I absolutely loved this post on Unraveling the Digital Markets Act: by the team from iA, who also make one of my favourite pieces of software. 

Judge denies HP's request to dismiss printer lockdown suiit • The Register:

HP all-in-one printer owners, upset that their devices wouldn't scan or fax when low on ink, were handed a partial win in a northern California court this week after a judge denied HP's motion to dismiss their suit.

This whole story is just a brilliant example of why there is a special circle of hell reserved for printer manufacturers. And of course it’s also exactly the kind of thing that Cory has been railing against for years. Software locks to prevent you doing things with a device you bought outright are evil. 

Finished reading: The Centauri Device by M. John Harrison 📚

I first read this when I was about ten years old and I’ve loved Harrison’s work ever since. It showed me that SF could be something different, that spaceships didn’t have to mean macho hero figures. MJH doesn’t like it, but I do.

Suspect charged in hate-motivated stabbing in Canada university gender issues class | Canada | The Guardian:

A suspect has been charged in the stabbing of a professor and two students during a class on gender issues at Canada’s University of Waterloo in what police are calling a hate-motivated attack...  “The accused targeted a gender studies class and investigators believe this was a hate-motivated incident related to gender expression and gender identity,” Waterloo police said in a statement on Wednesday.

I'm shocked, shocked i tell you, that the stabbing of a professor teaching a class on gender has turned out to be a hate crime. Silence, of course, from the likes of Kathleen Stock and the other specialists in complaining about how they're being “oppressed" for their so-called gender critical views. And silence from the right wing “academic freedom” brigade. 

w/e 2023-08-06 (Phil Gyford’s website):

My only specific memory of shopping in Revolver was going in to buy a ticket to see The Wedding Present play at The Studio in 1991. I asked the guy behind the counter for one and, as he reached for the book or box or whatever, in which they kept tickets, he said with a look of distaste, “Well, I suppose Buffalo Tom are supporting.” It was that kind of place.

There is no better thing on this earth than a record shop (or book store) with an opinion about what’s good. 

Billionaire investor threatens to pull out of UK amid global outcry at new oil rush:

“I am a major investor here,” Forrest told Bloomberg News. “If I see this country steering itself over a cliff backing fossil fuel, I am going to start pulling out. I will push my investments over to North America … I must invest where I know I have proper leadership, not leadership which is on a clickbait cycle.”

It’s almost like the Tories still don’t understand that people who aren’t British can read the same newspapers they are pandering to. 

The Gnome foundation, which makes arguably the most popular desktop environment for Linux, is experimenting with new windowing models. While there’s development work going into better tiling, the more interesting mode is what they’re calling “Mosaic” – and to my eyes, it looks quite a bit like Apple’s Stage Manager.

Here’s how they describe how it works:

You open a window, it opens centered on the screen at a size that makes the most sense for the app. For a web browser that might be maximized, for a weather app maybe only 700×500 pixels. As you open more windows, the existing windows move aside to make room for the new ones. If a new window doesn’t fit (e.g. because it wants to be maximized) it moves to its own workspace. If the window layout comes close to filling the screen, the windows are automatically tiled.

That’s a pretty good description of how Stage Manager works too, although the details are different. By default when you open a new application in Stage Manager, it opens in its own “workspace”, with other windows sliding into the shelf on the side. Drag another window in and Stage Manager tries to move windows about so they overlap in the smallest possible way. The Gnome approach looks to be more aggressive about tiling and avoiding overlaps, and although the underlying grid which Stage Manager uses is more relaxed in iPadOS 17 it still feels more “gridded” than Mosaic.

It will be really interesting to see where Gnome goes with this – and what the reaction to it will be. Some parts of the Linux community are heavily committed to tiling and see overlapping windows as basically an error in the history of operating systems, while others are more relaxed and open to new ideas.

I largely agree with Nick Heer’s take on Apple’s policies on repair – and the criticisms thereof. I don’t think Apple goes out of their way to engineer things which are harder to repair, and nor do I believe they deliberately engineer-in stuff which breaks third party repairs. They just build stuff to incredibly tight tolerances and are very specific about parts. But… that is ultimately an engineering choice, too. Apple chooses to place tight integration over giving users more ability to repair and replace parts.

To give Apple credit, this tight integration is part of what gives Apple devices longevity. Predictable parts means that Apple can optimise future operating systems to known targets, which is helpful if you want to ensure an older phone is usable with newer software. But I think still think it’s the wrong call. While it gives technical advantage, it increases e-waste and ultimately lessens the lifespan of the device.

Apple doesn’t have to create modular phones that are incredibly easy to repair, although it would be fantastic if it applied its undoubted engineering prowess to doing so. There are a lot of things it could do which aren’t as radical as that. Apple could publish its calibration processes, which would make third party repair easier. It could publish the schematics for its devices, as for example Fairphone do (but other phone makers don’t). It chooses not to do these things. Everything about Apple’s behaviour here is a choice, one that it could and should change.

(And before someone jumps in with “fiduciary duty to maximise profits blah blah” – even in the US, where shareholder primacy is fairly well established, courts have long held that shareholder value is not the same as simple profits.)

Five billion mobile phones will be thrown away this year, and the majority of them will not be recycled. Apple is in a position to do something which benefits its customers and society – and it is choosing not to. It could lead the industry. Instead, it’s contributing to making the planet a less healthy, more polluted place. History will not be kind on the likes of Apple.

(PS This is a bit of an experiment in publishing something to my Micro.blog rather than Wordpress, so bare with me if it goes a bit wrong.)

This week, I mostly gave myself a week off which meant I hit level 60 on my character in the new Diablo 4 season. That’s understandable, but I need to make sure that I don’t spend too much time just lazing around even if there is a World Cup to watch.

If you don’t know about it, the wonderful publisher And Other Stories have a brilliant subscription scheme. For £70 a year, you get six books – but you also get your name in the back of the book, and get them a couple of months in advance of publication. That means you have to wait a while for your subscription to kick in, and my first book arrive this week. It’s “Traces of Enayat”, by Iman Mersal, and I’m looking forward to it.

The three things which most caught my attention

1. Cory not only skewers Tesla (and Musk) in this piece on Autoshittification, he also draws lines showing how we are being drawn into a form of feudalism.
2. I am so fucking tired of the Labour Party’s duplicitous bullshit on trans rights. Not as tired as my trans friends must be, but still. I won’t be voting Labour next time because the party is happy to keep my local MP in place, despite spouting hatred at every opportunity she gets.
3. I don’t entirely agree with the conclusions that Erin Kissane comes to in her article about why Mastodon didn’t stick for a few people, but it’s well worth a read. I think a lot of confusion is down to the expectation that a federated system works (and should work) like a centralised one – which is why some people find Bluesky more comforting. A Bluesky which lives up to its intentions would be federated and in many ways as confusing to new users as Mastodon – but at the moment, it’s not actually a federated system. It’s no different to t2, or any one of the plethora of other similar centralised services, other than it was founded by Jack Dorsey.

Things I have been writing

I rediscovered a story which I started writing at some point about a doctor who isn’t quite what he appears, and pushed it a bit further. It took me a while to actually realise that I had written it – there are some interesting stylistic tricks in it which I had forgotten playing around with. Along with the story that I developed at Arvon I’m going to finish that in the coming week.

Things I have been reading

China Mieville’s “A Spectre, Haunting” crossed my radar and, as it’s a short one, I started reading it. It’s excellent of course, although China is very much in his academic mode rather than entertaining.