venomous porridge

An honest question for the TSA

Thu, 02 Feb 2012 11:01:31 -0500

Every day at your airport checkpoints, you screen thousands of passengers for objects that could conceivably be used as a weapons. If you find one, you confiscate it, and the unfortunate traveler continues on her way, cupcakeless but no longer a threat to national security.

You’re also looking for explosives, which is understandable. If you found a live bomb — I mean, not that you ever have — but if you did, well, that would clearly be one terrorist caught and many lives saved, right? That is, assuming you actually remembered to do something about it, of course. But everybody makes mistakes and I won’t blame you for that. I’m sure someday you’ll stop being a complete waste of money. Really, we’re all pulling for you.

But here’s my question. Suppose I, a normal taxpaying non-terrorist type guy, were to bring through a checkpoint something relatively harmless but still against the rules: not a bomb but, say, a pocketknife. You’re going to take that away from me, right? But why? If I’m not a terrorist, how is it dangerous for me to have a four-inch folding knife in my trousers? It’s staying there until well after we land, unless Amazon Prime really improves. Or do you think I might suddenly decide to abort my vacation, abandon my family, and throw my life away in a fit of deranged violence when the captain interrupts the in-flight Mad About You for the seventh time to announce that one of the shittier Great Lakes is on the other side of the plane? Right when Murray the dog is about to make Paul Reiser get a little bit annoyed?

Of course not, because you are an organization of highly intelligent cupcake confiscators. The only logical reason for you to take my knife from me is that you think I’m a terrorist. You’ll smile and shake your head at the dopey terrorist, and you’ll go tsk tsk, and then you’ll let me through to board my flight.

So, TSA, answer me this: why are you allowing suspected terrorists onto planes?

Intent Doesn’t Matter

Mon, 23 Jan 2012 19:42:00 -0500

John Gruber wagers that Apple doesn’t mean what it says in the iBooks Author EULA:

I’m willing to bet cold hard cash that Apple has no intention to and will never try to stop a publisher or author from taking content written in iBooks Author and publishing it elsewhere in another format. No one will ever hear from Apple after exporting from iBooks Author to text or PDF.

But I think the license is crummily written, because it’s not precisely clear what Apple is saying. If Apple wants to make bold and far-reaching licensing restrictions, they should express them clearly and succinctly. Whereas I think, much like with the App Store, their lawyers seek to express the legal restrictions in terms far broader than what they actually seek to enforce. I’m willing to make the above bet based on my understanding of the company and the way Apple thinks, not the language of the EULA.

I agree; I don’t think Apple plans to restrict anything but its own .ibooks format. But that doesn’t matter because, as Mike Ash puts it, “Unless we’re friends, your intentions don’t matter to me at all, only your actions.” Apple isn’t anyone’s friend but Apple’s, and its actions so far are to reserve a broad swath of rights pertaining to everything iBooks Author is capable of “generating” (whatever that means).

Even if we’re right and Apple doesn’t care about PDFs or plain text files, that’s still the Apple of today. The Apple of 20 years from now might turn out to be a completely different company, and this EULA has no expiration date. That’s a dangerous situation for authors and publishers who care about long-term distribution rights. It would be best for Apple to clarify the terms now — and, I hope, loosen them — rather than prolong the uncertainty.

UPDATE (3 Feb. 2012): They just did.

Why I like shopping at the corner store

Fri, 20 Jan 2012 20:23:00 -0500

Customer: Is that Etta James you’re playing?

Clerk: You bet. All Etta, all day long. It’s Friday, girl!

Customer: Nice tribute. It’s so sad that she died.

Clerk: She DIED?

Common Misconceptions about What I Wrote Yesterday

Fri, 20 Jan 2012 13:18:00 -0500

In a probably-futile attempt to stem the tide of redundant comments, I’ll address some of the more frequent reactions to my last post:

If you don’t like it, don’t use it! Duh.
You’re missing the point. The issue is that this is a software EULA which for the first time attempts to restrict what I can do with the output of the app, rather than with the app itself. No consumer EULA I’ve ever seen goes this far. Would you be happy if Garage Band required you to sell your music through the iTunes Store, or if iPhoto had license terms that kept you from posting your own photos online? It’s a step backward for computing freedom and we should resist it.

