Looks like Youtube is raising it's ad-free pricing, (and renaming it from Youtube Red to Youtube Premium) to fund the creation of more original content like it's current hit show Cobra Kai. They are also launching a new music service (that was already launched?) called Youtube Music, and will eventually replace the other music service (Google Play Music) that Google has also been running at the same time. Also somehow these two services overlap but have different pricing tiers.
If you're confused you aren't alone. This is a mess so convoluted it could ONLY come from Google. Jeez.
SEC Creates Satirical Cryptocurrency→
/This is a brilliant tactic. The age-old adage still holds: "A fool and his money are easily parted."
Hopefully this will give someone out there some pause.
Then again, there's always tulips.
OnePlus 6
/Watched today's presentation on the brand new OnePlus 6. Have to say it looks like a beautiful phone. The design is quite nice, and the corroded glass back (similar to a macbook trackpad) seems like the near perfect texture for a phone back. (I'll be checking one out when they are released, and get back to you guys with my thoughts.)
That being said, OnePlus's product marketing and web teams are seriously letting the product down. The OnePlus 6 has a notched screen with rounded corners similar to the iPhone X. Now obviously not every app in existence will be perfectly compatible with that right away. But for the love of god why would you SPOTLIGHT one that isn't on your OFFICIAL WEBSITE. Shameful. Come on OnePlus, sweat the details!
SPECTRE... AGAIN.→
/From the Register:
““The new bunch of Spectre-like flaws revealed last week won’t be patched for at least 12 days.
German outlet Heise, which broke news of the eight Spectre-like vulnerabilities last week has now reported that Intel wants disclosure of the flaws delayed until at least May 21.
“Intel is now planning a coordinated release on May 21, 2018. New microcode updates are due to be released on this date”, Jürgen Schmidt reported on May 7.
Last week, Heise noted that one participant in the planned coordinated release would include a Google Project Zero disclosure, which as far as The Register can discern has not yet happened.
Heise added that the bug affects any Core-i (and their Xeon derivatives) processors using microcode written since 2010; and Atom-based processors (including Pentium and Celeron) since 2013.””
Something tells me Apple's rumored move to ARM on the Mac has a lot less to do with performance than it does with security.
The Waffle House Arrest
/Tell me again we don't have a problem with institutional bias in this country.
I dare you.
Disgraceful.
Google Duplex
/This is a massive technical achievement.
Though is it inherently dishonest that an AI doesn't disclose itself as such to the other person on the phone? It certainly seems that way.
Then again, when an AI eventually IS capable of being entirely indistinguishable from a human, shouldn't they be allowed the same rights as everyone else?
We don't have to disclose that we are humans after all.
I never expected an app for making dinner reservations to elicit such a philosophical discussion.
Judge for yourself:
On Charlottesville
/
I have seen a lot of really ignorant and hateful posts on Facebook these past few days from people I had thought were rational, reasonable people.
People who post nothing condemning ACTUAL Nazi's flying Nazi flags, or actual White Power KKK Members running around in white robes, but post about how bad the "Alt-left" and "Antifa" and "Black Lives Matter" groups are.
Never once realizing that they EXIST SOLELY in response to the extreme proliferation of white nationalist, nazi, and racist culture in this country. It makes me terribly sad to see so many years of progress wiped away in a few short months.
Look at the people in this photo chanting "we will not be replaced" and "blood and soil".
Just imagine if they had to face any REAL oppression in their lives.
There has been no massive historical effort at the state and local level to disenfranchise them of the vote.
There is no history of centuries of bad science devoted to 'proving' their intellectual inferiority.
There is no danger for them when they carry dangerous weaponry publicly.
Their lawns never decorated with burning crosses
Their ancestors never hung from trees
Their mothers aren't being torn away by ICE troopers and sent away forever.
They won't be forced to leave the only country they ever knew.
Nobody is trying to legislate away their right to marry the one they love.
The law never:
Enslaved their great-grandparents
Robbed their grandparents
Imprisoned their parents
Shot them while unarmed
REAL Pride movements spring up in response to years, decades, even centuries of REAL oppression and hatred. The last thing white males have ever had to face (myself included) is REAL oppression.
I don't have to worry about getting randomly pulled over just because of the color of my skin. Or worry if I'm going to be harassed or arrested or shot because of the clothes I wear.
Do you want to imagine what a world of REAL white oppression looks like?
Give them a world where you ACTUALLY can't say Christmas.
A world where the name "Chad" or "Cody" on a resume puts it in the trash.
Give them a world where they suddenly get a 20% pay cut, and then 70 women every day tell them to smile more.
Give them a world where their polo shirt makes people nervous, so they're kicked off the flight from Pittsburgh to Indianapolis.
Give them a world where if they pulled up on a campus with torches lit and started throwing hands, the cops would happily beat the lot of them and throw them all in jail, with sentences that are 30% longer than everyone elses.
Give them a world where they inherited nothing but a very real understanding of what oppression really fucking is.
Thanks to @juliusgoat on twitter for much of this!