“Microsoft Surface Go review: bringing the Surface concept to the mainstream”

I’m just catching up on a bunch of news that happened while I was on vacation, so I’m a bit late on this.

“I think Microsoft has now finally nailed the ideal tablet-laptop hybrid hardware at a more attractive price — after years of trying. Surface Go feels like it’s ready to take the Surface concept mainstream, and it’s a lesson for both Apple and Samsung’s tablet + laptop efforts.”

This seems like a big point to me, as an Apple user. I’m not going to buy a Surface Go since it doesn’t run macOS, but I’m increasingly impressed with the iterations that Microsoft has put the Surface concept through over the past few years. It feels like they’re placing a lot of energy behind their hardware and things are starting to click. I wish that Apple were acting less like their hardware is already at its pinnacle and more like they were hungry to make great machines like Microsoft seems to be.

“Alex Jones, Pursued Over Infowars Falsehoods, Faces a Legal Crossroads”

“Mr. Jones is trying to have the Pozner and Fontaine cases dismissed under the Texas Citizens Participation Act, which protects citizens’ right to free speech against plaintiffs who aim to silence them through costly litigation. Mr. Jones is seeking more than $100,000 in court costs from the Pozner family.“

Alex Jones is a piece of human garbage.

“A milestone for Chrome security: marking HTTP as ‘not secure’”

I find this a bit disappointing. While I understand the benefits of moving the web towards ubiquitous encrypted transport, plain HTTP is the lingua franca of the web. Regardless of how easy it’s become to obtain a certificate—I did this earlier this year on this site—it’s another barrier to putting up a site. Besides, Google’s warning will scare some inexperienced users, who might interpret “not secure” to mean that they’re on a dangerous site, perhaps one with some kind of malware. I think this is probably a step too far.

I’ve been using Firefox lately, for the first time in many years. Its new engine is quite fast, and I’ve been enjoying my time with it. I made it my primary browser a few weeks ago, and so far it’s stuck. I’ll post more about my thoughts on Firefox later, but it’s also a nice benefit that its users aren’t being subjected to “not secure” warnings for sites that haven’t adopted HTTPS.

“States slow to prepare for hacking threats”

Only 13 states said they intend to use the federal dollars to buy new voting machines. At least 22 said they have no plans to replace their machines before the election — including all five states that rely solely on paperless electronic voting devices, which cybersecurity experts consider a top vulnerability.

Crazy.