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Just trying to make stuff happen

There They Go

Also, killing surveillance, finally, maybe. Kaliya lays out some good themes for IIW. My faves: S__olving the identities of AI agents and Proof of Personhood and First Person Credentials.

Unsubscribe now and skip the 7-day free trial. Is there a term of art for Substack newsletters that hide half of what's written behind a tease-wall? (Maybe "teasewall" is it.) Look, I do have paid subscriptions to some newsletters, but I'll never have subscriptions to all of them. So I think from now on I'll just drop every half-newsletter with teases me.

New blogging game: Whack-a-Spam. My Real Agency post got covered nicely here in Ars Technica. Then copies of the same Ars story appeared in a dozen faked-up "news" websites, pinging back to my post. I've been marking them all as spam.

Just a thought. Since the redstream is the new mainstream, I suggest we re-brand the old mainstream (NYTimes, WaPo, Atlantic/Time/New York/New Yorker/Wired/etc.) the bluestream, and the WSJ and other econ-oriented rags the finstream.

Tell your algorithm I sent you. Emily Catalano is now every reel Facebook's algorithm suggests to me. I suppose that's because she's the best deadpan comedian since Steven Wright.

You can't search an unconformity. What Tristan Louis says about digital archives makes complementary points (lots of them, all good) that are consistent with what I said about bits not leaving a fossil record.

What is your DNA worth? 23andMe is filing for bankruptcy. I'm a customer, so it concerns me that they have a heap of data about my DNA. While I'd like the world to benefit from that DNA, should it be useful (and, given some of my odd genetics, e.g. this, it might be), I also like to think that my genetic profile is on loan to 23andMe, and not their property. But, I suspect, in a bankruptcy auction, it's theirs. 

Advice welcome. Are the scanners in printers all the same? Or as good as standalone scanners? The scanner in my Epson printer is no longer visible to my laptop (no idea why), and I'm looking for a replacement printer or printer/scanner.

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3 responses to “There They Go”

  1. Brent Ashley Avatar
    Brent Ashley

    I don’t know about scanner quality across brands, but my Brother printer with scanner is good and despite some recent disproven allegations, they remain a company whose products are not enshittified, i.e. third party ink/toner works, scanner works even if ink is out or off-brand.

    Reply
  2. Chris Heinz Avatar
    Chris Heinz

    I deleted my account & data from 23andMe this morning. It just takes a few minutes. I should have done it a long time ago, given that these services have allowed warrantless police access, which can catch not only you but also your relatives.

    Reply
  3. Laurence Brevard Avatar
    Laurence Brevard

    I strongly recommend the TurboScan Pro app (from Piksoft, Inc.) on iPhone. It’s on Android as well but haven’t bothered to get it for my Pixel 8 Pro. $5.99 one-time purchase. Don’t bother with the “free” (ad supported) or the pay per scan (non-Pro) versions.

    Both of my current (all-in-one) printers have scanners with both scan glass and a document feeder. Both are Canon, wired Ethernet (not just Wi-Fi), and duplexing. The TR8620 series is a five tank color inkjet and the MF4570DW series is a black & white laser (with color scanning – I think!).

    BUT… Getting the scanner recognized is finicky, the supplied app is poorly done, the Windows default one is worse, other apps sometimes recognize the scanner but often don’t, the default resolution is not very good, and using the sheet feeders seems to always jam.

    Somewhat to my surprise 99% or more of all my scanning is now with an iPhone (15 Pro Max currently) using TurboScan Pro.

    A boss of mine turned me onto this close to 10 years ago. At first I thought it was silly since I could take a picture and convert to a PDF easily enough. Even the built-in iPhone Notepad app can now do that.

    But the user-interface is so smooth and efficient that paying for TurboScan Pro has been well worth it.

    The default usage takes three photos of the document (to combine into the best image), showing an overlay where it thinks the pages boundaries are located. It compensates very well for the typical shadow in the image from overhead lighting. It also automatically takes out keystone from scanning at an angle.

    It just starts and moves to the second and third photos as soon as the overlay is in a stable location – usually quite easily.

    You add pages with a “+” button until finished, when you press “Next” – at which point you can optionally name the document. By default the current date and time in yyyy-mm-dd hh-mm-sec format is prefixed to the file name – which can be left as “document” by default. You can go back and name it better later when needed.

    It then offers a variety of ways to “share” the scan with “Email to myself” as my standard default. Sending the PDF as a Message or AirDrop also work.

    The application unlocks with Face ID and a 3X button starts the default process with no other fuss.

    The user interface is so efficient that I have scanned documents of 20 or more pages in less time than it takes to get one of the Canon printers recognized as a scanner, much less dealing with jammed pages!

    I have no affiliation with this company. I’m just a very satisfied user.

    Reply

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