The first paragraph of this description may not strike anyone as humorous.
Larch is a open-source library and set of applications for processing and analyzing X-ray absorption and fluorescence spectroscopy data and X-ray fluorescence and diffraction image data from synchrotron beamlines. Larch provides a comprehensive set fo analysis tools for X-ray absorption fine-structure spectroscopy (XAFS), including both X-ray absorption near-edge spectroscopy (XANES) and extended X-ray absorption fine-structure spectroscopy (EXAFS). Larch also provides visualization and analysis tools for X-ray fluorescence (XRF) spectra and XRF and X-ray diffraction (XRD) images as collected at scanning X-ray microprobe beamlines.
But when I got to the beginning of the second paragraph, I lost it.
“[T]he alleged spy, when confronted last Friday at Rippling’s Dublin office with a court order to hand over his phone, fled to the bathroom and locked the door. When repeatedly warned not to delete materials from his device and that his non-compliance could result in jail time, the spy responded: ‘I’m willing to take that risk,’ and fled the premises.”
So far we have only heard one side. We will see what Deel says, and if it will claim that the honeypot email (claiming Rippling had a d-defectors (where d stands for Deel) Slack channel) was sent to more than three people.
This is a remote education post, but not an educational identity post.
I have previously discussed online test taking, and I guess the State Bar of California reads the Bredemarket blog because it decided that an online bar exam would be a great idea, since it would reduce the costs of renting large halls for test taking purposes.
“The online testing platforms repeatedly crashed before some applicants even started. Others struggled to finish and save essays, experienced screen lags and error messages and could not copy and paste text from test questions into the exam’s response field — a function officials had stated would be possible.”
No surprise, but the remote bar exam debacle was so bad that students are filing…lawsuits.
“Some students also filed a complaint Thursday in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, accusing Meazure Learning, the company that administered the exam, of “failing spectacularly” and causing an “unmitigated disaster.””
Back before Jobs co-founded Apple Computer, typing “71077345” into a dedicated calculator (with an “LCD” style typeface) and flipping it upside down showed a recognizable word. Isn’t that cool?
Now, hardly anyone has dedicated calculators, and the one on my smartphone has a “normal” typeface that ruins the trick.
Perhaps one of the biggest changes over the last several decades is that we no longer possess physical things.
Old and new music
When some of us were younger, we would always go to “the record store” to buy a CD or cassette or vinyl (the “record”) or maybe an 8 track. We would put the physical media on a playback device. And unless the media were damaged or stolen, you always had it. RCA wouldn’t come to your house and take your Elvis record.
Let me be your teddy wildebeest.
Then services from Napster 1.0 to Apple to Spotify started to provide music in digital form. And now your music COULD be taken away. When Neil Young got mad at Spotify, I couldn’t listen to Neil any more. (They subsequently kissed and made up.)
This is true of many other things: TV shows, movies, even computer software.
Which brings us to books.
Old and new books
You could once buy books at your local bookstore, or from an online bookstore called Amazon. But then Amazon developed the Kindle e-reader. And as The Verge points out, something on the Kindle today may not be there tomorrow.
“Amazon has occasionally removed books from its online store and remotely deleted them from Kindles or edited titles and re-uploaded new copies to its e-readers. In 2009, the company removed copies of George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four and Animal Farm, explaining the books had been mistakenly published. More recently, many of Roald Dahl’s books, including Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, were replaced with updated copies featuring modified language on various ebook platforms. It’s a reminder that you don’t actually own much of the digital content you consume, and without the ability to back up copies of ebooks, you could lose them entirely if they’re banned and removed.”
New and improved edition.
But there is a workaround. If your Kindle has a copy of Mein Kampf or a book about gay hotspots near the Gulf of Mexico and you don’t want to lose it, you can save it outside of the Amazon ecosystem.
“(The feature is) still accessible through Amazon’s website by accessing your “Content Library” while logged into your account. For purchased books you select the “More actions” menu, choose “Download & transfer via USB,” select a Kindle device you have registered, and a copy of the book will be downloaded to your computer.”
A nice feature…especially if you want to make sure you don’t lose your purchased content. And it’s really nice if you want to put your Amazon content on a non-Amazon e-reader. Because the Kindle only has a minuscule 72% share of the e-reader market, this is a gargantuan threat to Amazon’s ability to sell hardware.
You can see where this is going.
Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes
Amazon has made a change, according to The Verge:
“Starting February 26, 2025, the ‘Download & Transfer via USB’ option will no longer be available. You can still send Kindle books to your Wi-Fi enabled devices by selecting the ‘Deliver or Remove from Device’ option.”
February 25.
To clarify, you can still access your books on the Kindle app.
Just not outside of it.
How does this affect your content?
This serves as a reminder about technological change, walled gardens, and obsolescence.
Which ties in with one of Bredemarket’s favorite topics, repurposing.
Now Bredemarket doesn’t create videos for clients, but if you need your identity/biometric or technology text repurposed in another format, I can help.
I tried to enter a salary range in an online job application and got this error message:
“What is your target overall salary/annual compensation rate?: Please enter a number using only the digits 0 to 9 with a value between 10000 and 2147483647. Do not include any commas, decimals, or letters.”
I was tempted to enter the maximum value, but I wanted the job.
But I knew the number 2,147,483,647 had to have some significance.
On a Bredemarket Instagram story shared Friday afternoon (to disappear Saturday), I noted Meta’s AI advice NOT to call someone who flew a drone near firefighting equipment an “idiot.” I respectfully disagree. The term is appropriate.
Let me clarify that Meta is not trying to curtail free speech. Only governments can curtail free speech. Private entities cannot.
For example, if I still worked for IDEMIA, and used IDEMIA social media channels to declare the Thales ABIS the best ABIS ever, IDEMIA has every right to delete that post—and me.
In the same way, if Zuck insists that Meta users cannot refer to people threatening lives as “idiots,” that is Meta’s right.
I found a picture of a suited IBM worker from the 20th century who reminded me of Kraftwerk. So I created an Instagram reel.
From the Bredemarket Instagram account.
Note the prominence of the word THINK. There’s a story behind that, of course, that is older than IBM itself. Thomas Watson (Sr.) first used the word at a 1911 sales conference of National Cash Register.
“The trouble with every one of us is that we don’t think enough. We don’t get paid for working with our feet — we get paid for working with our heads.”
Bredemarket 