Let’s get this out of the way: Starbucks’ coffee usually tastes a bit burnt and is generally not as good as local coffee shops. But, Starbucks is convenient because they have a ton of locations (and drive-thrus), and they’re at least consistent in that each location uses the same ingredients (even if their baristas never put the same amount of them in your cup).

While I have favorite local coffee shops which I prefer to patronize, sometimes it’s just easier to go by Starbucks in the morning. In these cases, I will usually try to remember to bring my own Yeti cup so I can take advantage of their bring-your-own-cup program. Sure, call me a hippy dippy, tree-hugging liberal, but the biggest appeal is that my drink will stay hot for a lot longer. And, you know, if you can save a disposable cup from a landfill, why not? On top of that, Starbucks actually incentivizes customers to use the program, offering a 10¢ discount on your drink. I don’t go to Starbucks nearly enough for that to add up to anything worthwhile, but nonetheless, it’s slightly better than nothing. Combining those three very mild incentives (a tiny discount, feeling good about saving a cup, and having my drink stay hot) is enough to get me to play along.

Participating is a fairly straightforward process: I’ll place my order and let the barista know I’ve brought my own cup, and they proceed to take my cup and then a few minutes later I find it at the end of the bar with my beverage inside it. For the past several months, though, I’ve been noticing an aggravating and confusing trend.

Occasionally I’ll find myself watching as the barista prepares my drink, and lately I’ve been seeing a paper or plastic cup (depending on whether I’ve ordered something hot or cold) accompany my reusable cup as it makes its way down the line of drinks waiting to be prepared. What’s happening is the baristas are preparing my drink in the paper cup (which bears a sticker denoting what I’ve ordered), and then they simply pour the beverage from the paper cup into my reusable one before giving it back to me.

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to recognize that this completely defeats the purpose of Starbucks offering a reusable cup discount program. From a financial perspective, Starbucks doesn’t save any money this way because they still end up using a paper or plastic cup anyway. From an eco-friendly perspective, there’s no difference here than if they’d just delivered the drink in the disposable cup anyway. While there’s a slight chance they could be recycling the plastic cups, Starbucks’ paper cups (like most paper cups) are lined on the inside to prevent liquid from breaking down the paper, and lined paper products can’t be recycled at all by most cities in the country. Those cups are definitely landfill bound.

CopyrightBro correspondents interviewed multiple Starbucks baristas and store managers in stores across the southeast, and we’ve been able to learn a bit more about this program and how it’s implemented. One Charlotte-area barista, when asked why she initially prepared the drink in the disposable cup, simply respond with “this is just how we were trained.” When our correspondent followed up with “doesn’t using a paper cup sort of defeat the purpose of having a reusable cup program?” she replied, “yeah, it’s a little off.” These sentiments were echoed by other baristas from other areas of the country, indicating that this is a pervasive issue stemming from a corporate directive, rather than a case of one or two rogue employees in charge of training. When asked what the purpose was behind this policy, one Memphis-area barista said “It kind of makes sense with the drive-thru because we don’t get their cup until they get to the window, but for customers in the cafe, it doesn’t make any sense, it is really stupid and wasteful.” When asked if they couldn’t just prepare drive-thru customers’ drinks in reusable containers before transferring them to the personal cups, he replied “yeah, there’s really no reason that wouldn’t work”.

This barista estimated that while roughly 20% of regular customers might bring their own cups, the total percentage would be far lower, likely around 1%. This figure is consistent with Starbucks’ Global Social Impact Report from 2018, which reported that in the preceding year, 1.3% of customers had received the personal cup discount. The report goes on to presume that the program therefore saved 42 million disposable cups, but this figure ignores reality, because we know that not nearly all of those 42 million transactions actually resulted in a saved cup.

Getting more into the numbers, back in 2011, Starbucks was at 1.9% adoption with their personal cup program, and they set a goal of reaching 5% adoption by 2015; clearly, they missed. By a lot. Interestingly, their 2018 report actually amends their goal and uses grandiose language like “double the use of reusable cups”, which sounds great but ignores the fact that personal cup use has actually declined by 32% since 2011. Doubling an adoption rate of 1.3% still only gets you to 2.6%, and doesn’t account for the fact that many of the transactions represented by those figures still waste plenty of cups. They’ve given themselves several years to achieve what they want you to believe is a lofty goal, aiming to achieve this measly 2.6% program adoption by 2022.

If the point of the personal cup discount is to incentivize customers to use the program for the benefit of the environment, then 10¢ is hardly enough to move anyone to action; if the point of the discount is to simply pass the savings from the one saved paper cup onto the customer, that’s nice of them, but kind of pointless if they end up using a paper cup in the process of preparing the drinks anyway. The barista from Memphis also expressed concerns that “the 10¢ discount is pointless”, and that it doesn’t really incentivize anyone to use the program — it’s hard to imagine that he could be wrong — you could find more than ten cents in a Starbucks parking lot at any given moment. If Starbucks wants people to take this program seriously, they need to stop wasting disposable cups, and they need to offer an incentive greater than a dime; a 25¢ discount as a part of a program that a less than two percent of their customers use seems manageable for a company as successful as Starbucks.

CopyrightBro reached out to the Starbucks Global Communications team for more information on why there’s such a defined trend of employees being trained to waste cups, and a Starbucks Spokesperson provided the following comment: “Starbucks baristas are encouraged to craft beverages directly in customers’ reusable cups whenever possible. Building on our long standing commitment to sustainability and an elevated customer experience, we are currently reviewing guidance to our partners about personal cup use as we continue to be mindful of waste.” While this comment shifts blame to the individual baristas, the pattern observed across a large geographic regions is too pronounced to be so easily explained away. The operative phrase from the comment provided seems to be “whenever possible”. This phrase could provide a tremendous amount of leeway to those mid-level corporate employees issuing directives to train employees in a manner contrary to the official guidance while deflecting the responsibility to the individual baristas by retorting that the official guidance is for them to use their own discretion. Otherwise, it’s hard to explain why so many baristas would report having been trained in a manner inconsistent with the comment provided.

