This week brings us a minor, but major, update for the NewsBlur iOS app. Several new features, some due to new APIs in iOS 7, have made it into the app.

Here’s what’s new:

• Background updates so NewsBlur can download stories while you sleep
• Custom text sizes for feeds and stories
• Dynamic text sizes based on your system preferences
• The story title is now linked to the original story
• New preference to use either the in-app browser, Safari, or Chrome
• Major iPad fixes include better transitions, bugs squashed, and improved performance

Coming up I have a big ticket feature that is just about ready to launch. Stay tuned for saved story tagging, which will also make its way into the Android and iOS app soon.

Download the latest and free NewsBlur iOS app.

Bishop Fox:

Intro reconfigures your iOS device (e.g. iPhone, iPad) so that all of your emails go through LinkedIn’s servers. You read that right. Once you install the Intro app, all of your emails, both sent and received, are transmitted via LinkedIn’s servers. LinkedIn is forcing all your IMAP and SMTP data through their own servers and then analyzing and scraping your emails for data pertaining to…whatever they feel like.

LinkedIn is offering to take control of iOS devices via MDM security profile to set themselves as a rewriting-proxy email server under the guise of a cool new feature that millions of people will probably install. Technically, you could argue that this is opt-in, but it has massive security ramifications beyond what users should be expected to predict or understand.

Apple better already be paying attention to this. While it’s within the technical capability of iOS MDM profiles, it’s almost certainly violating the spirit of any common-sense rules or standards. Apple probably has enough of a relationship with LinkedIn, and enough power with the App Store, to wield a big stick and eliminate Intro without any technical changes to the profile system.

But what happens when using profiles for non-security, non-enterprise features becomes widespread? Won’t Google, Facebook, Twitter, and just about every social or ad-supported service want the same access to make it easier to mine your private data, spam your contacts, and evade App Store restrictions? It won’t be hard for the big services to come up with compelling features and friendly messaging to get millions of people to install their profiles, too.

And isn’t this a huge malware risk?

Apple needs a generalized solution to this problem quickly. The big question is whether they can do anything substantial about the profile system without causing issues for legitimate enterprise use¹ — I don’t know enough about it to say.

∞ Permalink

Silicon Valley is a place where ideas like cryogenic suspension, genetic engineering to switch off aging, or even uploading your brain into an emulator are taken seriously by a surprisingly large number of very bright, very "in" folks.

See it yet? It's big, folks, one of the biggest voids of cognitive dissonance I've personally ever spotted. For the real boots-on-the-ground culture of the Valley seems like it's all about youth and only youth and accelerating obsolescence. [...]

But if they are interested in quality-of-life extension, they're operating within a culture that seems like it has the opposite philosophy. If people become fossils when they turn thirty, why not just cut off healthcare at 40? Hell, why not reenact one of those dystopian sci-fi stories where people have "age clocks" and get euthanized when their value to society no longer outweighs their cost?

Why doesn't Mark Zuckerberg just live it up for a few more years and then opt for a nice humane form of euthanasia, perhaps leaving his billions to an angel investment fund to help younger entrants into the tech economy? According to the values he's perpetuating, he is no longer relevant.

Big nasty contradictions usually point to some deeper misalignment. Based on what I know of the Valley, the culture it exports, and the nature of the winner-take-all New Economy it's building, the only thing I can come up with is this:

All the Valley's talk about transhumanism, human potential, life extension, and generally "changing the world" is a bunch of hooey. It's a myth  --  in the pejorative sense of that term. It's a fluffy religion meant to snooker young professionals into giving their employers everything they have and working their brains down to the myelin until they become too old to be relevant anymore.

No, it's worse than that.

They don't get too old to be relevant. They get too old to be cheap.

Previously, previously, previously, previously.

“Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside in a cloud of smoke, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming “Wow! What a Ride!”

Hunter S. Thompson

Brenda Johnson / Heavy Table

Pig Ate My Pizza, the new restaurant from the madcap crew behind the extremely popular (and soon to return) Travail in Robbinsdale, is indubitably fun. Paintings of pigs (including swine-themed interpretations of a famous image from Pulp Fiction and the cover to Nirvana’s Nevermind)? Fun. Pink cloth napkins? Fun. Chefs singing along with cheesy ‘80s tunes (“Take on me, take me on”)? Fun. Kids dancing in a fur-bedecked booth? Fun. Complimentary pre-dessert “Bacon Cracker Jacks” and “Flintstone Push-Up Shake?” Fun. Everything in this place is fun.

