and necessary shift away from the psychotic empire of hate, and toward something at least slightly less toxic.
All the sycophants and hangers-on must look for other ways to get on. All the horrible useless “aids” and “advisors” that were only window-dressing for the plundering and inept “management” of a his self-serving agendas will soon be gone.
“Lies on a Loop” will recede but the truth takes time
Click to see “Humans” and help Independent Bookstores. Also available on Amazon.
The post-mortem and dismantling of this massive historical mistake will be continuing round the clock for a very long time.
But let it come and let it flow. Stand up and Stand fast – let the voices that had once been drowned out by the sick-twisted machine-gun barrage of lies ring out loud and clear.
This is not only a time for us to repudiate the errors and intentional misrepresentations but , once and for all, to banish all the dangerous nonsense to the dustbin of history.
Windmills do not cause cancer, they do not kill millions of birds. Oil and coal are not the elements that will save mankind. The coronavirus, the climate crisis and his impeachment were not, and are not, hoaxes. Nobody who opposed him was ever “a terrible person” for doing so.
In an interview on the evening of November 8th, 2016, a famous political pundit was asked “after the results of tonight’s election are known, where do you predict Trump will end up?”. Without hesitation, the pundit calmly and confidently answered: “In the dustbin of history, where he belongs, of course”.
In the end he was absolutely correct, it only took 1459 days longer than he predicted.
Subscribe to our newsletter for all the latest updates directly to your inBox.
Apple will expose the worst of predatory surveillance by Facebook, Amazon and Google with new privacy features
While wrong is wrong regardless of the perpetrator, when it comes to gargantuan tech behemoths, a company with a clearly defined mission such as Apple or Tesla are in a different category than Amazon, Facebook and Google.
While Tesla’s stated mission is to “accelerate the world’s transition to sustainable energy” and Apple’s original mission statement, written by Steve Jobs was “to make a contribution to the world by making tools for the mind that advance humankind”, predatory vultures hide behind ridiculous slogans like “aim to be Earth’s most customer centric company” (while decimating partners and competitors by any means necessary) and “don’t be evil” (don’t get caught) and “to give people the power to build community and bring the world closer together” (…all while stealing data for profit from every person on earth).
Click to See “Steve Jobs“ and to help Lynxotic and Independent Bookstores. Also Available on Amazon.
It’s just not the same – particularly as Steve Jobs, while at Apple, pushed himself and his company to invent and build many powerful examples of “tools for the mind” and Elon Musk’s Tesla brought the electric car back from the dead (after it was nearly snuffed out by big oil) and is making incredible headway in revolutionizing battery and solar technology, all with a view to literally save the planet from a climate catastrophe.
Bezos? Became the richest living human via the destruction of millions of small business and jobs all while undercutting competitors by selling virtually anything he got his hands on at a significant loss; simply to cause the demise of any competitor or partner that might threaten his rise to idiotically massive personal wealth.
Zuckerberg? Pioneered ways to suck data from virtually every human with a view to monetizing every living soul exclusively for himself and his company. Illustration? Dividing Facebook’s market cap by the number of employees it has yields the sum of $14,906,500.00 per employee. Macy’s? That’d be $16,829. (Thanks to Scott Galloway for the numbers)
Google merely owns (91.75% as of June 2020) the search entryway to all web sites. It decides if you should or should not find them. If it can boost profits by hiding one and featuring another, either through “paid search” or by pointing you toward its own properties while hiding competitors from you, it will do exactly that. Ask the European Union’s anti-trust investigators. For them, this company is a convicted law breaker.
Announced at WWDC 2020, Apple is adding serious features to its various new operating systems. One big feature in Safari is the ability to track, and block as desired, all manner of data intrusions. These are not only identified, but shown and tracked and analyzed with a kind of professional dashboard, showing just how invasive and persistent these invisible spies are.
Apple is big, with more than 1.4 billion devices. Starting in around 2021 they will all be able to identify and block data surveillance by Amazon (the largest of all spies), Google and Facebook, among others. Thanks that’s not a big deal? Think again.
…the overall stance being taken regarding online tracking and surveillance should be seen for what it is: the first step to correcting the mistake of history that allowed the internet to be kidnapped and held hostage by a handful of companies that pretend to be “free” or “customer obsessed” while they are, in fact, Robber Barons that make the Standard Oil monopoly look like Santa Claus.
– D.L.
Tracking the Trackers will Change Your Life
Tracking the trackers is a clear and aggressive privacy stance, taken by the one company among the big four, that does not have a huge stake in you being the victim of online surveillance and tracking.
Not to say that Apple is blameless. Many are complaining about its fee structure for software sold by third parties via the app stores. While this issue is certainly a valid one, the overall stance being taken regarding online tracking and surveillance should be seen for what it is: the first step to correcting the mistake of history that allowed the internet to be kidnapped and held hostage by a handful of companies that pretend to be “free” or “customer obsessed” while they are, in fact, Robber Barons that make the Standard Oil monopoly look like Santa Claus.
Subscribe to our newsletter for all the latest updates directly to your inBox.
Humans never seem to learn – but starting today our Phones do: Big-time
Seems like every year, and sometimes twice a year, we all go through the same song and dance. Apple -oriented publications and media tout all the “leaks” and how they predict that Apple will have a “lackluster” announcement based on those leaks.
Then reality hits and the leaks, while technically more or less correct, turn out to be meaningless or worse. The idea of “only” incremental improvements is blown away by an expanding and deepening ecosystem, so dominant and advanced, in and of itself, that the real world goes Gaga and Apple has yet another world-changing hit on its hands.
The iPhone 12, the HomePod mini and even the MagSafe system are each going to smash expectations and, ultimately, change the world we live in.
The innovative new MagSafe system enables seamless, high-powered wireless charging and easy-to-attach accessories. Photo / Apple
That’s a Strong Statement, Dude, what R you? A Fanboy?
