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Obsidian
My thanks to Obsidian for sponsoring last week at DF. Obsidian is a remarkably flexible and powerful writing and note-taking app that is designed to adapt to the way you think. Obsidian helps you create connections and links between your notes so you can organize your thoughts. You can create links between everything — ideas, articles, lists, locations, books — anything you can put in a note, you can link to other notes. It’s like building your own personal wiki.
Obsidian’s guiding principles:
Free for personal use
Available on all operating systems (including Mac, iOS, and iPadOS)
Interoperable, local Markdown files
No tracking, no account required
Private, end-to-end encrypted
Easy to modify with API, plugins, and themes
100% user-supported, no VC funding
Obsidian exemplifies the mindset of a proper power-user tool: it makes easy things easy, and hard things possible. Another way to think of Obsidian is like an IDE for your notes, thoughts, and ideas. Fresh out of the box it’s useful, powerful, and obvious how to get started. But Obsidian also has a rich ecosystem of plugins and a great community of users — you can customize it in incredible ways. It’s also the sort of Markdown-based tool that does things with Markdown that I never would have imagined when I created it.
They’re offering a special deal for DF readers: sign up for their optional add-on sync service, Obsidian Sync, by 1 January 2024 and you’ll get 5 times the storage space — 50 GB for the price of 10 GB. Get started simply by downloading Obsidian for free.
★
My thanks to Obsidian for sponsoring last week at DF. Obsidian is a remarkably flexible and powerful writing and note-taking app that is designed to adapt to the way you think. Obsidian helps you create connections and links between your notes so you can organize your thoughts. You can create links between everything — ideas, articles, lists, locations, books — anything you can put in a note, you can link to other notes. It’s like building your own personal wiki.
Obsidian’s guiding principles:
Free for personal use
Available on all operating systems (including Mac, iOS, and iPadOS)
Interoperable, local Markdown files
No tracking, no account required
Private, end-to-end encrypted
Easy to modify with API, plugins, and themes
100% user-supported, no VC funding
Obsidian exemplifies the mindset of a proper power-user tool: it makes easy things easy, and hard things possible. Another way to think of Obsidian is like an IDE for your notes, thoughts, and ideas. Fresh out of the box it’s useful, powerful, and obvious how to get started. But Obsidian also has a rich ecosystem of plugins and a great community of users — you can customize it in incredible ways. It’s also the sort of Markdown-based tool that does things with Markdown that I never would have imagined when I created it.
They’re offering a special deal for DF readers: sign up for their optional add-on sync service, Obsidian Sync, by 1 January 2024 and you’ll get 5 times the storage space — 50 GB for the price of 10 GB. Get started simply by downloading Obsidian for free.
The Talk Show: ‘Error -37’
Special holiday guest: John Siracusa. Special holiday topics: the Apple/Masimo patent dispute over the blood oxygen sensors in Apple Watches, the ongoing Beeper Mini/iMessage saga, iOS 17.3’s upcoming Stolen Device Protection feature, Apple’s new Journal app. Also, an ode to big-ass tower desktops.
Sponsored by:
Trade Coffee: Let’s coffee better. Get a free bag of fresh coffee with any Trade subscription.
Nuts.com: The world’s best snacks, delivered fast and fresh.
Squarespace: Make your next move. Use code talkshow for 10% off your first order.
★
Special holiday guest: John Siracusa. Special holiday topics: the Apple/Masimo patent dispute over the blood oxygen sensors in Apple Watches, the ongoing Beeper Mini/iMessage saga, iOS 17.3’s upcoming Stolen Device Protection feature, Apple’s new Journal app. Also, an ode to big-ass tower desktops.
Sponsored by:
Trade Coffee: Let’s coffee better. Get a free bag of fresh coffee with any Trade subscription.
Nuts.com: The world’s best snacks, delivered fast and fresh.
Squarespace: Make your next move. Use code talkshow for 10% off your first order.
Axios: ‘Warner Bros. Discovery in Talks to Merge With Paramount’
Sara Fischer, reporting for Axios:
Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav met with Paramount Global
CEO Bob Bakish on Tuesday in New York City to discuss a possible
merger, Axios has learned from multiple sources. […] Zaslav also
has spoken to Shari Redstone, who owns Paramount’s parent company,
about a deal.
WBD’s market value was around $29 billion as of Wednesday, while
Paramount’s was just over $10 billion, so any merger would not be
of equals. The meeting between Zaslav and Bakish, which sources
say lasted several hours, took place at Paramount’s headquarters
in Times Square. The duo discussed ways their companies could
complement one another. For example, each company’s main streaming
service — Paramount+ and Max — could merge to better rival
Netflix and Disney+.