The problem here doesn’t seem to be a few poorly trained employees, but rather a culture that focuses more on looking like they want to help the environment, rather than actually putting effort into doing so: it seems like their commitment to protecting the environment is just a P.R. move for Starbucks. Even more embarrassingly for a Fortune 500 company, it’s losing money from a financial standpoint. What kind of lunacy would lead a company to introduce a program that could cut costs on materials and make a positive environmental impact, only to have employees waste the same amount of materials anyway? They’ve effectively disguised a pattern of material and financial waste as a program designed to benefit the environment.

CopyrightBro does not encourage anyone to take advantage of corporate good will, but if you notice that a barista prepares your beverage in a disposable cup and then throws it away after transferring your drink to your personal cup, you can submit a complaint about what happened on Starbuck’s contact page, and they’ll typically credit your Starbucks Card with five or six bucks to get another drink, as well as pass down the feedback to the store your visited. Customers are going to have to hold Starbucks’ feet to the fire on this one: make sure you let them know how you feel next time their employees are unnecessarily wasteful on your behalf.

In the midst of the recent J.K. Rowling controversy, a CopyrightBro correspondent stumbled across an interesting Twitter account, @AllianceLGB. After reading through some of their tweets and checking out their website, it’s clear that these folks are providing an important voice; they’re courageous enough to vocalize the feelings that cancel culture prohibits many in the LGB community from feeling free to express.

The LGB Alliance is a nonpartisan British nonprofit organization whose goal is to “advance the interests of lesbians, gay men and bisexuals at a time when we are under threat from concerted attempts to introduce confusion between biological sex and the notion of gender.“ This confusion sewn by aggressive trans rights advocates is to the direct detriment of people who experience same-sex attraction, who rightly believe that being associated and conflated with the transgender/transsexual/gender non-binary groups has a negative impact on the forward progress being made to advance LGB acceptance, particularly in less-progressive environments. The LGB Alliance is also working to “protect children and young people from being taught unscientific gender doctrines”, as well as asserting the scientific reality of the two biological sexes, while recognizing “that gender is a social construct which is used to impose often harmful and outdated stereotypes.”

The beliefs championed by the LGB Alliance are beliefs that CopyrightBro is proud to endorse, as we also believe that more dialogue is needed to establish a public understanding of the differences between folks who are same sex attracted and those with varying gender identities, and that increased awareness will be to the benefit of both groups. In fact, on CopyrightBro, you’ll notice that we rarely (if ever) use the “LGBT” acronym; instead, we opt for “LGB” when referring to issues that are specific to sexual orientation, and in rare cases where it does make sense to couple issues relating to sexual orientation with those that relate to gender identity, we use “LGB&T”, which invokes an ampersand to reiterate the important distinction between the two groups.

Everyone deserves equal rights and to be treated with dignity, but that doesn’t mean that unrelated groups need to be conflated, especially when such relationships aren’t always symbiotic. If you’d like to learn more about the LGB Alliance and the work they do to support equal rights through reason and common-sense solutions that are truly respectful of and fair to all groups, you can visit their website for more information or to make a donation in support of their mission.

Sarah El Sirgany and Lauren Said-Moorhouse, reporting for CNN:

Saudi Arabia has sentenced five people to death for the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, the kingdom's public prosecutor said Monday. 

Sounds like they found a way to kill off five more people they don’t like. Can someone remind me why we’re supposed to pretend they’re a U.S. ally?

An interesting look at the past decade through the lens of language. Take a few minutes to read through the list, it’s worth your time. Some of the social and political events that inspired heightened use of these words seem like they took place eons ago, while others seem too fresh to have happened more than just a few months back.

Dress however you please.
Call yourself whatever you like.
Sleep with any consenting adult who’ll have you.
Live your best life in peace and security.
But force women out of their jobs for stating that sex is real? #IStandWithMaya #ThisIsNotADrill

— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) December 19, 2019

J.K. Rowling has written some stupid things lately (see: “Cursed Child”), but this isn’t one of them; her sentiments in this tweet near-perfectly represent my take in this instance, as well as on the broader issue of trans rights: do what you want as long as it isn’t harming others or infringing on someone else’s rights. However, I’m not convinced that some of the rights and privileges sought by the trans community aren’t stepping on the toes of other groups.

The fact that people are lambasting her for merely agreeing with someone who basically just said that biological sex is still a thing, is absurd. If you’re offended by scientific facts, re-fucking-evaluate; it’s not the rest of the world’s prerogative to avoid the truth (note that I said THE truth, not your truth) because you find it inconvenient.

Donald Trump, implying his own allegedly-superb popularity among the American electorate during a rally in Michigan, just asked his audience “have you seen my polls for the last four weeks?”. Raucous applause ensued.

Obviously, those in the audience have not seen any recent polls. The latest poll from Fox News reports that 55% of Americans want Trump impeached and removed from office, compared to just 43% who don’t think he should be impeached.

Today is a historic day. President Donald Trump just became the third President in American History to have officially been impeached by the House of Representatives.

As of the moment this article was published, Donald Trump himself was still unaware of his impeachment, because he was in the middle of holding a rally to distract from the impeachment process.

If you’re not sure what this means or how the process continues from this point, check out CopyrightBro’s Impeachment Briefing.

There’s so much information about the impeachment of Donald Trump that it’s easy to lose sight of the forest for the trees given the constantly-bloated 24-hour news cycle that surrounds our President. There are a few important things that We The People need to understand at this point in the game: how the impeachment process works, what Trump is being accused of having done wrong, and how the political party machines will try to use the whole charade to their benefit. Once you understand those things in context, you can begin to form your own educated opinions about how our congressional leaders and executives are conducting themselves, and whether or not the President deserves to be impeached.

