I dreaded watching it a little bit because I feel like so many of these things are preaching to the choir, but the Kurzgesagt video Can YOU Fix Climate Change is really good. They do a great job of exposing the scale of the problem and balancing personal versus systemic responsibility.

You know, I haven’t seen my team in person for almost two years and we’ve shipped a shit ton of features during that period. So I think COP26 and all subsequent ones can be held remotely.

I’m on a McSweeney’s tear lately. This piece is a perfect parody of the “I think for myself” crowd.

Why I’m Doing My Own Research Before Using a Seat Belt

For all the flak Apple has received from developers about seemingly arbitrary rejections, at least there is a dialog and a back and forth.

I have a client who’s been stuck in Google Play Store suspension hell for 4 weeks for a new app submission. They provided the necessary paperwork and used all the channels, but have not heard a single peep from Google. It’s an absolutely inscrutable black hole.

COP26 is coming and the Paris Agreement has been an absolute joke. I was saying it then that checking on each other only every 5 years is not enough. Governments come and go within that time frame. The incentive is not there. There is no enforcing mechanism.

At the very least, countries need to look each other in the eyes once a year and fess up. They may report they failed to meet their goals for the year, but at least we’ll know 4 years earlier.

Additionally, an international fund administered independently must be set up for rich countries to make mandatory contributions to help developing countries. Time for countries to fill out their world tax forms.

Yep, chasing invoice payments is a pain in the ass, but feeling bad about the invoice not being paid is your client’s job, not yours. You work, they pay. That’s it.

Please follow the A advice.

Today I feel I have no patience left for the anti-vax crowd. It’s not about you, it’s about everybody else you cross path with. I don’t give a rat’s ass whether you get COVID and get hospitalized. But news flash, biology 101 says it’s a transmissible disease. And people die. Wake up. All you have to do to save other people’s lives is line up and get a jab in your arm. Boohoo.

Sure there is a time to be concerned about the government telling us what to do, but this is not it. This isn’t politics, ideology or government, this is healthcare professionals who are bending over backwards left and right to save lives. Because they care and because no society in history has ever been this lucky to have this amount of science looking out for us. They even want you to live, first-world whiner and all, fancy that.

No federal party offers clear path on how to wind down fossil fuel production

There you go. That’s the Canadian election in a nutshell, and by extension our government for the last 6 years. I’ve been saying it ad nauseam for years but it’s true: there is no plan.

Figuring out how to wind down our financial reliance on oil money is Canada’s existential problem no 1, and evidently the government has zero people working on it.

I’m digging today reading people who were affected by 9/11 and whose voice we don’t usually give nearly enough attention. Two on McSweeney’s:

Stories like mine are silenced because some may have to suffer in the name of liberty and justice—primarily people of color.

And:

It felt like a double tragedy to me—as an American, of course, but also as a Muslim. Not only did they do this; they did this in my name.

I love Genevieve Guenther’s reframing of the words used to talk about climate change, and this is a year old but I just learned of it:

[S]he wished the moderator hadn’t framed the question as whether Pence “believed” that man-made climate change was making extreme weather worse. “It’s not the Tooth Fairy or Santa Claus. The question is: Do you ‘understand’ or ‘accept’ climate science?” she said.

And this old favorite of mine:

She has written that, instead of thinking of climate change as something that “we are doing,” most people should think of it as “something we are being prevented from undoing.”

I don’t think we deserve that much leniency.

We’re the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse and Your Bill Has Gone to Collections

I’m fed up of reading people running to incorrect conclusions about Apple and privacy. First of all, no, Apple is not going to “scan” your device. Two, Google and Facebook do “scan” your entire life and behaviour and you’re all numbed blind to it. Get a grip and redirect your anger. Geeze.

For all the talks of people not trusting vaccines and not trusting science, it is the science that has delivered during this pandemic, and politics and policies that have not. Science has given us sound advice and vaccines, but the policies to use them and distribute them are subpar.

