The Verge wrote about the Mac startup chime coming back in the new version (11! not 10.x) of macOS:

Apple is bringing back the Mac’s iconic startup chime in macOS Big Sur. The company hinted it might return by playing the chime very prominently during yesterday’s Worldwide Developers Conference keynote, and people who have installed the first Big Sur developer beta have reported that it’s back.

The startup chime was first removed from Macs in 2016 with the redesigned MacBook Pros released that year, and Macs released since then (with the exception of the 2017 13-inch MacBook Air) didn’t play the chime when you turned them on.

I would guess removing the chime was a Jony Ive decision (along with the keyboard and the obsession with thin devices with small batteries). It looks like a lot of things Apple has been doing lately are about undoing those choices. And the whole product line seems better for it.

From Polygon

An important part of this partnership, Spencer stressed, is the integration of Project xCloud technology onto Facebook. He has previously said that Microsoft’s biggest competitors when it comes to streaming games from the cloud are Amazon and Google. This partnership with Facebook makes sense, strengthening the xCloud platform with access to a massive global audience. Sharma said fans should expect to see click-and-play experiences on the social media platform in the future.

Microsoft announcing shutting Mixer down half way through WWDC was a really bad look. And choosing Facebook Gaming as the destination/partnership is just terrible. It sounds like they didn’t really have much of an option based on the goals they set for themselves, but this still a really bad outcome. Also, integrating xCloud and Facebook just makes it something I’ll never use.

Very disappointing.

Apparently people think “defund the police” is a bad slogan and needs to be reworded to be more attractive as a policy.

But you know what? I don’t give a shit. Defund the police.

Vox:

A three-word slogan is not a detailed policy agenda, and not everyone using the slogan agrees on the details. The basic idea, though, is less that policing budgets should be literally zeroed out than that there should be a massive restructuring of public spending priorities.

From The Verge:

The virtual walkout comes on the heels of a decision from Facebook not to take any action against a series of controversial posts from Trump last week, including one that seemed to threaten violence against protestors by saying, “when the looting starts, the shooting starts.” Twitter determined that the same message violated its rules against the glorification of violence last week, limiting the ability to view, like, reply, and retweet the post on its platform.

Mark Zuckerberg is a coward. He once again made a terrible decision because he’ll never stand for anything right, he’ll just ensure Facebook’s survival as a engagement machine no matter what the cost. He should have resigned a long time ago.

I’m glad some of the employees are trying to do something. It’s too late, but it’s good to know there is some pushback to Zuckerberg’s bullshit.

From Slate:

The ongoing protests following the killing of George Floyd were caught up in violence again on Saturday, as police all over the country tear-gassed protesters, drove vehicles through crowds, opened fire with nonlethal rounds on journalists or people on their own property, and in at least one instance, pushed over an elderly man who was walking away with a cane. Here are some of the ways law enforcement officers escalated the national unrest.

This is exactly what I’ve been seeing unfold on Twitter over the past few days. The original protesters of the killing of George Floyd don’t seem to be the ones out of control here.

Golden Hour in Astoria

Gothamist:

By the time the evening’s protests were over, the frustration of the New Yorkers gathered had run headlong into the aggressive mass-arrest protest-policing tactics of the NYPD. Some protesters were in the hospital. Police vehicles were on fire. And with more protests scheduled over the weekend and in the days ahead, there was every indication that the outpouring of anguish over police violence, and the violent police response to it, will only continue.

#GeorgeFloyd
#BreonnaTaylor
#AhmaudArberry
#BlackLivesMatter

CASISDEAD - City Slicker

I started using this app called Krisp over the weekend, and I’m def impressed.

I was using Discord over the weekend and tried the built in noise suppression. The description for the feature explains that it uses an embedded version of Krisp for it. The app uses machine learning to figure out which sounds are voices, and filters out everything else.

I live right above a night club (which sadly has been silent for the past few months) and next to the N train (which seems to run exactly the same as it always has) and New Yorkers are still New Yorkers so voice calls have been hard with all the noise. I’ve been using Krisp for my Discord, FaceTime, and Hangout calls over the weekend and it completely blocks out all of it.

I’m impressed with how it works but I’m also into machine learning (ML) and all the stuff people are calling AI these days so it’s even more interesting to me. I’ve also been reading about NVIDIA’s version of this, which works through their RTX graphics cards.

I’ve been wanting to start using ML in my projects for a while but I never came up with good enough applications for it. Voice detection is a perfect use case. I think this might have given me a reason to try playing around with it again.

A coronavirus vaccine trial has gone well! It looks like we might actually be on track for having a vaccine ready by the end of the year, which is critical since the US government has decided that the best course of action is to pretend the virus doesn’t exist.

From the article:

Those people, healthy volunteers, made antibodies that were then tested in human cells in the lab, and were able to stop the virus from replicating — the key requirement for an effective vaccine. The levels of those so-called neutralizing antibodies matched the levels found in patients who had recovered after contracting the virus in the community.

Resident Evil 2 is a really good game.

I keep seeing articles come up about not shaking hands anymore. I’m all for it.

Handshakes were always awkward for me. First, because I usually had pretty sweaty hands (not so much anymore for some reason) so I just kind of just mostly avoided them, and then because I was avoiding them I was less familiar with them so it was just never really that comfortable for me. Actually now that I think about it, it might have something to do with some of my trouble holding on to close friends growing up.

Anyway, I still mostly just avoid handshakes to this day, so it won’t be too weird for me to come up with a gesture that I try to normalize instead.

I just read an article about restaurants in Hong Kong adapting to the pandemic. I like the sound of a lot of these changes. Considering some governments' complete lack of an attempt to control the virus, we’re just going to have to make a lot of these kinds of changes so we can actually try to safely live our lives for the next two years before we get a vaccine.

America’s Racial Contract

The implied terms of the racial contract are visible everywhere for those willing to see them. A 12-year-old with a toy gun is a dangerous threat who must be met with lethal force; armed militias drawing beads on federal agents are heroes of liberty. Struggling white farmers in Iowa taking billions in federal assistance are hardworking Americans down on their luck; struggling single parents in cities using food stamps are welfare queens. Black Americans struggling in the cocaine epidemic are a “bio-underclass” created by a pathological culture; white Americans struggling with opioid addiction are a national tragedy. Poor European immigrants who flocked to an America with virtually no immigration restrictions came “the right way”; poor Central American immigrants evading a baroque and unforgiving system are gang members and terrorists.

Vibe

I tried out Risk of Rain 2 tonight and was really into it. I played the first one a few weeks ago because it was in my Steam library (probably through Humble Bundle or something) and I’ve been thinking about the second one.

There are a lot of things I like about the game, but one of coolest part of the series to me is that the first is 2D and the second is 3D, but they’re still both basically the same game. It’s a dope example of literally adding a new dimension to a thing.

From an article about masks and why everyone is encouraged to wear one:

Masks can be worn to protect the wearer from getting infected or masks can be worn to protect others from being infected by the wearer. Protecting the wearer is difficult: It requires medical-grade respirator masks, a proper fit, and careful putting on and taking off. But masks can also be worn to prevent transmission to others, and this is their most important use for society. If we lower the likelihood of one person’s infecting another, the impact is exponential, so even a small reduction in those odds results in a huge decrease in deaths. Luckily, blocking transmission outward at the source is much easier. It can be accomplished with something as simple as a cloth mask.

I just watched the season 3 finale for Westworld. I really didn’t like it or the entire season. I’ve been disappointed from the start of the show, but this was definitely the worst one.