On The Process

The most fundamental thing to understand is how the impeachment process works. I am no legal expert, but there’s a common misconception that impeachment IS the act of removing a President from office, when in reality, impeachment is a step in a process that can lead to the removal of the President. The first step in the impeachment process is for the House of Representatives to conduct an investigation into whether the President (or other public officer) may have done something wrong. If they find evidence that he or she has done something wrong, whether it be a criminal act or behaving in a manner inconsistent with their office, the House Judiciary Committee will draft articles of impeachment.* The articles of impeachment are the legal documents asserting that the President has done something wrong, and explaining what they are being charged with. After these articles are drafted, the House Judiciary Committee will hold a vote to determine whether they should be advanced to the full HOR for consideration. If they vote no, the process is over, but if they vote yes, then the whole House will vote on whether or not to “impeach” the President. If they vote no, again, the process ends. If they vote yes (a simple majority is sufficient), the president will have been officially “impeached”, but that doesn’t mean that he will be removed from office, necessarily. If he is impeached, then the Senate takes over the process, because they’re the chamber of Congress responsible for holding a trial of the President to determine whether he is guilty of what he is accused of in the articles of impeachment. After the trial, the full Senate will vote on whether or not the President is guilty and should be removed from office. A two-thirds majority is required to remove the President from office, at which point, the Vice President would become the President.

*It’s important to note that an impeachable offense does not necessarily have to be a specific crime, but it must meet the one of the three descriptions laid out by the founding fathers in the constitution, which include “treason”, “bribery”, and “other high crimes and misdemeanors”.

What Trump is Accused Of

In the case of Donald Trump, the House Judiciary Committee has drafted two articles of impeachment, and this morning, the committee voted 23-17 to advance them to the full House of Representatives for consideration and a vote, which will likely take place next week. The two articles of impeachment against President Trump accuse him of “abuse of power” and “obstruction of congress”, which are both offenses that can be categorized as “other high crimes and misdemeanors”. The articles of impeachment are freely available on the internet, and anyone who wants to discuss this impeachment process should read them. Click here to download a PDF version. They’re only 9 pages long, and there’s really no excuse not to read them. Here is a summary of the contents and implications of each article, with necessary context:

• Article One — The first article of impeachment brought against Trump charges him with with “abuse of power”. This is the article that defines the offense that kicked off this whole impeachment process. A lot of people probably assume that the impeachment has something to do with allegations of collusion by the Trump campaign with the Russian operatives who interfered in the 2016 election, but this is not the case. Article one is narrow in scope, focusing solely on the much more recent issue of Trump’s call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. According to an anonymous whistleblower, Trump leveraged U.S. military aid to Ukraine (aid which we’ve been providing for years) on Zelensky’s willingness to open an investigation into the activities of Hunter Biden (the son of former Vice President and 2020 Presidential candidate, Joe Biden), whom Trump believed was guilty of corruption and a beneficiary of nepotism based on his position on the Board of Directors for a Ukrainian energy company called Burisma Holdings (Hunter Biden had no experience in the energy industry when he took the board seat). The concern here is that, even if Hunter Biden and Joe Biden were guilty of corruption, Presidents still aren’t allowed to seek help from foreign governments in elections, which is likely the reason Trump wanted dirt on Biden (who is one of the top polling candidates who may oppose Trump in the 2020 general election). The benefit of the doubt, in this case, is fairly weak. That argument is that perhaps Trump was only interested in fighting corruption, but starting with his biggest political opponent seems like a convenient choice when Trump hadn’t requested any other foreign governments to initiate investigations of any other potentially corrupt American citizens.

• Article Two — The second article of impeachment charges Trump with “obstruction of Congress”, and relates to his conduct during the House’s investigation. The Constitution gives the House of Representatives the “sole power of impeachment”, and under this constitutional power, they have to authority to subpoena witness testimony, records, and any other evidence that would be useful in determining whether to impeach the President. The White House, under Trump’s authority, submitted a letter to the House leaders stating their unwillingness to cooperate with the investigation, saying that it was “illegitimate” because the full House of Representatives didn’t vote on whether or not to impeach the President before conducting their investigation. This seems (and is) ridiculous; it is the equivalent of asking for an indictment decision before the police officers/investigators are allowed to collect any evidence. Indeed, Trump did completely refuse to comply, handing over none of the requested documents and prohibiting those who work for him to testify, thereby infringing the HOR’s Constitutional right to collect such evidence to conduct their “sole power of impeachment”.

Things To Consider

Given that America is so divided over President Trump, it’s important to look at this from both sides.

While a lot of angry, ill-informed Democrats have been shouting “impeachment” since Trump won the election, congressional Democrats were slow to actually initiate the impeachment process against President Trump. Of course, some will say this is because they had no concrete evidence, while others will say it was merely a strategic decision by Nancy Pelosi.

Of course, there is some degree of truth to both of those claims. Conclusive evidence that Trump colluded with the Russian operatives who influenced the 2016 election never surfaced. To many Trump supporters, in the wake of the long and unsuccessful campaign to oust him over the whole “Russian Collusion” fiasco, the whole issue of him having allegedly abused his power in the Ukraine case feels like it’s been a blitz attack by Democrats, carried out swiftly and recklessly with the sole hope of removing him from office, regardless of the facts. However, anyone smart enough to have ended up in Congress can see how this is likely to play out: the House of Representatives will impeach Donald Trump, and then he’ll be acquitted by the Senate. As far as the political fallout, it could really go either way. It could enrage Democrats and moderates who feel that the claims against Trump were unfairly dismissed, and drive them to vote in record numbers in 2020. It could also make Republicans and those who have always supported Donald Trump feel vindicated, and drive them to support him even more passionately.

