There are a whole bunch of features and fixes coming to Safari with Apple’s OS 27.3 update. One that is not in the beta release notes but appears nevertheless is support for Global Privacy Control. This new standard is effectively a replacement for Do Not Track with legal muscle that should permit you to indicate your tracking preference one time and then, theoretically, never again see a cookie consent banner.
\n\nIn practice, it will take time for websites to add support, and it requires users to enable the feature in Safari’s Settings. I do not love the implementation in the first beta, which buries the checkbox in the Advanced tab with the ambiguous label “Use Global Privacy Control”, unlike the company’s proprietary anti-tracking features that live in the Privacy tab. But at least it is present and, in my testing, functional.
\n\n", "date_published": "2026-11-04T21:09:24-06:00", "date_modified": "2026-11-04T21:09:24-06:00", "author": { "name": "Nick Heer" } }, { "id": "https://pxlnv.com/linklog/public-icloud-link-checking/", "url": "https://pxlnv.com/linklog/public-icloud-link-checking/", "external_url": "https://support.apple.com/en-ca/149168", "title": "Public iCloud Links to Be Checked ‘For Harmful Content’", "content_html": "Apple, in a support article published yesterday (emphasis mine):
\n\n\n\n\nWhen you share content that\u2019s stored in iCloud, such as a photo in iCloud Photos or a file in iCloud Drive, you can choose to Share a Link or Send a Copy of the item. If you choose Share a Link, you can either share the item with \u201cPeople you choose\u201d \u2014 only people you invite or approve \u2014 or with \u201cAnyone with the link,” which makes it accessible to anyone who has the link, including Apple. Starting in version 27.3 or later of iOS, iPadOS, macOS, and visionOS, items shared using Anyone with the Link will be checked by Apple for harmful content.
\n
Good.
\n\nMany years ago, in covering the iCloud CSAM detection features Apple later scrapped. In my coverage, I wrote:
\n\n\n\n\nLet\u2019s apply this logic to something less heinous like copyrighted materials. If these files are merely stored in a cloud service and are not being shared to any third party, should the service provider be monitoring its systems and terminating user accounts with files matching known pirated copies? I am not sure that makes much sense.
\n \nOnce these files are shared beyond the user\u2019s personal drive, I am fully on board with scanning for legal purposes. Google Drive, for example, will allow users to store copyrighted materials but attempts to restrict sharing options if those files match valid takedown requests. Apple and Google check email attachments for child abuse materials, while Facebook scans users\u2019 messages. That makes sense to me. As with social media companies moderating their platforms, I think there ought to be different expectations when things are broadcast to the world.
\n
Private storage features in iCloud or any other provider’s service should be treated, legally, as an extension of internal storage since they are so tightly integrated into modern operating systems. They are not, but they should be. But when things are publicly accessible, it is fair to lose that expectation.
\n\nNo word on what Apple means by “harmful content”, though I am sure you can think of the more obvious categories. It remains baffling to me why there is still no way to easily report abuse.
\n\n", "date_published": "2026-11-04T17:29:38-06:00", "date_modified": "2026-11-04T17:55:23-06:00", "author": { "name": "Nick Heer" } }, { "id": "https://pxlnv.com/linklog/cbc-wonder-valley-article/", "url": "https://pxlnv.com/linklog/cbc-wonder-valley-article/", "external_url": "https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/wonder-valley-slcn-court-physicist-9.7403677", "title": "CBC News Updates Article About \u2018Wonder Valley\u2019 Data Centre Complex", "content_html": "Two days ago, Eagle Andersen reported for CBC News that the Wonder Valley data centre complex \u2014 previously \u2014 would “release the equivalent of 23 atom bombs of heat waste” every day. This figure is quoted in the headline, and repeated in the first two paragraphs:
\n\n\n\n\nAn analysis of the mammoth data centre proposed by celebrity investor Kevin O\u2019Leary suggests it would release the equivalent of 23 atom bombs of heat waste into the boreal forest of northwestern Alberta every day.
\n \nIf the Wonder Valley project goes ahead, \u201c\u2018about 23 Hiroshima-sized atomic bombs worth of energy every single day will get dumped into that landscape,\u201d said Utah State University physicist Robert Davies.
\n
If you are steeped in the world of data centre media coverage, you might recognize this comparison. Dan Robinson, writing for the Register in May:
\n\n\n\n\nA proposed mega-scale datacenter in the US state of Utah has caused controversy after a physics professor estimated that the facility and its associated power generation could dump 23 atomic bombs’ worth of energy per day. But the real question is whether it will actually ever get built.
\n
Take a wild guess which physics professor made that estimate.
