{"version":"https://jsonfeed.org/version/1","title":"Micro.blog - Read Later - JohnPhilpin","home_page_url":"https://micro.blog","feed_url":"https://micro.blog/feeds/JohnPhilpin/readlater/c4275ae6b7276c6ad1fd.json","icon":"https://micro.blog/images/icons/favicon_256.png","favicon":"https://micro.blog/images/icons/favicon_32.png","_microblog":{"about":"https://micro.blog/about/api"},"items":[{"id":"2181","title":"Stephen Volpe Gives Dramatic Life to a Stunning Skyscraper Apartment — Architectural Digest","content_html":"<div class=\"content\"> <div class=\"inner-content has-icon\"> <img class=\"app-icon\" src=\"https://apple.news/images/Appicon_v6.png\" alt=\"Apple News\" srcset=\"https://apple.news/images/Appicon_v6.png 1x, https://apple.news/images/Appicon_v6@2x.png 2x, https://apple.news/images/Appicon_v6@3x.png 3x\"> <p>For the best reading experience, open this story on a device with <span class=\"nobr\">Apple News.</span> It may also be available on the publisher&#x2019;s website. </p> <p><a class=\"more\" href=\"https://www.apple.com/news/\">Learn more about Apple News</a></p></div> </div>","url":"https://apple.news/AFuu9CWQiT2KuO91eHE39gA","date_published":"2021-01-16T22:42:39+00:00","author":{"name":""}},{"id":"1971","title":"I'm Not There","content_html":"<div id=\"a-page\"> </div>","url":"https://www.imdb.com/video/vi2746286361","date_published":"2020-04-18T23:39:42+00:00","author":{"name":""}},{"id":"1921","title":"The US now has more confirmed coronavirus cases than anywhere else in the world — Vox","content_html":"<div class=\"content\"> <div class=\"inner-content has-icon\"> <img class=\"app-icon\" src=\"https://apple.news/images/Appicon_v6.png\" alt=\"Apple News\" srcset=\"https://apple.news/images/Appicon_v6.png 1x, https://apple.news/images/Appicon_v6@2x.png 2x, https://apple.news/images/Appicon_v6@3x.png 3x\"> <p><a href=\"https://www.vox.com/2020/3/26/21194153/us-confirmed-coronavirus-cases-world\">Click here</a> if the story doesn&#x2019;t open after a few seconds.</p> <p><a class=\"more\" href=\"https://www.apple.com/news/\">Learn more about Apple News</a></p></div> </div>","url":"https://apple.news/A4yyFecdhRJOeTEkqT_Y7qA","date_published":"2020-03-26T22:21:27+00:00","author":{"name":""}},{"id":"1918","title":"Inside John Oliver’s Emotional, Stripped-Down Coronavirus Episode of ‘Last Week Tonight’ — The Daily Beast","content_html":"<div class=\"content\"> <div class=\"inner-content has-icon\"> <img class=\"app-icon\" src=\"https://apple.news/images/Appicon_v6.png\" alt=\"Apple News\" srcset=\"https://apple.news/images/Appicon_v6.png 1x, https://apple.news/images/Appicon_v6@2x.png 2x, https://apple.news/images/Appicon_v6@3x.png 3x\"> <p><a href=\"https://thedailybeast.com/inside-john-olivers-emotional-stripped-down-coronavirus-episode-of-last-week-tonight\">Click here</a> if the story doesn&#x2019;t open after a few seconds.</p> <p><a class=\"more\" href=\"https://www.apple.com/news/\">Learn more about Apple News</a></p></div> </div>","url":"https://apple.news/AMzP3gKtCSZmfsGxIfhnqYQ","date_published":"2020-03-17T07:47:44+00:00","author":{"name":""}},{"id":"1915","title":"Infected people without symptoms might be driving the spread of coronavirus more than we realized — CNN","content_html":"<div class=\"content\"> <div class=\"inner-content has-icon\"> <img class=\"app-icon\" src=\"https://apple.news/images/Appicon_v6.png\" alt=\"Apple News\" srcset=\"https://apple.news/images/Appicon_v6.png 1x, https://apple.news/images/Appicon_v6@2x.png 2x, https://apple.news/images/Appicon_v6@3x.png 3x\"> <p><a href=\"https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/14/health/coronavirus-asymptomatic-spread/index.html\">Click here</a> if the story doesn&#x2019;t open after a few seconds.</p> <p><a class=\"more\" href=\"https://www.apple.com/news/\">Learn more about Apple News</a></p></div> </div>","url":"https://apple.news/AIvKp4sx8RJG74YlKK_gW2A","date_published":"2020-03-14T22:04:55+00:00","author":{"name":""}},{"id":"1831","title":"Exclusive: John Bercow on friends, enemies and the drama of Brexit","content_html":"<div><div class=\"content__article-body from-content-api js-article__body\">\n<p><span class=\"drop-cap\"><span class=\"drop-cap__inner\">I</span></span>t is 11.30am on Wednesday, 25 September 2019. Unexpectedly, the House of Commons is sitting again. It ceased to do so on 9 September and had not thought it would resume until a state opening on 14 October. Without a doubt, it is the most peculiar atmosphere I have known in the chamber in my more than 22 years as a member of parliament. The expressions on government ministers&#x2019; faces range from affronted dignity to sheepish embarrassment to world-weary resignation. Opposition MPs, meanwhile, are jubilant. Surveying the scene from my vantage point of the Speaker&#x2019;s chair, I began proceedings on this extraordinary day with a gentle but clear signal of contentment that the <a href=\"https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/sep/09/boris-johnson-to-prorogue-parliament-on-monday-night\" class=\"u-underline\">government&#x2019;s plan to close down or &#x201C;prorogue&#x201D; parliament</a> for five weeks at the height of the unresolved Brexit crisis had been foiled.</p>\n<p>&#x201C;Colleagues, welcome back to our place of work.&#x201D;</p>\n<p>I went on to confirm to MPs that the supreme court had sensationally ruled the previous day that parliament &#x201C;had not been prorogued&#x201D; and that I and my opposite number in the House of Lords should take &#x201C;immediate steps to enable each house to meet as soon as possible&#x201D;.</p>\n<p>In parliament, everything said is recorded and published verbatim. An accurate historical record is crucial. I therefore agreed with the senior clerks that the citation for the supreme court judgment should be entered in the Journal of the House; and the item relating to the prorogation of parliament in the journal of Monday 9 September should be expunged. The house would instead be recorded as having &#x201C;adjourned&#x201D; at the close of business on 9 September.</p>\n<p>We began with an urgent question that I had granted to the<a href=\"https://www.theguardian.com/politics/video/2019/sep/24/joanna-cherry-says-boris-johnson-should-have-guts-resign-video\" class=\"u-underline\"> SNP&#x2019;s Joanna Cherry</a> to ask the attorney general, Geoffrey Cox, about his legal opinion on the advice given to the Queen to prorogue parliament. There was a piquancy about the question coming from her &#x2013; she was her party&#x2019;s spokesperson on legal and constitutional matters but, perhaps more importantly, she had actively supported the legal case brought against the government on prorogation in Scotland and England. The attorney general knew that. While legitimately seeking to draw Cox on what his legal advice had been, she was also twisting the knife in the government&#x2019;s gut.</p>\n<figure class=\"element element-image img--landscape  fig--narrow-caption fig--has-shares \" id=\"img-2\">\n<meta>\n<meta>\n<meta>\n<a href=\"https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/jan/25/john-bercow-speaker-house-commons-memoir?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other#img-2\" class=\"article__img-container js-gallerythumbs\">\n<div class=\"u-responsive-ratio\">\n<picture>\n\n<source srcset=\"https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/344cd50de2f0c505c22e8be924fa69b7c40e7194/0_0_2560_1536/master/2560.jpg?width=620&amp;quality=45&amp;auto=format&amp;fit=max&amp;dpr=2&amp;s=1b63f91fa12b755d5c5b690a82d144f0 1240w\">\n<source srcset=\"https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/344cd50de2f0c505c22e8be924fa69b7c40e7194/0_0_2560_1536/master/2560.jpg?width=620&amp;quality=85&amp;auto=format&amp;fit=max&amp;s=c0f8c9f4461bdd4692f43bd68f525590 620w\">\n<source srcset=\"https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/344cd50de2f0c505c22e8be924fa69b7c40e7194/0_0_2560_1536/master/2560.jpg?width=605&amp;quality=45&amp;auto=format&amp;fit=max&amp;dpr=2&amp;s=926435346b8e513e0d9b361a80b1337d 1210w\">\n<source srcset=\"https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/344cd50de2f0c505c22e8be924fa69b7c40e7194/0_0_2560_1536/master/2560.jpg?width=605&amp;quality=85&amp;auto=format&amp;fit=max&amp;s=a6bae5be0ff6139e9e5fa8fe5b627618 605w\">\n<source srcset=\"https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/344cd50de2f0c505c22e8be924fa69b7c40e7194/0_0_2560_1536/master/2560.jpg?width=445&amp;quality=45&amp;auto=format&amp;fit=max&amp;dpr=2&amp;s=4f819de1cfb5f66b26d65ebc9434de06 890w\">\n<source srcset=\"https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/344cd50de2f0c505c22e8be924fa69b7c40e7194/0_0_2560_1536/master/2560.jpg?width=445&amp;quality=85&amp;auto=format&amp;fit=max&amp;s=5f84746b01dc700c945963a3f1a7a1d6 445w\">\n\n<img class=\"gu-image\" alt=\"The former Speaker John Bercow\" src=\"https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/344cd50de2f0c505c22e8be924fa69b7c40e7194/0_0_2560_1536/master/2560.jpg?width=300&amp;quality=85&amp;auto=format&amp;fit=max&amp;s=a9341b5e2166bedd0049a04ca9b91dc0\">\n</picture>\n</div>  </a>\n\n<figcaption class=\"caption caption--img caption caption--img\">\n The former Speaker John Bercow bringing order to the House of Commons. Composite: Reuters/Screen Grabs\n</figcaption>\n</figure>\n<p>Cox was both the best and the worst representative to pop up for the government that day. The best &#x2013; I am being generous here &#x2013; in that he is supremely articulate, opinionated, tough-minded and ready to bat for the government without the slightest hint of embarrassment or self-doubt. I have no reason to suppose that he did not believe every word he spoke. Yet if he didn&#x2019;t, such was his thespian quality that he carried it off with shameless aplomb. The best in terms of playing to the gallery of shocked Tory MPs and the extreme Brexiteers of the media was also the worst to those not signed up to the message that anyone seeking to stop Brexit was somehow an enemy of the people.</p>\n<p>Cox appeared before his peers in two guises &#x2013; law officer and politician. As the former, he was a model of courteous but unmistakable legal clarity. He then turned his machine-gun fire on parliament. Becoming more <a href=\"https://www.theguardian.com/politics/video/2019/sep/25/geoffrey-cox-tells-mps-this-parliament-is-dead-video\" class=\"u-underline\">florid of face, hyper in tone and undilutedly pompous</a>, he thundered: &#x201C;We now have a wide number in this house setting their face against leaving [the EU] at all. When the government draw the only logical inference from that position, which is that we must leave therefore without any deal at all, they still set their faces, denying the electorate the chance of having their say in how this matter should be resolved.&#x201D; At this point, on the flicking of a mental switch, the studied and elaborate courtesy which had long been a hallmark of a Cox performance in parliament gave way to a wild and unstoppable rant reminiscent of a <em>Monty Python</em> sketch.</p>\n<p>&#x201C;This parliament is a dead parliament,&#x201D; he roared. &#x201C;It should no longer sit. It has no moral right to sit on those green benches ... They don&#x2019;t like to hear it, Mr Speaker ... This parliament is a disgrace.&#x201D;</p>\n<p>The man had worked himself up into a frenzy that oscillated between the comic and the terrifying. Visibly enjoying his sense of moral outrage at the activities of his opponents, Cox began to rotate at the despatch box, swivelling round to rouse his Conservative colleagues to paroxysms of righteous indignation. Turning his back on the house was both mildly &#x201C;disorderly&#x201D;, in parliamentary parlance, and very unpopular. I intervened good-naturedly: &#x201C;I do not normally offer stylistic advice to the attorney general, but his tendency to perambulate while prating is disagreeable to the house. He should face the house with confidence and assurance and an acknowledgement that the house wishes to hear his every utterance.&#x201D;</p>\n<p>&#x201C;I wonder if you, Mr Speaker,&#x201D; Cox replied, &#x201C;in a well-earned retirement, would like to give lessons to frontbenchers. It could be the beginnings of a new and very glorious &#x2013; or even more glorious &#x2013; career.&#x201D;</p>\n<p>I won&#x2019;t describe the atmosphere as electric &#x2013; that would be too kind, suggestive of excitement, tension and, perhaps, the constructive direction of power. It was worse, far worse, than that. The atmosphere was one of raw, intense, undiluted anger on both sides of the House of Commons, made more alarming by the direction of the anger. It was not aimed at the culprits for an external event such as a terrorist attack. Rather, the anger was that of the prime minister towards the opposition benches; to opponents on his own; the supreme court and, to a degree, me, as the person who had enabled opponents to express their objections to the attempted prorogation of parliament, which I had myself publicly deplored.</p>\n<p>In more than two decades in the house, a period that included the most high-octane debates over the Iraq war, I had never known a mood so toxic. The PM&#x2019;s statement lasted 14 minutes, during which I had to call for order four times. In his second sentence, he referred to &#x201C;this paralysed parliament&#x201D;. Barely three minutes later he referred to the European Union (Withdrawal) (No 2) Act, commonly known as the Benn Act, which required the PM to seek an extension to the Brexit withdrawal date in certain circumstances, as the &#x201C;surrender act&#x201D;. Shortly afterwards he declared that he thought that the supreme court &#x201C;was wrong to pronounce on what is essentially a political question&#x201D; &#x2013; adding that it had done so at a time of great national controversy.</p>\n<p>I gently but firmly underlined the premium placed by <em>Erskine May</em> (the bible of parliamentary procedure) on moderation and good humour in the use of language. Immediately afterwards, the PM referred to the &#x201C;surrender act&#x201D; yet again. <a href=\"https://www.theguardian.com/politics/video/2019/sep/25/outrage-as-boris-johnson-dismisses-dangers-of-inflammatory-language-as-humbug-video\" class=\"u-underline\">Paula Sherriff</a>, constituency neighbour of <a href=\"https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/nov/23/thomas-mair-found-guilty-of-jo-cox-murder\" class=\"u-underline\">the late Jo Cox</a>, appealed to the prime minister not to resort to the use of &#x201C;offensive, dangerous or inflammatory language&#x201D; about legislation that he did not like. His initial response was to say that he had &#x201C;never heard such humbug&#x201D;. This prompted outrage and fury on the opposition benches. Obviously the language that produced such upset was no accident. It was deliberate and calculated to press home his &#x201C;parliament versus the people&#x201D; narrative, plainly to be used intensively in an upcoming election campaign. Buoyed by innate self-confidence, full-throttle roars of support from most Conservative MPs and the belief that he had a winning message, Johnson did not hold back. He rammed home his script with unremitting vigour.</p>\n<figure class=\"element element-image img--landscape  fig--narrow-caption fig--has-shares \" id=\"img-3\">\n<meta>\n<meta>\n<meta>\n<a href=\"https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/jan/25/john-bercow-speaker-house-commons-memoir?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other#img-3\" class=\"article__img-container js-gallerythumbs\">\n<div class=\"u-responsive-ratio\">\n<picture>\n\n<source srcset=\"https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/6eaf79d2f722f925f2cf645e82d71212d9a07a6f/0_71_5328_3197/master/5328.jpg?width=620&amp;quality=45&amp;auto=format&amp;fit=max&amp;dpr=2&amp;s=856a37eb3d1ea1917cb1097cab5b554d 1240w\">\n<source srcset=\"https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/6eaf79d2f722f925f2cf645e82d71212d9a07a6f/0_71_5328_3197/master/5328.jpg?width=620&amp;quality=85&amp;auto=format&amp;fit=max&amp;s=45d0e1b1ccabdf6e9797d3a9409c4fe6 620w\">\n<source srcset=\"https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/6eaf79d2f722f925f2cf645e82d71212d9a07a6f/0_71_5328_3197/master/5328.jpg?width=605&amp;quality=45&amp;auto=format&amp;fit=max&amp;dpr=2&amp;s=4fb51bfd4384249d2cd314e5522145ea 1210w\">\n<source srcset=\"https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/6eaf79d2f722f925f2cf645e82d71212d9a07a6f/0_71_5328_3197/master/5328.jpg?width=605&amp;quality=85&amp;auto=format&amp;fit=max&amp;s=c7bc8cdae8c9063bb4840bac4893d57c 605w\">\n<source srcset=\"https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/6eaf79d2f722f925f2cf645e82d71212d9a07a6f/0_71_5328_3197/master/5328.jpg?width=445&amp;quality=45&amp;auto=format&amp;fit=max&amp;dpr=2&amp;s=2cc99b5a25b79fd5c63b96ff9956f3cc 890w\">\n<source srcset=\"https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/6eaf79d2f722f925f2cf645e82d71212d9a07a6f/0_71_5328_3197/master/5328.jpg?width=445&amp;quality=85&amp;auto=format&amp;fit=max&amp;s=f52b6a4e3e7177d461221b30359260ca 445w\">\n\n<img class=\"gu-image\" alt=\"John Bercow speaking in the House of Commons ahead of his retirement\" src=\"https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/6eaf79d2f722f925f2cf645e82d71212d9a07a6f/0_71_5328_3197/master/5328.jpg?width=300&amp;quality=85&amp;auto=format&amp;fit=max&amp;s=4abdc1cf1987d5bf402df90f80f4398e\">\n</picture>\n</div>  </a>\n\n<figcaption class=\"caption caption--img caption caption--img\">\n John Bercow speaking in the House of Commons ahead of his retirement. Photograph: Jessica Taylor/AFP via Getty Images\n</figcaption>\n</figure>\n<p>Immediately after the exchanges on the prime minister&#x2019;s statement, several MPs leapt to their feet to raise points of order. I did not know exactly what they would be but I had been told that they related to the PM and his statement. I suggested to Johnson that it would be a courtesy to stay for the first, from the shadow chancellor, John McDonnell. Initially, he seemed minded to do so, but he had a change of heart and left. Later, he texted me to say that he intended no discourtesy but simply decided to stick to his original plan to leave straight after questioning on his statement. Frankly, that was disingenuous of him. The truth was that he had had enough. He didn&#x2019;t care a damn what I or anyone else thought about him departing the chamber.</p>\n<p>By the end of that fateful day , I had chaired the business of the House from 11.30am to just before 11pm without a break. It was my privilege. Yet the atmosphere was worse than I had ever known it. Rancour, demonisation and contempt for opponents&#x2019; views were apparent on both sides of the house.</p>\n<figure class=\"element element-atom\">\n\n</figure>\n<p>The following day I told colleagues that we had not shown ourselves to advantage and should do better. I had not liked the prime minister&#x2019;s language of &#x201C;surrender&#x201D; and &#x201C;capitulation&#x201D; at all, but it was not &#x201C;disorderly&#x201D;. Free speech matters. I do not believe that Johnson sought to incite violence or disorder. Rather, his was a ruthless bid to whip up support for Brexit, for his party and, last but by no means least, for himself. His entire approach to Brexit may be wrong-headed, irresponsible and damaging to the UK national interest, in my view, but that was no reason to censor him from the chair. I could appeal for restraint and I did. But I could not insist on it.</p>\n<figure class=\"element element-interactive interactive\">\n<a href=\"https://interactive.guim.co.uk/embed/2018/02/divider/index.html\" class=\"u-underline\">divider</a>\n</figure>\n<p><strong>Rancorous and brutal </strong>as it was, the prorogation row offered a kind of parallel with my tenure as Speaker. My entire approach in more than a decade in the chair was to seek to increase the relative authority and influence of the legislature, specifically the House of Commons, in its dealings with the executive, the government. It was never any part of my role to serve as a nodding donkey or quiescent lickspittle of the executive branch of our political system. As I had foreshadowed in seeking election as Speaker in 2009, I did not want to be someone, but to do something. The something was to stand up for parliament, encourage the House of Commons to take control of its own core functions and to assert its right fully and unsparingly to scrutinise the government of the day.</p>\n<figure class=\"element element-image img--landscape  fig--narrow-caption fig--has-shares \" id=\"img-4\">\n<meta>\n<meta>\n<meta>\n<a href=\"https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/jan/25/john-bercow-speaker-house-commons-memoir?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other#img-4\" class=\"article__img-container js-gallerythumbs\">\n<div class=\"u-responsive-ratio\">\n<picture>\n\n<source srcset=\"https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/ce4066e26809d41c38434dd44edc8e5230e12911/0_747_2388_1432/master/2388.jpg?width=620&amp;quality=45&amp;auto=format&amp;fit=max&amp;dpr=2&amp;s=3bab66e60332bc9854438da2c3fb742d 1240w\">\n<source srcset=\"https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/ce4066e26809d41c38434dd44edc8e5230e12911/0_747_2388_1432/master/2388.jpg?width=620&amp;quality=85&amp;auto=format&amp;fit=max&amp;s=a4d9efa04c0e7b48f488d5e83e8e9847 620w\">\n<source srcset=\"https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/ce4066e26809d41c38434dd44edc8e5230e12911/0_747_2388_1432/master/2388.jpg?width=605&amp;quality=45&amp;auto=format&amp;fit=max&amp;dpr=2&amp;s=730695fb9be788dd711717be95db3aeb 1210w\">\n<source srcset=\"https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/ce4066e26809d41c38434dd44edc8e5230e12911/0_747_2388_1432/master/2388.jpg?width=605&amp;quality=85&amp;auto=format&amp;fit=max&amp;s=55b835c569004ffb8f45f480228ff553 605w\">\n<source srcset=\"https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/ce4066e26809d41c38434dd44edc8e5230e12911/0_747_2388_1432/master/2388.jpg?width=445&amp;quality=45&amp;auto=format&amp;fit=max&amp;dpr=2&amp;s=7e7b98f8f55705de7bee4493bfe711de 890w\">\n<source srcset=\"https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/ce4066e26809d41c38434dd44edc8e5230e12911/0_747_2388_1432/master/2388.jpg?width=445&amp;quality=85&amp;auto=format&amp;fit=max&amp;s=a0e91a11ab54356d940ced1a01e610ff 445w\">\n\n<img class=\"gu-image\" alt=\"Jacob Rees-Mogg\" src=\"https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/ce4066e26809d41c38434dd44edc8e5230e12911/0_747_2388_1432/master/2388.jpg?width=300&amp;quality=85&amp;auto=format&amp;fit=max&amp;s=56be2885fc9d85807bff9b142a83e29e\">\n</picture>\n</div>  </a>\n\n<figcaption class=\"caption caption--img caption caption--img\">\n Jacob Rees-Mogg: &#x2018;In order to speak, he does not so much stand up, he &#x201C;uncoils&#x201D;.&#x2019; Photograph: HO/AFP/Getty Images\n</figcaption>\n</figure>\n<p>Governments want a passive Speaker who will diplomatically stand aside and leave them to call the shots. I never had the slightest interest in playing that role. Likewise, within the house administration, there were always people for whom the status quo was very comfortable and who resisted any change that would threaten that comfort and privilege. My responsibility was not just to sit there, lazily administering the existing order. Rather it was to keep the best and, whether alone or with others, to improve the rest. Specifically, as Speaker, I had a duty to stand up for MPs individually, to champion parliament institutionally and to try to make it look more like the country we are charged to represent. It was, perhaps, a fitting, albeit unanticipated denouement to my tenure to end as I had begun &#x2013; following the first Speaker to be forced to resign in 300 years &#x2013; on a note of explosive controversy. The government was pitted against a parliament that rightly and resolutely refused to bend the knee or to shut up. It was my privilege, and I was proud, to pipe up for parliament one last time.</p>\n<figure class=\"element element-image img--landscape element--showcase  fig--narrow-caption fig--has-shares \" id=\"img-5\">\n<meta>\n<meta>\n<meta>\n<a href=\"https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/jan/25/john-bercow-speaker-house-commons-memoir?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other#img-5\" class=\"article__img-container js-gallerythumbs\">\n<div class=\"u-responsive-ratio\">\n<picture>\n\n<source srcset=\"https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/27a869c25855e59defb0aa285eb30bb83dd89e19/396_823_3724_2235/master/3724.jpg?width=860&amp;quality=45&amp;auto=format&amp;fit=max&amp;dpr=2&amp;s=02ba256ddf3e39ffd2e5ed3911fdb15a 1720w\">\n<source srcset=\"https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/27a869c25855e59defb0aa285eb30bb83dd89e19/396_823_3724_2235/master/3724.jpg?width=860&amp;quality=85&amp;auto=format&amp;fit=max&amp;s=6cc844f4cba98586442d2ba8a87ba6b4 860w\">\n<source srcset=\"https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/27a869c25855e59defb0aa285eb30bb83dd89e19/396_823_3724_2235/master/3724.jpg?width=780&amp;quality=45&amp;auto=format&amp;fit=max&amp;dpr=2&amp;s=d4f8e69c88da7d7550c3c81f1ac3aa6a 1560w\">\n<source srcset=\"https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/27a869c25855e59defb0aa285eb30bb83dd89e19/396_823_3724_2235/master/3724.jpg?width=780&amp;quality=85&amp;auto=format&amp;fit=max&amp;s=4b05686a24c47f214060718b44ebe127 780w\">\n<source srcset=\"https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/27a869c25855e59defb0aa285eb30bb83dd89e19/396_823_3724_2235/master/3724.jpg?width=620&amp;quality=45&amp;auto=format&amp;fit=max&amp;dpr=2&amp;s=bf1965c2486554a39f7dd853036a2b93 1240w\">\n<source srcset=\"https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/27a869c25855e59defb0aa285eb30bb83dd89e19/396_823_3724_2235/master/3724.jpg?width=620&amp;quality=85&amp;auto=format&amp;fit=max&amp;s=3e82f6f760560e5a0e10e4443eb36392 620w\">\n<source srcset=\"https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/27a869c25855e59defb0aa285eb30bb83dd89e19/396_823_3724_2235/master/3724.jpg?width=605&amp;quality=45&amp;auto=format&amp;fit=max&amp;dpr=2&amp;s=8b990e144ed70a7cc7db20c608a2706f 1210w\">\n<source srcset=\"https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/27a869c25855e59defb0aa285eb30bb83dd89e19/396_823_3724_2235/master/3724.jpg?width=605&amp;quality=85&amp;auto=format&amp;fit=max&amp;s=b42879e13fa89761be40d15db00e8dbb 605w\">\n<source srcset=\"https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/27a869c25855e59defb0aa285eb30bb83dd89e19/396_823_3724_2235/master/3724.jpg?width=445&amp;quality=45&amp;auto=format&amp;fit=max&amp;dpr=2&amp;s=ceb1ef159644112610ba7d55b53dc282 890w\">\n<source srcset=\"https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/27a869c25855e59defb0aa285eb30bb83dd89e19/396_823_3724_2235/master/3724.jpg?width=445&amp;quality=85&amp;auto=format&amp;fit=max&amp;s=d87f23c720b3d51e949bc6ac0fcf05ec 445w\">\n\n<img class=\"gu-image\" alt=\"Speaker John Bercow October 31, 2019\" src=\"https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/27a869c25855e59defb0aa285eb30bb83dd89e19/396_823_3724_2235/master/3724.jpg?width=300&amp;quality=85&amp;auto=format&amp;fit=max&amp;s=334982a9a642825c9817cc7dd3e52991\">\n</picture>\n</div>  </a>\n\n<figcaption class=\"caption caption--img caption caption--img\">\n Speaker John Bercow October 31, 2019. Photograph: Stefan Rousseau/PA\n</figcaption>\n</figure>\n<figure class=\"element element-interactive interactive\">\n<a href=\"https://interactive.guim.co.uk/embed/from-tool/generic/index.html?vertical=News&amp;opinion-tint=false&amp;title=John%20Bercow%20on%20%E2%80%A6&amp;description=&amp;link=false\" class=\"u-underline\">John Bercow on &#x2026;</a>\n</figure>\n<figure class=\"element element-image img--portrait element--thumbnail  fig--narrow-caption fig--has-shares fig--no-caption\" id=\"img-6\">\n<meta>\n<meta>\n<meta>\n<a href=\"https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/jan/25/john-bercow-speaker-house-commons-memoir?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other#img-6\" class=\"article__img-container js-gallerythumbs\">\n<div class=\"u-responsive-ratio\">\n<picture>\n\n<source srcset=\"https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/bcd3de4731eabca55d69e4c0123e177ae5e864c3/774_389_1834_2292/master/1834.jpg?width=140&amp;quality=45&amp;auto=format&amp;fit=max&amp;dpr=2&amp;s=0928530605c79b979f8ce80553313059 280w\">\n<source srcset=\"https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/bcd3de4731eabca55d69e4c0123e177ae5e864c3/774_389_1834_2292/master/1834.jpg?width=140&amp;quality=85&amp;auto=format&amp;fit=max&amp;s=061aa44beef68d8005c40f8fe037105e 140w\">\n<source srcset=\"https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/bcd3de4731eabca55d69e4c0123e177ae5e864c3/774_389_1834_2292/master/1834.jpg?width=120&amp;quality=45&amp;auto=format&amp;fit=max&amp;dpr=2&amp;s=d06b06e736d2f52aae9a3284850ad5c2 240w\">\n<source srcset=\"https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/bcd3de4731eabca55d69e4c0123e177ae5e864c3/774_389_1834_2292/master/1834.jpg?width=120&amp;quality=85&amp;auto=format&amp;fit=max&amp;s=44d88815b843aad43cfb23bc122d81ee 120w\">\n\n<img class=\"gu-image\" alt=\"Boris Johnson\" src=\"https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/bcd3de4731eabca55d69e4c0123e177ae5e864c3/774_389_1834_2292/master/1834.jpg?width=300&amp;quality=85&amp;auto=format&amp;fit=max&amp;s=def5ba0ac6e8da8e52e55b1d056dabed\">\n</picture>\n</div>  </a>\n\n</figure>\n<h2>Boris Johnson</h2>\n<p><strong>&#x201C;He is careless with words and facts&#x201D;<br></strong>As it happens, I like <a href=\"https://www.theguardian.com/politics/boris-johnson\" class=\"u-underline\">Boris Johnson</a>. He can be charming and witty. He has never been other than courteous to me. We played tennis in January 2017 at his then official country residence, Chevening, and he took his 6&#x2013;0, 6&#x2013;0, 6&#x2013;0 defeat with very good grace. He is not stupid, but highly intelligent, very well read and a fine conversationalist. However, he is careless with words and facts and, even by the standards of a profession in which self-regard is not uncommon, he is disproportionately preoccupied with whatever serves the cause of advancement for B Johnson. As a debater he is undistinguished and, as a public speaker, though humorous, he is often downright poor &#x2013; hesitant, unable to string sentences together fluently and about as likely ever to warrant the description &#x201C;captivating orator&#x201D; as Bertie Wooster or his chum Gussie Fink-Nottle. Apart from those notable limitations in a man who has since become prime minister, he is, at his occasional best, a passably adequate politician in an age not replete with them.</p>\n<figure class=\"element element-interactive interactive\">\n<a href=\"https://interactive.guim.co.uk/embed/2018/02/divider/index.html\" class=\"u-underline\">divider</a>\n</figure>\n<figure class=\"element element-image img--portrait element--thumbnail  fig--narrow-caption fig--has-shares fig--no-caption\" id=\"img-7\">\n<meta>\n<meta>\n<meta>\n<a href=\"https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/jan/25/john-bercow-speaker-house-commons-memoir?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other#img-7\" class=\"article__img-container js-gallerythumbs\">\n<div class=\"u-responsive-ratio\">\n<picture>\n\n<source srcset=\"https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/9e08dc08f215a3038f13f7316a51cfc88ee48014/206_121_2101_2626/master/2101.jpg?width=140&amp;quality=45&amp;auto=format&amp;fit=max&amp;dpr=2&amp;s=7145de156e58ba5f92b85f06ef90e03e 280w\">\n<source srcset=\"https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/9e08dc08f215a3038f13f7316a51cfc88ee48014/206_121_2101_2626/master/2101.jpg?width=140&amp;quality=85&amp;auto=format&amp;fit=max&amp;s=33aab588835d31d3ad98fba518167c4e 140w\">\n<source srcset=\"https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/9e08dc08f215a3038f13f7316a51cfc88ee48014/206_121_2101_2626/master/2101.jpg?width=120&amp;quality=45&amp;auto=format&amp;fit=max&amp;dpr=2&amp;s=d4d2956b3cafb0c4f2408870be9f85de 240w\">\n<source srcset=\"https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/9e08dc08f215a3038f13f7316a51cfc88ee48014/206_121_2101_2626/master/2101.jpg?width=120&amp;quality=85&amp;auto=format&amp;fit=max&amp;s=44339a45fb0d30e5f974b1aff29f6bd0 120w\">\n\n<img class=\"gu-image\" alt=\"Theresa May\" src=\"https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/9e08dc08f215a3038f13f7316a51cfc88ee48014/206_121_2101_2626/master/2101.jpg?width=300&amp;quality=85&amp;auto=format&amp;fit=max&amp;s=5ff157f91c21fa9a4bd28776d6b40100\">\n</picture>\n</div>  </a>\n\n</figure>\n<h2>Theresa May</h2>\n<p><strong>&#x201C;She was tearful only when adversity affected her&#x201D;<br></strong>Theresa May is decent but as wooden as your average coffee table, a worthy public servant but as dull as ditchwater, courteous to everyone but lacking in an ounce of small talk, honest but lacking in any original convictions, as capable as the next politician of reading a script but devoid of any spontaneity or natural fluency, let alone charisma.</p>\n<p>In her resignation speech, she attempted to describe her policy legacy. It was laughable, for there was none. She had not merely failed on her Brexit agenda, she had failed on almost everything else she had pledged to deliver. She had failed to tackle the &#x201C;burning injustices&#x201D;, failed to counter the explosion in knife crime, failed to address the rise in racial attacks and failed to devise a policy to meet the challenge posed by the crisis in social care.</p>\n<p>Finally, a PM who had become notorious for her absence of empathy and her robotic reiteration of vacuous mantras, suddenly displayed raw emotion about giving up the leadership of the country she loved. There were tears in her eyes and a lump in her throat. I could understand how upsetting it must have been for her but, candidly, I could not feel much sympathy. There was no such emotion over the victims of Grenfell Tower, those affected by the Windrush scandal or the daily misery endured by the homeless and those dependent on the food banks that have mushroomed alarmingly across the UK over the last decade. She was tearful only when adversity affected her.</p>\n<p>There was no trickery about her. Where <a href=\"https://www.theguardian.com/politics/davidcameron\" class=\"u-underline\">David Cameron</a>, William Hague and Michael Gove had schemed against me, she did not. Sadly, however, she was stubborn when flexibility was needed and, lacking a natural majority, she appeared frozen.</p>\n<p>May is not a bad person. She works exceptionally hard and wants the best for her country, while lacking a clear sense of what that is. Rudderless, without imagination, and with few real friends at the highest level, she stumbled on, day to day, lacking clarity, vision and the capacity to forge a better Britain. In a contest as to who has been the worst PM since 1945, it is hard to choose between Anthony Eden and <a href=\"https://www.theguardian.com/politics/theresamay\" class=\"u-underline\">Theresa May</a>.</p>\n<figure class=\"element element-interactive interactive\">\n<a href=\"https://interactive.guim.co.uk/embed/2018/02/divider/index.html\" class=\"u-underline\">divider</a>\n</figure>\n<figure class=\"element element-image img--portrait element--thumbnail  fig--narrow-caption fig--has-shares fig--no-caption\" id=\"img-8\">\n<meta>\n<meta>\n<meta>\n<a href=\"https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/jan/25/john-bercow-speaker-house-commons-memoir?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other#img-8\" class=\"article__img-container js-gallerythumbs\">\n<div class=\"u-responsive-ratio\">\n<picture>\n\n<source srcset=\"https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/a6c1929dfc1ff0fe0a77da06f671a6416b1a3d99/1222_239_1132_1415/master/1132.jpg?width=140&amp;quality=45&amp;auto=format&amp;fit=max&amp;dpr=2&amp;s=3d5b95f573d255242ffc9cf59b00c733 280w\">\n<source srcset=\"https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/a6c1929dfc1ff0fe0a77da06f671a6416b1a3d99/1222_239_1132_1415/master/1132.jpg?width=140&amp;quality=85&amp;auto=format&amp;fit=max&amp;s=d0ff077e8a57eb40f64c8952ebf0eed4 140w\">\n<source srcset=\"https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/a6c1929dfc1ff0fe0a77da06f671a6416b1a3d99/1222_239_1132_1415/master/1132.jpg?width=120&amp;quality=45&amp;auto=format&amp;fit=max&amp;dpr=2&amp;s=5549f530e74291088ecbbfc53405972a 240w\">\n<source srcset=\"https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/a6c1929dfc1ff0fe0a77da06f671a6416b1a3d99/1222_239_1132_1415/master/1132.jpg?width=120&amp;quality=85&amp;auto=format&amp;fit=max&amp;s=69f98efefb7c52e2cef1aee679e174e8 120w\">\n\n<img class=\"gu-image\" alt=\"Michael Howard\" src=\"https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/a6c1929dfc1ff0fe0a77da06f671a6416b1a3d99/1222_239_1132_1415/master/1132.jpg?width=300&amp;quality=85&amp;auto=format&amp;fit=max&amp;s=be9b87f1f45fbccfc2bfe59136a01e25\">\n</picture>\n</div>  </a>\n\n</figure>\n<h2>Michael Howard</h2>\n<p><strong>&#x201C;Coldness and oiliness in equal measure&#x201D;<br></strong>Michael Howard and I worked well together. That is not to say that I ever liked him. Frankly, I didn&#x2019;t. Some people are cold. Others are oily. His peculiar distinction was to combine coldness and oiliness in equal measure. Nevertheless, I got used to him and he to me. We had regular contact and, though his public image was poor, he was highly professional and a very accomplished performer at the despatch box.</p>\n<p>Those performances might not have resonated with the public but he lifted the morale of Conservative MPs with his efforts. Most importantly, whereas his predecessors almost visibly shrank when up against <a href=\"https://www.theguardian.com/politics/gordon-brown\" class=\"u-underline\">Gordon Brown</a>, Michael was not at all intimidated by him.</p>\n<figure class=\"element element-interactive interactive\">\n<a href=\"https://interactive.guim.co.uk/embed/2018/02/divider/index.html\" class=\"u-underline\">divider</a>\n</figure>\n<figure class=\"element element-image img--portrait element--thumbnail  fig--narrow-caption fig--has-shares fig--no-caption\" id=\"img-9\">\n<meta>\n<meta>\n<meta>\n<a href=\"https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/jan/25/john-bercow-speaker-house-commons-memoir?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other#img-9\" class=\"article__img-container js-gallerythumbs\">\n<div class=\"u-responsive-ratio\">\n<picture>\n\n<source srcset=\"https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/9ceea20c72dd44949a96334833f47f49e1c351c6/791_50_1096_1369/master/1096.jpg?width=140&amp;quality=45&amp;auto=format&amp;fit=max&amp;dpr=2&amp;s=d57a703fb9ee18bdc3c3bb92a1a99374 280w\">\n<source srcset=\"https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/9ceea20c72dd44949a96334833f47f49e1c351c6/791_50_1096_1369/master/1096.jpg?width=140&amp;quality=85&amp;auto=format&amp;fit=max&amp;s=7d6237330cf8313baf01f13f346d0cb6 140w\">\n<source srcset=\"https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/9ceea20c72dd44949a96334833f47f49e1c351c6/791_50_1096_1369/master/1096.jpg?width=120&amp;quality=45&amp;auto=format&amp;fit=max&amp;dpr=2&amp;s=b6fb597a51055cd720a1fdb9f65771e8 240w\">\n<source srcset=\"https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/9ceea20c72dd44949a96334833f47f49e1c351c6/791_50_1096_1369/master/1096.jpg?width=120&amp;quality=85&amp;auto=format&amp;fit=max&amp;s=cd6d52efef5e0d2169cbd81b67cd58e7 120w\">\n\n<img class=\"gu-image\" alt=\"Gordon Brown\" src=\"https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/9ceea20c72dd44949a96334833f47f49e1c351c6/791_50_1096_1369/master/1096.jpg?width=300&amp;quality=85&amp;auto=format&amp;fit=max&amp;s=05ed9e885a90eebaa2c1c97d07552ea9\">\n</picture>\n</div>  </a>\n\n</figure>\n<h2>Gordon Brown</h2>\n<p><strong>&#x201C;Extremely personable&#x201D;<br></strong>Whatever his critics say about him, my experience was that, one to one or in a small group, Gordon Brown was extremely personable, stunningly well read, and able to range widely over different topics. Years later, when I published a book on tennis, he urged me to speak at a literary festival in Scotland about it and my work as Speaker, facilitating such a visit through a friend of his. Often, when Sally [Bercow&#x2019;s wife] or I was under fire, he would make contact to express solidarity.</p>\n<figure class=\"element element-interactive interactive\">\n<a href=\"https://interactive.guim.co.uk/embed/2018/02/divider/index.html\" class=\"u-underline\">divider</a>\n</figure>\n<figure class=\"element element-image img--portrait element--thumbnail  fig--narrow-caption fig--has-shares fig--no-caption\" id=\"img-10\">\n<meta>\n<meta>\n<meta>\n<a href=\"https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/jan/25/john-bercow-speaker-house-commons-memoir?