Facebook "inadvertently" set 14 million users' share settings to PUBLIC→

“For a period of four days in May, about 14 million Facebook users around the world had their default sharing setting for all new posts set to public, the company revealed Thursday.

The bug, which affected those users from May 18 to May 22, occurred while Facebook was testing a new feature.”

— Heather Kelly / CNN

First off,  I'm getting really tired of these articles calling things "bugs" or "glitches".   That's lazy reporting.   How did it happen?  Why did it happen?   What new feature were they testing?  Why would that change people's privacy settings?  Get in the weeds and do some reporting for once! 

Second, isn't it so bizarre that this kind of thing never seems to happen the other way,  where things are accidentally set to private?  Oh wait,  I forgot about this Mark Zuckerberg quote:

“Zuck: Yeah so if you ever need info about anyone at Harvard just ask. I have over 4,000 emails, pictures, addresses, SNS.
[Redacted Friend’s Name]: What? How’d you manage that one?
Zuck: People just submitted it. I don’t know why. They “trust me”. Dumb Fucks.”

Screw this garbage company.

Message in Bottle Dropped Into Atlantic Ocean Found 3 Years Later by Fisherman in Morocco→

What a cool story.   I will have to try something similar with my son when he gets a little older.

“A young Long Island girl and her family has forged an unlikely transatlantic friendship three years after she dropped a message in a bottle into the Atlantic Ocean...

...The bottle had been found by a fisherman, a father of a five named Hassan Elbaz. Elbaz didn’t speak or read English, so his son contacted the Khokhars and sent photos through social media to confirm that the message in a bottle had been delivered.”

— Greg Cergol / NBCNewYork.com

Anthony Bourdain 1956 - 2018→

Anthony Bourdain died today.   Apparently, he committed suicide.

Normally celebrity deaths don't particularly affect me.  But I'll be damned if this one doesn't hurt terribly.   I greatly admired his books and then his show, first on the Travel Channel, and then on CNN.  He was always someone who went to a place and LIVED it, and brought that information back to us. People who may never step foot into those far reaches.

Through culture and food, he explored what it means to be human.   And despite our differences, he managed to show that we humans are a lot alike.   We all love, we all eat,  we all share in our successes and failures with our families and our communities. 

Pain like this can touch anyone, in any situation.   If you need help,  please get it.  You don't need to be alone.  

As for Anthony Bourdain, I will never forget him.

Royal Caribbean's updated CocoCay Private Island looks insane!

In much the same way Royal Caribbean's Oasis-class ships (the largest at sea currently) changed the face of the cruise industry,  RCCL is looking to change the face of the cruise line private island.

These Islands,  generally in the Bahamas, are company-owned beach retreats that make a nice day in the sun on a Caribbean cruise.    Carnival owns Amber Cove, Half Moon Cay, and Princess Cay.   RCCL owns CocoCay and Labadee.  And NCL owns Great Stirrup Cay and Harvest Caye, etc.   

They are all pretty similar.   Generally offering beautiful, white sand beaches with clear blue water.   Lots of chairs and umbrellas,  Sometimes a pool,  and almost always a place to eat and get some drinks.

RCCL is changing that up by making one of their private islands,  CocoCay,  into a full fledged attraction all it's own.   With a giant waterpark,  a hot air balloon ride,  and a piece of beach with it's own fresh water swimming area.   Check out the video below.   This is totally nuts.

Spider Man: Into the Spider-verse Trailer... WOW.

I LOVED the first trailer for this project, but this one totally blew my tiny little mind!

The animation style of Spider Man Into The Spider-Verse reminds me a bit of Disney's "Paperman" on SPEED.  Paperman was an early test by Disney to try and make full CG animation with an almost hand-drawn look.   This has some of that feel,  slotting somewhere between Hand-drawn,  stop-motion, and a modern CG Animated feature.   It's utterly gorgeous.   Check it out.

Highlights of WWDC 2018

I have to say,  for a "slow" year,  this was one heck of a WWDC.   Apple has picked off two of my major issues with iOS and MacOS this year.   The Ability to use 3rd Party Mapping software in Carplay,  and a system-wide dark mode for MacOS.   Still nothing that will help Spotify or Podcast apps work as well as they do on Android phones with Google Assistant,  but all in all, a pretty solid year.   Here's The Verge's 14 minute supercut if you want to dial down to the details.

Unemployment rate decreases to all-time low.

I have to give credit where it's due.   I may not like President Trump or his administration,  but he has been able to keep up the downward trend of unemployment.   Good on him.

What I don't like is the fact that he now touts the same metrics he used to call "fake" unemployment metrics,  simply because they sound good to him now.   What I also don't like is that he is taking the entirety of the credit for this decrease in unemployment.

Take one look at this graph and tell me that you can conclude that the events that led to decreasing unemployment happened after January 20, 2017.   I double-dog dare you.

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