The Daily Valet. - 8/14/20, Friday

✔️ We Need This Now

Friday, August 14th Edition

Cory Ohlendorf, Editor in Chief of Valet.

I’m pretty confident I’ll vote by mail this year. You?

Cory Ohlendorf , Editor ⋯ @coryohlendorf

↦Valet. will be on an "end of summer break" next week.
↦ I'll be using the time to move from Miami to Los Angeles.
↦ We'll be back on Monday, August 24th.

Today's edition is presented by

Today’s Big Story

We Need Mail. Especially for Voting.

Cost-cutting and turmoil at the Postal Service

A year ago, I didn’t think much about the mail. Did any of us? Then the pandemic hit and suddenly people were sending real letters through the post again. And now mail-in voting seems to be the answer to long, potentially dangerous lines at polling places come November. The United States Postal Service has possibly never been more important, or more embattled.

The 245-year-old organization has faced years of criticism from President Trump. And according to the Los Angeles Times, as the election nears with his prospects uncertain, the president has intensified his unfounded claims against voting by mail and his institutional attacks on the government service charged with getting ballots to voters and back.

But mail-in and absentee votes are integral to a whole lot of Americans. Take first our servicemen and women, fighting oversees. They mail in their ballots. So too do those who live temporarily in other states for work or those who happen to reside in more remote, rural areas.

Election officials expect to send a record number of mail-in ballots to voters this fall, as states seek to avoid the spread of the deadly coronavirus at in-person polling places. Several states have announced they’re sending ballots to all registered voters. And at least 76% of American voters can cast ballots by mail or in drop boxes this fall, reports the Washington Post.

But many news outlets reported yesterday that President Trump admitted he’s intentionally withholding money from the U.S. Postal Service to undermine its ability to handle mail-in voting in the 2020 election. “They need that money in order to make the Post Office work so it can take all of these millions and millions of ballots,” Trump said on Fox Business Thursday morning of the states that are implementing universal mail-in voting ahead of the November election. “But if they don’t get those two items, that means you can’t have universal mail-in voting, because they’re not equipped to have it.”

Mail delivery has slowed significantly in recent months, and many Democrats have accused the Trump administration of intentionally sabotaging the post office. Many postal workers are no longer allowed to work overtime, slowing the process of sorting and delivering the mail. And Postmaster General Louis DeJoy has recently come under fire for his investments in Amazon.

↦ Meanwhile: This upcoming Michael Cohen book sounds like a real doozy.

Israel and U.A.E. Agree to Establish Formal Diplomatic Ties

As part of deal, Israel agreed not to annex parts of the occupied West Bank

Israel and the United Arab Emirates agreed Thursday to end decades of hostility in a historic deal announced by President Trump that would put Israeli annexation of West Bank lands on hold as a condition of normalizing relations, reports the Washington Post.

The UAE move is expected to increase pressure on Saudi Arabia and others in the Gulf region to follow suit, according to the Wall Street Journal. But such a shift would be particularly tricky for the Saudi monarchy, which has vied with Iran to be seen as the defender of the Palestinian cause.

Trump boasted the deal was a major development for the region, and according to Ghaith Al-Omari, senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, it is. He calls it a rare case of win-win-win.

The new agreement is rooted in the national interests of both the UAE and Israel, but its implications go far beyond that. For Netanyahu, the agreement is a major diplomatic win. Plus it also gives him a way out of a politically tricky corner he had painted himself into, strengthening his tenuous hold on power.

↦ FYI: The agreement makes the UAE only the third Arab country to currently have diplomatic relations with the Jewish nation, after Egypt and Jordan recognized Israel’s right to exist decades ago

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Researchers: PDFs Are Terrible for Humans

This really isn’t news to anyone, is it?

Jakob Nielsen, co-founder of the user experience research and consulting firm Nielsen Norman Group, has researched the shortcomings of PDFs for more than two decades.

His most recent assessment was co-authored by a user experience specialist and is simply titled, “PDF: Still Unfit for Human Consumption, 20 Years Later.”

Several reasons are given as to why PDFs are problematic when used for online reading. Some of the usability issues mentioned include a jarring user experience, slow load times, unnecessary content, unnavigable content masses, and the fact that PDFs are sized for paper and not screens.

According to Vice, “anyone who has read a PDF on their smartphone is familiar with the experience of having to pinch their fingers to zoom in and out and scroll around.” It's a drag. And really, why hasn't there been more improvements in this area?

↦ How to: Sign a PDF (for free) and four other tricks that don’t require Adobe Acrobat, according to Fast Company.

Apple and Google Remove ‘Fortnite’ From App Stores

The developer filed a lawsuit in retaliation

On Thursday, Epic Games snuck in an update for both the iPhone and Android versions of the game that allowed users to pay Epic directly for in-app purchases instead of using the officially sanctioned payment system for both platforms.

Players who bought “V-bucks” through its direct payment process would get a permanent 20% discount on their purchases. The move was meant to encourage players to make their purchases outside of Apple and Google's systems.

What followed was a wild ride. Apple kicked Fortnite off the App Store, reports The Verge. Then Google followed suit, removing it from the Play Store for Android.

Within a few hours, Epic responded with a lawsuit against the company, calling it a “behemoth seeking to control markets, block competition and stifle innovation.” In the suit, Epic said its goal was to “end Apple's unfair and anti-competitive actions” in its App Store and its in-app payment processing market.

↦ FYI: Google, unlike Apple, allows people to download apps via third-party marketplaces, so Epic can still make the game available to those users.

In Other News

Other Things We’re Talking About Today

Hopping on a bike

This cooling ‘eye stick’

’90s Armani style

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