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other#img-10\" class=\"article__img-container js-gallerythumbs\">\n<div class=\"u-responsive-ratio\">\n<picture>\n\n<source srcset=\"https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/5689e24b04f554295e83bb3a5fb2d56b87881eeb/1017_185_1120_1401/master/1120.jpg?width=140&amp;quality=45&amp;auto=format&amp;fit=max&amp;dpr=2&amp;s=ac00f4e7920b972d769afa7fd4608534 280w\">\n<source srcset=\"https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/5689e24b04f554295e83bb3a5fb2d56b87881eeb/1017_185_1120_1401/master/1120.jpg?width=140&amp;quality=85&amp;auto=format&amp;fit=max&amp;s=50c9c39217020f8fc4df8202cd38e72f 140w\">\n<source srcset=\"https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/5689e24b04f554295e83bb3a5fb2d56b87881eeb/1017_185_1120_1401/master/1120.jpg?width=120&amp;quality=45&amp;auto=format&amp;fit=max&amp;dpr=2&amp;s=2e5a7264fe1c3e0ffe858fbe4aa6684b 240w\">\n<source srcset=\"https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/5689e24b04f554295e83bb3a5fb2d56b87881eeb/1017_185_1120_1401/master/1120.jpg?width=120&amp;quality=85&amp;auto=format&amp;fit=max&amp;s=f745e25a3752f3fc6b797752df98369d 120w\">\n\n<img class=\"gu-image\" alt=\"Jacob Rees-Mogg\" src=\"https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/5689e24b04f554295e83bb3a5fb2d56b87881eeb/1017_185_1120_1401/master/1120.jpg?width=300&amp;quality=85&amp;auto=format&amp;fit=max&amp;s=72740d961b482571d4e80e0f6be919d2\">\n</picture>\n</div>  </a>\n\n</figure>\n<h2>Jacob Rees-Mogg</h2>\n<p><strong>&#x201C;He has a good sense of humour&#x201D;<br></strong>It is no secret that most of my allies were from the Labour party. Yet for much of my speakership I had some Conservative allies and rather more of them than my most hardcore foes realised. One such was <a href=\"https://www.theguardian.com/politics/jacob-rees-mogg\" class=\"u-underline\">Jacob Rees-Mogg, the Conservative MP for North East Somerset</a>. Sally had been at Oxford with Jacob, but when he was first elected in 2010 we did not know each other. That soon changed. I heard him speak and we chatted at the chair, as many colleagues and I do.</p>\n<p>Jacob is a one-off, a singular specimen of humanity. In order to speak, he does not so much stand up, he &#x201C;uncoils&#x201D;. Overwhelmingly, he speaks without a text or notes, and addresses the house in perfect English. He develops and presents a logical argument on whatever subject with admirable fluency. Always ready to accept interventions in his speeches, he deals with them thoughtfully, playing the ball, not the man or woman, and exhibiting unfailing courtesy. He has a good sense of humour and is content not only to be teased but to take the mickey out of himself.</p>\n<p>When the Conservative leadership sought, on the last day of the 2010&#x2013;15 parliament, to change the rules on the re-election of the Speaker, Jacob was scathing. He knew underhand, dishonourable behaviour when he saw it. Not only would he not go along with such chicanery, but he voted against it, humiliating the leader of the house, William Hague, in the process &#x2013; albeit I doubt Hague had the emotional intelligence to realise that he had been humiliated.</p>\n<figure class=\"element element-interactive interactive\">\n<a href=\"https://interactive.guim.co.uk/embed/2018/02/divider/index.html\" class=\"u-underline\">divider</a>\n</figure>\n<figure class=\"element element-image img--portrait element--thumbnail  fig--narrow-caption fig--has-shares fig--no-caption\" id=\"img-11\">\n<meta>\n<meta>\n<meta>\n<a href=\"https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/jan/25/john-bercow-speaker-house-commons-memoir?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other#img-11\" class=\"article__img-container js-gallerythumbs\">\n<div class=\"u-responsive-ratio\">\n<picture>\n\n<source srcset=\"https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/dbc49d7de880544b710d58d37db711fb1d08d549/687_175_736_919/master/736.jpg?width=140&amp;quality=45&amp;auto=format&amp;fit=max&amp;dpr=2&amp;s=72b9d438986c5ab97e3fd7a29d14fc1c 280w\">\n<source srcset=\"https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/dbc49d7de880544b710d58d37db711fb1d08d549/687_175_736_919/master/736.jpg?width=140&amp;quality=85&amp;auto=format&amp;fit=max&amp;s=7142107f0d4e658d35644822b0c2aabf 140w\">\n<source srcset=\"https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/dbc49d7de880544b710d58d37db711fb1d08d549/687_175_736_919/master/736.jpg?width=120&amp;quality=45&amp;auto=format&amp;fit=max&amp;dpr=2&amp;s=93bda08870d91b54b8453a5d54e793e1 240w\">\n<source srcset=\"https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/dbc49d7de880544b710d58d37db711fb1d08d549/687_175_736_919/master/736.jpg?width=120&amp;quality=85&amp;auto=format&amp;fit=max&amp;s=9d1459da792d15fbd437204a59dda175 120w\">\n\n<img class=\"gu-image\" alt=\"David Cameron\" src=\"https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/dbc49d7de880544b710d58d37db711fb1d08d549/687_175_736_919/master/736.jpg?width=300&amp;quality=85&amp;auto=format&amp;fit=max&amp;s=ef4be8be250831b3305c65c7c1134c45\">\n</picture>\n</div>  </a>\n\n</figure>\n<h2>David Cameron</h2>\n<p><strong>&#x201C;He was visibly furious. Too bad.&#x201D;<br></strong>In seeking election as Conservative leader, Cameron had gone to great lengths to portray himself as a moderniser, someone who wanted his party to &#x201C;stop banging on about Europe&#x201D;, to focus on public services, to support gender equality and facilitate a better work-life balance. He wanted a policy on childcare. Yet when I successfully led the drive to establish a nursery in parliament &#x2013; which he used for a time &#x2013; he took not the slightest interest and stood idly by while some of his neanderthal backbenchers sought to block the project. If a new idea could be presented to the greater glory of D Cameron, he was ravenous for it. If it could not, he had no appetite for it whatsoever.</p>\n<p>When he was under legitimate pressure over his links with News International and Rupert Murdoch, and I granted an urgent question to Ed Miliband to probe him, he was visibly furious. Too bad, I thought. The subject needed to be aired. It was his responsibility to step up to the plate and account for his government. Above all, what Cameron couldn&#x2019;t abide was when I cut him off at PMQs for going beyond his brief, talking too long, or both. No doubt the resentment welled up in him.</p>\n<figure class=\"element element-interactive interactive\">\n<a href=\"https://interactive.guim.co.uk/embed/2018/02/divider/index.html\" class=\"u-underline\">divider</a>\n</figure>\n<figure class=\"element element-image img--portrait element--thumbnail  fig--narrow-caption fig--has-shares fig--no-caption\" id=\"img-12\">\n<meta>\n<meta>\n<meta>\n<a href=\"https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/jan/25/john-bercow-speaker-house-commons-memoir?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other#img-12\" class=\"article__img-container js-gallerythumbs\">\n<div class=\"u-responsive-ratio\">\n<picture>\n\n<source srcset=\"https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/8359ec7916f0a0ca46939cbe1990331644ab403b/470_165_1139_1423/master/1139.jpg?width=140&amp;quality=45&amp;auto=format&amp;fit=max&amp;dpr=2&amp;s=05479d47d281e1ec6664d57ddae8f832 280w\">\n<source srcset=\"https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/8359ec7916f0a0ca46939cbe1990331644ab403b/470_165_1139_1423/master/1139.jpg?width=140&amp;quality=85&amp;auto=format&amp;fit=max&amp;s=bc79b4c72de57db7166f4d449a726d77 140w\">\n<source srcset=\"https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/8359ec7916f0a0ca46939cbe1990331644ab403b/470_165_1139_1423/master/1139.jpg?width=120&amp;quality=45&amp;auto=format&amp;fit=max&amp;dpr=2&amp;s=e3198e3a8edb70319df8c7098f2c11aa 240w\">\n<source srcset=\"https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/8359ec7916f0a0ca46939cbe1990331644ab403b/470_165_1139_1423/master/1139.jpg?width=120&amp;quality=85&amp;auto=format&amp;fit=max&amp;s=5f7de37e6e50638996fb501ad72a9677 120w\">\n\n<img class=\"gu-image\" alt=\"David Lammy\" src=\"https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/8359ec7916f0a0ca46939cbe1990331644ab403b/470_165_1139_1423/master/1139.jpg?width=300&amp;quality=85&amp;auto=format&amp;fit=max&amp;s=45495010617380ff2346a4befe243c88\">\n</picture>\n</div>  </a>\n\n</figure>\n<h2>David Lammy</h2>\n<p><strong>&#x201C;The parliamentarian that Grenfell folk and the public alike wanted to hear.&#x201D;<br></strong>No MP has spoken with greater force or passion on the Grenfell tragedy than <a href=\"https://www.theguardian.com/politics/david-lammy\" class=\"u-underline\">David Lammy</a>. Many of the victims were ethnic-minority Britons and, tellingly, Lammy and his artist wife had mentored, employed and encouraged a young woman called Khadija Saye, who died in the fire. It was raw, close to home, inescapably personal to Lammy. That fact, combined with his passionate, angry eloquence in laying bare the sheer avoidable horror of what had happened, carried real weight. On police resources, seizure of documents for investigation, the possibility of criminal charges, health assessments and bereavement counselling for survivors and finance for safe cladding, Lammy was indefatigable in questioning ministers. I am sad to say that May, Sajid Javid (the housing, communities and local government secretary at the time ) and then middle-ranking minister Dominic Raab were matter of fact, even cold, in response. I do not suggest that they did not care, but they appeared to show no empathy whatever. I felt embarrassed for them as they gave such a poor account of themselves whereas Lammy was exactly the parliamentarian that Grenfell folk and the public alike wanted to hear.</p>\n<p><em>This is an edited extract from Unspeakable: The Autobiography by John Bercow, published by W&amp;N (RRP &#xA3;20) on 6 February. To buy a copy go to <a href=\"https://guardianbookshop.com/unspeakable-9781474616621.html?utm_source=editoriallink&amp;utm_medium=merch&amp;utm_campaign=article\" class=\"u-underline\">guardianbookshop.com</a>. Free UK p&amp;p over &#xA3;15.</em></p>\n\n\n</div></div>","url":"https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/jan/25/john-bercow-speaker-house-commons-memoir","date_published":"2020-01-25T09:00:49+00:00","author":{"name":"John Bercow"}},{"id":"1790","title":"Did Plato’s Republic warn Democracies about Trump 2,394 Years Ago?","content_html":"<div class=\"entry-content\"><p>By Matthew Sharpe | &#x2013;</p>\n<p>Western philosophy is a series of footnotes to Plato, <a href=\"https://www.philosophersmag.com/footnotes-to-plato/57-introducing-footnotes-to-plato\">the old saying</a> goes. And The Republic (c. 375 BCE), featuring <a href=\"http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0258%3Abook%3D2%3Achapter%3D5\">Plato&#x2019;s teacher Socrates</a> in dialogue with several friends, is unquestionably central to Plato&#x2019;s thought.</p>\n<p>There are few subjects that Plato&#x2019;s masterpiece does not touch or play on: political theory, education, myth, psychology, ethics, <a href=\"https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/epistemology/\">epistemology</a>, cultural criticism, drama and comedy. </p>\n<p>Little surprise then, that The Republic continues to be claimed by people with the most diverse convictions and agendas. </p>\n<p>The <a href=\"https://www.cairn-int.info/article.php?ID_ARTICLE=E_VIN_117_0043\">Nazis</a> pointed to the text&#x2019;s seeming advocacy of eugenics. Yet <a href=\"https://www.exhibit.xavier.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1016&amp;context=classics_faculty\">Martin Luther King Jr</a> nominated The Republic as the one book he would have taken to a deserted island, alongside the Bible. </p>\n<p>Karl Popper <a href=\"https://books.google.com.au/books/about/The_Open_Society_and_Its_Enemies.html?id=_M_E5QczOBAC&amp;redir_esc=y\">famously accused</a> The Republic of being a blueprint for illiberal, closed societies. Yet today, we can hear its echoes in the dazzling <a href=\"https://genius.com/Balaji-srinivasan-silicon-valleys-ultimate-exit-annotated\">hyper-libertarian utopias</a> envisaged by the Silicon Valley set.</p>\n<p>The Republic&#x2019;s famous <a href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegory_of_the_cave#:%7E:targetText=The%20allegory%20of%20the%20cave,Socrates%2C%20narrated%20by%20the%20latter.\">allegory of the cave</a>, which suggests that people&#x2019;s ordinary sense of reality may be illusory, continues to shape our cultural imagination. It has been revisited again and again in literature, as well as in classic sci-fi films like <a href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Matrix\">The Matrix</a>.</p>\n<p>So, how can we make sense of this extraordinary text today?</p>\n<figure class=\"align-center zoomable\"> <a href=\"https://images.theconversation.com/files/306493/original/file-20191212-85371-hkav7u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=1000&amp;fit=clip\"><img alt=\"\" src=\"https://images.theconversation.com/files/306493/original/file-20191212-85371-hkav7u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=249&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=1%20600w,%20https://images.theconversation.com/files/306493/original/file-20191212-85371-hkav7u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=30&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=249&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=2%201200w,%20https://images.theconversation.com/files/306493/original/file-20191212-85371-hkav7u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=15&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=249&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=3%201800w,%20https://images.theconversation.com/files/306493/original/file-20191212-85371-hkav7u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=313&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=1%20754w,%20https://images.theconversation.com/files/306493/original/file-20191212-85371-hkav7u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=30&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=313&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=2%201508w,%20https://images.theconversation.com/files/306493/original/file-20191212-85371-hkav7u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=15&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=313&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=3%202262w\" srcset=\"https://images.theconversation.com/files/306493/original/file-20191212-85371-hkav7u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=249&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/306493/original/file-20191212-85371-hkav7u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=30&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=249&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/306493/original/file-20191212-85371-hkav7u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=15&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=249&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/306493/original/file-20191212-85371-hkav7u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=313&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/306493/original/file-20191212-85371-hkav7u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=30&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=313&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/306493/original/file-20191212-85371-hkav7u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=15&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=313&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=3 2262w\"></a><figcaption> <span class=\"caption\">Keanu Reeves in The Matrix (1999): the film revisits some of Plato&#x2019;s ideas outlined in The Republic.</span><br> <span class=\"attribution\"><span class=\"source\">Warner Bros., Village Roadshow Pictures, Groucho Film Partnership</span></span><br> </figcaption></figure>\n<h2>Utopia</h2>\n<p>Divided into ten &#x201C;books&#x201D;, the Republic is mostly taught as a text championing a series of radical prescriptions concerning the best city (<em>polis</em>) or regime (<em>politeia</em>). </p>\n<p>At a certain point, Plato&#x2019;s Socrates tells his young friends that the best city will be one in which the population is <a href=\"https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Plat.+Rep.+433a&amp;fromdoc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0168\">divided</a> into three castes. On top will be a ruling caste of (yes) philosopher-guardians. </p>\n<p>The second class will be &#x201C;auxiliaries&#x201D; or soldiers who will share <a href=\"https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0168%3Abook%3D5%3Asection%3D458c\">everything in common</a>, including wives and children. Indeed, Socrates depicts men and women as absolutely <a href=\"https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Plat.+Rep.+451c&amp;fromdoc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0168\">equal in all decisive senses</a>. The third class are craftspeople and traders more recognisable to us today.</p>\n<p>This is all very pie-in-the-sky stuff. When Socrates suggests that justice is only possible <a href=\"https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Plat.+Rep.+473c&amp;fromdoc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0168\">if philosophers become kings, or kings philosophers</a>, his young companion Glaucon jokes that most people on hearing this will probably <a href=\"https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0168%3Abook%3D5%3Asection%3D473e\">reach for their weapons</a>. </p>\n<figure class=\"align-left \"> <img alt=\"\" src=\"https://images.theconversation.com/files/305991/original/file-20191210-95149-180qvd9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=911&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=1%20600w,%20https://images.theconversation.com/files/305991/original/file-20191210-95149-180qvd9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=30&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=911&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=2%201200w,%20https://images.theconversation.com/files/305991/original/file-20191210-95149-180qvd9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=15&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=911&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=3%201800w,%20https://images.theconversation.com/files/305991/original/file-20191210-95149-180qvd9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=1144&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=1%20754w,%20https://images.theconversation.com/files/305991/original/file-20191210-95149-180qvd9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=30&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=1144&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=2%201508w,%20https://images.theconversation.com/files/305991/original/file-20191210-95149-180qvd9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=15&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=1144&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=3%202262w\" srcset=\"https://images.theconversation.com/files/305991/original/file-20191210-95149-180qvd9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=911&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/305991/original/file-20191210-95149-180qvd9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=30&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=911&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/305991/original/file-20191210-95149-180qvd9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=15&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=911&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/305991/original/file-20191210-95149-180qvd9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=1144&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/305991/original/file-20191210-95149-180qvd9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=30&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=1144&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/305991/original/file-20191210-95149-180qvd9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=15&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=1144&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=3 2262w\"><figcaption> <span class=\"caption\"></span>\n</figcaption></figure>\n<p>Less amusing is the proposed power of Socrates&#x2019; enlightened guardians to <a href=\"https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0168%3Abook%3D5%3Asection%3D458c\">&#x201C;breed&#x201D; men and women</a> as breeders selectively mate horses, dogs or fighting birds. The <a href=\"https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Plat.+Rep.+460b&amp;fromdoc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0168\">best warriors</a> will get to sleep with the most beautiful women. There will be <a href=\"https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Plat.+Rep.+5.459c&amp;fromdoc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0168\">rigged</a> &#x201C;lotteries&#x201D; so that the lesser-credentialed think it is just bad luck that they cannot &#x201C;hook up&#x201D; with the alphas.</p>\n<p>Babies will be taken from their mothers by the rulers to a kind of state cr&#xE8;che. More ominously, children born with defects will be &#x201C;<a href=\"https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0168%3Abook%3D5%3Asection%3D460c\">hidden away</a>&#x201D; (<em>katakrypsousin</em>). </p>\n<p>Everything is to be arranged so everyone can <a href=\"https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Plat.+Rep.+5.462c&amp;fromdoc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0168\">say &#x201C;mine&#x201D; about the same things</a>. Each person will not know who their immediate biological family is. So, they <a href=\"https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0168%3Abook%3D5%3Asection%3D461d\">will consider</a> all their fellow-citizens as brothers and sisters, mothers and fathers.</p>\n<h2>Dystopia</h2>\n<p>We can understand at this point why <a href=\"https://brill.com/view/book/edcoll/9789004299061/B9789004299061_010.xml\">Nazi educationalists</a> looked to The Republic as a precedent for some of their programs. Contemporary dreamers of a &#x201C;<a href=\"https://breakermag.com/heres-the-dark-enlightenment-explainer-you-never-wanted/\">dark enlightenment</a>&#x201D; wherein techy people &#x201C;with high IQs&#x201D; can &#x201C;opt out&#x201D; of wider society are also finding their way back to the future as depicted in The Republic Book V. </p>\n<p>Why many other defenders of political liberty admire Plato&#x2019;s text is less clear. But, as mentioned, there are many other things the book discusses than Socrates&#x2019; seemingly ideal &#x201C;<a href=\"https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0168%3Abook%3D2%3Asection%3D369a\">city in speech</a>&#x201D;.</p>\n<figure class=\"align-right zoomable\"> <a href=\"https://images.theconversation.com/files/306490/original/file-20191212-85376-a345vl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=1000&amp;fit=clip\"><img alt=\"\" src=\"https://images.theconversation.com/files/306490/original/file-20191212-85376-a345vl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=900&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=1%20600w,%20https://images.theconversation.com/files/306490/original/file-20191212-85376-a345vl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=30&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=900&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=2%201200w,%20https://images.theconversation.com/files/306490/original/file-20191212-85376-a345vl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=15&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=900&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=3%201800w,%20https://images.theconversation.com/files/306490/original/file-20191212-85376-a345vl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=1131&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=1%20754w,%20https://images.theconversation.com/files/306490/original/file-20191212-85376-a345vl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=30&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=1131&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=2%201508w,%20https://images.theconversation.com/files/306490/original/file-20191212-85376-a345vl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=15&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=1131&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=3%202262w\" srcset=\"https://images.theconversation.com/files/306490/original/file-20191212-85376-a345vl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=900&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/306490/original/file-20191212-85376-a345vl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=30&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=900&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/306490/original/file-20191212-85376-a345vl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=15&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=900&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/306490/original/file-20191212-85376-a345vl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=1131&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/306490/original/file-20191212-85376-a345vl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=30&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=1131&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/306490/original/file-20191212-85376-a345vl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=15&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=1131&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=3 2262w\"></a><figcaption> <span class=\"caption\">A Roman copy of the portrait of Plato made by Silanion ca. 370 BC for the Academia in Athens.</span><br> <span class=\"attribution\"><span class=\"source\">Wikimedia Commons</span></span><br> </figcaption></figure>\n<p>The Republic&#x2019;s principal concern is the question of <a href=\"https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0168%3Abook%3D1%3Asection%3D331c\">what justice is</a>. Does being just benefit the just persons themselves, or those whom they aid, <a href=\"https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0168%3Abook%3D2%3Asection%3D357d\">or both</a>? Is it good for a person to live a just life?</p>\n<p>To answer, The Republic <a href=\"https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0168%3Abook%3D2%3Asection%3D368e\">sets up a connection</a> between types and parts of the human psyche (mind, soul) and different political systems. For some systems and people, honour and its pursuit is considered the highest good. In other societies, like our own, the pursuit of money as the means to pleasure, power, and satisfying desires is predominant. </p>\n<p><a href=\"https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Plat.+Rep.+488a&amp;fromdoc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0168\">Socrates plausibly suggests</a> that it would seem to be best that our political leaders are people who desire wisdom. For such people will be <a href=\"https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Plat.+Rep.+347b&amp;fromdoc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0168\">least moved</a> by the desires for status and riches that <a href=\"https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0168%3Abook%3D7%3Asection%3D520d\">produce civil dissension</a>. </p>\n<p>But then, it is almost impossible to imagine how such a ruling elite could ever be created without great injustices. How everybody else could be &#x201C;persuaded&#x201D; to accept their claims to rule is also unclear &#x2013; as is grasping just how Plato&#x2019;s guardians could get ordinary citizens to give up their kids to the state for the greater good.</p>\n<h2>The cycle of regimes</h2>\n<p>Given these problems with the utopian interpretation of The Republic, some <a href=\"http://bmcr.brynmawr.edu/2012/2012-07-12.html\">modern commentators</a> take seriously Socrates&#x2019; repeated hints that we should consider what he is saying with a grain of salt.</p>\n<p>In the wider context of the dialogue, Socrates presents the image of the three-caste city in order to provide his friends with <a href=\"https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0168%3Abook%3D2%3Asection%3D368e\">an image</a> of what a just individual soul would be like. Such a soul would be one in which wisdom rules over the desires for honour and pleasures. &#x201C;Justice&#x201D; would apparently be <a href=\"https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Plat.+Rep.+432b&amp;fromdoc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0168\">something like</a> the inner harmony of the soul&#x2019;s parts. </p>\n<p>The famous &#x201C;best city&#x201D;, which has produced such divided reactions from commentators, is therefore a <a href=\"https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0168%3Abook%3D4%3Asection%3D420c\">methodological model</a>. If we can glimpse justice in something as big as a city, Socrates suggests, we might know what to look for in a person.</p>\n<p>Small wonder that Socrates <a href=\"https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0168%3Abook%3D4%3Asection%3D435d\">warns his friend</a>: &#x201C;you should know, Glaucon, that in my opinion, we will never get a precise answer using our present methods of argument&#x201D;.</p>\n<figure class=\"align-center zoomable\"> <a href=\"https://images.theconversation.com/files/306489/original/file-20191212-85371-1jjjk8t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=1000&amp;fit=clip\"><img alt=\"\" src=\"https://images.theconversation.com/files/306489/original/file-20191212-85371-1jjjk8t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=653&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=1%20600w,%20https://images.theconversation.com/files/306489/original/file-20191212-85371-1jjjk8t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=30&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=653&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=2%201200w,%20https://images.theconversation.com/files/306489/original/file-20191212-85371-1jjjk8t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=15&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=653&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=3%201800w,%20https://images.theconversation.com/files/306489/original/file-20191212-85371-1jjjk8t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=821&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=1%20754w,%20https://images.theconversation.com/files/306489/original/file-20191212-85371-1jjjk8t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=30&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=821&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=2%201508w,%20https://images.theconversation.com/files/306489/original/file-20191212-85371-1jjjk8t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=15&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=821&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=3%202262w\" srcset=\"https://images.theconversation.com/files/306489/original/file-20191212-85371-1jjjk8t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=653&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/306489/original/file-20191212-85371-1jjjk8t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=30&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=653&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/306489/original/file-20191212-85371-1jjjk8t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=15&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=653&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/306489/original/file-20191212-85371-1jjjk8t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=821&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/306489/original/file-20191212-85371-1jjjk8t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=30&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=821&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/306489/original/file-20191212-85371-1jjjk8t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=15&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=821&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=3 2262w\"></a><figcaption> <span class=\"caption\">Portrait of Plato in Raphael&#x2019;s The School of Athens fresco, 1509.</span><br> <span class=\"attribution\"><span class=\"source\">Wikimedia Commons</span></span><br> </figcaption></figure>\n<p>If there is a political message in The Republic at all, it is <a href=\"https://books.google.com.au/books/about/The_City_and_Man.html?id=y-xnGhgrwUoC&amp;redir_esc=y\">not about</a> creating a recipe for the ideal city.</p>\n<p>The true meaning of the Republic instead lies in how it stages the inescapable difficulties of political life, given what Isaiah Berlin called <a href=\"https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691155937/the-crooked-timber-of-humanity\">the crooked timber</a> of human nature.</p>\n<p>In fact, not just Socrates&#x2019; <em>kallipolis</em> (beautiful city), but each of the political regimes that he examines in The Republic prove flawed and unstable. </p>\n<p>Regimes led by honour-loving nobles (<em>timocracies</em>) can only survive based on elites&#x2019; <a href=\"https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Plat.+Rep.+549a&amp;fromdoc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0168\">harshness towards inferiors</a>, sowing grapes of wrath. Such elites tend over time to become <a href=\"https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0168%3Abook%3D8%3Asection%3D549b\">scornful of public duties</a>, and as they age, to turn from matters of war to finance: </p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>finding ways of spending money for themselves, then they stretch the laws relating to money-making, then they and their wives disobey the laws altogether. </p>\n</blockquote>\n<p>This vision sounds oddly prophetic after the Global Financial Crisis of 2007-8. Oligarchies hollow out the middle classes. By lending money at interest, <a href=\"https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0168%3Abook%3D8%3Asection%3D552c\">they create</a> &#x201C;a considerable amount of drones and beggars in the city&#x201D;. At a certain point, these &#x201C;have-nots&#x201D; rightly revolt. Democracies follow.</p>\n<p>But Plato is <a href=\"https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Plat.+Rep.+8.561c&amp;fromdoc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0168\">no simple friend of democracies</a>, either. Socrates asserts that the democratic citizens&#x2019; love of freedom tends to undermine traditional authorities. Teachers become afraid of students and parents of their children. <a href=\"https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0168%3Abook%3D8%3Asection%3D563\">As the generations mix</a>, &#x201C;the old stoop to play &#x2026; and pleasantry, imitating the young for fear of appearing disagreeable and authoritarian &#x2026;&#x201D; </p>\n<p>These passages have appeared prescient to many conservatives since the 60s.</p>\n<p>A moral vacuum ensues in which demagogues can arise, promising to make the city great again. At this point, Socrates warns, <a href=\"https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Plat.+Rep.+564a&amp;fromdoc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0168\">democracies can devolve into tyrannies</a>. </p>\n<p>In these deeply unjust regimes, a single man can play out his hubris and pathologies on entire peoples, after removing his foes by force or fraud. </p>\n<p>For some <a href=\"https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2016/04/america-tyranny-donald-trump.html\">commentators</a>, <a href=\"https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Plat.+Rep.+8.565e&amp;fromdoc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0168\">these passages</a> have seemed most prophetic after 2016. </p>\n<h2>Justice, philosophy, and the cave</h2>\n<p>What, then, does The Republic say positively about justice?</p>\n<p>An iconic exchange in The Republic pits Socrates against <a href=\"https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Plat.+Rep.+336b&amp;fromdoc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0168\">the sophist Thrasymachus</a>. The latter argues that &#x201C;might&#x201D; (boldness, strength and cunning) &#x201C;<a href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Might_Is_Right\">makes right</a>&#x201D;. </p>\n<p>Socrates&#x2019; claim that justice involves <a href=\"https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0168%3Abook%3D1%3Asection%3D335e\">harming no one</a>, and cultivating the knowledge to benefit others and oneself, sounds to the &#x201C;beast-like&#x201D; Thrasymachus <a href=\"https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0168%3Abook%3D1%3Asection%3D350e\">as naive</a> as it still sounds to &#x201C;realists&#x201D; today.</p>\n<p>Glaucon and Adeimantus, amongst Socrates&#x2019; other companions, also wonder whether treating others justly is not a recipe for individual unhappiness. Anticipating Mr Tolkein, Glaucon puts Socrates&#x2019; view to the test by <a href=\"https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0168%3Abook%3D2%3Asection%3D359c\">imagining</a> a magic ring conferring invisibility. Wouldn&#x2019;t even Socrates take advantage of this power to feather his own nest on the quiet?</p>\n<p>Unbelievably, Socrates replies &#x201C;no&#x201D;.</p>\n<p>The argumentative arc of The Republic in fact closes in book IX, at the end of <a href=\"https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0168%3Abook%3D9%3Asection%3D577d\">the account of a tyrant&#x2019;s life</a>. Here, we are made to see that the tyrant&#x2019;s amoral pursuit of egoistic appetites, which people often imagine as the best of all possible lives, is a recipe for misery and paranoia. </p>\n<p>In one of the mathematical plays that dot the text, Socrates tells us that such a monomaniac will be <a href=\"https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Plat.+Rep.+587c&amp;fromdoc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0168\">exactly 729 times less happy</a> than a wise person. For the author of The Republic, grinning with irony, it is exponentially better to be just than to live unjustly.</p>\n<p>Only when we see this can we grasp why Plato spills so much ink in The Republic on how to educate a lover of wisdom, <a href=\"https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0168%3Abook%3D6%3Asection%3D485a\">turning them away</a> from the lures of money, fame, flattery and power. The famous images of the <a href=\"https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Plat.+Rep.+509d&amp;fromdoc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0168\">divided line</a>, the <a href=\"https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Plat.+Rep.+514a&amp;fromdoc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0168\">cave</a>, and <a href=\"https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0168%3Abook%3D6%3Asection%3D509b\">the Good beyond being</a> are each produced in the course of describing such an ideal education.</p>\n<p>In the cave allegory mentioned above, Socrates depicts ordinary people in a cave, seated for their whole lives watching images projected on the walls by &#x201C;<a href=\"https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0168%3Abook%3D7%3Asection%3D514b\">hidden persuaders</a>&#x201D; (sophists, probably, and politicians). Not knowing any better, they assume that the images they see are real things. Plato&#x2019;s image itself seems an uncanny anticipation of modern <a href=\"https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/adorno/1944/culture-industry.htm\">culture industries</a> and today&#x2019;s ubiquitous screen technologies.