jadanzzy

I’m a Priority Pass Maniac. Here’s How I Maximize My Membership. (The Wirecutter)

One of my favorite Priority Pass perks doesn’t involve a lounge at all...


How “Baby Shark” Was Manufactured In A Korea Toddler Entertainment Factory (VICE)

“Baby Shark” isn’t an accidental hit. Pinkfong, the Korean educational entertainment brand that created “Baby Shark”, has become a toddler music juggernaut over the past few years — thanks in no small part to some serious expertise in what makes a song catch on. And thinking like a 3-year-old.


People Don’t Bribe College Officials to Help Their Kids. They Do It to Help Themselves. (NY Times)

My favorite quote doesn't come from the article itself. I just happened to stumble upon this reader comment:

So in other words, a stellar education at an elite university is no different to these kind of people than a Chanel purse or a pair of Gucci loafers.


The Taming Of The Brew: How Sour Beer Is Driving A Microbial Gold Rush (NPR)

Brewers hesitate to replace worn panels on the ceiling of the fermentation room for fear of throwing off a batch's flavor. To avoid using potentially taste-altering chemicals, flies attracted to the wort are controlled with an army of spiders.

(h/t Amy)

#fridayfinds

In my inaugural post, I said that I'd delete my Facebook and Instagram accounts. Well that was partially true. I deleted my Facebook account, and I triggered a request to download all my Instagram data before deleting my account.

Three times.

I asked Instagram three times on their data download request page for a link to a download of my data.

On the third time, they finally sent me an email (via Facebook Support) on March 19, 2019 requesting further information of my request. I expected to receive a link for download within 48 hours of my request. It says on the request page:

We'll email you a link to a file with your photos, comments, profile information and more. We can only work on one request from your account at a time, and it may take up to 48 hours to collect this data and send it to you.

It's now March 27 and I still have not received a link. This, after following up with them an additional three times via email.

So I escalated to TrustArc, a privacy and security compliance company that Instagram has an agreement with.

We may resolve disputes you have with us in connection with our privacy policies and practices through TrustArc. You can contact TrustArc through its website.

They have deemed my complaint legitimate and now starts a 10-day countdown for Instagram to resolve my case and give me my fucking data, so that I can delete my account and move on.

All in all, this could take until April 9 (if weekends are excluded). A whole 16 business days. 48 fucking hours my ass.

#socialmedia

It was probably about a year ago when my coworker made pins and stickers with the face of Robert Mueller and then passed them out to other coworkers who'd appreciate them.

I was thrilled to get them and proudly put the pin on my backpack, which I've kept on this whole time.

Mueller on bag

I did this because I put my hope in Special Counsel Bob Mueller's investigation into the Russian interference in 2016 U.S. Presidential Election. I wanted so bad to read and hear that all the smoke we've been seeing about for the last 22 months (indictments, investigations, leaks, money trails, testimonies, etc.) meant there was actually a blazing bonfire at the source.

Let me say this before I continue, in case anyone accuses me of blind partisanship. I would've never accused the other Republican candidates of the things I accused Donald Trump of. I would've never accused Mitt Romney, George W. Bush, or any other Republican president of the modern era of the things I've accused Donald Trump of.

But my hatred towards Donald Trump is so strong that I wanted the worst legal outcome for him, and his adult children, if they were also culpable.

I'll be honest. I am very disappointed in the result and outcome of the Special Counsel's report. I wanted it to contain irrefutable facts about the Trump Campaigns acts of conspiracy to manipulate the election with the Russian government's assistance. Or that Donald Trump and his children were unwitting and active assets of the Russian government. Writing this paragraph, I sound like a left-wing conspiracy theorist. It's mildly embarrassing, I admit. It's because I wanted the report to be as consequential as the Nixon tapes were in turning the tide of Republicans against him, leading to his fateful resignation. That's how much I hate him.

But it wasn't. Bob Mueller has decided to say there was no compelling evidence to suggest conspiracy, and has remained agnostic about whether the president committed obstruction of justice or not. Attorney General William Barr has come to his own conclusion, based on the report, that the president has not obstructed justice.

And so the Democrats will continue to fight to get the full and unaltered report, likely continue investigations amid Republicans' accusations of partisan rage against Donald Trump, and risk looking like sore losers before the 2020 presidential elections if they're not careful.

I will continue to believe, based on all the incontrovertible evidence so far, that Donald Trump, along with his circle of associates, is corrupt, incompetent, and self-serving. He has surrounded himself with lawless individuals, foreign and domestic, throughout his life. He is wholly unfit to occupy the office of the Presidency of the United States.

Now, while I'm not getting what I hoped for, I will move onto my next hope: to see that he is routed in the 2020 presidential election.

