I keep hearing around the web from people I respect that App.net is cool, but that it won’t survive unless it hits critical mass. That social networks in general have to have millions and millions of users, or they don’t work.

The reason people believe this is that just about every social network up to this point has been financed by advertising (or not financed at all). If you want to run a service on ads, you need as many eyeballs as possible to cover your nut.

But App.net is charging users a yearly fee. $50 a year, at the moment, to become a member. While I imagine this price will go down over the coming months to open the net a little wider and attract some more users, I disagree with Marco Arment and many other prominent bloggers that it has to drop down to $10 or less a year in order to be successful.

Of the millions and millions of people on Twitter, how many do you follow? Currently, I’m following 231. And that’s already too many for me to keep up with every day. If App.net gets a couple hundred thousand users, even, who are paying a premium for the service and therefore are more likely to be using it for thoughtful conversation, rather than spewing nonsense, I think I’ll be able to find 231 people who produce content worth reading every day.

So who cares if Ashton Kutcher ever joins App.net? We have Stephen Fry already, and that’s a thousand times better. The mass of dreck that’s becoming harder and harder to avoid on Twitter is exactly the reason why App.net needs to exist. If the goal were to become a Twitter clone, App.net stands no chance of surviving at any price. $1 a year is still more expensive than free.

If you’re going to charge money when all of your competitors are free, why not go all out and charge $25 or $30? You’ve already lost the cheapskates. Focus on people who value a good product.

As far as I’m concerned, the only thing App.net needs is a decent crop of iOS, Mac, and Android apps (which are already on the way), and a new name. For everything else, they’re doing just fine.

To paraphrase Steve Jobs, for App.net to win, Twitter doesn’t have to lose.

That’s not to say that this experiment will definitely work out in the long run. I’m just saying that charging money and trying to maximize eyeballs are incompatible strategies at this point.

Day4 – How we screwed (almost) the whole Apple community: “The split between the two camps, was quite unequal. An estimate would be that 90% regarded the screw as a fact and based all the further opinion on that, only 10% were critical to accuracy.”

(Via. Day4.se)

Fascinating look at how easy it is to get a rumor started.

And therein lies the primary issue for information moving forward. No wonder we have a presidential candidate here in the US that gets away with lying about literally everything that comes out his mouth (not just distorting, cherry picking, or misrepresenting, as all politicians do, but all out lying). People have lost all ability to question what they read and hear on the Internet. The laziness bias has finally won. We hear what we want to hear, and nothing will ever change our minds. There’s literally no penalty for being completely full of crap.

Game over. The world’s most advanced tool for disseminating truth to the masses has been turned into the world’s best weapon for disinformation.

I remember in 7th grade, my teacher one day started a lesson, and he just went on and on for about 20 minutes, and we all just took notes diligently, writing down everything he said word for word. And then he stopped and asked us why we all assumed he was telling us the truth. Turned out he was just rambling nonsense for 20 minutes, and none of us bothered to question it. It was a huge eye opener for me. I still think about that day on a regular basis.

Question authority. Never assume what you’re hearing is the truth. We’re in desperate need of some healthy skepticism. Even the so-called “fact-finding” sites that try and point out people’s lies are often wrong or biased. It’s just about impossible to know what’s true and what isn’t.

Our insatiable desire to know everything has turned us into suckers for anyone who will tell us what we want to hear. That does not bode well for humanity.

Maybe we need more teachers who are willing to have their authority questioned every now and then for the betterment of their students.

How Apple and Amazon Security Flaws Led to My Epic Hacking | Gadget Lab | Wired.com: “In many ways, this was all my fault. My accounts were daisy-chained together. Getting into Amazon let my hackers get into my Apple ID account, which helped them get into Gmail, which gave them access to Twitter. Had I used two-factor authentication for my Google account, it’s possible that none of this would have happened, because their ultimate goal was always to take over my Twitter account and wreak havoc. Lulz.

Had I been regularly backing up the data on my MacBook, I wouldn’t have had to worry about losing more than a year’s worth of photos, covering the entire lifespan of my daughter, or documents and e-mails that I had stored in no other location.

Those security lapses are my fault, and I deeply, deeply regret them.”

(Via. Wired)

While it’s tempting to say he’s right here, that it really is his own dumb behavior that led to this, it’s also important to remember that this is a nerd with major street cred we’re talking about. Compared to the average computer user, this guy is way ahead of the curve when it comes to security. And he still got hacked.

Worse yet, he didn’t get hacked by some brilliant but malicious programmer who figured out a secret path through the back door via sharp technical skills. The guy just called Amazon and Apple and was handed the keys to the kingdom.

Remember that next time your customer support rep doesn’t believe you’re you, and won’t let you in without proper identification.

