Robert

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  • HEY HEY HEY, Goodbye

    Though I love the service, I canceled my HEY email account. I’m not happy about it, but I am pretty sure it’s the right thing to do. The founders have been saying things I’ve been critical of for some time, but it has reached the point where I don’t trust the company with my data.

    For weeks now, my wife has been telling me about data that she uses to do her job being deleted from federal databases. This includes economic and health information, such as statistics on energy burden (the cost of utilties vs. household income) and maternal and infant medical facts. Of course, my spouse is not the only one to notice this disturbing trend, but the examples she has provided seem particularly egregious and incomprehensible.

    It’s shocking to me to go online and see people from 37Signals, which runs the HEY service, encouraging this type of behavior as a service to the country. If 37Signals is as cavalier about data as those they are praising, I believe it’s only natural to question if they are good stewards of your resources.

    I’ve started my switch to Proton Mail, which is an appealing alternative, given their focus on encryption and security. I’ve never been one to go overboard on privacy protections, given that I’m kind of a nobody. However, with a government this adversarial towards many of its citizens (not to mention its own employees), known and unknown, I think it’s a good idea to start taking extra precautions.

    My initial experience with Proton hasn’t been altogether bad (though there are some serious bugs with their MacOS client — which I will be soon reporting). However, Proton doesn’t have the same level of consideration and willingness to defy conventions as HEY, which makes the user experience less delightful. If I could in good conscience stick with a 37Signals product, I would, but it’s time to move on.

  • Everything Old Is New Again

    I was delighted to find out yesterday that one of my favorite EPs from 30 years ago, long out of print, was available on Bandcamp. I loved Peter from Eric’s Trip, but even when it was current, it was hard to obtain. I’m somewhat ashamed to admit that I ripped my friend’s copy to burn on a CD, a practice I was totally against, but felt I had no other choice. Now the band’s Rick White is releasing his archive through the indie music service.

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  • The Jesus Juke That Wasn’t

    My brother-in-Christ was talking about the best ways to secure your household goods from potential burglars the other day. I reminded him of these words from Jesus:

    Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moths and vermin destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moths and vermin do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. (Matthew 6:19–21)

    Sure, it was a Jesus juke, but there was also a heaping helping of sincerity.

    I’m not tempted to collect much these days. When I am facing the allure of physical media for music, though, I do feel the urge to splurge. I see those candy-colored vinyl records from bands whose output I most enjoy and I’m quick to open my wallet. It doesn’t help that I know independent musicians are often struggling to make ends meet while creating their art.

    In a sense, though, it feels like the acquisition of physical goods binds us to the transitory treasures. Increasingly, I’m finding myself inclined to the ephemeral. Especially since there are so many options for having a life rich in art and beauty while still traveling lightly. I downloaded my Kindle purchases since that will shortly no longer be an option, but I’m not sweating it a great deal.

    I’m looking at a Synology, but I’m not building bookshelves (I don’t have the room, anyway).

  • Damnable Things Afoot

    Regular readers know that I attempt to hold together two theological commitments that sit in tension. First, a hopeful eschatology where God, in the end, is “all in all.” Second, a fierce prophetic conviction that what we do here on earth matters and that God will judge the evils, injustices, and oppressions at work in the world. There are damnable things afoot, and much of it involves people who claim the name of Christ.

    – Richard Beck

  • Making Lemons Into Lemonade

    In the making lemons into lemonade department, I’ve got something to teach my son nearly every day about what happens when you elect immoral, incompetant people to run your government. My son is a sysadmin for a Minecraft server with an interest in technology. On Friday, I was able to use a very visually demonstrative example of how your cybersecurity is impacted when people who don’t know the slightest thing about what they are doing take over.

    I’m not suprised that a government agency named after a memecoin and its juvenile employees can’t secure a basic website, but it’s definitely concerning when those people illegally gain access to the Treasure Department systems.