\n\nIt is not a surprising repetition as the projects in Alberta and Utah are quite similar. Not only are both backed and promoted by Kevin O’Leary, they are being jointly marketed as 7.5 gigawatt twins. But a comparison to one of the most extraordinary acts of war ever committed is hardly meaningful except \u2014 as it was in this case \u2014 as a made-for-headlines quote.
\n\nThe editors at CBC News clearly thought this was too much, and substantially revised the article. It now carries a more responsible headline \u2014 “Physicist warns proposed data centre would generate \u2018large, if not extreme\u2019 heat waste” \u2014 and carries an editor’s note and correction:
\n\n\n\n\nThis story and its headline have been updated to provide further context about the preliminary nature of Robert Davies\u2019 assessment and align with our journalistic standards and practices. An earlier version of this story also said that at full operation, the project would release around 18 gigawatts of heat a day, according to Davies. In fact, Davies said the project would consume energy at a continuous rate of 18 gigawatts, or about 1.5 petajoules per day.
\n
The differences between the versions are remarkable. The new one contains far more caveats, including an acknowledgement from Davies that “of course, that\u2019s not explosions”, and that the numbers in his report are “a first-order estimate intended to convey scale”.
\n\nI am curious how Davies arrived at an energy consumption figure of 18 gigawatts, though. Not only is that more than double what the project’s website claims, it is over 60% more electricity than is currently being generated in Alberta, and around 77% of the total capacity of our entire grid.
\n\nWhile I still doubt this project is much more than a self-promotional effort by an opportunistic and loudmouthed investor, and the environmental impact of data centres like these must be a greater priority than it currently seems to be, I am glad editors were able to put this professor’s figures in their fuller context. A comparison to a bomb is not especially helpful because the difference between heat emitted slowly and heat emitted instantly is not slight. But because the loud and pervasive marketing of A.I. boosters is something news outlets feel compelled to cover in a fair and balanced way, I understand fighting their fire with fire.
\n\n", "date_published": "2026-11-03T17:15:56-06:00", "date_modified": "2026-11-03T17:15:56-06:00", "author": { "name": "Nick Heer" } }, { "id": "https://pxlnv.com/linklog/adult-children-monitoring-parents/", "url": "https://pxlnv.com/linklog/adult-children-monitoring-parents/", "external_url": "https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/boomer-parents-screen-time-problem.html", "title": "The Adult Children Cleaning Up Their Parents\u2019 Feeds", "content_html": "Jessica Lucas, in a fascinating New York magazine article about older people succumbing to compulsive social media use, and the adult children who are trying to stabilize their feeds:
\n\n\n\n\nMost adult children seem to know instinctively that their parents\u2019 social-media use has long since outstripped whatever cognitive good it once served. They have watched their parents surrender ever-larger portions of their lives to their phones, triggering a kind of grief and, occasionally, anger. Every hour handed over to the feed can feel like a choice on their parents\u2019 part to willingly accelerate their own deterioration. Anne, a 55-year-old writer living in New York, regularly travels out of state to visit her mother, Rosa, who is in her 80s. She often arrives to an unsettling scene: Rosa on the couch, \u201chunched over\u201d her phone, \u201cslack-jawed.\u201d Over the years, Anne says she has watched her mother abandon crossword puzzles, newspapers, and books in favor of the feed. \u201cI don\u2019t think a younger version of her would have recognized that behavior as something she had as a goal for herself later in life,\u201d she tells me.
\n
Lucas also describes a kind of A.I.-generated video genre that preys on seniors; these videos are everywhere. If I am not signed into my YouTube Premium account, I often see ads from some company named Oathill Media with A.I.-generated seniors extolling the benefits of cheap life insurance. I cannot imagine this is wholly legitimate, and I know people who have been tricked by similar videos.
\n\nMore broadly, this is one reason I think age-based regulations are insufficient. We should expect more from the giant corporations that make their money from, apparently, building compelling venues for advertisers. That should not be solely because Google and Meta collect an enormous amount of data to enable targeting. The platforms they manage are not actually safe; they are just popular. And, with descriptions like those in this article, it seems difficult to argue even the most frequent users are actually enjoying themselves without further intervention.
\n\n", "date_published": "2026-11-02T21:36:57-06:00", "date_modified": "2026-11-02T21:36:57-06:00", "author": { "name": "Nick Heer" } }, { "id": "https://pxlnv.com/linklog/colossus-magazine/", "url": "https://pxlnv.com/linklog/colossus-magazine/", "external_url": "https://sfstandard.com/2026/10/30/colossus-glossy-quarterly-silicon-valley/", "title": "Colossus is Silicon Valley’s Investor-Backed ‘In-Flight Magazine’", "content_html": "In September, I linked to a lengthy profile of Mark Zuckerberg written by Jeremy Stern in Colossus. It was a useful complement to Meta’s Connect presentation. But I had not heard of Colossus before then, and I wish I had done more digging into how what seemed to be a small publication was granted such generous access.
