Good morning. Hello. How are you? #1002
Apple's shocking CSAM fumble revisited, errands, Boos and Whos, Fairbanks keepin it real, Chloe is a Scientologist
Good morning! Man, it is late. So sorry.
Thank you all you Fairbanksans for filling me in on what the current situation is with weather cancellations. Indoor recess at -20°F. No currently known school cancellation for cold. It was only cancelled once in my stint in the schools there, and that was at -60°F (legit, none of that “feels like” or “wind chill".) I’m glad Fairbanks hasn’t gone soft. What is crazy though is that they do rain cancellations now sometime. That is… that is some serious global warming shit right there. There wasn’t, I am fairly sure, a single day of rain in my entire school career. I don’t think there was a single day without snow on the ground? That is nuts.
Anyway, thank you, Fairbanksans, for keeping me up to date and helping me process my childhood, which is still a thing I am doing at the young age of 51.
WHAT A BUSY MORNING. Parenting, maaan. School. Jane’s second day, after yesterday being cancelled because of the storm. Morning went pretty well. Getting the routine down. Forgot to put the sticker on her that says MS FREW so the PTA assistants know where to take her. Otherwise everything went swimmingly. Half the drive is straight into the sun.
There was a morning “boo and who” for kindergarten parents, sponsored by the PTA. I wanted to go, but also I did not want to go at all, because I am so busy today, but it was the right thing to do, and we found a parking spot in the lot, so Emma walked Jane in, and I answered emails in the truck until it was 8, then we went in. Heavy security measures. Days of wandering around a school are over. Guess it was always kind of weird. You get buzzed into the school, then you get routed through the office, have to sign in, they tag you as an approved visitor, and then the buzz you in again. After that, though, you can kinda wander on your own.
The boo and who was actually pretty interesting. We met four parents. Two were natives, who had moved away and moved back. Two were transplants: one from Texas, one from Maryland. One had a Smashing Pumkins hoodie so that was an easy entré for Emma. She said her sister had seen them at Cats Cradle back in the day, and didn’t bring her, so this time she made her sister watch her kids while she went. Payback. It made me late, but it was worth it. I introduced myself to the principal, she didn’t say much, but she was deep in conversation with a parent with two special needs kids who had moved here just for the district, so that was fine, they had more pressing matters. I did introduce that parent to our neurodivergent affirming pediatric speech therapist tenant, though, since she was looking for one. So look at me. Member of the community n shit.
Then Emma declined to go on my morning errands I mean who declines errands beats me. So I dropped her off at home, then the recycling center, uneventful, then Walmart, no Sinead playing, no Churros Kit Kats, worried that run might be over. No Topo Chico. Yakult was replenished. Bought a Gordon Lightfoot record and some box fans and more bins bins bins.
I have stopped getting pandemic-era grocery delivery, finally, so there are things I keep forgetting to buy so shopping has gotten a lot more complex. Had to go to the Lowe’s as well. Had to wait for my deli meats which is so utterly intolerable I don’t know how I ever handled that standing around before. I’m gonna have to rethink that. The correct solution, of course, is top stop eating deli turkey that shit is gonna kill me.
Then back home and now I am with you, dear reader.
Had a pool contractor company meeting last night, that was fun, tried two new Forthave Amaros I’d ordered ages ago but not tried yet. They were both good but neither as good as the original Marseille Amaro. We are prepping for a giant mortgage and a major interaction with the county to get a zoning change, so things are kinda… ambitious. Very excited about this increasingly realistic chance I can enter the storage industry. Everyone agreed I can get my auctioneer’s license and be the one to auction off abandoned property. Now if only I could also program Muzak somewhere my life would be complete.
Longtime readers will recall I went on a rampage about Apple’s monumentally ill-conceived endeavor to limit child sexual abuse materials (CSAM). The goal was noble, but the approach was horrifying. Eventually Apple backed down. This was about a year ago. Now some anti-CSAM groups are questioning Apple on why they did not implement the system. Not unreasonable. And apparently Apple has taken the time to write them a comprehensive report about their reasoning, which, again, good for them. The report is not public, alas, but they have shared it with some journalists and you can read about the report in Wired here. I’m moderately annoyed by this but I suspect if I cared enough I could get my hands on a copy.
The utterly shocking thing is Apple’s reasoning in this report. I mean, from one point-of-view it’s not shocking at all, because their reasoning is utterly correct. The shocking thing is that all of this was completely knowable before they announced the process in the first place. And now I just want to know, I just have to know how a company as supposedly sophisticated as Apple blundered their way into this whole mess. How on earth did the original plan get put out? Did senior leadership approve it? Mind you, their own report now says that the approach was a terrible idea and could absolutely lead to abuse by dictatorships and the like. Or did senior leadership not approve it? In which case, how much does Apple really care about our privacy that anyone at any level lower than the C-Suite can approve an utter annihilation of their entire privacy approach? Did Tim skim through this thing in the back of an Uber on his iPhone without thinking about it or closely reading it? What possible good explanation is there for this entire debacle? I am genuinely curious.
Chloe Fineman showed up in a show Emma and I were watching and I am mildly obsessed with Chloe Fineman and I realized I had been meaning for a while to find out where she was from because I recently read about, in passing, a rich New York Fineman and was going to be sad that my celebrity crush was a nepo and/or trust fund baby. But it turns out no, she is from the Bay Area, her dad is a failed tech CEO, though at one point it was reported in his company’s bankruptcy that she was paid $15k at one point for social media services, which would seem very nepotistic except Chloe Fineman rocks at social media, so, you know, fair play.
Anyway, I eventually found myself on her dad’s LinkedIn, now in full-on stalker mode, checking to see if we had any mutuals in SF tech. No luck. Then I went to his instagram to make sure I got the right guy, and sure nuff, dutiful daughter likes each of his posts. And a friend of mine seemed to have taken this exact same journey, cuz she had liked a few of his posts too. So I text her about this and we have a laugh.
Except then she tells me she heard Chloe is a Scientologist. Not a serious one, maybe came from the fam, not sure.
But that is sad.
Can’t have a Scientologist celebrity crush.
Sigh.
Covers playlist for you. What’s there to say. They’re covers. They’re good. Except maybe the Flying Pickets. I swear I’m about done with them.
Have a lovely weekend. Take care, as Big Star said. And Yo La Tengo covered.