But that hope is wavering.

I have a technically-public-but-you-have-to-know-the-address iCloud photo/video album for your riffling-through pleasure. You can always get to it from my About page. If you want direct access via iOS or macOS Photos App, just let me know.


The Passport Index: Explore the world of passports by country


BBC's Sound Effects Library: 16,000 Sound Effects for your listening pleasure


James Comey: What I Want From the Mueller Report (NY Times)

The country is eagerly awaiting the special counsel Robert Mueller’s report. Many people know what they want it to say — what they feel it simply must say — namely, that Donald Trump is a criminal who should be removed from office. Or that he is completely innocent of all wrongdoing.


Food Mission Statements (The New Yorker)

Brioche


Is It O.K. for a Chinese Restaurant to Favor Chinese Patrons? (NY Times)

Some people think that giving preferential treatment to members of your own ethnic kind is as bad as hostility to outsiders. Others even deny that such a distinction can be drawn. I think that’s wrong. In my experience, African-Americans, especially in small towns, often smile and nod at black passers-by and not at white ones. You can have that as a reflex without ever glowering at a white person or refusing to smile back if a person who isn’t black smiles at you. Partiality needn’t be prejudicial.

#fridayfinds

Tweets I would've posted on Twitter. OK.

What do other people do with their clothes that don’t need washing after the first wear?

Yuval Harari: the myth of the nostalgic past:

It’s humility—not humbleness. You’re wary of the risks ahead. Not weary.

How do you tell a coworker that he smells like stale water mildew and he should look into cleaning his washing machine?

This blog serves as an outlet for me in the way that Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter have all served in their individual ways. So long-form thought pieces, random links to interesting things, personal pictures, and tweet-like writing will occupy this space.

I'm paying nearly $12/year to Hover for the jadanzzy.com domain, and $60/year to Write.as for their security and privacy-focused blogging platform. $72/year is a stark contrast to paying nothing for the pleasure of putting my life via multimedia on those major social media platforms. Well, I don't have to pay for my own domain, but I'm vain. Either way, I'm trying to put my money where my mouth is and act on my disdain for those companies. Let's see how long it lasts, though.

Over the last 6-8 months, I've grown increasingly skeptical of social media as a concept. It started when I realized, in a moment of self-awareness, that I'd find myself picking up my iPhone during moments of boredom, opening Instagram, mindlessly scrolling through the wall of posts I didn't find interesting (sorry friends and family), and then closing Instagram after 60-90 seconds.

It was a bad habit—something I did to free me from the otherwise healthy experience of being bored and letting my brain wander. Instead, I wanted to be stimulated, made to feel amused, envious, annoyed, or upset, in the brief moment I had before I had to think about life again. But I wasn't. So when I became aware of my habit, I was annoyed with myself.

At the same time, I started learning about the negative impact that social media has on mental health, on relationships, and on society. I was learning about how these companies do everything they can to keep you engaged, to excite those neurotransmitters that leave you wanting more, and use your engagement to sell your anonymized data to advertisers, their actual customers.

I'll be honest. On Instagram, getting a bunch of ❤️s made me feel great. I spent a lot of time editing and curating what I posted. For what? Those hearts, baby. I obsessively (yeah, it's true) checked who viewed my stories. I felt a tinge of sadness when no one liked my Facebook posts. I felt stupid and uncool when no one liked my Twitter posts because of who I knew was following me. I was enslaved by the desire to know I was humoring someone else.

Even with Write.as, I have access to stats. It'll encourage the same behavior and scratch the same itch, won't it?

How sad, but I know I'm in the majority with my feelings. Even sadder.

Some other real problems of social media:

I believe I'm surrounded by well-adjusted friends and family who I know are resilient and informed enough to not be irreversibly swayed or damaged by the negative effects of social media. They don't share incendiary or misleading things. They usually write harmless things about their personal lives, post pictures of their kids, videos of a concert they're at, or share reality-based information that they hope would be a net benefit to others.

But no one is immune from social media's micro-effects. Who has the time to vigorously fact-check rapidly shared and false rumors about Hillary Clinton? Who would post an Instagram Live video of a bad fight with their spouse? Who goes out of their way to follow those with differing opinions on Twitter so as to not be trapped in an echo chamber?

...

While there may be a better silver bullet to cure the ills that stem from social media, I think there's one small and intermediate step that can help slow the damage.

Kill free social media

In other words, make people pay out of their own pockets for the privilege to use social media. While it's not nearly enough of a barrier for the worst of us, I think it could reduce the activities stemming from underbelly of the internet that sometimes surfaces to the top to hurt us. Yes, I hypothesize that being forced to pay even just $5 a month for each of our social media accounts would be a deterrent.

