Victor Morton for The Washington Times:
A clip posted to YouTube by the PBS NewsHour shows Mr. Trump walking through the Arizona facility without a mask to the song “Live and Let Die.”
Absolutely fucking incredible. You can’t make this shit up.
🇺🇸 United States: 0
🦠 COVID-19: 12
John Gruber on Daring Fireball:
Apple’s new $400 iPhone SE offers faster performance than any Android phone money can buy, but that the two-and-a-half-year-old iPhone 8 has better single-threaded performance than any Android phone today — and the iPhone 8 was the phone Apple discontinued for the new $400 iPhone SE. Apple discontinued an iPhone that, if it were an Android phone, would be the fastest in single-threaded performance on the market today.
Processor performance is definitely an area where Apple doesn’t get nearly enough credit. iPhones are blowing Android devices out of the water.
Jeremy Diamond, Paul LeBlanc and Kevin Liptak, reporting for CNN:
Vice President Mike Pence is not planning to enter self-quarantine after his press secretary tested positive for coronavirus on Friday and plans to be at the White House on Monday, a Pence spokesperson said on Sunday.
Of course he’s not. Chump surely isn’t going to allow his Vice Puppet and biggest cheerleader to suggest that the coronavirus pandemic needs to be taken seriously, especially when he’s ignoring the advice of his own CDC to prove his point. At this point, we can only hope that masses of republicans follow their lead while those of us with brains take the necessary precautions.
🇺🇸 United States: 0
🦠 COVID-19: 12
Steve Almasy and Angela Barajas, reporting for CNN:
Two men involved in the fatal shooting of Ahmaud Arbery near Brunswick, Georgia, have been arrested and face murder and aggravated assault charges, according to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation.
Gregory McMichael and his son, Travis McMichael, were taken into custody, the GBI said Thursday evening.
If you can watch this video and still wonder if the murderer’s aren’t getting fair coverage, you’re a fucking idiot. No pun intended, but this case is 100% black and white. There is no guesswork to be done, no grand mystery to solve, no hidden motives to uncover, nothing. This murder was a premeditated hate crime, and it’s a shame that it took three months for the white trash murderers to be arrested. Here’s to hoping they’re convicted swiftly and receive the death penalty.
Yesterday, Stephenie Meyer announced that “Midnight Sun” will be released later this year. If you’re unfamiliar with “Midnight Sun” it is essentially a version of “Twilight” from Edward’s point of view instead of Bella’s. Meyer announced that she was working on this project a decade ago, but after a manuscript getting leaked and years without any mention of it, most people who knew what it was assumed the project scrapped.
I’ll be honest and say that I did read the Twilight books (I agree the movies are terrible), and a enjoyed them a lot. While this new version isn’t going to be groundbreaking from a plot perspective, it is at least an interesting exercise and a neat look into another character’s head.
I’m getting plenty of reading done these days, so this will be a fun addition to the stack of bookings I’m working through during quarantine.
.@JoeBiden: What we need is more “economic intercourse” pic.twitter.com/zLa8hqspC0
— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) April 28, 2020
Jesus Christ. I mean, what on earth. He’s better than Trump when it comes to a lot of things — he’s more honest, less arrogant, less narcissistic, less vindictive, etc. — but he seems just as crazy (and he also isn’t squeaky clean when it comes to in appropriate sexual conduct). Let’s hope that Biden wins in November, and is self aware enough to realize that he needs to act as a figurehead while allowing a kickass cabinet to call the shots.
It’s worth pointing out obvious biases when they occur, regardless of whether it’s the right or the left. It’s not often that Fox News is the best place to get information, but in this case, no other major news outlets covered it. Is this something that’s extremely impactful right now? No. But it’s still an absurd phrase to coin, especially when the wordsmith behind it is the presumptive Democratic nominee for president. This should’ve been covered by the liberal networks too, but it wasn’t.
