Jamie Thingelstad

Rain made our stop at Jay Cooke State Park’s Swinging Bridge far too short. The light was really cool, and the scenery was awesome. We are going to come back tomorrow!

Rainy drive from Cross Lake to Duluth. 🌧

Picked up the Winnebago View for our 5-day road trip. Initial impression of the View is positive. It feels very spacious when the extension is out. The couch/Murphy bed is nice. Drives very well. Looks good too.

A Day In The Life photo challenge submission from Garrison, MN (46.293720,-93.823915) at 12:09 PM CT. 48 °F. Giant fish sculpture along Mille Lacs Lake. #adayinthelife

Tomorrow we are renting this fabulous 2018 Winnebago View and going on a short loop around Northern Minnesota. Duluth, Grand Marais, Grand Rapids, and Park Rapids. It’s going to be a chilly MEA trip! 🥶

The daily chart from The Economist showing the price ranges of the iPhone since launch puts some perspective on the price of the newest iPhones, as we wait for todays announcement of the next new iPhone.

From recent actions I think that we must conclude that Facebook and Twitter have now explicitly acknowledged that their platforms are being used in ways they do not understand, are not able to manage, and without a doubt have an impact in elections. To most people this has been obvious for years, but they have hid behind many excuses to try and avoid any accountability. These two headlines are two days apart.

Oct 7: Facebook Widens Ban on Political Ads as Alarm Rises Over Election
Oct 9: Twitter Will Turn Off Some Features to Fight Election Misinformation

Both of these companies are finally admitting that they are not able to fix the problem here. They have built platforms that others have weaponized, and they are unable to fix it. I think it is important to highlight here that I think Kara Swisher has it right when she emphasizes that people are not abusing these platforms, they are using them exactly as they were intended to be used. Nobody has been hacked. These systems were built to surveil their users, catalog their interests, and then alter your intentions in the direction of an advertiser. The part nobody seems to have considered is that while some people want to sell you toothpaste, others may want to sell you a destabilized government or some deep state conspiracy theory.

The real question here is can they be fixed? If the flaw isn’t an abuse, but is instead an intended use, what is there to fix?

I am happy to see that we’ve finally left the realm of these for profit companies cloaking themselves in First Amendment rights and disavowing that they have any impact in something like an election. (Funny isn’t it that they certainly would be clear that they can get you to buy a different toothpaste though. Those T-Rex arms in full effect.)

I’m in the camp that for Facebook I don’t think there is a fix. I think there is a fatal component in their design and at the scale they are today it cannot be undone. Twitter on the hand I do think could be fixed. Make all accounts cost $5 or $10 a month. At that price bots go away. Get rid of the active users metric that makes them magically inept at finding bot accounts. Get rid of retweets without an additional comment. And clean up the dark corners filled with hate, racism and sexist garbage. Mostly Twitter is small enough that it could still be fixed, and the core user base is addicted enough that they would pay and if 90% of of the garbage accounts went away none of the core users would know anyway.

This weekend I wired up two additional platforms that I’m syndicating to. I’m now sharing to Mastadon and am @jthingelstad@mastodon.social. This is built into micro.blog so I decided to turn it on for those that may prefer it. I also configured Zapier to share the Weekly Thing to Medium. If you prefer Medium you can find @jthingelstad there and this is a full share, with all the content. Right now I’m only sharing the Weekly Thing to Medium. The best way to get all of of my stuff directly is still via RSS or Email.

In Paul Jarvis Sunday Dispatch today he highlights how he disagrees with the assumption in “main-stream startup culture” that you have to “move at break-neck speed”. I started writing a reply in email and decided to make it a post instead. 🙂

I think Jarvis is largely right on this. I strongly dislike the growing use of the word “hustle” in startups. It feel cheap and underhanded (to pressure or coerce). Hustle and pivot are now widely accepted terms, and both describe what are likely failure modes.

Also bringing in physics, fast isn’t enough. Speed in a direction is needed. Velocity. A lot of speed at all costs ignores the fundamental question of “where are we going?”

Maybe ignoring where you are going is why pivot and hustle are so prominent in the language?

