Webflow’s history of the web is a Bayeaux Tapestry of obsolete virtues and current vices, a superimposition of new and old bad things. It’s a clever and very 2017 way to market a web design app that lets normal people keep making worthwhile mistakes on the web — a gateway to free expression — as it becomes increasingly technical and forbidding. I’m startled by how comfortingly, reliably minimal the very early stuff was. Even the lurid GIF explosion in late 1990s! Simple technology made even a terrible mess accessible.
Tag: beschizza
Google buys $1.1bn piece of HTC
Rumored for some time, Google’s purchase of a significant chunk of handset-maker HTC was announced today . The WSJ: Google said an HTC team that helped develop Google’s flagship Pixel smartphone will join the company. The Mountain View, Calif., company will also get a nonexclusive license to HTC intellectual property. HTC was hired by Google to be the contract manufacturer for the Pixel, a high-end smartphone that was launched last year, in part to better compete with Apple Inc. $1.1bn in cash is probably most of HTC. The company’s market share evaporated over the last half-decade but it remains a well-respected manufacturer. Alternative Betteridge headline: “Will Google buying HTC go better than Google buying Motorola?”
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Google buys $1.1bn piece of HTC
Juno’s breathtaking images of Jupiter
The Juno probe is recording incredible image data of Jupiter . Not least are the new aurora studies that are shaking up what we know of the planet’s extreme weather systems . But it’s the sheer painterly beauty of the world, up-close, that is most breathtaking . And then there’s actual paintings, too …
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Juno’s breathtaking images of Jupiter
Map of local embroidery techniques in Pakistan
As posted to twitter by Saima Mir , and likely sourced from Generation ; but who’s the artist?
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Map of local embroidery techniques in Pakistan
Tinyworlds: gorgeous forest photos released under the Creative Commons
Rick “Tinyworlds” Hoppmann has released all of his wonderful forest photos under a non-commercial Creative Commons license. You can use it, remix it and share it yourself so long as you credit him and so long as you don’t profit from it. If you want to use my photos for commercial use (e.g. album covers), please send me an email: rick.kelgar(at)web.de https://twitter.com/Mezaka_/status/739439204883697664
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Tinyworlds: gorgeous forest photos released under the Creative Commons
After 28 years, Sony resumes vinyl record production
Sony last pressed a vinyl record in 1989. And it’ll be pressing them again by March 2018, reports The BBC , proof of the mainstream return of the ancient format—once again a billion-dollar business. Folks always argue about quality (will mainstream product mean mainstream mastering?) but the reasons for vinyl’s resurgence are complex. It’s a nice thing to own, it’s a pleasing retail experience, it’s nostalgic, it’s a better gift, it’s big enough to hang on a wall, you can fend off zombies with it, and so on. There are seriously lame aspects to vinyl, though: quality deteriorates with use; easily damaged even when stored; no metadata; no controls; fiddly hardware. So whenever I read a “vinyl returns” article I dream of a new HD physical media format that’s backward compatible with it. An LP-sized optical disk with the grooves on a clear laminate layer, perhaps. Or maybe a vinyl with a hidden flash storage layer within and exposed metal rings to read it with near the spindle. Or some kind of bad-ass sharpened metal disk played the old-fashioned way but at nyquist-busting RPM.
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After 28 years, Sony resumes vinyl record production
Salvador Dali’s corpse to be exhumed
A judge in Spain has ordered the exhumation of artist Salvador Dali’s body for genetic testing, so that a paternity lawsuit may be resolved. Dali died in 1989; Pilar Abel believes the painter is her father, from an affair he reportedly had with a maid in 1955. From Agencia EFE: Una juez de Madrid ha ordenado la exhumación del cadáver del pintor Salvador Dalí y la obtención de muestras de su cuerpo para la práctica de la prueba biológica de determinación de la paternidad de Pilar Abel, una gerundense que presentó una demanda para ser reconocida como hija del artista. Según indica en un auto la juez encargada del caso, “es necesaria la prueba biológica de investigación de la paternidad de Maria Pilar Abel Martínez respecto de D. Salvador Dalí Domenech”, al “no existir restos biológicos ni objetos personales sobre los cuales practicar la prueba por el Instituto Nacional de Toxicología”.
Old games as standalone apps: no emulator necessary
Games Nostalgia is a retrogame site with a useful difference: instead of simply providing files which then must be fed to the often-difficult gods of emulation, it packages the classics as ready-to-click apps for Mac and PC. Examples to eat your morning: seminal Atari/Amiga RPG Dungeon Master , DOS blaster Doom , and 1990’s original RTS Dune II . Then there’s Populous , Archon , Shadow of the Beast … Previously: Vast collection of Amiga games, demos and software uploaded to Internet Archive
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Old games as standalone apps: no emulator necessary
30 years of graffiti layers taken from a wall in The Netherlands
Enjoy Paul De Graaf’s gallery depicting the sedimentary layers deposited by 30 years of graffiti on a wall in Nijmegen, The Netherlands. It’s a Graffiti Hall of Fame in the city of Nijmegen, the Netherlands. What started as a 70’s Hippie cult place, became a center of music and art in the early 80’s. One of the first places where it was legal to smoke cannabis. It still a Music studio and Graffiti Hall of fame. The building is surrounded by walls that are all spray painted from top to bottom.
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30 years of graffiti layers taken from a wall in The Netherlands
235 apps attempt to secretly track users with ultrasonic audio
Ultrasonic beacons ( previously , previously ) let advertisers build an idea of when and where you use your devices: the sound plays in an ad on one device, and is heard by other devices. This way, they can associate two gadgets with a single user, precisely geolocate devices without aGPS, or even build graphs of real-world social networks. The threat was considered more academic than some, but more than 200 Android apps were found in the wild using the technique . In research sponsored by the German government [PDF], a team of researchers conducted extensive tests across the EU to better understand how widespread this practice is in the real world. Their results revealed Shopkick ultrasonic beacons at 4 of 35 stores in two European cities. The situation isn’t that worrisome, as users have to open an app with the Shopkick SDK for the beacon to be picked up. In the real world, this isn’t an issue, as store owners, advertisers, or product manufactures could incentivize users to open various apps as a way to get discounts. From the paper: While in April 2015 only six instances were known, we have been able to identify 39 further instances in a dataset of about 1,3 million applications in December 2015, and until now, a total of 234 samples containing SilverPush has been discovered. We conclude that even if the tracking through TV content is not actively used yet, the monitoring functionality is already deployed in mobile applications and might become a serious privacy threat in the near future Apparently it’s not very effective—consumer speakers and mics aren’t designed with ultrasonic use in mind and the authors say noise, audio compression and other factors “significantly affects the feasibility” of the technology—but the intent is clearly there on the part of advertisers and appmakers to make a stab at it. Annoyingly, there doesn’t seem to be a list of the apps that are doing this, but there is a reference to a McDonalds app. If an app asks for access to your device’s microphone, camera, etc., and you don’t know why, delete the app.
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235 apps attempt to secretly track users with ultrasonic audio