An annual renewal fee from Evernote unexpectedly showed up on my credit card; I’d cancelled my premium account over a year ago, and the company’s official policy asserted that they would not reverse any premium subscriptions. In contrast to the asserted policy, the CSR I worked with immediately reversed the fee and apologized for the error. While I’m not a huge fan of Evernote’s current business practices I definitely appreciate that its CSRs are empowered to work counter to stated policies!
Author: Christopher Parsons
Policy wonk. Torontonian. Photographer. Not necessarily in that order.
After setting up my media centre over the weekend, I learned that my 10+ year old Harman Karman Soundsticks speakers just…stopped working when they were connected to my TV. They worked when plugged into my iPhone but not when I used the TV’s composite ports. In a fit of desperation I did a factory reset on the TV, figuring that if that didn’t resolve it then I’d just conclude that something happened to the TV during my move. However, post-reset, the composite ports are working. It’s entirely unclear what the problem really was or how the reset fixed the problem. But, at least I once more have decent sound for music and videos.
Categories
Europe Is Lost
This video definitely feels like the summation of the state of the world these days.
The past few weeks have been hard. Really hard. I finally said goodbye to my dad, who died unexpectedly a little over a year ago. I said goodbye to the woman that I love. And I moved to a new home, too.
I have lots of reflections on my dad and how important it is to support those we love, even if that support means that a relationship needs to end so that they can achieve their dreams and aspirations. But for now I just need to process those thoughts, emotions, and reflections. If there’s any saving grace, it’s that my adopted family — even those who live abroad — are all living close to me.
Inspiring Quotation of the Week
Real love teaches us. It teaches us what we do and do not want in a partner. We learn how to be better at love from the ones we loved first. If we just got over all of that and truly erased the entire experience from the space in our hearts and minds where that love once occupied, then wouldn’t we just continue making the same mistakes over and over? If loving someone were as fleeting as we often try to make it be and we could “just get over it,” we wouldn’t bother with it anymore. What would be the point?
I think it is because we never fully get over the love we once had for someone that entices us to love again. It is because we remember that love that we want it again. We love a little deeper, a little more completely with each love we find. We want love to last. With every love we lose, we learn just how precious and valuable it is. It is how we ultimately (hopefully) find the one we never have to get over.
- Jennifer Sartore Hulst, “I’m Not Over You (And Probably Never Will Be)
Music I’m Digging
- I spent less time listening to new albums this week, and so instead had SZA’s Ctrl and Robotaki’s Science-EP on repeat.
Neat Podcast Episodes
- Lawfare – Artificial Intelligence and Security//A recommended primer for how AI may impact the future of computer security.
- Lawfare – Radek Sikorsky on the Week’s Events in Poland//I haven’t really been following the democratic crisis in Poland very closely, and this podcast did a good job in bringing me up to speed on what the currrent right-wing populist government is doing to change the constitution to the detriment of the rule of law.
- The Daily – How the Opioid Crisis Started//The New York Times has done a good job on reporting on the opioid crisis in the USA, with this episode focusing on how prosecutors have been barred from laying charges against the executives who are most responsible for propagating the opioids that are now creating a major health crisis in the USA and Canada alike.
- Song Exploder – Jhéne Aiko- Sativa (feat. Swae Lee) and Song Exploder – Nine Inch Nails – The Lovers//I’ve only just started listening to Song Exploder but I’m appreciating how different artists go through their creative processes. Hearing how other creatives work is helpful for me, personally, because it makes clear that we all have our oddities and weirdnesses around the production of final draft creative work.
Good Reads for the Week
- When you don’t disclose salary range on a job posting, a unicorn loses its wings//There’s a severe problem in both non-profit and for-profit hiring: a failure to disclose what people will earn in any given position. Without that information it’s challenging for applicants to know whether it’s worth their time to bother applying, and can lead to applicants (and hiring committees!) wasting a lot of time before realizing that the salary range isn’t appropriate for the applicant’s expectations. Appropriate ranges should be included in all positions, and with ranges that are meaningfully bounded as opposed to massive ranges that prevent applicants from really knowing the likely salary.