Who am I kidding, though? As much as many of us won't delete our social media accounts (including me, e.g. Twitter!), it'd be harder to pay $5/month to pay for the pleasure to use one.

But maybe that's a good thing. Not using social media. Maybe that's the key to a lot of this. Maybe I have to see my friends in person more (I like that). Call them on the phone (Ew). Send messages (using only a secure service like iMessage, though, right?) Send emails (sigh). Which leads to another thing. Do I have to seriously consider switching to a non-free email service?

Free is addictive. Free is convenient. Free is enabling. Free isn't usually free. I'm not free from it.

The presidential election is on November 3, 2020. It is now March 13, 2019. For the next nearly 20 months, we will be drowning in campaign news coverage. It will be an exhausting time, especially because the stakes feel particularly high. If you don't already know, I believe Donald Trump is a menace to the office he currently occupies, our American way of life, and our image around the world. A second term would feel like a worse nightmare than his first.

With that, there is a 99% chance that I will be voting for the Democratic nominee for the Presidency of these States United, whoever it becomes. If you know me, this is not unexpected, although I am not a proud and loyal Democrat.

The Democratic candidate field is saturated, and the two polling-based frontrunners, Bernie Sanders and Joe Biden, don't excite me. Therefore, as of now, I am throwing my cautious support behind Elizabeth Warren.

Here are some key reasons why. I believe:

  • She is a deeply moral, kind, and good person.
  • She has a clear platform for her candidacy: capitalism works when it is fair and responsible to all Americans.
  • She is the best communicator out of all the Democratic candidates of complex policies to the average American voter.
  • Her economic and tax policies are largely the right prescriptions for what I believe is an extremely dangerous problem: income inequality.
  • She has a great early life story that can appeal to the Rust and Wheat Belt regions of the U.S.

And her recent interview on the New York Times' The Argument podcast helped with her appeal to me.

However, she has two downsides right now that hamper my ability to be unequivocally enthusiastic about her candidacy. They are as follows:

  • The controversy surrounding her supposed Native American ancestry is a problem she could've done better to nip in the bud quickly. Instead, to a passive observer, it felt like she was prolonging the problem before she eventually made clear apologies. It will likely come back to haunt her over and over again throughout the campaign season.
  • Her most recent crusade against Silicon Valley is terribly misguided. Apart from Facebook's complicated reputation, most American consumers love the major tech companies. And while I believe antitrust regulation needs to be modernized for our modern landscape (and the Bork-ian framework revisited, if not neutered), I'd like her policy team to be better equipped to deal with understanding the major tech companies' business models.

Despite those downsides, her positives speak strongly to me. And while it's too early to tell who the clear and eventual frontrunner will be, I hope she fights her way to be one of the Democratic Party's strongest contenders, if not ultimately the presumptive nominee.

hello 2004. i'm blogging. again.

again because i've had blogs hosted by xanga, wordpress, and medium since i can't remember when. i probably had a blogger/blogspot-hosted blog a thousand years ago as well.

blog blog blog.

why am i blogging again? and why on this relatively unknown write.as platform instead of a behemoth like wordpress?

several reasons:

  1. i've become increasingly skeptical and worried about my digital footprint, and the insanely-powerful companies that own and monetize it for their real customers: advertisers.

  2. i really miss self-expression. i miss sharing my thoughts and opinions. but i want to control who has access to them, and who i allow to host them on the internet.

  3. i'm supportive of write.as's philosophy regarding data privacy and approach to blogging. more specifically that it's hidden from search engines and only accessible by you knowing the URL. although i worry that they may not last 2 years, i'm willing to pay for this philosophy.

so here are my next steps:

  • i will delete my facebook and instagram accounts. i really dislike mark zuckerberg. if you want to know about my goings-on, you can do that here.

  • i'm not sure whether i want to delete my twitter account or not. twitter's actually useful for networking in the tech sector. i work in the tech sector. i know where to compromise.

  • i will promise to post here at least once a week.

  • i'm considering setting up a personal email newsletter so my friends and family can get updates sent directly to their inbox. write.as apparently has this feature on their roadmap as well, so we'll see what comes first. if you're interested in this, let me know.

  • i'll keep my medium posts up, because they're still really important to me. they're just not worth me importing them here. medium just makes it really unfriendly to export their content for importing into another platform. they've become an unfriendly platform in general. hence write.as.

anyway, if you're reading this, thank you. if you use an RSS reader, this is RSS friendly. if not, you'll always find me at jadanzzy.com. and, again, let me know if you'd like updates sent to your inbox.

love, dan