This post on dead tools came along due to two incidents. The first incident was cleaning out dead links of online tools on my social bookmarking account. (A social bookmarking account is a searchable online storage of links that would otherwise be favourites in your browser. This allows the links to be catergorised and become searchable. Creating an index of useful and trusted links.) The second incident was going through the verification resources created by American investigative journalist Craig Silverman.
Before 2010, I worked on very digital focused projects and used a battery of free online tools. In 2010, I started using Sysomos MAP, a paid for social media monitoring tool. Since then I have seen a steady decline in tools with many becoming dead tools.
Too big to care
In terms of dead tools – Google exemplifies the ‘too big to care’ category of dead tools. I documented the closure of 30 Google services that were useful in a post back in 2014. The one that probably has the biggest effect on online society was the demise of Google Reader. Google Reader would have made online media bubbles harder to fall into than they are now with social media. Google Now – the product that was considered the spiritual successor to Google Reader was the model for how to build a media bubble around the consumer – it used algorithms to give you more of the news that you liked over time and this goes beyond relevance which tools like Newsblur focused on in their training function. In 2006, O’Reilly had published a book called Google Hacks that documented useful things that you could do with Google services. The book is now largely of historical interest.
Since I wrote the Google services post, the company downgraded and made its search keyword planner and display advertising planning tools less useful, to the point of being useless. Google’s search function has become less useful and consumers have noticed. Google Search no longer allows Boolean operators. For instance
would have been able to use as a search previously and is no longer be allowed as a search. The Atlantic went as far as asking is Google dying? Earlier on in the year there was a similar discussion on Hacker News and Reddit among technologists.
Much of this comes down to the law of large numbers, Google only cares about really big niches. So Boolean operators have come out so Google doesn’t have to maintain them. Instead Google has been focusing on things like which is nearest coffee shop to your smartphone that it can provide as a recommendation. Google has pivoted from organising the world’s information to becoming a user’s life OS.
Open web to closed web
When I started using these tools the web had become a web of data. Platforms were generous with APIs and platforms like Flickr had allowed an ecosystem of useful tools to be developed on top of their APIs. Social networks offered more limited APIs which have closed up over time. This is the reason why the number of third party twitter clients have become severely diminished. From a research perspective, this also means that tools lost their data sources, which led them to become dead tools. This is why social media monitoring became all about Twitter, data sources from Instagram and TikTok are much more limited – for instance Instagram allows only single word or hashtag search.
Tools like software programmes often disappear when the people who have created them are no longer able to maintain them. Often these tools will have been developed by a single person to deal with a problem that they had run into ‘scratching an itch’. Life throws up other challenges and interests. It is remarkable that I have relied on some services for over two decades, which is a lifetime ago for the current generation of programmers who think that Tumblr is a distant memory.
Tools aren’t dead yet, but we have passed a golden age in the useful web for now. Hopefully new tools will arise over time to replace the dead tools we’ve lost.
The BBC had Darren McGarvey on, reading is own book The Social Distance Between Us. Something is added to the content through McGarvey’s own voice reciting his own book adapted for the ‘book of the week’ slot. His Glaswegian accent and experience recording Scottish tinged rap helps in his delivery. Darren McGarvey is better known in music circles as Loki and his two albums published in the 2010s before he became an author and fronted documentaries (like working-class Londoner Professor Green). This is McGarvey’s second book after Poverty Safari, which was released in 2018. Both of the books deal with the realities for the British working class.
Revlon files for bankruptcy – CNN – one would normally expect a brand like Revlon to be resilient in a recession for being an affordable luxury a la Esteé Lauder. Ron Perelman overburdened Revlon with too much debt and its impressive that it lasted this long
China
Chinese courts flex intellectual property muscle across borders | Financial Times – Chinese courts have issued four key cross-border “anti-suit injunctions” following claims made by the country’s massive telecom equipment and smartphone groups — Huawei, Xiaomi, ZTE and Oppo — in disputes against Germany’s Conversant, US group InterDigital, and Japan’s Sharp. These rulings have essentially sought to block non-Chinese companies from enforcing IP rights in other jurisdictions, meaning Chinese companies cannot be sued for alleged infringements.They are enforced via daily penalties on a foreign company’s local operations in China, if that company insists on pursuing a case. According to Rieko Michishita, a veteran China IP lawyer at Bird & Bird, the rapidly mounting penalties make the injunctions akin to “taking a hostage”. And the cases are an indication, she warns, of how Chinese companies and courts will become more confident in deploying such legal manoeuvres as the country’s technological prowess steams ahead
Fears of data abuse as Chinese health code turns red for financial scandal protesters | South China Morning Post – Victims of what could be one of China’s largest financial scandals found themselves unable to step outside to join planned protests because their health QR codes had turned red, reigniting fears that the large-scale data collected for contact tracing would be abused for other uses. Since late May, hundreds of people have taken to the streets in China’s central Henan province, calling for authorities to ensure the return of their deposits that were frozen in four rural banks in the province.
