Author Archives: David Pierce

About David Pierce

David Pierce, the founder of Digitizd, is now Reviews Editor at The Verge.

Some Things You Can't Google

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Susean Orlean, at the New Yorker, takes note of a study that shows students have essentially no knowledge of history. And that’s a problem, she says, but not because knowing when the Civil War started has any value by itself:

So what to make of the news that American students are terrible at history? Unfortunately, this is of the very worrying sort of deficiency, not the you-can-just-Google-it sort. Most fourth graders can’t say why Abraham Lincoln is an important historical figure? Wow. This is far more distressing than if the news had been that fourth graders were bad at reciting multiplication tables, because you can, in fact, Google that. Like teaching cursive writing—which many schools are abandoning—memorizing things that can be easily figured out or looked up sometimes seems a little pointless, except that some neurons are probably engaged each time you plug information into your brain. Being able to reel off a list of dates in history, while useful, is so much less important than understanding why those dates matter, or understanding enough about the way civilization has developed to be able to figure things out from what you already know.

(Via Andrew Sullivan)

Logging On for the First Time

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Derek Powazek, one of those guys who’s been on the Internet since before it was even a thing, and has been involved in about 40,000 things you’ve heard of but didn’t know he was involved in, has a new project. It’s called On the Network, and it started with a ten point manifesto counteracting how dumb people (and by people I mean the media) are about the Internet. As part of the project, he’s asked people to describe their first Internet moment. Here’s Alexis Madrigal, from the Atlantic:

I was sitting in rural Washington state, where I grew up in a year like 1994. We’d probably gotten the Internet through our old ISP Pacifier the year or two before, and I’d slowly started using it instead of dialing into the BBS’ I’d gotten into in ’92. In any case, I had some question about microbiology. I don’t even really remember what it was. The Internet! It could tell me the answer, I was sure. So, I dialed in, waited through the pops and hisses until our 14.4 baud modem connected, fired up Netscape, went to Yahoo, and typed in something like, “microbiology.” Up came Jack Brown’s webpage at the University of Kansas. Brown was a molecular biology professor who maintained a fairly extensive set of resources about various sciencey things including his “What the heck is…?” series. Most of it is still online. After reading through his work, I emailed him my question, probably beginning like, “Hello, my name is Alex Madrigal and I’m a sixth grader at Union Ridge Elementary School, home of the Tater Tots…” Or whatever.

A few minutes later, Brown fired back a response and we struck up a correspondence that lasted for a long time, years, IIRC. We were both big college basketball fans. He rooted for the Jayhawks, obviously, and I was (and remain) a huge UCLA Bruin fan. Brown became my first Internet friend.

This is going to be a fun thing to follow, but I promise to try my best to not post 8,000 times about it.

Why Passwords Are Broken

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Mat Honan, one of Planet Earth’s smarter and better writers, is ready to kill off passwords. He explains why, ending here:

The most common idea you see today in terms of protecting yourself is to use unique passwords on every site. The only way to really do this, of course, is to either create a password scheme, or to use a password generating and tracking program like 1Password. But these should be stopgaps.

What we really need is an entirely new way to prove our identities on the Web. Google’s two factor authentication is a step in the right direction, but it’s a pain in the ass and most people probably won’t take the trouble to set it up unless they’re forced to do so. Ideas like biometric logins, or proving identity within the browser itself are out there, but they’re still pie in the sky and nobody is moving towards widespread implementation yet.

You're Not Going to Win an Argument Online

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David McRaney wants you to stop trying to correct all of the insane people on the Internet who disagree with you (even though you’re totally right, and they’re definitely wrong and stupid and terrible). Why? Science:

In 2006, Brendan Nyhan and Jason Reifler at The University of Michigan and Georgia State University created fake newspaper articles about polarizing political issues. The articles were written in a way which would confirm a widespread misconception about certain ideas in American politics. As soon as a person read a fake article, researchers then handed over a true article which corrected the first. For instance, one article suggested the United States found weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. The next said the U.S. never found them, which was the truth. Those opposed to the war or who had strong liberal leanings tended to disagree with the original article and accept the second. Those who supported the war and leaned more toward the conservative camp tended to agree with the first article and strongly disagree with the second. These reactions shouldn’t surprise you. What should give you pause though is how conservatives felt about the correction. After reading that there were no WMDs, they reported being even more certain than before there actually were WMDs and their original beliefs were correct.