Plenty of EULAs restrict what you can do with software. That’s the whole point.
Yes, restricting use is what EULAs have traditionally done. This one does something different: it restricts what you can do with the output of the software after the software is closed and put away. If you make a document using iBooks Author, you aren’t allowed to sell that document except through Apple, ever, for the rest of your life.

Interestingly, as the author of the document and presumed signatory to the iBooks Author EULA, you’re the only person to whom that restriction applies. If you gave your iBook to a friend, Apple would have no control over what your friend did with it. And you could sell your friend’s iBooks too, because you aren’t the one who used iBooks Author to generate them.

Yeah, but that only applies to .ibooks files. You can also export .pdf and .txt and those are unrestricted.
Not true. The license defines “Work” as “any book or other work you generate using this software.” That definitely includes PDF and plain text, and it could be construed to include the very words you type in. So if you use iBooks Author to write your novel, you might be legally barred from ever selling that novel in any format, not just as an iBook. UPDATE (3 Feb 2012): Apple has clarified the license to indicate that only the .ibooks format is covered.

Wait, so Apple’s taking my copyrights away?
No no no, just your right to sell the output of iBooks Author on your own or through any other store.

But why would you want to sell iBooks anywhere but in the iBookstore?
It doesn’t matter why, since I made the iBook myself and should be free to do as I please with it. But if you must have a reason, here are five: because Apple’s cut is too high; because I already have an arrangement with another publisher or online store; because I want to sell my work in a country the iBookstore doesn’t serve; because the iBookstore doesn’t let me offer academic pricing, bulk rates, or loyalty discounts; because I tried selling through Apple and they refused.

iBooks Author is free, so Apple deserves a cut.
How on earth does that follow? Xcode is free, and software companies have been using it and the tools that preceded it for decades to build Mac software that they’ve distributed without Apple’s help, and without paying Apple for the privilege. We buy hardware from Apple, and Apple provides the tools to enable us to make that hardware more useful so that more people will buy it. The same virtuous circle could exist for the iPad and iBooks if Apple hadn’t overreached with this ridiculous license.

That’s what the EULA says, so quit whining!
Do you really want EULAs to be able to say anything they please? Do you want copyright holders to have unlimited control over what you can do with legally obtained copies of their work? It’s not even clear that EULAs can be enforced at all. So even if you’re on Apple’s side in this argument, wouldn’t you rather they based their money grab on a sound legal theory?

It’s the same having to sell iOS apps through the App Store.
No, it’s not. The license terms for Xcode (PDF link) don’t contain any language restricting the use of files generated by Xcode. And when you join the iOS Developer Program, there’s a separate contract you’re required to consciously agree to, once a year and each time it’s updated, before you can download your development certificate. But if you don’t join the program, nothing stops you from continuing to use Xcode’s output however you like.

Like I said: unprecedented.

But It’s Free

Thu, 19 Jan 2012 19:43:17 -0500

Watts Martin:

So Apple’s “audacity” is that they’ve created a snazzy creation tool that, from all appearances, only works with their viewers. Wineman is correct in that it’s the license, not the technology, that prevents you from taking a .ibooks file and selling it somewhere other than Apple’s store. But you don’t have much reason to sell something this thing creates outside Apple’s store, ’cause it ain’t gonna be creating those snazzy multimedia books for your Kindle Fire.

You wouldn’t be selling iBooks for Kindle Fire, you’d be selling them for iBooks on the iPad, which last I checked wasn’t just a vending machine for Apple content. And there are plenty of reasons to want to do so, chief among them being that 30% is a lot. If I’m capable of doing all the marketing and payment processing and hosting of my .ibooks documents, why shouldn’t I get to keep all the profits?

Before anyone else points out that Apple deserves its cut because iBooks Author is free, remember that this argument applies equally well to app distribution outside of the App Stores. (At least on the Mac, where that’s still a viable way of doing business.) No one contends that Apple should get a cut of non-App Store app sales simply because Xcode is free.

There’s nothing wrong with selling tools that help people make money. I’m sure there’d be a market for a non-free iBooks Author, just as there is for Aperture, Final Cut, Logic Pro, and the rest of Apple’s professional content-creation tools. But giving the tools away for free and then using semi-hidden legal terms to wedge yourself into an exclusive middleman position? That’s shameful.