Redefine Meat are a brand that is competing in the meat alternative space from Beyond Meat to Quorn. Redefine Meat is plant based and has support of chef Marco Pierre White. The premise of the ad addresses a thorny question in a humorous way. What happens to the herds of livestock who would be no longer needed, if the world became a vegan utopia? Their solution is the cow repurposing institute – a job training centre for cattle. Of course, the likely solution will be much less vegan friendly.
The trailing edge chip shortage
Asianometry goes into the shortage of trailing edge process manufactured processors. These produce chips with a low cost per unit as the capital costs of the chips were covered years ago. Older foundries are running at very high utilisation rates. There is a problem trying to get hold of older equipment. Interesting point mentioned that MEMS are in particular demand due to the Ukraine invasion.
Skinner on Machiavelli
Niccolò di Bernardo dei Machiavelli is so well known his family name became a noun and and adjective to describe someone who was cunning. The Prince – his book on governance is cited by far more people than have actually read it. I liked this talk by historian Quentin Skinner on the man and his work. Skinner is from the Cambridge school of historians that seeks to contextualise the environment of historical figures (and so better understand their actions).
McDonalds goes ambient
This seems to be an ad that was commissioned for a Spanish speaking market, but I suspect that it might be a student piece of work. The craft is stunning. Given that McDonalds has worked hard to point out that its food is made from ‘real’ ingredients, this ad might be counterproductive – hence the reason why I think it might be a student project. It promotes McDonald’s range of McMuffin breakfast sandwiches.
Transforming logos for Pride has lost brand impact | Marketing Week – When the mass market starts arguing over who gets the specially altered distinctive asset for the month, it’s probably time to retire the whole code-playing business forever. Monkeys cannot run the zoo – especially the zoo’s Special Surprise Tricks Unit, which designs things to influence the monkeys without them knowing anything about it. Pride month clashed with the platinum jubilee. Brands got involved with the platinum jubilee celebrations as planning got under way by local councils and British embassies by mid-May. The platinum jubilee allowed brands to reach a wider swathe of consumers than would otherwise be the case and increase their relevance to consumers lives. Celebration of pride month was seen as brands ‘deprioritising’ the platinum jubilee on one side, while platinum jubilee critics were seen as been prejudiced in nature. What struck me was the quiet of the voices in the middle ground of the Pride – platinum jubilee dispute. Perhaps its better for brands to stay out?
The West’s Struggle for Mental Health – WSJ – American psychiatrists have been studying rates of functional mental illness, such as depressive disorders and schizophrenia, since the 1840s. These studies show that the ratio of those suffering from such diseases to the mentally healthy population has been consistently rising. Ten years ago, based on the annual Healthy Minds study of college students, 1 in 5 college students was dealing with mental illness. – and depression has surged 135 percent over an 18 year period. The finding are that “The more a society is dedicated to the value of equality and the more choices it offers for individual self-determination, the higher its rates of functional mental illness.”
☕️ Candy in your coffee – this seems to be an extension of the ‘sweet flavours’ available historically from the likes of Dunkin Donuts and other coffee outlets
National security law: can Hongkongers still hold June 4 commemorative events marking anniversary of Tiananmen Square crackdown? | South China Morning Post – political scholar Steve Tsang, director of the University of London’s School of Oriental and African Studies, also said the security law was intended to ensure activities that were deemed unpatriotic could not take place in Hong Kong. “It has been enforced in a way to secure an intimidation effect,” he said. “Unless someone or members of a civil society organisation are prepared to be charged and jailed … they will not hold a public event of any sort.” Lau Siu-kai, vice-president of the semi-official Chinese Association of Hong Kong and Macau Studies, said a large vigil commemorating June 4 might be seen as an act that undermined China’s sovereignty and therefore was not worth the risk. Asked what kinds of June 4 events might be allowed in the future, the pro-Beijing scholar said: “Some implicit actions, in private, and in small groups, should be fine under the current political atmosphere.” Simon Young Ngai-man, associate dean of research at HKU’s law faculty, said the question centred on whether such acts signalled “seditious intent”, which might risk violating the Crimes Ordinance – an offence punishable by up to two years in prison for first-time offenders. “Note that intending to promote feelings of ill will and enmity between different classes of the population is also a seditious intent,” he said. “The precise meaning of ‘exciting disaffection’ is unclear. Does it cover any kind of criticism of the Chinese and Hong Kong governments?”