- Advertising Play Well//A delightful take on how advertising to children has changed, and why Lego used to be a leader in gender neutral play-based advertising and products.
- The Electric Flight of Spiders//Fascinating new research shows that spiders use electrostatic repulsion to ‘fly’ using strands of silk emitted from their abdomen’s. While wind current plays a role, it’s the electrostatic repulsion that actually let’s arachnids take flight. Amazing!
- Beyoncé and Jay-Z’s ‘Apes**t’ Was a Subtle History Lesson in Race and Power//I’m finding the various analyses of this video really interesting, as different authors explore the cultural and political significance of the chosen imagery. This goes a step further by not just interpreting the video but drawing it into a broader landscape of artistic critique, and which blends a range of lyrics from Jay-Z and Beyoncé to come to more sweeping conclusions.
Cool Things and Places
- A Weekend Guide to Detroit//I’ve wanted to head over to Detroit for a while — I’d love to photograph the art! — and this provides a more fulsome ‘what to do over a weekend’ so I could head over and never get bored!
- The Lost Caves of Nottingham//A very hidden gin bar, that involves descending a hidden staircase and, then, a second staircase cut into the earth itself. Very cool.
The life transition I’m currently embroiled in is, I suspect, like the tide: I’m already caught in the undertow but don’t really appreciate what it means. Fortunately as a Maritimer, I know to let the undertow pull you out a ways from the shore and then swim perpendicular to it to avoid the worst of its effects. I’m pretty ready to start swimming.
The past few weeks have been clustered with travel across Canada for work and personal reasons, and a lot of packing as I prepare to move a few kilometres in my city. (I suspect it won’t be until after I move that things settle down and return to a more regular posting schedule.)
I’ve made a small change in this Edition that I’ll be carrying forward in all future roundups: beside each link is a little more information about the item in question to clarify what will be found on the other end of the link. I hope you like it.
Inspiring Quotation of the Week
A person’s dignity does not depend on them being a citizen, a migrant, or a refugee. Saving the life of someone fleeing war and poverty is an act of humanity.
- Pope Francis
Great Photography Shots
Daniel Mercadante’s light photography is just magical.
Music I’m Digging
- The Carters – Everything Is Love//This might be the surprise album of the season, with APESHIT looking like it might be the Hotline Bling of 2018.
- Jay Rock – Redemption//I hadn’t come across his work in the past, and it’s slowly starting to grow on me.
- NAS – Nasir//I can’t pretend to appreciate many of NAS’ lyrics — the nonsense he writes about vaccines, in particular, are frustrating at best — but in terms of flow NAS’s new album is pretty terrific.
Neat Podcast Episodes
- Policy Options – Why does encryption policy matter?//A terrific and succinct introduction to the importance of cryptography for all walks of life, and why the Canadian government should support strong encryption.
- Intrepid – Interview with Bob Paulson (Former Commissioner of the RCMP//This is a helpful interview for gaining insight into the national security challenges facing Canada’s federal policing agency.
Good Reads for the Week
- Interview with Ragnar Axelssom//An interesting, if sad, interview with a photographer who’s watched climate change damage and destroy otherwise pristine northern environments.
- Instagram’s Wannabe-Stars Are Driving Luxury Hotels Crazy//More and more companies are capitulating to ‘influencers’ coming to promote their businesses. But to no one’s surprise, many of those so-called influencers really just want a free trip and a place to take swimsuit shots.
- 8 Men on What It Was Like When Their Partner Had an Abortion//An honest account of the often complicated, and hard to express, feelings pro-choice men have in cases of unintended pregnancies.
- Friends and enemies: Reacting to Apple’s privacy stance//”Is Apple your friend? No. Of course not. It’s a company that sells stuff. But, right now at least, it’s an ally. And The Macalope doesn’t know about anyone else, but he’s not clear on the rationale behind the “Always shoot your allies first” policy.”