\n\nAndrew Fedorov, the San Francisco Standard:
\n\n\n\n\nColossus is the brainchild of Patrick O\u2019Shaughnessy, a Connecticut-raised heir to an oil fortune, who went to work for his father James\u2019 firm, O\u2019Shaughnessy Asset Management, in 2007. Patrick took over the company in 2018 and sold it four years later to Franklin Templeton. In 2016, he launched a podcast called \u201cInvest Like the Best,\u201d borrowing the title of a book his father published in 1994.
\n
Well, that makes sense. This is yet another venue where, after mainstream media outlets and even tech-focused publications recognized a more skeptical tone toward the industry, CEOs and executives can appear to deliver their talking points with little pushback. It is in the same vein as Cheeky Pint and Alex Heath’s Sources, except there is a serious-looking print copy you can order to leave in waiting rooms and on shelves around the office.
\n\n", "date_published": "2026-11-02T20:28:00-06:00", "date_modified": "2026-11-02T20:28:15-06:00", "author": { "name": "Nick Heer" } }, { "id": "https://pxlnv.com/linklog/boyd-haidt/", "url": "https://pxlnv.com/linklog/boyd-haidt/", "external_url": "https://made-not-found-by-danah-boyd.ghost.io/no-one-paid-me-to-disagree-with-jonathan-haidt-it-was-teenagers-who-taught-me-that-he-was-wrong/", "title": "\u2018No One Paid Me to Disagree With Jonathan Haidt\u2019", "content_html": "danah boyd, like Andrew Gelman and Candice Odgers, says she was not paid by Meta or anyone else to disagree with Jonathan Haidt’s conclusions about social media:
\n\n\n\n\nWhat kills me in the contemporary teens-and-tech debate is that there\u2019s no space for actual research or critical nuance. You\u2019re either opposed to the tech companies or in their pockets. And this week\u2019s absurd discovery reinforces this infuriating polarity, painting those of us who are critical of Jonathan Haidt as being corporate shills. I find this especially frustrating because I did work in tech for a lot of my career. I played the role of friction inside many companies (although never Meta). I repeatedly got threatened by tech executives for challenging corporate mantras or providing research that contradicted their interests – and yet I persisted. Cuz many tech companies are far more complicated than people realize.
\n
I had been meaning to link to a piece by Mizuko Ito, writing in the MIT Press Reader, for weeks; I think it complements boyd’s perspective:
\n\n\n\n\nWe can advocate for features and policies that make platforms better for learning, belonging, and wellbeing. When parents and teens are asked, they want to keep using social media with more ways to flexibly protect their privacy, control recommendation algorithms, and monitor their own technology use. The emphasis on bans has come at the cost of progress on platform policies and features that make the online world better for people of all ages. These include privacy legislation and efforts centered on children\u2019s digital rights and the duty of care.
\n
You do not need to be paid by Meta \u2014 or Snap, or TikTok \u2014 to find Haidt’s conclusions unconvincing or unhelpful. But because some of its executives discussed following the same playbook as big companies in other controversial industries, like agribusiness, fossil fuels, and tobacco, in swaying research to be more favourable, the well has been poisoned. The people most visibly criticizing Haidt’s work insist they came to their conclusions entirely independently. I believe them. After those meeeting notes became public, however, I would not be surprised if many people do not.
\n\n", "date_published": "2026-11-01T15:48:58-06:00", "date_modified": "2026-11-01T15:48:58-06:00", "author": { "name": "Nick Heer" } }, { "id": "https://pxlnv.com/linklog/eternal-black-october/", "url": "https://pxlnv.com/linklog/eternal-black-october/", "external_url": "https://www.todayintabs.com/p/eternal-black-october", "title": "Eternal Black October", "content_html": "Rusty Foster, of the excellent Today in Tabs newsletter you should probably be reading:
\n\n\n\n\nNeat! There\u2019s a remote-exploitable kernel memory race condition in the Linux IPv4 TCP code. A bunch of other linux kernel vulnerabilities were accidentally posted to a public mailing list before patches were ready for them. The official Claude Code extension for VS Code on Cursor has been dropping \u201ca persistent SSH backdoor across macOS, Linux, and Windows.\u201d The Department of Homeland Security was hacked. Fanfiction site AO3 was hacked. Polymarket was hacked. Binance was hacked. I\u2019ve been writing for about an hour now so chances are very good that several more things have been hacked that I don\u2019t know about yet.