    Today comes news that the memecoin infantilists fired critical nuclear weapons workers and are quickly trying to bring them back. I keep hearing what a genius this Elon Musk guy is and apparently people want him to do to the government what he did to Xitter. Xitter lost 80% of its market value in just two years after the guy took over. It does take quite a magician to make value disappear so quickly. Alakazam, baby!

    I almost forgot about Musk spreading the false rumor that the Social Security Administration was giving benefits to 150-year-olds because his crew didn’t understand the COBOL systems.

    There will be lots of teachable moments for my son. I just hope the country he lives in won’t have collapsed by the time he is old enough to put them into use.

  • Mario Icons

    A colleague recently named her AI Hackathon team “The Pipeline Plumbers,” due to their work with YAML-driven build pipelines. I told her it reminded me of Super Mario. Since she loves Mario, she decided to do a Mario-themed presentation (I wish I could embed it here).

    I came across another Mario-themed artifact this weekend. The always talented Louie Mantia, who produced icons for the Icon Factory for years, just created a new set of drive icons with a Mario theme. These are gorgeous.

    lmnt.me

  • A Custom Collection

    A few years ago, my wife’s company had a get together at CAMRaleigh, the modern art museum. After some mingling, the boys and I camped out in the staff offices. The desk where I sat had numerous pictures of Karl Lagerfeld. I might have felt a little uncomfortable at the man’s ubiquitous gaze, but his surgically attached sunglasses prevented that.

    I don’t have much to say about Lagerfeld’s life or work, but apparently he had excellent taste in iPods. Check out these custom Nanos.

    sothebys.com

    Macstories covers the estate sale from Sotheby’s where Lagerfeld’s collection is being auctioned. Like John Voorhees, who wrote the piece, I’ll always be a big fan of the iPod. I harbor the same irrational hope that one day Apple will bring it back to please those of us who love single-use devices. In the meantime, I suppose I could put in my bid for one of Lagerfeld’s over 500 that are being sold.

  • Studio – West Coast

    The record label Ghostly International just reissued West Coast, the 2006 album by Studio, a collaboration between two musical auteurs from Gothenburg, Sweden. Ghostly spent months hyping the release, and it has garnered critical acclaim from the likes of Pitchfork, which labeled it a best new reissue. Bandcamp selected West Coast as their album of the day near the end of January.

    Louis Pattison’s review for Bandcamp Daily focuses on the balearic influences that feature prominently on West Coast but what struck me most was the sense that this album fit right in with much of the disco (dance) punk revival that permeated the musical landscape in the aughts. Even the heavy reggae vibes coming from the slow staccato guitars on the expansive (almost 16-minutes long) “Out There” wouldn’t sound out of place in some of the first wave experiments in dance punk.

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  • Reject All Vibes

    Reject all vibes. Whatever is supposedly emanating from TikTok according to six people you know from a group chat, you can let it waft by like a bad smell. Remember that these are synthetically produced moods created by online influencers and there is never any need for you to be demure or brat or trad. That’s their hustle, not yours. Feel free also to reject anyone who tries to theorize about vibes. Yes, that includes vibe shifts.

    Pamela Paul advises us to reject all vibes in her piece on how to remain a reality-based human in 2025. I especially appreciated her words previously in the post about not needing to have an equal and opposite reaction to everything D. Trump does.

  • Malicious Compliance

    Jason Koebler writes for 404 Media about the rising popularity of the Simple Sabotage Field Manual. Koebler takes a cheekily sarcastic tone in his final paragraph.

    It is impossible to say why this book is currently going viral at this moment in time and why it may feel particularly relevant to a workforce of millions of people who have suddenly been asked to agree to be “loyal” and work under the quasi leadership of the world’s richest man, have been asked to take a buyout that may or may not exist, have had their jobs repeatedly denigrated and threatened, have suddenly been required to return to office, have been prevented from spending money, have had to turn off critical functions that help people, and have been asked to destroy years worth of work and to rid their workplaces of DEI programs. Maybe it’s worth wondering why the most popular post in a subreddit for federal workers is titled “To my fellow Feds, especially veterans: we’re at war.”

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