Great tip, if you didn’t already know how to do it.

[Via John Moltz]

Jim and Dan discuss the Chromecast app being blocked by Google, the New York Times getting hacked, and Apple TVs getting more and more channels.

Sponsored by Mailchimp and Shutterstock (use code DANSENTME8 for 25% off).

After being hit with 171 lawsuits from non-practicing intellectual property owning entities in the last five years, Apple has further solidified its place as the No. 1 target for so-called patent “trolls.”

No company should be sued by patent trolls. Something has to be done.

Hesitation Marks was mastered in two different ways – the standard, “loud” mastering (which is what you’ll find on the CD, on iTunes, and everywhere else), and also an alternate “audiophile” mastering, which we’re offering as a free download option for anyone who purchases the album through nin.com. For the majority of people, the standard version will be preferable and differences will be difficult to detect. Audiophiles with high-end equipment and an understanding of the mastering process might prefer the alternate version.

It’s great to see bands getting away from the “louder is best” mentality or at least giving us an alternative.

AlgoTrim has been around since 2005, and its flagship product, the Code Compression Library (designed to reduce the size of mobile device firmware) has been in use on mobile devices since 2006.

Interesting that Apple is pursuing smaller, more focused companies. In this case, AlgoTrim will help improve performance of algorithms for lossless compression, which will bring obvious benefits to the camera and other image processing applications, but will also bring more subtle benefits, such as improved battery life.

Also interesting is this little nugget from the original Swedish report:

In February of 2013, all of AlgoTrims shares were acquired by the anonymous Delaware-based holding company Wedgwood Industries LCC. But according to solid information revealed to Rapidus, Apple is the real buyer behind the deal.

Back in 1985, Apple created an internal network for managing support for dealers and developers. It was called AppleLink.

It was run by GE’s online service, and Apple was paying GE to run the backend, while Apple managed the actual services. At its peak, AppleLink had had 50,000 registered users, 38,000 of which were external to Apple. Looking to phase this out, mostly to save money, Apple wanted to purchase or build its own online service.

Soon after, Apple created AppleLink Personal Edition, a similar tech-support system for consumers, with Quantum Computer Services running the backend. Quantum Computer Services soon became America Online, or AOL, with a young Steve Case at the helm. 1987 saw Quantum running AppleLink PE, with Apple getting a percentage of the fees Quantum was charging users of the service.

This is the story of how AppleLink evolved into eWorld. My favorite bit:

“What we didn’t know is that AOL had already prepared it’s bankruptcy papers – this deal ultimately saved them. Steve Case had a great poker face,” said Peter Friedman, then vice president and general manager of Apple Online Services, now CEO of LiveWorld.

Good read.

Here’s one critic’s takes on new shows worth a watch. Somehow I doubt that all of these are worth watching, but I have to say I will definitely be checking out The Michael J Fox Show (so hoping this is good) as well as The Crazy Ones (Robin Williams as the head of an advertising agency). Curious if the latter gets its title from the brilliant Apple campaign.

Over the past week or so, we’ve posted links to slowed down versions of songs by Frank Zappa and Dolly Parton that have been making their way around the net. This post on kottke.org walks you through the process of slowing down your own music.

Here’s the formula for slowing or speeding up a recording to shift the pitch but generally stay in tune:

(2 ^ (semitones change/12) – 1) *100 = Percent Change

If you want to drop two semitones, you shift the speed down by 12.2462 percent; drop three, you shift by 18.9207 percent, which significantly changes the track. To imitate a 45 RPM record played at 33 1/3, that’s about 25.926, but very few records still sound like something a person actually made at this speed.

There are a series of examples that show off the results. All the examples were created using Audacity. Well done.

According to a new report, Android was the subject of 79 percent of malware attacks on mobile devices. Symbian devices got 19 percent of attacks. iOS devices? Less than 1 percent.

