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Donate to U.S. National Parks Using Apple Pay

Andrew Orr ·

From August 17 to August 25, the first 100,000 transactions at Apple retail stores, the online store, or the Apple Store app will donate US$10 to U.S. national parks.

We’re celebrating our national parks with a $10 donation for each Apple Pay purchase at an Apple Store, on apple.com, or through the Apple Store app in the U.S. from August 17 through 25. Limited to the first 100,000 transactions. Subject to $10 minimum purchase.

I think this is great. U.S. national parks could soon get a big US$1 million donation.

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The First Woman in Apollo Mission Control

Charlotte Henry ·

We’ve just finished marking the 50th anniversary of the first man on the moon. Of course, there were a number of Apollo missions before that. National Geographic told the story of Poppy Northcutt.  Aged 25, she became the first woman inside Apollo mission control.

“The whole society discouraged me” from a career in engineering, she recalls. Nevertheless, when she graduated early from what was then the University of Texas with a degree in mathematics, she knew she wanted to work in the space program, and in 1965 she got a job crunching numbers for NASA through TRW, one of the space agency’s contractors. “My job title was ‘computress’—a gendered computer,” she recalls. Computresses were subordinate to all-male teams of engineers… “Interesting little bugs kept showing up,” Northcutt recalls. “A small or inconsequential error could be fatal.” That lesson was driven home during the disastrous Apollo 13 mission, when Northcutt and team had to troubleshoot their return-to-Earth program to get those astronauts home safely.

 

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News+: Project Catalyst and the Future of the Mac

Andrew Orr ·

In the latest issue of Macworld, Jason Snell writes about Project Catalyst and how Apple struggles with the Mac’s future.

iOS app developers are Mac users—it’s the only platform available for iOS app development. They know what the Mac feels like. I think many of them will choose to do the right thing—but it’s a shame they won’t have exemplary Apple apps to inspire them.

This is part of Andrew’s News+ series, where he shares a magazine every Friday to help people discover good content in Apple News+.

Cool Stuff Found

'Telling Lies' Game Available for Preorder at $6.99

Andrew Orr ·

Annapurna Interactive, makers of games like Donut County, Gorogoa, Gone Home, and more, have a new game coming out called Telling Lies. An investigative thriller game with non-linear storytelling, Telling Lies revolves around a cache of secretly recorded video conversations. Starring Logan Marshall-Green, Alexandra Shipp, Kerry Bishé, Angela Sarafyan and directed by Sam Barlow, creator of Her Story and Silent Hill: Shattered Memories. Telling Lies sits you in front of an anonymous laptop loaded with a stolen NSA database full of footage. The footage covers two years in the intimate lives of four people whose stories are linked by a shocking incident. Explore the database by typing search terms, watch the clips where those words are spoken and piece together your story. Unlike anything you’ve played before, Telling Lies is an intimate and intense experience. A game where you decide the truth. App Store: Telling Lies—US$6.99

TMO Deals

WOM Adjustable Tabletop Standing Desk Converter: $115

Bryan Chaffin ·

We have a deal on the WOM Adjustable Tabletop Standing Desk Converter. This standing desk is designed to sit on your desk (or other table), and lifts with a single-handle height adjustment lever. It also has an integrated removable keyboard tray. It comes in black or white, and you can get it for $115 through our deal.

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AI Tech Like Neuralink Could be 'Suicide For the Human Mind'

Andrew Orr ·

Some scientists are worried about technology like Elon Musk’s Neuralink. Cognitive psychologist Susan Schneider wrote an op-ed (paywall) that it could be “suicide for the human mind.”

The worry with a general merger with AI, in the more radical sense that Musk envisions, is the human brain is diminished or destroyed. Furthermore, the self may depend on the brain and if the self’s survival over time requires that there be some sort of continuity in our lives — a continuity of memory and personality traits — radical changes may break the needed continuity.

I’m no neuroscientist but I subscribe to emergentism, which is the idea that consciousness is an emergent property of the brain. An easy explanation is here, but basically it means that consciousness isn’t a property of the physical brain, but rather something that happens when you get enough neurons interconnected. This isn’t something that could be replicated with code.