Substrate

Like many of Apple’s biggest hits, it wasn’t immediately well-understood. ​ In hindsight, I think the rollout of the Apple Watch was unnecessarily complicated for a first-generation product. ​ it’s truly the kind of product that you need to use to understand it. ​ But despite the allure of recent models’ GPS capabilities and far nicer industrial design, I have not had the itch to upgrade. ​ it’s still a little strange to see so many people wearing the exact same watch every day. ​ Rather than augmenting what I already wear, it replaces something. ​ Finally, there’s something about wearing an Apple Watch with my AirPods in my ears while looking at an iPhone that makes me feel, well, a little bit dorky. I don’t want to make a big deal out of this; I’m sure it’s just elevated levels of self-consciousness that are more indicative of who I am than of the device. This is almost certainly a me problem. But, still. Akin to Ryan’s old Rule of Three tweet about Apple devices (https://twitter.com/ryandawidjan/status/930511618529746944). Or I can leave it in the bank and add to it for a watch that’s far more like a piece of jewellery than it is a wrist computer. Even the nicest stainless steel Apple Watch is still identifiable primarily as a device. I have also learned something over the last four years that I’ve used an Apple Watch: I learned that my hesitance to upgrade is not from a lack of new features — there are plenty of those — but almost the opposite. I don’t know that I want more of anything happening on my wrist; I guess I just want less.

We should likely stop talking about RSS. We need to simply start calling RSS “Subscribing”.

“Exciting developments on the RSS front” is not a phrase you can use every day; but, today is an apt day to use it. Rob Fahrni announced that he’s working on a new app that aims to deliver RSS updates as a constant stream, like a Twitter app. I like the simplicity of this and, […]

Bijan Stephen, the Verge: Records should have good art. For albums as diverse as London Calling, Horses, and Fear of a Black, the images on their covers were as recognizable as the music on the wax. While Apple Music isn’t a record label (yet), it did recently decide to add original art to its playlists. […]

Peter Bright, Ars Technica: Fulfilling its 2017 promise to make Thunderbolt 3 royalty-free, Intel has given the specification for its high-speed interconnect to the USB Implementers Forum (USB-IF), the industry group that develops the USB specification. The USB-IF has taken the spec and will use it to form the basis of USB4, the next iteration […]

Jason Koebler and Jordan Cox of Vice penned a blockbuster investigation into Facebook’s content moderation practices that’s worth your time. They interviewed “dozens” of sources, including several on-the-record conversations with Facebook employees in charge of their moderation efforts: The thing that makes Facebook’s problem so difficult is its gargantuan size. It doesn’t just have to […]

Casey Newton of the Verge spoke with content moderators who are employed by Cognizant but working on Facebook’s behalf: Collectively, the employees described a workplace that is perpetually teetering on the brink of chaos. It is an environment where workers cope by telling dark jokes about committing suicide, then smoke weed during breaks to numb […]