The New York Times’ website is down from what appears to be a “malicious external attack,” according to an official Times statement posted to its Facebook page. The Atlantic Wire reports that the paper’s domain has reportedly been in and out of service since 3PM EST, when it first became unavailable. The attack seems to the work of the Syrian Electronic Army (SEA), a group of hackers that claims to be promoting the Assad regime. The Times has been reporting on the recent Syrian chemical attacks, which may have attracted the SEA’s attention.

This article appeared on the front page of the Times web site shortly after the site came back up.

Gizmodo has some interesting images that give a sense of how this all evolved.

It’s a good question. And the answer is pretty simple. It was an attempt to get you to click on CNN.com so that we could drive up our web traffic, which in turn would allow us to increase our advertising revenue.

Great answer. It also explains the shitty tech stories we read everyday.

I like it, especially Vevo and Smithsonian.

Des Traynor:

Once a company succumbs to it, bloat seeps through its veins. A round of layoffs becomes a “Strategic Talent Re-Architecture”, sharing a link becomes “Internal Socialising”, or “Knowledge Cross Pollination”. You no longer “think about things” any more you “incubate them internally”. If you’re thinking about them really hard, you’re now “deep diving to disambiguate”.

Wonderful article. Bloat is everywhere.

Those that listened to Amplified last week may remember I mentioned wanting a nice dark purple iPhone will The Loop logo on the back. Maybe this is the place I can get it done.

Seriously Canada, it’s like you want the world to laugh at you.

Fantastic take on the First Amendment and the evolution of censorship.

Because of the ironclad protection of the First Amendment, it has proved very difficult for government to control what we can read, listen to or see. A few curbs have been put up, though, notably by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), the regulations of which largely determine what kind of material is bleeped out of radio and television broadcasts.

There’s discussion of the 1873 Comstock Laws, the first radio censorship, Lenny Bruce, George Carlin (and his 7 words), Madonna on Letterman, Arrested Development, and much more. Brilliant.

Famed Apollo 11 moonwalker Neil Armstrong died one year ago today and NASA is remembering the iconic astronaut with a touching music video tribute.

He truly inspired a generation.

A true artist takes no notice whatever of the public. The public are to him non-existent. He has no poppied or honeyed cakes through which to give the monster sleep or sustenance. He leaves that to the popular novelist.

Software isn’t an industry where the monster company selling the last generation’s product gets to stay being the monster for the next generation. It’s the industry where a thousand hungry small companies are waiting for a shift in the market that will allow them to slay the monster, carve it up and eat it for breakfast.

Very interesting article.

[Via Rian van der Merwe]

In the future, nothing is impossible. FutureStack 2013 is an opportunity for disruptive Developers, innovative Technologists and world-changing Creatives to imagine, build and help craft the future of Modern Software. Big ideas aren’t just welcome — they’re required.

I’ll be speaking at the FutureStack conference, which will be held in San Francisco in October. There are a lot of very smart people on the speakers list and some great sessions. If you’re interested in going to the conference, you can get 50% off the registration fee because you know me.

First, it takes three months to understand a new job. Until those 90 days are over, you don’t really know what hand you’ve been dealt. Second, it takes approximately three years before you’ll become bored with your current gig. While I can’t point you to the definitive research paper that confirms this hypothesis, I have been stumbling around Silicon Valley for a couple of decades and my advice hasn’t changed: 90 days to understand the new gig, three years before you’re bored with it.

Interesting article from Michael Lopp. I never really thought about it like that before, but maybe that’s because I’ve been doing the same job for 20 years.

I know I’m a sucker, but I really do like shading because it brings some depth to designs.

Last week, a panda cub was born to Mei Xiang at the National Zoo. Given the rarity of panda births, this was pretty big news, especially in the nation’s capital.

Turns out, that brand new panda baby instantly belongs to China. As do all other pandas on the planet. I was a little shocked by this. Every single giant panda in the world belongs to China.