To anyone unfamiliar with Myers-Briggs personality types: buckle up, you’re in for a treat. A website called 16personalities.com has developed a personality type assessment that uses decades worth of research to provide people with a way to understand human personalities on a deep level. After taking their personality assessment, your result will be one of 16 possible combinations of letters (such as ESTJ, ISFJ, or ENFP) in which each letter indicates degrees of a trait that offers insight into how you process information, interact with the world, and more.
It really is a remarkable way of coming to understand the people around you and gain insight into why they behave the way they do, and how you can get along and communicate with them more effectively. Not only is it a great tool to help you understand others, but it’s a great tool to help you understand yourself and why you think and behave the way you do. The test itself only takes about ten minutes, but figuring out your personality type and what it means can change your life. Take the test here.
There are two primary reasons that I love Apple Pay: financial security/privacy protections and convenience. In both areas, Apple Pay is truly top of class.
When it comes to convenience, Apple Pay is hard to beat because it’s lightning fast and can be used in a variety of contexts.
Primarily, Apple Pay was designed to replace your physical card when you need to pay for something in a brick and mortar store. It works a lot faster than the chip cards, and it doesn’t require any physical contact between your device and the payment terminal (this is obviously a plus, given that we’re in the middle of a pandemic). After you’ve added your card to Apple Pay, the Wallet app will offer more detailed transaction lists than most bank accounts provide (whether you used the version of your card in Apple Pay or the physical card), which are easy to read and even include location data so you know exactly where that transaction took place. It really comes in handy if you need to purchase something and find you’ve forgotten your wallet or purse. Most retailers accept Apple Pay these days, and I personally prefer to shop at places that do because it’s so much faster than swiping or inserting a physical card. You can use Apple Pay anywhere you see one of these two symbols:
However, Apple Pay isn’t limited to in-store use: you can also use Apple Pay in apps and on websites on your iPhone, iPad, and Mac to quickly pay for things with just one step. It’s great when you want to order something from a merchant you don’t frequently purchase from because it keeps your payment information private and doesn’t require you to create an account with that retailer.
Most recently, Apple Pay has expanded to allow individuals to send money to other Apple Pay users directly through the built in Messages apps from their iPhone, Apple Watch, or iPad. This expansion challenges popular services like Venmo and the Cash App, and it gives Apple users another, more convenient option to send money to their friends without needing to install separate apps that have their own security and privacy baggage. To facilitate payments between individuals, Apple has also created a digital Apple Cash card, which works just like your other credit and debit cards. Whenever you receive money from someone, this card is essentially the debit card account where that money lives, until you either spend it using Apple Pay (which you can do in stores or online), send it to someone else, or transfer the funds to your bank account.
A common misconception is that Apple Pay is not very safe because it’s digital, but in fact, the opposite is true. Apple Pay is so secure that it’s actually safer than using your real credit or debit card in brick and mortar stores, online, or in apps. Let me elaborate.
When you add your card to Apple Pay, your device will create a new 16-digit card number (called a device account number) which will be given to merchants when you use Apple Pay for a transaction. This number is unique to your device, and it cannot be unscrambled or put through any sort of algorithm to spit out your real card number. This means that if someone were to get their hands on your device account number, they wouldn’t be able to use it to steal your money. For example, when a merchant’s payment system gets hacked and bad actors get ahold of a bunch of people’s credit card numbers (like what happened with Target in 2013), had you been using Apple Pay, they would’ve only gotten your device account number, not your real credit or debit card number (because your device never gave Target your real number). They wouldn’t have been able to steal any money, and you wouldn’t need to get a new card from your bank. In fact, you wouldn’t have had to do anything at all.
The reason for that is that each Apple Pay transaction you initiate requires a unique token code that is specific to the time and date, the amount of money you’re trying to spend, and the merchant trying to process the transaction. This works in concert with the Device Account Number, and if all of those elements don’t check out, the transaction won’t be authorized.
