To honor the life of Lou Ottens, the inventor of the cassette tape, I am sitting in a high-armed chair reminiscent of the famous Maxell cassette tape poster as I compile the other things I learned this week. Hat tip to Kim on this news.

Find Me Flaw – It was revealed there was a flaw in Apple’s Find Me app and service that would reveal the location histories of its users. Where this service is used by many, especially parents who want to track the locations of their kiddos, the potential for unintended consequences is high.

Maybe Don’t Use Find Me in Virginia? – Signed this month to go into effect in 2023 is the Virginia Consumer Data Protection Act or CDPA. The East-coast Commonwealth joins West-coast California as the only other US state to have its own privacy law. Both are have a similar approach to the European Union’s GDPR. To the average person the acronyms I just threw around may not mean much. However if you are a business in Virginia or do business with people from there, it’s worth looking into to see if or how the new law will apply to you in a little over a year and a half.

Makeup with (Avocado) A-Peel – The other day my kiddo started telling me about a line of makeup that was inspired by the Mexican fast-casual restaurant Chipotle. I was laughing out loud at the descriptions of makeup inspired by their menu items, including a makeup bag that looks like a take-out food bag, thinking she was trying to prank me. That was until she showed me this link to a line of real Chipotle-inspired makeup products. I’ll never be able to look at anyone eating a burrito or bowl who accidently gets some on their face the same way again.

Digital Beanie Babies, Sorta – If you still haven’t grasped the concept of blockchain or bitcoin, then add non-fungible tokens, or NFTs, to the list. In very short, is a way of identifying a unique digital asset and assigning an owner to it. An example is one my friend Craig wrote on where Twitter founder Jack Dorsey is going to sell his first tweet, and the owner’s name will be forever tied to it. Podcasting co-inventor Adam Curry called NFTs “digital Beanie Babies” and I have to agree with him... as I scour my hard drive for something unique to sell to someone.

Managing Communities The Right Way – Agile guru Tom Cagley shared this great checklist for managing remote communities of practice or communities of interest meetings. Even as some events are starting to be planned in person, there are still plenty happening virtually. If you’re going to do it, do it right.

Starting My Birthday List Early – This week audio gear maker JLab announced JBuds Frames, which clip onto your glasses for what they call “open-ear” listening. I’m not a fan of standard earbuds, and having the ability to listen to music or a podcast in a more ambient way will be much more preferred by me. As an added bonus, the mic on the JBuds Frames are not always listening to you.

Boulder Pledge – New to me though far from new to the world is the Boulder Pledge. It was a statement made by late film critic Roger Ebert in 1996 that, in summary, says he won’t do business with spammers. Many people reading this may not have had an email account in 1996, let alone getting much spam in their inbox. This was the early days of the consumer Internet, and it was a prophetic statement. Hat tip to Joe for his mention of this on LinkedIn this week.

You Can't Do That – Presented without further comment, especially to prevent inadvertent offending of my fellow Wisconsinites, is this story about a car that had a lawn chair for its driver seat.

FAQ SEO FTW – In an effort to try to space out acronyms this week yet share with you useful information, I present this thoughtful piece by my friend and search engine optimization guru CT Moore on frequently asked questions (FAQ) and SEO. CT not only knows this topic, he also presents it very well. Where many times I feel updating the FAQs for the program I manage is mundane, its value can be tremendous.

Cordless Not FTW For All – It has been several years since I have purchased window blinds, a streak I broke last weekend. As I perused the big box hardware stores I saw only cordless blinds. A friendly staff at one store explained most all blinds sold today are cordless to prevent accidental strangulation of kids and pets, which I confirmed elsewhere. You can custom order corded blinds, which I will be doing as 2 sets of blinds I bought and installed failed to live up to expectations.

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This is from The Hot Iron, a journal on business and technology by Mike Maddaloni.

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