LET’S BE FWENDS ISSUE #14:

TECHNOLOGY WILL NOT MAKE CYCLIST SAFER

With all that talk about semi-autonomous cars, smart roads and reflective paint that is supposed to keep cyclists and runners safe in the dark, something always rubbed me the wrong way: Everybody is talking about ‘protecting’ vulnerable road users by asking them to do something: Buy that paint, wear that bright west, be careful. Nobody ever asked themselves: Why do we have to protect them in the first place? So here’s a first-class rant about why technology will not save road users: Read it on medium.

The IPhone X user manual Apple forgot

By Joanna Stern.This made me laugh so hard, even if I don’t own an IPhone X (or planning to own one). The prospect of FaceID is to scary for me. I don’t think I want to unlock my device just by looking at it or being nicely asked to do so.

Speaking of face recognition, how good are those algorithms anyway?

Pretty good, actually. Industry-Standard algorithms are better at recognizing (correctly assigning an identity to the image of a human face) humans than other humans. But if you modify that image just a little - in a way most humans wouldn’t even detect, you can bring that superhuman detection rate down to Zero. It’s a technique called ‘adversarial images’, and as more and more semiautonomous systems crop up especially in the security area, these attacks are becoming a real threat.

It’s no longer a question if a bot can fool a captcha - it’s a question of wether a SWAT team shows up at your door or not.

Did you use to log on with a modem?

If so, congratulations: You are old.Plus: Did you ever wonder what those noises you heard when connecting actually did?

Click on the image above to get a detailed breakdown on the sequence of a handshake between two 56k modems.

A television recommendation

Speaking of ancient computer history: If we’ve met recently, you probably know that I tell everybody to watch Halt And Catch Fire. It is so good. So, I’m telling you, too: Watch it. All four seasons of it. One of the best things about it is that they stopped at the peak. No puttering along, not another season of a series that is getting worse and worse as time goes on. Just a marvelous last episode, and that’s that. Brilliant.

Watch the trailer! Seriously. Do it!

One final word

“Symbolic acts are rarely cheap or wasted if they work. Because we’re story-telling creatures, and symbols are clues about which story we ought to tell ourselves.” ~~ Seth Godin

That’s it from this edition of Let’s be Fwends. Please high-five yourself, just because. You’ve got enough reasons for it. 🙌🏽