Well, if we were looking at what’s been going on, particularly during the last several years, you would have noticed that the “incremental” improvements that so much of the media has been whining about are actually all part of a huge shift into areas, heretofore unimaginable, and all powered by an ecosystem that is unrivaled and unparalleled in any industry.
Apple has developed and advanced all its products and innovations using Hardware design, Software, machine learning and AI, as well as hardware and silicon development; and that has started the process of replacing and becoming the sequel to Moore’s Law – on a whole new level.
Computational Photography is Today’s biggest buzzword (not counting 5G)
5G and the 5G roll-out are the real secret to why all the nay-sayers are wrong. Apple does not need to adapt to the issues and problems of moving technology forward. Technology will move forward and adapt to Apple. That is the true legacy of Steve Jobs, and hallelujah!
Although there were many photography related bombshells in the presentation today – such as the 5x optical zoom rage / capability (iPhone 12 Pro Max) and the more powerful, larger sensors on the iPhone 12 Pro, it’s the payoff on the machine learning, and software based enhancements to the visual results and the shooting experience that is mind-bogglingly advanced and has only just begun.
Apple does not need to adapt to the issues and problems of moving technology forward. Technology will move forward and adapt to Apple. That is the true legacy of Steve Jobs, and hallelujah!
– D.L.
Without going into a list of the improvements and features related to Computation Photography upgrades (we will cover that in a series of articles and videos in the coming days, weeks and months) the ways that both the experience and results of shooting with an iPhone are improving is vast.
iPhone 12 Pro Max
Screen: 6.7-inch Retina display
Resolution: 2778 x 1284 at 458 ppi (pixel per inch)
Processor: Apple A14 Bionic
Rear camera: 12-megapixel wide camera with f/1.6 aperture + 12-megapixel ultra-wide camera with f/2.4 aperture (120-degrees field of view and Sensor-shift optical image stabilization) + 12-megapixel telephoto camera with f/2.2 aperture +LiDAR scanner for depth mapping
Optical zoom: 2.5x optical zoom in, 2x optical zoom out (5x optical zoom range)
Front camera: 12-megapixel with f/2.2
Internal storage: 128GB/256GB/512GB
In the box: No earpods and charging brick; Lightning to USB-C cable included
Software: iOS 14
Starting price: $1099
The iPhone 12 and the iPhone 12 Pro will be available in the US from October 23. The iPhone 12 mini and the iPhone 12 Pro Max will be available in the US from November 13.
And the sub-head should be: “wow” because the iPhone 12, just as was the case with the iPhone 11, will be further refining and improving these capabilities 24/7 while we sleep. The importance of this can not be overestimated. Your iPhone will take better photos and perform better with, not only, “incremental” software improvements that you will download throughout the year, but also with “invisible” upgrades that will happen 24/7 slowly but surely as a result of AI and machine learning, well, learning.
I believe that this incredible fact is actually downplayed by Apple because they are worried that the general public might actually fear the power, based on some kind of Terminator-like dystopian scenario, thinking that the iPhone is a potentially dangerous pseudo-living being. The power is real. The fear is unfounded. Enjoy the upgraded experiences and performance now, and watch if improve day by day, week by week and move us all into a more beautiful future, at least for photos and screens and, oh yes, SPEED.
The problem of slow and expensive broadband access in the USA is not a technological one. The US lags behind due to the pseudo-geographical monopolies held by various ISPs and the ability they have enjoyed to be able to gouge customers with high priced bad service. Lack of competition often results in slow progress or no progress.
That is all about to change. You don’t need to have a technician to analyze the various 5G systems, or compare carriers chances of “winning” to realize that the very fact that speeds and options are increasing exponentially is going to re-write the map when it comes to who controls the cash-cow subscription gravy train. That system is about to collapse.
In steps Elon, and his little copy-cat-side-kick Jeffy Bezos, and now the landscape is about to become unrecognizable
First, 5G speeds rival or exceed the former fixed / desktop speeds which had commanded a premium for the geographically entrenched providers. 5G home systems will also be available in many areas that will be competitive in speed, price and convenience.
SpaceX’s Starlink is a serious project; with nearly 1000 satellites already in orbit out of an eventual 12,000 and launches continuing almost weekly with 60 each time. This ambitious plan will eventually completely encircle the earth with interconnected satellites that will link through intermediary “ground stations” with up to 1 million planned for USA alone. Each ground station is just under 19 inches (.48 m) across.
“It looks like a UFO on a stick,” according to SpaceX CEO Elon Musk “It’s very important that you don’t need a specialist to install. The goal is for … just two instructions and they can be done in either order: Point at sky, plug in.”
Satellite Broadband, such as SpaceX’s Starlink will not only add ubiquitous 100mbps and higher, low latency coverage, it will also cover the same areas with high population density, major cities, where both current systems and 5G are also focusing.
Exact pricing is as yet unknown but it is extremely likely that there will be a high pitched battle over customers once the various systems go into the next phase of the rollout. And all of this is not factoring in additional players in 5G and satellite systems.
Longer term (2 years +) there will be major world-wide implications of this shift toward more and faster options in internet connectivity
The first shift, primarily driven by the geographical independence of satellite broadband such as Starlink, will be a decentralization of populations at massive scale. While we are looking at a world where, due to the current pandemic countermeasures, WFH a.k.a. work-from-home is becoming more than a temporary factor. As many as 20 major companies such as Google and Microsoft have announced extended or permanent work-from-home policies as of October 2020.
There are already plenty of very serious discussions about what will be done with all the skyscrapers and office buildings once there are no workers to fill the offices. This is not idle chit-chat. A migration has already begun away from the insanely overpriced rents and home prices in places like Silicon Valley, to take advantage of the work-from-home-anywhere approach.
