The Offline Report

Last week I posted a Googler's question of ethics (shouldn't techies "all be learning about, the world?") to security expert Bruce Schneier in Googler Embarrassed by Zuckerberg (Schneier at Google) . Today's a good day to post Schneier's credit card liability analogy to privacy laws brewing in the U.S. (The House of Representatives' Energy and Commerce Committee held hearings today on pending privacy laws , and the Senate Commerce Committee will hold hearings tomorrow. More on that in future posts.) Schneier's talk explored the bridging of techology and policy in 2019. He begins: But how do we give them [policy makers] the expertise to do it right? Uh, my guess is the courts are going to do some things relatively quickly. Because cases will appear. And that regulatory agencies will follow. I think Congress comes last. But don't count them out. Nothing motivates governments like fear. Think back to the terrorist attacks of September 11th - w...

Before traveling further into 2019, it serves one to state new year's resolutions aloud: - Publish an RSS feed. - Format image captions through CSS. Lower Priority: - Create an RSS emoji - Lobby emojipedia to change the definition of the device that is the dead-tree newspaper. to be continued... - Find a browser timeout plugin for Edge and Firefox to curb Twitter addiction. &tb;Candidate: FocalFilter : If you have any problems with FocalFilter, the site-blocking tools Leechblock for Firefox and StayFocusd for Chrome should always work, because they are browser add-ons. And they have many extra features compared to FocalFilter. This work by AJ Fish is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License .

Friday Mar 1, 2019 "'Another example of the power of local radio and the local community getting together,' said Paul Ciliberto Market Manager/General Manager of 98.3 WSUL."    radioink.com Thursday Feb 28, 2019 Facebook admits 18% of Research spyware users were teens, not under 5%:     techcrunch.com Brexit and Trump are the Same Crime: The Carole Cadwalladr Interview:     patreon.com Facebook filed a patent for a ‘civil’ political debate forum:     theverge.com HBO chief Richard Plepler is leaving the company amid AT&T restructuring:     theverge.com Actual thing a luxury apartment broker told me yesterday: tenants have come to expect soundproof recording studios in new buildings so they can all record their own podcasts. — Alex Nitkin (@AlexNitkin) February 28, 2019 I’m not going lie; the slickensides and corrugations on the 15 m-high exposure of the Corona Heights Fault, San Francisc...

People like Jeff Jarvis, a former journalist who cheered print journalism's disruption in the name of progressing technology, are why I started The Offline Report. If Jarvis is saying this now, the purpose of this blog is nearly realized: "Technology correspondent leaving technology is rather like restaurant critic on hunger strike. Not terribly useful." Jarvis is reacting to New York Times tech critic Kevin Roose's article on managing his smartphone addiction: Do Not Disturb. How I Ditched My Phone and Unbroke My Brain . Jarvis seems to think the more tech the better. Technology correspondent leaving technology is rather like restaurant critic on hunger strike. Not terribly useful. https://t.co/sekJwaA2uF — Jeff Jarvis (@jeffjarvis) February 23, 2019 This work by AJ Fish is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License .

Security expert and author Bruce Schneier, who explains terrifying concepts with humor and verve, stopped by the Google campus last September to promote his latest book, " Click Here to Kill Everybody ." The paradigm-shifting author parried audience questions from Googlers, such as what did Schneier mean when he said "data is a toxic asset?" Schneier, currently teaching computer security at Harvard's Kennedy School, confessed he was "embarrassed" by congress' questions to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg last April. A Googler countered that he was embarrassed by Zuckerberg's answers to congress, and asked whether techies should ask more of themselves, and broaden their humanities knowledge base? The talk covers "security in a world where everything is a computer," and the humane Googler's question starts at the 44:06 mark: SCHNEIER: ... a market rewards doing a bad job, hoping for the best. And I think it's too risky to a...

(*Update, below.)  The comics pages are the penultimate payoff for a reader flipping through many a newspaper, close to the back of the final section in a broadsheet bundle. Serial strips' recurring characters process current events alongside readers. Maybe we could persuade GoComics to open their content to sharing beyond the big tech silos. As of now, GoComics encourages readers to Tweet or post to Facebook for free, but reluctantly "licenses" one strip to bloggers for no less than $30. :( *Update - a strip from the archive captures the *neighborhood* quality of the comics section: This work by AJ Fish is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License .

Saturday Feb 23, 2019 "Here's a weird little consequence of digital map use. It's getting harder to teach children algebra."    nytimes.com NYT tech reporter Kevin Roose takes the first step toward recovery, "My name is Kevin, and I have a phone problem."    nytimes.com Friday Feb 22, 2019 Traffic has gotten so bad, first responders are saying they can’t get to emergencies fast enough! #WeInvestigate whether new rules to reduce traffic congestion for big companies...may not apply to one of the biggest. @LizWags reports at 11pm. WATCH on channel 11, cable 3. pic.twitter.com/UbnSSk2Kyn — NBC Bay Area (@nbcbayarea) February 23, 2019 Trump administration begins efforts to strip work permits from immigrant spouses: "    sfchronicle.com   📰 May 2018: "The magic start age of 26 appeared again last month, in a New York Times OpEd by someone named Shikha Dalmia, advocating the H4 work visas created in 2015 not be elim...