The Unprecedented Audacity of the iBooks Author EULA

Thu, 19 Jan 2012 14:47:00 -0500

Apple just released iBooks Author, a free Mac app for creating digital books for the new version of iBooks. I haven’t played with it much, but so far it looks like a very good tool. However, a curious thing happens when you go to export your work in iBooks format:

This restriction — that iBooks can be sold only in the iBookstore — isn’t enforced on a technical level. You can save the document, move it to your iPad in any of the usual ways (including just emailing it to yourself), and it happily opens in the iBooks app.

But if you look at the end-user license agreement (EULA) for iBooks Author, accessible via the app’s About box, the following bold note appears at the top:

IMPORTANT NOTE:
If you charge a fee for any book or other work you generate using this software (a “Work”), you may only sell or distribute such Work through Apple (e.g., through the iBookstore) and such distribution will be subject to a separate agreement with Apple.

And in section 2:

B. Distribution of your Work. As a condition of this License and provided you are in compliance with its terms, your Work may be distributed as follows:
(i) if your Work is provided for free (at no charge), you may distribute the Work by any available means;
(ii) if your Work is provided for a fee (including as part of any subscription-based product or service), you may only distribute the Work through Apple and such distribution is subject to the following limitations and conditions: (a) you will be required to enter into a separate written agreement with Apple (or an Apple affiliate or subsidiary) before any commercial distribution of your Work may take place; and (b) Apple may determine for any reason and in its sole discretion not to select your Work for distribution.

In other words: Apple is trying to establish a rule that whatever I create with this application, if I sell it, I have to give them a cut. And iBooks Author is free, so this arrangement sounds pretty reasonable.

Here’s the problem: I didn’t agree to it. Apple wants me to believe I did, of course, just by using the software:

PLEASE READ THIS SOFTWARE LICENSE AGREEMENT (“LICENSE”) CAREFULLY BEFORE USING THE APPLE SOFTWARE. BY USING THE APPLE SOFTWARE, YOU ARE AGREEING TO BE BOUND BY THE TERMS OF THIS LICENSE. IF YOU DO NOT AGREE TO THE TERMS OF THIS LICENSE, DO NOT INSTALL AND/OR USE THE SOFTWARE.

But that language is in the EULA itself, a contract of adhesion which I was not required to sign (or even indicate my agreement to by clicking) before installing the software. So, to paraphrase: By using this software, you agree that anything you make with it is in part ours. But if it can say that and have legal force, can’t it say anything? Isn’t this the equivalent of a car dealer trying to bind you to additional terms by sticking a contract in the glove compartment? By driving this car, you agree to get all your oil changes from Honda of Cupertino?

Apple, in this EULA, is claiming a right not just to its software, but to its software’s output. It’s akin to Microsoft trying to restrict what people can do with Word documents, or Adobe declaring that if you use Photoshop to export a JPEG, you can’t freely sell it to Getty. As far as I know, in the consumer software industry, this practice is unprecedented. I’m sure it’s commonplace with enterprise software, but the difference is that those contracts are negotiated by corporate legal departments and signed the old-fashioned way, with pen and ink and penalties and termination clauses. A by-using-you-agree-to license that oh by the way asserts rights over a file format? Unheard of, in my experience.

When I make something myself, no matter what software I use to make it, then — assuming it doesn’t infringe any copyrights — it’s my right to distribute it however I want, in whatever format I choose, for free or not. I don’t lose the right to publish my novel if Microsoft determines that I wrote it using a pirated copy of Word. Would I lose that right if I tried to sell my iBook outside of the iBookstore and Apple got wind of it? I don’t know; we’re in uncharted waters here. Or how about this: for a moment I’ll stipulate that Apple’s EULA is valid and I’ve agreed to it implicitly by using the software. Now suppose I create an iBook and give it to someone else who has never downloaded iBooks Author and is not party to the EULA, and that person sells it on their own website. What happens now?