However, the Democrats are rightly pointing out that even if you think you’ve been unfairly charged with something, you don’t get to just skip your court date and ignore subpoenas; I recently got a traffic ticket for making an illegal left turn in an intersection where there was no posted signage prohibiting my left turn. I think it’s extremely unfair, but I still have to go through the proper legal channels to prove my innocence, I can’t simply refuse to participate in the legal process altogether, because those are crimes of their own, and in Trump’s case, they directly impede the House’s “sole power of impeachment”. The biggest issue here is not what happened with Ukraine, though that is problematic, if true. The big issue here is that Trump, by refusing to cooperate with the legally conducted impeachment inquiry and instructing those beneath him to also refuse to cooperate, he is directly challenging the separation of powers and usurping power from the House of Representatives, regardless of whether the allegations from Article One were valid. This, if not punished, would set a dangerous precedent that gives the executive branch more power than the legislative branch, which is directly contrary to the form of government envisioned by the Founding Fathers. When our Constitution was drafted, the authors sought to separate power equally between three distinct branches with a system of checks and balances so that no branch could amass more power than the two, because when that happens, the entire republic is placed on a slippery slope that can lead to dictatorship. That may sound dramatic, but let us not forget that Adolf Hitler rose to power by being elected democratically, and then usurping power by delegitimizing and weakening the German legislative body.

Next week, the full House of Representatives will vote on whether or not Trump should be formally charged with the offenses listed in the articles of impeachment. You may be wondering why the evidence against Trump isn’t abundantly clear at this point, given that the HOR vote to impeach him is the next step in the process. To use the earlier analogy of a criminal trial, at this point in the process, evidence has been collected and we’re waiting on an indictment — evidence, in any legal case, impeachment or otherwise, wouldn’t necessarily become public until it is brought up in the actual trial — so despite the fact that there seems to be little evidence in support of Article One, in fact we just don’t know what that is, both because the Trump administration refused to provide any, and the small number of witnesses who testified to the House Judiciary Committee had no legal obligation to do so publicly. It is also worth noting that there is one piece of solid evidence which could immediately exonerate the President, though it has only been partially released. The White House, naturally, keeps records of all of Trump’s phone calls, but so far they have only provided a “rough transcript” of his call with the Ukrainian President during which the alleged abuse of power occurred. Now, “rough transcript” is little more than an oxymoron: either the transcript provided is exact or it is a summary, there is no such thing as a “rough transcript”.

If the full House of Representatives does vote to impeach, Donald Trump will become the third President in United States history to actually have been impeached.

A formal trial would then take place in the Senate. After both sides have had the opportunity to provide evidence and testimony, the Senate will vote on whether or not the President deserves to be removed from office based on the results of the trial they conduct. However, it’s very unlikely that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell will conduct anything resembling a just trial. He has remarked that he wants the whole process to be very quick, allegedly for the sake of expediency, although it seems more likely that he hopes to prevent the President from digging himself into an even deeper hole during his testimony to the Senate. McConnell went so far as to state that allowing either side to call witnesses would be “mutually assured destruction”.

Given the deep partisan divide in Congress right now and the fact that the Republicans have the majority (with 53 seats; the Democrats have 45, and there are two independents), it is highly unlikely that 20 Republicans (the number needed to reach the two-thirds majority needed to remove Trump, assuming all of the Democrats and independents vote for removal) would break rank with the rest of their (usually) pro-Trump party. However, this could serve as an out for a silent faction of Republican Senators who think Trump is doing irreparable damage to their party, and in that case, a landslide could happen quite suddenly. The odds are extremely low, but the political situation in America is so volatile that we would be remiss not to consider all possibilities.

At the end of the day, it is most likely that Donald Trump will be impeached but not removed, though that doesn’t mean that the whole process will have been for naught. Donald Trump is a parasite to our nation, and historians will look back on this moment in history as a turning point, and they will place the blame at the feet of the Senators who refused to conduct a just trial and convict him for the offense(s) of which he is admittedly guilty, offenses which will lead to the destabilization of our federal government and the eventual collapse of our republic.

UPDATED: 12/14/19; 09:50

You don’t even have to be convicted of a crime to lose your job in this constitutional republic if this body determines that your conduct as a public official is clearly out of bounds in your role, because impeachment is not about punishment, impeachment is about cleansing the office. Impeachment is about restoring honor and integrity to the office.

— Lindsey Graham, 1998

Lindsey Graham explains that a president stonewalling Congressional oversight is an impeachable offense. pic.twitter.com/tv88AilKUJ

— Bill Kristol (@BillKristol) April 26, 2019

Despite that rock solid position he took the last time a President was facing impeachment, Graham seems to have no issue with the fact that Trump refused to comply with congressional subpoenas, directly impeding their constitutional power of impeachment, saying that the whole process is “illegitimate”, and based on hearsay”.

This is unabashed hypocrisy; Lindsey Graham is an embarrassment to the people of South Carolina, and his electorate — Democrats, moderates, and Republicans, alike — all deserve better. Anyone who voted for him, even just a handful of years ago, certainly shouldn’t feel like they’re being well represented; the man is flimsier and more of a flip flop than those pretend shoes women wear out of the salon after getting pedicures.

I’m not even from South Carolina and this man makes my blood boil; it’s high time that he crawls into a hole in the ground. Speaking of which, the inside of a hole would at least be a nice change of scenery over the inside of the closet within which he has dug his heels. To be clear, I won’t ridicule him for his sexuality (which many presume is of the homosexual variety, despite his laughable insistence to the contrary), but I will ridicule him for being such a craven that flimsy political power granted by his homophobic base is enough for him to ignore the innate desire we all have to connect with other human beings on the most deeply personal level. What kind of unfeeling person would chose such a life? Not one I would chose to represent me, certainly, if he lacks the basic courage to lead an honest personal life. Lindsey, if you’re reading this: just go for it man, you’ll feel much better, and I’m sure there are plenty of conscience-lacking twinks out there who would jump at the chance to be your live-in boyfriend/sugar baby.

