Matthew Lang avatar

Matthew Lang

Family guy and web developer

Apple Wins Major Court Victory

Apple received a boost in its fight against the FBI after a judge ruled in Apple's favour.

Judge Orenstein applied previous legal decisions interpreting the AWA and concluded that the law does not “justif[y] imposing on Apple the obligation to assist the government’s investigation against its will.” In a formulation extremely favorable to Apple, the judge wrote that the key question raised by the government’s request is whether the AWA allows a court “to compel Apple — a private party with no alleged involvement in Feng’s criminal activity — to perform work for the government against its will.”

— Apple Wins Major Court Victory Against FBI in a Case Similar to San Bernardino by The Intercept

While I do think it's important for technology companies to help government agencies, especially in the case of providing evidence, there has to be a line drawn in the level of powers that an agency can invoke.

Where is Everybody?

Last week my wife Jennifer was looking for something to read during her lunch break. She stumbled across this piece on reasons why we appear to be so alone in the universe. Read at your peril. The numbers are mind boggling.

As many stars as there are in our galaxy (100 – 400 billion), there are roughly an equal number of galaxies in the observable universe—so for every star in the colossal Milky Way, there’s a whole galaxy out there. All together, that comes out to the typically quoted range of between 1022 and 1024 total stars, which means that for every grain of sand on every beach on Earth, there are 10,000 stars out there.

— The Fermi Paradox by Wait But Why

On Writing Well - Technical Writing

While reading On Writing Well last night, I was glad to have found the section on technical writing.

Describing how a process works is valuable for two reasons. It forces you to make sure you know how it works. Then it forces you to take the reader through the same sequence of ideas and deductions that made the process clear to you.

— On Writing Well by William Zinsser

The morning routine is going well since officially embarking on it around November of last year. Here's what happens.

  • 5 mins - Review the day ahead and ensuring that I don't have any conflicting work. Use Todoist and Timepage to do this.
  • 10 mins - Scan through my Feedbin subscriptions and then read a couple of articles on Instapaper.
  • 15 mins - Write in my notebook. When I say writing I mean with pen and paper. None of that digital nonsense. I'm on my third notebook and plan to keep it going for as long as I can. I use the time to write drafts of blog posts, private pieces or every now and then try out writing some fiction.

I do this all at the dining room table. Just me, my phone, a pen and a notebook. And maybe a coffee if I'm feeling adventurous.

I have to say, it's working well for me.

I’ve been using Sublime Text 3 all week as my text editor. Is it just me or is the speed difference really noticeable over Atom?