Lemkin

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NSA Decoder Ring

An assortment of statements came out re: NSA surveillance programs. For your convenience, I’ve decoded them here.

Senator Dianne Feinstein: “The vast majority of the records in the database are never accessed and are deleted after a period of five years. To look at or use the content of a call, a court warrant must be obtained.”

DiFI decoded: “Why yes, we are accumulating every piece of information passing electronically through the United States, citizen originated or not. But, hey, we’re super careful about protecting that data. Sort of like your credit card company.”

Representative Loretta Sanchez: “What we learned in there is significantly more than what is out in the media today….I don’t know if there are other leaks, if there’s more information somewhere, if somebody else is going to step up, but I will tell you that I believe it’s the tip of the iceberg.”

Sanchez Decoded: “Why yes, we are accumulating every piece of information passing electronically through the United States, citizen originated or not. Hopefully this information doesn’t actually come out. Good thing the NSA is hiding it.”

General Keith B. Alexander: “We aren’t trying to hide it.”

General Alexander decoded: “We are totally trying to hide it. Please stop asking about this stuff and I’ll stop lying about it to you. Deal?”

"If I thought censoring the mail was necessary, I would suggest it, but I don’t think it is."

— Lindsey Graham, a supposedly freely elected leader of this country sworn to protect and defend the Constitution of these United States, Senator from South Carolina. Breathtaking. This was said. In public, in America, in 2013. And Graham is generally considered a cool-headed moderate. The last vestiges of the old republic have been swept away.

"The molecular cuisine has some good things about it, but I–I count my cooking by the looks of satisfaction on the faces of the people who have eaten my food. I don’t want them to be impressed; I want them to be pleased."

— André Soltner, former chef of Lutèce, speaks the truth.

The shadows are a bit much, but this is more like it.

Never understood the fixation on primary colors and so forth in and around children’s hospitals. We’re putting you in this giant, intermittently noisy machine with a cage enclosing your head; please focus on these colors, which adults apparently interpret as whimsical, and not your impending existential doom. As always, thanks for being scanned by Pepsi™ presents CAT scans [menacing clown laugh].

The Ugly: I think any rational person would agree that Safari, Notes, and Maps all have pretty terrible icons in this regime. Safari is just astoundingly bad. Anything else would be preferable. And at least the little idiotic wooden newsstand showed me some (albeit tiny) tidbits of information. Let’s replace that minor utility with white space. Huzzah!

The Bad: Settings is change for change’s sake and, again, not a change for the better. Photos makes no sense in the abstract, other than as an additional abstraction of the previously nonsensical flower icon. Flattening does no favors to Phone, Messages, Videos, iTunes Store, App Store, Mail, and Music. The gradients on the latter five are, uh, poor choices to my eye. People’s animus against (boredom with?) gloss seems to have metastasized into these flat gradients. Hope you’re happy with that. Camera now inexplicably looks like an SLR of some kind. The essential nature of the thing is far closer to the current icon, Jony. Which looked like an iPhone camera.

The Good: I guess Calendar is pretty good. Weather does the job. Passbook also looks like the work of a modern master in comparison to the rest of this lot. Clock is essentially unchanged and Compass looks fine.

But, hey, at least we got rid of leather, felt, and stitching. Right? After all, Game Center is now a totally sensible collection of randomly colored blobs of various sizes. Where else would you visually decide to click for your Game Centering needs? Big usability and interpretability win there. Right?

All the semi-transparency in the demos did nothing to allay that old sinking feeling. Officially worried the unwinding is upon us.

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parislemon:

chartier:

MacStories: iOS 7 Confirmed: New Banners Up at Moscone West

Not like you didn’t know it was coming, but still. That’s a mighty fine lookin’ 7.

I give it a 9. (Also, what’s the grill-like pattern on the bottom? Mac Pro?)

My guess would be that’s Grille™ brand grille. Like in the vents of your iPhone. And it will be the new linen. Heard it here first.

If you’re going to have a software-created “bottom layer” to your interface, it should be true to the device. This would, er, make it so.

"It’s a self-eating watermelon of despair."

— Adam Steltzner, leader of the entry, descent, and landing team for the Curiosity mission, describing the difficulties of scaling an airbag-based landing system.

"As we move into the connected age and build a quantified society, Facebook’s dark shadow looms over us like a menacing monster."

— Om Malik leading into his review of Facebook Home. Don’t mince words, Om, tell us what you really think.