In ensuring that the App Store remains the only legitimate market for iOS apps, Apple doesn’t claim any legal rights to the content I create using its Xcode toolset. Instead, they enforce technical restrictions; apps must be cryptographically signed by Apple in order to run on unaltered iOS devices. Is this a good situation? For Apple and for novice users, maybe, but for developers it sucks and causes massive headaches. But in a way it’s better than a world in which software can assert whatever rights it wants over your stuff just by hiding a few paragraphs in its glove compartment.

UPDATE: I’ve addressed some common misconceptions. Please read this before commenting.

My friend Aaron Epstein is the director of photography on this...

Mon, 16 Jan 2012 14:50:40 -0500

My friend Aaron Epstein is the director of photography on this amazing Grammy-nominated music video.

“Yes I Know” by Memory Tapes

So there’s this iPhone game in which you defend a daffodil...

Tue, 27 Dec 2011 18:45:46 -0500

So there’s this iPhone game in which you defend a daffodil patch from hordes of rampaging Vikings by flinging a traditional bladed woodcutting implement. It’s called Axe In Face. When you lose, your guy cries a river of woeful, manly tears (see above).

My daughter, who is two and a half, loves this game. She’s even kind of good at it. It’s a little violent, but it’s only cartoon violence, so no big. But I didn’t want to tell her it was called Axe In Face, because what kind of monster do you think I am. My mistake was that I neglected to come up with a substitute name.

Nothing about being a two-year-old’s parent is easy. The messes, the tantrums, the impossible questions. You get used to meeting the confused stares of strangers; you develop this sort of whaddyagonnado shrug that smoothes everything over. You shrug; you smile; you move on. But the judgment, the recrimination. That hurts.

So I’m begging you, dear friends. Say you’re at a diner, or the doctor’s office, or in line at the bank. You’re munching a french fry, you’re filling out a deposit slip. Then a tiny voice floats up from somewhere: “Daddy, can we play the crying game?” Look away.

Look away.

Oh nothing, just my kid holding a glacier.

Mon, 19 Dec 2011 10:58:18 -0500

Oh nothing, just my kid holding a glacier.

Anil Dash: Questions for the Republican Candidates

Sun, 11 Dec 2011 11:40:53 -0500

Anil Dash: Questions for the Republican Candidates:

These are gold. My favorites:

Do you pledge not to pursue war crime prosecution against the Taliban when they waterboard our soldiers?
What Sharia laws do you support other than criminalizing homosexuality, shaming assault victims & legalizing theocracy?
When you slash funding for the NIH, how will you notify parents that their children’s cancer treatments are being ended?

Read them all.

Senators who voted against the National Defense Authorization Act

Tue, 06 Dec 2011 17:07:00 -0500

Senators who voted against the National Defense Authorization Act:

squashed:

This act enshrines the practice of indefinitely detaining people who are suspected by a Presidential Administration of terrorist connections without trial. It overwhelmingly passed the Senate. Here are the few senators who still believe that the Constitution prevents you from being locked up indefinitely on a mere suspicion.

Sen. Thomas Coburn (R, OK)

Sen. Thomas Harkin (D, IA)

Sen. Mike Lee (R, UT)

Sen. Jeff Merkley (D, OR)

Sen. Rand Paul (R, KY)

Sen. Bernard Sanders (I, VT)

(If we can persuade Obama to veto this act, Congress will probably reconsider the problematic provisions and this number will grow.)

There’s a seventh nay vote missing from the above list, and it’s the other gentleman from Oregon:

Sen. Ron Wyden (D, OR)

I’m proud to live in the only state both of whose Senators voted against this atrocity.

I guess I should maybe elaborate. I’m sitting at a gate...

Wed, 30 Nov 2011 17:24:00 -0500

I guess I should maybe elaborate.

I’m sitting at a gate in the C-wing of McCarran International. Earlier, a male Transportation Security Officer approached a woman behind me in the security line at PDX for no discernible reason other than to compliment her body. The above paraphrases the line he opened with. The woman laughed it off, and the incident concluded. Ostensibly, she enjoyed it. So why am I, on her behalf, infuriated?

(Disclaimer: Being up to my molars in frothy first-world white male privilege, I am utterly unqualified to talk about any of this. But I’m gonna anyway.)

