The decision to do full copy edits (to the exclusion of all other tasks) on two separate 70,000+ word projects in a single week was a bad one.
Author: Christopher Parsons
Policy wonk. Torontonian. Photographer. Not necessarily in that order.
Earlier this year, I suggested that the current concerns around Facebook data being accessed by unauthorized third parties wouldn’t result in users leaving the social network in droves. Not just because people would be disinclined to actually leave the social network but because so many services use Facebook.
Specifically, one of the points that I raised was:
3. Facebook is required to log into a lot of third party services. I’m thinking of services from my barber to Tinder. Deleting Facebook means it’s a lot harder to get a haircut and impossible to use something like Tinder.
At least one company, Bumble, is changing its profile confirmation methods: whereas previously all Bumble users linked their Facebook information to their Bumble account for account identification, the company is now developing their own verification system. Should a significant number of companies end up following Bumble’s model then this could have a significant impact on Facebook’s popularity, as some of the ‘stickiness’ of the service would be diminished.1
I think that people moving away from Facebook is a good thing. But it’s important to recognize that the company doesn’t just provide social connectivity: Facebook has also made it easier for businesses to secure login credential and (in others cases) ‘verify’ identity.2 In effect one of the trickiest parts of on boarding customers has been done by a third party that was well resourced to both collect and secure the data from formal data breaches. As smaller companies assume these responsibilities, without the equivalent to Facebook’s security staff, they are going to have to get very good, very fast, at protecting their customers’ information from data breaches. While it’s certainly not impossible for smaller companies to rise to the challenge, it won’t be a cost free endeavour, either.
It will be interesting to see if more companies move over to Bumble’s approach or if, instead, businesses and consumers alike merely shake their heads angrily at Facebook’s and continue to use the service despite its failings. For what it’s worth, I continue to think that people will just shake their heads angrily and little will actually come of the Cambridge Analytica story in terms of affecting the behaviours and desires of most Facebook users, unless there are continued rapid and sustained violations of Facebook users’ trust. But hope springs eternal and so I genuinely do hope that people shift away from Facebook and towards more open, self-owned, and interesting communications and networking platforms.
Thoughtful Quotation of the Week
The brands themselves aren’t the problem, though: we all need some stuff, so we rely on brands to create the things we need. The problem arises when we feel external pressure to acquire as if new trinkets are a shortcut to a more complete life. That external pressure shouldn’t be a sign to consume. If anything, it’s a sign to pause and ask, “Who am I buying this for?”
Great Photography Shots
I was really stunned by Zsolt Hlinka’s architectural photography, which was featured on My Modern MET.
Music I’m Digging
Neat Podcast Episodes
Good Reads for the Week
- First XDR typhoid is on the verge of being untreatable, spreading globally
- Sweden’s violent reality is undoing a peaceful self-image
- OLPC’s $100 laptop was going to change the world — then it all went wrong
- Productivity
- Eyewear consumers blast effort to cease online sales
- Chat Is Google’s Next Big Fix For Android’s Messaging Mess
Cool Things
Footnotes
- I think that the other reasons I listed in my earlier post will still hold. Those points were:
1. Few people vote. And so they aren’t going to care that some shady company was trying to affect voting patterns.
2. Lots of people rely on Facebook to keep passive track of the people in their lives. Unless communities, not individuals, quit there will be immense pressure to remain part of the network. ↩ - I’m aware that it’s easy to establish a fake Facebook account and that such activity is pretty common. Nevertheless, an awful lot of people use their ‘real’ Facebook accounts that has real verification information, such as email addresses and phone numbers. ↩
It’s an unpopular position, I’m sure, but I’m genuinely enjoying Starbucks’ reserve coffees that are made using their in-house Clover machines. To date, I think that the Nicaraguan, La Laguna, is the tastiest of the reserve coffees that I’d had *and* it’s cheaper to buy coffee at Starbuck than at some of the other coffee shops in my work area. (At home, of course, I buy beans from local roasters, temperature control my water and weigh bean portions, and an Aeropress. But I just can’t have that kind of control over coffee making at work for a reasonable price.)
Clearly 11pm is coffee o’clock ☕️
I always forget what a chore it is to finish proofing large projects (in this case 70K+ word report) and how much I catch when I print them out and do paper-based edits after months of screen-based editorial. These ’last round’ edits are taking way longer than anticipated!
In my ongoing efforts to better understand myself, I’ve been listening to some of the early episodes of Gary Dunn’s podcast, Bad With Money. These episodes tend to focus on the narratives around money that have guided how she lives her life, where she learned them from, and how to overcome them, and have entailed conversations between her and her parents, her boyfriend, and with a financial psychologist and her sister.