Further instances of Graham’s cowardice and hypocrisy are not hard to find: take, for example, his complete switch from boisterous critic to unshakable supporter of our Commander in Cheeto. What has Trump threatened him with to inspire such a drastic change of opinion since 2016?

If we nominate Trump, we will get destroyed.......and we will deserve it.

— Lindsey Graham (@LindseyGrahamSC) May 3, 2016

He was, at one point, a staunch critic of Trump’s border wall and immigration plan, calling them “stupid”, “illegal”, and “not practical”. Fast forward two years, and he’s telling Trump to proceed in building the wall without congressional approval:

Mr. President, the Democrats are not working in good faith with you.

Declare emergency, build the wall now.

— Lindsey Graham (@LindseyGrahamSC) January 11, 2019

Examples of Graham’s hypocrisy regarding Donald Trump alone are plentiful, and while this certainly lends itself to the theory that Trump has him by the balls, the truth, most likely, isn't that Trump has dirt on Graham, but rather that Graham is just disgustingly committed to upholding the status quo. His short-lived run for President was a weak power grab, and evolved into a poor attempt to save the Republican establishment from Donald Trump. Now that Trump has entranced a large swath of Republican voters, Graham will say anything to remain in his good graces. He has no shame. He puts party above all else, no matter how the party shifts or how often it results in his foot in his mouth.

It must be nice at times, not having a spine; you could weasel your way into all sorts of dark, uncomfortable places. If you’ve got some extra cash laying around, throw it at Jaime Harrison, a South Carolinian running a strong campaign for Graham’s Senate seat in 2020.

I would all but guarantee that nobody reading this will ever need Apple’s newly released Mac Pro and its accompanying display. This is the type of science fiction-y stuff tech nerds drool over, and it’s a momentous moment in the history of technological advancements, so despite the fact that very, VERY few people actually need it, it’s just a really cool, mind numbingly powerful beast of a computer, and I want my readers to know that it exists and appreciate the marvel of computing that Apple has managed to pull off. It’s so crazy that I’ve opted to place this post under the “magical nonsense” category, in addition to the obviously applicable “technology” category.

This machine is truly groundbreaking. Just to put some things in perspective, most PCs these days have processors with two or four cores; in the Mac Pro, you can get up to twenty-eight. Most PCs shipping right now will have either two, four, eight, or sixteen gigabytes of RAM. The new Mac Pro? Up to 1,500 gigabytes of RAM. It’s hard to imagine anything this machine couldn’t handle with ease. The price is, of course, equally mind boggling: it starts at $5,999 and maxes out at $53,799.

The display that they’re selling alongside the new Mac Pro, the Pro Display XDR, is also extremely impressive. It blows pretty much all current displays out of the water when it comes to metrics like brightness, contrast, color accuracy, clarity, etc., including professional displays like those used by filmmakers that cost 8x the price.

Despite all the incredible things Apple has packed into these two products, they have gotten a lot of criticism for some of their decisions made in regards to the pricing of accessories, which I think are valid criticisms. The stand for the display is sold separately, and costs a whopping $999, which is inarguably nuts. The Mac Pro itself has the option of shipping with stainless steel feet or wheels, and if you opt for the wheels, it’ll cost you an additional $399, which is laughable. However, I don’t think it matters too much overall; this whole product is almost just an instance of Apple showing off, and very pricy accessories grab more attention; given the unbelievable machine they've created, I think we should let them show off a bit.

John Bowden, writing for The Hill:

President Trump's reelection campaign on Thursday tweeted an edited cover of Time magazine's "Person of the Year" issue that depicted the president's head on the shoulders of Greta Thunberg, a 16-year-old climate change activist.

Is their whole reelection campaign plan to just keep poorly photoshopping Trump’s face onto images of other people? Play to your audience, I guess.

This one was weird, though:

House Democrats can push their sham impeachment all they want.

President Trump's re-election is 𝗶𝗻𝗲𝘃𝗶𝘁𝗮𝗯𝗹𝗲. pic.twitter.com/O7o02S26nS

— Trump War Room (Text TRUMP to 88022) (@TrumpWarRoom) December 10, 2019

I hope they realize that Thanos’s character arc was defined by dictatorship and mass murder, not to mention the fact that he died twice in that movie.

See also: Clearly jealous, Trump makes fun of Greta Thunberg (who is 16 years old) after TIME names her “Person of the Year”.

A well deserved honor.

We can’t just continue living as if there was no tomorrow, because there is a tomorrow.

— Greta Thunberg

It’s been a long time since Taylor Swift put out a Christmas song, and none of them were terribly memorable. While “Christmas Tree Farm” is better than 65% of the songs on Lover, it may not have a ton of staying power either; only time will tell.

However, it is a really cute song and it could very well be the best original Christmas song of 2019. It certainly beats John Legend and Kelly Clarkson’s #metoo era rendition of “Baby, It’s Cold Outside”.

John Legend and Kelly Clarkson are both I credible vocalists, and for the first few seconds of their “Baby, It’s Cold Outside” cover, you think you’re in for a real treat. Unfortunately, it goes downhill fast: all you really need to know is that their #metoo era version this classic Christmas song sucks ass, and it does so without consent.

A true, stereotypical, self-victimizing Social Justice Warrior could actually argue that this song does the opposite of what it sets out to do, in a “men are so toxic and manipulative” sort of way. Despite the fact that the whole song is centered around a woman lamenting over how she shouldn’t stay the night with a man, she ultimately decides not to go home. The whole thing could be interpreted as an exercise in reverse psychology on the part of Legend’s character, who spends the entire song agreeing that she should leave, only to ultimately have her stay. I don’t subscribe to that ridiculous notion (though I’m sure the most liberal SJWs would), I just think the song sucks.