</p>\n<figure class=\"align-center zoomable\"> <a href=\"https://images.theconversation.com/files/306491/original/file-20191212-85367-59zbqq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=1000&amp;fit=clip\"><img alt=\"\" src=\"https://images.theconversation.com/files/306491/original/file-20191212-85367-59zbqq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=443&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=1%20600w,%20https://images.theconversation.com/files/306491/original/file-20191212-85367-59zbqq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=30&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=443&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=2%201200w,%20https://images.theconversation.com/files/306491/original/file-20191212-85367-59zbqq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=15&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=443&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=3%201800w,%20https://images.theconversation.com/files/306491/original/file-20191212-85367-59zbqq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=557&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=1%20754w,%20https://images.theconversation.com/files/306491/original/file-20191212-85367-59zbqq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=30&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=557&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=2%201508w,%20https://images.theconversation.com/files/306491/original/file-20191212-85367-59zbqq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=15&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=557&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=3%202262w\" srcset=\"https://images.theconversation.com/files/306491/original/file-20191212-85367-59zbqq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=443&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/306491/original/file-20191212-85367-59zbqq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=30&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=443&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/306491/original/file-20191212-85367-59zbqq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=15&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=443&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/306491/original/file-20191212-85367-59zbqq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=557&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/306491/original/file-20191212-85367-59zbqq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=30&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=557&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/306491/original/file-20191212-85367-59zbqq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=15&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=557&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=3 2262w\"></a><figcaption> <span class=\"caption\">A 16th century painting depicting Plato&#x2019;s cave, attributed to Michiel Coxie.</span><br> <span class=\"attribution\"><span class=\"source\">Wikimedia Commons</span></span><br> </figcaption></figure>\n<p>The philosopher is s/he who has <a href=\"https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0168%3Abook%3D7%3Asection%3D515e\">turned around and climbed out of the cave</a> to see reality for themselves. </p>\n<p>Justice for such a person is voluntarily &#x201C;<a href=\"https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0168%3Abook%3D7%3Asection%3D520c\">going back down</a>&#x201D; into the cave to help others likewise turn their souls around. It is surely no mere chance that <a href=\"https://books.google.com/books?id=AyvCDAAAQBAJ&amp;printsec=frontcover&amp;dq=plato+republic+william+altman&amp;hl=en&amp;newbks=1&amp;newbks_redir=0&amp;sa=X&amp;ved=2ahUKEwic8KeslI7mAhWKqp4KHd1rBoIQ6AEwAHoECAEQAg#v=onepage&amp;q=plato%20republic%20william%20altman&amp;f=false\">the first word</a> of the Republic is Socrates telling us that &#x201C;I went down yesterday to the Piraeus &#x2026;&#x201D;</p>\n<p>The Socratic task is not easy. Socrates himself <a href=\"http://www.sjsu.edu/people/james.lindahl/courses/Phil70A/s3/apology.pdf\">paid a heavy price</a> for pursuing it. So the philosopher must be trained to &#x201C;<a href=\"https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Plat.+Rep.+534b&amp;fromdoc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0168\">run the gauntlet of all tests</a>&#x201D;:</p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>striving to examine everything by essential reality and not by opinion, holding on his way through all this without tripping in his reasoning &#x2026;</p>\n</blockquote>\n<p>The Republic itself can be read as a masterclass in this kind of training. For this reason, it rightly remains a classic text, and a timeless challenge to readers of all persuasions.</p>\n<p><span><a href=\"https://theconversation.com/profiles/matthew-sharpe-125260\">Matthew Sharpe</a>, Associate Professor in Philosophy, <em><a href=\"http://theconversation.com/institutions/deakin-university-757\">Deakin University</a></em></span></p>\n<p>This article is republished from <a href=\"http://theconversation.com/\">The Conversation</a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the <a href=\"https://theconversation.com/guide-to-the-classics-platos-republic-127724\">original article</a>.</p> </div>","url":"https://www.juancole.com/2019/12/platos-republic-democracies.html","date_published":"2019-12-17T00:01:29+00:00","author":{"name":"The Conversation"}},{"id":"1775","title":"The Future of Banking Is … You're Broke","content_html":"<div class=\"grid--item body body__container article__body grid-layout__content\"><p>The latest wave of tech-based financial startups have a new angle on the banking sector: They&#x2019;ll assume that everyone is out of money, then try to monetize their brokeness.</p><p>So-called <a class=\"external-link\" href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/20/technology/finance-start-ups-neo-banks.html\">neo-banks</a>, or challenger banks, have been all the rage in Europe and Australia for the past few years. Now they&#x2019;re starting to get attention here in the US, with <a class=\"external-link\" href=\"https://www.fintechfutures.com/2018/08/us-challenger-banks-whos-who-and-whats-their-tech/\">names like</a> Chime, Varo, SoFi, Current, GoBank, and even&#x2014;heaven help us&#x2014;<a class=\"external-link\" href=\"https://booyahbank.com/\">booyah!</a>. Yes, the exclamation point is part of the name. Like Yahoo!. Cutting edge, I know.</p><p>These neo-banks have been trying to make money in the usual ways: By taking a cut of credit or debit card transactions, collecting interest on consumer deposits, and making loans. The usual banking stuff.</p><p>Their come-on is that they&#x2019;re super-convenient, all-digital, mobile alternatives to the big banks. Better yet, they&#x2019;re focused on their customers&#x2019; &#x201C;financial health,&#x201D; as one neo-bank CEO told me, and easing the &#x201C;pain&#x201D; that people feel around their money.</p><p>What makes that pain go away? At Chime and Varo, you can get what sounds a little like a neo&#x2013;payday loan&#x2014;your paycheck cashed, up to two days before your actual payday. Checking accounts at these startups are often free, and the companies will let you go $50 or $100 into the red before they start charging any overdraft fees. Some have automated savings accounts that invisibly funnel a few dollars from your paycheck into savings.</p><p>These neo-banks aren&#x2019;t necessarily even banks at all; some are apps that facilitate transactions, which are then carried out by partners that <em>are</em> banks. Others have applied for bank charters while touting their homegrown technology stacks and hyperpersonalized product offerings (based, of course, on your personal data). But all of them say, explicitly or by intimation, that they&#x2019;re mission-driven. Their mission is the hot mess that is your finances.</p><p>The hot mess is very real. Seventy-eight percent of Americans live paycheck to paycheck. Student loan obligations in this country total $1.5 trillion, and researchers believe they&#x2019;re cutting into millennials&#x2019; ability to <a class=\"external-link\" href=\"https://www.npr.org/2019/02/01/689660957/heavy-student-loan-debt-forces-many-millennials-to-delay-buying-homes\">buy homes</a>, have kids, and save for retirement. More than 40 percent of households have some credit card debt: The average liability is more than $5,000, and the poorer you are, the more <a class=\"external-link\" href=\"https://www.valuepenguin.com/average-credit-card-debt\">you&#x2019;re likely to have</a>.</p><p>So what better fix than to slap a slick veneer of tech over basic banking services, push the <a class=\"external-link\" href=\"https://www.britannica.com/topic/Ouroboros\">ouroboros</a> paycheck cycle up by a couple of days, offer some basic budgeting tools, and call it a revolution in consumer banking?</p><p>Better banking isn&#x2019;t a bad idea, nor is it a tough sell. There&#x2019;s definitely an ambient frustration with the megabanks that have <a class=\"external-link\" href=\"https://www.theguardian.com/business/2008/dec/28/markets-credit-crunch-banking-2008\">destroyed</a> the global economy, <a class=\"external-link\" href=\"https://finance.yahoo.com/news/wells-fargo-scandals-the-complete-timeline-141213414.html\">bilked consumers</a> with fake accounts and hidden terms, propped themselves up on the comfortable elbow of your <a class=\"external-link\" href=\"https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/banks-rely-on-customer-unfriendly-overdraft-fees-study-finds\">overdraft fees</a>, <a class=\"external-link\" href=\"https://www.seattletimes.com/business/real-estate/both-online-human-lenders-charge-minorities-more-for-mortgages/\">routinely discriminated</a> against people of color, and on and on and on. I mean, there really <em>should</em> be a mission to take customers away from these companies. At minimum, it&#x2019;s smart to capitalize on all of this well-earned consumer rage.</p><p>Still, it&#x2019;s deeply depressing to attend a large gathering of executives, founders, and industry veterans, as I did at October&#x2019;s <a class=\"external-link\" href=\"https://www.money2020.com/\">Money 20/20 conference</a>, and hear the same, somber message repeated over and over again: The future of money will be predicated on the fact that the personal finances of the next generation are as fragile as a Faberg&#xE9; egg. This, according to attendees and speakers, is both a problem and an opportunity. No one bothered mentioning that the sick state of the nation&#x2019;s finances isn&#x2019;t technology&#x2019;s problem to solve.</p></div>","url":"https://www.wired.com/story/the-future-of-banking-is-youre-broke/","date_published":"2019-11-21T23:17:12+00:00","author":{"name":"Molly Wood"}},{"id":"1773","title":"Online disinformation and emerging tech: Are democracies at risk? - Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists","content_html":"<div><p><span class=\"wp-caption\"><img width=\"1024\" src=\"https://thebulletin.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/computer-code-1024x640.jpg\" class=\"attachment-large size-large img-fluid wp-post-image\" alt=\"Computer code on world map.\">Democracies are struggling to contend with the rapid pace of technological change. Image credit: Jonny Lindner via Pixabay.</span></p><div><p>It&#x2019;s been a problematic several years to be a denizen of a democratic country. The news in the United States and elsewhere is filled with reports on populist unrest, the rise of authoritarian governments, breakups of long-standing alliances, and online disinformation attacks by domestic and foreign actors on the levers of democracies. Domestic political polarization and institutional failure in previously vibrant pluralistic countries are a reminder that Western democratic societies are not historically foreordained, but may actually be fairly fragile in the face of fundamental technological and social change.</p><p>Online <a href=\"https://thebulletin.org/2019/08/ahead-of-2020-disinformation-and-fake-news-are-alive-and-well-on-social-media/\">disinformation campaigns</a> supported by fundamental changes in military and geopolitical strategies of major players such as Russia and China harden tribal factions and undermine the security of infrastructure systems in targets such as the United States, as state and non-state actors mount increasingly sophisticated cyberattacks on democratic institutions. The accelerating velocity, volume, and variety of information are creating a dramatic increase in the complexity of the information ecosystem, which in turn causes people to retreat into fundamentalism and encourages further institutional breakdown. Militaries, private firms, and civic organizations are trying to respond to the immediate challenges of an unpredictably shifting and dangerous new environment, with limited success.</p><p>Unfortunately, virtually no one is focusing on the fundamental threats emerging technologies are posing to democratic institutions that we all take for granted. To take one example, consider the issue of free speech in the United States. This has been in the news recently as Democrats and Republicans alike attack social media firms for alleged bias and incompetence. Despite the sturm und drang, however, they are missing the really important point: speech in today&#x2019;s United States (and indeed in the West) isn&#x2019;t a matter for courts and constitutions; it is a matter for the terms and conditions of service, and CEO foibles, of the major social media companies: Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Tencent (WeChat), Alibaba.&#xA0; You can talk all you want to yourself, but if you want people&#x2019;s attention, you need to be on social media.&#xA0; And if they ban you, you essentially have no speech.</p><p>And to make things more interesting, network economics means that many social media firms are regional or global in scale, so such firms need to try to figure out speech not just between Republicans and Democrats in the United States, but among many other cultures, with very different ideas of what constitutes allowable speech, around the world. Companies like Facebook are, in short, trying to figure out the future; political entities such as the Republicans and Democrats, and the European Union, are trying to reconstruct frameworks that are already obsolete.</p><p>Free speech, however, isn&#x2019;t the only place where fundamental technological change is overwhelming institutions and governance. The cycle time of political processes in pluralistic societies, especially as tribalism is inflamed and solidified by disinformation campaigns, is becoming slower and more polarized just as technological change is accelerating, increasingly decoupling regulation and policy from technological reality. The rise of <a href=\"https://thebulletin.org/2015/03/the-paradox-of-dominance-the-age-of-civilizational-conflict/\">civilizational conflict strategies,</a> adopted by both the <a href=\"https://www.facebook.com/notes/robert-coalson/russian-military-doctrine-article-by-general-valery-gerasimov/10152184862563597/\">Russians</a> and <a href=\"https://www.c4i.org/unrestricted.pdf\">Chinese</a>, shifts conflict from traditional conventional warfare, where the United States is globally dominant, to more subtle conflict across all elements of a society. So-called whole-of-society approaches to conflict favor soft authoritarian governments that are able to coordinate offensive and defensive strategies across their entire society, including private firms, civic groups, and even criminal organizations, in contrast to countries such as the United States, where the constitutional and cultural divides between the military and civilian spheres, and between private and governmental institutions, increasingly put the country at a disadvantage. The soft power of the West, a vastly underappreciated<a href=\"https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/american-soft-power-decline-under-trump-by-joseph-s-nye-2019-05?barrier=accesspaylog\">&#xA0;source of global status</a>, is being dissipated by tribalism and xenophobic racial and national superiority narratives reinforced by increasingly sophisticated disinformation campaigns.</p><p>One of the most troubling phenomenon is the slow undermining of the core assumption of a pluralistic, Enlightenment society: the individual as a responsible and reasonably rational citizen. This ideal has always been over-simplistic, but technologically enabled trends are making it untenable, even dysfunctional. And yet, although unrecognized, this is perhaps the most important way in which the new information environment is undermining democracies to the benefit of authoritarian regimes. Structuring a pluralism explicitly based on tribes and tribal narratives, including exclusionary racial and identity narratives, may be possible, but it requires a degree of institutional, political, and legal sophistication and agility which is currently not evident.</p><p>As in the case of free speech, the trends behind this shift are strong, and hard to reverse. Basic advances in disciplines including behavioral economics, evolutionary psychology, and neurosciences are combining with the increasing power of artificial intelligence, big data, and associated analytics, to dramatically enhance the power of disinformation specialists to manipulate the psychologies of their targets at the scale of the individual. Think of the Russian effort to meddle in the 2016 US election, a key feature of which was a campaign to enflame societal divisions around racial and other divides. In doing so, the Russians were able to draw on a long Soviet history of attempting to achieve what&#x2019;s called <a href=\"https://georgetownsecuritystudiesreview.org/2017/02/01/disinformation-and-reflexive-control-the-new-cold-war/\">reflexive control</a>, a practice that enables Russia to predetermine an adversary&#x2019;s decision in its favor by altering key factors in that adversary&#x2019;s perception of the situation. Such capability used to be difficult and mainly theoretical, an apparatchik dream rather than a realistic goal. Today, however, AI and media tools enable it to be carried out with increasing precision and power, especially with state-level resources.</p><p>New AI tools can <a href=\"https://thebulletin.org/2019/10/the-latest-from-ai-research-automated-fake-news-trolls/\">create individualized narratives</a>, others can generate video and voice that can&#x2019;t be distinguished from real world products except by state of the art forensic laboratories. Messages can be targeted at small groups of five to 10 people by AI mechanisms fed by individual data consolidated from the internet, a process sometimes called <a href=\"https://www.computerworld.com/article/3222680/disinformation-as-a-service-daas-not-good.html\">computational propaganda</a>.</p><p>When people feel that the world has gotten too complex to make sense, they tend to implement strategies that reduce an individual or institutional need to process incoming information, which frequently include a retreat to fundamentalism and a reliance on simplifying narratives backed by emotions. This is <a href=\"https://www.csiac.org/journal-article/beco-behavioral-economics-of-cyberspace-operations/\">a basic finding </a>from behavioral economics, which suggests that cognitive processes that use explicit rationality to reach decisions (so-called system 2 cognition) are energetically and psychologically costly, whereas automatic decision-making based on existing beliefs and narratives (system 1 thinking) is much easier and faster.</p><p>In short, the more complex the environment, the more humans and their institutions retreat to storylines that require less processing. Just when times require more sophistication and judgment, humans and their institutions stampede in the other direction.</p><p>It is a mug&#x2019;s game to try to predict the future in such a chaotic system, but a reasonable scenario is that the institutional failure that is so evident today, especially in democratic governance frameworks in places like the United States and Britain, will continue to accelerate. Quite simply, it isn&#x2019;t that pluralistic structures such as separation of powers, subordination of military to civilian leadership, or voting weren&#x2019;t superior in their time to existing governance models such as monarchy or caste systems, it is rather that the pluralistic models of the Enlightenment succeeded spectacularly. In doing so they have bred the complexity and sophistication that, in turn, has rendered them anachronistic and ineffectual.</p><p>People in countries that have been successful for many years tend to assume that the values and institutions they are familiar with are historical norms, but to paraphrase financial guidance documents, past success is no guarantee of future performance. Indeed, current trends suggest the strong possibility that pluralistic societies, which have been ascendant, are no longer as competitive as soft authoritarianism. Like all scenarios, this does not mean that there aren&#x2019;t things that can be done to protect, or at least salvage, some of the ideas and values that citizens of pluralistic societies hold dear.&#xA0; But it does suggest that a far more clear-eyed and less emotional response to current challenges is required.</p><p>Whether the United States and other democracies are up to that challenge remains to be seen.</p></div></div>","url":"https://thebulletin.org/2019/11/online-disinformation-and-emerging-tech-are-democracies-at-risk/","date_published":"2019-11-21T11:00:56+00:00","author":{"name":""}},{"id":"1774","title":"Silicon Valley’s Presentation Design Guru Reveals Proven Communication Strategies To Stand Out","content_html":"<div class=\"article-body inner-contain fs-article font-body color-body\"><figure class=\"embed-base image-embed embed-2\"> <p class=\"wp-caption-text light-text\"><span class=\"wp-caption-text-caption\">Nancy Duarte, Author of DataStory</span></p> <p><span class=\"wp-credit-text light-text\">Duarte, Inc.</span></p> </figure>\n<p>For more than thirty years, Nancy Duarte and her team of design professionals have created some of the most important presentations in the world. From Al Gore&#x2019;s slides for&#xA0;<em>An Inconvenient Truth&#xA0;</em>to product launches for hundreds of top brands, Duarte knows how to use visuals to tell stories.&#xA0;</p> <p>In her new book,&#xA0;<a class=\"color-link\" href=\"https://www.amazon.com/DataStory-Explain-Inspire-Action-Through/dp/1940858984\"><em>DataStory</em></a>, Duarte reveals specific communication strategies to turn data into inspiring and actionable stories. It&#x2019;s a skill that business professionals at every level need to learn to stand out. A survey by Deloitte Consulting concludes that being comfortable with data is an essential skill for &#x201C;anyone who wants a shot at a well-compensated position.&#x201D;&#xA0;&#xA0;</p>\n<p>Readers of my column know that I focus on leadership communication through the lens of storytelling. That&#x2019;s where Duarte&#x2019;s book is an invaluable resource. &#x201C;Storytelling makes the brain light up in a way no other form of communication does,&#x201D; she says. Stories bring people closer together and, most importantly for leaders, move them to act.</p> <p>But how does data tell a story, exactly? Numbers are cold and objective. &#x201C;Data doesn&#x2019;t speak for itself; it needs a storyteller,&#x201D; writes Duarte.</p>\n<figure class=\"embed-base image-embed embed-1 alignleft\"> <p class=\"wp-caption-text light-text\"><span class=\"wp-caption-text-caption\">DataStory by Nancy Duarte</span></p> <p><span class=\"wp-credit-text light-text\">Duarte, Inc.</span></p> </figure>\n<p>I worked through&#xA0;<em>DataStory </em>slowly because every page is a revelation. One of the most intriguing sections of Duarte&#x2019;s book explains how to craft a data point-of-view (DataPOV).&#xA0;</p> <p>Your DataPOV should be a big idea that&#x2019;s comprised of two parts: what action needs to be taken and what&#x2019;s at stake. It should be expressed in a complete well-constructed sentence with a noun and a verb.&#xA0;</p>\n<p>For example, let&#x2019;s say you&#x2019;ve been tasked with analyzing your company&#x2019;s online sales activity.&#xA0;</p>\n<p>This is a DataPOV: &#x201C;Changing the shopping cart experience and shipping policies could increase sales by 40 percent.&#x201D;&#xA0;</p>\n<p>This is&#xA0;<strong>not </strong>a DataPOV: &#x201C;Fix our online shopping cart.&#x201D;</p>\n<p>Do you see the difference? The first statement is a complete sentence with a strong action verb (changing) and a clear, specific outcome (40% increase). It&#x2019;s the cornerstone of a recommendation. It&#x2019;s a way to give your listeners confidence in your analysis.&#xA0;</p>\n<p>Duarte&#x2019;s DataPOV strategy can easily fit into the classic dramatic arc that all great stories share&#x2014;even great business presentations.&#xA0;</p>\n<p>You can see the three-act structure in the graph below.</p> <figure class=\"embed-base image-embed embed-0\"> <p class=\"wp-caption-text light-text\"><span class=\"wp-caption-text-caption\">The three-act story structure</span></p> <p><span class=\"wp-credit-text light-text\">Duarte, Inc.</span></p> </figure> <p>This is the beginning of the story that describes where the business is today.</p>\n<h2>Act 2: Complication</h2>\n<p>This is the messy middle where a conflict (the villain) is introduced.</p>\n<h2>Act 3: Resolution</h2>\n<p>This is the end where the hero confronts the adversary and resolves the conflict.</p>\n<p>Now let&#x2019;s see how a business professional can use the three-act structure and the DataPOV to sell a conclusion, idea and recommendation.&#xA0;</p>\n<p><strong>Act 1: </strong>&#x201C;The average subscription renewal rate per region is 62 percent.&#x201D; In this act the speaker describes the current situation. </p>\n<p><strong>Act 2: </strong>&#x201C;Only 23 percent of clients in the western region renew their subscriptions.&#x201D; In this act the speaker describes the conflict that must be addressed.</p> <p><strong>Act 3: </strong>&#x201C;We need to tailor our content to appeal to regional preferences to gain market share in the west.&#x201D; The speaker resolves the conflict with a strong recommendation.</p>\n<p>As the world becomes increasingly complex and data bombards us at every turn, your career might depend on how effectively you communicate the story behind the numbers.&#xA0;&#x201C;Leaders in all sectors spend large sums of money collecting and analyzing data, yet the value comes when someone convincingly communicates what the data reveals,&#x201D; writes Duarte. </p>\n<p>&#x201C;If you put the work into developing communication skills, you&#x2019;ll see your career and company do things you never thought possible.&#x201D; Elevate your communication skills and you&#x2019;ll be surprised at what you achieve. </p><span class=\"sigfile\"><span>Follow me on&#xA0;</span><a href=\"https://www.twitter.com/carminegallo\">Twitter</a>&#xA0;or&#xA0;<a href=\"https://www.linkedin.com/in/carminegallo/\">LinkedIn</a>.&#xA0;<span>Check out&#xA0;</span>my&#xA0;<a href=\"http://carminegallo.com/\">website</a>&#xA0;or&#xA0;some of my other work&#xA0;<a href=\"https://www.amazon.com/Five-Stars-Communication-Secrets-Great/dp/1250181259/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&amp;qid=&amp;sr=\">here</a>.&#xA0;</span></div>","url":"https://www.forbes.com/sites/carminegallo/2019/11/21/silicon-valleys-presentation-design-guru-reveals-proven-communication-strategies-to-stand-out/","date_published":"2019-11-21T00:00:00+00:00","author":{"name":""}},{"id":"1766","title":"The (non)sense of online advertising: when the numbers don’t add up","content_html":"<div><div class=\"body-text\"> <figcaption> <p>Illustrations by Jenna Arts for The Correspondent</p> </figcaption> </div><div class=\"body-text\"> <p>On 29 January 2017, the American online advertising world congregated at the upmarket Diplomat Beach Resort in Hollywood Beach, Florida. <span class=\"contentitem-infocard js-contentitem-infocard mod-regular\"> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__toggle js-contentitem-infocard-toggle\"> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__snippit\">The Interactive Advertising Bureau</span> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__toggle-icon \"> <span class=\" icon icon-chevron-down \"> <svg> <path/> </svg> </span> </span> </span> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__content js-contentitem-infocard-content\" id=\"contentitem-infocard-contents-0f0f324d-98c9-41af-9a07-18d02e789b2e\"></span>\n</span> (IAB) had invited 1,000 industry leaders<em> </em>to discuss the future of the advertisement industry over cocktails and canap&#xE9;s. All the big players were there.&#xA0;</p><p>According to the advertisers themselves, the future was bright. Just a few weeks prior, <span class=\"contentitem-infocard js-contentitem-infocard mod-regular\"> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__toggle js-contentitem-infocard-toggle\"> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__snippit\">the IAB had issued a press release:</span> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__toggle-icon \"> <span class=\" icon icon-chevron-down \"> <svg> <path/> </svg> </span> </span> </span> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__content js-contentitem-infocard-content\" id=\"contentitem-infocard-contents-0da64107-2b32-4e62-a477-9b1d2c01e8b6\"></span>\n</span> &#x201C;The momentum of advertising in mobile, digital video, and other innovative formats is undeniable &#x2026; These record-setting third quarter revenue figures reflect marketers&#x2019; trust in the internet&#x2019;s power to connect with today&#x2019;s audiences.&#x201D;</p><p>Then, arguably the biggest player of them all got on stage.</p><p>Marc Pritchard, chief brand officer at <span class=\"contentitem-infocard js-contentitem-infocard mod-regular\"> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__toggle js-contentitem-infocard-toggle\"> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__snippit\">Procter &amp; Gamble (P&amp;G),</span> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__toggle-icon \"> <span class=\" icon icon-chevron-down \"> <svg> <path/> </svg> </span> </span> </span> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__content js-contentitem-infocard-content\" id=\"contentitem-infocard-contents-bdde9218-0764-4da0-87c0-c7bfb4b97aa7\"></span>\n</span>\n&#xA0;oversees <span class=\"contentitem-infocard js-contentitem-infocard mod-regular\"> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__toggle js-contentitem-infocard-toggle\"> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__snippit\">a marketing budget of more than $10.5bn,</span> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__toggle-icon \"> <span class=\" icon icon-chevron-down \"> <svg> <path/> </svg> </span> </span> </span> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__content js-contentitem-infocard-content\" id=\"contentitem-infocard-contents-b83445b8-ddf5-4fc6-98a1-137d229a5a21\"></span>\n</span> making his company the largest advertiser in the world &#x2013; both on- and offline.</p><p>After a short preamble about the blessings advertising had brought to humankind, the 56-year-old head of household brands such as Pampers and Gillette got down to business. &#x201C;Let&#x2019;s face it,&#x201D; Pritchard told the conference, &#x201C;all of us in this room bombard consumers with thousands of ads a day, subject them to endless ad load times, interrupt them with pop-ups, and overpopulate their screens and feeds with just plain bad work.&#x201D;</p><p>He continued: &#x201C;I mean, is it any wonder that <span class=\"contentitem-infocard js-contentitem-infocard mod-regular\"> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__toggle js-contentitem-infocard-toggle\"> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__snippit\">adblockers</span> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__toggle-icon \"> <span class=\" icon icon-chevron-down \"> <svg> <path/> </svg> </span> </span> </span> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__content js-contentitem-infocard-content\" id=\"contentitem-infocard-contents-83da1728-ae83-47e4-8577-0f3fe5bdf061\"></span>\n</span> are growing 40%? How many people are really seeing these ads?&#x201D;</p><p> <span class=\"contentitem-sidenote contentitem-infocard js-contentitem-sidenote mod-regular\"> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__toggle contentitem-sidenote__toggle js-contentitem-sidenote-toggle\"> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__snippit contentitem-sidenote__snippit\">Pritchard spoke</span> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__toggle-icon mod-external\"> <span class=\" icon icon-infocard-external \"> <svg> <path/> </svg> </span> </span> </span> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__content js-contentitem-sidenote-content\" id=\"contentitem-sidenote-contents-7a8c90cc-4b89-4a90-bd41-f077d481aba0\"></span> <a class=\"contentitem-sidenote__note js-contentitem-sidenote-description js-contentitem-sidenote-link\" href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NEUCOsphoI0\"> <span class=\"contentitem-sidenote__icon\"> <span class=\" icon icon-sidenote-externalarticle \"> <svg> <path/> </svg> </span> </span> Watch Pritchard&#x2019;s speech in full here. </a> </span> in the way an old school friend might at your wedding, but there were no best-man jokes to lighten the mood. The online advertising market, he said, had turned into an opaque, fraudulent business, where &#x201C;crappy advertising&#x201D; was rampant and good money went to waste. For too long, advertisers had blindly believed the story of this brave new wonderful world. They had bought into the &#x201C;somewhat delusional thought that digital is different&#x201D;.&#xA0;</p><p>&#x201C;But we&#x2019;ve come to our senses &#x2026; The days of giving digital a pass are over.&#x201D;</p> <figure class=\"contentitem-image mod-centered mod-regular\"> <div class=\"contentitem-image-container\"> <img alt=\"\" src=\"https://useruploads.cdn-thecorrespondent.com/image/zQg6UHlQyJmiPdJGHFpPXzhNjI4=/92x92/tc-useruploads-images/145a3340e3ed40bba8a7eec85a1a3b9c.jpg%2092w,%20https://useruploads.cdn-thecorrespondent.com/image/aBCXZFb1t0IVV-0Q6fcuvMLlNPw=/320x236/tc-useruploads-images/145a3340e3ed40bba8a7eec85a1a3b9c.jpg%20320w,%20https://useruploads.cdn-thecorrespondent.com/image/rBjnLs9965breCPloR84bWUXEBA=/600x443/tc-useruploads-images/145a3340e3ed40bba8a7eec85a1a3b9c.jpg%20600w,%20https://useruploads.cdn-thecorrespondent.com/image/UTIGS8ymsgued6vr7HpVPCmybpE=/660x487/tc-useruploads-images/145a3340e3ed40bba8a7eec85a1a3b9c.jpg%20660w,%20https://useruploads.cdn-thecorrespondent.com/image/iqxVCdTqC602GavFjDQBOJMHT9E=/904x667/tc-useruploads-images/145a3340e3ed40bba8a7eec85a1a3b9c.jpg%20904w,%20https://useruploads.cdn-thecorrespondent.com/image/-phmqOPljxpUrj0t9vohZUsfTNc=/1024x756/tc-useruploads-images/145a3340e3ed40bba8a7eec85a1a3b9c.jpg%201024w,%20https://useruploads.cdn-thecorrespondent.com/image/DndMCZNWfEj05owwnPWpJ7Q1jkc=/1366x1008/tc-useruploads-images/145a3340e3ed40bba8a7eec85a1a3b9c.jpg%201366w,%20https://useruploads.cdn-thecorrespondent.com/image/2KtnvT6cWD6EWosyn1jjri8abGc=/1600x1181/tc-useruploads-images/145a3340e3ed40bba8a7eec85a1a3b9c.jpg%201600w,%20https://useruploads.cdn-thecorrespondent.com/image/Y_VOlMKciyGnDI0Ccd2l4uJzj9Q=/1920x1417/tc-useruploads-images/145a3340e3ed40bba8a7eec85a1a3b9c.jpg%201920w\" srcset=\"https://useruploads.cdn-thecorrespondent.com/image/zQg6UHlQyJmiPdJGHFpPXzhNjI4=/92x92/tc-useruploads-images/145a3340e3ed40bba8a7eec85a1a3b9c.jpg 92w, https://useruploads.cdn-thecorrespondent.com/image/aBCXZFb1t0IVV-0Q6fcuvMLlNPw=/320x236/tc-useruploads-images/145a3340e3ed40bba8a7eec85a1a3b9c.jpg 320w, https://useruploads.cdn-thecorrespondent.com/image/rBjnLs9965breCPloR84bWUXEBA=/600x443/tc-useruploads-images/145a3340e3ed40bba8a7eec85a1a3b9c.jpg 600w, https://useruploads.cdn-thecorrespondent.com/image/UTIGS8ymsgued6vr7HpVPCmybpE=/660x487/tc-useruploads-images/145a3340e3ed40bba8a7eec85a1a3b9c.jpg 660w, https://useruploads.cdn-thecorrespondent.com/image/iqxVCdTqC602GavFjDQBOJMHT9E=/904x667/tc-useruploads-images/145a3340e3ed40bba8a7eec85a1a3b9c.jpg 904w, https://useruploads.cdn-thecorrespondent.com/image/-phmqOPljxpUrj0t9vohZUsfTNc=/1024x756/tc-useruploads-images/145a3340e3ed40bba8a7eec85a1a3b9c.jpg 1024w, https://useruploads.cdn-thecorrespondent.com/image/DndMCZNWfEj05owwnPWpJ7Q1jkc=/1366x1008/tc-useruploads-images/145a3340e3ed40bba8a7eec85a1a3b9c.jpg 1366w, https://useruploads.cdn-thecorrespondent.com/image/2KtnvT6cWD6EWosyn1jjri8abGc=/1600x1181/tc-useruploads-images/145a3340e3ed40bba8a7eec85a1a3b9c.jpg 1600w, https://useruploads.cdn-thecorrespondent.com/image/Y_VOlMKciyGnDI0Ccd2l4uJzj9Q=/1920x1417/tc-useruploads-images/145a3340e3ed40bba8a7eec85a1a3b9c.jpg 1920w\"> </div> </figure>\n<h2>Not &#x2018;mad men&#x2019;, just &#x2018;mad metrics&#x2019;</h2><p>Digital was going to be the revolution the ad industry had been craving. The <span class=\"contentitem-infocard js-contentitem-infocard mod-regular\"> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__toggle js-contentitem-infocard-toggle\"> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__snippit\">Don Drapers</span> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__toggle-icon \"> <span class=\" icon icon-chevron-down \"> <svg> <path/> </svg> </span> </span> </span> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__content js-contentitem-infocard-content\" id=\"contentitem-infocard-contents-a34d8661-9cbb-4d6a-81b8-d0d4cd6124ca\"></span>\n</span> of the world &#x2013; the <span class=\"contentitem-infocard js-contentitem-infocard mod-regular\"> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__toggle js-contentitem-infocard-toggle\"> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__snippit\">&quot;mad men&quot;</span> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__toggle-icon \"> <span class=\" icon icon-chevron-down \"> <svg> <path/> </svg> </span> </span> </span> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__content js-contentitem-infocard-content\" id=\"contentitem-infocard-contents-840ab413-c869-4bbf-9f48-cceb1595f58a\"></span>\n</span> &#x2013; had been creative enough. They just hadn&#x2019;t been efficient enough. As marketing pioneer John Wanamaker put it a century and a half ago: &#x201C;Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don&#x2019;t know which half.&#x201D;&#xA0;</p><p>Online advertising was meant to herald the post-Wanamaker era, when advertisers would be able to know exactly what money was going where.&#xA0; The advent of clicks and likes was supposed to make everything measurable &#x2013; including our innermost desires. </p><blockquote class=\"Streamer\"> Digital advertising was meant to turn capricious consumers into easily influenced customers\n</blockquote>\n<p>Capricious consumers would be replaced by easily targeted IP addresses, turning users into easily influenced customers. At long last, advertisers would know exactly who was looking at their ads and who made a purchase. Once and for all they would know which half of their advertising budget had been wasted and which part had been well spent. And consumers would finally be shown only ads that were truly of interest to them.&#xA0;</p><p> <span class=\"contentitem-sidenote contentitem-infocard js-contentitem-sidenote mod-regular\"> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__toggle contentitem-sidenote__toggle js-contentitem-sidenote-toggle\"> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__snippit contentitem-sidenote__snippit\">In the first piece in this series,</span> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__toggle-icon mod-external\"> <span class=\" icon icon-infocard-external \"> <svg> <path/> </svg> </span> </span> </span> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__content js-contentitem-sidenote-content\" id=\"contentitem-sidenote-contents-920965b5-7179-4467-9f66-3ae482cad2f5\"></span> <a class=\"contentitem-sidenote__note js-contentitem-sidenote-description js-contentitem-sidenote-link\" href=\"https://thecorrespondent.com/100/the-new-dot-com-bubble-is-here-its-called-online-advertising\"> <span class=\"contentitem-sidenote__icon\"> <span class=\" icon icon-sidenote-externalarticle \"> <svg> <path/> </svg> </span> </span> Read the piece here. </a> </span> my colleague Jesse and I described how hard &#x2013; basically impossible &#x2013; it is to determine the effectiveness of online advertisements. The advertising effect &#x2013; people see your ad, and that&#x2019;s why they start clicking, buying, registering, downloading &#x2013; is barely measurable, and even when it is, the effects are infinitesimal.</p><p>&#xA0;In short, <span class=\"contentitem-infocard js-contentitem-infocard mod-regular\"> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__toggle js-contentitem-infocard-toggle\"> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__snippit\">&#x201C;mad men&#x201D; didn&#x2019;t become &#x201C;math men&#x201D;. The whole thing just became &#x201C;mad metrics&#x201D;.