Own. Your. Lattepunk.
Lattepunk
Huge news has been happening in the world that may actually affect you, maybe, TikTok is going to get banned in the United States of A! Emphasis on “maybe”. I could make this entire newsletter on it… if it weren’t for a few reasons:
There’s great journalism already on it. Here’s The Verge coverage of it.
You can look it up yourself. Do you need help with that?
I actually don’t use TikTok, which leads me to the next bullet:
I don’t care about TikTok.
But it did get me thinking about something I do care about. Data! Not just any data, oh no reader, your data. You may have read somewhere about how your data is just thrown around all willy-nilly, but it is valuable. $200 million dollar slap on the wrist valuable.
I’m actually not even referring to that type of data. I’m going to go out on a limb and assume you’ve uploaded some sick dance moves and funny duets to your TikTok feed (which hopefully would have garnered millions of views!), but if TikTok gets banned, do you have all your videos? Think about the apps you use for a second: Facebook (you still use this!?), Instagram, YouTube, and every other social media under the sun, if they shut down (or worse, just ban you from your account) you lose access to everything you’ve uploaded there. That’s a lot of photos, videos, special moments, memories, just gone. Of course you’d never get your account banned, but it happens (imagine it’s your main source of revenue).
What about your podcast app, music playlist, contacts? I can hear you already reader: “Luis, I have my phone backed up to the cloud. I don’t need to worry about that stuff”. I’m going to assume, again, that you have all your stuff backed up to your Google or Apple account. On the all encumbering, illustrious cloud. Am I right? Well shit, that was an easy newsletter, see you next week!
Recommendations:
Stop being so naive. What happens to your stuff when you lose access to that cloud? What if Google or Apple just accidentally locks your account? Like it did for some Apple users late last week? You need to own your data! That means files, photos, passwords, etc. Not only does it make it easier in the rare case you lose access (can’t really lose access if you have the original copy yourself), it actually makes switching providers/apps/accounts really easy.
But why are you hating on the cloud!? That’s the whole point of it!!!
I’m not entirely hating on the cloud, just understand what it actually is. The mystical cloud you speak of? It’s just someone else’s computer. It’s on GDrive? That’s Google’s computer. iCloud? Apple’s computer. OneDrive? Microsoft’s computer (obligatory side note: f@#$ Mircosoft). You get my point.
My StUfF iS oN dRoPbOx!
It’s Dropbox’s computer. Come on, you’re better than that. If I told you, “Hey! Just keep all your important files on my computer. I promise to keep them safe. I also promise I won’t look at them”. Would you put your files on my computer?
Usually I’m just preaching in my newsletter, but I want to show you that I’m living the life I’m suggesting. Here’s the actual list (with my personal reasons) of what I back up offline:
Contacts (I really need these to communicate with society)
Password Manager/2FA (if you thought I was passionate about password managers, wait till I nerd out on 2FAs…)
Podcasts (I like podcasts! And I like trying new podcast apps. I don’t like adding them all one by one. Gimme dat OPML!)
RSS Feeds (I actually go to websites and read. But I don’t go individually, that’s serial killer shit. I use RSS)
This newsletter (what if buttondown just boots me? I’d lose the most interesting thing about me!)
My photos (the memories)
My router (got it setup perfectly and it gives me an excuse to make sure it’s up to date. I haven’t talked about updating your devices huh?)
My phone and desktop computer (ALL the important stuff I listed, lives on these two devices)
That’s what I back up. Every month (yes!). Offline, just in case. Am I saying you need to do all this? Not at all. I just want you to see the things I consider important to me. These things are so important, that if I lost access to them, it would conceivably ruin my week, possibly worse.
All I ask of you is to consider what digital files you deem super important to you. Then seriously figure out how to have an offline (usable by any app/program) to use those files. If my password manager of choice decides to shut down, I can easily jump to another. I try RSS apps as often as I change clothes. Don’t let yourself be locked in to one option.
If you trust you cloud provider, then I say every new years, start your year off by downloading everything offline and throwing it on a USB and keeping it safe. You can get super sick with it, like me, and keep separate USBs at a different location. Yeah, I do! What if my house burns down!? I’m suppose to lose my house, my main devices and the digital backups I had all on one swoop!? Silly goose.
Actual recommendations:
ArsTechnica has a short story about how someone’s Smart TV was causing their computer to stop working. Technology can be weird.
Privacy Not Included released their updated privacy assessments of dating apps. Here’s the opening quote: “Dating apps claim the more personal data you share, the more likely you are to find love. We have no way of knowing if that’s true. What we do know is that most dating apps fail spectacularly at protecting that information.” The things we do for love.
Ever wonder what the best racer and kart setup is in Mario Kart 8? Economist and data scientist Antoine Mayerowitz has got you covered! He made a fun and interactive way to answer that question. It’s awesome! Seriously, check it out.
If you enjoyed this, share it with someone.