\n \nAny of these would probably have been the worst computer security incident in any average month in the last 25 years. But this is not even a complete list, it\u2019s just a haphazard roundup of what came across my feeds. In fact, if you have any professional contact with tech, you\u2019ll have noticed that I didn\u2019t even mention the worst one yet.
\n
The security incidents listed above \u2014 plus the foreshadowed PHP2Shell one \u2014 all have different explanations. The Binance theft, for example, appears to have been the fault of a uniquely criminal nation state, while several vulnerabilities have either been found or surfaced and made operational with the use of artificial intelligence tools. Even so, this feels less like a coincidence and more like a preview of the next several years in ebbs and flows.
\n\n", "date_published": "2026-10-30T22:50:57-06:00", "date_modified": "2026-10-30T22:50:57-06:00", "author": { "name": "Nick Heer" } }, { "id": "https://pxlnv.com/linklog/north-korea-binance-theft/", "url": "https://pxlnv.com/linklog/north-korea-binance-theft/", "external_url": "https://www.citationneeded.news/binance-theft/", "title": "North Korea Gets Away With $3\u00a0Billion From Binance", "content_html": "Molly White, writing at Citation Needed:
\n\n\n\n\nA notorious North Korean cybercrime group has stolen around $6.4\u00a0billion in cryptoassets from multiple hot wallets belonging to Binance, the world\u2019s largest cryptocurrency exchange, and still controls around $3\u00a0billion of it after stablecoin issuers and other protocols froze what they could. These estimates are still in flux as various platforms work to freeze tokens or otherwise thwart the attacker from cashing out, and as both Binance and independent security researchers continue their investigations.
\n
Alex Hern on Bluesky:
\n\n\n\n\nNo way to prevent this, says only financial sector where this regularly happens.
\n
The currency of the future is vulnerable to, apparently, “a compromised DevOps engineer\u2019s laptop”.
\n\n", "date_published": "2026-10-30T22:37:29-06:00", "date_modified": "2026-10-30T22:37:58-06:00", "author": { "name": "Nick Heer" } }, { "id": "https://pxlnv.com/linklog/meta-well-being-meeting/", "url": "https://pxlnv.com/linklog/meta-well-being-meeting/", "external_url": "https://cailinoconnor.substack.com/p/its-now-official-tech-is-the-new", "title": "Meta Executives Met to \u2018Get the Academic Community to Disavow’ Jonathan Haidt", "content_html": "Cailin O’Connor, professor at the University of California Irvine:
\n\n\n\n\nYesterday saw reporting on new, internal Meta documents released through the ongoing lawsuit. Meta had been using a favored industry strategy of including their attorneys on any risky internal correspondence so that this correspondence would be protected by attorney-client privilege. The judge called bullshit.
\n \nThe resulting documents reveal:
\n \n\n
\n- Explicit plans by Meta to discredit psychologist Jonathan Haidt, who has been raising alarms about social media and youth mental health.
\n
Candice Odgers, also a professor at the University of California Irvine:
\n\n\n\n\nThis is why I cannot believe that I have to write this post. Today the London Times wrote an article lazily suggesting that I, and others, were paid by Meta to critique the arguments made by Jonathon Haidt in the Anxious Generation.
\n \nSo let me say this next part very clearly. I have never been approached by Meta to shape what I say publicly about the research on adolescents and social media. My views are my own, and are grounded in the years of research I\u2019ve done on this topic.
\n
I could not see anything in the unsealed notes (PDF) directly referencing Odgers, nor does the Times article actually claim Meta paid her. It does, however, create the implication that her disputes with Haidt’s book are suspicious by tying them to those meeting notes.
\n\nTwo things can be true, though. Meta could have attempted to sway opinion among academics and media \u2014 one executive hoped they could “get Gellman to write a take-down piece”, referring presumably to Andrew Gelman, who says he has “never been contacted by anyone at Facebook or Meta regarding Jonathan Haidt or his work”. Even if Meta is not getting positive coverage from this “whisper campaign”, the public knowledge of it will poison the waters of this debate. That is unfortunate because of the second thing that can be true: Haidt’s research might not be as solid as he and others believe. But good luck having that conversation now.
\n\n", "date_published": "2026-10-29T23:35:52-06:00", "date_modified": "2026-10-29T23:35:52-06:00", "author": { "name": "Nick Heer" } }, { "id": "https://pxlnv.com/linklog/reddit-locking-itself-down/", "url": "https://pxlnv.com/linklog/reddit-locking-itself-down/", "external_url": "https://www.axios.com/2026/10/29/reddit-logged-in-ai-search-incognito", "title": "Reddit Is Further Locking Itself Down", "content_html": "Reddit administrator \u201cjudy-funnie\u201d (via Michael Tsai):
\n\n\n\n\nBecause RSS is now a common surface for large-scale scraping and automated abuse, we’ll stop supporting RSS feeds on November 13, 2026 while preserving moderation workflows that depend on it through supported alternatives.