</span> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__toggle-icon \"> <span class=\" icon icon-chevron-down \"> <svg> <path/> </svg> </span> </span> </span> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__content js-contentitem-infocard-content\" id=\"contentitem-infocard-contents-d14e2f25-e1e5-4a42-b65e-f532eb503237\"></span>\n</span> There are the four problems plaguing the online advertising industry:</p><h2>1. Fraud is rampant</h2><p>In 2018, <span class=\"contentitem-infocard js-contentitem-infocard mod-regular\"> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__toggle js-contentitem-infocard-toggle\"> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__snippit\">four men</span> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__toggle-icon \"> <span class=\" icon icon-chevron-down \"> <svg> <path/> </svg> </span> </span> </span> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__content js-contentitem-infocard-content\" id=\"contentitem-infocard-contents-582b2b36-e1dc-4000-815c-7f941925d9d1\"></span>\n</span> became multi-millionaires after carrying out a sophisticated plan. They started by buying dozens of existing Android apps that people were actually using &#x2013; games, a selfie app, a torch, that sort of thing. To conceal the fact that these apps belonged to one and the same owner, they incorporated them into <span class=\"contentitem-infocard js-contentitem-infocard mod-regular\"> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__toggle js-contentitem-infocard-toggle\"> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__snippit\">letter-box companies</span> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__toggle-icon \"> <span class=\" icon icon-chevron-down \"> <svg> <path/> </svg> </span> </span> </span> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__content js-contentitem-infocard-content\" id=\"contentitem-infocard-contents-e12375be-3779-4926-9dc3-231bac23a609\"></span>\n</span> in Israel, Serbia, Germany, Bulgaria and Malta. After analysing their users&#x2019; behaviour, they hired a bunch of techies to build bots mimicking this behaviour perfectly. They then used special servers to direct the bots to the apps, which made it look as though app use and traffic were ballooning.&#xA0;</p><p>Then came the final step of their plan: cashing in. The apps ran advertisements, and&#xA0; advertising rates increased as traffic increased. The apps had been installed a total of 115m times, earning the four men tens of millions of ad dollars.</p><p>This story is just <span class=\"contentitem-sidenote contentitem-infocard js-contentitem-sidenote mod-regular\"> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__toggle contentitem-sidenote__toggle js-contentitem-sidenote-toggle\"> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__snippit contentitem-sidenote__snippit\">one</span> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__toggle-icon mod-external\"> <span class=\" icon icon-infocard-external \"> <svg> <path/> </svg> </span> </span> </span> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__content js-contentitem-sidenote-content\" id=\"contentitem-sidenote-contents-7f4a8acb-c4c7-43c8-89ec-ea3d60b037b9\"></span> <a class=\"contentitem-sidenote__note js-contentitem-sidenote-description js-contentitem-sidenote-link\" href=\"https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/craigsilverman/the-publisher-of-newsweek-and-the-international-business#.bbaQlQq697\"> <span class=\"contentitem-sidenote__icon\"> <span class=\" icon icon-sidenote-externalarticle \"> <svg> <path/> </svg> </span> </span> Read more about ad fraud on the websites of the publisher of Newsweek. </a> </span> <span class=\"contentitem-sidenote contentitem-infocard js-contentitem-sidenote mod-regular\"> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__toggle contentitem-sidenote__toggle js-contentitem-sidenote-toggle\"> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__snippit contentitem-sidenote__snippit\">of</span> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__toggle-icon mod-external\"> <span class=\" icon icon-infocard-external \"> <svg> <path/> </svg> </span> </span> </span> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__content js-contentitem-sidenote-content\" id=\"contentitem-sidenote-contents-81ed4588-aa60-4576-864d-2cbd721583ef\"></span> <a class=\"contentitem-sidenote__note js-contentitem-sidenote-description js-contentitem-sidenote-link\" href=\"https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/09/uber-sues-online-ad-agency-over-massive-alleged-click-fraud/\"> <span class=\"contentitem-sidenote__icon\"> <span class=\" icon icon-sidenote-externalarticle \"> <svg> <path/> </svg> </span> </span> Read about click fraud on US website Breitbart. </a> </span> <span class=\"contentitem-sidenote contentitem-infocard js-contentitem-sidenote mod-regular\"> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__toggle contentitem-sidenote__toggle js-contentitem-sidenote-toggle\"> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__snippit contentitem-sidenote__snippit\">many.</span> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__toggle-icon mod-external\"> <span class=\" icon icon-infocard-external \"> <svg> <path/> </svg> </span> </span> </span> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__content js-contentitem-sidenote-content\" id=\"contentitem-sidenote-contents-e400afbe-0277-4852-a99e-b82578fe18d0\"></span> <a class=\"contentitem-sidenote__note js-contentitem-sidenote-description js-contentitem-sidenote-link\" href=\"https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/craigsilverman/remember-tom\"> <span class=\"contentitem-sidenote__icon\"> <span class=\" icon icon-sidenote-externalarticle \"> <svg> <path/> </svg> </span> </span> Fraud found on the website MySpace. </a> </span> The bag of tricks of advertising crooks is filled with such impressive methods as <span class=\"contentitem-infocard js-contentitem-infocard mod-regular\"> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__toggle js-contentitem-infocard-toggle\"> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__snippit\">ad injectors</span> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__toggle-icon \"> <span class=\" icon icon-chevron-down \"> <svg> <path/> </svg> </span> </span> </span> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__content js-contentitem-infocard-content\" id=\"contentitem-infocard-contents-c1a28d19-bae6-4670-85b7-5efb195c6fdb\"></span>\n</span> and <span class=\"contentitem-infocard js-contentitem-infocard mod-regular\"> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__toggle js-contentitem-infocard-toggle\"> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__snippit\">click farms,</span> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__toggle-icon \"> <span class=\" icon icon-chevron-down \"> <svg> <path/> </svg> </span> </span> </span> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__content js-contentitem-infocard-content\" id=\"contentitem-infocard-contents-ebc8afb6-dfc1-4022-a460-572007b4a24f\"></span>\n</span> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard js-contentitem-infocard mod-regular\"> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__toggle js-contentitem-infocard-toggle\"> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__snippit\">domain laundering</span> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__toggle-icon \"> <span class=\" icon icon-chevron-down \"> <svg> <path/> </svg> </span> </span> </span> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__content js-contentitem-infocard-content\" id=\"contentitem-infocard-contents-01d1b1b0-fa28-4d19-bbb7-3caed95ce51d\"></span>\n</span> and <span class=\"contentitem-infocard js-contentitem-infocard mod-regular\"> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__toggle js-contentitem-infocard-toggle\"> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__snippit\">conversion fraud.</span> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__toggle-icon \"> <span class=\" icon icon-chevron-down \"> <svg> <path/> </svg> </span> </span> </span> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__content js-contentitem-infocard-content\" id=\"contentitem-infocard-contents-e3cad6a8-652d-4df0-9473-c66ef541e626\"></span>\n</span> Their digital thievery is predicated upon the creation of fake visitors, clickers, viewers, and bogus buyers.</p><p>Fraudsters are so good at this simulation business, and their shenanigans are so hard to trace, that billions flow from advertisers to the creators of fraudulent bots and deceptive code.&#xA0;</p><p>When it comes to the extent of ad fraud, conclusive figures are hard to come by. Estimates range from $6.5bn to $150bn a year <span class=\"contentitem-infocard js-contentitem-infocard mod-regular\"> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__toggle js-contentitem-infocard-toggle\"> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__snippit\">(that&#x2019;s more than half the total online advertising budget).</span> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__toggle-icon \"> <span class=\" icon icon-chevron-down \"> <svg> <path/> </svg> </span> </span> </span> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__content js-contentitem-infocard-content\" id=\"contentitem-infocard-contents-4a0f51a1-5038-4f5a-b19b-cfe51cc20d0a\"></span>\n</span> The World Federation of Advertisers, a global association representing many major brands, expects that <span class=\"contentitem-sidenote contentitem-infocard js-contentitem-sidenote mod-regular\"> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__toggle contentitem-sidenote__toggle js-contentitem-sidenote-toggle\"> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__snippit contentitem-sidenote__snippit\">five years from now, between $50bn and $150bn will be lost to fraud annually.&#xA0;</span> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__toggle-icon mod-external\"> <span class=\" icon icon-infocard-external \"> <svg> <path/> </svg> </span> </span> </span> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__content js-contentitem-sidenote-content\" id=\"contentitem-sidenote-contents-fab6e4d9-b3e9-40b8-bc80-bef46b1cecef\"></span> <a class=\"contentitem-sidenote__note js-contentitem-sidenote-description js-contentitem-sidenote-link\" href=\"https://www.wfanet.org/app/uploads/2017/04/WFA_Compendium_Of_Ad_Fraud_Knowledge.pdf\"> <span class=\"contentitem-sidenote__icon\"> <span class=\" icon icon-sidenote-externalarticle \"> <svg> <path/> </svg> </span> </span> Read the report of the World Federation of Advertisers here. </a> </span>\n</p><p>No surprise then that Pritchard &#x2013; the advertising world&#x2019;s head honcho &#x2013; was so upset about ad fraud: he and his colleagues are the victims here.</p><blockquote class=\"Streamer\"> Digital advertising fraudsters are so good at what they do that billions flow from advertisers to the creators of fraudulent bots and deceptive code\n</blockquote>\n<p>Google, Facebook and thousands of middlemen are not. When it comes to these players, in fact, everybody wins. When an advertiser pays for traffic, views and clicks, the platforms and brokers also get their share. This means that they hardly have any incentive to tackle fraud.</p><h2>2. Fallible measurement tools&#xA0;</h2><p>Let&#x2019;s say you&#x2019;re on the Amtrak train from Penn Station to Boston. You&#x2019;re looking out the window, gazing at the landscape as it passes you by. Somewhere in Connecticut, the train wizzes past a billboard in the middle of a field. In that one second, you see colours and contours flashing by &#x2013; and not much else.</p><p>Was it a man or a woman on there? Was it an advert for cola or potato chips? Was it even an ad, or could it just as easily have been a tractor?</p><p>In the online advertising market, that one second is considered a &#x201C;view&#x201D;. According to the <span class=\"contentitem-infocard js-contentitem-infocard mod-regular\"> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__toggle js-contentitem-infocard-toggle\"> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__snippit\">MRC standard,</span> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__toggle-icon \"> <span class=\" icon icon-chevron-down \"> <svg> <path/> </svg> </span> </span> </span> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__content js-contentitem-infocard-content\" id=\"contentitem-infocard-contents-0f7d1e62-6b0a-4df1-87ea-6403a903167f\"></span>\n</span> the most widely used guideline in the industry, an ad counts as &#x201C;seen&#x201D; when at least 50% of it has been seen by a person for at least one second.</p><p>That means that more than half of an ad&#x2019;s pixels must have been loaded onto someone&#x2019;s screen for more than a second. For video advertisements, the minimum is all of two seconds.</p><p>If a half-loaded advertisement shows up on the screens of a thousand people for more than one second, this counts as a thousand views. If a million people visiting a website were exposed to a flickering, half-loaded video advert for two seconds, it would count as a million views.</p><p>&#xA0;In other words, the bar is <span class=\"contentitem-infocard js-contentitem-infocard mod-regular\"> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__toggle js-contentitem-infocard-toggle\"> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__snippit\">extremely</span> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__toggle-icon \"> <span class=\" icon icon-chevron-down \"> <svg> <path/> </svg> </span> </span> </span> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__content js-contentitem-infocard-content\" id=\"contentitem-infocard-contents-8169dc48-e217-431a-9afa-f292e12b579d\"></span>\n</span> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard js-contentitem-infocard mod-regular\"> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__toggle js-contentitem-infocard-toggle\"> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__snippit\">low.</span> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__toggle-icon \"> <span class=\" icon icon-chevron-down \"> <svg> <path/> </svg> </span> </span> </span> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__content js-contentitem-infocard-content\" id=\"contentitem-infocard-contents-d9844ceb-7511-446e-9049-c7b18e2f29f3\"></span>\n</span>\n</p><p>&#xA0;An additional problem is that advertisers rely on third parties for their metrics. It&#x2019;s Facebook and Google themselves who tell their advertisers how many views and clicks their ads have generated. Pritchard refers to this as&#xA0; &#x201C;grading their own homework,&#x2019;&#x2019; before adding: &quot;incredibly, we&#x2019;re still tolerating it and accepting excuses.&#x201D;</p><p>&#xA0;At present, Facebook <span class=\"contentitem-sidenote contentitem-infocard js-contentitem-sidenote mod-regular\"> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__toggle contentitem-sidenote__toggle js-contentitem-sidenote-toggle\"> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__snippit contentitem-sidenote__snippit\">has</span> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__toggle-icon mod-external\"> <span class=\" icon icon-infocard-external \"> <svg> <path/> </svg> </span> </span> </span> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__content js-contentitem-sidenote-content\" id=\"contentitem-sidenote-contents-f70a83a0-bfa4-402c-90b6-3bd80784eebd\"></span> <a class=\"contentitem-sidenote__note js-contentitem-sidenote-description js-contentitem-sidenote-link\" href=\"https://www.eastbaytimes.com/2018/08/16/fake-numbers-facebook-misled-advertisers-with-inflated-potential-reach-lawsuit-says/\"> <span class=\"contentitem-sidenote__icon\"> <span class=\" icon icon-sidenote-externalarticle \"> <svg> <path/> </svg> </span> </span> Here&#x2019;s a news item on one of these lawsuits. </a> </span> <span class=\"contentitem-sidenote contentitem-infocard js-contentitem-sidenote mod-regular\"> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__toggle contentitem-sidenote__toggle js-contentitem-sidenote-toggle\"> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__snippit contentitem-sidenote__snippit\">several</span> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__toggle-icon mod-external\"> <span class=\" icon icon-infocard-external \"> <svg> <path/> </svg> </span> </span> </span> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__content js-contentitem-sidenote-content\" id=\"contentitem-sidenote-contents-defb0d2e-7dea-488c-a1fe-b55b1721673a\"></span> <a class=\"contentitem-sidenote__note js-contentitem-sidenote-description js-contentitem-sidenote-link\" href=\"http://www.adnews.com.au/news/facebook-sued-for-misleading-advertisers-on-potential-reach\"> <span class=\"contentitem-sidenote__icon\"> <span class=\" icon icon-sidenote-externalarticle \"> <svg> <path/> </svg> </span> </span> A news story on one of the lawsuits against Facebook. </a> </span> <span class=\"contentitem-sidenote contentitem-infocard js-contentitem-sidenote mod-regular\"> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__toggle contentitem-sidenote__toggle js-contentitem-sidenote-toggle\"> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__snippit contentitem-sidenote__snippit\">lawsuits</span> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__toggle-icon mod-external\"> <span class=\" icon icon-infocard-external \"> <svg> <path/> </svg> </span> </span> </span> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__content js-contentitem-sidenote-content\" id=\"contentitem-sidenote-contents-04d22ce3-c9aa-4bc6-8bef-d22b9f3fba29\"></span> <a class=\"contentitem-sidenote__note js-contentitem-sidenote-description js-contentitem-sidenote-link\" href=\"https://www.npr.org/2018/09/12/647040758/advertising-on-facebook-is-it-worth-it?t=1538394122406\"> <span class=\"contentitem-sidenote__icon\"> <span class=\" icon icon-sidenote-externalarticle \"> <svg> <path/> </svg> </span> </span> The story of another lawsuit against Facebook. </a> </span> against it that <span class=\"contentitem-infocard js-contentitem-infocard mod-regular\"> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__toggle js-contentitem-infocard-toggle\"> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__snippit\">revolve around metrics.</span> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__toggle-icon \"> <span class=\" icon icon-chevron-down \"> <svg> <path/> </svg> </span> </span> </span> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__content js-contentitem-infocard-content\" id=\"contentitem-infocard-contents-930c1063-dce6-4daa-ab1b-9e19603c4102\"></span>\n</span> Advertisers and publishers believe that the company has been fooling them for years. After all, you pay Facebook based on its own reporting. If that reporting is false, you will have paid too much. </p><p>In the past two years, <span class=\"contentitem-infocard js-contentitem-infocard mod-regular\"> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__toggle js-contentitem-infocard-toggle\"> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__snippit\">Mark Zuckerberg&#x2019;s</span> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__toggle-icon \"> <span class=\" icon icon-chevron-down \"> <svg> <path/> </svg> </span> </span> </span> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__content js-contentitem-infocard-content\" id=\"contentitem-infocard-contents-655511da-1005-47a6-9621-d3a77e8a12ee\"></span>\n</span> company has admitted that it has, at times, overstated its numbers &#x2013; including on how many people watch videos and how many people click on ads on its platform. Advertisers have no way of knowing that the provided figures are true.</p> <figure class=\"contentitem-image mod-centered mod-regular\"> <div class=\"contentitem-image-container\"> <img alt=\"\" src=\"https://useruploads.cdn-thecorrespondent.com/image/iLFD7x30wZOM94Gn8A_IA2TXAXs=/92x92/tc-useruploads-images/d559849a74154d3d9452313bc7de264e.jpg%2092w,%20https://useruploads.cdn-thecorrespondent.com/image/87rmvCwxPLoL7c7YvG8KH-4zaXg=/320x236/tc-useruploads-images/d559849a74154d3d9452313bc7de264e.jpg%20320w,%20https://useruploads.cdn-thecorrespondent.com/image/H3a5SvHDrHlQuU2HvXv1LfZhK2s=/600x443/tc-useruploads-images/d559849a74154d3d9452313bc7de264e.jpg%20600w,%20https://useruploads.cdn-thecorrespondent.com/image/aLYs7Xin-7mhr9jxjopXmtwZj0I=/660x487/tc-useruploads-images/d559849a74154d3d9452313bc7de264e.jpg%20660w,%20https://useruploads.cdn-thecorrespondent.com/image/jcUGYYsUVa8wuyezzKXphLjMgsw=/904x667/tc-useruploads-images/d559849a74154d3d9452313bc7de264e.jpg%20904w,%20https://useruploads.cdn-thecorrespondent.com/image/uOzJAB0iNaCfaL9Bd5W2_B39K7M=/1024x756/tc-useruploads-images/d559849a74154d3d9452313bc7de264e.jpg%201024w,%20https://useruploads.cdn-thecorrespondent.com/image/NLopI602lCE_2BgMCZxngxZKzgE=/1366x1008/tc-useruploads-images/d559849a74154d3d9452313bc7de264e.jpg%201366w,%20https://useruploads.cdn-thecorrespondent.com/image/sUhAjJzTOdgCC916-9s7VDli20U=/1600x1181/tc-useruploads-images/d559849a74154d3d9452313bc7de264e.jpg%201600w,%20https://useruploads.cdn-thecorrespondent.com/image/b6LBG9sobTpvaYBlJckUzXwbfeo=/1920x1417/tc-useruploads-images/d559849a74154d3d9452313bc7de264e.jpg%201920w\" srcset=\"https://useruploads.cdn-thecorrespondent.com/image/iLFD7x30wZOM94Gn8A_IA2TXAXs=/92x92/tc-useruploads-images/d559849a74154d3d9452313bc7de264e.jpg 92w, https://useruploads.cdn-thecorrespondent.com/image/87rmvCwxPLoL7c7YvG8KH-4zaXg=/320x236/tc-useruploads-images/d559849a74154d3d9452313bc7de264e.jpg 320w, https://useruploads.cdn-thecorrespondent.com/image/H3a5SvHDrHlQuU2HvXv1LfZhK2s=/600x443/tc-useruploads-images/d559849a74154d3d9452313bc7de264e.jpg 600w, https://useruploads.cdn-thecorrespondent.com/image/aLYs7Xin-7mhr9jxjopXmtwZj0I=/660x487/tc-useruploads-images/d559849a74154d3d9452313bc7de264e.jpg 660w, https://useruploads.cdn-thecorrespondent.com/image/jcUGYYsUVa8wuyezzKXphLjMgsw=/904x667/tc-useruploads-images/d559849a74154d3d9452313bc7de264e.jpg 904w, https://useruploads.cdn-thecorrespondent.com/image/uOzJAB0iNaCfaL9Bd5W2_B39K7M=/1024x756/tc-useruploads-images/d559849a74154d3d9452313bc7de264e.jpg 1024w, https://useruploads.cdn-thecorrespondent.com/image/NLopI602lCE_2BgMCZxngxZKzgE=/1366x1008/tc-useruploads-images/d559849a74154d3d9452313bc7de264e.jpg 1366w, https://useruploads.cdn-thecorrespondent.com/image/sUhAjJzTOdgCC916-9s7VDli20U=/1600x1181/tc-useruploads-images/d559849a74154d3d9452313bc7de264e.jpg 1600w, https://useruploads.cdn-thecorrespondent.com/image/b6LBG9sobTpvaYBlJckUzXwbfeo=/1920x1417/tc-useruploads-images/d559849a74154d3d9452313bc7de264e.jpg 1920w\"> </div> </figure>\n<h2>3. Advertisers have little control over where ads appear</h2><p>In the old days, advertisers would buy ad space in a newspaper, on TV or on the radio because they wanted to target a specific audience. If you were a motorcycle brand, for instance, you might place an ad in a football magazine. Today, you can simply buy the eyeballs of football fans aged between 20 and 60 on, say, dailymail.co.uk, espn.com, or breitbart.com.&#xA0;</p><p>Sounds convenient, but here&#x2019;s the catch: advertisers, brands and marketers don&#x2019;t get to decide where their ads appear. For the most part, online ad placement is an automated process. In Google&#x2019;s advertising network, for example, <span class=\"contentitem-sidenote contentitem-infocard js-contentitem-sidenote mod-regular\"> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__toggle contentitem-sidenote__toggle js-contentitem-sidenote-toggle\"> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__snippit contentitem-sidenote__snippit\">your ad might end up on two million different websites and 650,000 different apps.</span> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__toggle-icon mod-external\"> <span class=\" icon icon-infocard-external \"> <svg> <path/> </svg> </span> </span> </span> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__content js-contentitem-sidenote-content\" id=\"contentitem-sidenote-contents-8abc3fb4-d708-46bf-9779-dde97cdda539\"></span> <a class=\"contentitem-sidenote__note js-contentitem-sidenote-description js-contentitem-sidenote-link\" href=\"https://ads.google.com/intl/nl_nl/home/campaigns/display-ads/\"> <span class=\"contentitem-sidenote__icon\"> <span class=\" icon icon-sidenote-externalarticle \"> <svg> <path/> </svg> </span> </span> This is how to place Google ads. </a> </span> Combine that with the tangle of ad tech companies acting as intermediaries between you and your audience, and it&#x2019;s hard to keep track of what&#x2019;s going on.&#xA0;&#xA0;&#xA0;</p><blockquote class=\"Streamer\"> It turned out that ads from major advertisers, including Amazon, Microsoft and Motorola, had appeared in child pornography chat groups through Facebook&#x2019;s and Google&#x2019;s automated advertising systems\n</blockquote>\n<p>This means your ads might end up on sites or in apps that you, as an advertiser, don&#x2019;t want to have anything to do with. Case in point: recently, big advertisers such as AT&amp;T, GlaxoSmithKline and Verizon all discovered that their ads had appeared &#x2013; fully automated &#x2013;&#xA0; <span class=\"contentitem-sidenote contentitem-infocard js-contentitem-sidenote mod-regular\"> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__toggle contentitem-sidenote__toggle js-contentitem-sidenote-toggle\"> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__snippit contentitem-sidenote__snippit\">in racist YouTube videos.</span> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__toggle-icon mod-external\"> <span class=\" icon icon-infocard-external \"> <svg> <path/> </svg> </span> </span> </span> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__content js-contentitem-sidenote-content\" id=\"contentitem-sidenote-contents-d9761e8e-b49e-4850-87c4-62d8d22a22ba\"></span> <a class=\"contentitem-sidenote__note js-contentitem-sidenote-description js-contentitem-sidenote-link\" href=\"https://medium.com/digital-vault/pepsi-walmart-starbucks-at-t-verizon-vw-and-hundreds-more-suspend-youtube-google-ads-e3827c3606c6\"> <span class=\"contentitem-sidenote__icon\"> <span class=\" icon icon-sidenote-externalarticle \"> <svg> <path/> </svg> </span> </span> Read more here. </a> </span>\n</p><p>And late last year, it turned out that ads from major advertisers, including Amazon, Microsoft and Motorola, had appeared in child pornography chat groups through Facebook&#x2019;s and Google&#x2019;s automated advertising systems.</p><p>JPMorgan Chase, a large American bank, <span class=\"contentitem-sidenote contentitem-infocard js-contentitem-sidenote mod-regular\"> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__toggle contentitem-sidenote__toggle js-contentitem-sidenote-toggle\"> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__snippit contentitem-sidenote__snippit\">discovered</span> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__toggle-icon mod-external\"> <span class=\" icon icon-infocard-external \"> <svg> <path/> </svg> </span> </span> </span> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__content js-contentitem-sidenote-content\" id=\"contentitem-sidenote-contents-fa69943c-28da-4e76-afe9-c8a04f35529f\"></span> <a class=\"contentitem-sidenote__note js-contentitem-sidenote-description js-contentitem-sidenote-link\" href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/29/business/chase-ads-youtube-fake-news-offensive-videos.html\"> <span class=\"contentitem-sidenote__icon\"> <span class=\" icon icon-sidenote-externalarticle \"> <svg> <path/> </svg> </span> </span> This New York Times article elaborates on the case. </a> </span> that its ads appeared on 400,000 different websites every month.&#xA0;</p><h2>4. People just don&#x2019;t want to see ads</h2><p>Last but not least, the biggest puncture in the online advertising bubble: adblockers. We&#x2019;ve installed software to keep ads from appearing on our screens en masse. <span class=\"contentitem-sidenote contentitem-infocard js-contentitem-sidenote mod-regular\"> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__toggle contentitem-sidenote__toggle js-contentitem-sidenote-toggle\"> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__snippit contentitem-sidenote__snippit\">According to the Reuters Institute,</span> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__toggle-icon mod-external\"> <span class=\" icon icon-infocard-external \"> <svg> <path/> </svg> </span> </span> </span> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__content js-contentitem-sidenote-content\" id=\"contentitem-sidenote-contents-4be7f8af-1247-46a8-ba42-59ef4b79fd3a\"></span> <a class=\"contentitem-sidenote__note js-contentitem-sidenote-description js-contentitem-sidenote-link\" href=\"http://media.digitalnewsreport.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/digital-news-report-2018.pdf?x89475\"> <span class=\"contentitem-sidenote__icon\"> <span class=\" icon icon-sidenote-externalarticle \"> <svg> <path/> </svg> </span> </span> Read more about this study in the Reuters Institute news report. </a> </span> which surveyed 74,000 people in 37 countries, 27% of all internet users used an adblocker in 2018 &#x2013; <span class=\"contentitem-infocard js-contentitem-infocard mod-regular\"> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__toggle js-contentitem-infocard-toggle\"> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__snippit\">and that number is rising.</span> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__toggle-icon \"> <span class=\" icon icon-chevron-down \"> <svg> <path/> </svg> </span> </span> </span> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__content js-contentitem-infocard-content\" id=\"contentitem-infocard-contents-661f229b-9a51-44d3-a7c1-6bcb7619a346\"></span>\n</span>\n</p><p>The American author and activist <span class=\"contentitem-sidenote contentitem-infocard js-contentitem-sidenote mod-regular\"> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__toggle contentitem-sidenote__toggle js-contentitem-sidenote-toggle\"> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__snippit contentitem-sidenote__snippit\">Doc Searls calls adblockers</span> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__toggle-icon mod-external\"> <span class=\" icon icon-infocard-external \"> <svg> <path/> </svg> </span> </span> </span> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__content js-contentitem-sidenote-content\" id=\"contentitem-sidenote-contents-13386d2e-510b-4719-a897-2bc71a189cb9\"></span> <a class=\"contentitem-sidenote__note js-contentitem-sidenote-description js-contentitem-sidenote-link\" href=\"https://blogs.harvard.edu/doc/2015/09/28/beyond-ad-blocking-the-biggest-boycott-in-human-history/\"> <span class=\"contentitem-sidenote__icon\"> <span class=\" icon icon-sidenote-externalarticle \"> <svg> <path/> </svg> </span> </span> Read Doc Searls&#x2019; blog on the topic. </a> </span> &#x201C;the biggest boycott in human history&#x201D;. They prove beyond a doubt that, when given a choice, most of us would rather give up looking at online ads at all.&#xA0;</p><p>Why? Because ads <span class=\"contentitem-infocard js-contentitem-infocard mod-regular\"> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__toggle js-contentitem-infocard-toggle\"> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__snippit\">are annoying,</span> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__toggle-icon \"> <span class=\" icon icon-chevron-down \"> <svg> <path/> </svg> </span> </span> </span> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__content js-contentitem-infocard-content\" id=\"contentitem-infocard-contents-d39cd731-b3c6-47d8-933d-39866f709bdc\"></span>\n</span> first of all. To most adblock users, ads are clutter and a huge distraction. Installing an adblocker tends to upgrade your internet experience tremendously: websites load faster and no hideous pop-ups blink in the corner of your eye, demanding your attention.</p><p>In addition, adblockers make going online safer and more privacy friendly. That&#x2019;s because many adblockers also keep away the rubbish that usually comes with ads: viruses &#x2013; adware or malvertising, as they&#x2019;re called &#x2013; as well as trackers that register your online behaviour, link it to other data, or sell it to third parties.</p><p>For the advertising industry, the massive use of adblockers is bad news. They make online advertising even less effective. If billions of people use the internet with a blindfold on, there are fewer and fewer eyeballs left to measure &#x2013; let alone clicks or <span class=\"contentitem-infocard js-contentitem-infocard mod-regular\"> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__toggle js-contentitem-infocard-toggle\"> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__snippit\">conversion.</span> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__toggle-icon \"> <span class=\" icon icon-chevron-down \"> <svg> <path/> </svg> </span> </span> </span> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__content js-contentitem-infocard-content\" id=\"contentitem-infocard-contents-e5cd43df-3ef9-4213-9d9e-5acf681c0ffc\"></span>\n</span>\n</p> <figure class=\"contentitem-image mod-centered mod-regular\"> <div class=\"contentitem-image-container\"> <img alt=\"\" src=\"https://useruploads.cdn-thecorrespondent.com/image/uNQYo6x0UFr_EHDnSBPCQn-Jfxg=/92x92/tc-useruploads-images/fcfdcb64391c4c77814dc281a96de9c7.jpg%2092w,%20https://useruploads.cdn-thecorrespondent.com/image/op5UC0nwsR2HhEjntrtVC1V-hfE=/320x236/tc-useruploads-images/fcfdcb64391c4c77814dc281a96de9c7.jpg%20320w,%20https://useruploads.cdn-thecorrespondent.com/image/yDRkxtFBLy9wCxunlMhkxFwpPJg=/600x443/tc-useruploads-images/fcfdcb64391c4c77814dc281a96de9c7.jpg%20600w,%20https://useruploads.cdn-thecorrespondent.com/image/vIc1xmFZm_spIXB9ceicuIzGq_8=/660x487/tc-useruploads-images/fcfdcb64391c4c77814dc281a96de9c7.jpg%20660w,%20https://useruploads.cdn-thecorrespondent.com/image/3ZsUxGRa0u59qAVBvwhvAkJgRDQ=/904x667/tc-useruploads-images/fcfdcb64391c4c77814dc281a96de9c7.jpg%20904w,%20https://useruploads.cdn-thecorrespondent.com/image/RQMesdBpXyK6StOdU-ZotDGFKPY=/1024x756/tc-useruploads-images/fcfdcb64391c4c77814dc281a96de9c7.jpg%201024w,%20https://useruploads.cdn-thecorrespondent.com/image/ndN-bfxGZ8AyswzUFlBCa-gZJGA=/1366x1008/tc-useruploads-images/fcfdcb64391c4c77814dc281a96de9c7.jpg%201366w,%20https://useruploads.cdn-thecorrespondent.com/image/EYAtsciCTHiq_vK-OWeFej9Jn-E=/1600x1181/tc-useruploads-images/fcfdcb64391c4c77814dc281a96de9c7.jpg%201600w,%20https://useruploads.cdn-thecorrespondent.com/image/zWOr9HvAYIuKbKvienT1xaf_sc0=/1920x1417/tc-useruploads-images/fcfdcb64391c4c77814dc281a96de9c7.jpg%201920w\" srcset=\"https://useruploads.cdn-thecorrespondent.com/image/uNQYo6x0UFr_EHDnSBPCQn-Jfxg=/92x92/tc-useruploads-images/fcfdcb64391c4c77814dc281a96de9c7.jpg 92w, https://useruploads.cdn-thecorrespondent.com/image/op5UC0nwsR2HhEjntrtVC1V-hfE=/320x236/tc-useruploads-images/fcfdcb64391c4c77814dc281a96de9c7.jpg 320w, https://useruploads.cdn-thecorrespondent.com/image/yDRkxtFBLy9wCxunlMhkxFwpPJg=/600x443/tc-useruploads-images/fcfdcb64391c4c77814dc281a96de9c7.jpg 600w, https://useruploads.cdn-thecorrespondent.com/image/vIc1xmFZm_spIXB9ceicuIzGq_8=/660x487/tc-useruploads-images/fcfdcb64391c4c77814dc281a96de9c7.jpg 660w, https://useruploads.cdn-thecorrespondent.com/image/3ZsUxGRa0u59qAVBvwhvAkJgRDQ=/904x667/tc-useruploads-images/fcfdcb64391c4c77814dc281a96de9c7.jpg 904w, https://useruploads.cdn-thecorrespondent.com/image/RQMesdBpXyK6StOdU-ZotDGFKPY=/1024x756/tc-useruploads-images/fcfdcb64391c4c77814dc281a96de9c7.jpg 1024w, https://useruploads.cdn-thecorrespondent.com/image/ndN-bfxGZ8AyswzUFlBCa-gZJGA=/1366x1008/tc-useruploads-images/fcfdcb64391c4c77814dc281a96de9c7.jpg 1366w, https://useruploads.cdn-thecorrespondent.com/image/EYAtsciCTHiq_vK-OWeFej9Jn-E=/1600x1181/tc-useruploads-images/fcfdcb64391c4c77814dc281a96de9c7.jpg 1600w, https://useruploads.cdn-thecorrespondent.com/image/zWOr9HvAYIuKbKvienT1xaf_sc0=/1920x1417/tc-useruploads-images/fcfdcb64391c4c77814dc281a96de9c7.jpg 1920w\"> </div> </figure>\n<h2>Don&#x2019;t believe the hype</h2><p>Pritchard ended his 2017 talk with a call to action: time had come to clean up the online advertising world, which was &#x201C;murky at best and fraudulent at worst&#x201D;. He said it was high time to tackle fraud, to standardise metrics, and to enable advertisers to have metrics verified by independent parties.</p><p>Pritchard promised that from now on, P&amp;G would only work with parties that met its requirements: &#x201C;We vote with our dollars.&#x201D;</p><p>That same year, P&amp;G cut its online advertising budget by $200m to keep ads from showing up in ways and places <span class=\"contentitem-infocard js-contentitem-infocard mod-regular\"> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__toggle js-contentitem-infocard-toggle\"> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__snippit\">&#x201C;that do not meet [their] standards and requirements&#x201D;.</span> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__toggle-icon \"> <span class=\" icon icon-chevron-down \"> <svg> <path/> </svg> </span> </span> </span> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__content js-contentitem-infocard-content\" id=\"contentitem-infocard-contents-f0f34a80-a969-4ca5-a91c-c7e992846d16\"></span>\n</span> The manufacturer of shampoos and chocolate bars said later that the decision hadn&#x2019;t hurt the bottom line at all. On the contrary, sales showed a <span class=\"contentitem-infocard js-contentitem-infocard mod-regular\"> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__toggle js-contentitem-infocard-toggle\"> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__snippit\">2% increase.&#xA0;</span> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__toggle-icon \"> <span class=\" icon icon-chevron-down \"> <svg> <path/> </svg> </span> </span> </span> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__content js-contentitem-infocard-content\" id=\"contentitem-infocard-contents-79ee3522-259d-452a-a799-79552c0914bf\"></span>\n</span>\nThe company claimed that this only proved that some of their ads had been seen by bots instead of people.</p><p>Other advertisers followed P&amp;G&#x2019;s lead. Some decided to work with fewer ad tech companies as well. Facebook and Google took measures to improve their metrics and to provide more transparency.</p><p>Even so, the industry&#x2019;s problems <span class=\"contentitem-sidenote contentitem-infocard js-contentitem-sidenote mod-regular\"> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__toggle contentitem-sidenote__toggle js-contentitem-sidenote-toggle\"> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__snippit contentitem-sidenote__snippit\">are persistent.</span> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__toggle-icon mod-external\"> <span class=\" icon icon-infocard-external \"> <svg> <path/> </svg> </span> </span> </span> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__content js-contentitem-sidenote-content\" id=\"contentitem-sidenote-contents-11884087-789d-4f65-98b8-70a0676a32cf\"></span> <a class=\"contentitem-sidenote__note js-contentitem-sidenote-description js-contentitem-sidenote-link\" href=\"https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3459199\"> <span class=\"contentitem-sidenote__icon\"> <span class=\" icon icon-sidenote-externalarticle \"> <svg> <path/> </svg> </span> </span> For a recent overview, see this comprehensive research paper </a> </span> The use of adblockers increases every year. The ad fraud mafia is becoming more resourceful. <span class=\"contentitem-sidenote contentitem-infocard js-contentitem-sidenote mod-regular\"> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__toggle contentitem-sidenote__toggle js-contentitem-sidenote-toggle\"> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__snippit contentitem-sidenote__snippit\">Adobe discovered</span> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__toggle-icon mod-external\"> <span class=\" icon icon-infocard-external \"> <svg> <path/> </svg> </span> </span> </span> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__content js-contentitem-sidenote-content\" id=\"contentitem-sidenote-contents-e156636e-5fc8-4ffe-9510-625d68c68591\"></span> <a class=\"contentitem-sidenote__note js-contentitem-sidenote-description js-contentitem-sidenote-link\" href=\"https://www.wsj.com/articles/fraudulent-web-traffic-continues-to-plague-advertisers-other-businesses-1522234801\"> <span class=\"contentitem-sidenote__icon\"> <span class=\" icon icon-sidenote-externalarticle \"> <svg> <path/> </svg> </span> </span> Read more here about Adobe&#x2019;s research. </a> </span> that as much as 28% of all internet traffic is &#x201C;non-human&#x201D;, which means pure and proper metrics are <span class=\"contentitem-sidenote contentitem-infocard js-contentitem-sidenote mod-regular\"> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__toggle contentitem-sidenote__toggle js-contentitem-sidenote-toggle\"> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__snippit contentitem-sidenote__snippit\">a pipe dream.</span> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__toggle-icon mod-external\"> <span class=\" icon icon-infocard-external \"> <svg> <path/> </svg> </span> </span> </span> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__content js-contentitem-sidenote-content\" id=\"contentitem-sidenote-contents-2376abab-e41c-4f75-8992-81214a84ada4\"></span> <a class=\"contentitem-sidenote__note js-contentitem-sidenote-description js-contentitem-sidenote-link\" href=\"http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2018/12/how-much-of-the-internet-is-fake.html\"> <span class=\"contentitem-sidenote__icon\"> <span class=\" icon icon-sidenote-externalarticle \"> <svg> <path/> </svg> </span> </span> Read more here. </a> </span>\n&#xA0;Contaminated data are often treated as &#x201C;clean&#x201D; &#x2013; that is, they&#x2019;re counted as a click or a view, even if the thing doing the clicking and viewing is not human.