Furthermore, the songwriter who penned the original ballad, Frank Loesser (1910-1969), is credited with writing this horrible perversion as well, which I think is a legitimate example of doing something without consent. He does not deserve credit for the cringeworthy lyrics in Legend’s version of this song, which include such lines as “I’ve got to go away/I can call you a ride”, and “So, really, I’d better scurry/your driver, his name is Murray”.

If you’re looking for a charming, enjoyable new cover of “Baby, It’s Cold Outside” from artists with similarly incredible voices, look no further than Idina Menzel and Michael Buble’s cover.

Kamala got a lot of attention too early. I’m afraid the same will likely be said for Pete Buttigieg, as well. I thought she was a contender for a while, and I’m surprised that she dropped out as early as she did and was the first big name to do so, but I’m not surprised that she didn’t make it. I think this is for the best.

While she originally seemed fresh, that didn’t last long, and I think people fell swiftly out of love with her during the debates. Her attitude was sometimes off-putting for someone hoping to be the leader of our country, and I personally wasn’t a fan of her presumptive demeanor when she delivered what she thought was a zinger on stage. Additionally, as pointed out by Tulsi Gabbard, Kamala’s record is one with quite a few dark spots, and some of them are hard to overlook.

I think Kamala is best suited for Congress. She’s smart, bold, and calculating; she was really in her element when she was grilling Brett Kavanaugh last year. We need more senators like her.

See also: her brilliant response to Trump’s sarcastic farewell tweet.

Brian Feldman, writing for Intelligencer:

The company’s current moderation system is designed to operate in an environment where context, often implied or not easily discernible to an outsider, does not matter. […]

Understanding this is the key to understanding why Big Tech is something to be concerned about. Even when it’s assumed to be operating in good faith and attempting to be fair, Facebook still makes the wrong call.

This story from March is hardly news, but it’s interesting and important because it highlights one of Facebook’s moral dilemmas that don’t get as much much focus as their privacy-related transgressions.

Historically, Facebook has been criticized for their content moderation and censorship practices (these criticisms largely revolved around the poor mental health resources offered to their contracted content moderators, who are poorly paid and required to sort through the worst content humans try to upload to the internet). Facebook’s record here is so astonishingly poor that it’s plausible that a presidential candidate might’ve had their posts removed based on the content of their message rather than the fact that they technically broke on of Facebook’s rules (which, in this case, was completely irrelevant to the context in which such a rule should apply). I’m not saying this was an innocent mistake on Facebook’s part, I’m saying that this level of inconsistency is not only problematic on it’s own, but it offers plausible deniability in cases where Facebook truly does remove content based on the message it carries. Given Facebook’s ubiquity in the western world, this is a threat to the freedom of information in our society at large.

Once or twice a year, it’s important to take a stroll through your settings and make sure nothing is going on that you aren’t aware of. It only takes about ten minutes to conduct what I refer to as a “digital health checkup”, and there are a lot of things that could go awry if your settings aren’t right, so follow along with this handy guide to make sure you’re doing everything you can to protect yourself from things like data loss, security concerns, and privacy issues. While this is an outline for people who have Apple products (I don’t have enough hands on experience with Android devices to offer a comprehensive guide), many of the settings I suggest modifying are found on Android devices as well, they may just be worded slightly differently. Without further ado, open up your settings app and let’s get started.

This guide was made using iOS 13.2.3, so you’ll want to make sure you’re at least on iOS 13.0 for this guide to make the most sense to you.

Apple ID

First things first, tap the big banner with your name on it to check all your Apple ID settings. This is a really important section, because your Apple ID is what makes 90% of the things on your device work to their full potential. Under this page, there are a few things to check.

• Name, Phone Numbers, Email — Here, you just want to take a quick peek and make sure that it has your correct name and contact info. If it doesn’t, update it.

• Password & Security — Your Apple ID is one of the most important things I’m going to tell you about. Make sure you know your password, and make sure it’s a strong one. If you aren’t good at remembering passwords, don’t worry. Just come up with a secure one for now, and write it down so you don’t forget. We’ll come back to a better way to store your passwords in a bit.

• Payment & Shipping — This tab is another quick check; just make sure the saved shipping addresses and payment info are correct.

• Subscriptions — This is where you can see things that Apple charges you for on a recurring basis and cancel any subscriptions you no longer want. For example, this is where you’ll see in-app purchase subscriptions like Apple Music, as well as your iCloud storage plan.

The next three headings are all organized under the Apple ID section, so get cozy.

iCloud

While you’re still under the Apple ID section, we’ll want to look at your iCloud settings. This is without a doubt the most important page of settings you’ll need to wrangle in.

At the top, it shows a bar with your iCloud storage. iCloud storage is how a lot of data is saved on your phone, and is what enables it to magically stay in sync across your Apple devices. If your iCloud storage is low or you’re out, its extremely important to upgrade your storage plan. This can feel a little nickel and dime-y of Apple, but they’re truly providing a useful service here (besides, your phone probably cost $700+, what’s another $12-$36 per year to keep it running optimally?).

Below the iCloud storage section is a big list of apps with toggle buttons. There are a few that lead to other menus, but we’ll cover those in a minute. The rule of thumb with the toggles is that everything should be turned on. Assuming you don’t share an Apple ID with anyone, go ahead and flip every toggle to the on position; this makes sure that even if you don’t have a backup of your device, that content will still be kept safe, as well as be kept in sync across your devices. The most important ones are obviously going to be contacts, messages, calendars, iCloud Drive, and notes. It’s worth pointing out that if you don’t have an iCloud email address, turning that switch on will prompt you to create one. We’ll talk more about email later, but it’s a good idea to have an iCloud email account, so go ahead and set one up.