- The Death of a Once Great City: The fall of New York and the urban crisis of affluence//This is an ode to the downfall of New York that has been brought about by speculative land development, rising property taxes, and a hollowing out of what made the city itself. But the same thing could be written for any of the cities that are now experiencing hyper-inflated rent increases, declines of social and public services, and a general shift toward transient populations over permanent residents. What will become of these cities in ten or twenty years time?
- Canadian winemaker Norman Hardie accused of sexual misconduct//The Globe & Mail’s investigation of sexual impropriety in the food and beverage business has revealed that one of Canada’s more notable winemakers has a long history of harassing women. And, once more, the reporting reveals that basic power imbalances led women to just leave bad situations instead of feeling like they could demand accountability and justice. If there is any silver lining, it’s that the story is coming out, now, and that there were at least some persons who refused to have business transactions with Hardie after realizing what he did to women who were around him. Sadly, such refusals were often premised on a personal realization of the truth of the behaviours: the men who stopped doing business with Hardie didn’t choose to believe women from the get-go.
- A Janitor Preserves the Seized Belongings of Migrants//Looking at these everyday items which were (and are) seized and discarded by American border authorities I’m reminded of a Canada 150 exhibit where the contents of migrants’ bags were presented. Many of the ‘inconsequential’ things like rice, or toilet paper, held incredible value for those making the trip to Canada; while they might have been ‘inconsequential’ to the eyes of Canadian authorities, I’m very happy that we didn’t take away those things that provided a sense of security to the persons migrating to Canada.
- How Tidal Got So Fucked//A deep dive into the problematic business practices associated with Tidal, Jay-Z’s music stream service. The title of the article is entirely apt.
- It Can Happen Here //”In their different ways, Mayer, Haffner, and Jarausch show how habituation, confusion, distraction, self-interest, fear, rationalization, and a sense of personal powerlessness make terrible things possible. They call attention to the importance of individual actions of conscience both small and large, by people who never make it into the history books.”
- Explaining the ‘Mystery’ of Numbers Stations//A great deep dive into how messages are decoded from numbers stations, as well as whom has used them and to what effect.
- Intel and the Danger of Integration//Intel has been stumbling for years now, as evidenced in the inability of companies like Apple re reliably provide new processors with meaningful changes into their product lines for the past several years. At the same time, other chip designers and foundries are racing ahead of Intel. Thompson’s article does a good job in laying out how Intel got into its current conundrum and the corresponding implications.
I had the pleasure to have so many of my friends and family come to Toronto this week for a work-related event. It was an incredible experience where we all came together to push ahead some of the cooler projects we’re respectively working on, and generally catch up and spend time with one another. It was really an opportunity to deepen our relationships while, at the same time, goofing around and just enjoying one another’s time.
Throughout I was struck by the value, and importance, of just connecting with one another in person. We all often communicate with one another using digitally-mediated tools and technologies. But there is something that is always missing with those technologies: a fundamental element of our humanity cannot be communicated over a text, hangout, or phone call. We can’t read one another’s expressions the same way. We can’t perceive one another’s feelings the same way. Nor can we just hug one another to greet one another or to provide a sense of support to one another.
Our ability to remain ‘connected’ with one another is an incredible element of the contemporary digitally-mediated world. But connection is also something that is far too often regarded as a substitute for physical presence and sharing of time with one another. Digital connections are incredible supplements but surely cannot replace actually being with one another, and I’m deeply appreciative that I had the opportunity to spend time with my favourite people this week, and can’t wait until we pull everyone back together against next year.
On a slight administrative note, I’ve started providing some context around the various links, podcasts, and other materials that I’m trying to roundup on a regular basis. Hopefully it’ll help clarify why those items struck me as worth including in any given week.
Inspiring Quotation of the Week
Play is often talked about as if it were a relief from serious learning. But for children play is serious learning. Play is really the work of childhood.”