I’m not normally a fan of what the concept of sexual harassment has done to our culture. It’s a big, important idea that’s been diluted by the small idea of the “hostile work environment.” We dial every conversation between mature adults down to a G rating; we shy away from links marked NSFW; we stand down our gestural paratroops lest an innocent touch, launched to land a point, drift across enemy lines. In so doing, we lose sight of the larger goal, which is to prevent sexual slavery. Yes, women shouldn’t have to tolerate a constant barrage of sex talk from the men they work with, but they also shouldn’t have to sleep with their bosses. In other words, it’s not the incidental mention of sex or inadvertent racy HTTP request that’s the real problem: it’s the abuse of a power imbalance.

The woman who may or may not have been a ballerina may or may not have enjoyed the officer’s compliment. There’s no way to tell. But consider her situation. In the next few minutes, she would likely be given the following choice: a) submit to having nude photos of her body taken by individuals in another room; b) submit to having her private parts touched by a stranger; or c) miss her flight, be detained, have a) and b) as well as d) through m) happen anyway, and maybe also get sued for eleven thousand dollars. That is what we call a major fucking power imbalance. In that context, even the slightest hint of a sexual approach on the part of a TSO could be considered not just harassment but assault. You’re saying, basically, “pretend to flirt with me, or my gender-appropriate equivalent over here might have to get rough with your tender bits.” So there’s a nonzero chance that instead of feeling flattered, she felt forced to make bedroom eyes at a creep to avoid being finger-raped.

If you’re part of a government that compares itself favorably to the Taliban, you have no business taking that chance. The only acceptable demeanor for a TSA officer toward a passenger, especially when the TSO is male and the passenger is female, is abject humility. No one made you take a job where you clinically deprive innocent people of their dignity under threat of force. You signed up for that, and I expect to see the apology on your face at all times. I expect to hear it in your voice; I expect to smell it in your goddamned sweat. And I expect you to wear that apology long after your disgusting daily routine is finally found unconstitutional and your hideous organization is disbanded and its leaders imprisoned. I expect you to wear that apology not because it makes up for all the years you helped ruin America — which it doesn’t — but because it’s simply the bare minimum standard of behavior someone in your position must meet in order to call himself a human being.

I wish the woman who may or may not have been a ballerina hadn’t laughed off the encounter, although I don’t blame her if she was simply doing whatever helped her feel safe. I’m not sure there was a response available to her that wouldn’t have made things worse. But what if she’d stopped removing her shoes, stood silently, and stared at him? Like the students who stared in silence at the chancellor of UC Davis last week? Again, you have no reason to listen to me; I’m as privileged as privileged gets. But what if every woman — every person — the TSA abused just stood silently and stared? What would that look like?

People in power never see the abyss on their own, no matter how near to it they push us. It must be shown to them.

Be the abyss.

Gaze back.

iOS 5 is such a timesaver, you guys.

Sat, 26 Nov 2011 13:08:46 -0500

iOS 5 is such a timesaver, you guys.

Every day I live here I find a new most Portland thing ever.

Tue, 08 Nov 2011 18:39:00 -0500

Every day I live here I find a new most Portland thing ever.

“Our goal, obviously, isn’t to cause injury to anyone,”

Wed, 26 Oct 2011 23:10:00 -0400

the Oakland Chief of Police said as a thin golden arc erupted gracefully into the air, bending ever so slightly downward and finally coming to rest on the moist, ruined form of the word “obviously.”

The Chief wiped his dick on a lamppost and grinned, teeth like rubber bullets.

Jazz joke.

Mon, 17 Oct 2011 18:32:12 -0400

Jazz joke.

In 1989, Penn and Teller visited Bell Labs and played a...

Fri, 14 Oct 2011 10:26:53 -0400

In 1989, Penn and Teller visited Bell Labs and played a practical joke on Nobel laureate Arno Penzias, assisted by Rob Pike and the late Dennis Ritchie.

Here’s the whole story in Ritchie’s words.

Stop dying, awesome people.

“It figured out exactly what I wanted to...

Tue, 11 Oct 2011 21:45:15 -0400

“It figured out exactly what I wanted to say.” —Jason Snell

The danger triangle of the face.

Tue, 27 Sep 2011 18:40:30 -0400

The danger triangle of the face.

Perfect. (pzlr via Spiked Math)

Mon, 26 Sep 2011 16:37:05 -0400

Perfect.

(pzlr via Spiked Math)