Extrapolate based on increased speed and availability of connectivity to millions of locations not currently viable, each of which soon to have internet at minimum speeds rivaling the current world champion Liechtenstein (see above), and you will recognize the beginnings of an exodus of epic proportions.
Just in time, unfortunately, for an economic upheaval due to the aftermath of the still-ongoing global pandemic and, of yes, the issues of accelerated global warming, which will, coincidentally, affect costal “elite” cities like Miami, SanFrancisco, New York and others around the world to a disproportionally large degree.
“The reality is that a technological utopian vision, one where the world is able to shift to sustainable energy and regenerative farming, and create economies based on prosperous and equal distribution of the wealth generated by those systems, [along with AI and robot technology powered by sustainable clean energy], can only be realized by an acceleration of learning and positive social change. “
-DL
These changes, to be clear, are not all “bad” nor are they all the cause of negative side-effects such as the current covid-19 outbreak.
The reality is that a technological utopian vision, one where the world is able to shift to sustainable energy and regenerative farming, and create economies based on prosperous and equal distribution of the wealth generated by those systems, [along with AI androbot technology, powered by sustainable clean energy), can only be realized by an acceleration of learning and positive social change.
Change is urgently needed to build out the human networked communication system that will enable the learning and cooperation which is the only hope for the survival of our species. 5G, the iPhone 12 and SpaceX’s Starlink Satellite Broadband are going to be huge factors, in making the first baby-steps toward that change, possible..
Most articles on 5G since the Apple iPhone 12 launch event on October 13th have been looking in the rearview mirror to predict the future: 5G will “disappoint” due to the slow buildout, technical limitations of the format, and various issues with all the competing systems and carriers, and these arguments are casting doubt on the much touted potential.
This perspective misses the point on so many levels it’s difficult to know where to begin to unpack the myriad of misunderstandings.
Much of the technical discussion has been focused on the various flavors of 5G and the associated limitations and advantages of each. The fact that the fastest 5G, which goes by the sub-category moniker millimeter wave, is not instantly available everywhere for the 5G capable iPhones, and that they will not be in the hands of most consumers before next year, has been met with feigned shock and bewilderment.
And further, they highlight the confusion mounting over the various providers and the various flavors: 5G, 5G E, 5G UW or 5G+ as they are designated by “service indicators” on the iPhone 12 itself. Verizon Communications Inc., T-Mobile US Inc. and AT&T Inc. each have their own systems they have developed and are building out – looking for a piece of the 5G market, expected to be around $1.15 trillion by 2025.
First and foremost – since Apple and iPhone are the leader of all innovations in the marketplace – not necessarily by the sheer number of handsets sold, but by the focus on increasing technical and aesthetic quality and appealing to the top demographic, not to mention the majority of early adopters, it is precisely the fact that, until now, the iPhone 5G handset did not yet exist, and for that reason the buildout is not further along.
The fact that in real-world tests it is already performing at up to 7 times the fastest previously available connections, was coupled inevitably with the caveat; physical locations where these speeds can be accomplished are currently hard to find.
Due to the technical issues with this ultra-high speed version of 5G, the inability to travel more than very short distances and the lack of ability to penetrate obstacles or walls, the possibility to get these amazing speeds are, at present, more likely to be found in outdoor locations.
This is, admittedly, an odd conundrum, but you can be sure, with the upcoming massive increase in competition for ISP customers, it is one that will find at least some viable solutions very soon. There are many billions at stake for those that can find ways to improve this issue.
“Standing in front of a camera store in South of Market, I got 5G speeds reaching 2,160 megabits a second, which was 2,900 percent faster than 4G. Even where it was a tad slower — behind the Safeway parking lot in the Marina district — the 5G iPhone drew speeds of 668 megabits a second, which was 1,052 percent faster than 4G.”
– Brian X. Chen for the New York Times
The carriers have not had the market to build for and needed to be pushed by a huge influx of iPhone 12 owners. Then, meaning now, they will begin to compete with one another for that extremely lucrative group of users. And that rising competitive battle is not the only one looming on the horizon.
Regardless of the ultimate time frame of the build-out, there is an obvious and very meaningful conclusion that we can reach here: 1 year from now things will look very different in the options available for those who want to work and play with the help of a faster internet connection (meaning, obviously, everybody).
As can be seen from the chart above (source: fastmetrics) in early 2020 the US ranked 13th in desktop download speed while mobile speeds ranked even worse coming in at #33 (various sources have US at #10 for fixed broadband). Liechtenstein is nearly 4x faster, on average, than the US. Also note that the highest average is one-tenth to one-twentieth of the eventual “ideal conditions” speeds of 5G.
The future of connectivity can only get better and faster from here. And with the power of Apple, the iPhone 12 and that huge affluent user base the improvements will begin soon and quickly accelerate to a fever-pitch by next year’s iPhone launch. (Will they call it the iPhone 13?)..
The Confusion around 5G goes far beyond the political-nonsense conspiracy theories
Most articles on 5G since the Apple iPhone 12 launch event on October 13th have been looking in the rearview mirror to predict the future: 5G will “disappoint” due to the slow buildout, technical limitations of the format, and various issues with all the competing systems and carriers, and these arguments are casting doubt on the much touted potential.
This perspective misses the point on so many levels, it’s difficult to know where to begin to unpack the myriad of misunderstandings.
Much of the technical discussion has been focused on the various flavors of 5G and the associated limitations and advantages of each. The fact that the fastest 5G, which goes by the sub-category moniker millimeter wave, is not instantly available everywhere for the 5G capable iPhones, and that they will not be in the hands of most consumers before next year, has been met with feigned shock and bewilderment.
And further, many highlight the confusion mounting over the various providers and the various flavors: 5G, 5G E, 5G UW or 5G+ as they are designated by “service indicators” on the iPhone 12 itself. Verizon Communications Inc., T-Mobile US Inc. and AT&T Inc. each have their own systems they have developed and are building out – looking for a piece of the 5G market, expected to be around $1.15 trillion by 2025.