― Fred Rogers
Great Photography Shots
Takashi Nakazawa’s images of Mount Fuji are absolutely breathtaking.
Music I’m Digging
- Lavinia Meijer – Glass: Metamorphosis, The Hours//I really enjoy how this work by Philip Glass develops and morphs over the hour; it’s a deeply peaceful listen that supplements most quieter activities.
- Jorja Smith – Lost & Found//I’ve been listening to Smith’s EPs for the past few months. It’s a real treat to enjoy her full length album.
Neat Podcast Episodes
- The Upgrade – How Should a Man Be?//A good discussion about the nature of Western masculinity, the threats that men experience to their egos in contrast to women, and ways of addressing the emotional intelligence deficient held by most men
- Planet Money – The T-Rex In My Backyard//Yet another amusing podcast from Planet Money, this time about the economics of dinosaur bones. Left unstated is whether these economic ‘rules’ apply globally or principally to the United States.
Good Reads for the Week
- Brendan Fraser’s #MeToo Story Is Why More Male Victims Don’t Speak Out // It’s deeply important that we reflect on how gender norms are used to silence and shame woman and men who have suffered from abuse and experienced abusive situations
- How to Navigate Gaslighting at Work// I’m not sure how well the actual solutions play out in reality, but the signs to determine if you’re being gaslit are helpful
- You’re hired: 6 ways to welcome your new employee on their first day//I’m increasingly involved in hiring processes and this is helpful to make sure that I’m covering the most basic of bases for new hires and fellows
- On macOS Mojave’s Dark Mode//Stephen Hackett has a great analysis of the Dark Mode coming in the next version of macOS; if you’re interested in how things are changing, this post is for you
- The Language of the Trump Administration Is the Language of Domestic Violence//”A slow, quiet terror continues to spread through the American populace. We are all being made into complicit bystanders in Trump’s violence. We are all members of Trump’s toxic, traumatizing family now.”
- Made on an iPad Pro: How the 12.9-inch iPad Pro took me by surprise and replaced my laptop//An interesting and lengthy review of how an iPad Pro can fit into a daily work tempo. I’m not sure it convinces me to move away from a MacBook for work, but as someone who mostly uses an iPad for personal writing a lot of Paul’s points resonated with me.
- Being Suitably Appalled//Steve Saideman has a good, brief, and direct piece on why we should all be so upset about the United States’ policy of separating children from their parents.
Cool Things
- How to Create File Templates on Your Mac With Finder’s Stationery Pad Feature//I had no idea this was possible. So cool!
- Lighting Up The Bedroom//Did you know you could use Command Hook velcro strips to hand a light on your wall? Neither did I!
- Substitute Phone// Phones are becoming an undeniably addictive object in our lives and we constantly interact with them—more often than not without intention. Austrian designer Klemens Schillinger created the minimal Substitute Phone as a way to help smartphone addicts cope in its absence.
Categories
A Quiet Sunday Walk
A friend of mine and I travelled into Toronto’s Canary district over the weekend to make some photos. Normally I take photos on solo walks, and it was a nice experience to be in the presence of someone else who was also focused on making images. Some of my highlights are below.
All images were shot using an Olympus E-M10ii and and Olympus M.Zuiko ED 40-150mm f4.0-5.6 R and Olympus M.Zuiko Digital 14-42mm f/3.5-5.6 II R Lens. They were edited using a combination of Apple Photos and Polar.
And one shot from the walk home!
It’s a profoundly strange experience knowing that my work was cited in the development of a US Presidential Executive Order (in this case, on the relative merits of cyber security transparency reporting).
It’s one day after the 2018 Ontario provincial election. The winning party ran on a semi-platform that is designed to actively undermine the province’s climate change reforms, dismisses the importance of raising the minimum wage, and is actively hostile to efforts to improve sexual education. In the stead of these values, the party asserted they would reduce the cost of beer, reduce taxes, reduce energy costs, and otherwise work to promote ‘business friendly’ policies. The ways in which these values and objectives would be reached were never explained in a rigorous and methodical way: people voted for values and out of anger at the former governing party.
