These are a few of my favourite things
by Bryan Peters
Really? As much as I realize I'm a pedant a lot of the time, this one is just inexcusable. And I see it so often. Not everyday often, but definitely a couple of times per month. There are no references to other grammatical or dictionary sites required here.
You are not going to "loose it" on that guy who cut you off on your way home. But, I am going to lose it on you if you keep writing it that way.
For the first time in two years the difficulty to mine bitcoin dropped on Monday.
Mining difficulty determines how difficult it is to hash a new block and varies based on the amount of computing power used by miners on the bitcoin network. Bitcoin’s growing popularity has attracted more computing power to the network, meaning that the difficulty has been steadily increasing for some time.
This was not unexpected. With the price stagnating recently, and being down over 60% in the past year, the payback just hasn't been there for miners. At the current difficulty many miners are losing money. In order for it to be worth their while, the price of bitcoin needs to go up, the mining difficulty needs to decrease, or the costs of mining (equipment, electricity) need to go down. Something had to give.
The Wire is one of my two favourite television series of all time, along with Breaking Bad. I'm very interested to see how it looks, considering that it wasn't shot in 16x9 HD.
Here's what Alan Sepinwall has to say about it, writing for HitFix:
"The Wire," though, wasn't shot that way. David Simon and company had requested that "The Wire" be shot in 16:9, but HBO executives instead insisted on 4:3 and standard-def (possibly as a cost-controlling measure). Simon, the late Robert Colesberry and the show's directors quickly learned to make that frame and the lower-quality image work for the series, giving it a rawer immediacy than might have been possible at the time in a widescreen, high-def image. Where other series were framing for both aspect ratios at once, "Wire" directors weren't even worrying about 16:9, and instead sought to create the best 4:3 image they could. By the time HBO offered to let them do a changeover to 16:9 and high-def after the third season, the show's producers declined, with Simon preferring to stick with one visual template the whole way through.
Because of that, and because of other creative and technical decisions made over the course of those five seasons, "The Wire" proved an especially tricky beast to tame for this new format. HBO has been teasing this re-mastering for months now, with an HBO Signature marathon of the altered episodes listed in various programming schedules in late summer/early fall. At a certain point, Simon himself got involved, along with some other "Wire" alums, to be sure it was done right. If he wasn't happy with the finished product, HBO wouldn't have made the announcement today.
In case you've been living under a rock for the last 24 hours and haven't seen this yet, here is the official teaser.
I'm so pumped to have Star Wars coming back, and with someone other than George Lucas at the directorial helm. I'm clearly not the only one. Several websites have broken down the trailer almost frame by frame to decipher what it all means.
Here is The Verge's and Deadspin's breakdowns on the teaser. The Verge also has a whole article dedicated to speculating on the new crazy claymore lightsaber in the teaser.
And if that isn't enough, you can listen to a few of my favourite podcasters spend 72 minutes discussing this 88-second teaser on The Incomparable.
A great guide form Katherine Boehret at Re/Code.
Check out this pretty cool 2-part video series by Corning and the guys from MythBusters. They look at the evolution of glass, and now, Willow Glass and Gorilla Glass.
I'm getting excited.
Really cool video on some of the math behind Bitcoin. This was shared by a friend and I've been meaning to post it for a couple of weeks now.
I've started getting suggestions from friends on their pet peeves and this one is one that has both been suggested by a few friends, and been one that I had in mind. In fact, I've been slowly grinding through the whole How I Met Your Mother series on Netflix for the past several months, and this English language crime came up a few weeks ago. It's perfect. The funny thing is, that since I've been thinking about it, I've noticed that I've actually been using the word literally way too often myself. I'm not using it in place of figuratively, but I am using it too often. I'm not sure if I've started using literally so much more because I've been thinking about it, or if I always did and now I'm noticing. But, I'm working on it.
Here is what Grammarist has to say about it:
In its usual sense, literally means exactly, in a strict sense, or to the letter. For example, when someone says, “I am literally foaming at the mouth,” this literally means real foam is coming out of his or her mouth. Figuratively means in a metaphorical sense—that is, not in a real sense but in a way that is expressed through figures of speech. So when someone says, “I am figuratively foaming at the mouth,” we can infer that he or she is using the idiom foaming at the mouth, which means very angry, and that no mouth foam is actually present.
Here's what Ted Mosby has to say about it:
Geez Sherbatsky, get it right, would ya?
As a follow-up to my piece the other day, here is a blog post from Roam Mobility themselves, comparing their plans to the new Rogers offering.
On what they are calling "the catch":
Rogers’ new offer is only available for Share Everything Plan subscribers. That means if you are an existing Rogers customer with an older plan, you’ll have to give up that plan to take advantage of the Roam Like Home offer.
These more expensive Share Everything plans start at $80 per month (or $70 if you bring your own device) for talk, text and 500MB of data. At these rates, many customers who make the switch to save on roaming alone will end up paying more on their wireless bills than they do now, so it doesn’t work out to be much of a deal.