First and foremost – since Apple and iPhone are the leader of all innovations in the marketplace – not necessarily by the sheer number of handsets sold, but by the focus on increasing technical and aesthetic quality, and appealing to the top demographic, not to mention the majority of early adopters, it is precisely the fact that, until now, the iPhone 5G handset did not yet exist, that the buildout is not further along.
The fact that, in real-world tests, it is already performing at up to 7 times the fastest previously available connections, was coupled inevitably with the caveat; physical locations where these speeds can be accomplished are currently hard to find.
Due to the technical issues with this ultra-high speed version of 5G; the inability to travel more than very short distances and the lack of ability to penetrate obstacles or walls, the possibility to get these amazing speeds are, at present, more likely to be found at outdoor locations.
This is, admittedly, an odd conundrum, but you can be sure, with the upcoming massive increase in competition for ISP customers, it is one that will find at least some viable solutions very soon. There are many billions at stake for those that can find ways to improve this issue.
“Standing in front of a camera store in South of Market, I got 5G speeds reaching 2,160 megabits a second, which was 2,900 percent faster than 4G. Even where it was a tad slower — behind the Safeway parking lot in the Marina district — the 5G iPhone drew speeds of 668 megabits a second, which was 1,052 percent faster than 4G.”
– Brian X. Chen for the New York Times
The carriers have not had the market to build for, and needed to be pushed by a huge influx of iPhone 12 owners. Then, meaning now, they will begin to compete with one another for that extremely lucrative group of users. That rising competitive battle is not the only one looming on the horizon.
Regardless of the ultimate time frame of the build-out, there is an obvious and very meaningful conclusion that we can reach here: 1 year from now things will look very different in the options available for those who want to work and play with the help of a faster internet connection (meaning, obviously, everybody).
As can be seen from the chart above in early 2020 the US ranked 13th in desktop download speed while mobile speeds ranked even worse coming in at #33 (various sources have US at #10 for fixed broadband). Liechtenstein is nearly 4x faster, on average, than the US. Also note that the highest average is one-tenth to one-twentieth of the eventual “ideal conditions” speeds of 5G.
Failure of the US Broadband infrastructure and the coming shake-up in the ISP system grid-lock
The problem is not a technological one. The US lags behind due to the pseudo-geographical monopolies held by various ISPs and the ability they have enjoyed to be able to gouge customers with high priced, bad service. Lack of competition often results in slow progress, or no progress.
That is all about to change. You don’t need to have a technician to analyze the various 5G systems, or compare carriers chances of “winning” to realize that the very fact that speeds and options are increasing exponentially is going to re-write the map when it comes to who controls the cash-cow subscription gravy train. That system is about to collapse.
In steps Elon, and his little copy-cat-side-kick Jeffy Bezos, and the landscape is about to become unrecognizable
First, 5G speeds rival or exceed the former fixed / desktop speeds which had commanded a premium for the geographically entrenched providers. 5G home systems will be available in many areas that will be competitive in speed, price and convenience.
SpaceX’s Starlink, with nearly 1,000 satellites already in orbit out of an eventual 12,000, with launches continuing almost weekly with 60 in each launch, is a serious project. This ambitious plan will eventually encircle the Earth completely with interconnected satellites that will link through intermediary “ground stations” with up to 1 million planned for USA alone. Each ground station is just under 19 inches (.48 m) across.
“It looks like a UFO on a stick,” according to SpaceX CEO Elon Musk “It’s very important that you don’t need a specialist to install. The goal is for … just two instructions and they can be done in either order: Point at sky, plug in.”
Satellite Broadband, such as SpaceX’s Starlink will not only add ubiquitous 100mbps and higher, low latency coverage, it will also cover the same areas with high population density, major cities, where both current systems and 5G are also focusing.
Exact pricing is as yet unknown, but it is very likely that there will be a high-pitched battle over customers, once the various systems go into the next phase of the rollout. And all of this is not factoring in additional players in 5G and satellite systems.
Longer term (2 years +) there will be major world-wide implications of this shift, toward more and faster options in internet connectivity
The first shift, primarily driven by the geographical independence of satellite broadband, such as Starlink, will be a decentralization of populations at massive scale. While we are looking at a world where, due to the current pandemic countermeasures, WFH a.k.a. work from home is becoming more than a temporary factor. As many as 20 major companies such as Google and Microsoft have announced extended or permanent work-from-home policies as of October 2020.
There are plenty of very serious discussions about what will be done with all the skyscrapers and office buildings once there are no workers to fill the offices. This is not idle chit-chat. A migration has already begun away from the insanely overpriced rents and home prices to take advantage of the work-from-home-anywhere approach.
Extrapolate, based on increased speed and availability of connectivity to millions of locations not currently viable, will soon have internet at minimum speeds rivaling the current world champion Liechtenstein (see above), and you see the beginnings of an exodus of epic proportions. Just in time for economic upheaval, due to the aftermath of the still ongoing global pandemic, and yes, the issues of accelerated global warming, which will, coincidentally, affect costal “elite” cities like Miami, San Francisco, New York and others around the world to a disproportionally large degree.
“The reality is that a technological utopian vision, one where the world is able to shift to sustainable energy and regenerative farming, and create economies based on prosperous and equal distribution of the wealth generated by those systems (along with AI plus robot technology (powered by sustainable clean energy), can only be realized by an acceleration of learning and positive social change. “
-DL
These changes, to be clear, are not all “bad” nor are they all the cause of negative side-effects such as the current covid-19 outbreak.
The reality is that a technological utopian vision, one where the world is able to shift to sustainable energy and regenerative farming, and create economies based on prosperous and equal distribution of the wealth generated by those systems, (along with AI, robot technology powered by sustainable clean energy), can only be realized by an acceleration of learning and positive social change.