</p><blockquote class=\"Streamer\"> Call it the paradox of the online advertising world: metrics are sacred, but proper measurement is impossible\n</blockquote>\n<p>But as long as those metrics are all we&#x2019;ve got, the online advertising industry will continue to revolve almost entirely around those same metrics. That&#x2019;s how Google, Facebook and countless other advertising companies make their money.</p><p>Call it the paradox of the online advertising world: metrics are sacred, but proper measurement is impossible.&#xA0;</p><p>And all the big players know it because the signs are crystal clear. But the story of a revolutionary brave new world &#x2013; the world where &#x201C;digital is different&#x201D; &#x2013; continues to hold sway.</p><p>&#x201C;Don&#x2019;t be fooled by the myths,&#x201D; Pritchard told his colleagues at the conference.</p><p>It&#x2019;s still very wise advice.</p><p><em>Maurits and Jesse worked together on this piece, but the story is told by Maurits. This article was first published in Dutch on De Correspondent. It was translated by Nephtalie Demei.</em></p><p><em>Correction: the IAB is the Interactive Advertising Bureau, not the International Advertising Bureau. </em></p><h2>Dig deeper</h2> <a class=\"contentitem-linkblock mod-regular js-contentitem-linkblock\" href=\"https://thecorrespondent.com/100/the-new-dot-com-bubble-is-here-its-called-online-advertising\"> <span class=\"contentitem-linkblock-image-container\"> <img class=\"contentitem-linkblock-image mod-landscape js-image\" alt=\"Illustration of a woman sitting in front of her computerscreen, frowning at the advertisements of glasses she&#x2019;s suddenly confronted with since she decided to buy a new pair. \" src=\"https://useruploads.cdn-thecorrespondent.com/image/umoQgHs5LXohKhl8dVZNQ_16e6A=/600x338/tc-useruploads-images/287f6b4e57f9400798e7558b5a6bd1be.jpg\"> </span> <span class=\"contentitem-linkblock-mobile-image-container\"> <img class=\"contentitem-linkblock-mobile-image js-mobile-image\" alt=\"Illustration of a woman sitting in front of her computerscreen, frowning at the advertisements of glasses she&#x2019;s suddenly confronted with since she decided to buy a new pair. \" src=\"https://useruploads.cdn-thecorrespondent.com/image/umoQgHs5LXohKhl8dVZNQ_16e6A=/600x338/tc-useruploads-images/287f6b4e57f9400798e7558b5a6bd1be.jpg\"> </span> <span class=\"contentitem-linkblock-content\"> <span class=\"contentitem-linkblock-title\">The new dot com bubble is here: it&#x2019;s called online advertising</span> <span class=\"contentitem-linkblock-lead\">In 2018 $273bn was spent on digital ads globally. We delve into the world of clicks, banners and keywords to find out if any of it is real. What do we really know about the effectiveness of digital advertising? </span> <span class=\"contentitem-linkblock-button\"> Read more here. <span class=\" icon icon-arrow-right \"> <svg> <path/> </svg> </span> </span> </span> </a> </div></div>","url":"https://thecorrespondent.com/125/the-non-sense-of-online-advertising-when-the-numbers-dont-add-up/267513125-ebeb97f2","date_published":"2019-11-18T11:16:44+00:00","author":{"name":""}},{"id":"1767","title":"The (non)sense of online advertising: when the numbers don’t add up","content_html":"<div><div class=\"body-text\"> <figcaption> <p>Illustrations by Jenna Arts for The Correspondent</p> </figcaption> </div><div class=\"body-text\"> <p>On 29 January 2017, the American online advertising world congregated at the upmarket Diplomat Beach Resort in Hollywood Beach, Florida. <span class=\"contentitem-infocard js-contentitem-infocard mod-regular\"> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__toggle js-contentitem-infocard-toggle\"> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__snippit\">The Interactive Advertising Bureau</span> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__toggle-icon \"> <span class=\" icon icon-chevron-down \"> <svg> <path/> </svg> </span> </span> </span> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__content js-contentitem-infocard-content\" id=\"contentitem-infocard-contents-0f0f324d-98c9-41af-9a07-18d02e789b2e\"></span>\n</span> (IAB) had invited 1,000 industry leaders<em> </em>to discuss the future of the advertisement industry over cocktails and canap&#xE9;s. All the big players were there.&#xA0;</p><p>According to the advertisers themselves, the future was bright. Just a few weeks prior, <span class=\"contentitem-infocard js-contentitem-infocard mod-regular\"> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__toggle js-contentitem-infocard-toggle\"> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__snippit\">the IAB had issued a press release:</span> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__toggle-icon \"> <span class=\" icon icon-chevron-down \"> <svg> <path/> </svg> </span> </span> </span> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__content js-contentitem-infocard-content\" id=\"contentitem-infocard-contents-0da64107-2b32-4e62-a477-9b1d2c01e8b6\"></span>\n</span> &#x201C;The momentum of advertising in mobile, digital video, and other innovative formats is undeniable &#x2026; These record-setting third quarter revenue figures reflect marketers&#x2019; trust in the internet&#x2019;s power to connect with today&#x2019;s audiences.&#x201D;</p><p>Then, arguably the biggest player of them all got on stage.</p><p>Marc Pritchard, chief brand officer at <span class=\"contentitem-infocard js-contentitem-infocard mod-regular\"> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__toggle js-contentitem-infocard-toggle\"> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__snippit\">Procter &amp; Gamble (P&amp;G),</span> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__toggle-icon \"> <span class=\" icon icon-chevron-down \"> <svg> <path/> </svg> </span> </span> </span> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__content js-contentitem-infocard-content\" id=\"contentitem-infocard-contents-bdde9218-0764-4da0-87c0-c7bfb4b97aa7\"></span>\n</span>\n&#xA0;oversees <span class=\"contentitem-infocard js-contentitem-infocard mod-regular\"> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__toggle js-contentitem-infocard-toggle\"> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__snippit\">a marketing budget of more than $10.5bn,</span> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__toggle-icon \"> <span class=\" icon icon-chevron-down \"> <svg> <path/> </svg> </span> </span> </span> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__content js-contentitem-infocard-content\" id=\"contentitem-infocard-contents-b83445b8-ddf5-4fc6-98a1-137d229a5a21\"></span>\n</span> making his company the largest advertiser in the world &#x2013; both on- and offline.</p><p>After a short preamble about the blessings advertising had brought to humankind, the 56-year-old head of household brands such as Pampers and Gillette got down to business. &#x201C;Let&#x2019;s face it,&#x201D; Pritchard told the conference, &#x201C;all of us in this room bombard consumers with thousands of ads a day, subject them to endless ad load times, interrupt them with pop-ups, and overpopulate their screens and feeds with just plain bad work.&#x201D;</p><p>He continued: &#x201C;I mean, is it any wonder that <span class=\"contentitem-infocard js-contentitem-infocard mod-regular\"> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__toggle js-contentitem-infocard-toggle\"> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__snippit\">adblockers</span> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__toggle-icon \"> <span class=\" icon icon-chevron-down \"> <svg> <path/> </svg> </span> </span> </span> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__content js-contentitem-infocard-content\" id=\"contentitem-infocard-contents-83da1728-ae83-47e4-8577-0f3fe5bdf061\"></span>\n</span> are growing 40%? How many people are really seeing these ads?&#x201D;</p><p> <span class=\"contentitem-sidenote contentitem-infocard js-contentitem-sidenote mod-regular\"> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__toggle contentitem-sidenote__toggle js-contentitem-sidenote-toggle\"> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__snippit contentitem-sidenote__snippit\">Pritchard spoke</span> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__toggle-icon mod-external\"> <span class=\" icon icon-infocard-external \"> <svg> <path/> </svg> </span> </span> </span> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__content js-contentitem-sidenote-content\" id=\"contentitem-sidenote-contents-7a8c90cc-4b89-4a90-bd41-f077d481aba0\"></span> <a class=\"contentitem-sidenote__note js-contentitem-sidenote-description js-contentitem-sidenote-link\" href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NEUCOsphoI0\"> <span class=\"contentitem-sidenote__icon\"> <span class=\" icon icon-sidenote-externalarticle \"> <svg> <path/> </svg> </span> </span> Watch Pritchard&#x2019;s speech in full here. </a> </span> in the way an old school friend might at your wedding, but there were no best-man jokes to lighten the mood. The online advertising market, he said, had turned into an opaque, fraudulent business, where &#x201C;crappy advertising&#x201D; was rampant and good money went to waste. For too long, advertisers had blindly believed the story of this brave new wonderful world. They had bought into the &#x201C;somewhat delusional thought that digital is different&#x201D;.&#xA0;</p><p>&#x201C;But we&#x2019;ve come to our senses &#x2026; The days of giving digital a pass are over.&#x201D;</p> <figure class=\"contentitem-image mod-centered mod-regular\"> <div class=\"contentitem-image-container\"> <img alt=\"\" src=\"https://useruploads.cdn-thecorrespondent.com/image/zQg6UHlQyJmiPdJGHFpPXzhNjI4=/92x92/tc-useruploads-images/145a3340e3ed40bba8a7eec85a1a3b9c.jpg%2092w,%20https://useruploads.cdn-thecorrespondent.com/image/aBCXZFb1t0IVV-0Q6fcuvMLlNPw=/320x236/tc-useruploads-images/145a3340e3ed40bba8a7eec85a1a3b9c.jpg%20320w,%20https://useruploads.cdn-thecorrespondent.com/image/rBjnLs9965breCPloR84bWUXEBA=/600x443/tc-useruploads-images/145a3340e3ed40bba8a7eec85a1a3b9c.jpg%20600w,%20https://useruploads.cdn-thecorrespondent.com/image/UTIGS8ymsgued6vr7HpVPCmybpE=/660x487/tc-useruploads-images/145a3340e3ed40bba8a7eec85a1a3b9c.jpg%20660w,%20https://useruploads.cdn-thecorrespondent.com/image/iqxVCdTqC602GavFjDQBOJMHT9E=/904x667/tc-useruploads-images/145a3340e3ed40bba8a7eec85a1a3b9c.jpg%20904w,%20https://useruploads.cdn-thecorrespondent.com/image/-phmqOPljxpUrj0t9vohZUsfTNc=/1024x756/tc-useruploads-images/145a3340e3ed40bba8a7eec85a1a3b9c.jpg%201024w,%20https://useruploads.cdn-thecorrespondent.com/image/DndMCZNWfEj05owwnPWpJ7Q1jkc=/1366x1008/tc-useruploads-images/145a3340e3ed40bba8a7eec85a1a3b9c.jpg%201366w,%20https://useruploads.cdn-thecorrespondent.com/image/2KtnvT6cWD6EWosyn1jjri8abGc=/1600x1181/tc-useruploads-images/145a3340e3ed40bba8a7eec85a1a3b9c.jpg%201600w,%20https://useruploads.cdn-thecorrespondent.com/image/Y_VOlMKciyGnDI0Ccd2l4uJzj9Q=/1920x1417/tc-useruploads-images/145a3340e3ed40bba8a7eec85a1a3b9c.jpg%201920w\" srcset=\"https://useruploads.cdn-thecorrespondent.com/image/zQg6UHlQyJmiPdJGHFpPXzhNjI4=/92x92/tc-useruploads-images/145a3340e3ed40bba8a7eec85a1a3b9c.jpg 92w, https://useruploads.cdn-thecorrespondent.com/image/aBCXZFb1t0IVV-0Q6fcuvMLlNPw=/320x236/tc-useruploads-images/145a3340e3ed40bba8a7eec85a1a3b9c.jpg 320w, https://useruploads.cdn-thecorrespondent.com/image/rBjnLs9965breCPloR84bWUXEBA=/600x443/tc-useruploads-images/145a3340e3ed40bba8a7eec85a1a3b9c.jpg 600w, https://useruploads.cdn-thecorrespondent.com/image/UTIGS8ymsgued6vr7HpVPCmybpE=/660x487/tc-useruploads-images/145a3340e3ed40bba8a7eec85a1a3b9c.jpg 660w, https://useruploads.cdn-thecorrespondent.com/image/iqxVCdTqC602GavFjDQBOJMHT9E=/904x667/tc-useruploads-images/145a3340e3ed40bba8a7eec85a1a3b9c.jpg 904w, https://useruploads.cdn-thecorrespondent.com/image/-phmqOPljxpUrj0t9vohZUsfTNc=/1024x756/tc-useruploads-images/145a3340e3ed40bba8a7eec85a1a3b9c.jpg 1024w, https://useruploads.cdn-thecorrespondent.com/image/DndMCZNWfEj05owwnPWpJ7Q1jkc=/1366x1008/tc-useruploads-images/145a3340e3ed40bba8a7eec85a1a3b9c.jpg 1366w, https://useruploads.cdn-thecorrespondent.com/image/2KtnvT6cWD6EWosyn1jjri8abGc=/1600x1181/tc-useruploads-images/145a3340e3ed40bba8a7eec85a1a3b9c.jpg 1600w, https://useruploads.cdn-thecorrespondent.com/image/Y_VOlMKciyGnDI0Ccd2l4uJzj9Q=/1920x1417/tc-useruploads-images/145a3340e3ed40bba8a7eec85a1a3b9c.jpg 1920w\"> </div> </figure>\n<h2>Not &#x2018;mad men&#x2019;, just &#x2018;mad metrics&#x2019;</h2><p>Digital was going to be the revolution the ad industry had been craving. The <span class=\"contentitem-infocard js-contentitem-infocard mod-regular\"> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__toggle js-contentitem-infocard-toggle\"> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__snippit\">Don Drapers</span> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__toggle-icon \"> <span class=\" icon icon-chevron-down \"> <svg> <path/> </svg> </span> </span> </span> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__content js-contentitem-infocard-content\" id=\"contentitem-infocard-contents-a34d8661-9cbb-4d6a-81b8-d0d4cd6124ca\"></span>\n</span> of the world &#x2013; the <span class=\"contentitem-infocard js-contentitem-infocard mod-regular\"> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__toggle js-contentitem-infocard-toggle\"> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__snippit\">&quot;mad men&quot;</span> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__toggle-icon \"> <span class=\" icon icon-chevron-down \"> <svg> <path/> </svg> </span> </span> </span> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__content js-contentitem-infocard-content\" id=\"contentitem-infocard-contents-840ab413-c869-4bbf-9f48-cceb1595f58a\"></span>\n</span> &#x2013; had been creative enough. They just hadn&#x2019;t been efficient enough. As marketing pioneer John Wanamaker put it a century and a half ago: &#x201C;Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don&#x2019;t know which half.&#x201D;&#xA0;</p><p>Online advertising was meant to herald the post-Wanamaker era, when advertisers would be able to know exactly what money was going where.&#xA0; The advent of clicks and likes was supposed to make everything measurable &#x2013; including our innermost desires. </p><blockquote class=\"Streamer\"> Digital advertising was meant to turn capricious consumers into easily influenced customers\n</blockquote>\n<p>Capricious consumers would be replaced by easily targeted IP addresses, turning users into easily influenced customers. At long last, advertisers would know exactly who was looking at their ads and who made a purchase. Once and for all they would know which half of their advertising budget had been wasted and which part had been well spent. And consumers would finally be shown only ads that were truly of interest to them.&#xA0;</p><p> <span class=\"contentitem-sidenote contentitem-infocard js-contentitem-sidenote mod-regular\"> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__toggle contentitem-sidenote__toggle js-contentitem-sidenote-toggle\"> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__snippit contentitem-sidenote__snippit\">In the first piece in this series,</span> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__toggle-icon mod-external\"> <span class=\" icon icon-infocard-external \"> <svg> <path/> </svg> </span> </span> </span> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__content js-contentitem-sidenote-content\" id=\"contentitem-sidenote-contents-920965b5-7179-4467-9f66-3ae482cad2f5\"></span> <a class=\"contentitem-sidenote__note js-contentitem-sidenote-description js-contentitem-sidenote-link\" href=\"https://thecorrespondent.com/100/the-new-dot-com-bubble-is-here-its-called-online-advertising\"> <span class=\"contentitem-sidenote__icon\"> <span class=\" icon icon-sidenote-externalarticle \"> <svg> <path/> </svg> </span> </span> Read the piece here. </a> </span> my colleague Jesse and I described how hard &#x2013; basically impossible &#x2013; it is to determine the effectiveness of online advertisements. The advertising effect &#x2013; people see your ad, and that&#x2019;s why they start clicking, buying, registering, downloading &#x2013; is barely measurable, and even when it is, the effects are infinitesimal.</p><p>&#xA0;In short, <span class=\"contentitem-infocard js-contentitem-infocard mod-regular\"> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__toggle js-contentitem-infocard-toggle\"> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__snippit\">&#x201C;mad men&#x201D; didn&#x2019;t become &#x201C;math men&#x201D;. The whole thing just became &#x201C;mad metrics&#x201D;.</span> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__toggle-icon \"> <span class=\" icon icon-chevron-down \"> <svg> <path/> </svg> </span> </span> </span> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__content js-contentitem-infocard-content\" id=\"contentitem-infocard-contents-d14e2f25-e1e5-4a42-b65e-f532eb503237\"></span>\n</span> There are the four problems plaguing the online advertising industry:</p><h2>1. Fraud is rampant</h2><p>In 2018, <span class=\"contentitem-infocard js-contentitem-infocard mod-regular\"> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__toggle js-contentitem-infocard-toggle\"> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__snippit\">four men</span> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__toggle-icon \"> <span class=\" icon icon-chevron-down \"> <svg> <path/> </svg> </span> </span> </span> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__content js-contentitem-infocard-content\" id=\"contentitem-infocard-contents-582b2b36-e1dc-4000-815c-7f941925d9d1\"></span>\n</span> became multi-millionaires after carrying out a sophisticated plan. They started by buying dozens of existing Android apps that people were actually using &#x2013; games, a selfie app, a torch, that sort of thing. To conceal the fact that these apps belonged to one and the same owner, they incorporated them into <span class=\"contentitem-infocard js-contentitem-infocard mod-regular\"> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__toggle js-contentitem-infocard-toggle\"> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__snippit\">letter-box companies</span> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__toggle-icon \"> <span class=\" icon icon-chevron-down \"> <svg> <path/> </svg> </span> </span> </span> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__content js-contentitem-infocard-content\" id=\"contentitem-infocard-contents-e12375be-3779-4926-9dc3-231bac23a609\"></span>\n</span> in Israel, Serbia, Germany, Bulgaria and Malta. After analysing their users&#x2019; behaviour, they hired a bunch of techies to build bots mimicking this behaviour perfectly. They then used special servers to direct the bots to the apps, which made it look as though app use and traffic were ballooning.&#xA0;</p><p>Then came the final step of their plan: cashing in. The apps ran advertisements, and&#xA0; advertising rates increased as traffic increased. The apps had been installed a total of 115m times, earning the four men tens of millions of ad dollars.</p><p>This story is just <span class=\"contentitem-sidenote contentitem-infocard js-contentitem-sidenote mod-regular\"> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__toggle contentitem-sidenote__toggle js-contentitem-sidenote-toggle\"> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__snippit contentitem-sidenote__snippit\">one</span> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__toggle-icon mod-external\"> <span class=\" icon icon-infocard-external \"> <svg> <path/> </svg> </span> </span> </span> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__content js-contentitem-sidenote-content\" id=\"contentitem-sidenote-contents-7f4a8acb-c4c7-43c8-89ec-ea3d60b037b9\"></span> <a class=\"contentitem-sidenote__note js-contentitem-sidenote-description js-contentitem-sidenote-link\" href=\"https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/craigsilverman/the-publisher-of-newsweek-and-the-international-business#.bbaQlQq697\"> <span class=\"contentitem-sidenote__icon\"> <span class=\" icon icon-sidenote-externalarticle \"> <svg> <path/> </svg> </span> </span> Read more about ad fraud on the websites of the publisher of Newsweek. </a> </span> <span class=\"contentitem-sidenote contentitem-infocard js-contentitem-sidenote mod-regular\"> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__toggle contentitem-sidenote__toggle js-contentitem-sidenote-toggle\"> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__snippit contentitem-sidenote__snippit\">of</span> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__toggle-icon mod-external\"> <span class=\" icon icon-infocard-external \"> <svg> <path/> </svg> </span> </span> </span> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__content js-contentitem-sidenote-content\" id=\"contentitem-sidenote-contents-81ed4588-aa60-4576-864d-2cbd721583ef\"></span> <a class=\"contentitem-sidenote__note js-contentitem-sidenote-description js-contentitem-sidenote-link\" href=\"https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/09/uber-sues-online-ad-agency-over-massive-alleged-click-fraud/\"> <span class=\"contentitem-sidenote__icon\"> <span class=\" icon icon-sidenote-externalarticle \"> <svg> <path/> </svg> </span> </span> Read about click fraud on US website Breitbart. </a> </span> <span class=\"contentitem-sidenote contentitem-infocard js-contentitem-sidenote mod-regular\"> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__toggle contentitem-sidenote__toggle js-contentitem-sidenote-toggle\"> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__snippit contentitem-sidenote__snippit\">many.</span> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__toggle-icon mod-external\"> <span class=\" icon icon-infocard-external \"> <svg> <path/> </svg> </span> </span> </span> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__content js-contentitem-sidenote-content\" id=\"contentitem-sidenote-contents-e400afbe-0277-4852-a99e-b82578fe18d0\"></span> <a class=\"contentitem-sidenote__note js-contentitem-sidenote-description js-contentitem-sidenote-link\" href=\"https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/craigsilverman/remember-tom\"> <span class=\"contentitem-sidenote__icon\"> <span class=\" icon icon-sidenote-externalarticle \"> <svg> <path/> </svg> </span> </span> Fraud found on the website MySpace. </a> </span> The bag of tricks of advertising crooks is filled with such impressive methods as <span class=\"contentitem-infocard js-contentitem-infocard mod-regular\"> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__toggle js-contentitem-infocard-toggle\"> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__snippit\">ad injectors</span> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__toggle-icon \"> <span class=\" icon icon-chevron-down \"> <svg> <path/> </svg> </span> </span> </span> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__content js-contentitem-infocard-content\" id=\"contentitem-infocard-contents-c1a28d19-bae6-4670-85b7-5efb195c6fdb\"></span>\n</span> and <span class=\"contentitem-infocard js-contentitem-infocard mod-regular\"> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__toggle js-contentitem-infocard-toggle\"> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__snippit\">click farms,</span> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__toggle-icon \"> <span class=\" icon icon-chevron-down \"> <svg> <path/> </svg> </span> </span> </span> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__content js-contentitem-infocard-content\" id=\"contentitem-infocard-contents-ebc8afb6-dfc1-4022-a460-572007b4a24f\"></span>\n</span> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard js-contentitem-infocard mod-regular\"> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__toggle js-contentitem-infocard-toggle\"> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__snippit\">domain laundering</span> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__toggle-icon \"> <span class=\" icon icon-chevron-down \"> <svg> <path/> </svg> </span> </span> </span> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__content js-contentitem-infocard-content\" id=\"contentitem-infocard-contents-01d1b1b0-fa28-4d19-bbb7-3caed95ce51d\"></span>\n</span> and <span class=\"contentitem-infocard js-contentitem-infocard mod-regular\"> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__toggle js-contentitem-infocard-toggle\"> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__snippit\">conversion fraud.</span> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__toggle-icon \"> <span class=\" icon icon-chevron-down \"> <svg> <path/> </svg> </span> </span> </span> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__content js-contentitem-infocard-content\" id=\"contentitem-infocard-contents-e3cad6a8-652d-4df0-9473-c66ef541e626\"></span>\n</span> Their digital thievery is predicated upon the creation of fake visitors, clickers, viewers, and bogus buyers.</p><p>Fraudsters are so good at this simulation business, and their shenanigans are so hard to trace, that billions flow from advertisers to the creators of fraudulent bots and deceptive code.&#xA0;</p><p>When it comes to the extent of ad fraud, conclusive figures are hard to come by. Estimates range from $6.5bn to $150bn a year <span class=\"contentitem-infocard js-contentitem-infocard mod-regular\"> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__toggle js-contentitem-infocard-toggle\"> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__snippit\">(that&#x2019;s more than half the total online advertising budget).</span> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__toggle-icon \"> <span class=\" icon icon-chevron-down \"> <svg> <path/> </svg> </span> </span> </span> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__content js-contentitem-infocard-content\" id=\"contentitem-infocard-contents-4a0f51a1-5038-4f5a-b19b-cfe51cc20d0a\"></span>\n</span> The World Federation of Advertisers, a global association representing many major brands, expects that <span class=\"contentitem-sidenote contentitem-infocard js-contentitem-sidenote mod-regular\"> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__toggle contentitem-sidenote__toggle js-contentitem-sidenote-toggle\"> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__snippit contentitem-sidenote__snippit\">five years from now, between $50bn and $150bn will be lost to fraud annually.&#xA0;</span> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__toggle-icon mod-external\"> <span class=\" icon icon-infocard-external \"> <svg> <path/> </svg> </span> </span> </span> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__content js-contentitem-sidenote-content\" id=\"contentitem-sidenote-contents-fab6e4d9-b3e9-40b8-bc80-bef46b1cecef\"></span> <a class=\"contentitem-sidenote__note js-contentitem-sidenote-description js-contentitem-sidenote-link\" href=\"https://www.wfanet.org/app/uploads/2017/04/WFA_Compendium_Of_Ad_Fraud_Knowledge.pdf\"> <span class=\"contentitem-sidenote__icon\"> <span class=\" icon icon-sidenote-externalarticle \"> <svg> <path/> </svg> </span> </span> Read the report of the World Federation of Advertisers here. </a> </span>\n</p><p>No surprise then that Pritchard &#x2013; the advertising world&#x2019;s head honcho &#x2013; was so upset about ad fraud: he and his colleagues are the victims here.</p><blockquote class=\"Streamer\"> Digital advertising fraudsters are so good at what they do that billions flow from advertisers to the creators of fraudulent bots and deceptive code\n</blockquote>\n<p>Google, Facebook and thousands of middlemen are not. When it comes to these players, in fact, everybody wins. When an advertiser pays for traffic, views and clicks, the platforms and brokers also get their share. This means that they hardly have any incentive to tackle fraud.</p><h2>2. Fallible measurement tools&#xA0;</h2><p>Let&#x2019;s say you&#x2019;re on the Amtrak train from Penn Station to Boston. You&#x2019;re looking out the window, gazing at the landscape as it passes you by. Somewhere in Connecticut, the train wizzes past a billboard in the middle of a field. In that one second, you see colours and contours flashing by &#x2013; and not much else.</p><p>Was it a man or a woman on there? Was it an advert for cola or potato chips? Was it even an ad, or could it just as easily have been a tractor?</p><p>In the online advertising market, that one second is considered a &#x201C;view&#x201D;. According to the <span class=\"contentitem-infocard js-contentitem-infocard mod-regular\"> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__toggle js-contentitem-infocard-toggle\"> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__snippit\">MRC standard,</span> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__toggle-icon \"> <span class=\" icon icon-chevron-down \"> <svg> <path/> </svg> </span> </span> </span> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__content js-contentitem-infocard-content\" id=\"contentitem-infocard-contents-0f7d1e62-6b0a-4df1-87ea-6403a903167f\"></span>\n</span> the most widely used guideline in the industry, an ad counts as &#x201C;seen&#x201D; when at least 50% of it has been seen by a person for at least one second.</p><p>That means that more than half of an ad&#x2019;s pixels must have been loaded onto someone&#x2019;s screen for more than a second. For video advertisements, the minimum is all of two seconds.</p><p>If a half-loaded advertisement shows up on the screens of a thousand people for more than one second, this counts as a thousand views. If a million people visiting a website were exposed to a flickering, half-loaded video advert for two seconds, it would count as a million views.</p><p>&#xA0;In other words, the bar is <span class=\"contentitem-infocard js-contentitem-infocard mod-regular\"> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__toggle js-contentitem-infocard-toggle\"> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__snippit\">extremely</span> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__toggle-icon \"> <span class=\" icon icon-chevron-down \"> <svg> <path/> </svg> </span> </span> </span> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__content js-contentitem-infocard-content\" id=\"contentitem-infocard-contents-8169dc48-e217-431a-9afa-f292e12b579d\"></span>\n</span> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard js-contentitem-infocard mod-regular\"> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__toggle js-contentitem-infocard-toggle\"> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__snippit\">low.</span> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__toggle-icon \"> <span class=\" icon icon-chevron-down \"> <svg> <path/> </svg> </span> </span> </span> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__content js-contentitem-infocard-content\" id=\"contentitem-infocard-contents-d9844ceb-7511-446e-9049-c7b18e2f29f3\"></span>\n</span>\n</p><p>&#xA0;An additional problem is that advertisers rely on third parties for their metrics. It&#x2019;s Facebook and Google themselves who tell their advertisers how many views and clicks their ads have generated. Pritchard refers to this as&#xA0; &#x201C;grading their own homework,&#x2019;&#x2019; before adding: &quot;incredibly, we&#x2019;re still tolerating it and accepting excuses.&#x201D;</p><p>&#xA0;At present, Facebook <span class=\"contentitem-sidenote contentitem-infocard js-contentitem-sidenote mod-regular\"> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__toggle contentitem-sidenote__toggle js-contentitem-sidenote-toggle\"> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__snippit contentitem-sidenote__snippit\">has</span> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__toggle-icon mod-external\"> <span class=\" icon icon-infocard-external \"> <svg> <path/> </svg> </span> </span> </span> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__content js-contentitem-sidenote-content\" id=\"contentitem-sidenote-contents-f70a83a0-bfa4-402c-90b6-3bd80784eebd\"></span> <a class=\"contentitem-sidenote__note js-contentitem-sidenote-description js-contentitem-sidenote-link\" href=\"https://www.eastbaytimes.com/2018/08/16/fake-numbers-facebook-misled-advertisers-with-inflated-potential-reach-lawsuit-says/\"> <span class=\"contentitem-sidenote__icon\"> <span class=\" icon icon-sidenote-externalarticle \"> <svg> <path/> </svg> </span> </span> Here&#x2019;s a news item on one of these lawsuits. </a> </span> <span class=\"contentitem-sidenote contentitem-infocard js-contentitem-sidenote mod-regular\"> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__toggle contentitem-sidenote__toggle js-contentitem-sidenote-toggle\"> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__snippit contentitem-sidenote__snippit\">several</span> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__toggle-icon mod-external\"> <span class=\" icon icon-infocard-external \"> <svg> <path/> </svg> </span> </span> </span> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__content js-contentitem-sidenote-content\" id=\"contentitem-sidenote-contents-defb0d2e-7dea-488c-a1fe-b55b1721673a\"></span> <a class=\"contentitem-sidenote__note js-contentitem-sidenote-description js-contentitem-sidenote-link\" href=\"http://www.adnews.com.au/news/facebook-sued-for-misleading-advertisers-on-potential-reach\"> <span class=\"contentitem-sidenote__icon\"> <span class=\" icon icon-sidenote-externalarticle \"> <svg> <path/> </svg> </span> </span> A news story on one of the lawsuits against Facebook. </a> </span> <span class=\"contentitem-sidenote contentitem-infocard js-contentitem-sidenote mod-regular\"> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__toggle contentitem-sidenote__toggle js-contentitem-sidenote-toggle\"> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__snippit contentitem-sidenote__snippit\">lawsuits</span> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__toggle-icon mod-external\"> <span class=\" icon icon-infocard-external \"> <svg> <path/> </svg> </span> </span> </span> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__content js-contentitem-sidenote-content\" id=\"contentitem-sidenote-contents-04d22ce3-c9aa-4bc6-8bef-d22b9f3fba29\"></span> <a class=\"contentitem-sidenote__note js-contentitem-sidenote-description js-contentitem-sidenote-link\" href=\"https://www.npr.org/2018/09/12/647040758/advertising-on-facebook-is-it-worth-it?t=1538394122406\"> <span class=\"contentitem-sidenote__icon\"> <span class=\" icon icon-sidenote-externalarticle \"> <svg> <path/> </svg> </span> </span> The story of another lawsuit against Facebook. </a> </span> against it that <span class=\"contentitem-infocard js-contentitem-infocard mod-regular\"> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__toggle js-contentitem-infocard-toggle\"> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__snippit\">revolve around metrics.</span> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__toggle-icon \"> <span class=\" icon icon-chevron-down \"> <svg> <path/> </svg> </span> </span> </span> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__content js-contentitem-infocard-content\" id=\"contentitem-infocard-contents-930c1063-dce6-4daa-ab1b-9e19603c4102\"></span>\n</span> Advertisers and publishers believe that the company has been fooling them for years. After all, you pay Facebook based on its own reporting. If that reporting is false, you will have paid too much. </p><p>In the past two years, <span class=\"contentitem-infocard js-contentitem-infocard mod-regular\"> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__toggle js-contentitem-infocard-toggle\"> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__snippit\">Mark Zuckerberg&#x2019;s</span> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__toggle-icon \"> <span class=\" icon icon-chevron-down \"> <svg> <path/> </svg> </span> </span> </span> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__content js-contentitem-infocard-content\" id=\"contentitem-infocard-contents-655511da-1005-47a6-9621-d3a77e8a12ee\"></span>\n</span> company has admitted that it has, at times, overstated its numbers &#x2013; including on how many people watch videos and how many people click on ads on its platform. Advertisers have no way of knowing that the provided figures are true.</p> <figure class=\"contentitem-image mod-centered mod-regular\"> <div class=\"contentitem-image-container\"> <img alt=\"\" src=\"https://useruploads.cdn-thecorrespondent.com/image/iLFD7x30wZOM94Gn8A_IA2TXAXs=/92x92/tc-useruploads-images/d559849a74154d3d9452313bc7de264e.jpg%2092w,%20https://useruploads.cdn-thecorrespondent.com/image/87rmvCwxPLoL7c7YvG8KH-4zaXg=/320x236/tc-useruploads-images/d559849a74154d3d9452313bc7de264e.jpg%20320w,%20https://useruploads.cdn-thecorrespondent.com/image/H3a5SvHDrHlQuU2HvXv1LfZhK2s=/600x443/tc-useruploads-images/d559849a74154d3d9452313bc7de264e.jpg%20600w,%20https://useruploads.cdn-thecorrespondent.com/image/aLYs7Xin-7mhr9jxjopXmtwZj0I=/660x487/tc-useruploads-images/d559849a74154d3d9452313bc7de264e.jpg%20660w,%20https://useruploads.cdn-thecorrespondent.com/image/jcUGYYsUVa8wuyezzKXphLjMgsw=/904x667/tc-useruploads-images/d559849a74154d3d9452313bc7de264e.jpg%20904w,%20https://useruploads.cdn-thecorrespondent.com/image/uOzJAB0iNaCfaL9Bd5W2_B39K7M=/1024x756/tc-useruploads-images/d559849a74154d3d9452313bc7de264e.jpg%201024w,%20https://useruploads.cdn-thecorrespondent.com/image/NLopI602lCE_2BgMCZxngxZKzgE=/1366x1008/tc-useruploads-images/d559849a74154d3d9452313bc7de264e.jpg%201366w,%20https://useruploads.cdn-thecorrespondent.com/image/sUhAjJzTOdgCC916-9s7VDli20U=/1600x1181/tc-useruploads-images/d559849a74154d3d9452313bc7de264e.jpg%201600w,%20https://useruploads.cdn-thecorrespondent.com/image/b6LBG9sobTpvaYBlJckUzXwbfeo=/1920x1417/tc-useruploads-images/d559849a74154d3d9452313bc7de264e.jpg%201920w\" srcset=\"https://useruploads.cdn-thecorrespondent.com/image/iLFD7x30wZOM94Gn8A_IA2TXAXs=/92x92/tc-useruploads-images/d559849a74154d3d9452313bc7de264e.jpg 92w, https://useruploads.cdn-thecorrespondent.com/image/87rmvCwxPLoL7c7YvG8KH-4zaXg=/320x236/tc-useruploads-images/d559849a74154d3d9452313bc7de264e.jpg 320w, https://useruploads.cdn-thecorrespondent.com/image/H3a5SvHDrHlQuU2HvXv1LfZhK2s=/600x443/tc-useruploads-images/d559849a74154d3d9452313bc7de264e.jpg 600w, https://useruploads.cdn-thecorrespondent.com/image/aLYs7Xin-7mhr9jxjopXmtwZj0I=/660x487/tc-useruploads-images/d559849a74154d3d9452313bc7de264e.jpg 660w, https://useruploads.cdn-thecorrespondent.com/image/jcUGYYsUVa8wuyezzKXphLjMgsw=/904x667/tc-useruploads-images/d559849a74154d3d9452313bc7de264e.jpg 904w, https://useruploads.cdn-thecorrespondent.com/image/uOzJAB0iNaCfaL9Bd5W2_B39K7M=/1024x756/tc-useruploads-images/d559849a74154d3d9452313bc7de264e.jpg 1024w, https://useruploads.cdn-thecorrespondent.com/image/NLopI602lCE_2BgMCZxngxZKzgE=/1366x1008/tc-useruploads-images/d559849a74154d3d9452313bc7de264e.jpg 1366w, https://useruploads.cdn-thecorrespondent.com/image/sUhAjJzTOdgCC916-9s7VDli20U=/1600x1181/tc-useruploads-images/d559849a74154d3d9452313bc7de264e.jpg 1600w, https://useruploads.cdn-thecorrespondent.com/image/b6LBG9sobTpvaYBlJckUzXwbfeo=/1920x1417/tc-useruploads-images/d559849a74154d3d9452313bc7de264e.jpg 1920w\"> </div> </figure>\n<h2>3. Advertisers have little control over where ads appear</h2><p>In the old days, advertisers would buy ad space in a newspaper, on TV or on the radio because they wanted to target a specific audience. If you were a motorcycle brand, for instance, you might place an ad in a football magazine. Today, you can simply buy the eyeballs of football fans aged between 20 and 60 on, say, dailymail.co.uk, espn.com, or breitbart.com.&#xA0;</p><p>Sounds convenient, but here&#x2019;s the catch: advertisers, brands and marketers don&#x2019;t get to decide where their ads appear. For the most part, online ad placement is an automated process. In Google&#x2019;s advertising network, for example, <span class=\"contentitem-sidenote contentitem-infocard js-contentitem-sidenote mod-regular\"> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__toggle contentitem-sidenote__toggle js-contentitem-sidenote-toggle\"> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__snippit contentitem-sidenote__snippit\">your ad might end up on two million different websites and 650,000 different apps.