When we talk about regulation for tech, maybe we should review net neutrality for ISP’s ?🤷🏻‍♂️

King County Superior Court Judge Timothy Bradshaw found that “Comcast violated the Consumer Protection Act more than 445,000 times when it charged tens of thousands of Washingtonians for its Service Protection Plan without their consent,” 

ArsTechnica

Maine lawmakers have passed a bill that will prevent internet providers from selling consumers’ private internet data to advertisers.

The state’s senate unanimously passed the bill 35-0 on Thursday following an earlier vote by state representatives 96-45 in favor of the bill.

Maine passes law preventing ISPs from selling browsing data without consent

Follow up from a previous post on blocking the IRS from creating a free tax filing option to compete with Intuit.

Lawmakers are planning to drop a proposal to prohibit the Internal Revenue Service from offering a free online tax-filing option, Politico and Pro Publica report. The provision was included in the Taxpayer First Act, which passed the House in April but has not passed the Senate. It was backed by the makers of private tax preparation software, including Intuit (makers of TurboTax) and H&R Block.

ArsTechnica

In one of its provisions, the bill makes it illegal for the IRS to create its own online system of tax filing. Companies like Intuit, the maker of TurboTax, and H&R Block have lobbied for years to block the IRS from creating such a system. If the tax agency created its own program, which would be similar to programs other developed countries have, it would threaten the industry’s profits.

ProPublic

Having just done my taxes, and paying Intuit a hundred bucks every year to e-file my federal and state taxes, this story makes me even more wound up than usual. And yes, I could manually do them myself, but I’d rather spend that time doing other things I deem more important.

It just grinds my gears when private companies push and lobby to keep the status quo, keeping entities state, federal, or local from progressing and providing appropriate help for the public. This law only benefits share holders of companies that provide tax software. It in no way can be contorted to be “in the best interest of the public good”.

🤬

So the cross posting from here wasn’t working, and it wasn’t until I figured out that the RSS feed didn’t have the updated URL scheme that the rest of the site has. 🤦‍♂️ It was only setup to populate the post slug, missing the month and year path.

Starbucks feels like a digital library for those that can can afford $5 coffee. I tend to see more people on their device or sharing content then anything else.

Facebook also denies that it collects, records, and maintains data on users’ “information and activity,” though it does admit that “users can provide Facebook with certain information.”

Facebook denies allegations that you make friends on Facebook

It is strange to me that anyone could say this, much less write it up in an official legal document, with a straight face.

TechCrunch

Facebook has confirmed its password-related security incident last month now affects “millions” of Instagram users, not “tens of thousands” as first thought

How many times is this sort of thing going to happen? I mean it as an honest question? What is it that is so intrinsic and addictive that the average person is willing to blatantly ignore how damaging to the general public, social safety, and personal data?!?

The app will monitor which apps are installed on a person’s phone, the time spent using those apps, the country you’re in, and additional app data

The Verge

… you don’t say

Following an avalanche of stories breaking right now, like this one from ARS Technica

Users have discovered a bug in Apple’s FaceTime video-calling application that allows you to hear audio from a person you’re calling before they accept the call

I only FaceTime with family, I guess we’re gonna find out how many people actually use FaceTime! My guess? Pretty few use it outside immediate family.

Now does that mean that this bug doesn’t apply to me? Not at all, anyone can FaceTime my phone, and now they can listen in, even if I don’t pickup on my end. Software is hard, it will come down to how quickly Apple acts on this one.

While the FCC’s Wireless Telecommunications Bureau granted Verizon’s request for a partial waiver from the open-access rule, it denied Verizon’s request for a declaratory ruling “finding the handset unlocking rule already permits such temporary locking.”

ARS Technica

As T-Mobile put it, they knew what the rules were when they bought in during the spectrum auction. I’m a little surprised at even the 60 day wavier. I’m struggling to find any tangible benefit to the customer, and not just some made up problems for Verizon. 🤷‍♂️

This is important, because when digital projects fail, it’s often not the technology, but the underlying culture that sets the precedence for success or failure. Operating inside a culture of fear will inevitably lead to digital project failure.

Find the truth. Tell the truth.

This really echos my sentiment. That technology is the easy part, the people and the culture are the really tough challenges.