Even still, cards you add to Apple Pay are never stored in iCloud or Apple servers, and are protected by your device’s passcode and biometric authentication systems, meaning that even if a bad actor somehow got around the protections offered by the device account number and the token code, they would still have to have physical possession of your device, AND know your passcode.
There is really no imaginable way in which this system could be thwarted.
So, you’re interested, but how do you set it up and try it out? I’ll help you get started.
The process for setting up Apple Pay is largely the same across devices. You’ll scan your card with your device’s camera or just type in the numbers manually, and in some cases you’ll need to verify your identity with your bank, usually through a text message authentication code. If your device doesn’t already have a passcode (which it absolutely should, even Apple Watches*)
To set up Apple Pay on your iPhone, go to the Wallet app and tap the + button in the top right corner, then choose “Credit or Debit Card”, and follow the steps to add your card.
To set up Apple Pay on your Apple Watch, start off by going to the Watch app on your iPhone, tap Wallet & Apple Pay → Add A New Card.
To set up Apple Pay on your iPad, go to Settings → Wallet & Apple Pay → Add A New Card.
To set up Apple Pay on your Mac, go to System Preferences → Wallet & Apple Pay, and click the + button.
If you have any trouble along the way, check out Apple’s “Set Up Apple Pay” support page, or get help from CopyrightBro by selecting “Tech Help” from the menu and filing a support request.
Actually using Apple Pay couldn’t be any easier.
To use Apple Pay in stores:
With an iPhone:
If your iPhone has Face ID:
Open the Wallet app, or double click the side button to quickly open the Wallet app with your default payment card ready to go. If you want to use a different card, just slide your default card down and your other cards will pop up. Choose the one you’d like to use, authenticate with Face ID, and hold your device near the payment terminal when the merchant is ready. You should feel a little pulse, hear a chime, and see a checkmark appear on screen: these cues are just letting you know you’ve done your part to complete the transaction.
If your iPhone has Touch ID:
Open the Wallet app, or double click the home button from the lock screen to quickly open the Wallet app with your default payment card ready to go. If you want to use a different card, just slide your default card down and your other cards will pop up. Choose the one you’d like to use, authenticate with Touch ID, and hold your device near the payment terminal when the merchant is ready. You should feel a little pulse, hear a chime, and see a checkmark appear on screen: these cues are just letting you know you’ve done your part to complete the transaction.
With an Apple Watch:
Open the Wallet app, or double click the side button (the flat one that doesn’t turn) to quickly open the Wallet app with your default payment card ready to go. If you want to use a different card, just slide your default card to the left to access the next card in your wallet. Hold your Watch near the payment terminal. You should feel a little pulse, hear a chime, and see a checkmark appear on screen: these cues are just letting you know you’ve done your part to complete the transaction.
To use Apple Pay in apps and online:
With an iPhone, iPad, or Mac:
Click or tap on the button that says “Pay with Pay”, confirm all of the details that appear, select the card you want to use and the appropriate billing/shipping addresses, and then authenticate with Touch ID or Face ID. You should feel a little pulse, hear a chime, and see a checkmark appear on screen: these cues are just letting you know you’ve done your part to complete the transaction.
To use Apple Pay to send money to friends:
With an iPhone or iPad:
Go to the Messages app and open a conversation with the person you’d like to send money to. Choose the Pay button from the app drawer that shows up at the bottom of the screen when the keyboard is dismissed. Select the amount you want using the +/- buttons or the keypad, and then tap “Request” or “Pay” depending on whether you want to send or ask for money. You can also type a message to send with the request or payment denoting what it’s for. If requesting, you can send the request by tapping the send button. If sending money, an Apple Pay screen will pop up when you tap the send button, prompting you to review the details of your payment and then authenticate with Touch ID or Face ID to complete it. You should feel a little pulse, hear a chime, and see a checkmark appear on screen: these cues are just letting you know you’ve completed the payment.