</span> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__toggle-icon mod-external\"> <span class=\" icon icon-infocard-external \"> <svg> <path/> </svg> </span> </span> </span> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__content js-contentitem-sidenote-content\" id=\"contentitem-sidenote-contents-8abc3fb4-d708-46bf-9779-dde97cdda539\"></span> <a class=\"contentitem-sidenote__note js-contentitem-sidenote-description js-contentitem-sidenote-link\" href=\"https://ads.google.com/intl/nl_nl/home/campaigns/display-ads/\"> <span class=\"contentitem-sidenote__icon\"> <span class=\" icon icon-sidenote-externalarticle \"> <svg> <path/> </svg> </span> </span> This is how to place Google ads. </a> </span> Combine that with the tangle of ad tech companies acting as intermediaries between you and your audience, and it&#x2019;s hard to keep track of what&#x2019;s going on.&#xA0;&#xA0;&#xA0;</p><blockquote class=\"Streamer\"> It turned out that ads from major advertisers, including Amazon, Microsoft and Motorola, had appeared in child pornography chat groups through Facebook&#x2019;s and Google&#x2019;s automated advertising systems\n</blockquote>\n<p>This means your ads might end up on sites or in apps that you, as an advertiser, don&#x2019;t want to have anything to do with. Case in point: recently, big advertisers such as AT&amp;T, GlaxoSmithKline and Verizon all discovered that their ads had appeared &#x2013; fully automated &#x2013;&#xA0; <span class=\"contentitem-sidenote contentitem-infocard js-contentitem-sidenote mod-regular\"> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__toggle contentitem-sidenote__toggle js-contentitem-sidenote-toggle\"> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__snippit contentitem-sidenote__snippit\">in racist YouTube videos.</span> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__toggle-icon mod-external\"> <span class=\" icon icon-infocard-external \"> <svg> <path/> </svg> </span> </span> </span> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__content js-contentitem-sidenote-content\" id=\"contentitem-sidenote-contents-d9761e8e-b49e-4850-87c4-62d8d22a22ba\"></span> <a class=\"contentitem-sidenote__note js-contentitem-sidenote-description js-contentitem-sidenote-link\" href=\"https://medium.com/digital-vault/pepsi-walmart-starbucks-at-t-verizon-vw-and-hundreds-more-suspend-youtube-google-ads-e3827c3606c6\"> <span class=\"contentitem-sidenote__icon\"> <span class=\" icon icon-sidenote-externalarticle \"> <svg> <path/> </svg> </span> </span> Read more here. </a> </span>\n</p><p>And late last year, it turned out that ads from major advertisers, including Amazon, Microsoft and Motorola, had appeared in child pornography chat groups through Facebook&#x2019;s and Google&#x2019;s automated advertising systems.</p><p>JPMorgan Chase, a large American bank, <span class=\"contentitem-sidenote contentitem-infocard js-contentitem-sidenote mod-regular\"> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__toggle contentitem-sidenote__toggle js-contentitem-sidenote-toggle\"> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__snippit contentitem-sidenote__snippit\">discovered</span> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__toggle-icon mod-external\"> <span class=\" icon icon-infocard-external \"> <svg> <path/> </svg> </span> </span> </span> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__content js-contentitem-sidenote-content\" id=\"contentitem-sidenote-contents-fa69943c-28da-4e76-afe9-c8a04f35529f\"></span> <a class=\"contentitem-sidenote__note js-contentitem-sidenote-description js-contentitem-sidenote-link\" href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/29/business/chase-ads-youtube-fake-news-offensive-videos.html\"> <span class=\"contentitem-sidenote__icon\"> <span class=\" icon icon-sidenote-externalarticle \"> <svg> <path/> </svg> </span> </span> This New York Times article elaborates on the case. </a> </span> that its ads appeared on 400,000 different websites every month.&#xA0;</p><h2>4. People just don&#x2019;t want to see ads</h2><p>Last but not least, the biggest puncture in the online advertising bubble: adblockers. We&#x2019;ve installed software to keep ads from appearing on our screens en masse. <span class=\"contentitem-sidenote contentitem-infocard js-contentitem-sidenote mod-regular\"> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__toggle contentitem-sidenote__toggle js-contentitem-sidenote-toggle\"> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__snippit contentitem-sidenote__snippit\">According to the Reuters Institute,</span> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__toggle-icon mod-external\"> <span class=\" icon icon-infocard-external \"> <svg> <path/> </svg> </span> </span> </span> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__content js-contentitem-sidenote-content\" id=\"contentitem-sidenote-contents-4be7f8af-1247-46a8-ba42-59ef4b79fd3a\"></span> <a class=\"contentitem-sidenote__note js-contentitem-sidenote-description js-contentitem-sidenote-link\" href=\"http://media.digitalnewsreport.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/digital-news-report-2018.pdf?x89475\"> <span class=\"contentitem-sidenote__icon\"> <span class=\" icon icon-sidenote-externalarticle \"> <svg> <path/> </svg> </span> </span> Read more about this study in the Reuters Institute news report. </a> </span> which surveyed 74,000 people in 37 countries, 27% of all internet users used an adblocker in 2018 &#x2013; <span class=\"contentitem-infocard js-contentitem-infocard mod-regular\"> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__toggle js-contentitem-infocard-toggle\"> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__snippit\">and that number is rising.</span> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__toggle-icon \"> <span class=\" icon icon-chevron-down \"> <svg> <path/> </svg> </span> </span> </span> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__content js-contentitem-infocard-content\" id=\"contentitem-infocard-contents-661f229b-9a51-44d3-a7c1-6bcb7619a346\"></span>\n</span>\n</p><p>The American author and activist <span class=\"contentitem-sidenote contentitem-infocard js-contentitem-sidenote mod-regular\"> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__toggle contentitem-sidenote__toggle js-contentitem-sidenote-toggle\"> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__snippit contentitem-sidenote__snippit\">Doc Searls calls adblockers</span> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__toggle-icon mod-external\"> <span class=\" icon icon-infocard-external \"> <svg> <path/> </svg> </span> </span> </span> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__content js-contentitem-sidenote-content\" id=\"contentitem-sidenote-contents-13386d2e-510b-4719-a897-2bc71a189cb9\"></span> <a class=\"contentitem-sidenote__note js-contentitem-sidenote-description js-contentitem-sidenote-link\" href=\"https://blogs.harvard.edu/doc/2015/09/28/beyond-ad-blocking-the-biggest-boycott-in-human-history/\"> <span class=\"contentitem-sidenote__icon\"> <span class=\" icon icon-sidenote-externalarticle \"> <svg> <path/> </svg> </span> </span> Read Doc Searls&#x2019; blog on the topic. </a> </span> &#x201C;the biggest boycott in human history&#x201D;. They prove beyond a doubt that, when given a choice, most of us would rather give up looking at online ads at all.&#xA0;</p><p>Why? Because ads <span class=\"contentitem-infocard js-contentitem-infocard mod-regular\"> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__toggle js-contentitem-infocard-toggle\"> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__snippit\">are annoying,</span> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__toggle-icon \"> <span class=\" icon icon-chevron-down \"> <svg> <path/> </svg> </span> </span> </span> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__content js-contentitem-infocard-content\" id=\"contentitem-infocard-contents-d39cd731-b3c6-47d8-933d-39866f709bdc\"></span>\n</span> first of all. To most adblock users, ads are clutter and a huge distraction. Installing an adblocker tends to upgrade your internet experience tremendously: websites load faster and no hideous pop-ups blink in the corner of your eye, demanding your attention.</p><p>In addition, adblockers make going online safer and more privacy friendly. That&#x2019;s because many adblockers also keep away the rubbish that usually comes with ads: viruses &#x2013; adware or malvertising, as they&#x2019;re called &#x2013; as well as trackers that register your online behaviour, link it to other data, or sell it to third parties.</p><p>For the advertising industry, the massive use of adblockers is bad news. They make online advertising even less effective. If billions of people use the internet with a blindfold on, there are fewer and fewer eyeballs left to measure &#x2013; let alone clicks or <span class=\"contentitem-infocard js-contentitem-infocard mod-regular\"> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__toggle js-contentitem-infocard-toggle\"> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__snippit\">conversion.</span> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__toggle-icon \"> <span class=\" icon icon-chevron-down \"> <svg> <path/> </svg> </span> </span> </span> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__content js-contentitem-infocard-content\" id=\"contentitem-infocard-contents-e5cd43df-3ef9-4213-9d9e-5acf681c0ffc\"></span>\n</span>\n</p> <figure class=\"contentitem-image mod-centered mod-regular\"> <div class=\"contentitem-image-container\"> <img alt=\"\" src=\"https://useruploads.cdn-thecorrespondent.com/image/uNQYo6x0UFr_EHDnSBPCQn-Jfxg=/92x92/tc-useruploads-images/fcfdcb64391c4c77814dc281a96de9c7.jpg%2092w,%20https://useruploads.cdn-thecorrespondent.com/image/op5UC0nwsR2HhEjntrtVC1V-hfE=/320x236/tc-useruploads-images/fcfdcb64391c4c77814dc281a96de9c7.jpg%20320w,%20https://useruploads.cdn-thecorrespondent.com/image/yDRkxtFBLy9wCxunlMhkxFwpPJg=/600x443/tc-useruploads-images/fcfdcb64391c4c77814dc281a96de9c7.jpg%20600w,%20https://useruploads.cdn-thecorrespondent.com/image/vIc1xmFZm_spIXB9ceicuIzGq_8=/660x487/tc-useruploads-images/fcfdcb64391c4c77814dc281a96de9c7.jpg%20660w,%20https://useruploads.cdn-thecorrespondent.com/image/3ZsUxGRa0u59qAVBvwhvAkJgRDQ=/904x667/tc-useruploads-images/fcfdcb64391c4c77814dc281a96de9c7.jpg%20904w,%20https://useruploads.cdn-thecorrespondent.com/image/RQMesdBpXyK6StOdU-ZotDGFKPY=/1024x756/tc-useruploads-images/fcfdcb64391c4c77814dc281a96de9c7.jpg%201024w,%20https://useruploads.cdn-thecorrespondent.com/image/ndN-bfxGZ8AyswzUFlBCa-gZJGA=/1366x1008/tc-useruploads-images/fcfdcb64391c4c77814dc281a96de9c7.jpg%201366w,%20https://useruploads.cdn-thecorrespondent.com/image/EYAtsciCTHiq_vK-OWeFej9Jn-E=/1600x1181/tc-useruploads-images/fcfdcb64391c4c77814dc281a96de9c7.jpg%201600w,%20https://useruploads.cdn-thecorrespondent.com/image/zWOr9HvAYIuKbKvienT1xaf_sc0=/1920x1417/tc-useruploads-images/fcfdcb64391c4c77814dc281a96de9c7.jpg%201920w\" srcset=\"https://useruploads.cdn-thecorrespondent.com/image/uNQYo6x0UFr_EHDnSBPCQn-Jfxg=/92x92/tc-useruploads-images/fcfdcb64391c4c77814dc281a96de9c7.jpg 92w, https://useruploads.cdn-thecorrespondent.com/image/op5UC0nwsR2HhEjntrtVC1V-hfE=/320x236/tc-useruploads-images/fcfdcb64391c4c77814dc281a96de9c7.jpg 320w, https://useruploads.cdn-thecorrespondent.com/image/yDRkxtFBLy9wCxunlMhkxFwpPJg=/600x443/tc-useruploads-images/fcfdcb64391c4c77814dc281a96de9c7.jpg 600w, https://useruploads.cdn-thecorrespondent.com/image/vIc1xmFZm_spIXB9ceicuIzGq_8=/660x487/tc-useruploads-images/fcfdcb64391c4c77814dc281a96de9c7.jpg 660w, https://useruploads.cdn-thecorrespondent.com/image/3ZsUxGRa0u59qAVBvwhvAkJgRDQ=/904x667/tc-useruploads-images/fcfdcb64391c4c77814dc281a96de9c7.jpg 904w, https://useruploads.cdn-thecorrespondent.com/image/RQMesdBpXyK6StOdU-ZotDGFKPY=/1024x756/tc-useruploads-images/fcfdcb64391c4c77814dc281a96de9c7.jpg 1024w, https://useruploads.cdn-thecorrespondent.com/image/ndN-bfxGZ8AyswzUFlBCa-gZJGA=/1366x1008/tc-useruploads-images/fcfdcb64391c4c77814dc281a96de9c7.jpg 1366w, https://useruploads.cdn-thecorrespondent.com/image/EYAtsciCTHiq_vK-OWeFej9Jn-E=/1600x1181/tc-useruploads-images/fcfdcb64391c4c77814dc281a96de9c7.jpg 1600w, https://useruploads.cdn-thecorrespondent.com/image/zWOr9HvAYIuKbKvienT1xaf_sc0=/1920x1417/tc-useruploads-images/fcfdcb64391c4c77814dc281a96de9c7.jpg 1920w\"> </div> </figure>\n<h2>Don&#x2019;t believe the hype</h2><p>Pritchard ended his 2017 talk with a call to action: time had come to clean up the online advertising world, which was &#x201C;murky at best and fraudulent at worst&#x201D;. He said it was high time to tackle fraud, to standardise metrics, and to enable advertisers to have metrics verified by independent parties.</p><p>Pritchard promised that from now on, P&amp;G would only work with parties that met its requirements: &#x201C;We vote with our dollars.&#x201D;</p><p>That same year, P&amp;G cut its online advertising budget by $200m to keep ads from showing up in ways and places <span class=\"contentitem-infocard js-contentitem-infocard mod-regular\"> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__toggle js-contentitem-infocard-toggle\"> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__snippit\">&#x201C;that do not meet [their] standards and requirements&#x201D;.</span> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__toggle-icon \"> <span class=\" icon icon-chevron-down \"> <svg> <path/> </svg> </span> </span> </span> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__content js-contentitem-infocard-content\" id=\"contentitem-infocard-contents-f0f34a80-a969-4ca5-a91c-c7e992846d16\"></span>\n</span> The manufacturer of shampoos and chocolate bars said later that the decision hadn&#x2019;t hurt the bottom line at all. On the contrary, sales showed a <span class=\"contentitem-infocard js-contentitem-infocard mod-regular\"> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__toggle js-contentitem-infocard-toggle\"> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__snippit\">2% increase.&#xA0;</span> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__toggle-icon \"> <span class=\" icon icon-chevron-down \"> <svg> <path/> </svg> </span> </span> </span> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__content js-contentitem-infocard-content\" id=\"contentitem-infocard-contents-79ee3522-259d-452a-a799-79552c0914bf\"></span>\n</span>\nThe company claimed that this only proved that some of their ads had been seen by bots instead of people.</p><p>Other advertisers followed P&amp;G&#x2019;s lead. Some decided to work with fewer ad tech companies as well. Facebook and Google took measures to improve their metrics and to provide more transparency.</p><p>Even so, the industry&#x2019;s problems <span class=\"contentitem-sidenote contentitem-infocard js-contentitem-sidenote mod-regular\"> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__toggle contentitem-sidenote__toggle js-contentitem-sidenote-toggle\"> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__snippit contentitem-sidenote__snippit\">are persistent.</span> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__toggle-icon mod-external\"> <span class=\" icon icon-infocard-external \"> <svg> <path/> </svg> </span> </span> </span> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__content js-contentitem-sidenote-content\" id=\"contentitem-sidenote-contents-11884087-789d-4f65-98b8-70a0676a32cf\"></span> <a class=\"contentitem-sidenote__note js-contentitem-sidenote-description js-contentitem-sidenote-link\" href=\"https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3459199\"> <span class=\"contentitem-sidenote__icon\"> <span class=\" icon icon-sidenote-externalarticle \"> <svg> <path/> </svg> </span> </span> For a recent overview, see this comprehensive research paper </a> </span> The use of adblockers increases every year. The ad fraud mafia is becoming more resourceful. <span class=\"contentitem-sidenote contentitem-infocard js-contentitem-sidenote mod-regular\"> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__toggle contentitem-sidenote__toggle js-contentitem-sidenote-toggle\"> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__snippit contentitem-sidenote__snippit\">Adobe discovered</span> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__toggle-icon mod-external\"> <span class=\" icon icon-infocard-external \"> <svg> <path/> </svg> </span> </span> </span> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__content js-contentitem-sidenote-content\" id=\"contentitem-sidenote-contents-e156636e-5fc8-4ffe-9510-625d68c68591\"></span> <a class=\"contentitem-sidenote__note js-contentitem-sidenote-description js-contentitem-sidenote-link\" href=\"https://www.wsj.com/articles/fraudulent-web-traffic-continues-to-plague-advertisers-other-businesses-1522234801\"> <span class=\"contentitem-sidenote__icon\"> <span class=\" icon icon-sidenote-externalarticle \"> <svg> <path/> </svg> </span> </span> Read more here about Adobe&#x2019;s research. </a> </span> that as much as 28% of all internet traffic is &#x201C;non-human&#x201D;, which means pure and proper metrics are <span class=\"contentitem-sidenote contentitem-infocard js-contentitem-sidenote mod-regular\"> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__toggle contentitem-sidenote__toggle js-contentitem-sidenote-toggle\"> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__snippit contentitem-sidenote__snippit\">a pipe dream.</span> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__toggle-icon mod-external\"> <span class=\" icon icon-infocard-external \"> <svg> <path/> </svg> </span> </span> </span> <span class=\"contentitem-infocard__content js-contentitem-sidenote-content\" id=\"contentitem-sidenote-contents-2376abab-e41c-4f75-8992-81214a84ada4\"></span> <a class=\"contentitem-sidenote__note js-contentitem-sidenote-description js-contentitem-sidenote-link\" href=\"http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2018/12/how-much-of-the-internet-is-fake.html\"> <span class=\"contentitem-sidenote__icon\"> <span class=\" icon icon-sidenote-externalarticle \"> <svg> <path/> </svg> </span> </span> Read more here. </a> </span>\n&#xA0;Contaminated data are often treated as &#x201C;clean&#x201D; &#x2013; that is, they&#x2019;re counted as a click or a view, even if the thing doing the clicking and viewing is not human.</p><blockquote class=\"Streamer\"> Call it the paradox of the online advertising world: metrics are sacred, but proper measurement is impossible\n</blockquote>\n<p>But as long as those metrics are all we&#x2019;ve got, the online advertising industry will continue to revolve almost entirely around those same metrics. That&#x2019;s how Google, Facebook and countless other advertising companies make their money.</p><p>Call it the paradox of the online advertising world: metrics are sacred, but proper measurement is impossible.&#xA0;</p><p>And all the big players know it because the signs are crystal clear. But the story of a revolutionary brave new world &#x2013; the world where &#x201C;digital is different&#x201D; &#x2013; continues to hold sway.</p><p>&#x201C;Don&#x2019;t be fooled by the myths,&#x201D; Pritchard told his colleagues at the conference.</p><p>It&#x2019;s still very wise advice.</p><p><em>Maurits and Jesse worked together on this piece, but the story is told by Maurits. This article was first published in Dutch on De Correspondent. It was translated by Nephtalie Demei.</em></p><p><em>Correction: the IAB is the Interactive Advertising Bureau, not the International Advertising Bureau. </em></p><h2>Dig deeper</h2> <a class=\"contentitem-linkblock mod-regular js-contentitem-linkblock\" href=\"https://thecorrespondent.com/100/the-new-dot-com-bubble-is-here-its-called-online-advertising\"> <span class=\"contentitem-linkblock-image-container\"> <img class=\"contentitem-linkblock-image mod-landscape js-image\" alt=\"Illustration of a woman sitting in front of her computerscreen, frowning at the advertisements of glasses she&#x2019;s suddenly confronted with since she decided to buy a new pair. \" src=\"https://useruploads.cdn-thecorrespondent.com/image/umoQgHs5LXohKhl8dVZNQ_16e6A=/600x338/tc-useruploads-images/287f6b4e57f9400798e7558b5a6bd1be.jpg\"> </span> <span class=\"contentitem-linkblock-mobile-image-container\"> <img class=\"contentitem-linkblock-mobile-image js-mobile-image\" alt=\"Illustration of a woman sitting in front of her computerscreen, frowning at the advertisements of glasses she&#x2019;s suddenly confronted with since she decided to buy a new pair. \" src=\"https://useruploads.cdn-thecorrespondent.com/image/umoQgHs5LXohKhl8dVZNQ_16e6A=/600x338/tc-useruploads-images/287f6b4e57f9400798e7558b5a6bd1be.jpg\"> </span> <span class=\"contentitem-linkblock-content\"> <span class=\"contentitem-linkblock-title\">The new dot com bubble is here: it&#x2019;s called online advertising</span> <span class=\"contentitem-linkblock-lead\">In 2018 $273bn was spent on digital ads globally. We delve into the world of clicks, banners and keywords to find out if any of it is real. What do we really know about the effectiveness of digital advertising? </span> <span class=\"contentitem-linkblock-button\"> Read more here. <span class=\" icon icon-arrow-right \"> <svg> <path/> </svg> </span> </span> </span> </a> </div></div>","url":"https://thecorrespondent.com/125/the-non-sense-of-online-advertising-when-the-numbers-dont-add-up/267513125-ebeb97f2","date_published":"2019-11-18T11:16:44+00:00","author":{"name":""}},{"id":"1768","title":"WordPress 5.3 “Kirk”","content_html":"<div class=\"storycontent\"> <p class=\"wp-block-image\"><figure class=\"aligncenter size-large\"><img src=\"https://i1.wp.com/wordpress.org/news/files/2019/11/5.3-album-cover.png?resize=1024%2C1024&amp;ssl=1%201024w,%20https://i1.wp.com/wordpress.org/news/files/2019/11/5.3-album-cover.png?resize=300%2C300&amp;ssl=1%20300w,%20https://i1.wp.com/wordpress.org/news/files/2019/11/5.3-album-cover.png?resize=150%2C150&amp;ssl=1%20150w,%20https://i1.wp.com/wordpress.org/news/files/2019/11/5.3-album-cover.png?resize=768%2C768&amp;ssl=1%20768w,%20https://i1.wp.com/wordpress.org/news/files/2019/11/5.3-album-cover.png?w=1440&amp;ssl=1%201440w,%20https://i1.wp.com/wordpress.org/news/files/2019/11/5.3-album-cover.png?w=1264&amp;ssl=1%201264w\" alt=\"Album cover for WordPress 5.3 Kirk, showcasing a duotone red/cream Rahsaan Roland Kirk playing the saxophone on a red background.\" class=\"wp-image-7710\" srcset=\"https://i1.wp.com/wordpress.org/news/files/2019/11/5.3-album-cover.png?resize=1024%2C1024&amp;ssl=1 1024w, https://i1.wp.com/wordpress.org/news/files/2019/11/5.3-album-cover.png?resize=300%2C300&amp;ssl=1 300w, https://i1.wp.com/wordpress.org/news/files/2019/11/5.3-album-cover.png?resize=150%2C150&amp;ssl=1 150w, https://i1.wp.com/wordpress.org/news/files/2019/11/5.3-album-cover.png?resize=768%2C768&amp;ssl=1 768w, https://i1.wp.com/wordpress.org/news/files/2019/11/5.3-album-cover.png?w=1440&amp;ssl=1 1440w, https://i1.wp.com/wordpress.org/news/files/2019/11/5.3-album-cover.png?w=1264&amp;ssl=1 1264w\"></figure></p> <p class=\"has-text-color has-background\">Introducing our most refined user experience with the improved block editor in WordPress 5.3! Named &#x201C;Kirk&#x201D; in honour of jazz multi-instrumentalist Rahsaan Roland Kirk, the latest and greatest version of WordPress is available for <a href=\"https://wordpress.org/download/\">download</a> or update in your dashboard.</p> <figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large bar-divider\"><img src=\"https://i0.wp.com/wordpress.org/news/files/2019/11/divider.png?resize=1024%2C258&amp;ssl=1%201024w,%20https://i0.wp.com/wordpress.org/news/files/2019/11/divider.png?resize=300%2C76&amp;ssl=1%20300w,%20https://i0.wp.com/wordpress.org/news/files/2019/11/divider.png?resize=768%2C194&amp;ssl=1%20768w,%20https://i0.wp.com/wordpress.org/news/files/2019/11/divider.png?resize=1536%2C387&amp;ssl=1%201536w,%20https://i0.wp.com/wordpress.org/news/files/2019/11/divider.png?resize=2048%2C516&amp;ssl=1%202048w,%20https://i0.wp.com/wordpress.org/news/files/2019/11/divider.png?w=1264&amp;ssl=1%201264w,%20https://i0.wp.com/wordpress.org/news/files/2019/11/divider.png?w=1896&amp;ssl=1%201896w\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-7721\" srcset=\"https://i0.wp.com/wordpress.org/news/files/2019/11/divider.png?resize=1024%2C258&amp;ssl=1 1024w, https://i0.wp.com/wordpress.org/news/files/2019/11/divider.png?resize=300%2C76&amp;ssl=1 300w, https://i0.wp.com/wordpress.org/news/files/2019/11/divider.png?resize=768%2C194&amp;ssl=1 768w, https://i0.wp.com/wordpress.org/news/files/2019/11/divider.png?resize=1536%2C387&amp;ssl=1 1536w, https://i0.wp.com/wordpress.org/news/files/2019/11/divider.png?resize=2048%2C516&amp;ssl=1 2048w, https://i0.wp.com/wordpress.org/news/files/2019/11/divider.png?w=1264&amp;ssl=1 1264w, https://i0.wp.com/wordpress.org/news/files/2019/11/divider.png?w=1896&amp;ssl=1 1896w\"></figure> <p><strong>5.3 expands and refines the block editor</strong> with more intuitive <strong>interactions</strong> and improved <strong>accessibility</strong>. New features in the editor increase design freedoms, provide additional layout options and style variations to allow designers more control over the look of a site.</p> <p>This release also introduces the <strong>Twenty Twenty theme</strong> giving the user more design flexibility and integration with the block editor. Creating beautiful web pages and advanced layouts has never been easier.</p> <h2>Block Editor Improvements</h2> <figure class=\"wp-block-video aligncenter\"><video src=\"https://s.w.org/images/core/5.3/navigation.mp4\"></video></figure> <p>This enhancement-focused update introduces over 150 new features and usability improvements, including improved large image support for uploading non-optimized, high-resolution pictures taken from your smartphone or other high-quality cameras. Combined with larger default image sizes, pictures always look their best.</p> <p>Accessibility improvements include the integration of block editor styles in the admin interface. These improved styles fix many accessibility issues: color contrast on form fields and buttons, consistency between editor and admin interfaces, new snackbar notices, standardizing to the default WordPress color scheme, and the introduction of Motion to make interacting with your blocks feel swift and natural. </p> <p>For people who use a keyboard to navigate the dashboard, the block editor now has a Navigation mode. This lets you jump from block to block without tabbing through every part of the block controls.</p> <h2>Expanded Design Flexibility</h2> <figure class=\"wp-block-video\"><video src=\"https://s.w.org/images/core/5.3/10-groups.mp4\"></video></figure> <p>WordPress 5.3 adds even more robust tools for creating amazing designs.</p> <ul><li>The new Group block lets you easily divide your page into colorful sections.</li><li>The Columns block now supports fixed column widths.</li><li>The new predefined layouts make it a cinch to arrange content into advanced designs.</li><li>Heading blocks now offer controls for text and background color.</li><li>Additional style options allow you to set your preferred style for any block that supports this feature.</li></ul> <h2>Introducing Twenty Twenty</h2> <p class=\"wp-block-image\"><figure class=\"aligncenter size-large\"><img src=\"https://i0.wp.com/wordpress.org/news/files/2019/11/twentytwenty-desktop.png?resize=1024%2C1014&amp;ssl=1%201024w,%20https://i0.wp.com/wordpress.org/news/files/2019/11/twentytwenty-desktop.png?resize=300%2C297&amp;ssl=1%20300w,%20https://i0.wp.com/wordpress.org/news/files/2019/11/twentytwenty-desktop.png?resize=150%2C150&amp;ssl=1%20150w,%20https://i0.wp.com/wordpress.org/news/files/2019/11/twentytwenty-desktop.png?resize=768%2C760&amp;ssl=1%20768w,%20https://i0.wp.com/wordpress.org/news/files/2019/11/twentytwenty-desktop.png?resize=1536%2C1521&amp;ssl=1%201536w,%20https://i0.wp.com/wordpress.org/news/files/2019/11/twentytwenty-desktop.png?w=2000&amp;ssl=1%202000w,%20https://i0.wp.com/wordpress.org/news/files/2019/11/twentytwenty-desktop.png?w=1264&amp;ssl=1%201264w,%20https://i0.wp.com/wordpress.org/news/files/2019/11/twentytwenty-desktop.png?w=1896&amp;ssl=1%201896w\" alt=\"A desktop preview of the Twenty Twenty theme, showing both the front-end and the editor view.\" class=\"wp-image-7686\" srcset=\"https://i0.wp.com/wordpress.org/news/files/2019/11/twentytwenty-desktop.png?resize=1024%2C1014&amp;ssl=1 1024w, https://i0.wp.com/wordpress.org/news/files/2019/11/twentytwenty-desktop.png?resize=300%2C297&amp;ssl=1 300w, https://i0.wp.com/wordpress.org/news/files/2019/11/twentytwenty-desktop.png?resize=150%2C150&amp;ssl=1 150w, https://i0.wp.com/wordpress.org/news/files/2019/11/twentytwenty-desktop.png?resize=768%2C760&amp;ssl=1 768w, https://i0.wp.com/wordpress.org/news/files/2019/11/twentytwenty-desktop.png?resize=1536%2C1521&amp;ssl=1 1536w, https://i0.wp.com/wordpress.org/news/files/2019/11/twentytwenty-desktop.png?w=2000&amp;ssl=1 2000w, https://i0.wp.com/wordpress.org/news/files/2019/11/twentytwenty-desktop.png?w=1264&amp;ssl=1 1264w, https://i0.wp.com/wordpress.org/news/files/2019/11/twentytwenty-desktop.png?w=1896&amp;ssl=1 1896w\"></figure></p> <div class=\"wp-block-media-text alignwide has-media-on-the-right is-stacked-on-mobile is-vertically-aligned-top\"><figure class=\"wp-block-media-text__media\"><img src=\"https://i1.wp.com/wordpress.org/news/files/2019/11/twentytwenty-mobile.png?w=800&amp;ssl=1%20800w,%20https://i1.wp.com/wordpress.org/news/files/2019/11/twentytwenty-mobile.png?resize=267%2C300&amp;ssl=1%20267w,%20https://i1.wp.com/wordpress.org/news/files/2019/11/twentytwenty-mobile.png?resize=768%2C864&amp;ssl=1%20768w\" alt=\"A mobile image of the Twenty Twenty theme, over a decorative backgorund of brown-grey bars.\" class=\"wp-image-7714\" srcset=\"https://i1.wp.com/wordpress.org/news/files/2019/11/twentytwenty-mobile.png?w=800&amp;ssl=1 800w, https://i1.wp.com/wordpress.org/news/files/2019/11/twentytwenty-mobile.png?resize=267%2C300&amp;ssl=1 267w, https://i1.wp.com/wordpress.org/news/files/2019/11/twentytwenty-mobile.png?resize=768%2C864&amp;ssl=1 768w\"></figure><div class=\"wp-block-media-text__content\">\n<p>As the block editor celebrates its first birthday, we are proud that Twenty Twenty is designed with flexibility at its core. Show off your services or products with a combination of columns, groups, and media blocks. Set your content to wide or full alignment for dynamic and engaging layouts. Or let your thoughts be the star with a centered content column!</p> <p class=\"has-normal-font-size\">As befits a theme called Twenty Twenty, clarity and readability is also a big focus. The theme includes the typeface&#xA0;<a href=\"https://rsms.me/inter/\">Inter</a>, designed by Rasmus Andersson. Inter comes in a Variable Font version, a first for default themes, which keeps load times short by containing all weights and styles of Inter in just two font files.</p>\n</div></div> <div class=\"wp-block-media-text alignwide has-media-on-the-right is-stacked-on-mobile\"><figure class=\"wp-block-media-text__media\"><img src=\"https://i1.wp.com/wordpress.org/news/files/2019/11/Rotate.png?w=300&amp;ssl=1%20300w,%20https://i1.wp.com/wordpress.org/news/files/2019/11/Rotate.png?resize=150%2C150&amp;ssl=1%20150w\" alt=\"An icon showing an arrow rotating a square.\" class=\"wp-image-7731\" srcset=\"https://i1.wp.com/wordpress.org/news/files/2019/11/Rotate.png?w=300&amp;ssl=1 300w, https://i1.wp.com/wordpress.org/news/files/2019/11/Rotate.png?resize=150%2C150&amp;ssl=1 150w\"></figure><div class=\"wp-block-media-text__content\"> <p>Your images will be correctly rotated upon upload according to the embedded orientation data. This feature was first proposed nine years ago and made possible through the perseverance of many dedicated contributors.</p>\n</div></div> <div class=\"wp-block-media-text alignwide has-media-on-the-right is-stacked-on-mobile\"><figure class=\"wp-block-media-text__media\"><img src=\"https://i2.wp.com/wordpress.org/news/files/2019/11/Health.png?w=300&amp;ssl=1%20300w,%20https://i2.wp.com/wordpress.org/news/files/2019/11/Health.png?resize=150%2C150&amp;ssl=1%20150w\" alt=\"A plus in a square, indicating health.\" class=\"wp-image-7732\" srcset=\"https://i2.wp.com/wordpress.org/news/files/2019/11/Health.png?w=300&amp;ssl=1 300w, https://i2.wp.com/wordpress.org/news/files/2019/11/Health.png?resize=150%2C150&amp;ssl=1 150w\"></figure><div class=\"wp-block-media-text__content\"> <p>The improvements introduced in 5.3 make it even easier to identify issues. Expanded recommendations highlight areas that may need troubleshooting on your site from the Health Check screen.</p>\n</div></div> <div class=\"wp-block-media-text alignwide has-media-on-the-right is-stacked-on-mobile\"><figure class=\"wp-block-media-text__media\"><img src=\"https://i1.wp.com/wordpress.org/news/files/2019/11/Email.png?w=300&amp;ssl=1%20300w,%20https://i1.wp.com/wordpress.org/news/files/2019/11/Email.png?resize=150%2C150&amp;ssl=1%20150w\" alt=\"A email icon.\" class=\"wp-image-7733\" srcset=\"https://i1.wp.com/wordpress.org/news/files/2019/11/Email.png?w=300&amp;ssl=1 300w, https://i1.wp.com/wordpress.org/news/files/2019/11/Email.png?resize=150%2C150&amp;ssl=1 150w\"></figure><div class=\"wp-block-media-text__content\"> <p>You&#x2019;ll now be periodically asked to confirm that your admin email address is up to date when you log in as an administrator. This reduces the chance of getting locked out of your site if you change your email address.</p>\n</div></div> <div class=\"wp-block-columns\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-column\"> <p>Developers can now work with&#xA0;<a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/core/2019/09/23/date-time-improvements-wp-5-3/\">dates and timezones</a>&#xA0;in a more reliable way. Date and time functionality has received a number of new API functions for unified timezone retrieval and PHP interoperability, as well as many bug fixes.</p>\n</div> <div class=\"wp-block-column\"> <p>WordPress 5.3 aims to fully support PHP 7.4. This release contains&#xA0;<a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/core/2019/10/11/wordpress-and-php-7-4/\">multiple changes</a>&#xA0;to remove deprecated functionality and ensure compatibility. WordPress continues to encourage all users to run the latest and greatest versions of PHP.</p>\n</div>\n</div> <figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large bar-divider\"><img src=\"https://i0.wp.com/wordpress.org/news/files/2019/11/divider.png?resize=1024%2C258&amp;ssl=1%201024w,%20https://i0.wp.com/wordpress.org/news/files/2019/11/divider.png?resize=300%2C76&amp;ssl=1%20300w,%20https://i0.wp.com/wordpress.org/news/files/2019/11/divider.png?resize=768%2C194&amp;ssl=1%20768w,%20https://i0.wp.com/wordpress.org/news/files/2019/11/divider.png?resize=1536%2C387&amp;ssl=1%201536w,%20https://i0.wp.com/wordpress.org/news/files/2019/11/divider.png?resize=2048%2C516&amp;ssl=1%202048w,%20https://i0.wp.com/wordpress.org/news/files/2019/11/divider.png?w=1264&amp;ssl=1%201264w,%20https://i0.wp.com/wordpress.org/news/files/2019/11/divider.png?w=1896&amp;ssl=1%201896w\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-7721\" srcset=\"https://i0.wp.com/wordpress.org/news/files/2019/11/divider.png?resize=1024%2C258&amp;ssl=1 1024w, https://i0.wp.com/wordpress.org/news/files/2019/11/divider.png?resize=300%2C76&amp;ssl=1 300w, https://i0.wp.com/wordpress.org/news/files/2019/11/divider.png?resize=768%2C194&amp;ssl=1 768w, https://i0.wp.com/wordpress.org/news/files/2019/11/divider.png?resize=1536%2C387&amp;ssl=1 1536w, https://i0.wp.com/wordpress.org/news/files/2019/11/divider.png?resize=2048%2C516&amp;ssl=1 2048w, https://i0.wp.com/wordpress.org/news/files/2019/11/divider.png?w=1264&amp;ssl=1 1264w, https://i0.wp.com/wordpress.org/news/files/2019/11/divider.png?w=1896&amp;ssl=1 1896w\"></figure> <p>This release was led by&#xA0;<a href=\"http://ma.tt/\">Matt Mullenweg</a>,&#xA0;<a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/francina\">Francesca Marano</a>, and <a href=\"https://dream-encode.com/blog/\">David Baumwald</a>. They were enthusiastically supported by a large release squad:</p> <p>The squad was joined throughout the twelve week release cycle by 645 generous volunteer contributors (our largest group of contributors to date) who collectively fixed 658 bugs.