Today Github, recently acquired by the new Microsoft, announced unlimited free repos for all. This is an interesting turn, after wide spread outcry and running to places like Gitlab after the MS finalized the purchase last year. I am more and more skeptical of free services, as we all should be I’m looking at you Facebook, I’m looking right at you, and am happy to pay for the services I do use and value. So I’m a little torn over this one. On the one hand I’m happy that MS on all accounts is showing to be a ‘good steward’ of this corner stone of open source development. On the other hand, I wonder, why? MS is still a business. Maybe it’s a bit pessimistic, but I can’t help be a little weary of the good news. Like in a month the other shoe will drop. Over the past several years I have become, more and more, and new Microsoft fan. Most know to the point, I happily use a Surface Book for my day to day work, and I freakin’ love it. Still, this move seems unnecessary? At least for me, private repos wasn’t a problem I needed solved.

With FCC Chairman Ajit Pai having deregulated the broadband industry, there’s little to no chance of the commission taking action to stop fees like the one charged by Frontier.

ArsTechnica

Another example of “death by a thousand cuts”. Frontier can charge you 10 dollars for a router you don’t want or need, 5 more for a “warranty” you can’t opt out of, continue to track and sell your data because it’s in the “T & C”, and as the customer a majority of us only have one option for high speed internet, leaving little to no recourse but to complain of reddit and pay it. The alternative is to go without, which is simply not practical on any level.

☹️

All major ISPs denied selling or sharing their users’ browsing histories and other sensitive information in 2017, when they convinced Congress and President Trump to prevent implementation of broadband privacy rules. But since then, it has been reported that T-Mobile, Sprint, and AT&T were selling their mobile customers’ location information to third-party data brokers despite promising not to do so.

FTC investigates whether ISPs sell your browsing history and location data

This one’s a give me. Yep.

The FCC’s argument, at the center of the 2017 rule, that broadband isn’t telecommunications is supported by almost no experts whatsoever, yet as an expert agency it can decide such technical matters on its own. If Congress were to establish a law clarifying that, however, it would remove the Commission’s freedom in this matter and constrict it to operating as the law dictates.

TechCrunch

It would be nice to actual have laws on the books for net neutrality and not be at the mercy of the changing emotions, and lack of ethical judgment from Ajit Pai and the constant gutting of interest in helping the public at large, instead of taking advantage of them. 🤷🏼‍♂️

With a bit of luck and a lot of trying, I’ve been able to figure out how to add Markdown support to wordpress via the REST API. This servers as a reminder to myself, and I hope it helps someone else if they come across this.

• REST API is enabled by default for wp v4 and above, so all good there
• Default Auth only has cookie support, and since I’m looking to interact and make quick publishing as easy as possible, this will not do.
  • JWT Can be enabled with this plugin , so that solved that.
• Now we can post without the admin dashboard, how do we get it to format the markdown? We can add another plugin that gives us wp-com support for markdown in Posts, Jetpack.
• With those enabled we can stringify a markdown file, and HTTP POST it to our wordpress endpoint and BOOM 🎇 we’ve been able to write in markdown, and send posts.
• Next item, post and publish in a single request? Possibly ?

I gave a talk tonight at the local React meetup. As always a ton of fun, it did however solidify that I am less and less interest in React, and more interested in Elm and Haskell as tools to use for solving and creating. Maybe you’re thinking, well duh Jesse, you have a JSToElm podcast?!? Are just realizing this now? And actually, yeah, it’s just sort of dawned on me. It’s not a question or a thought I’ve explicably had, but something that occurred to me while I was sitting there looking up at code on a giant projector, what would this look like in Elm, and I wonder what the type signature of that method would be?

It’s a small thing, but having moments like this can be very clarifying.

DuckDuckGo making fun now that Google has finally started to roll out privacy labels for their iOS labels. I’d really be curious what, if anything, is missing from this monster list.

After months of stalling, Google finally revealed how much personal data they collect in Chrome and the Google app. No wonder they wanted to hide it.Spying on users has nothing to do with building a great web browser or search engine. We would know (our app is both in one). pic.twitter.com/lJBbLTjMuu

— DuckDuckGo (@DuckDuckGo) March 15, 2021

“As a result of recent events, we have decided to end our arrangements with data aggregators,” a Sprint spokesperson told Motherboard in an email.