• Photos — Of the few options that lead to menus, Photos is the first. Under this menu, you’ll want to make sure that iCloud Photo Library is turned on. This is what will save your photos if anything happens to your device, and it’s why it’s so important to make sure you haven’t run out of iCloud storage. You’ll also want to select “Optimize iPhone Storage” over “Download and Keep Originals”. This can save you a lot of storage space on your device, and you’ll still be able to see all your photos just like you always could, they just take an extra second to load the full resolution version. It’s worth enabling, especially if you don’t have a lot of extra device storage (local, on-device storage is different from iCloud storage — it’s a hardware component of your phone, and it can’t be upgraded — you can see how much local storage your iPhone or iPad has under General>iPhone Storage).

• Keychain — This menu just leads to a simple toggle. Turn it on. It may have you go through a short setup process, but this is well worth the minute it takes to do so. We’ll talk more about iCloud Keychain later and how it can remember all your passwords for you.

• iCloud Backup — As long as you have all the other toggles turned on, having a backup isn’t quite as important as everyone thinks, but still, having a belt and suspenders never hurts. Go ahead and turn iCloud backup on.

Find My

This is where you can control whether you’re sharing your location with your friends, update which device you share your location from, and temporarily (or permanently) disable sharing.

Family Sharing

If you want to be able to share your iTunes and App Store purchases, have a shared calendar and reminders list, all use the same iCloud storage plan, and share your location with your family, you can set up family sharing. This feature has a lot of benefits, but one drawback is that everybody’s iTunes and App Store purchases go through one person’s payment method. For more info on setting up family sharing, go here.

That’s all we need to do under the Apple ID section. All of the remaining settings you’ll want to check are found under the main settings page, so go ahead and head back there.

General

Another quick one. Under the “General” tab, check these few things.

• About — Make sure your iPhone is named something like “Broc’s iPhone”, rather than the default “iPhone”. This is important so people can recognize which device belongs to you when using features like AirDrop.

• Software Update — I’ve already mention software updates once, but they’re very important. If you have a pending software update, do it. Also, make sure you’ve enabled automatic updates so you don’t have to start them manually in the future; your device will take care of it for you in the middle of the night when new updates become available.

• VPN, Profiles — Scroll down to the bottom of the “General” tab, and if you see a button that says “VPN” or “Profiles”, tap on it. If you don’t recognize the profile or VPN that’s been installed, remove it immediately. Scammers will sometimes try to talk people into installing these because they can provide dangerous access to everything you’re doing on your phone. If you don’t see either of these tabs at all, that just means you don’t have any to worry about.

Face ID & Passcode, Touch ID & Passcode

Make sure you’ve set up a strong passcode and are using Face ID or Touch ID. Biometric data, including your facial recognition and fingerprint scans, are ONLY stored on your device in a Secure Enclave. They’re never shared with Apple, never sent to iCloud, and never shared with your apps. They make your device much safer from theft and unauthorized access, and the features are so fast and work so well that you hardly notice they’re there.

Emergency SOS

This is a relatively new, potentially lifesaving feature that allows your phone to come to the rescue if you’re in danger. It provides a fast way to call emergency services, as well as share your location and send an SOS message to designated emergency contacts when the feature is used. Just make sure you’ve taken a minute to designate those contacts and know how to engage the feature if you ever need help. It’s easy to set up, but if you need some guidance, here ya go.

Privacy

This is the section that will take the most time, but it’s because it’s one of the most critical. For each of the sections below, when you tap on that menu, you’ll be presented with the list of your current apps that have requested access to that particular hardware element or type of data. After adjusting these settings, you’ll be more aware when apps send those white pop up boxes asking for access to your location or camera, and be able to make more informed decisions about whether to allow that access or not.

• Location Services — First, you want to be using location services, but you want to be smart about it. Scroll through the apps that have requested access to your location, and decide which ones truly need that access to function. Apps can offer up to four location access options: never, ask next time, while using the app, and always. There are almost NO apps that need always on access to your location, and you should automatically be suspicious of any that request it. This comes down to your individual judgement, but almost all of my apps are set to “never”, while some are on “ask next time”. A handful of min are allowed access “while using the app”, but almost none are given “always” enabled access.

• Contacts — Apps like Facebook will ask for access to your contacts so they can create networks of everyone you know. This is obviously bad, so you should almost always turn off access to your contacts for every app.

• Photos — A lot of apps will abuse having permsission to your whole photo library. If they don’t need it, cut off their access.

• Bluetooth — If you don’t know why an app needs bluetooth, turn it off. Bluetooth can be used to track your location even if you’ve already denied that same app access to your location.

• Microphone — There are a lot of apps that ask for microphone permission, but very few actually need it to work properly. Scroll through this list and turn off everything that doesn’t have an obvious need to hear what’s happening around you when you use that app.

• Camera — Same deal here: a lot of apps abuse camera privileges (Facebook just got caught doing so). If an app doesn’t absolutely NEED access to your camera to work properly, turn it off.

• Advertising — Under this menu, make sure you turn on “Limit Ad Tracking”. This is a feature that Apple built to throw invasive advertisers off your trail, and make it harder for companies to spy on you and track your activity across apps. There’s no downside to enabling it, but there’s a huge upside.

Wallet & Apple Pay

I would encourage everyone to set up and use Apple Pay in stores, online, and in apps. It’s much safer than using a normal card because it requires authentication before allowing payments to be processed, and it doesn’t give merchants your real name or card number, so you would be totally protected from breaches like the one that affected millions of Target customers a few years ago. Plus, Apple Pay is a lot more convenient and the transactions process about four times faster than waiting on your chip card to sit in the payment terminal.

Passwords & Accounts

This is that bit I was promising about making it easier to keep up with your passwords. Since you’ve already turned on iCloud Keychain, this is where it becomes useful. Under the “Passwords & Accounts” menu, you can tap “Website & App Passwords” to view all the passwords you’ve saved to your iCloud Keychain.