Change is urgently needed to build out the human networked-communication-system that will enable the learning and cooperation which is the only hope for the survival of our species. 5G, the iPhone 12 and SpaceX’s Starlink Satellite Broadband are going to be huge factors, in making the first baby-steps toward that change, possible.
Snowden may indeed receive a pardon and shortly after a bunk-mate in the form of the same soon-to-be ex-President
Trump says so many crazy things on any given day, it is easy to let any one particular thing just float on by and get ready for whatever the next outrageous or just wacko thing that comes out of his mouth.
Ascribing some kind of motivation is often a fools errand of second convolution logic that leads to a parlor game of either elevating this mental-midget to a “very stable genius” or trying to follow clues as to his source for the “idea” (like what was aired on Fox News in the 12 hours prior to his tweet or crazy proclamation).
The idea he came up with of leaving the country, after he loses to “the worst candidate in the history of politics”, is not one of those run-of-the-mill , dime-a-dozen utterances. No. It is a very real concern that appears to be weighing heavily on his mind, and that he feels the need to discuss with thousands of his closest friends (the audiences at his super-spreader rallies).
If there is a genius to Trump, it is his ability to go so far beyond the pale that even those that know his predilection for bizarre suggestions and actions have not followed his twisted logic quite as far as he is about to take it.
Floating the idea of a Pardon for Snowden was Clue #1
The backward inverted idea of a pardon initiated by Trump for someone he once called a “traitor” is pure, simple Trump-ian thought at it’s most absurd. All Snowden needed to do to become Trump’s new friend was to hang out for a while with Trump’s other friend; Putin. So, as is so often the case with the most obtuse and simultaneously transparent maniac, one only has to connect the dots to reach a simple rock-solid conclusion: Trump is shopping for a post-election-loss safe-haven and joining Snowden in Moscow is his very first choice.
Now, never mind that Snowden is not a Trump supporter or sycophant, his proximity alone, to Putin, in Trump’s bent mind, makes him an ally of sorts. And if pushed, I am certain Trump would somehow use this thought process to link Wikileaks, which he “loves” when they leak Democratic dirt, and Assange, though strange bedfellows don’t begin to cover that trio of compatriots.
The phrase: “Banana republic” comes to mind
This prediction, written on this very parchment at 21:21 on October 21, 2020, is herby put forth – however, in fairness, it is actually at least 3 predictions.
First, that Trump will lose Bigly on or around November 3rd. Second, that he will opt for plan c, after his wannabe civil warriors fail to show up for any dubious would-be battles, and leave the USA forthwith. Third that he is already entertaining offers but has Moscow very high on his list, since the shit-hole countries, that he bad-mouthed on the way up the ladder of infamy, do not have an interest in harboring him.
Subscribe to our newsletter for all the latest updates directly to your inBox.
Humans never seem to learn – but starting today our Phones do: Big-time
Seems like every year, and sometimes twice a year, we all go through the same song and dance. Apple -oriented publications and media tout all the “leaks” and how they predict that Apple will have a “lackluster” announcement based on those leaks.
Then reality hits and the leaks, while technically more or less correct, turn out to be meaningless or worse. The idea of “only” incremental improvements is blown away by an expanding and deepening ecosystem, so dominant and advanced, in and of itself, that the real world goes Gaga and Apple has yet another world-changing hit on its hands.
The iPhone 12, the HomePod mini and even the MagSafe system are each going to smash expectations and, ultimately, change the world we live in.
The innovative new MagSafe system enables seamless, high-powered wireless charging and easy-to-attach accessories. Photo / Apple
That’s a Strong Statement, Dude, what R you? A Fanboy?
Well, if we were looking at what’s been going on, particularly during the last several years, you would have noticed that the “incremental” improvements that so much of the media has been whining about are actually all part of a huge shift into areas, heretofore unimaginable, and all powered by an ecosystem that is unrivaled and unparalleled in any industry.
Apple has developed and advanced all its products and innovations using Hardware design, Software, machine learning and AI, as well as hardware and silicon development; and that has started the process of replacing and becoming the sequel to Moore’s Law – on a whole new level.
Computational Photography is Today’s biggest buzzword (not counting 5G)
5G and the 5G roll-out are the real secret to why all the nay-sayers are wrong. Apple does not need to adapt to the issues and problems of moving technology forward. Technology will move forward and adapt to Apple. That is the true legacy of Steve Jobs, and hallelujah!
Although there were many photography related bombshells in the presentation today – such as the 5x optical zoom rage / capability (iPhone 12 Pro Max) and the more powerful, larger sensors on the iPhone 12 Pro, it’s the payoff on the machine learning, and software based enhancements to the visual results and the shooting experience that is mind-bogglingly advanced and has only just begun.
Apple does not need to adapt to the issues and problems of moving technology forward. Technology will move forward and adapt to Apple. That is the true legacy of Steve Jobs, and hallelujah!
– D.L.
Without going into a list of the improvements and features related to Computation Photography upgrades (we will cover that in a series of articles and videos in the coming days, weeks and months) the ways that both the experience and results of shooting with an iPhone are improving is vast.
iPhone 12 Pro Max
Screen: 6.7-inch Retina display
Resolution: 2778 x 1284 at 458 ppi (pixel per inch)
Processor: Apple A14 Bionic
Rear camera: 12-megapixel wide camera with f/1.6 aperture + 12-megapixel ultra-wide camera with f/2.4 aperture (120-degrees field of view and Sensor-shift optical image stabilization) + 12-megapixel telephoto camera with f/2.2 aperture +LiDAR scanner for depth mapping
Optical zoom: 2.5x optical zoom in, 2x optical zoom out (5x optical zoom range)
Front camera: 12-megapixel with f/2.2
Internal storage: 128GB/256GB/512GB
In the box: No earpods and charging brick; Lightning to USB-C cable included
Software: iOS 14
Starting price: $1099
The iPhone 12 and the iPhone 12 Pro will be available in the US from October 23. The iPhone 12 mini and the iPhone 12 Pro Max will be available in the US from November 13.