\n \n[\u2026]
\n \nTo close this gap, in the next few months, we’ll further limit access for logged-in users to only those who have used Old Reddit in the last six months (which covers the vast majority of all Old Reddit users). [\u2026]
\n
Old Reddit is a lightweight website that generally respects its users, so it is a priority for people to switch to its bloated replacement. Not for users, of course, but for someone.
\n\nReddit administrator \u201cboat-botany\u201d:
\n\n\n\n\nWe\u2019re sharing the timeline for moving public API apps and bots to the Developer Platform. Register now, apply for migration funding by November 30, and start planning and testing your move. Starting January 12, 2027, we\u2019ll begin removing API access for apps and users that haven\u2019t registered or engaged with us. Remaining public API access will end in March 2027.
\n
Sara Fischer, Axios:
\n\n\n\n\nReddit has long championed the open web. Now, it’s pushing to build a more direct relationship with users while also protecting its data from increased scraping in the AI era.
\n \nIn an interview Thursday, Reddit co-founder and CEO Steve Huffman said the company is making the change to improve its user experience, bolster its ads business and prevent bots from scraping its proprietary data.
\n
Two of those three reasons seem believable.
\n\nThere was once a time when we could use a relatively inexpensive computer to connect to the web and freely read discussion boards. It feels almost quaint now that A.I. “hyperscaler” companies have scraped everything they could access on the web, and with \u2014 as near as makes no difference \u2014 unlimited funding, bought a bunch of graphics processors and memory. Now the price of every kind of computer hardware has gone up, and companies like Reddit are trying to control access. This is not because Reddit respects users’ unique contributions, nor will it compensate them. It is just not making enough money for shareholders.
\n\nHuffman blames declining Google search traffic \u2014 a disappointingly familiar story. It is an extraordinary coup. The web’s most important referral source built up a vast data set and then yanked away the entire reason everyone contributed to it. “Evil” is four-letter euphemism.
\n\n", "date_published": "2026-10-29T15:40:53-06:00", "date_modified": "2026-10-29T15:40:53-06:00", "author": { "name": "Nick Heer" } }, { "id": "https://pxlnv.com/linklog/macbook-proaster-refrigerator/", "url": "https://pxlnv.com/linklog/macbook-proaster-refrigerator/", "external_url": "https://www.apple.com/ca/newsroom/2026/10/apple-unveils-groundbreaking-macbook-pro-with-proled-xdr-display/", "title": "A Further Status Update on the Toaster-Refrigerator Project", "content_html": "Joanna Stern, reporting for ABC News in 2012:
\n\n\n\n\nAnd it was on that last point that Cook had a lot to say. When asked if Apple was planning to merge its tablet and laptop products, much as Microsoft is proceeding with Windows 8, Cook responded with a quip: “You can converge a toaster and a refrigerator, but those aren’t going to be pleasing to the user.”
\n \nCook elaborated that converging the iPad with a laptop would result in tradeoffs, ones Apple isn’t willing to make. “We are not going to that party, but others might from a defensive point of view.”
\n
Apple, today:
\n\n\n\n\nApple today introduced the all-new MacBook Pro with PROLED XDR Display, featuring breakthrough tandem OLED technology that delivers game-changing front-of-screen performance. Available in 14- and 16-inch models, MacBook Pro with PROLED XDR Display offers a visual experience unlike any other, transforming pro workflows with up to 2000 nits peak HDR and SDR brightness, an industry-leading 10,000,000:1 contrast ratio for exceptional detail, a 120Hz variable refresh rate, and a wider colour gamut covering both P3 and Adobe RGB for brilliant colours. The new MacBook Pro also introduces intuitive Touch capabilities on the Mac for the first time, opening up a whole new dimension for pros to interact with their content, from manipulating 3D models to playing musical instruments onscreen. [\u2026]
\n
One might point out, as they watch the Apple Developer videos about these touch features, that Apple is not in fact delivering the toaster-refrigerator hybrid of doom. MacOS looks mostly the same; even though touch targets in parts of the U.I. are larger, most controls remain the same visual size. When needed, MacOS gives more room, like if you use a finger to show a menu instead of a pointing device. This is merely about bringing touch as an optional interaction element to the Mac. And just look at the quote above: Apple does not even mention touch features \u2014 sorry, “Touch capabilities”, with a capital T \u2014 until the third sentence. If anything, this is a MacBook Pro with a nicer display that happens to support touch.
