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Ben Lovejoy, writing for 9to5Mac:

We need a sense of perspective here. No, crises don’t justify invasion of privacy. No, we shouldn’t give powers to a government for use during an emergency if we wouldn’t want them to be able to use those powers in normal times. No, we shouldn’t be tracking anyone’s location.

But we also shouldn’t be crying wolf over an API that poses no threat to anyone’s privacy — and we shouldn’t be stopping a retailer taking a simple, sensible step to make sure people aren’t feverish before letting them mix with staff and other customers.

Taking an extremist position not only makes it harder to implement completely sensible and innocuous responses to the pandemic, but also makes it harder for us to be taken seriously when making legitimate privacy-protection arguments.

The world lost one of the greats in music with the passing of Andre Harrel, who was the head of Uptown Records in the early 90s, and then later Motown Records. I sometimes find I can’t express the depths of what someone did or meant as articulately as others. So, I’m going to let someone who can.

Here’s Questlove on his Instagram on the passing of Andre Harrel:

Dude. #AndreHarrell man. He gave you the best soundtracks of your life man and you didn’t even know it. We never gave him his flowers. He redefined the party!

Def Jam was the artform. Bad Boy was the attitude Death Row was the muscle

But without even knowing it?

Uptown was ALWAYS the party.

I’m sitting here going through my crates STUNNED at the amount of six degree to Andre records I’ve spun weekly on a regular basis for the last 35 years yo.

The is a staggering loss.

We never gave Andre Harrell his flowers.

Name em: Al B Sure/Heavy D & The Boyz/Guy/. I mean mentoring Diddy alone brings in Jodeci/BIG/Mary J/Father MC/Christopher Williams—-and even in those names the success with THOSE artists come Missy/Timb/Neptune’s

But let’s not stop there: first time we really paid attention to Halle Berry was in a Harrell film called Strictly Business

Let’s throw “Candy Rain” in there or Lil Shawn’s “I Made Love”—-I may be dating myself but man Mgruff’s “Before We Start” got MUCH play round my way. Jeff Redd (who brought Blidge to the label) had a banger with “You Called And Told Me”—-“Touch It” from Monifah STILL bangs to this day. & back to Diddy, I’m absolutely w/o a doubt certain that he feels his success is also Harrell’s success so in a round about way there is no Bad Boy w/o Harrell. (Lemme also remember Daryl Chill Mitchell’s “Hip Hop’s Here To Stay” another classic uptown jawn. Horace Brown too….. Too Many Classics

Let’s not forget NY Undercover & all the clever music moments in each ep.

We never gave him his flowers. This isn’t even half of his achievements nor does this even bring to light the people’s lives he changed or his loved ones left behind. He literally introduced a new sound to the world (the first new jack swing projects were on Uptown)—-wait hold that——his label changed music TWICE because hip hop soul’s music picked up where New Jack left off and on the same label. Such a short time to paradigm shift music TWICE!!!!!!!! Damn man. We never gave him his flowers man.

We lost one of the great ones today. My condolences to the Harrel family and to all of those he touched.

Sameer Vasta, writing on his blog:

I’d like to host mini “coffee breaks” every Wednesday afternoon at 2:30pm where I’d bring together four people—ideally, people from various spheres of my life who don’t know each other—on a video call and we’d spend three minutes each (for a total coffee break of fifteen minutes) telling each other a story based on a prompt that I will circulate the day on the Tuesday.

Prompts may include things like:

Tell me a story about the best thing you’ve eaten this week. Tell me a story about a color that you noticed this week. Tell me a story about something that made you laugh this week. Tell me a story about something that made you cry this week. Tell me a story about an adventure that you had this week.

A few of my good friends have been having weekly video chats on Thursdays. I might try slipping a few of these into our conversation next time around.

From Automatic:

Just like many other companies in the United States, the COVID-19 pandemic has adversely impacted our business. With fewer consumers purchasing and leasing vehicles and drivers on the road, we unfortunately do not see a path forward for our business. These are unprecedented times, and with so much uncertainty ahead, we have made the difficult decision to discontinue the Automatic connected car product, service and platform. We will be shutting down all operations at 11:59 pm, PT, on May 28, 2020 and, as a result, your service will end on that time.

This is highly unfortunate. I have an Automatic dongle hooked up in my car and I love the thing. Only a couple months ago my Check Engine light came on as my car sputtered. My Automatic dongle worked as advertised, giving me an idea to what was going on with my vehicle and something to report to the mechanic. I hate this is happening to a quality company.

If anyone knows of a reputable replacement, do fill me in. I have a 16 year old vehicle and enjoy this peace of mind.