I totally agree that switching to a Share Everything plan is not a good idea just to get access to Roam Like Home. Hell, it's not a good idea at all for most people. I'm on a Share Everything plan, and that only works okay for me because I've got three lines (two iPhones and an iPad) sharing data, and my plan is not a standard Share Everything plan. Technically, it qualifies as a Share Everything plan, but it's really a retentions plan. My total bill for all three devices with unlimited talk, text, and 12 GB of data is about $205 per month including taxes. The standard plan for approximately the same service is $235, plus tax. As I've said a few times before, it's always worth calling to cancel at least once per year. I'm saving probably $600 or more per year compared to what I would pay if I didn't have a retentions plan. If you're not on a Share Everything plan, then I wouldn't switch to one. Rogers is trying to force us all down this path by requiring them for hardware upgrades, and now to qualify for their new roaming add-on. It may sound inciting, but iPhoneinCanada did a great job prior to the iPhones 6 launch of laying out all the true costs of a hardware upgrade on a contract vs. buying the phone outright. It's definitely hundreds of dollars cheaper to keep your old contract and buy the phone outright—if you're on a standard plan. So, if you're not on a Share Everything plan, then go with Roam Mobility. You won't be disappointed.
However, if you are on a Share Everything plan for whatever reason, then I think the $5 per day add-on for Roam Like Home while you're in the US isn't a bad deal. At the very least, it's the first reasonably fair and competitive deal Rogers has ever offered for US roaming. My point a few days ago was that it interests me, and I'm going to try it out. I did find swapping SIM's to be a bit of a hassle. In fact, I lost a SIM upon returning from a trip to the US back in May. That meant I had to shell out another $20 for a replacement SIM. I also had issues with iMessage authorizing once I popped in my new SIM on a recent trip to Las Vegas. The iMessage authorization problem was not Roam Mobility's fault at all, but the fact that I had to switch the phone number to which iMessage was associated is what caused the need for it to reauthorize in the first place. If I hadn't had to do that, I would have saved myself some pain and some time on the phone with Apple to get it rectified. To be fair, in the several times I've used Roam Mobility, this was the first time I had an iMessage problem.
In Roam Mobility's blog post, they also link to a MobileSyrup article on this same topic. Here's what Daniel Bader had to say:
While Roam Like Home is a boon to users who don’t want to switch SIM cards, it butts up against solutions from Roam Mobility, which offers a base package of $3.95/day for 400MB of LTE data and unlimited voice/text using T-Mobile’s network, and KnowRoaming, whose SIM sticker we covered earlier this week offers a $7.95 package for unlimited 3G data in the States. Rogers customers who travel often but don’t use their monthly data allotment will find Roam Like Home useful, but Roam Mobility is still likely a better option for those who want a US number.
I was also contacted by the founders of Roam Mobility via Twitter. They seem like nice guys and their main point seems to be that Share Everything plans are not a good deal. On that, we absolutely agree. I hope Roam Mobility continues to be a successful business, as it is a great option for many Canadians travelling to the US.
So, I've written on here before about what a great service Roam Mobility is if you're travelling to the US. Well, Rogers just launched Roam Like Home, and finally made it easy for customers to keep using their phone like normal while they're in the United States.
For only $5 per day, you will get unlimited talk and text, and be able to use your data plan from back home. That's a great deal and very competitive with Roam Mobility's rates. Roam Mobility is about $4 per day for their equivalent service, but you also need to shell out $20 for one of their SIM cards, and you'll have a different phone number when you're in the US. That means that you can't use SMS as easily, or you need to switch the number associated to your iMessage account.
Before now, Roam was worth the slight inconvenience, but I'm not so sure anymore. For just $1 per day more, you can keep your phone number, skip all the hassle of switching SIM cards, and you won't have to notify friends and family of your temporary new phone number. I think the $1 per day is worth the convenience, and I'm probably going to try it next time I'm in the US.
The big catch here is that you need to be on a Share Everything plan from Rogers. That's the way they're forcing everyone to go these days. You can no longer get a hardware upgrade if you aren't on one of these plans. They've been doing this since they switched from 3-year contracts to 2-year contracts just before the iPhone 5S was released last year. These plans aren't as good of a deal as the old plans, unless you actually have family or friends with whom you can "share everything". In that case, you can find an okay deal if you've got at least two lines sharing data.
This is long, long overdue for Rogers. They've been gouging customers who travel to the US for years. While small startup companies like Roam Mobility have been able to negotiate reasonable roaming rates with US carries, and passed those savings onto savvy customers who didn't mind the small hassle of swapping SIM's, Rogers has chosen to charge customers exorbitant rates while roaming. I can't remember the exact math—and I'm too lazy to look up an old bill—but I clearly remember paying more than 1,000 times the domestic data rate for roaming data overage charges, in spite of having already paid $50 for a roaming plan for a 2-day weekend. Of course, I called and complained and got a credit to cover the overage charges, but the fact that Rogers would charge me 1,000 times the domestic rate in the first place is pretty unforgivable. But, here I am apparently ready to forgive them, mostly for lack of a better option, and in the name of convenience.