\n\nBut Apple is still asking people to pay more for it than the standard model, though not by as much as it might first appear. While the M6 MacBook Pro starts at $2,000 USD, the touch ones have an M5 Pro chip. Thus, the equivalent non-touch models start at $2,500 USD, and the touch ones at $2,900 USD. For that $400, you get an ostensibly nicer screen that supports touch input and has a Dynamic Island instead of a notch, and a lighter and thinner chassis.1
\n\nWhat you do not get, though, is a true hybrid of an iPad and a Mac. The display does not fold back to create a tablet, for example, and it does not support Apple Pencil input. Yet. Apple also has not managed to reinforce the human arm or fix the ergonomic issues it has repeatedly identified when it was not selling a Mac with a touch screen. This is evidenced by the section of the developer video suggesting that developers should place denser and finer-grained controls around the edges of the screen where users can support their hand with the metal frame.
\n\nMaybe I am just showing my age.
\n\nIf component prices were not what they are, I wonder if these MacBook Pros would have been introduced as a replacement for the existing M5 Pro and M5 Max models, perhaps with a smaller price increase. ↥︎
\nMaxwell Tani, Semafor:
\n\n\n\n\nThe globally-minded tech news startup Rest of World is scrambling to find a new home \u2014 or faces the prospect of shutting down.
\n \nThe six-year-old digital publication has seen the social and web search traffic on which it depends evaporate. This sharp decline has prompted the organization\u2019s founder and primary financial backer, Sophie Schmidt, to explore other options for its future.
\n
This is disappointing. Rest of World is one of my favourite publications with a scope unlike anything else. It is essential reading.
\n\nSchmidt is the daughter of former Google executive Eric Schmidt who I just happened to read, owns one percent of Anthropic which will surely grow his already ungodly fortune when the company begins trading publicly in the coming weeks. While Rest of World is not a family affair, that windfall alone could probably run the publication \u2014 already largely funded by the Schmidt Family Foundation \u2014 for years, enough to buy it some time to figure out how to survive as typical referral sources become more insular. But that is apparently not happening \u2014 a huge loss.
\n\n", "date_published": "2026-10-27T08:39:06-06:00", "date_modified": "2026-10-27T08:41:09-06:00", "author": { "name": "Nick Heer" } }, { "id": "https://pxlnv.com/linklog/safari-translation-feature/", "url": "https://pxlnv.com/linklog/safari-translation-feature/", "external_url": "https://lapcatsoftware.com/articles/2026/10/8.html", "title": "The Annoying Implementation of Translation in Safari", "content_html": "\n\n\n\n\nThe Safari web browser has a longstanding annoying misfeature: it announces \u201cReader Available\u201d and \u201cTranslation Available\u201d in the address bar, whether you like it or not, with no way I know of to stop that madness. This behavior is bad on Mac, worse on iPhone. Below is a screen recording of Safari on Mac.
\n
Yes, and it gets worse. The worst part of this behaviour is, for me, the translation icon in Safari on MacOS. When “Translation Available” is displayed, the icon is grey and positioned on the lefthand side of the address bar, but if you click on it, you will see the website settings menu. Instead, you have to wait until the animation is complete, at which point the icon will appear on the opposite side of the address bar \u2014 still grey, though! \u2014 at which point it becomes active.
\n\nUtter madness.
\n\n", "date_published": "2026-10-24T12:10:30-06:00", "date_modified": "2026-10-24T12:10:30-06:00", "author": { "name": "Nick Heer" } }, { "id": "https://pxlnv.com/linklog/apple-music-personality/", "url": "https://pxlnv.com/linklog/apple-music-personality/", "external_url": "https://www.wallpaper.com/art/music/apple-musics-new-visual-identity-turns-sound-into-liquid-with-help-from-fred-again", "title": "Apple Finds Some Personality", "content_html": "Jason Snell, Six Colors:
\n\n\n\n\n\n\nEvery five years when we hit an anniversary, I struggle to recontextualize the iPod. But this year, for the 25th anniversary, I\u2019ve been thinking about Apple\u2019s little music player a lot more.
\n
\n\n\nThis link \u2014 which you gotta manually open in your browser \u2014 is the best thing I\u2019ve seen on the Internet in a long time.
\n
This looks enough like my own iPod library circa twenty years ago that it threw me a little. I hope this is not appearing solely for the occasion of the iPod’s anniversary. It is a nice surprise.