Merging the streaming platforms would be a certainty. Consolidation is coming — sooner rather than later — to the streaming industry, and Paramount+ has no chance whatsoever on its own. They just don’t have nearly enough original prestige-quality content, and their low-quality filler content is just shows from CBS that you can get for free on regular TV. But because they do own CBS, it limits their options for who they can merge with — Disney owns ABC and Comcast owns NBC, so they’re out. Make Paramount a studio within Warner Bros. Discovery, close Paramount+, and add all the content to Max. This seems so obvious I’d bet it will happen.
Look, I’m an idiot — money falls through my hands like water (as my late friend Dean Allen said of himself) — so I stay subscribed to too many streaming services. Smart industrious people pay attention to what’s being offered and what they’re actually watching on each streaming service, and churn — subscribe for a month or two, watch the thing you wanted to watch, and then unsubscribe. Dumb lazy people like me subscribe to a service to watch one show and then just stay subscribed. That was me with Paramount+, and the show was The Offer — an excellent 10-part series about the development and production of The Godfather. I watched that *last year and yet lo, here I am, still paying $12/month for Paramount+. I keep telling myself I’m going to watch the third season of Picard but I ought to just give up, cancel my subscription today, and just wait for the merger and for Picard to show up inside Max.
* I’d promise to stay subscribed to Paramount+ if they promised to make a sequel/spin-off starring Matthew Goode as Robert Evans, who, in my opinion, just fucking stole The Offer.
★
Sara Fischer, reporting for Axios:
Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav met with Paramount Global
CEO Bob Bakish on Tuesday in New York City to discuss a possible
merger, Axios has learned from multiple sources. […] Zaslav also
has spoken to Shari Redstone, who owns Paramount’s parent company,
about a deal.
WBD’s market value was around $29 billion as of Wednesday, while
Paramount’s was just over $10 billion, so any merger would not be
of equals. The meeting between Zaslav and Bakish, which sources
say lasted several hours, took place at Paramount’s headquarters
in Times Square. The duo discussed ways their companies could
complement one another. For example, each company’s main streaming
service — Paramount+ and Max — could merge to better rival
Netflix and Disney+.
Merging the streaming platforms would be a certainty. Consolidation is coming — sooner rather than later — to the streaming industry, and Paramount+ has no chance whatsoever on its own. They just don’t have nearly enough original prestige-quality content, and their low-quality filler content is just shows from CBS that you can get for free on regular TV. But because they do own CBS, it limits their options for who they can merge with — Disney owns ABC and Comcast owns NBC, so they’re out. Make Paramount a studio within Warner Bros. Discovery, close Paramount+, and add all the content to Max. This seems so obvious I’d bet it will happen.
Look, I’m an idiot — money falls through my hands like water (as my late friend Dean Allen said of himself) — so I stay subscribed to too many streaming services. Smart industrious people pay attention to what’s being offered and what they’re actually watching on each streaming service, and churn — subscribe for a month or two, watch the thing you wanted to watch, and then unsubscribe. Dumb lazy people like me subscribe to a service to watch one show and then just stay subscribed. That was me with Paramount+, and the show was The Offer — an excellent 10-part series about the development and production of The Godfather. I watched that *last year and yet lo, here I am, still paying $12/month for Paramount+. I keep telling myself I’m going to watch the third season of Picard but I ought to just give up, cancel my subscription today, and just wait for the merger and for Picard to show up inside Max.
* I’d promise to stay subscribed to Paramount+ if they promised to make a sequel/spin-off starring Matthew Goode as Robert Evans, who, in my opinion, just fucking stole The Offer.
The Obsessor
Matthew Panzarino has a new website:
Though I built a great audience for sites like The Next
Web and TechCrunch doing that, I’ve never had a
place to collect my thoughts on the broader spectrum of my
interests. I’ll be dropping anything I find interesting on the
site here as it occurs to me and then once a week shipping a
newsletter on a bigger idea or theme. And we might even have some
contributors dropping by to share thoughts on something that they
have working experience of, rather than it being translated
through a lens, darkly.
Given that I just spent about 10 years running TechCrunch in some
form or another, managing a team of up to 50 people, I didn’t get
a lot of time to write about a lot of the things that I love so
much. And I love a lot. Fashion, movies, music, food, theme parks,
robots, product development and design, business and company
building, collecting and art. You name it, I’ve probably obsessed
over it.
Perfect name. Insta-subscribed.