• Autofill Passwords — Make sure this is enabled, and your device will automatically fill in your sign in information on apps and websites where you’ve told it to remember your login info. You’ll never have to memorize another password, besides your Apple ID password, which is the master password that protects all of the ones in your keychain (so again, make sure it’s very secure!).

Mail

I personally use a few different email services, but I use iCloud as my main account. It’s a lot safer and more private than services like Gmail or Yahoo!: those companies read through your emails and use the content to send you targeted ads, whereas Apple will never read or share the contents of your inbox. You don’t have to switch all at once, but it’s a good idea to get away from companies like that. In any case, there is one specific setting to adjust no matter which accounts you use.

• Load Remote Images — Ensure this setting is disabled. Having it turned on can allow people and companies who send you emails to know when, where, and how many times you opened their messages using a deceitful technology called “surveillance pixels”. If a sender sends you an email that includes images you DO want to load, you can enable them with one tap for that specific email, rather than having it on by default.

And thats it, your Digital Health Checkup is complete! This may have been more than ten minutes of adjustments for some folks if your device was particularly messy, but for most it’s a quick process of fine tuning that can make your device a lot safer, help it run better, and provide you with some useful features you may not have been taking advantage of. As a former Apple employee, I feel qualified to say that this is a comprehensive overview of the most important and sensitive settings your device has. If you’ve followed along with this guide, you can feel confident that you’re doing everything you can to protect yourself and your data. Should you have questions or run into any issues adjusting your settings, feel free to reach out!

Frozen is the type of iconic film that has such a strong cultural presence that it’s difficult to escape. Despite its near omnipresence in DVD players, Target toy aisles, and happy meals, it doesn’t seem like anyone really got sick of Frozen in the past six years since its release, which is a testament to just how charming it was. It was an absurdly likable film made by talented artists. It had an uplifting message, fun songs, a solid plot, and it was visually interesting.

While I certainly liked Frozen, I’m about a decade and a half removed from their target audience, so I probably wouldn’t have seen Frozen II in theaters if it weren’t for a gaggle of little cousins that brought me along, however, I’m glad I went.

Frozen II was a strong sequel, and the box office proves it; according to Disney, it had the biggest global animated debut of all time. Like the first, this movie also has a good message and enjoyable music, was created by the same group of gifted artists, and is even more visually appealing.

⚠️ Spoiler Warning

As far as the plot goes, I don’t want to give away too much, but suffice it to say that the story was complex and fast moving without being overly dense. I particularly enjoyed the whole “Avatar Elsa” twist. It also teaches kids the value of looking at history for yourself and making your own decisions about the truth, rather than blindly accepting what you’ve always been told.

The music was the first film’s greatest strength, and while no song in the sequel lived up to “Let It Go”, that was such an extremely high bar that I didn’t really expect them to clear it, and I don’t think they set out with the goal of outdoing themselves. However, there are more songs in this movie that could be enjoyed without immediately seeing the movie in your head.

Idina Menzel again has the strongest song in the movie, “Into The Unknown”, while Johnathan Groff’s 80s style “Lost In The Woods” is a close second, for me. If you’re checking out the album, Panic! At The Disco’s cover of “Into The Unknown” is solid, too. I wish they’d given Kristen Bell more songs because I really like her voice, but oh well. Also, the folky, Nordic sounding vocals throughout the film were terrific, and I’m glad they were able to finally explain the music from the first film’s opening credits in a way that fit the story.

Frozen II is a strong sequel. The two films each stand on their own but complement one another nicely. Should Disney make a third? Probably not. Should you drop what you’re doing and run to the theater to see this one? Also probably not. But should you tag along if you get the chance? For sure.

I’m sure this won’t be as predatory to users as their last few attempts were.

In case you aren’t caught up, Facebook has had multiple products lately which were designed to harvest data from those they conned into using them, including the “Onavo” VPN service and the “Facebook Research” app. Both of them used shady data collection tactics where they wedged themselves deep into the settings of the devices they were installed on, and then funneled information about almost every interaction that users had on those devices back to Facebook to be analyzed and sold.

Jay Peters, writing for The Verge:

The company also says it won’t share information from the app to third parties or share your Facebook Viewpoints activity on Facebook.

Facebook says a lot of things; you’d be an idiot to believe any of it. Only an absolute fool would install this new “Viewpoints” app.

Food for thought: if a company is willing to pay you to share data with them, especially if it’s data that seems benign, imagine how much that data must actually be worth. They don’t care about your individual answers, they care about being able to manipulate people at scale. There’s proof that it works, and they’re willing to pay for the data that enables that.

It’s rare that President Trump deserves praise, but I felt it was in order when he announced that he was banning flavored cigarettes. As it turns out, he isn’t banning them because it wasn’t politically popular and he doesn’t have a fucking spine. From the New York Times:

Under pressure from his political advisers and lobbyists to factor in the potential pushback from his supporters, Mr. Trump has resisted moving forward with any action on vaping.

I find this supremely annoying. Everyone with a brain can piece together how vaping isn’t good for you, and Trump’s proposed ban would’ve been an excellent way to dial down the attractiveness of the practice to those who aren’t using it as an alternative to smoking.

Trump’s supporters will probably try to play this as a win for civil liberties, but then why weren’t they expressing concerns about civil liberties in September when the ban was announced? I don’t think that’s where their concerns truly lie; the truth is that vaping is simply popular enough among Trump supporters that cracking down on it would lead to unavoidable political fallout:

[Trump] is concerned about his chances in 2020, and allies working for the vaping industry have told Mr. Trump of battleground state polling of his own voters that showed the issue costing him support. […] The poll, which surveyed battleground state voters who vape, showed negative results for Mr. Trump if he went ahead with a ban.

It’s pretty sad that this is the issue upon which Trump fans would be willing to withdraw their support. If I didn’t know better, I’d say it’s almost as if they’re easily hoodwinked by powerful people who don’t have their best interests at heart, and boy, do they have options.