We had delicious pizza from Pizzeria 201 at their pop up spot by 10,000 Drops in Faribault tonight. 🍕🍹🤤

It was great to see the current ACE Leadership class present at todays MnTech Board meeting. They formed multiple teams and engaged with Genesys Works, Lunar Startups, Reve Academy, PCs for People, and Technovation[MN]. These teams worked with their non-profit partners to do analysis on recommendations, new programs and other ways to continue to drive their mission forward. This was a great way to learn more about these groups and what they are doing, further develop technology talent with real world experience, and give back to organizations that are doing good in our community! 👏

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has lowered the Mississippi River by 12 feet to inspect locks and dams. We went tonight to see what it looked like with the water so much lower. Much of the Stone Arch Bridge is completely out of water. There were a lot of people mingling around.

The view from above showed a lot of riverbed in the main part of the river, and you could see a bunch of people out in the dry areas.

We went down to the water following some paths on the North end of the Stone Arch Bridge.

We were there as the sun set. It was a pretty fun sight to see.

I upgraded the video conferencing setup in my home office. Setup a studio light that I’ve had for photography. Got an Audio-Technica AT2005USB microphone on a mini-boom. The audio is incredibly better. The light is a big help early in the morning.

Excuse me while I vent for a moment. Today I tried to visit the State of Minnesota COVID-19 resource page. I wanted to see what the State of Minnesota had shared recently. However, when I visited the page it was blank. Just a white page.

I run multiple layers of software to block surveillance software on the web. It amazes me that this software blocks about 30% of all requests that my browser attempts to make, and by and large websites I visit are unaffected. Just think about that for a second. 30% of all web activity that my browser goes to offers no value to me, but is instead surveilling me for various other activities.

Back to the State of Minnesota though, unfortunately their site breaks entirely if you block this surveillance. I tested it and if I paused blocking it worked, enabled blocking and it was a blank white screen again.

This burns me up because this is my government resource that I want to access, and I do not think that my government should force me to be surveilled by private companies in order to access resources I want as a citizen of my state. I feel the same way when government services are only available via social networks. There should be no circumstance where I should have to submit to surveillance in order to get access to government information.

So, what is all this amazing stuff that the State of Minnesota wants to watch me with? Let’s take a look.

First, we have Google Tag Manager which is Google’s bundled thing to put nearly anything into a website. Google is all over the web and follows us nearly everywhere I go. I especially dislike the idea of Google seeing what resources I’m looking at from government services. That could lead to some terrible profiling activities. Plus, Google has nothing to do with Minnesota and I don’t see why I need to send my data to a company in California to get information from Minnesota.

Registrant Organization: Google LLC
Registrant State/Province: CA
Registrant Country: US

Next we have SiteImprove! Now we aren’t just getting another state involved but an entire separate country. It turns out that a company in Denmark is also needed to get me my COVID-19 information from Minnesota.

Registrant Organization: Siteimprove AS
Registrant State/Province: 
Registrant Country: DK

Okay, deep breaths. Now we add cdn.perfdrive.com, which I’ve never heard of. They don’t seem to have an easily available website. Their domain registration is hidden behind a legal proxy, so I have no means to identify who this company is that is getting my data.

Then we have something called btstatic.com. The domain’s whois information shows some entity in Chicago, IL but then an administrative contact in the United Kingdom. With Denmark already in the mix we have a full global action here for me to talk to my State Government.

Registrant Organisation: Signal Digital, Inc.
Registrant Street: 222 N. LaSalle St.
Registrant Street: Suite 1600
Registrant City: Chicago
Registrant State/Province: IL
Registrant Postal Code: 60601
Registrant Country: US

Admin Organisation: Safenames Ltd
Admin Street: Safenames House, Sunrise Parkway
Admin Street: Linford Wood
Admin City: Milton Keynes
Admin State/Province: Bucks
Admin Postal Code: MK14 6LS
Admin Country: UK

Rounding out the fun we also have two additional California companies that are getting my data too. Apparently we are optimizing via optimizely.com and amplifying via amplitude.com! Ugh.

Registrant Organization: Optimizely
Registrant State/Province: California
Registrant Country: US

Admin Organization: Amplitude
Admin State/Province: CA
Admin Country: US

So to recap, in order for me to get COVID-19 information from the State of Minnesota I need to give my data to three companies in California, one in Denmark, one in Chicago or the UK, and a final one that I have no legal way of identifying.

It should be a requirement that government resources on the web are available without surveillance. Citizens should not be forced to send there data all over the globe to get something that is essential to the services expected.

Happy Birthday to my amazing, awesome, and astounding Mom! 🎉 I would literally be nothing without her. I have been so lucky to have someone to guide, teach, and help me throughout my life. 💚

First time visit to Dancing Bear Chocolate to get treats for my Mom’s birthday. They also made a custom Carrot Cake for her that was delicious and super filling!