People behind The Economist magazine talked to book author David Sax in 2015: ...A great case against free is made by The Economist, a magazine I have subscribed to for a decade. Prior to my London visit, I read that The Economist had grown its print circulation from 1 million weekly copies in 2006 to more than 1.6 million in 2015, at a time when many print publications have seen their circulations decline. The Economist did this while charging handsomely for both the magazine and online subscriptions, which average around $150 a year, and cost the same digitally as in print. "Our business model assumed print advertising will go away," Tom Standage, The Economist's deputy editor, said over a rushed sushi lunch. But if you give away content because you want to get ad money, when the ad money goes away, you won't be able to afford your content. We're not interested in reach. What we want is the profit!" The Economist was completely agnostic about print or di...

Sufficiently advanced technology, useful or useless, is indistinguishable from magic. Some dead English guy almost that a long time ago . Youth is magical. And some venture capitalists (VCs) are magic junkies. From California Sunday magazine's The Real Teenagers of Silicon Valley : Even the teens think it’s a little strange. “I want people to think of me for my merit, not my age,” Latta says. “I almost feel like my age can be distracting. I’ll often lie about it.” But he did admit that he’ll sometimes “pull the age card.” Theil fellows drop out of college, sometimes high school, move west and code: She knows the tech teen posse but has her own friends outside of it. “I’ll either meet people who will fetishize it or will dismiss it. The fetish is kind of weird,” Varshavskaya says. “The group of young guys here. A lot of them are treated like gods and wizards and heroes, and all the venture capitalists are waiting for their next magic thing, but they’re not doing anything that spec...

For reading books, the smartphone or Kindle is "fine," San Francisco resident Heike said as she waited for the northbound bus. The New York Times, on the weekend, at home with "my coffee, it's an atmosphere." She needs the paper . " I know it's bad for environmental reasons," Heike said of her dead-tree indulgence. Heiki eyed the news on her smartphone at the bus stop. "I just scroll the headlines" of German newsweely Die Zeit . "It would be nice if I could get it in paper. Kindle is the next best thing. " She said San Francisco's International Cafe used to sell the German Die Zeit in print. But retailers and cafes stopped selling international papers in one packed wave within the last decade, she said. Asked if she also reads Der Speigel , Heike paused. "Not as much." Tech Workers Commute To The Economist | Paper Media Poll: Lay Readers Follow Bylines --> This work by AJ Fish is license...

Friday Feb 15, 2019 "Everybody Knows" was shot digitally - and by now digital has its own aesthetic -- crisp and beautiful, a look without romance, but with clarity, like a palatable version of the truth."    datebook.chronicle.com    📰 Wednesday Feb 13, 2019 The National Butterfly Center asks judge to stop border wall activity on its property.    cbsnews.com "Do you ever look at your phone and wonder where the materials for the device came from, how they were excavated," begins a review of the Sundance-acclaimed documentary Anthropocene: The Human Epoch.    sierraclub.org Cassettes would make a faster comeback if we called them "mixed tapes" instead of "mixtapes." Nonetheless the article titled the News MixTape says we all have to be editors without being paid.    neimanlab.com Sunday Feb 10, 2019 I Blocked The 'Big Five' Tech Giants From My Life. It Was Hell.     gizmodo.com Feb ...

SAN FRANCISCO -- "Fred" travels westbound on the evening commute with the "dead tree" edition of that week's Economist. Fred, 47, works in tech. "I'll have this at home. I won't read it on a computer." He also subscribes to MIT Technology Review, Wired, and Fast Company, all monthlies. "This is the only weekly I subscribe to," Fred says of the Economist. In January we spotted an eastbound morning commuter, age 35, reading that week's Economist. Let's call him "Jeff." Asked if he reads the paper version on his commute, he responded "strictly." Jeff clarified. "I strictly read this every day," on his commute to work. Also spotted last month: "Gene", age 30 reads The Ringer on his smartphone on the way to work. "Lee" 55 reads the paper Wall Street Journal "I'm older, I have eye strain" so he prefers the dead-tree edition to the computer screen. "The Wall...

Saturday Feb 9, 2019 Panel Mania - A Fire Story By Brian Fies:     publishersweekly.com "Massachusetts recently became the first state to pass sweeping regulations on short-term home rentals, with a law signed by Republican Gov. Charlie Baker in late December."    governing.com "This guide intends to clarify what plagiarism is, identify the different types that exist, and show you how to avoid it."    guides.nyu.edu "Through unprecedented access to influential filmmakers James Cameron, David Fincher, George Lucas, David Lynch, Martin Scorsese, Robert Rodriguez, Lana and Andy Wachowski, Steven Soderbergh and many more, SIDE BY SIDE captures the essence of the film versus digital debate."    kanopy.com "A slice of the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition’s 10,000 members have spoken and elected five members from the “Safety Together” slate, which was mostly comprised of technology workers. Their rivals, a slate backed by a ...