And the sub-head should be: “wow” because the iPhone 12, just as was the case with the iPhone 11, will be further refining and improving these capabilities 24/7 while we sleep. The importance of this can not be overestimated. Your iPhone will take better photos and perform better with, not only, “incremental” software improvements that you will download throughout the year, but also with “invisible” upgrades that will happen 24/7 slowly but surely as a result of AI and machine learning, well, learning.
I believe that this incredible fact is actually downplayed by Apple because they are worried that the general public might actually fear the power, based on some kind of Terminator-like dystopian scenario, thinking that the iPhone is a potentially dangerous pseudo-living being. The power is real. The fear is unfounded. Enjoy the upgraded experiences and performance now, and watch if improve day by day, week by week and move us all into a more beautiful future, at least for photos and screens and, oh yes, SPEED.
As you might be aware, a new documentary is on the top ten most watched list on Netflix and is getting a lot of attention. The Social Dilemma is a well made documentary, directed by Jeff Orlowski, that aims to reveal the problems, very very big problems that have arisen, mainly in the past decade in the way social media and internet platforms generally, are operating and prospering.
While that may sound harmless at first blush, it’s the sheer scale; trillions of dollars, and the lack of any product or service, other than to advertisers, that begs the question: at what expense to humanity?
This is a big, important subject and is one that is extremely difficult to cram into an “entertaining” documentary. Here, an attempt is made to tackle that difficulty in two main ways.
First there are many on-camera interviews with almost exclusively former and current Silicon Valley insiders, many of whom where partially responsible for the very systems and methods that are being called into question here, and second, the two inter-twined semi-fictional dramatic elements, clearly meant to help viewers that may lose interest in discussions of algorithms, machine learning and corrupt business models.
Choosing insiders is not an oversight but by design
The choice of such a long list of high level tech insiders as interviewees is important and meaningful. The very fact that people, most of whom profited and made careers out of building these systems and platforms, are willing, now, to passionately speak out about them, and agree that they are horrific mistakes that have the potential to destroy not just people’s lives but humanity and the planet itself, speaks volumes.
While there are many other scholars, journalists and witnesses that could, and should, have their ideas and opinions heard, it is the extreme fact that insiders are willing to address these problems so candidly and so passionately, that helps this to be a mind-blowing and impossible to ignore documentary film.
Companies like Google and Facebook are some of the wealthiest and most successful of all time. They have relatively few employees. They just have this giant computer that rakes in money, right? Now, what are they being paid for? That’s a really important question.
-Jaron Lanier, founding father of virtual reality, computer scientist
The film must be seen, and the information absorbed, to understand the true importance, but, in a nut-shell, what is becoming more obvious by the minute is that the combination of massive power based on worldwide near-monopoly status, and a business model that has no contribution to make or product to sell, has allowed these platforms to amass trillion dollar fortunes in a lethal mix that must be stopped at all costs.
”The first fifty years of Silicon Valley the industry made products, hardware, software, sold them to customers, nice, simple business. For the last ten years the biggest companies in Silicon Valley have been in the business of selling their users”.
-Roger McNamee, Early Facebook investor and Venture Capitalist
Critics fail to see the film’s urgency and instead nitpick it as an imperfect entertainment product
There are layers of irony in the fact that the weaknesses decried by many critical articles written about this film are the same ones that the film is pointing to, and a major force, one that propelled these online platforms to positions of virtually unlimited power in the first place: human weaknesses and short attention spans.
”The classic saying is: “if you’re not paying for the product, then, you are the product”
-Classic Silicon Valley truism
The interviews are powerful and the quotes and alternately chilling and illuminating. So much so that it is actually difficult to absorb all at once. Many reviewers chose to simplify this reality by boiling the many serious quotes down to “dystopian” cliché, as if the end of the world is a topic for a cartoon movie review. Others harped on the weakness of the acted-out semi-fictional stories as not being the optimum way to get the real data and facts across.
The two narrative threads portrayed by actors revolve around an imaginary semi-suburban mixed family and their interactions with technology platforms and social media and a fictional visualization of the “back end” of the software systems used by the giant platforms (Facebook, Google, etc).
This back end software is elevated to a “triple-android” character, portrayed by Vincent Kartheiser, of Madmen fame, as sort of automaton-triplets that embody the actions of the software, AI and the integrated instructions, presumably from Zuckerberg himself (or the equivalent at Google or other platforms. (character name is, revealingly, “AI”)
This is a new kind of marketplace now. It’s a marketplace that never existed before. And it’s a marketplace that trades exclusively in “human futures”. Just like there are markets that trade in pork belly futures or oil futures. We now have markets that trade in human futures at scale. And those markets have produced the trillions of dollars that have made the internet companies the richest companies in the history of humanity”
-Shoshanna Zuboff PhD., Harvard Business School Professor, emeritus and author of “The Age of Surveillance Capitalism”
While these filmic-devices are not ideal or particularly precise in showing the problems with the entire complex system, they are, nevertheless, a good choice to find a way for the statements of the interviewees to be dramatized. They can help people who are not technical analysts to viscerally grasp the deep and serious problems being discussed. Without these elements the film’s audience would be, almost certainly, far smaller. This fact was not appreciated by many reviewers, however.
”Many people call this ‘surveillance capitalism’. Capitalism profiting off of the infinite tracking of everywhere everyone goes, by large technology companies whose business model is to make sure that advertisers are as successful as possible”
-Tristan Harris, Google’s former design ethicist and co-founder of The Center for Humane Technology
One reviewer even mistook the fictional anthropomorphic portrayal of software algorithms and artificial intelligence, all three by the same actor, as a real “unnamed” social platform and that these characters were supposed to be employees of the “unnamed” platform!