\n\nCharlotte Gunn, Wallpaper:
\n\n\n\n\nApple Music has enlisted British producer Fred Again.. to help turn sound into something tangible for its new visual identity. Built around the idea of being \u2018made by sound\u2019, the redesign takes an experimental approach, using musical frequencies to create rippling, liquid forms. The results were achieved by playing music into a shallow bath of mineral oil and filming the resulting vibrations.
\n
There is a corresponding video illustrating the process alongside the mnemonic created by Mr. Again. While I am not sold on the six-note sequence \u2014 it sounds to my ears somehow both cramped and unsatisfied \u2014 it is a very cool visual effect. Apple is justifiably proud of what it has created; it is showcasing a version of the icon in its social media profile pictures.1
\n\nSo why, then, does the updated icon in iOS 27.2 look nothing like that?
\n\nApple employs plenty of creative people doing interesting and exciting work. I think the Apple Music rebrand is fantastic, and the iPod Easter egg shows a little personality from a largely sanitized company. A music app should display some kind of verve for life. Alas.
\n\nCheck out those low, low, low TikTok view counts, too. ↥︎
\nJason Koebler, 404 Media:
\n\n\n\n\nTo give you a sense of what I\u2019m seeing, Matthew Green, a Johns Hopkins professor and one of the most respected cryptographers in the world, posted \u201cwe\u2019re in the part of the movie where you need to throw whatever you can in the path of the zombies and hope it slows them down,\u201d and \u201cso many people discovering that the whole Internet is dry tinder and the only thing keeping it from burning is the fact that teenagers haven\u2019t found the matches yet,\u201d [\u2026]
\n \nAnd all those posts came before people using AI-powered tools found vulnerabilities in PHP, the programming language that powers much of the internet. [\u2026]
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Charlie Warzel, the Atlantic (gift link):
\n\n\n\n\nOnce the patch was released yesterday, websites everywhere went offline to implement the fix. These included government websites in Germany and Finland, some hospital and school websites in Europe, and international sites such as 4chan. During this race to secure the majority of the internet, I noticed one name pop up in posts on Reddit and X: Ond\u0159ej Sur\u00fd.
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There are likely to be many more weeks like this one which, in the best case, leaves us with more secure digital infrastructure and better practices for the future. But it is going to be an uncomfortable ride to get there and, as usual, much of the hard work will be done by volunteers with little financial support or credit.
\n\nAnyway, I still think PHP is pretty great.
\n\n", "date_published": "2026-10-22T18:15:26-06:00", "date_modified": "2026-10-22T18:15:26-06:00", "author": { "name": "Nick Heer" } }, { "id": "https://pxlnv.com/linklog/australia-app-store-ruling/", "url": "https://pxlnv.com/linklog/australia-app-store-ruling/", "external_url": "https://ia.acs.org.au/article/2026/apple-ordered-to-allow-third-party-app-stores-in-australia.html", "title": "Australia Becomes Latest Region to Require More Competitive iOS App Distribution", "content_html": "Tom Williams, Information Age:
\n\n\n\n\n\n\nApple has been ordered to open its “walled garden” to allow third-party app stores and alternative in-app payment systems in Australia, in a landmark court decision which the technology giant says it will appeal.
\n \nApple has until at least March 2027 to allow Australian users to download apps through alternative app stores, including direct web downloads, Federal Court Justice Jonathan Beach ruled on Thursday.
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\n\n\nApple is building third-party app store support country by country, under protest, with a different set of rules in each place, and appealing every ruling along the way. They are frustrating developers, and in some cases users, and in many places \u2014 governments. This is the most expensive and painful way possible for Apple to support these stores that it seems it will inevitably need to support in more and more places.
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It seems unsustainable to keep dripping out rule changes one country at a time, especially as many of them slightly differ in the details even when regulators’ overarching aims are similar. The reasons for the company’s stubbornness \u2014 namely: security and privacy \u2014 become much less believable as a growing number of regions require alternative distribution channels, essentially without issue.
\n\nApple should just rip off the bandage and do Gatekeeper for iOS.
\n\n", "date_published": "2026-10-22T17:45:07-06:00", "date_modified": "2026-10-22T17:46:32-06:00", "author": { "name": "Nick Heer" } }, { "id": "https://pxlnv.com/linklog/php-rce-exploit/", "url": "https://pxlnv.com/linklog/php-rce-exploit/", "external_url": "https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/php-warns-admins-of-two-critical-flaws-emergency-patches-coming-tomorrow/", "title": "PHP Warns Admins to Expect Emergency Patches Tomorrow", "content_html": "Lawrence Abrams, Bleeping Computer:
\n\n\n\n\nIn an advisory published Tuesday, the PHP development team announced that it plans to release security updates on Wednesday, October 21, at 14:00 UTC (10:00 AM Eastern), to address two vulnerabilities, each rated 9.2 under CVSS v4.0.
