Hack Mule Notebook

Volume 2, August 2, 20026

I received no complaints last week after the inaugural edition of Hack Mule Notebook, so I thought I’d venture out again this week. I’m eager to hear your thoughts and opinions — please post in the comments section.

I’ve had a busy week, but I always have my antennae up. Here’s what crossed my radar:

Things People Say:

Woman 1: “My husband said, ‘That’s it! If I wanted to support a bunch of Salvadorans, I’d have stayed there!’ So we’re moving to Virginia.”

Woman 2: “Aren’t there Salvadorans in Virginia?”

Woman 1: “No, just Guatemalans. Totally different.”

— At Old Angler’s Inn, Potomac, Maryland

Tracking: Have you heard of “reverse warrants” or “reverse keyword warrants?” The federal government and some law-enforcement agencies have started using them.

“Reverse warrants” — sometimes also called “geofence warrants” — allow the government to identify anyone whose devices were near a particular area.

“Reverse keyword warrants” identify people based on what they type into search engines — even if they never visit any sites pulled up in the search.

Scary stuff.

Earlier this summer, the U.S. Supreme Court offered some guidance, saying that location data contains enough personal information that it triggers Fourth Amendment privacy protections. The Court also found that even though phone users may share location data, that doesn’t constitute waiving privacy rights.

As digital technologies continue to evolve, we’re just at the beginning of issues like these.

Keep your eyes open, citizens.

Listening: I felt like I was in a time warp this week, listening to both The Rolling Stones’ new album, Foreign Tongues, and Madonna’s new album, Confessions II.

The Stones’ album is solid, but all too familiar. Listening to it, I kept thinking, “This would have been a great follow-up to 1980’s Emotional Rescue.” They still sound like the Rolling Stones, but the “bad boys” have been replaced by “dirty old men” clocking in for another shift.

Still, I give them credit for longevity. The Stones formed 64 years ago—before the Kennedy assassination, before the moon landing, before home computers or the internet.

When the band first got together, Igor Stravinsky was still making records.

And they’ve lasted. Consider that the Stones’ longtime drummer, Charlie Watts, who died in 2021, appears on the new album. Death, literally, has not shaken the band’s roster.

Some bands break up over creative differences. The Stones don’t even break up over death.

While the Stones are sticking to their longtime formula, Madonna is revisiting the ecosystem that spawned her.

Madonna — a sprightly 67 to Mick Jagger’s 83 — brings her usual energy to what is basically a tour of global electronic dance music. She bounces through house, dance-pop, disco, and down-tempo.

Nothing new here, although I’ve always had the sense that Madonna is focused more on production than innovation anyway.

What struck me was how far back she reached for inspiration — Madonna looked back almost half a century to the Downtown 81 era for this.

The third single from the album, Danceteria — named for the legendary Manhattan club — interpolates Lou Reed’s 1972 Walk on the Wild Side while name-checking Jean-Michel Basquiat, Fab 5 Freddy, Keith Haring, Kenny Scharf, Debi Mazar, and other figures from the downtown New York scene.

The groove’s there, and everything is danceable, but like the Stones, Madonna is revisiting familiar ports of call.

So, my advice: if you’re looking for a Viking Cruise through rock music, climb aboard. These albums will take you there.

Watching: Not watching much this week, although YouTube has served up multiple videos about people modding vans to turn them into tiny homes. Google probably heard about the property-tax increase in Montgomery County, so it’s offering me more inexpensive alternatives.

I’m getting tempted.

Reading: The Renoir Girls: A Hidden History of Art, War & Betrayal by Catherine Ostler. I’ve been staying up late to read this one. It’s the story of the Cahen d’Anvers family, whose three young daughters sat for Renoir in the early 1880s. A wealthy Jewish family, Ostler traces their story as it winds through the Dreyfus Affair, religious conversions, war, concentration camps, and death. One of my favorite details: the family didn’t think much of Renoir’s portrait of their daughters Elisabeth and Alice, so they hung it in the servants’ hall.

Oh, well, at least the cook got some inspiration.

Discussing with AI: One stormy afternoon last week, I received no less than 31 increasingly dire weather alerts in two hours:

• Rain likely in 52 minutes

• Thunderstorms possible in 1 hour

• Tornado watch in your location for 12 hours

• Lightning 7 miles away

• Lightning 1.7 miles away

• Seek shelter

• Warning: Possible tornado near you

And on and on.

These were coming through one after the other on my watch, my phone, and my Mac. Literally, 31 of them. Apple Weather, the National Weather Service, MyRadar, Capital Weather, and Montgomery County all pinged me.

I uploaded a few screenshots to ChatGPT and said, “All these notifications are making me anxious. How would you rate their accuracy?”

ChatGPT said, “Please charge your phone. Weather remains possible.”

Desperate Times: On Friday, I got a notice that my “special all-access” $6/month subscription rate to the New York Times would be expiring in a few days. So, I downgraded to the “Games Only,” which is also $6/month.

Less than 24 hours later, they offered me a new “special all-access” subscription for…$6/month.

They must be getting desperate — you don’t even have to ask for a deal anymore. I wish they’d see the light and just go to Apple News+ like everyone else.

Have a great week — and ignore at least 50% of your weather alerts,

Kristen