★
Matthew Panzarino has a new website:
Though I built a great audience for sites like The Next
Web and TechCrunch doing that, I’ve never had a
place to collect my thoughts on the broader spectrum of my
interests. I’ll be dropping anything I find interesting on the
site here as it occurs to me and then once a week shipping a
newsletter on a bigger idea or theme. And we might even have some
contributors dropping by to share thoughts on something that they
have working experience of, rather than it being translated
through a lens, darkly.
Given that I just spent about 10 years running TechCrunch in some
form or another, managing a team of up to 50 people, I didn’t get
a lot of time to write about a lot of the things that I love so
much. And I love a lot. Fashion, movies, music, food, theme parks,
robots, product development and design, business and company
building, collecting and art. You name it, I’ve probably obsessed
over it.
Perfect name. Insta-subscribed.
‘What Happens When Facebook Heats Your Home’
Morgan Meaker, writing for Wired:
Søren Freiesleben has lived in Odense his entire life. He likes
the historic Danish city for its size. It’s not too big — just
200,000 people live there — and he never feels like he’s drowning
in crowds. So far so normal. But there is something unusual about
Odense: Its homes are heated by the social giant Meta.
Since 2020, Meta’s hyperscale data center — spanning 50,000
square meters on an industrial estate on the edge of the city — has been pushing warm air generated by its servers into the
district heating network under Odense. That heat is then dispersed
through 100,000 households hooked up to the system, with Meta
providing enough heat to cover roughly 11,000.
When life gives you lemons, make lemonade; when massive data centers generate heat, warm houses.
(Also via Dave Pell.)
★
Morgan Meaker, writing for Wired:
Søren Freiesleben has lived in Odense his entire life. He likes
the historic Danish city for its size. It’s not too big — just
200,000 people live there — and he never feels like he’s drowning
in crowds. So far so normal. But there is something unusual about
Odense: Its homes are heated by the social giant Meta.
Since 2020, Meta’s hyperscale data center — spanning 50,000
square meters on an industrial estate on the edge of the city — has been pushing warm air generated by its servers into the
district heating network under Odense. That heat is then dispersed
through 100,000 households hooked up to the system, with Meta
providing enough heat to cover roughly 11,000.
When life gives you lemons, make lemonade; when massive data centers generate heat, warm houses.
Colorado Supreme Court Rules Trump Ineligible for President Under 14th Amendment
Dave Pell, writing at NextDraft:
Donald Trump has been kicked out of the mile high club. In a 4-3
decision, the Colorado Supreme Court has ruled that Trump is
ineligible to be on the ballot in the state under Section
3 of the 14th Amendment. “The decision from a court whose
justices were all appointed by Democratic governors marks the
first time in history that Section 3 of the 14th Amendment has
been used to disqualify a presidential candidate.” For now, the
decision is stayed, giving the Supreme Court time to weigh in on
the matter. […]
Why 14th Amendment bars Trump from office: A constitutional law
scholar explains principle behind Colorado Supreme Court
ruling. In Slate, Lawrence Lessig explains why the 14
Amendment actually doesn’t do that at all: “The Supreme Court
Must Unanimously Strike Down Trump’s Ballot Removal”. Once
you’re done reading the analysis, you might want to shift your
focus to the 21st Amendment, because you’re gonna need a drink.
I dislike the AP’s emphasis on the fact that the justices on Colorado’s supreme court court were all nominated by Democratic governors — it emphasizes partisanship in the branch of government that ought to be least partisan. (After serving an initial term, Colorado supreme court justice must stand for statewide election; the four of them who have served that long have been retained by voters overwhelmingly.) The AP does not use such language when describing the decisions of the United States Supreme Court, of which 6 of 9 justices were nominated by Republican presidents — and who never stand for retention by voters. (This, despite the fact that voters have, in the aggregate popular vote, overwhelmingly favored Democratic candidates for president over the last 30 years. The only Republican candidates to win the popular vote after Reagan were George H.W. Bush in 1988 (7.7% margin) and George W. Bush in 2004 (2.5%).)
The argument that the 14th Amendment bars Trump from running again for federal office — and that it’s self-executing — was first put forth in a paper by two law professors, William Baude and Michael Stokes Paulsen, who are members of the very conservative Federalist Society. It’s not some crackpot left-wing plot.
To Pell’s list of reading material, I’ll add George Conway, also writing at The Atlantic:
But last night changed my mind. Not because of anything the
Colorado Supreme Court majority said. The three dissents were
what convinced me the majority was right.
The dissents were gobsmacking — for their weakness. They did not
want for legal craftsmanship, but they did lack any semblance of a
convincing argument.
