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The Spam-Invites Edition Saturday, November 26, 2016

Getting Spam Invitations In Your iCloud Calendar? Here's The Fix!, by Lory Gil, iMore

Lately, there has been a surge of spam iCloud calendar invites. You get a notification that you have been sent an invitation, which you can either "Accept" or "Close." If you close it, it goes into your iCloud calendar, un-responded box. You can then decline the invitation, but that doesn't stop spammers from continuing to send you junk. Plus, some people don't want to acknowledge the invitation at all because, even declining an invitation will send a response to the original sender.

Unfortunately, there is no way to block or ignore spammers from sending you calendar invites at this time. There are a couple of work-arounds, though, that will make it possible for you to keep these spammers out of sight and out of mind until Apple comes up with a solution to this new problem. Here's the fix.

Girl Power? For Lara Croft, It’s A Complicated Legacy, by Gregory Schmidt, New York Times

But 20 years on, Lara Croft has a complicated legacy. Her creators introduced her as a tough, agile archaeologist who could outmatch Indiana Jones, yet she was noticed more for her voluptuous physique and revealing attire — a tank top and short shorts. And she remains a polarizing figure among gamers, a paradox regarded as either a digital pinup girl or a feminist role model — or sometimes both.

“There was a duality in her character,” said Meagan Marie, the community and communications manager at Crystal Dynamics, the video game developer entrusted with the Lara Croft franchise, and the author of “20 Years of Tomb Raider: Digging Up the Past, Defining the Future.” “She was a sex icon and a feminist icon, and there is no issue being both of those at once.”

Stuff

Facetune Is Looking To Prove That The Subscription iPhone App Model Can Work, by Ina Fried, Recode

The app Facetune became a hit by allowing iPhone owners to improve their selfies with softer skin and more glowing cheeks.

Now, Facetune is hoping to make its own alteration. With a new version being released on Friday, creator Lightricks is looking to shift the products from a one-time purchase to a subscription service.

Notes

All The Ways I Automate, by Jason Snell, iMore

So while I'm sad to see Apple's commitment to AppleScript and Automator waver, the fact is that automation features are just too useful to vanish. Even if Apple didn't really care about these sorts of features, the users would find ways to make them work. The options available on iOS are proof of that. (Though with a little help from Apple, they could be much better.)

The Scariest Word, by Calvin Trillin, New York Times

But I wasn’t thinking about my points and plugs. I was thinking about the operating system of my computer. I think I should admit here that I am not the most adroit user of computers and other devices of the digital age. At times, I have thought that I’m suffering from an affliction that might be called Mechanical Dyslexia. Still, I manage, after a time, to get the hang of using my computer or my iPad or my smartphone in a rudimentary fashion. And here we come to the word in the English language that I now most dread: “Upgrade.”