Motherboard

I feel like there was a story recently, oh yeah here we go, that exposed much the same practices from cellular providers. There was outrage then, and promises of swift action and change.

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I came across this article How Millennials Became The Burnout Generation today, and while I have never considered myself a “millennial”, I am on the oldest end of that time line. Based on this feelings and perspective of Anne, and others she interviewed, I would say I’m closer to ever than being a millennial.

What has been dubbed adulting, or what Anne has nicknamed “errand paralysis”, the mundane day to day tasks of dry cleaning, post office, or other repetitive analog tasks.

But the more I tried to figure out my errand paralysis, the more the actual parameters of burnout began to reveal themselves. Burnout and the behaviors and weight that accompany it

Anne makes some effective correlation to the burnout many of us feel in having been through school to come out to poor job prospects, or assuming massive debt to acquire more education, only to find the outcome suboptimal.

It you are a millennial, or a millennial in denial, or you know one. You need to take 10 minutes to sit down and read through Anne’s article at least once or twice.

Jesse (Millennial in denial)

I asked on twitter the other day, ‘What is the equivalent of shooting 100 free throws for communication?” Several people mentioned it was to write 750 words or so a day. Now this is of particular interest to myself, bc I have started-stopped this exact task, or what feels more like a chore, multiple times in the past. None of those efforts lasted more than 14-15 days. I have even gone so far as to build an app that will count, track, and publish those posts to a blog. And while I managed to spend almost a year working on that side project. Not once did I ever get past 10 days in a row. Now the interesting thing about streaks is that once you miss one, all the motivation is immediately sucked out of your body and into the void. The effort to start again after skipping a day, I would say, is exponentially more than starting in the first place. So? How do you avoid the disappointment black hole when you miss a day or break a streak? How do you get back to it with the same vigor and dedication?

the fact that the state of much of America’s infrastructure is appalling on its face, and even moreso when compared to nations which are on paper nowhere near as rich.

Techcrunch

I lived in London for a bit coming and going from college, and one of the things I truly miss was the public transportation. It was so quick and easy to hop a bus or train and get all over a giant city like London or Paris. That is in stark contrast to living out west in Arizona. Where the closest place to get a sandwich or a cup of coffee from where you live is often 2-3 miles away. Bus’s run every 30-40 minutes during peak times, so without a car to get around it will easily take you several hours of your day to get to and from work. Sadness is a good word for it. 😭

Ars is reporting to have a new 5GHz chip, that will not exactly be available for retail sale this year.

the chip company is asking system builders to bid for the chips in an online auction. The auctions will be held quarterly, with apparently only three system integrators bidding in the first.

[arstechnica.com/gadgets/2...](https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2019/01/intel-reported-to-have-a-new-5ghz-chip-thats-literally-priceless/#p3)

With some relatively positive news coming out of CES that Intel will actual ship a 10nm chip later this year, this seems like another flailing swing from a falling giant.

Ars Technica

This is a 45W processor with eight cores, 16 threads, and 16MB of cache, with a base clock speed of 2.4GHz and a turbo speed of 5GHz. The “K” on the name also indicates that the chip is overclockable: for those truly monstrous gaming laptops with high-powered cooling systems, you’ll be able to go beyond the default speeds.

Yeah, I read these specs and all I can think is, “oh boy those MacBook Pro’s just keep getting hotter and hotter.

At the top end is the i9-9900: eight cores, 16 threads, a base of 3.1GHz, and a peak of 5.0GHz. The big difference between this and the already-shipping 9900K and 9900KF is the power use: it’s a 65W chip, whereas the other two are 95W, and it’s not overclockable

Power, speed, heat. I feel like at this point Intel’s chips have passed the point of diminishing returns. I’m all for more cores and power. But that isn’t really what I need on a day to day basis. I am sure there are those that do, and for them the more cores the better, the tradeoff in heat and mobility is a welcomed compromise. For me, I don’t hit bottlenecks in my workflow with the CPU, haven’t in a very, very long time. Network, memory, possibly, and even then the times I’m waiting on my machine to preform a task is not even relative on the overall time spend in front of these things.

I’d rather have smaller chips, with longer battery lives, consuming less energy, for roughly the same amount of processing power. The idea of ARM based laptops is very exciting in this regard.