Via John Gruber, of Daring Fireball:
Pamela Ribon reviews the children’s book 'Barbie: I Can Be a Computer Engineer'. You know this book is going to be bad. You know it’s going to contain dreadful, harmful gender stereotypes. But it is so much worse than you (probably) expect.
I’ve been waiting to link to this piece all day, but Ribon’s website (the excellent Pamie.com) has been down all day because this has gotten so much attention.
As the father of a young girl, this is so disturbing, especially in 2014.
Jacob Kastrenakes, writing for The Verge:
Snapchat created Snapcash in partnership with Square, which will handle storing card numbers and processing payments. That's good news for a lot of reasons, including how user-friendly Square tends to be and the fact that it means Snapchat won't be handling your sensitive information. Snapchat has by no means proven itself to be a beacon of security, and having Square on board may make people a lot more comfortable about providing their information. Square has even been operating a very similar service of its own already, which works over email.
Interesting.
This is about a week old, but if you're switching from an iPhone to another device, you either need to turn off iMessage before you sell our old iPhone or you need to use this new web tool from Apple. Previously, it was possible to be stuck in SMS purgatory with no text messages reaching your new device because iMessage was still turned on and intercepting them. Oops, Apple.
As always, Apple released the update at 1pm EST today. OTA is also available.
I've heard that many people running the beta (I didn't bother this time) are very impressed that all the most annoying bugs got squashed by this update.
This is not a new video. I saw it last year sometime, but it's just so good. I was reminded of it recently, and thought I should share it. Apollo Robbins can do some pretty amazing things. Sorry the video isn't better quality.
$7.99 per month for high-quality music and music videos without ads.
I've really got to start watching John Oliver's Show more regularly.
Today I called my cable and internet provider to confirm when my current "promotions"—my promotions are really retentions plans I was offered when I tried to cancel—expire. After a few minutes and a handful of questions I saved another $15 per month, and ended up with better home internet service than I started with.
I've said this before, but you need to be calling your wireless carrier, cable provider, internet provider (often all three are the same company) at least once per year to make sure you're not getting totally hosed. My move is usually to threaten to cancel to get a better deal, but today I didn't even have to do that.
My current deals are mostly just straight discounts on top of the plan to which I'm currently subscribed. I simply confirmed that I'm still eligible for the same $25 per month off my internet service—I'm good until March 2016. Then I asked if that same discount would apply to a different plan. When the answer was yes, I switched to a new plan that was a better deal than my existing one without having to give up my discount. Perfect. I went from having a 1TB monthly limit to having an unlimited cap for less money. The download speeds didn't change, but I'm already on a crazy 250 Mbps plan anyway, so I'm good there.
The whole thing took less than 15 minutes, and I'm going to save about $180 per year. You should really give it a try.
Bendgate probably got more attention than it deserved, but that doesn't mean there wasn't some truth to it. I was surprised that very average (not tech nerds) people were extremely aware of Bendgate within only a couple of days of the iPhone 6 launch and often the first question people would ask me when they saw that I had a new iPhone 6 Plus was, "has it bent yet"? That was a little much, but Dan Seifert, who is a tech journalist at The Verge, tells his real life story of a bent iPhone 6:
I purchased an iPhone 6 the first day it was available and have been using it as my main device for the past six weeks. Last night, while sitting on my couch, I noticed that it seemed like the Apple leather case my phone lives in had some obvious curvature to it. Upon removing the case, I realized that the phone itself had a very apparent bend, and it could easily be rocked on a flat surface. I also noticed there was a dent on the back of the phone. Neither issue impaired usability, but neither could have been chalked up to normal wear and tear, either.
Note that this was an iPhone 6, not a 6 Plus. Most of the focus of Bendgate was on the iPhone 6 Plus. He continues:
Following Apple's instructions, I used my bent iPhone to schedule an appointment at the Apple Store's Genius Bar for the following morning. I went to the store for my appointment, explained the situation to the employee, who then confirmed that the device was indeed bent without any obvious signs of abuse. I was then given a replacement iPhone and sent on my merry way. The whole process took less than a half an hour. From the time that I discovered my iPhone was bent to having a new phone in my hand was about 12 hours. Apple replaced the damaged phone under warranty at no cost to me, even though I had originally purchased the device from AT&T and not Apple itself. I'd never paid for any extended warranty or AppleCare Plus.
Seifert also notes that his Apple Genius said they'd only seen the issue a couple of times out of thousands of iPhones 6 at the Genius Bar. Before commenting on the level of service he received, he remarked that he was sure the Genius did not recognize him as a journalist, and thus he didn't get any preferential treatment. On the service itself:
I'm not thrilled that my iPhone 6 bent under normal usage, but I can't say I'm unhappy with the resolution. I discovered a problem with my phone late in the evening and had a replacement the very next morning. (I'm fortunate enough to walk past an Apple Store every day on my way to work, so I didn't have to travel far to a store.) The worst part of the whole ordeal was having to reprogram my fingerprints for Touch ID on the replacement device. One of the big reasons that I often recommend iPhones to others is because of Apple's support structure — I can't think of another company that could resolve this kind of problem so quickly and painlessly.
For the record, my iPhone 6 Plus remains unbent.