With an Apple Watch:
Open Messages and chose a conversation with the person you want to send money to. Tap the Pay button, adjust the amount you want to send, and then double tap the side button to confirm the payment.You should feel a little pulse, hear a chime, and see a checkmark appear on screen: these cues are just letting you know you’ve completed the payment.
Next time you go to the store, you’ll be delighted by how much faster it is to pay for your items. Next time a retailer you frequent has their payment systems compromised, you won’t have to freak out because some stranger might have your debit card number. Apple Pay solves a lot of problems, and it’s also delightful to use. Try it out for a few weeks: you won’t want to go back.
Stephen Sorace, writing for Fox News:
The United States recorded 1 million coronavirus cases Tuesday, the first nation in the world to reach the grim milestone […]
The mounting infections across the U.S. come as the death toll exceeded 57,000, according to a tally by Johns Hopkins University.
The coronavirus pandemic has slammed into the economy so hard the nation's GDP has fallen by 4.8 percent, bringing the longest economic expansion on record to an abrupt halt. […]
It's the steepest decline since the Great Recession, which ended in 2009.
None of this is surprising, given how well our federal government has handled this. Can you even imagine what people would be saying about Obama if Swine Flu, Ebola, or Zika had infected and killed so many Americans, or had caused the economy to fall into a tailspin like the one we’re experiencing now? Especially given that the president didn’t take the steps recommended to him by health officials in the early days, forced all of the hard decisions on to the governors, and still hasn’t been able to produce results when it comes to significantly boosting our capacity to test for the virus; there would’ve been legitimate calls for impeachment.
🇺🇸 United States: 0
🦠 COVID-19: 11
Just watch it, and know that the person we elected to be the leader of our country actually said all of this stuff about killing a virus by putting ultraviolet light inside people’s bodies and injecting them with disinfectant.
"The disinfectant, where it knocks it out in a minute, and is there a way we can do something like that by injection inside, or almost a cleaning. It gets in the lungs" -- Trump seems to suggests that injecting disinfectant inside people could be a treatment for the coronavirus pic.twitter.com/amis9Rphsm
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) April 23, 2020
Honestly, if you’re stupid enough to listen to him, I feel sorry for you, but you aren’t going to be naturally selected.
That said, next round of Clorox shots is on me for anyone who wants em.
🇺🇸 United States: 0
🦠 COVID-19: 10
Julie Pace and Hannah Fingerhut, reporting for The Associated Press:
Just 28% of Americans say they’re regularly getting information from Trump about the coronavirus and only 23% say they have high levels of trust in what the president is telling the public. Another 21% trust him a moderate amount.
Confidence in Trump is higher among his supporters, though only about half of Republicans say they have a lot of trust in Trump’s information on the pandemic — and 22% say they have little or no trust in what he says about the COVID-19 outbreak.
This is not a good look for a president during an election year, but it’s also not encouraging for our prospects winning the fight against Coronavirus without a lot more death and economic pain, given that our leader inspires so little trust.
🇺🇸 United States: 0
🦠 COVID-19: 9
A header from one of McConnell’s recent press releases on was titled “On Stopping Blue State Bailouts”; the section went on the detail how Mitch McConnell was taking a “you made your bed, lie in it” approach to dealing with states with Democratic leaders, even though blue states are no more responsible for this pandemic than red states. In reality, what happened was our Commander in Cheeto lied to us at bedtime and tucked us in while assuring us everything was okay, despite the fact that many of us smelled the smoke issuing from the blaze in the other room (a blaze Trump was briefed on months ahead of time). McConnell’s notion that Democrats are responsible for dealing with this on their own in the states they lead is absurd. If the house burns down, we all go with it.
As things often do with Moscow Mitch, this boils down to shameless partisanship. This particular instance further illustrates how dangerously greedy McConnell is, and shows, yet again, that he is far more concerned with protecting the powerful elites of the Republican party than he is with protecting the citizens of this country, and he’s not above holding political grudges and using policy disagreements as a basis to sabotage relief efforts for states with Democratic leaders.
