not a love letter
Herpes Kill Switch is my new band name
Dear Apple,
Who is in charge of your email product, that iCloud, me- or mac-dot-com thing? Are they OK? Is s/he making the team take their PTO days or did they all quit?
I'm asking because sometimes, when you install an update on my phone in the middle of the night, I wake up to a deluge of junk email. It comes in faster than I can delete it, 80 or more a day.
And then sometimes, when you install another update on my phone in the middle of the night, I wake up and there's no junk email at all. It's like you turned the spigot off. Patched some kind of hole. Righted the ship.
Which I deeply appreciate, until the next middle-of-the-night update, which brings back the deluge.
You guys do use your own products, right? How is this not giving you whiplash?
A year ago some asshole hacked into the DC Health Exchange, stole more than 55,000 people's info — including mine — and tried to sell it back to the FBI while proclaiming "Glory to Russia" in Cyrillic. I'm not sure I can blame all of this on the Russians, though.
In case you don't actually look at your junk mail folder, I let mine fill up for a week and a half, for research purposes. There are four main categories of junque.
Class action lawsuits
I'm not mad at these. Whatever you need to do to reach the people affected, do it. Luckily I haven't been assaulted in an Uber or Lyft (yet), nor have talcum powder or hair relaxer given me cancer.
Homeownership hell
I get why marketers think I own my own home, because I did for a minute. But even then I had no use for gutter guards, solar panels, new doors or windows, home equity loans, or low-ball cash offers to buy me out.
Credit cards
I do need a credit card that won't impose additional fees in other countries, but hell will freeze over before I sign up for one called Destiny, Imagine, Aspire, Revvi, Fortiva, or any other stripper name.
Packages
It cannot be that hard to prevent fraudulent UPS, Fedex, or post office alerts about packages I never ordered.
The long tail
This is where it gets weirdly specific. I don't have room to list them all, but here are the worst repeat offenders, the ones who want to sell me on:
Hemp gummies that will let me "go cruisin'."
A hearing aid that will correct my hearing loss, which stems from a toxic chemical in my brain that is eating away at my memory.
A "weird bedtime trick to avoid total prostate failure."
A "top-selling men's vitality product" so I can "enjoy more passion in the bedroom."
A Miracle Molecule that will give me "better vision than an army sniper."
A message from Herpes Kill Switch that "herpes will destroy your brain if you don’t eat certain foods."
A samurai sword knife that is "both a conversation starter and a sign of individuality."
A guide to food stamps.
An alert about a "deadly breakfast habit that accelerates brain dementia, according to Harvard scientists."
A hidden camera (?) to help me keep an eye on my home, "capture action-packed adventures, or discreetly film the unexpected."
A Trump bobblehead.
A gas mask, because according to Operation Blackout, "the U.S. is facing the BIGGEST threat of the century."
A product to fix male baldness, because "the reason why your hair is giving up on you is a severe lack of this hormone, which is responsible for the full head of luscious hair you wish you had."
Ivermectin.
A toenail fungus removal product that "eliminates the fungus nesting in your body like a well-trained fungus sucking machine."
A product that will let me eat anything I want and still make me lose exactly 9.9 pounds.
The Colon Broom, which will "flush toxins from your body."
Which may be the same product that promises "Poop instantly no matter how constipated you are."
Which may be the same product that wants me to know that "when you're constipated, your body can store up to 20 pounds of rotting fat inside your colon."
A walk-in bathtub. At this point it sounds like maybe I need a walk-in toilet.
My gynecologist says my hearing loss is minimal and my prostate is doing just fine; my dentist tells me to keep my toe fungus because it whitens my teeth and prevents herpes; my eye doctor already gives me free Ivermectin samples to address my incontinence; and when I told my therapist about all the fun things we could do with a samurai sword, colon broom, gas mask, and Trump bobblehead, she got super excited and asked me if I wanted to start meeting three times a week.
Links
On the impossibility of writing about the destruction of Gaza. (LitHub)
Depressed people are hot. (Gizmodo)
Imminent professional defenestration is my new band name. (Boing Boing)
An app that predicts how turbulent your flight will be. (Turblii)
The Grammys house band inexplicably played a Mr. Bungle song after Boygenius won and I have questions. (Twitter)
Related: Phoebe Bridgers for President. (Pitchfork)
Can you do all these mobility challenges? I'm good on most of them, but balancing with my eyes closed is a LOT harder than it sounds. (Guardian)
Amazing: A small wearable device that reduces Parkinson's symptoms. (Wired)
Yes, I saw the Cillian piece, thanks. (GQ)
I condemn San Franciscans for celebrating sports team wins by setting MUNI buses on fire, but think it's absolutely hilarious when they set driverless cars on fire. (WaPo)
In honor of Valentine's Day, here's how to delete all photos of your ex from your phone (Lifehacker), a quiz that shows why you were never compatible in the first place (WaPo), and an opportunity to neuter a cat in your ex's name. (Boing Boing)
You can put a go-go beat over anything and it works. This makes me insanely happy. (TikTok)