∞ In 2019, Apple Needs to Change iPhone’s Call UI
Spencer Dailey writes,
Right now, any robocall hacker in the world can instantly take over your phone’s screen, knocking you out of your mobile gaming experience, disrupting you as you check out at the store, or breaking your concentration as you try and type out an email.
And disrupt they do, at a massive scale. Several billion fake calls are received each month in the US. Reports show this is a global problem, with Brazilians averaging 37 spam calls per month. Actually, I’m getting a robocall as I type this very sentence, my second today.
At the telelphony-infrastructure level, it’s a supremely difficult problem that lacks a short-term fix because the underlying protocol is hopelessly insecure.
Google has already solved this problem with Pixel's Call Screen. Your move, Apple.
∞ Tumbleweed as Dodgeball
A tumbleweed is a structural part of the above-ground anatomy of a number of species of plants, a diaspore that, once it is mature and dry, detaches from its root or stem, and tumbles away in the wind.
You can find tumbleweeds tumbling along I-5. They are impressive and fun to see from your high speed vehicle. You can even play dodgeball.
∞ Blender 2.8 Beta Is Here
They should really call it Blender 3. What a massive upgrade:
No other release of Blender has been met with so much anticipation! It’s the accumulation of 3 years of time and hundreds of months of work by developers from the Blender community.
After I tried making a 2D game, my heart still belongs to 3D.
∞ The history of Jews, Chinese food, and Christmas, explained by a rabbi
Rabbi Joshua Eli Plaut, rabbi of Metropolitan Synagogue in New York, interviewed by Jamie Lauren Keiles from Vox, says
In Chinese-American cooking, if there is any pork [which is not a kosher food], it is usually concealed inside something, like a wonton. A lot of Jews back then — and even now — kept strict kosher inside the home but were more flexible with foods they ate at restaurants. Sociologist Gaye Tuchman wrote about this practice. She described [the plausible deniability of non-kosher ingredients] as safe treyf. [Treyf is the Yiddish word for non-kosher.] A lot of Jews considered the pork in Chinese food to be safe treyf, because they couldn’t see it. That made it easier to eat.
I always thought the only reason it was Chinese food is because there was only Chinese restaurants open on Christmas Eve back then. I didn't realize there is another reason that made it a tradition.
∞ Five Photo Book Printing Services
I have printed a few photo books from Google Photos, they are absolutely gorgeous.
What's more impressive, the service is available in so many countries: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Canada, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, United Kingdom, and United States.
The first two things I did after opening a P.O. box:
- Send a physical mail to myself 😁
- Create a mailing list without knowing what the mailing list would be. By the way, you can sign up here: https://eepurl.com/gbJJuX
∞ Airpod Stickers on Etsy
What a unique category of tiny things, and so much creativity.
∞ CenturyLink Is Blocking Its customer's Internet And Injecting Ads
Rich Snapp writes:
CenturyLink is blocking its customer's internet until they confirm they've seen notification for paid security offering
Notification is injected into customer's browsing sessions using ethically questionable DNS Hijacking
CenturyLink claims this is required due to Utah S.B. 134 but bill sponsor says "not like this"
Those using streaming devices (FireTV, Chromecast, etc) or their own DNS offering (OpenDNS/GoogleDNS) don't receive notification to unblock their internet and are effectively SOL
If you haven't heard of CenturyLink, it's actually the third-largest telecommunications company in the US in terms of lines served.
∞ Discord to Allow All Developers Self-publishing Games with 90/10 Revenue Split
Last week Epic announced they are launching a game store. Now today, Discord announced:
Starting in 2019, we are going to extend access to the Discord store and our extremely efficient game patcher by releasing a self-serve game publishing platform. No matter what size, from AAA to single person teams, developers will be able to self publish on the Discord store with 90% revenue share going to the developer.
Yet another great news for game developers.
If the Moon Were Replaced With Some of Our Planets
Yeti Dynamics shows us what if the moon were replaced with some of our planets:
On Jupiter, you might be able to make out the 4 big moons, They all have orbits larger than our moons orbit. but I stuck them on the far side of jupiter so that they could be seen so it looks as if they are closer (to Jupiter) than they really are.
Another video from them showing what if the moon were at the same distance as the International Space Station is also fascinating.