Originally, China gave pandas to others — no strings attached. Starting in the 1950s, the Chinese government used the popularity (and adorableness) of giant pandas to curry favor with other nations, by gifting the creatures to governments around the world. In 1972, for example, China gave two giant pandas to the United States as thanks for President Nixon’s visit to their nation (which itself historically began to normalize the relationship between the two). First Lady Pat Nixon ensured that those two pandas, Ling-Ling and Hsing-Hsing, were housed at the National Zoo. The program was very successful. Other countries — many who had little in the way of relations with China — asked for pandas as well. But in 1984, China stopped giving pandas away. Instead, the Chinese government began loaning them out.

Under the terms of the revised Chinese plan, zoos were offered pandas only for a ten-year period. (There’s some evidence that renewals are possible.) Because all the pandas now in captivity outside of China were born after the 1984 change, “all giant pandas outside China are actually on loan from the country,” as NPR points out. The cost of renting a panda is $1,000,000 per year, to be payable to China’s Wildlife Conservation Association. And, perhaps most strikingly, the lease agreement requires that any cubs born to loaned-out pandas be returned to to China. So if Mei Xiang’s recent addition survives, the baby will likely go back to China at some point early on in its life. The good news, though, is that the baby will be reunited with its brother. Tai Shan, a panda born to Mei Xiang in 2005, was returned to China in 2009.

Pretty interesting and, seemingly, pretty ironclad.

The Guardian asked a series of writers, including Elmore Leonard, Neil Gaiman, and Margaret Atwood, to list their writing Do’s and Don’ts. Hard to pick a favorite, there are just so many that I love, but here’s an example:

Never use a verb other than “said” to carry dialogue. The line of dialogue belongs to the character; the verb is the writer sticking his nose in. But “said” is far less intrusive than “grumbled”, “gasped”, “cautioned”, “lied”. I once noticed Mary McCarthy ending a line of dialogue with “she asseverated” and had to stop reading and go to the dictionary.

Though these rules are all listed by novelists, worth reading by anyone who creates prose of any kind.

Man of Steel was a pretty good Superman reboot and Henry Cavill a fine Superman. Last week, we learned that Ben Affleck will play Batman in the sequel. To me, an odd bit of casting, but more than made up for by this genius bit of casting. Think Lex Luthor, then click the link in the headline. Perfect.

Even better, The sequel is called Batman vs. Superman. Wow!

Now if only we didn’t have so long to wait. Batman vs. Superman opens in theaters on July 17, 2015.

There are bundles and there are bundles. And then, well, then there are bundles of bundles.

In this Mighty Deal’s case, however, it feels like we have a bundle that consists of bundles of bundles! Confused yet? Don’t be. Just know that this is one of the biggest bundle deals ever! With literally thousands of high-quality elements for creative designers, this Bundle Storm pretty much has it all!

Stock photos! Vector images! Backgrounds! Patterns! Themes! Gradients! Actions! Icons! Buttons! Infographics! Why, there’s even tools to quickly create your own mascot!

You can also check out the Full Smashing Library Deal.

elementary OS is a free replacement for Windows on the PC and OS X on the Mac. It comes with what you’d expect, like a fast web browser and an app store with thousands of apps. Plus some things you may not expect, like free updates and no known viruses.

I don’t know a lot about it, but it looks like OS X. I’m also not sure where the “thousands of apps” came from.

Back in the good old days, it was easy to pass a used cell phone along to a friend or family member. Then this happened:

In the mid-’90s, wireless companies began to place digital locks on their phones so that consumers couldn’t transfer them to a new carrier. It’s relatively easy to unlock a phone—you can download the necessary code for a few bucks. But as of January 26, under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), you can no longer do this legally. The 1998 law, aimed mostly at curbing digital piracy, also outlawed cellphone unlocking, but the US Copyright Office had always granted an exemption since unlocking phones really has little to do with copyright.

OK, the exemption makes sense, seems like a reasonable solution. But wait.

The wireless industry didn’t like that—it argued that because carriers often subsidize the cost of phones, it’s not fair to let customers take their device to a competitor. The Copyright Office has apparently embraced that argument: This year, for the first time, it denied the usual requests by organizations and individuals to extend the exemption.

Read the article. This is an environmental disaster waiting to happen.