On days like today, it’s easy for progressives to get upset, angry, and/or depressed. But such emotions are reflections of our own dark and often unproductive states of mind. While a government can significantly affect the policy landscape, damage can be undone and most harms repaired or remediated. Instead of falling into dark states of mind, we are in a time when it is essential to evaluate where we can contribute to our societies and advance the values that we think with enhance our lives, and the lives of those around and affected by us. To promote a more progressive society we might actively promote, support, and elevate the roles of persons of colour, indigenous persons, and women in our communities so that they are better situated to accomplish their personal and professional goals. We might volunteer for causes that are important for progressive politics. We might even actively work to support a political candidate or party that didn’t accomplish the results we wanted.
In effect, it’s during times of change that it makes the most sense to get actively involved in our world, to influence the persons and organizations we’re involved with, and seek to effect change that extends and supports civil rights protections and equality amongst all people. Now is not the time for getting angry, per se, nor the time to lay down and wait for the next four years. No, if anything, today is just like yesterday, and is just like tomorrow should be: it’s a day to actively work towards improving the communities we find ourselves within so as to ensure that all persons enjoy equal rights and are able to thrive in their personal and professional lives.
I absolutely am floored by the reality that Anthony Bourdain killed himself in a hotel room. I’ve watched him from afar for many years, as so many have, and I’ve always appreciated the vigour and honesty that he projected in his public life. His frank discussions about troubled pasts and the difficulties people face everywhere around the world, and how North American and European activities endanger the lives and wellbeing of persons everywhere else in the world, were and remain important assertions and lessons. But rather than remembering him most for his travels I think I’ll remember him for the positions he unwaveringly took in the face of bad actions. His essay on #metoo struck me as particularly powerful, and specifically the paragraph where he wrote:
In these current circumstances, one must pick a side. I stand unhesitatingly and unwaveringly with the women. Not out of virtue, or integrity, or high moral outrage — as much as I’d like to say so — but because late in life, I met one extraordinary woman with a particularly awful story to tell, who introduced me to other extraordinary women with equally awful stories. I am grateful to them for their courage, and inspired by them. That doesn’t make me any more enlightened than any other man who has begun listening and paying attention. It does makes me, I hope, slightly less stupid.
This was the kind of language and public assertion that needs to be made. Bourdain himself was a deeply flawed individual, and he at least presented the image of someone who was trying to work through those flaws and present them as things that can overcome in the course of life. However, while those facets might be worn down over time they were unlikely to ever be entirely eliminated. Rather than showcasing himself as having overcome his past he, instead, presented himself as a man involved in an ongoing narrative, without a clear conclusion, but with an intent to rectify and avoid the sins of his past. There are far worse narratives to carry us through our lives.
Inspiring Quotation of the Week
My friends, love is better than anger. Hope is better than fear. Optimism is better than despair. So let us be loving, hopeful and optimistic. And we’ll change the world.
- Jack Layton
Great Photography Shots
These aerial shots of Buddhist temples in Myanmar by Dimitar Karanikolov are stunning.
Music I’m Digging
Art I Want
Neat Podcast Episodes
Good Reads for the Week
- Want to halt global warming and raise living standards? Get efficient
- Apple Just Made Safari The Good Privacy Browser
- Dust Rising
- Where Have the readers gone? // [T]he new media is giving birth to. But it annoys me that it’s the first media revolution in the history of mankind to first and foremost serve economic as opposed to cultural ends.”
- The Power of Listening in Helping People Change
Cool Things
- What Would U.S. Money Look Like, Given the Proper Attention of an Industrial Designer?
- Kindness Prompt Cards // In theory, we are all interested in being kind. In practice, a lot gets in the way: tiredness, anger, bitterness. These new cards are intended as a prompt to our better natures.
Excited Pixels 