“The compensation of growing old is that the passions remain as strong as ever, but one has gained – at last! – the power which adds the supreme flavour to existence, – the power of taking hold of experience, of turning it around, slowly, in the light.”
-Virginia Woolf, Mrs Dalloway.
This morning’s Observer column:
Twenty years ago this month, a French-born Iranian-American computer programmer named Pierre Omidyar added an experimental online auction section to his personal website, which at that time focused mainly on the Ebola virus. He called it AuctionWeb because it enabled people to bid to purchase items that other people were advertising for sale. One of the earliest, and most puzzling, sales on the site was of a broken laser pointer, which went for $14.83. The story goes that Omidyar wrote to the buyer asking if he understood that the laser pointer was broken. The guy replied that he was a collector of broken laser pointers. At this point, Omidyar realised he might be on to something.
He was: he called it eBay…
Arles, France.
Interesting comment by Gideon Lichfield of Quartz on the significance of Jeremy Corbyn and Donald Trump:
All the two men really share, of course, is that they’ve gained a following by emerging as “authentic” voices in an era of manufactured politics. Aside from being political opposites, they’re also in quite different roles vis-a-vis their respective parties. Corbyn is a sincere and consistent dissident—a lot more like the US’s Bernie Sanders than like Trump, who is mainly a provocateur. And the notoriously thrifty Corbyn can fairly claim to represent a lost ideal of Labour values—while Trump, though perhaps a bit less rich than he claims, is about as far removed both from Republican working-class voters and from his party’s own core beliefs (paywall) as can be.
Superficial as the Trump-Corbyn parallel may be, however, it speaks to a broader commonality. Each man embodies a crisis, both in his party and in his country’s broader politics. Like all such crises, these schisms present opportunities. They’ll spur the parties to seek out fresh blood and ideas and rediscover what voters want. In other words, this is healthy. The main question is how much upset it takes for a party to truly grasp that it has lost its way. Judging by its responses to Trump, the Republican party hasn’t grasped it yet. Judging by Corbyn’s impact, Trump may yet win the nomination before it does.
Gateway, Semur-en-Auxoise, Burgundy, Summer 2015.
Apple will pay about $234 for the parts used in every iPhone 6S, according to estimates from Bank of America Merrill Lynch.
The biggest part of that cost is $127 for semiconductor pieces, including $36 for the various cellular radios, $25 for the new 64-bit A9 processor, $22 for various sensors (fingerprint, NFC, and so on), and $20 for 64GB of flash memory. Other core components like the screen, camera, and battery will add up to $73, and the other stuff (like the case) will add another $33. The older models are cheaper for Apple to make, as the cost of their components has come down over time.
An unlocked 64GB iPhone 6S has a starting retail price of $749, but that doesn’t mean Apple is making gross profits of $515 in profit on each phone — there are also manufacturing and distribution costs.
A dramatic volcanic plug near Puy, France, 2015.
Morning in Provence, summer 2015.
The Ashley Madison saga continues to entertain and inform the watching public. For example, it turns out that the click-wrap T&C agreement warns users that they may be interacting not with real people but with feminised bots.
According to the Guardian, the relevant passage in the current T&Cs reads thus:
You acknowledge and agree that any profiles of users and Members, as well as, communications from such persons may not be true, accurate or authentic and may be exaggerated or based on fantasy. You acknowledge and understand that you may be communicating with such persons and that we are not responsible for such communications.
But it turns out that this formulation is toned down from a previous clause, present in February of this year, which was more explicit about the presence of fake accounts. The February version explained that the robot accounts were created “In order to allow persons who are Guests on our Site to experience the type of communications they can expect as Members”.
The profiles we create are not intended to resemble or mimic any actual persons. We may create several different profiles that we attach to a given picture. You understand and acknowledge that we create these profiles and that these profiles are not based on or associated with any user or Member of our Service or any other real person. You also acknowledge and agree that the descriptions, pictures and information included in such profiles are provided primarily for your amusement and to assist you navigate and learn about our Site. As part of this feature, the profiles may offer, initiate or send winks, private keys, and virtual gifts. Any one of these profiles may message with multiple users at the same or substantially the same times just like our users.
Our profiles message with Guest users, but not with Members. Members interact only with profiles of actual persons. Guests are contacted by our profiles through computer generated messages, including emails and instant messages. These profiles are NOT conspicuously identified as such.
Truly, you couldn’t make this stuff up. I shouldn’t complain, I suppose, because the Ashley Madison saga is a perfect case-study for the book chapter I’m working on at the moment.