Jamie Thingelstad

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!

I was texting recently and wanted to reference an Old Fashioned and it dawned on me that there was a perfect emoji reference for that drink!

Old Fashioned

🥃🍊🍒

It captures the bourbon, and then the two dominate flavors of orange and cherry.

Could Emoji Triples be used to describe any cocktail? So I took a run at some.

Gin & Tonic

🍹🍋🏖

Nice drink. Lemons, and something you might drink on a beach.

Mojito

🍹🥥🍍

This is definitely an umbrella drink. Coconut implies sweetness. Pineapple?

Moscow Mule

🥃🐴🇷🇺

This one seemed harder. Copper mug? Cocktail tumbler. Mule? Bring on a horse. Moscow? Let’s use a Russian flag.

Voted! ✅

I prefer voting by mail. We get the kids involved. We can do research on the smaller down ballot elections and make more informed decisions. It is much more relaxing and allows the electorate to be more informed. I will be delivering the package by hand to the city office.

It took 6 months for COVID-19 to go from the March lockdowns to the White House. COVID-19 is still less than one year old!

Trump Tests Positive for the Coronavirus

Related, from two days ago, Study Finds ‘Single Largest Driver’ of Coronavirus Misinformation: Trump.

The covid-19 recession is the most unequal in modern U.S. history.

Had a great evening with a couple of friends sitting around the fire, drinking an Old Fashioned or three, and having good laughs. 🥃🔥

I enjoy Dense Discovery and the variety of topics that Kai brings to the newsletter. It was an easy decision to sign up for the new Friend of DD program announced in issue 107.

A “twofer” of geeky humor in one shirt. Stay at home, wear a mask.🤓

Finished a much needed organizing and upgrading of my home office setup. This is working much better on every dimension.

Amazon’s marketing strategy with Ring seems to be:

1. Make you worry about something you weren’t worried about yesterday.
2. Sell you a product to try and counteract that worry they created for you.
3. Try to distract you with technology that seems from the future.
4. Give lip service to privacy concerns.
5. Create a large volume of data to sell you more things.