All of this confusion is directly related and lies at the heart of the eponymous dilemma being addressed. If the interview subjects, many of whom have become extremely rich from their contributions, are terrified of the evil power of these systems and platforms, what can be done to stop them from getting even bigger and more powerful and eventually destroying us all?
What chance of understanding and solving the problem to the rest of us have?
”How much of your life can we get you to give to us? We often talked about, at Facebook, this idea, of being able to just “dial that” as needed. And we talked about, you know, Mark (Zuckerberg) have those dials… “let’s dial up the ads a little bit”, dial up the monetization, just slightly… At all these companies there’s that level of precision”
-Tim Kendall, Facebook / former director of monetization, Pinterest / former president, CEO / Moment
Such a question sounds almost like a joke to anyone who has not followed and investigated the rise of these behemoths and the “legal” and yet criminal behaviors they perpetrate on a global scale, amplified by computing and financial powers that would have been unimaginable even 2 decades ago.
Therein lies the rub.
The beginning of the end of malignant big tech structures or of us?
The only criticism that stands out to this reviewer is that the message of doom was portrayed as an open question with not much in the way of suggestions for solution, or ways forward other than “delete your social media accounts”.
”there are times when there is a national interest, there are times when the interests of people, of users, is actually more important than the profits of somebody who is already a billionaire”
-Roger McNamee, Early Facebook investor and Venture Capitalist
While that, in and of itself, is a start, the reality is that governments around the world, particularly in Europe and Australia have convicted the giants of criminal behavior on multiple occasions and there are many pending anti-trust actions, not to mention grass roots support for radical change to laws and regulations as a response to the truly destructive nature of these platforms.
“These markets undermine democracy and they undermine freedom and they should be outlawed. This is not a radical proposal. There are other markets that we outlaw. We outlaw markets in human organs. We outlaw markets in human slaves. Because they have inevitable destructive consequences.”
-Shoshanna Zuboff PhD., Harvard Business School Professor, emeritus and author of “The Age of Surveillance Capitalism”
In an odd way the truth of even the most hyperbolic statements is what makes it so hard to keep people engaged. If these platforms and, in particular the dangerous and destructive business models that they are allowed to operate under, are not replaced or at least broken up, this could represent an even larger threat to humanity than climate change or nuclear war, so where do we start to dismantle them?
”We could tax data collection and processing. The same way that you, for example, pay your water bill, by monitoring the amount of water that you use. You tax these companies on the data assets that they have. It gives them a fiscal reason to not acquire every piece of data on the planet.”
-Joe Toscano, Google / Former experience design consultant and author of “Automating Humanity”
This is where interviewing and asking some very distinguished people who were, in part, responsible for building these systems, falls apart. Why should they be expected to have a solution for a problem that they, admittedly, were a part of creating?
”What I see are a bunch of people who are trapped, by a business model, and economic incentive and shareholder pressure that makes it almost impossible to do something else.
-Tristan Harris, Google’s former design ethicist and co-founder of The Center for Humane Technology
The answer is, of course, that they should not be expected to be the ones with the solutions – though their support of finding solutions and tackling the problems is very valuable, indeed. This is why this film deserves not criticism as an imperfect entertainment vehicle, but rather support and recommendation, as an important beginning in recognizing the threat posed by these business models; to mental health, economic prosperity and political stability of all nations.
”Whether it is to be utopia or oblivion will be a touch-and-go relay race right up to the final moment…”
Along with watchOS7 it’s all new with 100s of features to learn
2020 has been one hellava year so far. The fires, political chaos, pandemic lockdowns, economic depressions are all still evolving. Finally, some better news. Over the last several months the stability of the beta versions of the new operating systems became far better. In order to stay ahead of the curve we tested some of the most interesting new features including these 5.
iOS 14 and iPad OS 14 will be available on September 16th to download on your iPhone and iPad. This is a major update and includes a lot of changes to your world.Now you will be able to add widgets to your home screen, find apps easier with the App Library and there are many new features in iMessage.
There are also, digging a little deeper, hidden gems like the Apple Translate App. in the video above we demonstrated an interesting difference between the Apple software and the well known Google Translate. This feature, called “Conversation Mode” foreshadows what we believe is going to be the hallmark of all Apple Software upgrades going forward: machine learning and built in AI for the OS and apps.
In conversation mode the voice recognition engine is able to recognize what language it is “hearing” and then translate into the other language, based on the selected pair, in this case English and German. It can also recognize slang and alternate vocabularies and even some dialects and accents, such as UK vs American English.
At first blush this may seem like it is too deep into the detailed function of the app to be significant, after all for the most part we just need to know what a phrase means in an alternate language. But, in typical spectacular fashion, this feature is an example of something you don’t realize you need until you have it – then you can’t imagine you ever lived without it. Ultimately a conversation could be translated “live” without having to stop each time to let the app know who is speaking which language – making the flow of the conversation remain intact while the app “just works”.
Also in typical Apple fashion, it will probably take an iPhone 12 Pro, a 5G connection and a few months of machine learning to make that scenario a reality, but it would be an interesting experience nonetheless, when it is finally a reality.
Apple News goes Audio: Built in articles out loud
Apple News + might get a boost with the new Apple One bundle, also revealed in the Apple September 2020 keynote event. Those who opt for “Premier” will get Apple News+ access bundled in. Even without the News+ upgrade all users get access to audio stories released periodically “Apple News Today”, somewhat like a teaser sample pack to let you try out with your AirPods and see if the additional audio, including sync with text version and Apple Car Play might entice you to become a News+ subscriber ($5 per month without the bundle).
Privacy features delayed due to Facebook being terrified but coming soon
Although delayed, these features are some of the most important in the new OS versions. Just ask Mark Zuckerberg. The gist of the situation is that Apple is finally asserting it’s rightful place in the internet ecosystem: users should be allowed to opt in to surveillance by advertisers and predatory juggernauts like Facebook and Amazon, rather than be surveilled automatically and then have to jump through hoops (and potentially add blockers and plug-ins to escape).
