January 16, 2024

Another text grab bag

• You will never know if your USB-C connection “works,” by any definition of works. You will never know if it is transferring the maximum amount of data, or power, or whether a cable is calmly setting your computer on fire. There is always a better cable, charger, etc.
• All macarons are overpriced unless you buy them at Stohrer.
• Most of the time, your computer will either be taken down by JavaScript or one application. For several years, for me, that application was Slack. At another point it was InDesign. Now it is Javascript. Pray for Javascript to be your only enemy.
• Normalization of deviance happens absolutely everywhere, not just software.
• Two-factor authentication is a band-aid on an unsolvable problem, making it conceptually bankrupt out of the gate. Nobody understands this because security people are both functionally insane and incapable of providing real solutions. As a result, it’s generally a bad idea to turn on two-factor authentication unless you are protecting the main attack vectors to your identity, e.g. Apple ID, cell phone, storage, email. If you push back on this, you are both functionally insane and incapable of providing a real solution.
• Never express a unit of time to a Taylor Swift fan as a period, duration, phase, etc. It is always an era.
• Egg tarts are a thing in so many countries by now that they are effectively the world’s pastry. I initially thought they were the national pastry of Hong Kong.
• Being loudly against fascism is, in fact, a durable business positioning.
• It’s useful to know how to use trains in Japan, because they optimize for being considerate at scale. Stand in a single file line on the edges of where the doors open. Wait for people to get off first. Stand facing outward in the middle of the car.
• Your iPad would last longer if Apple made an operating system to run on it.
• No machine learning model will convincingly replicate the human spirit, unless you’re boring. The lesson: don’t be boring.
• Just get your hot dog with everything and take the stuff off that you don’t want. You never know if your sport peppers will actually be crisp, or whether your onions will be caramelized. You’re holding up the line with your complicated order.
• If you booked a flight many months ago and are now dreading going on it because you’ll feel bad about the ways in which you are serving capitalism, get on the plane.
• Optimism is capable of being a radical act of resistance.