onfocus

I like getting shipping confirmations and updates, but all I need is a glance at the subject line and forget about it. The solution: tell Gmail to archive or delete certain emails after a specified number of days. Surprisingly enough, Gmail does not have this as a native feature. Users can set filters to automatically delete emails from certain senders or with keyword pattern matches, sure, but that’s an instant filter and those emails never see the light of day.

This is a great solution to Gmail's lack of retention policy features that I've been using for a while now. I set up a label for regular notification emails and this script moves them to the trash after 7 days or so. I was tired of Google trying to sell me more space. So I did a big purge and now emails are flowing to the Trash regularly.

Nevertheless, I am left today primarily thinking of all who have died, as well as those suffering from long covid, and those who may suffer in the years ahead in ways we cannot predict. This could have been a moment when we decided to step outside of our divided camps and come together. That the blame for this not happening is so asymmetric along the political divide does make me very angry, but it doesn’t make me any less sad.

Dan Rather on the lack of grieving for the people the pandemic has hurt or killed.

“By allowing the propagation of false and societally harmful assertions, Spotify is enabling its hosted media to damage public trust in scientific research and sow doubt in the credibility of data-driven guidance offered by medical professionals,” the letter said.

Starting to feel like there are no good media companies. Once you get to a certain size you have to get with the misinformation program to make enough money to sustain things.

"'This year, what's happening is off the scale,' he said. 'There's been a new billionaire created almost every day during this pandemic, meanwhile 99% of the world's population are worse off because of lockdowns, lower international trade, less international tourism, and as a result of that, 160 million more people have been pushed into poverty.'"

Awful dynamic alert: the pandemic has been very positive for a select group of individuals who have enormous influence over how our society works.

"The obvious people to blame for this gross behavior are Republicans themselves. But what's the fun in that? So, instead, far too many in the media are letting Republicans off the hook and instead fixing the blame on Democrats for somehow not doing more to make Republicans less evil."

It’s not fun for journalists to hold Republicans responsible because their bosses are Republicans.

Really nicely executed browser version of Cardline where you place events in chronological order. Three misses and you’re out. Works well on a phone too.

"Simple, dependable architectures such as the one covidtests.gov seems to employ are proven at scale. This affords agencies the space to focus on improved user experience and service delivery, rather than consuming large resources keeping sites up and running. This takes operational experience and know-how, though; even with the use of managed services, composing a full, end-to-end digital service experience takes skill."

The free covid tests site is powered by standard AWS components. And it seemed to hold up well under pressure, nice work USPS.

Marcy Wheeler is an independent journalist writing about national security and civil liberties.

By the way if you want more context and detail about the January 6 Insurrection investigation, tune into Marcy Wheeler on the emptywheel weblog. There's more happening than you hear in the news. Also @emptywheel on Twitter.

"By this point, those lies have been circulating for what feels like forever. But at tonight’s rally, as Trump’s fans called for the arrests of poll workers and the reinstatement of the rightful president, I got the sense that this might be just the beginning."

This can only happen in a society with elite criminal impunity. We should all demand real consequences for crimes no matter how much money the perpetrator has. Our culture of billionaire worship is garbage.

“These compounds can be taken orally and have a long history of safe use in humans,” van Breemen said. “They have the potential to prevent as well as treat infection by SARS-CoV-2. CBDA and CBGA are produced by the hemp plant as precursors to CBD and CBG, which are familiar to many consumers. However, they are different from the acids and are not contained in hemp products.”

Hemp products produced in a slightly different way might help fight covid. I learned to fight covid watching you!

"We could have sent hazard pay to teachers and others working on the front lines. We could be offering paid leave to parents who need time off with kids home. We could have made upgrading ventilation in schools a requirement for reopening. We could be sending pallets of tests and piles of KN95s to schools across the country. But we've done none of that, instead we've followed the indelible pattern of the American pandemic response: indifference and inaction."

Vaccines were the only plan. Grateful for those but there was so much more we could have done.

"Schools are open because jobs are open because the economy must be fed. And people defend it. Like they’re people who know they’re in the Matrix and they defend it."

Yes, this is what it feels like right now to watch the daily covid numbers spike and see no requests to change behavior from the institutions in charge of public health.