What It All Means:

Once something is added to your collection of beliefs, you protect it from harm. You do it instinctively and unconsciously when confronted with attitude-inconsistent information. Just as confirmation bias shields you when you actively seek information, the backfire effect defends you when the information seeks you, when it blindsides you. Coming or going, you stick to your beliefs instead of questioning them. When someone tries to correct you, tries to dilute your misconceptions, it backfires and strengthens them instead. Over time, the backfire effect helps make you less skeptical of those things which allow you to continue seeing your beliefs and attitudes as true and proper.

(Via Lifehacker)

Facebook Means You're Never Alone

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And never being alone was a good thing for Joel Mathis, as he endured surgery and its aftermath:

So I wrote about the food. I wrote about the bad TV. I wrote about peeing into a bottle. Because I’m a nice guy, I did not post pictures of my surgical wounds.

“Got moved in with a roommate today,” I wrote two days after the surgery. “He’s staying up late watching sports. Feels like a summer camp without colons.”

Or, more pathetically, after a particularly rough day: “I can’t joke or even be cheerfully defiant about the series of procedures I’ve been through in the last 24 hours. Right now I feel broken and I just wanna cry.”

People kept responding, with encouragement, with jokes, with promises of prayer, with other comforting comments—even with “likes” on my Facebook status. All of this told me I wasn’t alone, that people cared about me, that they were interested in my welfare. That was absolutely what I needed.

(Via Steve Rubel)

5 Apps That Made Me Love My Android Phone Again

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I like Android. I really do. But my phone, the Samsung Fascinate, has some little niggling issues, and over time little niggling issues have added up to some serious annoyances with using my phone. I hate the Phone app, the Messages app, the Camera app—basically all of the native applications don’t work right.

Fortunately, the very best thing about Android is that there’s virtually nothing about it you can’t change. At one point I rooted my phone and installed a whole custom operating system, but after never finding one I liked that was reliable and didn’t kill my battery, I switched back to the original settings. Then, one by one, I started to find perfect replacement applications for all the things I hated, to the point where my phone is now totally different than it used to be in the best possible way.

‘Twas but five applications, all free, that made such a difference. Here they are.

launcherproHome Screen: LauncherPro

By default, my home screen had a moving wallpaper, ugly icons, and weird widgets and navigation. LauncherPro replaced those with a clean, simple layout with a classy dock at the bottom, a scrolling list of apps, and settings so I could make the home screen exactly as I wanted it. I’m a glutton for simplicity and continuity, and LauncherPro brings both. Plus, it’s actually a lot faster than the native home screen on most Android phones.

dialeronePhone: DialerOne

Samsung’s dialer is awful: Ugly, awkward to use, and nearly impossible to integrate in any meaningful way with contacts. Getting to recent calls takes too long, trying to type a contact’s name to dial their number rarely works, and did I mention it’s ugly? DialerOne does better, splitting the screen between recent calls and a keypad, and letting you tap just once to scroll through all your recent calls. Or, start typing the name of a contact and a constantly-updating list of people you might want to call shows up. Getting to your favorite people is easy too, which is nice because Claire accounts for like 70% of my phone calls. DialerOne just, simply, works in a way the standard dialer doesn’t.

gosmsMessages: GO SMS

I didn’t have more than an aesthetic issue with the standard messaging application, but once I started using GO SMS I realized everything I was missing.  GO SMS does great with canned responses (so you can say “I’m running late, on my way”, which I say about 40 times a day, in one tap), pop-up notifications, and more. You can change everything about the look and feel, and make it as powerful or as simple as you like. GO SMS has become the one app I’ll recommend to literally everyone who has an Android phone.

lightboxCamera: Lightbox

My biggest point of iPhone envy has long been Instagram. Not because of the social networking features of the app, but because I love the idea of an easy way to take, alter in cool ways, and share photos so they live somewhere other than on your phone. That’s what Lightbox, a new (like today new) application for Android, is all about. You sign up for an account, and you can take pictures, apply effects, and share them on Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr or Foursquare. The best part is, though, the running gallery of your photos that’s available on the Web at all times. It’s a gorgeous application (something Android could use more of), and a lot of fun to use.

swypeKeyboard: Swype

I complained on Twitter the other day that I hated the Android keyboard. I don’t always hate it, but it’s just not a great solution, for one-handed typing in particular. “Try Swype!” was the most common response I got, so I decided to give it a shot, and man is it awesome. Instead of tapping to spell words, Swype has you draw a trail from letter to letter, and figures out what word you’re tracing. It’s easy to do with one hand, its predictive abilities are amazing, and after only a couple of days I’m already typing faster than I ever have before.