What she’s learned, and how information is presented, has often resonated with my own experiences growing up in a family that went from middle-class, of upper-lower class, and then has split along a series of different lines as I’ve grown older. A lot of the conversations focus on how what her parents did with money while she was growing up subtly informed how Gaby, herself, has approached money as a result. And it’s gotten me thinking about the money narratives that I learned from my dad (generally really bad) and my mom (not super-terrific).
Of course, listening to some podcasts isn’t going to correct the narratives that have built up in my own head over the past several decades (e.g. debt is normal to have and carry, retirement savings are almost impossible, you should enjoy the benefits of your work now instead of later) but they do help to make explicit some of the challenges I know I need to overcome. Some of the conversations she’s had with her guests have been more or less insightful but, in aggregate, they’re useful because she uses such natural language to approach financial questions and issues that pervade many people’s daily lives. This natural language matters because it makes very clear that the show isn’t about an expert from on high explaining reality but, instead, involves the self-discovery of Gaby (and through her some discovery of the precise questions I need to ask myself). Her narratives and my own are not the same but the questions, on their own, are sufficient to jumpstart internal introspection.
The interviews she conducts are also helpful because so few people talk about financial mindsets in public that it’s hard to hear, let alone understand, the money narratives that different people hold. Through that act of listening I can better identify and situate my own narratives and ascertain what is normal, abnormal, and what needs to be corrected or remain the same. Dunn’s podcast is definitely only an early starting point but, regardless, it’s super helpful for people who don’t want to invest money but, instead, want to invest in themselves and their personal development.
On the same track of ‘podcasts I’ve listened to’ over the course of the past week, Dear Sugars has had a really good (if hard) series of episodes on consent in sexual relationships. The women who are submitting the questions are incredibly brave for presenting their experiences, and the hosts of the show are incredibly kind and nuanced in their analyses of what has taken place in their own pasts and in the lives of their letter writers. I care deeply about ensuring that all relationships — sexual or not — are consensual and these podcasts have given me insights to the challenges facing women that I may never have fully appreciated before listening to this series of episodes.
Insightful Quotation
One of the defining things about the nature of ideas is just how fragile they are: when you’re not sure whether some-thing is going to work, the idea is vulnerable. Part of protecting the idea is to be careful about who you show it to; premature criticism can shut something down that perhaps deserves more of a chance.
Great Photography Shots
I was really impressed by the water-inspired smartphone photos posted to Mobiography.
Music I’m Digging
Neat Podcast Episodes
Good Reads for the Week
- Many People Taking Antidepressants Discover They Cannot Quit
- The Last Conversation You’ll Ever Need to Have About Eating Right
- China’s Oppression Reaches Beyond Its Borders
- This Tool Can Help Identify Leakers Who Copy and Paste Secret Info
- The End of Windows
- My 10-Year Odyssey Through America’s Housing Crisis
Cool Things
- I love this abstract and minimalist furniture by Zens
Categories
2018.4.12
When we travel we take our expectations with us, our prejudices, our sense of normality. We see what we see through eyes trained by home.
Christopher Priest, The Gradual
It’s incredibly dispiriting to know that despite my financial responsibility there is almost no chance that I’ll ever own property in the city I live in, and a possibility that at some point rent alone will force me out. I cannot imagine what life is like for those who have less privilege than I enjoy.
This is a really cool deep dive into tracking down the target of a spy satellite photo https://luxexumbra.blogspot.ca/2018/04/the-hunt-for-ghosthunter.html
Categories
The Cure For Pessimism? Action
GQ has a good interview with Yvon Chouinard, the founder of Patagonia. It’s far-ranging, covering the company’s attitude to making clothing, to climate change, to politics. But what really struck me was this:
Gradually, the conversation went even darker. About Trump, Chouinard added, “It’s like a kid who’s so frustrated he wants to break everything. That’s what we’ve got.” I asked sarcastically if any part of him was an optimist. Marcario, sitting next to him, laughed loudly. “Did you just ask Yvon if he’s an optimist?” Chouinard smiled and cocked his head. “I’m totally a pessimist. But you know, I’m a happy person. Because the cure for depression is action.”
I would note that I think action is the cure for pessimism, as opposed to depression; one is a state of mindset whereas the other is often a serious mental condition that can require professional assistance. But that nitpick aside, I think he’s correct that you press through pessimism by acting to make the world a little bit better every day than how you started it.
Excited Pixels 