🇺🇸 United States: 0
🦠 COVID-19: 8
Here’s the thing though, just because a state has a Democratic governor doesn’t mean they have Democratic senators, and the Republican Party only holds control of the senate by three seats. If Mitch isn’t careful, he could cost some of his buddies their jobs, and ultimately lose his position as Majority Leader in the process, if not lose his own seat.
Fortunately, if you’re tired of Moscow Mitch, you can do something about it. There’s never been a better time, so I would encourage everyone to donate to Vote Save America’s “Get Mitch or Die Trying” fund, which funnels donations to the campaigns most well positioned to win seats away from the Republican Party and take away their Senate majority.
Starting soon, employees of churches and other faith based, tax exempt organizations who have experienced lay offs and hour reductions as a result of COVID-19 will be eligible to receive unemployment benefits under the Pandemic Unemployment Assistance program included in the CARES Act (Congress’s $2T bill that included the $1,200 stimulus check and small business paycheck protection loans).
From The U.S. Department of Labor:
Depending on state law, covered individuals may also include clergy and those working for religious organizations who are not covered by regular unemployment compensation.
I’m not going to beat around the bush, this is unfair.
If someone were to theoretically refuse to pay in to social security for their whole life, and then expect the government to fund their retirement when they reach age 65, everyone would agree that’s unfair. People often label social security as a socialist program in the first place with massive solvency issues (technically true statements), but in a scenario such as the one described above, it’s not socialism, it’s a perversion of socialism and an outright slap in the face to free market capitalism. There is no individual scenario nor economic system where it’s fair to refuse to contribute to society and then demand that society gives you or the people who work for you a handout when times get tough, even exceptionally and unforeseeably so, as they have as a result of COVID-19. And make no mistake: this is a perverted socialist handout.
A hallmark of free market capitalism is that employers and employees negotiate their own contracts for pay and benefits. If you chose, whether out of ignorance and apathy or via an informed decision, to work for an organization who refuses to pay in to a social safety net program that could help you personally in the event that you come upon hard times, that’s your problem. In our current system (whether you agree with it or not) it’s your prerogative to negotiate for the benefits you may need, whether that’s unemployment insurance, health insurance, retirement packages, or otherwise.
Separation of church and state is a two way street; if you want to register your faith based organization as a nonprofit so that you can play by a different set of rules and avoid taxes, so be it, but don’t expect to reap the benefits of the tax dollars that every other small business has to contribute. I don’t care if your organization’s income is based on tithing and therefore allegedly unpredictable, nor do I care about any of the other excuses that may be offered. If your organization wants to operate in this economy and not pay taxes, your management had better be good enough to keep the organization afloat when hard times hit, because when you scream about separation of church and state, you cut the safety net out from under yourself.
At the end of the day, do I think we ought to just leave the people who will benefit from the PUA program to suffer? No, I don’t, because that’s not the right thing to do. Even though, if we didn’t bail them out, they’d blame Nancy Pelosi until the end of time and blabber on incessantly about the “persecution” of Christians.*
Politics is often a tit for tat game these days, and kicking people while they’re down as opposed to offering them a hand will do a lot less to bring our country back together. However, I think people who are going to receive these benefits owe it to the rest of society to accept them with a bit of humility, understand why special rules had to be put in place to accommodate them, and be a little more careful to vet the organizations they go to work for in the future. I’ll be far less sympathetic the next time something like this happens if they do nothing this time to show their appreciation or prevent themselves from ending up in this predicament again.
A fun compilation by CBS News that includes such hits as:
“We've taken the most aggressive actions to confront the coronavirus. They are the most aggressive taken by any country.”
“Stock Market starting to look very good to me!"
“Great discipline is taking place in China, as President Xi strongly leads what will be a very successful operation.”
“And, so far, if you look at what we have with the 15 people and their recovery, one is — one is pretty sick but hopefully will recover, but the others are in great shape. But think of that: 25,000 to 69,000. ... "And again, when you have 15 people, and the 15 within a couple of days is going to be down to close to zero, that's a pretty good job we've done.”