\n \nThe PHP security team also sent a notice to its ANNOUNCE mailing list, urging administrators to prepare to install the security updates as soon as they become available.
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Word on the street is that these exploits have leaked, and that remote code can likely be executed all the way back to PHP 5. If you have access to your website’s php.ini file, it might be worth turning off multipart uploads for now.
A feature I sometimes forget is present in NetNewsWire is that you can change its theme. That is mostly because I set it years ago and forgot all about it.
\n\nDave Marquard recently created a theme repository. I quite like Ember, which looks very nice on my Mac and iPhone alike \u2014 aside from the link hover \u2014 and Atlantic Breeze.
\n\n", "date_published": "2026-10-20T17:11:58-06:00", "date_modified": "2026-10-20T17:21:39-06:00", "author": { "name": "Nick Heer" } }, { "id": "https://pxlnv.com/linklog/netnewswire-7-2/", "url": "https://pxlnv.com/linklog/netnewswire-7-2/", "external_url": "https://netnewswire.blog/2026/10/15/netnewswire-for-mac-column-layout.html", "title": "NetNewsWire 7.2", "content_html": "\n\n\n\n\nWe\u2019ve released NetNewsWire 7.2 for Mac with a new column view layout: choose
\n \nView > Use Column Layoutto switch. (Choose it again to switch back.)This is a new feature in the sense that the previous version of the app didn\u2019t have it \u2014 but NetNewsWire of Yore, before the 2018 reboot, certainly had this feature. Even NetNewsWire 1.0 had this feature! In fact, back in those days it was the only layout. In some ways this is the oldest NetNewsWire feature and we\u2019re celebrating its triumphant return. :)
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I have been using this view since it appeared in the beta last month and I am a huge fan. It feels like coming home. (Though, I have to say: I recognize there is a history to the name “Column View”, but it is strange to me that the layout more typical of modern apps is reminiscent of what Finder calls the “Column View”. This one is more like a row-based view in my 2026 head.)
\n\nThe iOS version of NetNewsWire 7.2 adds iPhone Duo support.
\n\n", "date_published": "2026-10-20T17:07:36-06:00", "date_modified": "2026-10-20T17:07:36-06:00", "author": { "name": "Nick Heer" } }, { "id": "https://pxlnv.com/linklog/what-is-the-truth/", "url": "https://pxlnv.com/linklog/what-is-the-truth/", "external_url": "https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v48/n19/geoff-mann/what-s-the-truth", "title": "What Is the Truth?", "content_html": "Geoff Mann, London Review of Books:
\n\n\n\n\nThe dubious achievement of prediction markets is to have found a new way to exacerbate and exploit the simultaneously frantic and passive experience of the world that is a defining aspect of our age. Like any kind of gambling, they are enervating. We put our money down and then (unless we are using a hairdryer on an airport thermometer) fidget anxiously till it\u2019s over. The world happens to us. This passivity is characteristic of the politics of those who think we are stuck with the world we have. The best we can do is make money while events wash over us: \u2018Don\u2019t blame me. I didn\u2019t start the war, I just bet on it.\u2019 Such people may think they are \u2018courageous\u2019 or \u2018gutsy\u2019 because they take \u2018risks\u2019 (this is the way people in the financial sector have always talked), but the whole charade is a profitable supplication to, even a cowering before, the power of \u2018the markets\u2019. To put the case more gently, the appeal of \u2018risk-taking\u2019 just now, especially but not only to young men, may be an indicator of how little control many people feel they have over their own slice of the world, and of the feeling that they can\u2019t shape their lives in a meaningful way. Marking time through a series of \u2018settlements\u2019 and \u2018closes\u2019, hoping for a windfall, may look like the best way to buffer oneself against an uncertain future.
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The “hairdryer on an airport thermometer” phrase is a reference to a story I had not heard before about a temperature sensor at Charles de Gaulle Airport. It is dumb as hell in the best and worst ways you can imagine.
\n\nThe only way users of Kalshi and Polymarket are predicting anything is if they have either knowledge of \u2014 or control over \u2014 an outcome. We recently had a by-election in Alberta. Kalshi members bet with 99% odds that one candidate would win \u2014 right up until the votes began to be tabulated. Betting on nigh everything is treacherous, and claiming it is not gambling but “prediction” markets is laughable.
\n\n", "date_published": "2026-10-19T22:36:14-06:00", "date_modified": "2026-10-19T22:36:14-06:00", "author": { "name": "Nick Heer" } } ] }![grey and positioned on the lefthand side](\"https://pxlnv.com/extras/2026/2026-10-translation-available.png\"){kind=link}
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