With all that talk about semi-autonomous cars, smart roads and reflective paint that is supposed to keep cyclists and runners safe in the dark, something always rubbed me the wrong way: Everybody is talking about 'protecting' vulnerable road users by asking them to do something: Buy that paint, wear that bright west, be careful. Nobody ever asked themselves: Why do we have to protect them in the first place? So here's a first-class rant about why technology will not save road users: Read it on medium.

The IPhone X user manual Apple forgot

Speaking of face recognition, how good are those algorithms anyway?

Pretty good, actually. Industry-Standard algorithms are better at recognizing (correctly assigning an identity to the image of a human face) humans than other humans. But if you modify that image just a little - in a way most humans wouldn't even detect, you can bring that superhuman detection rate down to Zero.
It's a technique called 'adversarial images', and as more and more semiautonomous systems crop up especially in the security area, these attacks are becoming a real threat.

It’s no longer a question if a bot can fool a captcha - it’s a question of wether a SWAT team shows up at your door or not.

Did you use to log on with a modem?

If so, congratulations: You are old.Plus: Did you ever wonder what those noises you heard when connecting actually did?

Click on the image above to get a detailed breakdown on the sequence of a handshake between two 56k modems.

A television recommendation

Speaking of ancient computer history: If we've met recently, you probably know that I tell everybody to watch Halt And Catch Fire. It is so good. So, I'm telling you, too: Watch it. All four seasons of it. One of the best things about it is that they stopped at the peak. No puttering along, not another season of a series that is getting worse and worse as time goes on. Just a marvelous last episode, and that's that. Brilliant.

Watch the trailer! Seriously. Do it!

One final word

"Symbolic acts are rarely cheap or wasted if they work. Because we're story-telling creatures, and symbols are clues about which story we ought to tell ourselves." ~~ Seth Godin

That's it from this edition of Let's be Fwends. Please high-five yourself, just because. You've got enough reasons for it. 🙌🏽