Brenda Johnson / Heavy Table

That includes the food — as playful, enjoyable, and comforting as the atmosphere. Along with their signature pizzas, Pig offers a selection of both cold and hot appetizers and first courses (including a pasta of the day). While we were tempted to try the “Chi Chi’s & Guac” ($5), “Hog Tots” ($6), or “Salt & Pepper Nugs” ($5), we saved our appetite for pizza… and dessert, always dessert.

Brenda Johnson / Heavy Table

Some chefs who mess around with molecular gastronomy and novel flavor combinations, trying to come off as whimsical, end up outsmarting themselves. They disappoint their customers with cute, generally expensive food that just doesn’t taste very good. But others, such as the Pig / Travail crew (Doug Flicker at Piccolo also springs to mind), skillfully blend creativity, restraint, and technique to produce truly innovative, delicious cuisine.

Brenda Johnson / Heavy Table

The “Mussels from Brussels” pizza ($12) is a great example. Rather than a traditional sauce, a deep red mix of diced piquillo peppers, olive oil, and sour raisins is spread over a hand-tossed, beautifully simple, chewy Neapolitan crust. Along with the titular shellfish and Brussels sprouts, the base is topped with crumbles of chorizo and puffs of finely grated manchego. If that wasn’t enough, the dish comes with a side of mussels broth for crust dipping. Each of the carefully prepared elements comes together to produce a multi-layered, balanced, and surprising flavor extravaganza. It’s an alluring, artistic, and damn tasty pizza pie.

Brenda Johnson / Heavy Table

Two other pizzas were less inventive, but only slightly less delicious. The “Piggy” ($14) is just what the name suggests: pork, pork, and more pork, piled high on a golden brown brioche crust and topped with melted cheese. Salty pepperoni, bacon, prosciutto, and cubes of ham are heaped onto buttery, sweet brioche. Although tasty, the “Piggy” was just a little too rich and heavy, and because the crust sucked up the sauce, it got a tad dry. We’d love to try this pizza on the thin Neapolitan crust.

Brenda Johnson / Heavy Table

The “Margarita” ($11) is classic simplicity: marinara, fresh mozzarella made in house, and basil on a Neapolitan crust. To put its own spin on this traditional nosh, Pig infuses the crust with garlic oil and tops the pie with fresh, tender micro-basil and a drizzle of basil oil (a bright distillation of the usual limp leaves). Our only complaint about this dish — and it’s a minor one — is that the sauce is too subtle. It’d be great if it really stood up to the other flavors.

Brenda Johnson / Heavy Table

Pig’s hijinks reach new heights with dessert. Composed tableside, the dish we ordered featured artfully scattered hunks of angel food cake and compressed strawberries, and as the pastry chef started his work, a whole cast of supporting characters joined in. Here and there, we saw a moist rectangle of pressed graham cracker, white chocolate powder, dollops of white chocolate mousse, soaked cherries, shards of dark chocolate, mint oil, lime sorbet, cheesecake mousse, and… we lost track! Some elements might have been superfluous, but the dish looked and tasted dynamite. While showy, it wasn’t fussy and precious like many “deconstructed” desserts served around town these days. The chef clearly had a great time concocting this composition, and we had a better time eating it.

Brenda Johnson / Heavy Table

Pig Ate My Pizza is a fantastic addition to the area’s thriving pizza scene. It’s in the same league as Black Sheep and Pizzeria Lola (and Lola’s awesome new offshoot, Hello Pizza), even if it plays by its own rules. If you’re looking for a rowdy good time and a great meal, we highly recommend you call the Pig.

Pig Ate My Pizza
4154 W Broadway Ave
Robbinsdale, MN 55422
763.535.1131

HOURS: Tues-Sun 12-2pm and 5-10pm
OWNER: Travail LLC
RESERVATIONS: No
BAR: Beer and Wine
VEGETARIAN / VEGAN: Yes / Limited
ENTREE RANGE: $9-18 (Tasting menu, $60 for 2 people, $110 for 4 people)

The post Pig Ate My Pizza in Robbinsdale appeared first on The Heavy Table - Minneapolis-St. Paul and Upper Midwest Food Magazine and Blog.