All of these apps can easily replace their default counterparts (except Lightbox, as best I can tell). After you download, say, Launcher Pro, the next time you hit the home button a menu will pop up, asking which app you want to use, the stock Launcher or Launcher Pro. Check the “make this default” button, and then tap Launcher Pro. From then on, it’ll be the thing that launches every time you hit the home button.

I haven’t noticed anything in the way of instability or extra battery drain with any of these applications, and they all run seamlessly with the rest of Android. The five apps have made my phone make more sense, look nicer, and work much more like what I want it to. I got a new phone, without spending a nickel. Can’t complain about that, can I?

Jack Dorsey on the Future of Money

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In the current issue of Wired, Jack Dorsey, founder of both Twitter and Square, talked about his move from Twitter into the money industry. Square, his newest business, is attempting to up-end how we pay for things at coffee shops, stores, and everywhere else, and the potential benefits for businesses are huge:

Money is a concept that’s been with us for 5,000 years, and it’s never been designed to be anything but a burden. You come into my coffee store and order a cappuccino, and I hit the Cappuccino button on the cash register and see that it’s $3.24. And I take your credit card and type “$3.24″ into the credit card terminal. I swipe your card and give you the credit card receipt to sign. Then I take that back and staple it to the cash register receipt and give it back to you, along with your credit card. Then you take back the credit card and throw the receipts away. And meanwhile, at the end of the day I have no idea how many cappuccinos I sold because it’s really difficult to access that information. It’s completely useless.

Over the course of the interview, Dorsey gets into exactly how broken the credit card industry is today. What Square is trying to do is make payment easier and faster, and provide businesses with both an easier way to get started, and a treasure trove of data that can help them do their business better. It’s a bold industry to try and get into, with established players that aren’t going to give in easily, but I hope Square at least makes enough of a splash to make Visa or Discover think differently about how they do business.

I’ve been writing about this for a while now, and I’m more excited than ever. Square was, after all, the only review I’ve ever written for PCMag that let me expense a cup of coffee right outside my office.

Flick and Share: An Easy Way to Share and Download Photos

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Last weekend, I was at a wedding. I took some pictures at this wedding, some pictures that other people want to see. That shouldn’t be such a hassle, but who knew that sending someone 50 pictures would be such a pain? In addition to uploading them to wherever else I want them to be, like Flickr or Picasa, I have to zip them up, upload them to FileDropper or Dropbox, send the link to everyone, explain to them what FileDropper is and that no, it won’t break your computer, it’s just downloading images, and then re-upload them all when the link inevitably expires. I wish I were exaggerating for effect here, but that’s happened to me more than a few times.

flickshare

That’s why I like the idea of Flick and Share, an application I found via a post on The Next Web. Basically what it does is hook into your Flickr account, and let you designate sets of photos that can be downloaded in one click. You tell Flick and Share which sets you want to be available for download, and then you get a link that you can share. All people have to do is click that link (and they can’t access this page without the link), and they can download all the photos in one click.

It’s really only a useful application if you’re already uploading photos to Flickr—otherwise, it’s essentially the same amount of steps as any other option. But I do tend to upload photos to Flickr, so having a way to pull them all together for download is excellent. (You can already download photos from Flickr, but only one at a time, and downloading a photo in its original resolution takes like seven clicks.) It’s a nice-looking and simple app, and as a Flickr user I hope Flickr buys it and integrates it so it’ll stick around.

What Flying Will be Like in 2050

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The Guardian looks at an Airbus concept of a plane in 2050, which includes things like a golf course, vitamin-enriched air, and panoramic views for every single passenger:

The concept cabin for travellers in 2050 would be a bionic structure that mimics the efficiency of bird bone.

It would provide strength where needed, and also allows for an “intelligent” cabin wall membrane which controls air temperature and can become transparent to give passengers open, panoramic views.

The cabin would have seats that fit passengers’ body shapes and travellers might be able to read bedtime stories to their children back home, Airbus said.

Hit the Guardian’s slideshow for more photos. It looks like flying’s not going to suck in 39 years.

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