The bottom line is that we have a broken system. Period. Tech companies (I’m looking at you Apple and Amazon) need to be innovating in this area more. The whole username/password thing is way past its expiration date. We’re storing our lives on these machines. We’re trusting companies with our most precious data and private information. We need a better way for the computer to know who it’s talking to.

No matter how many times you tell people to turn on two-factor authentication, use better passwords with numbers, letters, and symbols, use different passwords for all your accounts, etc., it’s not going to happen. 90% of people are still using their dog’s name with a 1 or 2 tacked on the end. It’s human nature.

So while I applaud Google for having a better authentication system than Apple on this one, it still puts the burden on the user, and thus is essentially useless. The vast majority of people, even if they were scared into turning two-factor on by this story, will turn it back off again after two weeks of being inconvenienced by it.

In other words, don’t tell me I have to type a 16-character password every time I want to use my phone. Make a better phone that knows the difference between me and a stranger without me having to do anything.

The thing that’s made Apple products better than everyone else’s over the last few decades is that they always put the user’s needs ahead of the designer or programmer. It’s time Apple stepped up and did that again, this time with an authentication system that works with near zero effort on the user’s part. Yes, that’s hard. Too bad. It’s the only way we’re going to fix this.

And meanwhile, Apple, stop using the last four digits of a credit card number as proof of anything. Wow. Talk about bone-headed. That’s worse than the bank using your mother’s maiden name.

The Kaffeologie S-Filter – Marco.org: “Most coffee nerds will tell you that paper filters block flavorful oils from getting into the brewed cup, while the superior metal-mesh and perforated filters will let these oils through for a superior taste.”

(Via. Marco.org)

I continue to be amazed that so many coffee nerds don’t realize the first rule of hot beverages, as bestowed upon me a long time ago by a Japanese Tea expert: Never let hot water touch metal. Period.

Metal will do a lot more to destroy the flavor of your coffee or tea than anything else you do. You might as well pour dirt into your cup.

You’re going to go through the trouble of getting yourself a $300 grinder, the best fresh beans you can find (4 Barrel in San Francisco is my personal favorite), a scale, and an Aeropress. And THEN you’re going to geek out on special “recipies” Inverted brewing methods, measuring your beans to the nearest 100th of an ounce, blah blah blah. And then you’re dumb enough to be filtering through a piece of metal?

You might as well have gone to Starbucks.

That goes even more for a metal kettle, by the way. Sacrilege. I use the Chemex Handblown Glass Kettle. Glass is the only way to go.

Everyone knows that glass is superior to metal when it comes to liquids. That’s why bottled beer tastes better, bottled milk tastes better, etc. The effect of the metal gets exaggerated when the temperature rises or falls from room temperature.

It’s why we use glasses or ceramic cups instead of metal cups, despite the fact that metal cups would be far less prone to breakage.

Now, I’m exaggerating, of course, the effect of a metal filter on taste. (Not the kettle. The kettle will absolutely kill your coffee.) As Marco points out, you can’t really tell the difference in the filter when the coffee is pressed through so quickly. But the idea that people get all snobby about how much better a metal filter is makes me laugh every time. There’s a reason why cheap tea pots have a metal sieve, while the more expensive good ones don’t.

Paper filters are more convenient for cleaning. They’re so cheap the cost amounts to a rounding error compared to the rest of the brew. (You can get a year’s supply for about $10.) And they do a superior job of keeping fine grinds out of your brew. End of story.

Court orders TSA to justify year-long defiance of the law | Ars Technica:

Requiring the TSA to follow the formal rule-making procedure is important, because one of the essential steps in that process is the solicitation of public feedback. American travelers will have the opportunity to voice their concerns about the TSA’s policy, and the agency will be required to respond to those concerns. Given that so many of the TSA’s policies are shrouded in secrecy, forcing the TSA to explain its policies will be a much-needed source of transparency. And if the rationale for using the machines is as flimsy as some critics charge, perhaps the exercise will cause the agency to re-consider the decision to use them.

(Via arstechnica.com)

I’d argue it’s also important because they were* given a court order*. If government agencies can simply ignore the Judicial Branch of the government, that’s the end of everything, folks. Game over. We’re living in a totalitarian state.

At least give us the illusion that we still have some control over what our government subjects us to, here. Play along for show. That’s what the TSA is best at, anyway, right?

What’s the worst that can happen? A bunch of lefty liberals write their objections in the formal procedure, and you ignore them and do what you want, anyway. No harm done, and it won’t even generate much bad press, because most Americans are too scared of their own shadow to think rationally about what does and doesn’t make them safer.

The fact that The TSA has simply ignored the order all this time demonstrates a level of arrogance that, frankly, is very frightening. If they don’t even have to pretend to follow the rule of law, what will they do next?