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Dylan Seeger put more into rethinking BlackBerry than the company has. This is certainly worth a read.

A directory of direct links to delete your account from web services.

Great idea.

Monday Note:

Randall Stephenson, AT&T’s CEO, predicts the end of subsidies because “wireless operators can no longer afford to suck up the costs of customers’ devices”.

I don’t know if Stephenson is speaking out of cultural deafness or cynicism, but he’s obscuring the point: There is no subsidy. Carriers extend a loan that users pay back as part of the monthly service payment. Like any loan shark, the carrier likes its subscriber to stay indefinitely in debt, to always come back for more, for a new phone and its ever-revolving payments stream.

Lots of interesting tidbits in this piece and it’s interesting to see how many media outlets unquestioningly repeated Stephenson stupid “end of subsidies” comment.

Boston Bruins’ Milan Lucic attacked in his hometown of Vancouver:

“That’s one of the worst parts, it’s in my hometown,” he said. “Going back to the spray painting of the church and my grandparents and parents and family getting harassed during the [Stanley Cup] finals against the Canucks in 2011, and now it’s escalated to a point where I get attacked for just minding my own business. I have no reason left to defend my city and then the people of my city. I’m just disgusted and outraged that it had to come to something like that. As far as that goes, other than being at Rogers Arena, no one will ever see me in downtown Vancouver ever again.”

Vancouver is just crazy. They riot when Canada wins the Olympics and they riot when they lose the Stanley Cup. Now they attack one of their hometown hockey players. The city is an embarrassment.

Mental Floss:

“Yes, Sir, this is Colonel Shoup,” he barked.

Nothing but silence in response.

“Sir? This is Colonel Shoup,” he said.

Silence again.

“Sir? Can you read me alright?”

Finally, a soft voice on the other end.

“Are you really Santa Claus?” a little girl asked.

I love this story and delighted in telling it to my “new” 12 year old. She knew NORAD tracked Santa but she didn’t know why.

Macworld:

I left Facebook nearly four years ago because of its casual attitude toward its users’ privacy and nothing I’ve seen since has convinced me that this was a mistake. So, I sympathise. Fortunately, it’s easy to leave.

How much you want to bet we find out at some point in the future Facebook hasn’t actually deleted your account – they’ve just made it so you can’t see it any more?

There’s no guarantee this will work, but sometimes it’s the last thing you think of that works.

I’ll admit, I haven’t even heard of some of these.

An interesting path to low cost housing. Only question that leaps to mind is, where would we build them? Still, an idea worth exploring.

Pacific Standard:

If you were a fan watching at home, here’s what you saw:

After a 52-yard drive in the fourth quarter, Army quarterback Carl “Rollie” Stichweh faked a handoff and raced into the end zone at Municipal Stadium in Philadelphia. Army fans erupted with cheers. The Midshipmen hung their heads. Then, seconds later, bewildered fans at home watched as Stichweh did exactly the same thing. Again, the cheers. Again, the downtrodden Midshipmen.

“This is not live! Ladies and gentlemen, Army did not score again!” CBS announcer Lindsay Hunter hollered to television audiences as the handoff replayed. But still, confused viewers called stations to ask whether Army just tied the game.

Imagine you were watching the 1963 Army vs Navy game. Imagine how confusing instant replay would have been. All sports fans owe a huge debt of gratitude to Tony Verna.

I love hockey, and this is a big part why. Especially #20. Heh.

Congrats Tim.

I went to update some apps on my iPad. But instead of being greeted on the update screen with the normal buttons with ‘update’ written on them, they had ‘free’ on them instead. Everything exactly the same, just the wording was different.

It certainly would be interesting if they did allow developers to start charging for updates.

Serenity Caldwell has a good article with some tips on getting Touch ID to work better and some things that may cause it to fail intermittently.

Google Inc has removed an experimental privacy feature from its Android mobile software that had allowed users to block apps from collecting personal information such as address book data and a user’s location.

[…]

A company spokesman said the feature had been included by accident in Android 4.3, the version released last summer.

So a feature to help users keep their info private was included by accident. Makes sense considering it comes from a company that makes its money on knowing every little thing about what you do.