Apple’s billion users would need to allow their data and browsing habits to be monetized by those massive ad built eco-system killers. A lot has also been discussed about how this new regime change by Apple could negatively affect publishers, like Lynxotic, but this is a case of seeing the big, long term benefits, such as an internet where the users and netizens, and not Zuckerberg, are finally in charge. This goal is lofty and honorable and long overdue. Therefore, any adjustments needed to be made by publishers business models is well worth it.
That’s not all, in iOS 14 and iPad OS14 searches will default for “best for user” rather than automatically being diverted to google or any other “search engine”. If you are searching for a news article or information about an apple product, for example, the search will offer you results, within the global search on your device rather than in a browser, and this will direct you to your Apple News App or to Safari, landing directly on a web site, as appropriate.
Searches might finally find what you want, coming soon
As many have noticed Google has been diverting searches to Google hosted pages rather than offering results that take you directly to the web site that published the information. This practice is the reverse of what Apple is trying to do. Google want to “hold” you in Google “territory”, just as Facebook tries to block you from leaving its ecosystem that you are logged in to. Apple, on the other hand, is set up to send people directly to the source of the information, such as news web sites, etc., albeit via Safari or the Apple News App.
This will all continue to be a contentious issue going forward as it is akin to a war between Apple, Google, Amazon and Facebook (!), so we will be following this closely and will continue to report, ahead of the fact in many cases, in an ongoing fashion.
Doesn’t want anyone to panic? Really? At least not about the coronavirus that “only” killed 200,000 so far. Antifa? Are they a reason to panic? Logically if you were a Fascist then, yes, that makes sense. But in this case Trump wants all of us to panic and to blame all crime, real and imagined, on “the left” and “anarchists”.
In this new Lincoln Project ad you can see the incredible contrast between his claims that he wants us all to remain calm – and the panic he is clearly trying to incite with his “law and order” themed speeches. He doesn’t want to cause a panic. yea, right. He wants to be the Fear-Monger-In-Chief.
Subscribe to our newsletter for all the latest updates directly to your inBox.
Bragging of his counter punching prowess Trump acts like a dope and initiates all contact while Biden bides his time till the DNC
The historic mythology of Muhammad Ali and how he used his rope-a-dope tactic to allow George Forman to exhaust himself by leaning against the ropes during the “Rumble in the Jungle” in Zaire in 1974 my not be historically accurate but the analogy holds true in the election so far in 2020.
Trump has bragged, seemingly without pause, of his “great strength” for counterpunching. Of course, in his case, there is never a punch to begin with for him to counter as, more often than not, it is some imagined slight or insult to his ridiculous ego.
Nevertheless, during the months leading up to the DNC 2020 convention he initiated punches and attacks on Biden, virtually every day. Implying that Biden was senile, weak, “sleepy”, tired and generally unfit to take on the supposedly virile and exaggeratedly macho man in the White House.
These attacks were unprovoked. Biden was constantly said to be “hiding in the basement”, Don Jr. attacking as well with the same tired nonsense.
Trump the Dope falls into Biden’s Trap and can’t invent a story to explain his impotent solo attacks
The whole thing, of course, was a trap they were falling into. Biden was not in any basement. He was not in failing health. He was on the ropes patiently waiting for the moment, the most obvious moment no less, to begin his own “counter-punching” assault.
That moment, obvious to all but a dope of the highest order, was his speech at the DNC 2020 where he formally accepted the nomination and kicked off his fall campaign.
“I will make it clear to our adversaries the days of cozying up to dictators are over. Under President Biden, America will not turn a blind eye to Russian bounties on the heads of American soldiers.
Nor will I put up with foreign interference in our most sacred democratic exercise — voting…
…Will we be the generation that finally wipes the stain of racism from our national character? I believe we’re up to it. I believe we’re ready. Just a week ago yesterday was the third anniversary of the events in Charlottesville.
Remember seeing those neo-Nazis and Klansmen and white supremacists coming out of the fields with lighted torches? Veins bulging? Spewing the same anti-Semitic bile heard across Europe in the ’30s?
Remember the violent clash that ensued between those spreading hate and those with the courage to stand against it?
Remember what the president said? There were quote, “very fine people on both sides.” It was a wake-up call for us as a country…”
JOE BIDEN AT DNC 2020
That speech was everything that Trump’s weak blustering and solo attacks were not. It showed more strength of body, soul and, most of all, character, all in an instant; and did so without needing to resort to the low blows or chicanery that are part and parcel of the current President’s typical bag of tricks.
Regardless of whether Ali had planned to outsmart the larger George Forman and executed a brilliant strategy, or if he, the smarter combatant, was just using superior instinct to win in a poetic and inspiring fashion, the similarity to the epic battle for the future of American politics is no less apt.
“With passion and purpose, let us begin — you and I together, one nation, under God — united in our love for America and united in our love for each other.
For love is more powerful than hate. Hope is more powerful than fear. Light is more powerful than dark. This is our moment.This is our mission.
May history be able to say that the end of this chapter of American darkness began here tonight as love and hope and light joined in the battle for the soul of the nation. And this is a battle that we, together, will win. I promise you.”
Joe Biden at DNC 2020
In round 8, coming in late October, with possible assistance from Michael Cohen and the Southern District of NY, a knock-out blow is on the agenda. Will it be as exciting and poetic as the ending moments of the “Rumble in the Jungle”? Who knows.
But if Trump goes down, as we all know he should, the Justice of that turn of events will ring out loud, down through centuries and be remembered far and wide, just as we remember Muhammad Ali and his incredible rope-a-dope come back victory in Zaire.
Subscribe to our newsletter for all the latest updates directly to your inBox.