★
Dave Pell, writing at NextDraft:
Donald Trump has been kicked out of the mile high club. In a 4-3
decision, the Colorado Supreme Court has ruled that Trump is
ineligible to be on the ballot in the state under Section
3 of the 14th Amendment. “The decision from a court whose
justices were all appointed by Democratic governors marks the
first time in history that Section 3 of the 14th Amendment has
been used to disqualify a presidential candidate.” For now, the
decision is stayed, giving the Supreme Court time to weigh in on
the matter. […]
Why 14th Amendment bars Trump from office: A constitutional law
scholar explains principle behind Colorado Supreme Court
ruling. In Slate, Lawrence Lessig explains why the 14
Amendment actually doesn’t do that at all: “The Supreme Court
Must Unanimously Strike Down Trump’s Ballot Removal”. Once
you’re done reading the analysis, you might want to shift your
focus to the 21st Amendment, because you’re gonna need a drink.
I dislike the AP’s emphasis on the fact that the justices on Colorado’s supreme court court were all nominated by Democratic governors — it emphasizes partisanship in the branch of government that ought to be least partisan. (After serving an initial term, Colorado supreme court justice must stand for statewide election; the four of them who have served that long have been retained by voters overwhelmingly.) The AP does not use such language when describing the decisions of the United States Supreme Court, of which 6 of 9 justices were nominated by Republican presidents — and who never stand for retention by voters. (This, despite the fact that voters have, in the aggregate popular vote, overwhelmingly favored Democratic candidates for president over the last 30 years. The only Republican candidates to win the popular vote after Reagan were George H.W. Bush in 1988 (7.7% margin) and George W. Bush in 2004 (2.5%).)
The argument that the 14th Amendment bars Trump from running again for federal office — and that it’s self-executing — was first put forth in a paper by two law professors, William Baude and Michael Stokes Paulsen, who are members of the very conservative Federalist Society. It’s not some crackpot left-wing plot.
To Pell’s list of reading material, I’ll add George Conway, also writing at The Atlantic:
But last night changed my mind. Not because of anything the
Colorado Supreme Court majority said. The three dissents were
what convinced me the majority was right.
The dissents were gobsmacking — for their weakness. They did not
want for legal craftsmanship, but they did lack any semblance of a
convincing argument.
Comcast Xfinity Discloses Data Breach Affecting Over 35 Million People
Sergiu Gatlan, Bleeping Computer:
Cybersecurity company Mandiant says the Citrix flaw had been
actively exploited as a zero-day since at least late
August 2023.
Following an investigation into the impact of the incident,
Xfinity discovered on November 16 that the attackers also
exfiltrated data from its systems, with the data breach affecting
35,879,455 people.
“After additional review of the affected systems and data, Xfinity
concluded on December 6, 2023, that the customer information in
scope included usernames and hashed passwords,” the company
said. “[F]or some customers, other information may also
have been included, such as names, contact information, last four
digits of social security numbers, dates of birth and/or secret
questions and answers. However, the data analysis is continuing.”
Not sure what that last sentence means other than “Hold onto your butts, it might be even worse than we know so far.”
★
Sergiu Gatlan, Bleeping Computer:
Cybersecurity company Mandiant says the Citrix flaw had been
actively exploited as a zero-day since at least late
August 2023.
Following an investigation into the impact of the incident,
Xfinity discovered on November 16 that the attackers also
exfiltrated data from its systems, with the data breach affecting
35,879,455 people.
“After additional review of the affected systems and data, Xfinity
concluded on December 6, 2023, that the customer information in
scope included usernames and hashed passwords,” the company
said. “[F]or some customers, other information may also
have been included, such as names, contact information, last four
digits of social security numbers, dates of birth and/or secret
questions and answers. However, the data analysis is continuing.”
Not sure what that last sentence means other than “Hold onto your butts, it might be even worse than we know so far.”
Joanna Stern Goes to Prison
Joanna Stern, writing for The Wall Street Journal (Apple News+ link for the story; YouTube link for the excellent video):
Before the guards let you through the barbed-wire fences and steel
doors at this Minnesota Correctional Facility, you have to leave
your phone in a locker. Not a total inconvenience when you’re
there to visit a prolific iPhone thief.
I wasn’t worried that Aaron Johnson would steal my iPhone, though.
I came to find out how he’d steal it.
“I’m already serving time. I just feel like I should try to be on
the other end of things and try to help people,” Johnson, 26
years old, told me in an interview we filmed inside the
high-security prison where he’s expected to spend the
next several years.
According to the Minneapolis Police Department’s arrest warrant,
Johnson and the other 11 members of the enterprise allegedly
accumulated nearly $300,000. According to him, it was likely more.