“We are suspicious of this explanation, and do not think that it in any way justifies removing the feature rather than improving it,” said Peter Eckersley, technology projects director at the Electronic Frontier Foundation. The digital rights website first publicized the change in a blog post on Friday.

Android users who wish to retain the privacy controls by not upgrading to Android 4.4.2 could be vulnerable to security risks, Eckersley said. “For the time being, users will need to chose between either privacy or security on the Android devices, but not both.”

So, what’s it gonna be Android users? Fucked by Google or fucked by hackers?

Tourism is a dangerous job in Canada.

Delaware Online:

While shooting football in the snow makes for fantastic photos, it’s also the most challenging scenario a modern photojournalist can find themselves in. Cameras today rely so heavily on autofocus for sports that snow renders them functionally useless.

Imagine trying to photograph someone standing behind a waterfall. Even if you can see them clearly, no matter what you do your camera focuses only the water. The same went for every thick snowflake between me and the players on the field, and when you consider there were thousands falling every second the challenge was daunting.

This was a fun game to watch and this guy got some spectacular shots in amazingly difficult photographic conditions.

Matthew Ungar sent me these pictures today that he took of iPhones and iPads at China Mobile. Great to see.

New York Times:

SantaCons of years past have been distinguished by sexism, drunkenness, xenophobia, homophobia and enough incidents of public vomiting and urination to fill an infinite dunk tank. Despite these rampant violations, the departing police commissioner, Raymond W. Kelly, recently praised SantaCon, claiming that it “makes New York New York.”

So “sexism, drunkenness, xenophobia, homophobia” are what make New York be New York? Bull.

Star Trek:

The Starship Enterprise NCC-1701 was the first fictional spacecraft to carry on the name of many vessels in English and U.S. history. There were actually two ships in the English Navy called the HMS Enterprize (and that’s not a typo). The first was from 1743 and the second sailed in 1775. Fast forward to the U.S. Pacific Fleet during WWII and the USS Enterprise CV6 was our first Aircraft Carrier to carry the name Enterprise. In 1955, the second USS Enterprise CV65 took to sea. She was a massive aircraft carrier and the first of our nuclear-powered fleet. Fast forward again to 1967, and a new USS Enterprise would to take us into space… with Gene Roddenberry’s Star Trek.

But every true Star Trek fan knew all of this already, didn’t they?

I enjoyed reading this piece by Rene Ritchie, especially when he talked about the future. This is what I’ve been saying about Apple’s future devices—expect some magic, not a smart watch like the shit Samsung is putting out.

I’ve seen people posting on both sides of this issue tonight.

This is a pretty amazing story. Blatantly stealing other people’s work is not right.

Truth has never been an essential ingredient of viral content on the Internet. But in the stepped-up competition for readers, digital news sites are increasingly blurring the line between fact and fiction, and saying that it is all part of doing business in the rough-and-tumble world of online journalism.

I’m not saying I disagree, but it seems odd that the Times would post something like this when they are just as guilty as posting shit as the sites they condemn.

I give you Exhibit A.

Sarah Lockard is the “CEO and Publisher” of AroundMainLine.com in Philadelphia, and yesterday Philadelphia magazine ran an email she sent to area restaurants in which she offered them a “VERY innovative” and “exciting” opportunity: to host her family dinner on Christmas Eve in exchange for coverage on her site.

That’s just awful.

The difference is in other cosmopolitan cities, the lower part of society keep to themselves. They sell small trinkets, beg coyly, stay quiet, and generally stay out of your way. They realize it’s a privilege to be in the civilized part of town and view themselves as guests. And that’s okay.

Asshole.

Some good thoughts here from Daniel Jalkut.

When Microsoft co-founder and then-chief executive Bill Gates hired Ballmer from Procter & Gamble in 1980, it was to be “the business guy, whatever that meant,” Ballmer says. Since that day, his rallying cry has always been “How do you make money? How do you make money? How do you make money?”

And this, in my opinion, is why Microsoft is in trouble right now. Apple’s philosophy is “How do we make the best product?” They figure the money will come if they make great products that people want. And they’re right. Ballmer’s philosophy led them to making shitty products that people felt locked into owning. Those days are quickly coming to an end.