My wife and I have puzzled over the awkwardness of people bitching about their spouse, the person they chose to be with, the person they’re supposed to love and cherish:

But bonding over a ‘joking’ disdain for your spouse is more than an innocuous social phenomenon—it’s become a bandaid for the broad simmering resentment in so many American marriages.

In particular, I’m amazed that gender equality within relationships is retreating, not improving.

“No more talk, time for action” sometimes sounds like this:

I just want to be alive. I want all of us to just be alive. It is hard to accept the way things are, to know that the fight is outside the realm of argument and persuasion and appeals to how much it all hurts in every way. It is terrifying to know that the prize for many who care may be prison or worse. But all the right words about climate have already been deployed.

There should be a setting for not wanting to be bothered by surveys. Yes I bought a thing and I used a service from you. I voted with my money. Leave it at that.

I haven’t tried macOS Monterey yet, but the new Safari tabs and URL bar UI intuitively seems like a usability no-no. Unpredictable location of a UI elements? Adding clicks for commonly used functions? Loss of color recognition signals in identifying UI elements? None of these things sound like a good idea in terms of UI design. Smells like form over function. Will I change my mind once I’ve tried it? We shall see.

Well it took 36 hours but my 2nd dose side effects did subside. That was unusual for me since I rarely get sick and I can only remember one flu vaccine that made me feel down for a day but not like this. So glad it’s done!

Whoa they weren’t kidding that the second vaccine dose might come with more side effects. I got all of them today. Sore arm, weakness, headache, aches, fever. I hope tomorrow will be easier.

I got my second vaccine shot tonight. The nurse who administered it was so lively and happy. She was going down the aisle of people waiting, approaching each one as if they were the first person she was giving the vaccine to, not like she had done this thousands of times already. Truly a humbling and enjoyable experience. Thank you to all the healthcare workers out there! ❤️

As a general privacy and safety rule of thumb, I don’t browse the web while logged in and I don’t use social login. That means when I go to a site, I log in with email and password, do my thing, log out. Nobody needs to know when I’m logging in somewhere, nor where I’m browsing to after that, thanks.

But then there is Medium:

“Medium does not support passwords.”

Sure, the proliferation of accounts and passwords is a pain, but these alternatives are not the solution.

Great plea from Lauren Goode to let people control what memories we want to be reminded of, if any at all:

The internet is clever, but it’s not always smart. It’s personalized, but not personal. It lures you in with a timeline, then fucks with your concept of time. It doesn’t know or care whether you actually had a miscarriage, got married, moved out, or bought the sneakers.

I wish someone made flip phones cool again. Seriously. Look at a smartphone today. Cut it in two, slap a hinge between the top and bottom, et voilà. Same concept as the cheap flip phones of old, but with two screens, one for the display and one for the input (keypad, keyboard, etc). If Apple made one that only supported calling, texting, notifications for say $300? I would totally buy it.

I’m very happy with the 1Blocker new firewall feature that blocks in-app trackers. The iOS 14.5 requirement for apps to ask permission to use the IDFA is good, but nothing like blocking apps from using other means to track me. This thing is gold. ⭐️

Happy to see that Canada is not doing badly in 14th place on the 2021 Press Freedom Index.

In-app tracker blocking? Goodness yes. Yes! TAKE MY MONEY.

Yesterday, CBC broadcasted the Rebellion episode on The Nature of Things. Interesting timing and interesting tone considering Biden making climate a priority again in the US, and Canada announcing new targets this week along with a fair amount of money for climate initiatives in the new budget. I’m glad to see this issue come to the forefront again, despite the pandemic!

I love that the NHL made a North division so all Canadian teams only play against Canadian teams for the entire season. I know it’s because of COVID and probably temporary, but deep down I really hope we keep it that way. I love it.

I love this so much. It perfectly expresses thoughts I’ve been having about the madness of human complexity, and how straightforward common sense is too often lacking.

The boat is stuck.

That’s all there is to it.