</p> <p>Put on a Rahsaan Roland Kirk playlist, click that update button (or <a href=\"https://wordpress.org/download/\">download it directly</a>), and check the profiles of the fine folks that helped:</p> <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/123host/\">123host</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/1994rstefan/\">1994rstefan</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/5hel2l2y/\">5hel2l2y</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/irsdl/\">@irsdl</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/aaroncampbell/\">Aaron D. Campbell</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/jorbin/\">Aaron Jorbin</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/aksdvp/\">Aashish S</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/abhijitrakas/\">Abhijit Rakas</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/abrightclearweb/\">abrightclearweb</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/acalfieri/\">acalfieri</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/acosmin/\">acosmin</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/adamsilverstein/\">Adam Silverstein</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/adamsoucie/\">Adam Soucie</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/adhitya03/\">Adhitya Rachman</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/ahdeubzer/\">ahdeubzer</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/mrahmadawais/\">Ahmad Awais</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/ajayghaghretiya1/\">Ajay Ghaghretiya</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/ajitbohra/\">Ajit Bohra</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/ajlende/\">ajlende</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/atachibana/\">Akira Tachibana</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/albertomake/\">albertomake</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/xknown/\">Alex Concha</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/xavortm/\">Alex Dimitrov</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/alexclassroom/\">Alex Lion</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/alexsanford1/\">Alex Sanford</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/xyfi/\">Alexander Botteram</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/xel1045/\">Alexandre D&apos;Eschambeault</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/alexvorn2/\">Alexandru Vornicescu</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/alexeyskr/\">alexeyskr</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/alextran/\">alextran</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/ayubi/\">Ali Ayubi</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/allancole/\">allancole</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/allendav/\">Allen Snook</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/alvarogois/\">Alvaro Gois dos Santos</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/arush/\">Amanda Rush</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/amolv/\">Amol Vhankalas</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/anlino/\">Anders Nor&#xE9;n</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/afercia/\">Andrea Fercia</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/andg/\">Andrea Gandino</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/agengineering/\">Andrea Grillo</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/andreamiddleton/\">Andrea Middleton</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/abrain/\">Andreas Brain</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/andraganescu/\">Andrei Draganescu</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/aduth/\">Andrew Duthie</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/nacin/\">Andrew Nacin</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/anevins/\">Andrew Nevins</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/azaozz/\">Andrew Ozz</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/andrewtaylor-1/\">Andrew Taylor</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/rarst/\">Andrey Savchenko</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/nosolosw/\">Andr&#xE9;s Maneiro</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/afragen/\">Andy Fragen</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/andizer/\">Andy Meerwaldt</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/angelagibson/\">Angela Gibson</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/rilwis/\">Anh Tran</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/anischarolia/\">anischarolia</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/antpb/\">Anthony Burchell</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/atimmer/\">Anton Timmermans</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/apermo/\">Apermo</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/arafat/\">Arafat Rahman</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/arena/\">arena</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/aristath/\">Ari Stathopoulos</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/arunsathiya/\">Arun Sathiya</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/artisticasad/\">Asad Shahbaz</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/asadkn/\">asadkn</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/mrasharirfan/\">Ashar Irfan</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/ashwinpc/\">ashwinpc</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/wpboss/\">Aslam Shekh</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/atlasmahesh/\">atlasmahesh</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/au87/\">au87</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/aubreypwd/\">Aubrey Portwood</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/augustuswm/\">augustuswm</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/aurooba/\">Aurooba Ahmed</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/avinapatel/\">Avina Patel</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/aksl95/\">Axel DUCORON</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/ayeshrajans/\">Ayesh Karunaratne</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/backermann1978/\">backermann1978</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/b-07/\">Bappi</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/toszcze/\">Bartosz Romanowski</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/pixolin/\">Bego Mario Garde</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/bfintal/\">Benjamin Intal</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/benjamin_zekavica/\">Benjamin Zekavica</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/bennemann/\">bennemann</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/bgermann/\">bgermann</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/bhaktirajdev/\">Bhaktii Rajdev</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/bibliofille/\">bibliofille</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/biranit/\">Biranit</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/birgire/\">Birgir Erlendsson</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/bitcomplex/\">bitcomplex</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/bjornw/\">BjornW</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/boblinthorst/\">boblinthorst</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/boonebgorges/\">Boone Gorges</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/bor0/\">Boro Sitnikovski</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/crazyjaco/\">Bradley Jacobs</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/bradleyt/\">Bradley Taylor</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/kraftbj/\">Brandon Kraft</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/brentswisher/\">Brent Swisher</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/bronsonquick/\">Bronson Quick</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/bsetiawan88/\">bsetiawan88</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/burhandodhy/\">Burhan Nasir</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/cbravobernal/\">Carlos Bravo</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/poena/\">Carolina Nymark</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/cdog/\">Catalin Dogaru</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/cathibosco1/\">Cathi Bosco</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/chandrapatel/\">Chandra Patel</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/caercam/\">Charlie Merland</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/chetan200891/\">Chetan Prajapati</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/ketuchetan/\">Chetan Satasiya</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/blogginglife/\">Chico</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/chintan1896/\">Chintan hingrajiya</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/chrico/\">ChriCo</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/aprea/\">Chris Aprea</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/chrisvanpatten/\">Chris Van Patten</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/christian1012/\">Christian Chung</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/needle/\">Christian Wach</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/lovememore/\">christianoliff</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/christophherr/\">Christoph Herr</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/cleancoded/\">cleancoded</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/cmagrin/\">cmagrin</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/compilenix/\">CompileNix</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/salzano/\">Corey Salzano</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/courtney0burton/\">courtney0burton</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/cristianozanca/\">Cristiano Zanca</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/littlebigthing/\">Csaba (LittleBigThings)</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/dswebsme/\">D.S. Webster</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/daleharrison/\">daleharrison</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/danmicamediacom/\">Dan Foley</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/goodevilgenius/\">Dan Jones</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/danbuk/\">DanBUK</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/danielbachhuber/\">Daniel Bachhuber</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/redsweater/\">Daniel Jalkut (Red Sweater)</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/danieltj/\">Daniel James</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/diddledan/\">Daniel Llewellyn</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/talldanwp/\">Daniel Richards</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/danieliser/\">danieliser</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/daniloercoli/\">daniloercoli</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/dvankooten/\">Danny van Kooten</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/nerrad/\">Darren Ethier</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/darthhexx/\">darthhexx</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/deapness/\">Dave Parker</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/get_dave/\">Dave Smith</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/drw158/\">Dave Whitley</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/davetgreen/\">davetgreen</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/davilera/\">David Aguilera</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/davidanderson/\">David Anderson</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/david.binda/\">David Binovec</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/davidbinda/\">David Binovec</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/daveshine/\">David Decker</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/dlh/\">David Herrera</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/daviedr/\">David Rozando</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/dshanske/\">David Shanske</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/daxelrod/\">daxelrod</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/dkarfa/\">Debabrata Karfa</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/dennis_f/\">Deni</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/dehisok/\">Denis Cherniavsky</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/denisco/\">Denis Yanchevskiy</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/wpdennis/\">Dennis</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/dionysous/\">Dennis Hipp</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/dmsnell/\">Dennis Snell</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/dsifford/\">Derek Sifford</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/derweili/\">derweili</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/dfangstrom/\">dfangstrom</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/dharmin16/\">Dharmin Shah</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/dhavalkasvala/\">Dhaval kasavala</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/dhuyvetter/\">dhuyvetter</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/dianeco/\">Diane Co</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/diedeexterkate/\">DiedeExterkate</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/diego-la-monica/\">Diego La Monica</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/digitalapps/\">digitalapps</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/dilipbheda/\">Dilip Bheda</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/odminstudios/\">Dima</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/dingo_d/\">dingo-d</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/dd32/\">Dion Hulse</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/dency/\">Dixita Dusara</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/ocean90/\">Dominik Schilling</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/drewapicture/\">Drew Jaynes</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/dukex/\">Dukex</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/dushanthi/\">dushanthi</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/seedsca/\">EcoTechie</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/ediamin/\">Edi Amin</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/etoledom/\">Eduardo Toledo</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/iseulde/\">Ella van Durpe</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/elliotcondon/\">Elliot Condon</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/codex-m/\">Emerson Maningo</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/edocev/\">Emil Dotsev</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/emiluzelac/\">Emil Uzelac</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/epiqueras/\">Enrique Piqueras</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/nrqsnchz/\">Enrique S&#xE1;nchez</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/erikkroes/\">erikkroes</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/estelaris/\">estelaris</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/evalarumbe/\">evalarumbe</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/faazshift/\">faazshift</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/fabiankaegy/\">Fabian K&#xE4;gy</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/fblaser/\">fblaser</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/felipeelia/\">Felipe Elia</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/flixos90/\">Felix Arntz</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/fencer04/\">Fencer04</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/flipkeijzer/\">flipkeijzer</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/mista-flo/\">Florian TIAR</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/foysalremon/\">Foysal Remon</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/galbaras/\">Gal Baras</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/garrett-eclipse/\">Garrett Hyder</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/voldemortensen/\">Garth Mortensen</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/garyj/\">Gary Jones</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/pento/\">Gary Pendergast</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/guddu1315/\">Gaurang Dabhi</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/gchtr/\">gchtr</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/soulseekah/\">Gennady Kovshenin</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/loyaltymanufaktur/\">Gesundheit Bewegt GmbH</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/sachyya-sachet/\">ghoul</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/girlieworks/\">girlieworks</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/glauberglauber/\">glauberglauber</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/hometowntrailers/\">Glenn</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/gravityview/\">GravityView</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/gregsullivan/\">gregsullivan</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/gziolo/\">Grzegorz Zi&#xF3;&#x142;kowski</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/gwwar/\">gwwar</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/hardeepasrani/\">Hardeep Asrani</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/thakkarhardik/\">Hardik Thakkar</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/hardipparmar/\">hardipparmar</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/hareesh-pillai/\">Hareesh Pillai</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/hareesh%20pillai/\">Hareesh Pillai</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/harryfear/\">harryfear</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/harshbarach/\">harshbarach</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/haszari/\">haszari</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/hesyifei/\">He Yifei</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/helen/\">Helen Hou-Sandi</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/henrywright/\">Henry Wright</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/herbmiller/\">herbmiller</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/herregroen/\">herregroen</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/hirofumi2012/\">hirofumi2012</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/hkandulla/\">HKandulla</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/howdy_mcgee/\">Howdy_McGee</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/hoythan/\">hoythan</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/hlashbrooke/\">Hugh Lashbrooke</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/ianbelanger/\">Ian Belanger</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/iandunn/\">Ian Dunn</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/ianmjones/\">ianmjones</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/zinigor/\">Igor Zinovyev</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/imath/\">imath</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/gsayed786/\">Imran Sayed</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/intimez/\">intimez</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/ipstenu/\">Ipstenu (Mika Epstein)</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/iqbalbary/\">iqbalbary</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/ireneyoast/\">Irene Strikkers</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/isabel_brison/\">Isabel Brison</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/ismailelkorchi/\">Ismail El Korchi</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/jdgrimes/\">J.D. Grimes</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/jagirbaheshwp/\">jagirbaheshwp</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/whyisjake/\">Jake Spurlock</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/jalpa1984/\">Jalpa Panchal</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/jnylen0/\">James Nylen</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/jameslnewell/\">jameslnewell</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/janak007/\">janak Kaneriya</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/jankimoradiya/\">Janki Moradiya</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/janwoostendorp/\">janw.oostendorp</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/jared_smith/\">jared_smith</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/jarocks/\">jarocks</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/jarretc/\">Jarret</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/javeweb/\">jave.web</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/javorszky/\">javorszky</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/jayswadas/\">Jay Swadas</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/iamjaydip/\">Jaydip</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/audrasjb/\">Jean-Baptiste Audras</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/jfarthing84/\">Jeff Farthing</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/jeffpaul/\">Jeff Paul</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/jeichorn/\">jeichorn</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/jenblogs4u/\">Jen Miller</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/jenkoian/\">jenkoian</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/jeremyfelt/\">Jeremy Felt</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/engelen/\">Jesper van Engelen</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/luminuu/\">Jessica Lyschik</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/jffng/\">jffng</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/jikamens/\">jikamens</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/jitendrabanjara1991/\">jitendrabanjara1991</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/jkitchen/\">jkitchen</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/jmmathc/\">jmmathc</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/joakimsilfverberg/\">joakimsilfverberg</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/jobthomas/\">Job</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/jodamo5/\">jodamo5</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/joedolson/\">Joe Dolson</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/joehoyle/\">Joe Hoyle</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/joemcgill/\">Joe McGill</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/joen/\">Joen Asmussen</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/johnbillion/\">John Blackbourn</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/johnjamesjacoby/\">John James Jacoby</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/johnregan3/\">John Regan</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/jojotjebaby/\">jojotjebaby</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/jrchamp/\">Jonathan Champ</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/jond/\">Jonathan Davis</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/desrosj/\">Jonathan Desrosiers</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/jg-visual/\">Jonathan Goldford</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/spacedmonkey/\">Jonny Harris</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/jonoaldersonwp/\">Jono Alderson</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/joostdevalk/\">Joost de Valk</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/koke/\">Jorge Bernal</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/jorgefilipecosta/\">Jorge Costa</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/josephscott/\">Joseph Scott</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/chanthaboune/\">Josepha Haden</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/shelob9/\">Josh Pollock</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/joshuanoyce/\">Joshua Noyce</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/joshuawold/\">JoshuaWold</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/joyously/\">Joy</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/jsnajdr/\">jsnajdr</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/juanfra/\">Juanfra Aldasoro</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/juiiee8487/\">Juhi Patel</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/jrf/\">Juliette Reinders Folmer</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/juliobox/\">Julio Potier</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/junktrunk/\">junktrunk</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/justinahinon/\">Justin Ahinon</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/greenshady/\">Justin Tadlock</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/kadamwhite/\">K. Adam White</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/kafleg/\">kafleg</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/trepmal/\">Kailey (trepmal)</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/kakshak/\">Kakshak Kalaria</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/kamrankhorsandi/\">Kamran Khorsandi</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/leprincenoir/\">Kantari Samy</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/karlgroves/\">karlgroves</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/katielgc/\">katielgc</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/kbrownkd/\">kbrownkd</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/ryelle/\">Kelly Dwan</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/kellychoffman/\">Kelly Hoffman</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/kerfred/\">Kerfred</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/kingkero/\">kero</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/ketanumretiya030/\">ketanumretiya030</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/kevinkovadia/\">kevIN kovaDIA</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/killerbishop/\">killerbishop</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/killua99/\">killua99</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/kjellr/\">Kjell Reigstad</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/knutsp/\">Knut Sparhell</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/kokers/\">kokers</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/obenland/\">Konstantin Obenland</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/xkon/\">Konstantinos Xenos</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/kuus/\">kuus</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/laurelfulford/\">laurelfulford</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/lbenicio/\">lbenicio</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/leogermani/\">leogermani</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/leonblade/\">leonblade</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/lessbloat/\">lessbloat</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/lllor/\">lllor</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/lordlod/\">lordlod</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/loreleiaurora/\">LoreleiAurora</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/luan-ramos/\">Luan Ramos</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/luciano-croce/\">luciano-croce</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/luigipulcini/\">luigipulcini</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/luisherranz/\">luisherranz</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/wpfed/\">Luke</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/lukecarbis/\">Luke Carbis</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/lukecavanagh/\">Luke Cavanagh</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/m1tk00/\">m1tk00</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/maartenleenders/\">maartenleenders</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/palmiak/\">Maciej Palmowski</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/mahesh901122/\">Mahesh Waghmare</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/majemedia/\">Maje Media LLC</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/malthert/\">malthert</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/manooweb/\">manooweb</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/manuelaugustin/\">Manuel Augustin</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/manzoorwanijk/\">Manzoor Wani</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/marcguay/\">MarcGuay</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/iworks/\">Marcin Pietrzak</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/marcomartins/\">Marco Martins</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/marcosalexandre/\">MarcosAlexandre</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/mkaz/\">Marcus Kazmierczak</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/marekhrabe/\">Marek Hrabe</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/chaton666/\">Marie Comet</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/maguiar/\">Mario Aguiar</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/nofearinc/\">Mario Peshev</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/clorith/\">Marius Jensen</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/mdwolinski/\">Mark D Wolinski</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/markjaquith/\">Mark Jaquith</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/mapk/\">Mark Uraine</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/markoheijnen/\">Marko Heijnen</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/mspatovaliyski/\">Martin Spatovaliyski</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/splitti/\">Martin Splitt</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/m-e-h/\">Marty Helmick</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/marybaum/\">Mary Baum</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/masummdar/\">masummdar</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/matstars/\">Mat Gargano</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/mat-lipe/\">Mat Lipe</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/iceable/\">Mathieu Sarrasin</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/mattchowning/\">Matt Chowning</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/mboynes/\">Matthew Boynes</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/mattheu/\">Matthew Haines-Young</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/matthiasthiel/\">matthias.thiel</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/mattyrob/\">mattyrob</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/matveb/\">Mat&#xED;as Ventura</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/maximeculea/\">Maxime Culea</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/maximejobin/\">Maxime Jobin</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/maxme/\">maxme</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/mchavezi/\">mchavezi</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/immeet94/\">Meet Makadia</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/mehidi258/\">Mehidi Hassan</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/mehulkaklotar/\">Mehul Kaklotar</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/melchoyce/\">Mel Choyce</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/melinedo/\">Melin Edomwonyi</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/meloniq/\">meloniq</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/michael-arestad/\">Michael Arestad</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/mbabker/\">Michael Babker</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/mnelson4/\">Michael Nelson</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/donmhico/\">Michael Panaga</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/michelweimerskirch/\">michel.weimerskirch</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/michielatyoast/\">Michiel Heijmans</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/mcsf/\">Miguel Fonseca</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/miguelvieira/\">Miguel Vieira</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/mihaiiceyro/\">mihaiiceyro</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/miinasikk/\">Miina Sikk</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/simison/\">Mikael Korpela</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/mauteri/\">Mike Auteri</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/mdgl/\">Mike Glendinning</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/mikehansenme/\">Mike Hansen</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/mikejolley/\">Mike Jolley</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/mikerbg/\">Mike Reid</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/mikeschroder/\">Mike Schroder</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/mikengarrett/\">MikeNGarrett</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/dimadin/\">Milan Dini&#x107;</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/mobeen-abdullah/\">Mobeen Abdullah</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/mohsinrasool/\">Mohsin Rasool</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/monikarao/\">Monika Rao</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/boemedia/\">Monique Dubbelman</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/gwendydd/\">Morgan Kay</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/mor10/\">Morten Rand-Hendriksen</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/man4toman/\">Morteza Geransayeh</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/mt8biz/\">moto hachi ( mt8.biz )</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/mppfeiffer/\">mppfeiffer</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/mrmadhat/\">mrmadhat</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/msaggiorato/\">msaggiorato</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/mtias/\">mtias</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/phpdocs/\">Muhammad Afzal</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/mukesh27/\">Mukesh Panchal</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/munyagu/\">munyagu</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/mzorz/\">mzorz</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/nadir/\">nadir</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/nfmohit/\">Nahid Ferdous Mohit</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/naveenkharwar/\">Naveen Kharwar</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/nayana123/\">Nayana Maradia</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/greatislander/\">Ned Zimmerman</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/neelpatel7295/\">Neel Patel</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/nextendweb/\">Nextendweb</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/niallkennedy/\">Niall Kennedy</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/nickdaugherty/\">Nick Daugherty</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/celloexpressions/\">Nick Halsey</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/nickylimjj/\">Nicky Lim</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/nicolad/\">nicolad</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/rahe/\">Nicolas Juen</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/nielsdeblaauw/\">Niels de Blaauw</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/nielslange/\">Niels Lange</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/nikschavan/\">Nikhil Chavan</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/nikolastoqnow/\">nikolastoqnow</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/niq1982/\">Niku Hietanen</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/rabmalin/\">Nilambar Sharma</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/nishitlangaliya/\">Nishit Langaliya</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/kailanitish90/\">Nitish Kaila</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/nmenescardi/\">nmenescardi</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/noahtallen/\">noahtallen</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/notnownikki/\">notnownikki</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/hideokamoto/\">Okamoto Hidetaka</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/lindstromer/\">Olaf Lindstr&#xF6;m</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/moonomo/\">Omaar Osmaan</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/omarreiss/\">Omar Reiss</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/onlanka/\">onlanka</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/oxyc/\">oxyc</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/ozmatflc/\">ozmatflc</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/paaljoachim/\">Paal Joachim Romdahl</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/paragoninitiativeenterprises/\">Paragon Initiative Enterprises</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/paresh07/\">Paresh Shinde</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/swissspidy/\">Pascal Birchler</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/casiepa/\">Pascal Casier</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/patilvikasj/\">patilvikasj</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/patrelentlesstechnologycom/\">Patrick Baldwin</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/pbearne/\">Paul Bearne</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/pbiron/\">Paul Biron</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/paulschreiber/\">Paul Schreiber</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/bassgang/\">Paul Vincent Beigang</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/pedromendonca/\">Pedro Mendon&#xE7;a</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/pputzer/\">pepe</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/peterwilsoncc/\">Peter Wilson</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/phillipjohn/\">PhillipJohn</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/pierlo/\">Pierre Gordon</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/pikamander2/\">pikamander2</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/decrecementofeliz/\">Pilar Mera</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/wppinar/\">Pinar Olguc</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/powerbuoy/\">powerbuoy</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/promz/\">Pramod Jodhani</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/pratikthink/\">Pratik</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/pratikkry/\">Pratik K. Yadav</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/freewebmentor/\">Prem Tiwari</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/presskopp/\">Presskopp</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/priyankkpatel/\">Priyank Patel</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/quantumstate/\">Quantumstate</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/raajtram/\">Raaj Trambadia</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/raamdev/\">Raam Dev</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/raboodesign/\">raboodesign</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/rahulvaza/\">Rahul Vaza</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/superpoincare/\">Ramanan</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/ramiy/\">Rami Yushuvaev</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/ramon-fincken/\">ramon fincken</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/rclations/\">RC Lations</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/rebasaurus/\">rebasaurus</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/reikodd/\">ReikoDD</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/remcotolsma/\">Remco Tolsma</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/retrofox/\">retrofox</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/youknowriad/\">Riad Benguella</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/rockfire/\">Richard Korthuis</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/riddhiehta02/\">Riddhi Mehta</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/rbrishabh/\">Rishabh Budhiraja</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/noisysocks/\">Robert Anderson</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/miqrogroove/\">Robert Chapin</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/robi-bobi/\">Robert Ivanov</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/rogueresearch/\">rogueresearch</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/rconde/\">Roi Conde</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/ronakganatra/\">Ronak Ganatra</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/raubvogel/\">Ronny Harbich</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/karthost/\">Roy Randolph</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/roytanck/\">Roy Tanck</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/ryan/\">Ryan Boren</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/ryankienstra/\">Ryan Kienstra</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/rmccue/\">Ryan McCue</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/welcher/\">Ryan Welcher</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/sebastienserre/\">S&#xE9;bastien SERRE</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/samgordondev/\">samgordondev</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/sasiddiqui/\">Sami Ahmed Siddiqui</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/solarissmoke/\">Samir Shah</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/otto42/\">Samuel Wood (Otto)</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/progremzion/\">Sanket Mehta</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/tinkerbelly/\">sarah semark</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/sarathar/\">sarath.ar</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/saskak/\">saskak</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/sbardian/\">sbardian</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/coffee2code/\">Scott Reilly</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/sebastianpisula/\">Sebastian Pisula</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/assassinateur/\">Seghir Nadir</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/sergeybiryukov/\">Sergey Biryukov</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/vjik/\">Sergey Predvoditelev</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/sergiomdgomes/\">sergiomdgomes</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/seuser/\">seuser</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/sgastard/\">sgastard</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/shadyvb/\">Shady Sharaf</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/shamim51/\">Shamim Hasan</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/sharaz/\">Sharaz Shahid</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/shashank3105/\">Shashank Panchal</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/shawfactor/\">shawfactor</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/shital-patel/\">Shital Marakana</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/siliconforks/\">siliconforks</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/simono/\">simono</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/sirreal/\">sirreal</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/sixes/\">Sixes</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/slaffik/\">Slava Abakumov</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/slobodanmanic/\">Slobodan Manic</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/smerriman/\">smerriman</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/snapfractalpop/\">snapfractalpop</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/socalchristina/\">socalchristina</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/soean/\">Soren Wrede</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/spectacula/\">Spectacula</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/spenserhale/\">spenserhale</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/spuds10/\">spuds10</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/sstoqnov/\">Stanimir Stoyanov</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/ryokuhi/\">Stefano Minoia</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/hypest/\">Stefanos Togoulidis</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/sabernhardt/\">Stephen Bernhardt</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/netweb/\">Stephen Edgar</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/stevenkword/\">Steven Word</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/studyboi/\">studyboi</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/subrataemfluence/\">Subrata Sarkar</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/sudhiryadav/\">Sudhir Yadav</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/manikmist09/\">Sultan Nasir Uddin</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/tha_sun/\">sun</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/codesue/\">Suzen Fylke</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/svanhal/\">svanhal</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/patilswapnilv/\">Swapnil V. Patil</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/swapnild/\">swapnild</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/cybr/\">Sybre Waaijer</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/sergioestevao/\">S&#xE9;rgio