“I would love to have the country opened up and just raring to go by Easter.”
"Anybody that wants a test can get a test. ... The tests are all perfect, like the letter was perfect, the transcription was perfect, right?”
"Well, this was unexpected.“
"This could be a hell of a bad two weeks."
“It's not the flu. It's vicious.”
And my personal favorite:
“It's going to disappear. One day it's like a miracle, it will disappear.”
This roundup on covers until the very beginning of April, so hopefully CBS News will update it again soon so as to include the rest of the month: after all, we don’t want any Americans to miss all of the valuable insight and sage advice flowing bountifully from our very effective wartime president. Lol.
🇺🇸 United States: 0
🦠 COVID-19: 7
Niall Horan’s first solo album, ”Flicker”, is probably one of my favorite albums, so I was really excited for his second to drop.
Said second album, titled “Heartbreak Weather”, was released a few weeks ago, and I’m not at all disappointed. The whole album is really solid, with a few tracks that really stand out (my favorites are “Black And White”, “Dear Patience”, and “San Francisco”).
Apple and Google will be launching a comprehensive solution that includes application programming interfaces (APIs) and operating system-level technology to assist in enabling contact tracing. Given the urgent need, the plan is to implement this solution in two steps while maintaining strong protections around user privacy.
As I noted in a piece titled “The New Patriot Act” a few weeks ago, I am staunchly opposed to the implementation of any sort of mandated contact tracing surveillance system.
As a general rule, I trust Apple implicitly when it comes to privacy matters, so this piece of news about Apple partnering with Google to build contact tracing technologies was startling to me upon first glance. However, after reading their Newsroom briefing, it seems to me that Apple is doing this for the sake of consumer privacy rather than in spite of it: by announcing the development of a contact tracing system before one could be created by the government, they’re making it much more likely that a mandatory surveillance system from the government will never come to fruition, allowing citizens the privacy of an opt-in system provided by the free market.
First, in May, both companies will release APIs that enable interoperability between Android and iOS devices using apps from public health authorities. These official apps will be available for users to download via their respective app stores.
Second, in the coming months, Apple and Google will work to enable a broader Bluetooth-based contact tracing platform by building this functionality into the underlying platforms. This is a more robust solution than an API and would allow more individuals to participate, if they choose to opt in, as well as enable interaction with a broader ecosystem of apps and government health authorities.
The approaches they’re taking do seem to respect user privacy, in that they’re requiring users to explicitly opt-in and that they're creating these systems in a way that they can function without any GPS data (though I’m concerned about the ease with which nearly all of this anonymous proximity location could be associated with real world locations).
There are other instances of contact tracing happening in the United States already (not to mention the outright surveillance systems being used by Iran, China, and Israel). For instance, Massachusetts is implementing an old school contact tracing system to slow the spread of COVID-19 that involves employees calling infected patients and all of their contacts to create social maps of potential infections among contact networks, very similar to the (frankly offensive and regressive) programs utilized by public health departments when a new case of a sexually transmitted infection is reported to them (a legally mandated practice, even if you are diagnosed with an STI at a private practice), whereby the health department takes it upon themselves to contact the patient and demand they tell them who all they’ve been bedding down with so they can stir shit up and make the patient and anyone else they contact feel bad about themselves because our society is fundamentally built upon the puritanical notion that sexuality is an inherently shameful aspect of the human condition; I digress, the point is that contact tracing is not a process that respects privacy and I have little confidence that the government will get it right this time around, whether its done digitally or the old fashioned way.
I still believe our best options for combating COVID-19 are frequent hand washing and sanitizing, maintaining distance in public spaces, wearing masks when around crowds, and expanded testing for people who currently may have the virus, as well as antibody tests to determine who has acquired immunity.
I am not likely to opt in to any sort of tracking, and I would encourage you to strongly consider the long term consequences of allowing systems like this to get a foothold in our society.
