onfocus

"They discussed how various platforms, from Twitter to TikTok and Telegram, are moderating the content coming out of Russia and Ukraine right now; the costs and benefits of Western companies pulling operations out of Russia during a period of increasing crackdown; and how the events of the last few weeks might shape our thinking about the nature and power of information operations."

Good discussion of the state of global social media moderation during an information war.

"Not surprisingly, then, after Goldman Sachs demanded employees return full-time to the office, the company announced it would raise its starting pay for first-year analysts by nearly 30%. In this new era, if you want employees in the office full time, you have to pay for it."

This is a positive development in work life especially with covid variant uncertainty. Being more distributed can also make an organization more resilient.

"The inflow of cash hasn’t exactly been small, either. A separate tally by the watchdog group Accountable.US shows that these companies and many of the trade groups to which they belong have donated more than $8 million to Congress’s 147 objectors since January 6."

hIsToRy wIlL ReMeMbEr

"The agency also updated its risk guidelines to focus primarily on hospital burden rather than local transmission alone. By the old metrics, nearly all American counties should be masking; under the new standards, that recommendation applies to only about 37 percent, designated orange on the agency’s map, at a “high” COVID-19 community level."

Pinning community action to a lagging indicator like hospitalizations is a recipe for creating hot spots. This is a terrible move by the CDC that doesn’t seem based on science.

"Beginning Saturday morning, NetBlocks saw failed or heavily throttled connections across every major Russian telecom provider, including Rostelecom, MTS, Beeline, and MegaFon. Russians are still able to access Twitter through VPN services, but direct connections are restricted."

Twitter should stop carrying Russian media outlets.

"So far, even as the U.S. and U.K. have ramped up sanctions on more than 100 Russian individuals and entities, these assets of the country’s elite -- which can be worth hundreds of millions of dollars each -- have avoided any direct hit. So too have their high-end real estate holdings, which in London range from Chelsea penthouses to Highgate mansions."

Elite impunity is the problem.

"There are many reasons why the tide has turned like it has, of course. But it is hard to think of another recent instance in which one human being has defied the collective expectations for his behavior and provided such an inspiring moment of servitude to the people, clarifying the terms of the conflict through his example."

Truly inspiring how Ukraine has met Russian aggression.

I'm so tired of hearing about crypto scams. This video takes the time to explain why that world of NFTs and crypto is such a wretched hive of scum and villainy. This explainer is well done and worth the time and I hope it can help our collective consciousness move on.

See also: David Rosenthal’s EE380 Talk

Strong project.

"Based on her research on how many long COVID patients stop working or scale back their hours, Bach estimated that about 1.1 million workers have dropped out of full-time work due to long COVID at any given time, while about 2.1 million may have cut their hours due to their symptoms. All together, that equates to about 1.6 million full-time workers who are missing from the economy, according to Bach. "

Astonishing numbers.