Fascinating and remarkable interview. Humanizing, but Stern in no way absolves Johnson for his thievery. (Points to Johnson for honesty too: he mostly regrets getting too greedy.)
One aspect that struck me from Johnson’s description of his modus operandi is that it relied little on observing people surreptitiously to glean their device passcodes. Instead it was mostly pure social engineering. He’d make fast friends with a target in a bar and just talk his way into the target telling him their passcode, so he could show them his Snapchat account or whatever. He’d talk people into giving him what he needed. Never underestimate how much digital crime revolves around person-to-person social engineering.
I’m glad Apple is adding the new Stolen Device Protection feature in iOS 17.3 (currently in beta), but my my main takeaway from this entire saga is that everyone, including Apple, needs to spread awareness that device passcodes need to be treated as holiest-of-holy secrets. You should treat your device passcode with as much (if not more) secrecy as you do your ATM card PIN. Use Face ID (or Touch ID), and if you ever find yourself needing to enter your device passcode in public — anywhere in public — find a private location to enter it, far from any prying eyes or cameras. If you keep your device passcodes secret, you’re safe. I’m sure enough about this that I don’t think I’m going to enable Stolen Device Protection, personally.
★
Joanna Stern, writing for The Wall Street Journal (Apple News+ link for the story; YouTube link for the excellent video):
Before the guards let you through the barbed-wire fences and steel
doors at this Minnesota Correctional Facility, you have to leave
your phone in a locker. Not a total inconvenience when you’re
there to visit a prolific iPhone thief.
I wasn’t worried that Aaron Johnson would steal my iPhone, though.
I came to find out how he’d steal it.
“I’m already serving time. I just feel like I should try to be on
the other end of things and try to help people,” Johnson, 26
years old, told me in an interview we filmed inside the
high-security prison where he’s expected to spend the
next several years.
According to the Minneapolis Police Department’s arrest warrant,
Johnson and the other 11 members of the enterprise allegedly
accumulated nearly $300,000. According to him, it was likely more.
Fascinating and remarkable interview. Humanizing, but Stern in no way absolves Johnson for his thievery. (Points to Johnson for honesty too: he mostly regrets getting too greedy.)
One aspect that struck me from Johnson’s description of his modus operandi is that it relied little on observing people surreptitiously to glean their device passcodes. Instead it was mostly pure social engineering. He’d make fast friends with a target in a bar and just talk his way into the target telling him their passcode, so he could show them his Snapchat account or whatever. He’d talk people into giving him what he needed. Never underestimate how much digital crime revolves around person-to-person social engineering.
I’m glad Apple is adding the new Stolen Device Protection feature in iOS 17.3 (currently in beta), but my my main takeaway from this entire saga is that everyone, including Apple, needs to spread awareness that device passcodes need to be treated as holiest-of-holy secrets. You should treat your device passcode with as much (if not more) secrecy as you do your ATM card PIN. Use Face ID (or Touch ID), and if you ever find yourself needing to enter your device passcode in public — anywhere in public — find a private location to enter it, far from any prying eyes or cameras. If you keep your device passcodes secret, you’re safe. I’m sure enough about this that I don’t think I’m going to enable Stolen Device Protection, personally.
Christopher Nolan on John August’s Script Notes Podcast
John August:
John welcomes writer and director Christopher Nolan (The Dark
Knight, Inception) to discuss experimentation, subjectivity and
adaptation as they take an in-depth look at his screenplay,
Oppenheimer. They explore Chris’ writing process, how to make
non-linear structures work, finding the story in real-life events,
being kinetic on the page, the importance of embracing editing,
and why theme can be a tricky thing.
Just a terrific interview; Nolan is as cogent as you’d expect. Even if you don’t write screenplays, I think his advice and experience are applicable to any creative endeavor, in terms of how to translate nebulous ideas churning around in your head into a concrete written description or plan. Writing is thinking, and it’s in the writing of ideas that they become fully formed.
★
John August:
John welcomes writer and director Christopher Nolan (The Dark
Knight, Inception) to discuss experimentation, subjectivity and
adaptation as they take an in-depth look at his screenplay,
Oppenheimer. They explore Chris’ writing process, how to make
non-linear structures work, finding the story in real-life events,
being kinetic on the page, the importance of embracing editing,
and why theme can be a tricky thing.
Just a terrific interview; Nolan is as cogent as you’d expect. Even if you don’t write screenplays, I think his advice and experience are applicable to any creative endeavor, in terms of how to translate nebulous ideas churning around in your head into a concrete written description or plan. Writing is thinking, and it’s in the writing of ideas that they become fully formed.