Month: April 2018
Cloudy mountains on this morning’s walk
Instagram filter used: Normal
Photo taken at: Eaton Canyon / Angeles National Forest
Following Ravi Sagar
JIRA, Atlassian tools and Drupal Trainer/Consultant with over 14 years of experience. Founder of Sparxsys Solutions and Author of Mastering JIRA 7.
h/t to Twitter post
📺 “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel” Mrs. X at the Gaslight | Amazon Prime
Directed by Scott Ellis. With Rachel Brosnahan, Alex Borstein, Michael Zegen, Marin Hinkle.
Midge finds a different kind of audience to perform for, much to Susie's chagrin. Abe gets offered the experience of a lifetime. The Weissmans come together for a family dinner. Susie finally shows off her management skills.
Playing gigs at friends’ parties?? I also don’t think I buy that the whole family gets up and walks out of a restaurant.
📺 “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel” Put That on Your Plate! | Amazon Prime
Directed by Daniel Palladino. With Rachel Brosnahan, Alex Borstein, Michael Zegen, Marin Hinkle.
With Susie's help, Midge hones her act at the Gaslight. Abe surprises the women with a dinner guest, sending Rose into an emotional spiral. Working towards a promotion, Joel conjures up a new plan. Midge stirs up controversy after meeting a big-time comedian.
Not sure that I buy Midge totally blowing her chance to get an opening gig unless she completely didn’t know what the stakes were. She’s too smart and really not nearly edgy enough to blow the shot the way she did. Too much of this feels like plot for plot’s sake and deus-ex-machina instead of real characters unfolding.
Palladino’s characters just never feel true to themselves but bend too far to the will of the writer who makes them all the same.
📺 “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel” Thank You and Good Night | Amazon Prime
Directed by Amy Sherman-Palladino. With Rachel Brosnahan, Alex Borstein, Michael Zegen, Marin Hinkle.
In the Season One finale, Midge and Susie deal with the repercussions of Midge's off-script takedown of a famous comedian. With tensions still high at the Weissman household, Rose makes some bold changes. Midge and Joel reunite for Ethan's birthday party.
Moments after pledging his undying love Joel gets the worst gut-punch. There’s something redeeming enough in this last episode that I may be won over to watch into an ensuing season. I may be able to overlook the blurring of the characters by Ms. Palladino and their single-voiced witty repartee which makes them nearly indistinguishable in broad swaths of the series (or even from Gilmore Girls in an entirely different setting decades hence).
🎧 This Week in Google 450 I Just Swallowed a Pollywog | TWiT.TV
Oracle vs Google, Google vs Apple
Google owes Oracle $8.8 Billion Dollars. Apple and Google fight over the classroom. Should everyone stop using Facebook? Should everybody stop using Twitter? Should everybody start using Google Plus?
- Stacey's Thing: Nest Hello Doorbell and Nest X Yale Lock
- Mike's Stuff: Lenovo Mirage Camera with Daydream
- Jeff's Number in Absentia: 5.5 GB
🎧 ‘The Daily’: Putin’s Grip on Russia | The New York Times
President Vladimir V. Putin has been elected to a fourth term, drawing support from more than three-quarters of voters. How is the most powerful man in Russia staying that way?
On today’s episode:
• Steven Lee Myers, a former Moscow bureau chief of The New York Times who covered Vladimir V. Putin’s rise to power and who is the author of “The New Tsar: The Rise and Reign of Vladimir Putin.”
Background reading:
• The long-serving Russian leader has become a model for the modern autocrat.
• Russian voters gave Mr. Putin their resounding approval for a fourth term on Sunday.
A great, but brief overview of Vladimir Putin and his backstory leading up to his present position.
👓 Dear Facebook user 752461218193242 | Vicki Boykis
One of the best takes on the Facebook “Issue” I’ve read in the past two weeks–and I’ve read almost all of them at this point.
h/t to @vboykis
Dear Mark,
Thank you for writing me that letter in the New York Times recently. I wrote you one, too.Sincerely,
(mostly former) Facebook User 752461218193242https://t.co/P0JbAXXn43— Vicki Boykis (@vboykis) March 30, 2018
🎧 ‘The Daily’: The Data Harvesters” | The New York Times
A young Canadian data expert came up with a plan to harvest people’s personal data off Facebook, and to use that information to influence their voting.
On today’s episode:
• Matthew Rosenberg, a New York Times reporter in Washington.
Background reading:
• Consultants for the Trump campaign exploited the Facebook data of 50 million people.
• Cambridge Analytica offered to entrap politicians through seduction or bribery.
• How researchers use Facebook “likes” to sway your thinking.
A fantastic overview of the background for the Facebook/Cambridge Analytica story.
🎧 ‘The Daily’: Can Facebook Be Fixed? | The New York Times
Five days after details about Cambridge Analytica were made public, Mark Zuckerberg, the chief executive of Facebook, broke his silence on his company’s role in the data breach.
Minutes after posting a statement on Facebook, he spoke with The New York Times.
On today’s episode:
• Kevin Roose, a business columnist for The Times.
Background reading:
• Facebook, in crisis over the Cambridge Analytica data breach, vows to bolster security and privacy.
• A transcript of Mr. Zuckerberg’s conversation with Mr. Roose and another Times reporter, Sheera Frenkel.
I think Roose humanizes Zuckerberg a bit too much in his discussion of his interview. Facebook has some of the best and brightest engineering talent and a multi-billion dollar war chest. They’ve known about their pending problem for quite a while now and should have long since begun building a remedy. The plain truth is that they’ve actively chosen not to. Worse, even with the swirling problems in the public consciousness, they’re not actively doing anything much to fix things after-the-fact other than paying it some lip service. If Zuckerberg is as seemingly naive as Roose suggests, he needs to be removed from his position.
I’m coming much closer to calling it quits on Facebook. I’ve outlined a plan for extracting myself and just need to begin implementation. I’ve even got a potential scalable plan for family/friends who would like to leave as well.
I actually feel like my remaining on the platform is subsidizing keeping many third world people on it, and the way Facebook has been and is operating in many other countries it becomes a moral issue which is forcing me to actively seek to leave it.