As if I needed a reason to hate either of them more than I already do.
Carole Baskin donating to @SenatorBurr's re-election campaign is the most "this week" development of this week.
— Dave Levinthal (@davelevinthal) April 14, 2020
Per a new @FEC filing: pic.twitter.com/LuKY4Lsoz6
A massive upset. Reid Epstein, reporting for The New York Times:
The victory, by upward of 120,000 votes as of Monday night, came as a shock to Republicans and Democrats alike in Wisconsin, where the most recent contests for president, governor and the state’s high court have each been decided by about 30,000 votes or less.
We could spend a lot of time analyzing the politics of this outcome and what it may mean for the general election in November, as well as who the more deserving candidate was based on personal ideology. But if we take the political parties out of it, one thing we should be able to agree on is this: any true American patriot ought to love seeing an underdog story in which the will of the people triumphs over attempted voter suppression by corrupt, powerful elites.
The writing has been on the wall that Bernie’s campaign was coming to an end for about a month now; since the COVID-19 pandemic began ramping up in the United States, the primary season was more or less over. And today, Bernie Sanders ended his campaign to be the Democratic Party’s nominee for president. Now, Joe Biden is the only Democrat still running for the party’s nomination, so it’s all but guaranteed that he will be the candidate facing off against Trump in November.
I think this is for the best. As it stands, I’m not much of a Biden fan, but I think he represents less of a harm to our democracy than a Sanders presidency would. I don’t say this because Bernie branded himself as a Democratic Socialist — I actually think some of his ideas that have been branded as “socialist” are deeply American — this is a good opportunity to put preconceptions aside and evaluate someone based on their ideas rather than their labels. I felt like his candidacy was a threat to democracy because of he followers. His followers hailed him as a political diety who could do no wrong, they had a tendency to behave like outright fascists in their unrelenting defense of Sanders and unprovoked attacks on anyone who asked innocent questions about the logistics of their platform, and they maintained an aggressive intolerance for opinions that didn’t align perfectly with theirs (see: Deontologists vs. Consequentialists). Fascism does not belong to the far right, and the Bernie Bros were proof of that.
Distrubingly, many of Bernie’s supporters placed Bernie on such a high platform that they were not necessarily willing to vote for another democratic candidate should Bernie not secure the nomination. Given this, Biden will have to move a little more to the left to bring some of Bernie’s followers into his campaign (though he’ll have to be careful as to not alienate some of his most moderate supporters by moving too far to the left too quickly), and lot of people have said that combatting climate change is an issue where Biden could afford to adopt some more progressive policies to help encourage the Bernie Bros to join his campaign. I digress: there will be plenty more punditry to come in the following months.
All in all, Bernie has done a lot over the course of his career to move the political conversation in the United States to the left, and he should be proud of the way he has been able to bring some elements of his platform that were once considered radical into the mainstream. Even if he won’t be the president to enact the changes he’s fought for, he has still been instrumental in bringing them to fruition.
Ashley Carman, writing for The Verge:
[The app] connects to Spotify for music sharing, and a couple can send each other photos, notes, cards, and voice memos. They can also use custom stickers and reactions. It’s free to use and seemingly doesn’t require a Facebook account, although users are subject to Facebook’s data rules, meaning the data people provide can be used for ad targeting.
Of course it can, Facebook is not in the business of giving anything away for free: any time you use a Facebook product, you are paying for it with as much data as Facebook is able to lap up.
Despite the fact that Tuned’s App Store page uses the word “private” four times, nothing about this app is private. Every time they use this word in the context of a product or service governed by the Facebook Data Policy, they are lying to you.
Last year, we learned Facebook was setting up a dating service, so this new project obviously seems related. Not only does Facebook want to try its hand at setting people up for intimate relationships, but they also want to analyze they behavior of couples who are already together. All of this makes Facebook better at manipulating people, and it sets them up to make more money through increasingly effective targeted advertising.
If you use this app, you’re nuts.