Diabetes drug leads to notable weight loss in people with obesity – study | The Guardian – interesting article that touches on multiple aspects of obesity as a chronic condition. The biggest issue is that government’s aren’t looking to treat it as the chronic condition related to an an endocrine system imbalance that it is. I worked on a rival drug to the one mentioned, which is being promoted in the US and other countries at the moment
An Oxford case study explains why SpaceX is more efficient than NASA — Space Business — Quartz – Planners behind projects that attempt to achieve a massive gain in a single leap, they posit, enmesh themselves in psychological patterns that lead to failure. They delude themselves in thinking the actual costs of the project will be much less than expected, because if the real costs were known, the projects would never be attempted. Platforms, on the other hand, grow incrementally. These aren’t just digital constructions but real world activities that share several characteristics: Repeatability, extendability, the ability to absorb new knowledge and adapt to new situations.
Microsoft Azure cross-tenant cloud security flaws concerning – Protocol – “It’s concerning. And it is a pattern,” said Rich Mogull, CEO at independent security research firm Securosis and a longtime security industry analyst. “And so the question is: Do we believe that that’s because they’re under greater scrutiny? Or is it that they have more problems? It might be a little bit of both.” At cloud security firm Orca Security, whose researchers have found two of the cross-tenant vulnerabilities in Azure services, the issues strongly suggest that Azure is not withstanding the pressure applied by researchers to the same degree as AWS and Google Cloud, according to Orca CTO Yoav Alon. – the more things change, the more they stay the same
Deadly secret: Electronic warfare shapes Russia-Ukraine war | AP News – Russian jamming of GPS receivers on drones that Ukraine uses to locate the enemy and direct artillery fire is particularly intense “on the line of contact,” he said. Ukraine has scored some successes in countering Russia’s electronic warfare efforts. It has captured important pieces of hardware — a significant intelligence coup — and destroyed at least two multi-vehicle mobile electronic warfare units.
A primary metaverse leader is leaving Microsoft at the wrong time — Quartz – Kipman’s exit came as a surprise to some AR industry insiders. Kipman has been the leading evangelist for Microsoft’s immersive computing efforts since the launch of the HoloLens AR headset in 2015, which he helped develop. In addition to the HoloLens, Microsoft offers its bleeding-edge Azure Kinect spatial computing depth camera, which captures and tracks 3D objects. The company has also developed Microsoft Mesh for shared AR interactions, supports a wide array of VR headsets via its Windows Mixed Reality platform, and boasts one of the most popular VR communities in AltspaceVR. Quietly, Microsoft has become the biggest name in the metaverse next to Meta, largely due to its focus on business enterprise users. But now that Microsoft is losing its immersive computing champion, where does the company’s metaverse path lead? And why is Kipman leaving at such a crucial moment?
I was first aware of MEMS (micro-electromechanical system) with Texas Instruments DLP chips in projectors which were key to digital cinema and vast improvements in home projectors alongside LED light sources. I did a bit of freelance work for AOL Germany and had a review of the DLP technology that had been installed in Leicester Square and used to show the remastered original Star Wars trilogy. Depending on the MEMS, they do not even have mechanical parts.
They are classified as MEMS because they use structures used in conventional machinery, such as springs, channels, cavities, holes and membranes. Some MEMS devices convert a measured mechanical signal into an electrical or optical signal, they may also be referred to as transducers. In Japan, MEMS are more commonly known as micromachines, and in European countries, MEMS are more commonly referred to as microsystems technology (MST).
MEMS are in every modern smartphone as digital compasses and accelerometers that provide essential functionality for these phones. Asianometry provide a really good background of the potential in MEMS.
The Goodwill Project
The Goodwill Project published an interesting spoken word work by Milorgia (Georgia Anne Muldrow and Milo better known as R.A.P. Ferreira). You can hear more of the project on the Bandcamp page. It’s an interesting freewheeling collaborative work that draws from R&B and hip hop.
Russia’s situation
Interesting interview with Russian opposition politician Vladimir Milov at the Austrian Institute For Europe and Security Policy. Some of the comments about the importance of the Orthodox Church in Russia has been overblown in importance is very interesting.
Saab 900
Big Car did a great history of the original Saab 900, for a car that was as revolutionary in the 1980s as Tesla had been in the 2010s. The reality is that the Saab 900 was a mix of clever engineering and hand me down parts from the likes of British Leyland.
Saab never managed to get scale in its car business, which was the reason why it disappeared under the disastrous ownership by General Motors. However, looking at other manufacturers like Rover Group, there is no guarantee that an alternative owner could have done any better. The Saab 900 Turbo, alongside the Audi Quattro was the stuff of my pre-teen automotive dreams.
Iain Tyrell this tour around a beautiful example of the Saab 900 Turbo 16S. His detailed explanation on turbos is really interesting. Its also interesting to hear that its a bit lighter than a Porsche Boxster.
Lessons from Ukraine
Interesting BBC segment on how the Ukraine war is changing the nature of war. Integrating information into the fighting is interesting. Their assumptions about the tank doesn’t take into account that the Russians haven’t used infantry and armoured vehicles in a tactically smart way. Infantry without tanks are vulnerable, as are tanks without infantry.