Est&#xEA;v&#xE3;o</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/miyauchi/\">Takayuki Miyauchi</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/nevma/\">Takis</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/karmatosed/\">Tammie Lister</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/tazotodua/\">tazotodua</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/technote0space/\">technote</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/tellyworth/\">Tellyworth</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/tessak22/\">Tessa Kriesel</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/themes-1/\">them.es</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/themezly/\">Themezly</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/thulshof/\">Thijs Hulshof</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/kraftner/\">Thomas Kr&#xE4;ftner</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/thomaswm/\">thomaswm</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/tdh/\">Thord D. Hedengren</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/tfrommen/\">Thorsten Frommen</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/thrijith/\">Thrijith Thankachan</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/tigertech/\">tigertech</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/n7studios/\">Tim Carr</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/timhavinga/\">Tim Havinga</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/hedgefield/\">Tim Hengeveld</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/timothyblynjacobs/\">Timothy Jacobs</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/timph/\">timph</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/tmatsuur/\">tmatsuur</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/tmdesigned/\">tmdesigned</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/tobiasbg/\">TobiasBg</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/tobifjellner/\">tobifjellner (Tor-Bjorn Fjellner)</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/toddhalfpenny/\">toddhalfpenny</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/tosho/\">Todor Gaidarov</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/tjnowell/\">Tom J Nowell</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/tferry/\">Tommy Ferry</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/skithund/\">Toni Viemer&#xF6;</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/tonybogdanov/\">tonybogdanov</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/torres126/\">torres126</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/zodiac1978/\">Torsten Landsiedel</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/itowhid06/\">Towhidul Islam</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/trasweb/\">trasweb</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/travisnorthcutt/\">Travis Northcutt</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/travisseitler/\">travisseitler</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/triplejumper12/\">triplejumper12</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/truchot/\">truchot</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/truongwp/\">truongwp</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/dekervit/\">Tugdual de Kerviler</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/dinhtungdu/\">Tung Du</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/desaiuditd/\">Udit Desai</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/grapplerulrich/\">Ulrich</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/utsav72640/\">Utsav tilava</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/vaishalipanchal/\">Vaishali Panchal</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/vbaimas/\">vbaimas</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/venutius/\">Venutius</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/fesovik/\">Viktor Veljanovski</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/vishalkakadiya/\">Vishal Kakadiya</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/vishitshah/\">vishitshah</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/vladlu/\">vladlu</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/vladwtz/\">Vladut Ilie</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/vortfu/\">vortfu</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/svovaf/\">Vova Feldman</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/vrimill/\">vrimill</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/w3rkjana/\">w3rkjana</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/webcommsat/\">webcommsat AbhaNonStopNewsUK</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/webdados/\">Webdados (Marco Almeida)</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/webmandesign/\">WebMan Design | Oliver Juhas</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/westonruter/\">Weston Ruter</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/earnjam/\">William Earnhardt</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/wpdavis/\">William P. Davis</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/williampatton/\">William Patton</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/withinboredom/\">withinboredom</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/worldweb/\">worldweb</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/yanngarcia/\">yanngarcia</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/collet/\">Yannicki</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/yarnboy/\">yarnboy</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/yashar_hv/\">yashar_hv</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/yoavf/\">Yoav Farhi</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/yodiyo/\">yodiyo</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/fierevere/\">Yui</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/yvettesonneveld/\">Yvette Sonneveld</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/zaantar/\">zaantar</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/zalak151291/\">zalak151291</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/zebulan/\">Zebulan Stanphill</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/chesio/\">&#x10C;eslav Przywara</a>, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/airathalitov/\">&#x410;&#x419;&#x420;&#x410;&#x422; &#x425;&#x410;&#x41B;&#x418;&#x422;&#x41E;&#x412; &#x1F525;</a>, and <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/ounziw/\">&#x6C34;&#x91CE;&#x53F2;&#x571F;</a>. <p>Many thanks to all of the community volunteers who contribute in the&#xA0;<a href=\"https://wordpress.org/support/\">support forums</a>. They answer questions from people across the world, whether they are using WordPress for the first time or since the first release. These releases are more successful for their efforts!</p> <p>Finally, thanks to all the community translators who worked on WordPress 5.3. Their efforts bring WordPress fully translated to&#xA0;47 languages at release time, with more on the way.</p> <p>If you want learn more about volunteering with WordPress, check out&#xA0;<a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/\">Make WordPress</a>&#xA0;or the&#xA0;<a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/core/\">core development blog</a>.</p> <p class=\"has-text-align-center has-medium-font-size\">Thanks for choosing WordPress!</p> <figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large record\"><img src=\"https://i0.wp.com/wordpress.org/news/files/2019/11/image.png?w=1441&amp;ssl=1%201441w,%20https://i0.wp.com/wordpress.org/news/files/2019/11/image.png?resize=300%2C197&amp;ssl=1%20300w,%20https://i0.wp.com/wordpress.org/news/files/2019/11/image.png?resize=1024%2C671&amp;ssl=1%201024w,%20https://i0.wp.com/wordpress.org/news/files/2019/11/image.png?resize=768%2C503&amp;ssl=1%20768w,%20https://i0.wp.com/wordpress.org/news/files/2019/11/image.png?w=1264&amp;ssl=1%201264w\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-7755\" srcset=\"https://i0.wp.com/wordpress.org/news/files/2019/11/image.png?w=1441&amp;ssl=1 1441w, https://i0.wp.com/wordpress.org/news/files/2019/11/image.png?resize=300%2C197&amp;ssl=1 300w, https://i0.wp.com/wordpress.org/news/files/2019/11/image.png?resize=1024%2C671&amp;ssl=1 1024w, https://i0.wp.com/wordpress.org/news/files/2019/11/image.png?resize=768%2C503&amp;ssl=1 768w, https://i0.wp.com/wordpress.org/news/files/2019/11/image.png?w=1264&amp;ssl=1 1264w\"></figure>\n</div>","url":"https://wordpress.org/news/2019/11/kirk/","date_published":"2019-11-12T21:38:29+00:00","author":{"name":""}},{"id":"1755","title":"It Was a Corrupt Quid Pro Quo","content_html":"<div><div class=\"nornbody\">\n<div class=\"clus\">\n<a></a>\n<a></a>\n<a></a>\n<div class=\"item\" id=\"191105p91\">\n<a href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/05/us/politics/impeachment-trump.html\"><img class=\"ill\" src=\"http://www.memeorandum.com/191105/i91.jpg\"></a> <cite>Michael S. Schmidt / <a href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/\">New York Times</a>:</cite> <p class=\"ii\"><strong class=\"L4\"><a href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/05/us/politics/impeachment-trump.html\">Sondland Updates Impeachment Testimony, Describing Ukraine Quid Pro Quo</a></strong>&#xA0; &#x2014;&#xA0; In a substantial update to his initial account, Gordon D. Sondland recounted how he told Ukrainian officials military aid was tied to their commitment to investigations President Trump wanted.</p> </div>\n<p class=\"relhed\"><span class=\"drhed\">RELATED:</span></p><div class=\"relitems\">\n<a></a>\n<div class=\"item\" id=\"191105p95\">\n<a href=\"https://www.politico.com/news/2019/11/05/sondland-reverses-himself-on-ukraine-quid-pro-quo-000318\"><img class=\"ill\" src=\"http://www.memeorandum.com/191105/i95.jpg\"></a> <cite>Kyle Cheney / <a href=\"http://www.politico.com/\">Politico</a>:</cite> <p class=\"ii\"><strong class=\"L2\"><a href=\"https://www.politico.com/news/2019/11/05/sondland-reverses-himself-on-ukraine-quid-pro-quo-000318\">Sondland reverses himself on Ukraine, confirming quid pro quo</a></strong>&#xA0; &#x2014;&#xA0; Gordon Sondland, a key witness in the impeachment inquiry, revealed that he told a top Ukrainian official that hundreds of millions of dollars in military aid would &#x201C;likely&#x201D; be held up unless the country&apos;s government announced investigations &#x2026; </p> </div>\n<a></a> <a></a>\n<div class=\"item\" id=\"191105p89\">\n<a href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/05/us/politics/mick-mulvaney-testimony.html\"><img class=\"ill\" src=\"http://www.memeorandum.com/191105/i89.jpg\"></a> <cite>Eileen Sullivan / <a href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/\">New York Times</a>:</cite> <p class=\"ii\"><strong class=\"L1\"><a href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/05/us/politics/mick-mulvaney-testimony.html\">Mulvaney Summoned to Testify in Impeachment Inquiry</a></strong>&#xA0; &#x2014;&#xA0; House investigators asked President Trump&apos;s acting chief of staff to voluntarily appear on Capitol Hill for a deposition.&#xA0; It&apos;s unlikely he&apos;ll comply.&#xA0; &#x2014;&#xA0; WASHINGTON &#x2014; Impeachment investigators on Tuesday asked President Trump&apos;s acting chief &#x2026; </p> </div>\n<a></a>\n<a></a>\n<div class=\"item\" id=\"191105p105\">\n<a href=\"https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/11/corrupt-quid-pro-quo/601477/\"><img class=\"ill\" src=\"http://www.memeorandum.com/191105/i105.jpg\"></a> <cite>David A. Graham / <a href=\"http://www.theatlantic.com/\">The Atlantic</a>:</cite> <p class=\"ii\"><strong class=\"L1\"><a href=\"https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/11/corrupt-quid-pro-quo/601477/\">It Was a Corrupt Quid Pro Quo</a></strong>&#xA0; &#x2014;&#xA0; Newly released testimony in the House impeachment inquiry shows in new detail how the Trump administration&apos;s demands for a quid pro quo from the Ukrainian government operated.&#xA0; &#x2014;&#xA0; Ambassador Gordon Sondland, in an addendum to his original testimony released alongside &#x2026; </p> </div>\n<a></a> </div>\n</div> <div class=\"clus\">\n<a></a>\n<a></a>\n<a></a>\n<div class=\"item\" id=\"191105p47\">\n<a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3lfwkTsJGYA\"><img class=\"ill\" src=\"http://www.memeorandum.com/191105/i47.jpg\"></a> <cite><a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/\">YouTube</a>:</cite> <p class=\"ii\"><strong class=\"L3\"><a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3lfwkTsJGYA\">VIDEO: Leaked ABC News Insider Recording EXPOSES #EpsteinCoverup &#x201C;We had Clinton, We had Everything&#x201D;</a></strong> &#x2026; &#x2022; &#x201C;I&apos;ve Had This Story for Three Years...&#xA0; (ABC) Would Not Put It on The Air&#x201D; says Good Morning America Breaking News Anchor, and 20/20 Co-Anchor Amy Robach.</p> </div>\n<p class=\"relhed\"><span class=\"drhed\">RELATED:</span></p>\n</div>\n<div class=\"clus\">\n<a></a>\n<a></a>\n<a></a> <p class=\"relhed\"><span class=\"drhed\">RELATED:</span></p>\n</div> <div class=\"clus\">\n<a></a>\n<a></a> <p class=\"relhed\"><span class=\"drhed\">RELATED:</span></p><div class=\"relitems\">\n<div class=\"heditem\" id=\"191105p68\"> <cite><a href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/\">New York Times</a>:</cite> <br>\n<strong><a href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/05/world/americas/mormons-mexico-attack.html\">9 Members of Mormon Family in Mexico Are Killed in Ambush</a></strong> <div id=\"6d2\"><div class=\"mlk\"> <span class=\"drhed\">Discussion:</span>\n<span class=\"mls\"><a href=\"https://www.foxnews.com/politics/trump-calls-for-war-against-mexican-drug-cartel-monsters-after-americans-murdered-in-shootout\">Fox News</a>, <a href=\"https://www.cbsnews.com/news/lebaron-mexico-family-reports-murder-relatives-including-children-suspected-drug-cartel-attack-2019-11-05/\">CBS News</a>, <a href=\"https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/at-least-seven-members-of-mormon-family-brutally-killed-in-northern-mexico/2019/11/05/d303e448-ffbb-11e9-9518-1e76abc088b6_story.html\">Washington Post</a>, <a href=\"https://www.sltrib.com/religion/2019/11/05/least-women-children/\">Salt Lake Tribune</a>, <a href=\"https://pjmedia.com/trending/trump-offers-u-s-help-to-mexico-in-going-to-war-against-drug-cartels/\">PJ Media Home</a>, <a href=\"https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/mexico-deploys-forces-reports-deadly-ambush-americans-n1076361\">NBC News</a>, <a href=\"https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/11/05/calling-war-irrational-president-mexico-rejects-trump-offer-send-us-army-wipe-drug?cd-origin=rss\">Common Dreams</a>, <a href=\"https://www.nationalreview.com/news/at-least-nine-american-women-and-children-gunned-down-by-cartel-members-in-mexico/\">National Review</a>, <a href=\"https://newsbreakinglive.com/2019/11/05/breaking-u-s-citizens-killed-kidnapped-in-cartel-shootout-in-mexico/\">News Breaking</a>, <a href=\"https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/gyz9y7/what-we-know-about-the-mormon-family-massacred-in-mexico\">VICE</a>, <a href=\"https://www.thedailybeast.com/american-moms-and-kids-massacred-in-mexican-ambush-that-killed-at-least-10\">The Daily Beast</a>, <a href=\"https://justoneminute.typepad.com/main/2019/11/south-of-the-border.html\">JustOneMinute</a> and <a href=\"http://althouse.blogspot.com/2019/11/trump-calls-for-war-against-mexican.html\">Althouse</a></span>\n</div></div> </div>\n</div>\n</div> <div class=\"clus\">\n<a></a>\n<div class=\"item\" id=\"191105p8\"> <cite><a href=\"https://www.washingtonpost.com/\">Washington Post</a>:</cite> <p class=\"ii\"><strong class=\"L1\"><a href=\"https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-trails-democratic-rivals-in-national-survey-as-independents-move-away/2019/11/04/e068afac-ff38-11e9-9518-1e76abc088b6_story.html\">Trump trails Democratic rivals in national survey as independents move away</a></strong>&#xA0; &#x2014;&#xA0; One year out from the 2020 election, President Trump trails some potential Democratic rivals in head-to-head matchups, with his national support level currently fixed at about 40 percent, according to a Washington Post-ABC News poll.</p> </div>\n</div> <div class=\"clus\">\n<a></a>\n<div class=\"item\" id=\"191105p9\">\n<a href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/04/opinion/martin-scorsese-marvel.html\"><img class=\"ill\" src=\"http://www.memeorandum.com/191105/i9.jpg\"></a> <cite>Martin Scorsese / <a href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/\">New York Times</a>:</cite> <p class=\"ii\"><strong class=\"L1\"><a href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/04/opinion/martin-scorsese-marvel.html\">I Said Marvel Movies Aren&apos;t Cinema.&#xA0; Let Me Explain.</a></strong>&#xA0; &#x2014;&#xA0; Cinema is an art form that brings you the unexpected.&#xA0; In superhero movies, nothing is at risk, a director says.&#xA0; &#x2014;&#xA0; Mr. Scorsese is an Academy Award-winning director, writer and producer.&#xA0; &#x2014;&#xA0; When I was in England in early October, I gave an interview to Empire magazine.</p> <div id=\"16d1\"><div class=\"mlk\"> <span class=\"drhed\">Discussion:</span>\n<span class=\"mls\"><a href=\"https://www.theverge.com/2019/11/5/20949678/martin-scorsese-marvel-disney-superhero-cinema\">The Verge</a>, <a href=\"https://www.themarysue.com/martin-scorsese-op-ed-list-cinema-debate/\">The Mary Sue</a>, <a href=\"https://collider.com/martin-scorsese-new-marvel-movie-comments-cinema/\">Collider</a>, <a href=\"https://www.polygon.com/2019/11/5/20929735/best-movies-of-the-decade-2010s\">Polygon</a>, <a href=\"http://althouse.blogspot.com/2019/11/today-there-are-some-in-business-with.html\">Althouse</a>, <a href=\"https://variety.com/2019/film/news/martin-scorsese-marvel-criticism-tentpoles-1203392847/\">Variety</a>, <a href=\"https://ftw.usatoday.com/2019/11/martin-scorsese-marvel-comments-fandom-is-great/\">USA Today</a>, <a href=\"https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2019/11/scorsese-marvel-op-ed\">Vanity Fair</a>, <a href=\"https://www.thewrap.com/martin-scorsese-expands-on-marvel-criticism-in-nyt-op-ed-nothing-is-at-risk/\">The Wrap</a>, <a href=\"https://www.breitbart.com/entertainment/2019/11/05/nolte-scorsese-doubles-down-on-marvel-criticism-in-new-york-times-essay/\">Breitbart</a>, <a href=\"https://slate.com/culture/2019/11/martin-scorsese-on-marvel-mcu-new-york-times-op-ed-not-cinema.html\">Slate</a>, <a href=\"https://www.indiewire.com/2019/11/martin-scorsese-marvel-new-york-times-essay-1202187295/\">IndieWire</a> and <a href=\"http://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2019/11/scorsese-on-superhero-movies\">Lawyers, Guns &amp; Money</a></span>\n</div></div> </div>\n</div> <div class=\"clus\">\n<a></a>\n<div class=\"item\" id=\"191105p62\">\n<a href=\"https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-state-of-the-polls-2019/\"><img class=\"ill\" src=\"http://www.memeorandum.com/191105/i62.jpg\"></a> <cite>Nate Silver / <a href=\"http://fivethirtyeight.com/\">FiveThirtyEight</a>:</cite> <p class=\"ii\"><strong class=\"L1\"><a href=\"https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-state-of-the-polls-2019/\">The State Of The Polls, 2019</a></strong>&#xA0; &#x2014;&#xA0; Polls just had one of their best election cycles, ever &#x2014; but challenges abound in the industry&#xA0; &#x2014;&#xA0; Much maligned for their performance in the 2016 general election &#x2014; and somewhat unfairly so, since the overall accuracy of the polls was only slightly below average &#x2026; </p> </div>\n</div>\n</div></div>","url":"http://www.memeorandum.com/191105/p105#a191105p105","date_published":"2019-11-05T21:48:25+00:00","author":{"name":""}},{"id":"1746","title":"The lost river: Mexicans fight for mighty waterway taken by the US","content_html":"<div><div class=\"content__article-body from-content-api js-article__body\">\n<p><span class=\"drop-cap\"><span class=\"drop-cap__inner\">T</span></span>he temperature is rising toward 45C (113F) as young brothers Daniel and Dilan Rodr&#xED;guez skip towards a bridge over the Colorado River in the Mexican border town of San Luis R&#xED;o Colorado. But there is no water flowing through the channel of one of the world&#x2019;s mightiest waterways. The pair run down the river bank and cheerfully splash through stagnant puddles dotted about the riverbed.</p>\n<p>&#x201C;We wish we had a river, so we could swim, and jump and sail my cousin&#x2019;s boat,&#x201D; said Daniel, 12. &#x201C;At least we have puddles to make mud balls, that can be fun.&#x201D;</p>\n<figure class=\"element element-interactive interactive element--showcase\">\n<a href=\"https://interactive.guim.co.uk/embed/from-tool/photo-collage/index.html?vertical=News&amp;opinion-tint=false&amp;left-image=https%3A%2F%2Fmedia.gutools.co.uk%2Fimages%2Fb9b1393de080758ea7a3bd97f258ed5e440a967b%3Fcrop%3D0_0_3811_2541&amp;left-caption=Daniel%20Rodriguez%20Alderete%2C%2012%2C%20sits%20in%20the%20pick-up%20truck%20in%20the%20front%20yard%20of%20their%20home%20in%20Colonia%20Miguel%20Aleman%20in%20Baja%20California.%20Meghan%20Dhaliwal%20for%20The%20Guardian&amp;right-image=https%3A%2F%2Fmedia.gutools.co.uk%2Fimages%2F2ea0bb8e7e7c11da9d572bd6546d7421a9923faf%3Fcrop%3D0_0_3960_2640&amp;right-caption=Daniel%20Rodriguez%20Alderete%2C%2012%2C%20does%20pull-ups%20from%20the%20back%20of%20the%20pick-up%20truck%20in%20the%20front%20yard%20of%20their%20home%20in%20Colonia%20Miguel%20Aleman%20in%20Baja%20California.%20Meghan%20Dhaliwal%20for%20The%20Guardian&amp;always-place-captions-below=false\" class=\"u-underline in-body-link--immersive\">Colonia Miguel Aleman family</a>\n</figure>\n<figure class=\"element element-image img--landscape element--showcase  fig--narrow-caption fig--has-shares \" id=\"img-1\">\n<meta>\n<meta>\n<meta>\n<a href=\"https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/oct/21/the-lost-river-mexicans-fight-for-mighty-waterway-taken-by-the-us?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other#img-1\" class=\"article__img-container js-gallerythumbs in-body-link--immersive\">\n<div class=\"u-responsive-ratio\">\n<picture>\n\n<source srcset=\"https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/781bb3d3a0385300bcf952dc22fb94bc305bc725/0_0_3745_2497/master/3745.jpg?width=880&amp;quality=45&amp;auto=format&amp;fit=max&amp;dpr=2&amp;s=2ecbd2fe5b058709572b1e606988b4d4 1760w\">\n<source srcset=\"https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/781bb3d3a0385300bcf952dc22fb94bc305bc725/0_0_3745_2497/master/3745.jpg?width=880&amp;quality=85&amp;auto=format&amp;fit=max&amp;s=73d57b5a1bf600d7fb39ab2283092daf 880w\">\n<source srcset=\"https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/781bb3d3a0385300bcf952dc22fb94bc305bc725/0_0_3745_2497/master/3745.jpg?width=800&amp;quality=45&amp;auto=format&amp;fit=max&amp;dpr=2&amp;s=b8a65ca3731bd35e8368523608785a64 1600w\">\n<source srcset=\"https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/781bb3d3a0385300bcf952dc22fb94bc305bc725/0_0_3745_2497/master/3745.jpg?width=800&amp;quality=85&amp;auto=format&amp;fit=max&amp;s=5cb9be7eed58ef996287cb3496facc79 800w\">\n<source srcset=\"https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/781bb3d3a0385300bcf952dc22fb94bc305bc725/0_0_3745_2497/master/3745.jpg?width=640&amp;quality=45&amp;auto=format&amp;fit=max&amp;dpr=2&amp;s=944806fc9896d822ed45b8f1f0a04317 1280w\">\n<source srcset=\"https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/781bb3d3a0385300bcf952dc22fb94bc305bc725/0_0_3745_2497/master/3745.jpg?width=640&amp;quality=85&amp;auto=format&amp;fit=max&amp;s=9e66e8277114889bad3bef9297e5bb03 640w\">\n<source srcset=\"https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/781bb3d3a0385300bcf952dc22fb94bc305bc725/0_0_3745_2497/master/3745.jpg?width=620&amp;quality=45&amp;auto=format&amp;fit=max&amp;dpr=2&amp;s=d765748fd04fe4c13c3b48f4d47b16f9 1240w\">\n<source srcset=\"https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/781bb3d3a0385300bcf952dc22fb94bc305bc725/0_0_3745_2497/master/3745.jpg?width=620&amp;quality=85&amp;auto=format&amp;fit=max&amp;s=4e7192e72c2da5f9d3990c31ece2503e 620w\">\n<source srcset=\"https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/781bb3d3a0385300bcf952dc22fb94bc305bc725/0_0_3745_2497/master/3745.jpg?width=605&amp;quality=45&amp;auto=format&amp;fit=max&amp;dpr=2&amp;s=cc5f4afce7818af89712ef71543591a1 1210w\">\n<source srcset=\"https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/781bb3d3a0385300bcf952dc22fb94bc305bc725/0_0_3745_2497/master/3745.jpg?width=605&amp;quality=85&amp;auto=format&amp;fit=max&amp;s=52a3c76821f7cc50e9c308de37036ebf 605w\">\n<source srcset=\"https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/781bb3d3a0385300bcf952dc22fb94bc305bc725/0_0_3745_2497/master/3745.jpg?width=445&amp;quality=45&amp;auto=format&amp;fit=max&amp;dpr=2&amp;s=594c1c19d6af7f6301a88f025f236880 890w\">\n<source srcset=\"https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/781bb3d3a0385300bcf952dc22fb94bc305bc725/0_0_3745_2497/master/3745.jpg?width=445&amp;quality=85&amp;auto=format&amp;fit=max&amp;s=4c41771a538573deafeb08c1ef32f339 445w\">\n\n<img class=\"gu-image\" alt=\"Dilan Rodr&#xED;guez, 8, fishing in the canal that runs adjacent to the dry Colorado River at the border of Mexico and the US on 6 September 2019.\" src=\"https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/781bb3d3a0385300bcf952dc22fb94bc305bc725/0_0_3745_2497/master/3745.jpg?width=300&amp;quality=85&amp;auto=format&amp;fit=max&amp;s=2521ac9d62c6659d71c5611fa5db4742\">\n</picture>\n</div>  </a>\n\n<figcaption class=\"caption caption--img caption caption--img\">\n Dilan Rodr&#xED;guez, eight, fishing in the canal that runs adjacent to the dry Colorado River at the border of Mexico and the US on 6 September 2019. Photograph: Meghan Dhaliwal/The Guardian\n</figcaption>\n</figure>\n<p>The Colorado originates in the Rocky mountains and traverses seven US states, watering cities and farmland, before reaching <a href=\"https://www.theguardian.com/world/mexico\" class=\"u-underline in-body-link--immersive\">Mexico</a>, where it is supposed to flow onwards to the Sea of Cortez.</p>\n<p>Instead, the river is dammed at the US-Mexico border, and on the other side the river channel is empty. Locals are now battling to bring it back to life. </p>\n<p>There are few more striking examples of what has come to be known as &#x201C;environmental injustice&#x201D; &#x2013; the inequitable access to clean land, air and water, and disproportionate exposure to hazards and climate disasters. Water in particular has emerged as a flash point as global heating renders vast swaths of the planet ever drier.</p>\n<p><a href=\"https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/oct/21/what-is-environmental-injustice-and-why-is-the-guardian-covering-it\" class=\"u-underline in-body-link--immersive\">Today the Guardian is launching a year-long series, Our Unequal Earth</a>, to investigate environmental inequalities and discrimination in the US and beyond. It will also reveal how the climate crisis is making things worse for activists and scientists on the ground<strong>.</strong></p>\n<p>&#x201C;We&#x2019;ve heard stories from my mum about how she used to play and swim in the Colorado River when she was little, but we&#x2019;ve never experienced it,&#x201D; said Evelin Bautista, 14, who is a member of an indigenous tribe, the Cucap&#xE1;, which means the River People. &#x201C;I&#x2019;ve heard that over the border, the water is so clear that they can even see the fish.&#x201D;</p>\n<p>Indeed, a mere 30 miles north, over the border at Gateway park in Yuma, Arizona, siblings Damien Navarro, 12, and Dariana, eight, spent the day fishing, diving and swimming in the free flowing river.</p>\n<figure class=\"element element-image img--landscape element--showcase  fig--narrow-caption fig--has-shares \" id=\"img-2\">\n<meta>\n<meta>\n<meta>\n<a href=\"https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/oct/21/the-lost-river-mexicans-fight-for-mighty-waterway-taken-by-the-us?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other#img-2\" class=\"article__img-container js-gallerythumbs in-body-link--immersive\">\n<div class=\"u-responsive-ratio\">\n<picture>\n\n<source srcset=\"https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/460030b1c4893689e096add8209bf1f7cf48ac44/0_0_3703_2469/master/3703.jpg?width=880&amp;quality=45&amp;auto=format&amp;fit=max&amp;dpr=2&amp;s=31edbfd0e5f5230bf185273dd5043dc1 1760w\">\n<source srcset=\"https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/460030b1c4893689e096add8209bf1f7cf48ac44/0_0_3703_2469/master/3703.jpg?width=880&amp;quality=85&amp;auto=format&amp;fit=max&amp;s=a008f0e11fef154180cb741d93ed3960 880w\">\n<source srcset=\"https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/460030b1c4893689e096add8209bf1f7cf48ac44/0_0_3703_2469/master/3703.jpg?width=800&amp;quality=45&amp;auto=format&amp;fit=max&amp;dpr=2&amp;s=d3e76d261c63e7d09e9f8b4b501f3c69 1600w\">\n<source srcset=\"https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/460030b1c4893689e096add8209bf1f7cf48ac44/0_0_3703_2469/master/3703.jpg?width=800&amp;quality=85&amp;auto=format&amp;fit=max&amp;s=f355cedad5855d0deb0177ca03795fe1 800w\">\n<source srcset=\"https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/460030b1c4893689e096add8209bf1f7cf48ac44/0_0_3703_2469/master/3703.jpg?width=640&amp;quality=45&amp;auto=format&amp;fit=max&amp;dpr=2&amp;s=39ebcc11938ac27533ba6c717ce7ad06 1280w\">\n<source srcset=\"https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/460030b1c4893689e096add8209bf1f7cf48ac44/0_0_3703_2469/master/3703.jpg?width=640&amp;quality=85&amp;auto=format&amp;fit=max&amp;s=958da52fa33e5fb31813feb47feb1f81 640w\">\n<source srcset=\"https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/460030b1c4893689e096add8209bf1f7cf48ac44/0_0_3703_2469/master/3703.jpg?width=620&amp;quality=45&amp;auto=format&amp;fit=max&amp;dpr=2&amp;s=7edfbfdcf603836b2f2efe9052ac51d0 1240w\">\n<source srcset=\"https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/460030b1c4893689e096add8209bf1f7cf48ac44/0_0_3703_2469/master/3703.jpg?width=620&amp;quality=85&amp;auto=format&amp;fit=max&amp;s=099616fa56cee14108d8f80929081b3d 620w\">\n<source srcset=\"https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/460030b1c4893689e096add8209bf1f7cf48ac44/0_0_3703_2469/master/3703.jpg?width=605&amp;quality=45&amp;auto=format&amp;fit=max&amp;dpr=2&amp;s=b7873b80f26496a683c4260e6faa4265 1210w\">\n<source srcset=\"https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/460030b1c4893689e096add8209bf1f7cf48ac44/0_0_3703_2469/master/3703.jpg?width=605&amp;quality=85&amp;auto=format&amp;fit=max&amp;s=3604f33b6b8f34c09cc3458d53161631 605w\">\n<source srcset=\"https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/460030b1c4893689e096add8209bf1f7cf48ac44/0_0_3703_2469/master/3703.jpg?width=445&amp;quality=45&amp;auto=format&amp;fit=max&amp;dpr=2&amp;s=f383ad1e1a3ee60dff4100ce1a484ad4 890w\">\n<source srcset=\"https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/460030b1c4893689e096add8209bf1f7cf48ac44/0_0_3703_2469/master/3703.jpg?width=445&amp;quality=85&amp;auto=format&amp;fit=max&amp;s=8ab0c946af23f72ffadd9365302da6ae 445w\">\n\n<img class=\"gu-image\" alt=\"David Barraga plays ball with his daughter Dariana and his step-son Damien in the Colorado River in Gateway Park, Yuma, Arizona on 7 September 2019.\" src=\"https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/460030b1c4893689e096add8209bf1f7cf48ac44/0_0_3703_2469/master/3703.jpg?width=300&amp;quality=85&amp;auto=format&amp;fit=max&amp;s=e39c6de731d598f9705c620773c8e5af\">\n</picture>\n</div>  </a>\n\n<figcaption class=\"caption caption--img caption caption--img\">\n David Barraga plays ball with his daughter Dariana and his stepson Damien in the Colorado River in Gateway park, Yuma, Arizona, on 7 September 2019. Photograph: Meghan Dhaliwal/The Guardian\n</figcaption>\n</figure>\n<p>&#x201C;It&#x2019;s so hot, we come here all the time, the kids love the water, and we often catch catfish, bass and bluegill,&#x201D; said their father, David Barraga. &#x201C;I didn&#x2019;t know there&#x2019;s no river in Mexico. Wow, that&#x2019;s a shame.&#x201D;</p>\n<p>&#x201C;At school in science we&#x2019;ve been learning about drought, that the planet is getting hotter,&#x201D; said his son, Damien. &#x201C;But we&#x2019;ve never been told about the dam or the river in Mexico, maybe when we&#x2019;re older. It&#x2019;s really too bad for those kids.&#x201D;</p>\n<figure class=\"element element-interactive interactive element--immersive\">\n</figure>\n<figure class=\"element element-interactive interactive element--immersive\">\n</figure>\n<h2>&#x2018;It took away part of our identity&#x2019;</h2>\n<p>Because the 1944 treaty did not allocate Mexico any water for the river itself, the channel is mostly dry. The loss of the river in Mexico has been devastating.</p>\n<p>Nancy Saldano, 54, an architect and activist in the Sonoran town of San Luis R&#xED;o Colorado, recalls boat rides and fishing with her family during the 1980s, when the US occasionally released &#x201C;extra&#x201D; water to deal with heavy snow and rain that risked overwhelming its dams. Her mother, an evangelical pastor, conducted baptisms in the river until it disappeared.</p>\n<p>&#x201C;Taking away the river had a huge impact on us, it took away part of our identity. I felt anger, sadness and grief. My children had never seen the river flow.&#x201D;</p>\n<p>The disparities on both sides of the border are stark.</p>\n<p>In the US, the Colorado serves more than 35 million people, including several native tribes, seven national wildlife refuges and 11 national parks, and supports $26m tourism and recreational industries, as well as farming. California has rights to the largest quantity, with 4.4m acre-feet per year &#x2013; or 29% of the total &#x2013; while Utah is allocated 1.7m and Nevada 0.3m<strong>.</strong></p>\n<p>At the Morelos dam, located between Los Algodones, Baja California, and Yuma, Arizona, the river is diverted to a complex system of irrigation canals which nourish fields of cotton, wheat, alfalfa, asparagus, watermelons and date palms in the vast surrounding desert valley. This is good for farmers &#x2013; and less so for ordinary Mexicans.</p>\n<p>Following the dry riverbed south towards the Gulf of California evokes an eerie sadness. The sound of gunfire in one wide, dusty section led to a couple from San Diego hunting wild pigeons, and a bucketful of feathered corpses. A few miles west along dirt farm roads, dozens of herons, egrets and ducks were staking out a wonderfully lush wetland &#x2013; though it is only an accidental byproduct<strong> </strong>created by agricultural runoff from surrounding wheat and alfalfa fields.</p>\n<h2>Prolonged drought and global heating</h2>\n<p>The Colorado basin is one of 276 watersheds that cross international borders and Mexican supporters of the binational treaty argue that it resolved longstanding diplomatic disputes and enabled the region&#x2019;s economic development, even if there is mostly no longer a river in the channel.</p>\n<p>&#x201C;We&#x2019;re the only place in Mexico with a secure water supply, that is a privilege,&#x201D; said Francisco Bernal, the International Boundary and Water Commission (Cila) representative in Mexicali.</p>\n<p>But the treaty didn&#x2019;t foresee prolonged drought, global heating and mounting demands. Now, water is running out, and things must change.</p>\n<p>The population of Baja California grew from 1.67 million in 1990 to 3.5 million in 2018. Most of the river water still goes to farmers. Groundwater reserves are dwindling, pollution goes unchecked, and urban neighborhoods face shortages.</p>\n<p>&#x201C;If agriculture was forced to be more efficient there would be enough for everyone else,&#x201D; said Dr Jorge Ram&#xED;rez, a leading water scientist at the Autonomous University of Baja California. &#x201C;We have enough water, what we lack is planning. Water is <em>the </em>currency here and politics always wins.&#x201D;</p>\n<figure class=\"element element-interactive interactive element--immersive\">\n<a href=\"https://interactive.guim.co.uk/embed/from-tool/photo-collage/index.html?vertical=News&amp;opinion-tint=false&amp;left-image=https%3A%2F%2Fmedia.gutools.co.uk%2Fimages%2Fd15095ef94f5f371b9c62a3a4bccf8274ed2b952%3Fcrop%3D0_220_3778_2267&amp;left-caption=Fishing%20boats%20in%20the%20yard%20of%20a%20home%20in%20El%20Indiviso%2C%20a%20Cucapa%20community%20in%20Baja%20California%2C%20Mexico.%20Meghan%20Dhaliwal%20for%20The%20Guardian&amp;right-image=https%3A%2F%2Fmedia.gutools.co.uk%2Fimages%2F5c2271d7dab80e64fc8037cf4947ac69537a8235%3Fcrop%3D250_0_3630_2179&amp;right-caption=A%20parched%20section%20of%20the%20Colorado%20River%20in%20northern%20Mexico%2C%20near%20the%20US%20border.%20Meghan%20Dhaliwal%20for%20The%20Guardian&amp;always-place-captions-below=false\" class=\"u-underline in-body-link--immersive\">Dry Colorado river</a>\n</figure>\n<p>In recent years, protests have erupted in response to allegations of corruption and poorly policed pollution standards that favor big landowners and water guzzling industries, such as a <a href=\"https://www.animalpolitico.com/2019/04/lucha-agua-ciudadanos-gobierno-cervecera-baja-california/\" class=\"u-underline in-body-link--immersive\">controversial</a> US brewery under construction in the Mexicali valley. </p>\n<p>In 2020, both countries will for the first time implement rationing. Mexico must cut usage by 3%. The US must<strong> </strong>save<strong> </strong><strong> </strong>247m cubic metres. The plan would have been much stricter if not for record snowfall in parts of the Colorado basin last year.<strong> </strong>The reductions can only be accomplished if farmers waste less and participate in reforestation efforts.</p>\n<p>Even so, scientists are optimistic that the delta can partially recover.</p>\n<h2> &#x2018;The <em>Gabachos</em> [Americans] should leave some water for us&#x2019;</h2>\n<p>In the scorched and barren delta,<strong> </strong>visitors may encounter an incongruous sight<strong>: </strong>700 acres of flourishing native trees and shrubs in three reforestation sites.</p>\n<p>They are the product of what is called a &#x201C;pulse flow&#x201D;.</p>\n<p>In 2014, an environmental experiment driven by not-for-profits on both sides of the border resulted in 105,392 acres-feet (130m cubic metres) of extra water being released into Mexico over two months, simulating the natural spring floods of yesteryear.</p>\n<p>The pulse flow bolstered parched wetlands and reforestation zones where native cottonwood and willow trees naturally germinated. And for a few days, for the first time in years, the river reconnected to the Sea of Cortez: fish stocks increased, dolphins returned and the number of migratory birds rocketed by 43%.</p>\n<figure class=\"element element-interactive interactive element--immersive\">\n<a href=\"https://interactive.guim.co.uk/embed/from-tool/photo-collage/index.html?vertical=News&amp;opinion-tint=false&amp;left-image=https%3A%2F%2Fmedia.gutools.co.uk%2Fimages%2F9b3d18e7e7bd08c909a4976b8ee1197398995d4b%3Fcrop%3D0_0_3960_2640&amp;left-caption=Workers%20at%20the%20Miguel%20Aleman%20restoration%20site%2C%20a%20reforestation%20project%20in%20Baja%20California%20run%20by%20the%20NGO%20Pronatura%2C%20prepare%20soil%20to%20plant%20seeds%20of%20blue%20palo%20verde%20and%20yellow%20palo%20verde.%20Meghan%20Dhaliwal%20for%20The%20Guardian&amp;right-image=https%3A%2F%2Fmedia.gutools.co.uk%2Fimages%2F8ba9f323d30f96677791c867232b49a7ba802392%3Fcrop%3D0_0_3960_2640&amp;right-caption=Diverse%20native%20tree%20and%20shrub%20species%20in%20a%20greenhouse%20at%20the%20Miguel%20Aleman%20restoration%20site%2C%20a%20reforestation%20project%20in%20Baja%20California%20run%20by%20the%20NGO%20Pronatura.%20Meghan%20Dhaliwal%20for%20The%20Guardian&amp;always-place-captions-below=false\" class=\"u-underline in-body-link--immersive\">restoration</a>\n</figure>\n<p>But for some scientists, the community response was perhaps the most surprising and satisfying. Thousands flocked to the river as it returned, briefly, to its former glory.</p>\n<p>&#x201C;I grew up with my mum&#x2019;s stories about the river in the old days, but couldn&#x2019;t believe it until I saw it myself,&#x201D; said Ulises Monroy Salda&#xF1;a, 13. &#x201C;I&#x2019;ll never forget putting my hand in the water for the first time: it was cold, but it felt so nice because it was so hot here.&#x201D;</p>\n<p>Daniel Rodr&#xED;guez was just seven years old, but still remembers the excitement of watching the river fill with water. &#x201C;We&#x2019;d come every day after school and keep jumping off the bridge until the police chased us away.&#x201D;</p>\n<p>His grandmother, Lupe Aderete, 53, set up portable toilets for the massive influx of visitors. &#x201C;It was beautiful to see the river alive again, everyone was so happy, and I made some extra money.&#x201D; She added: &#x201C;It&#x2019;s not fair, the <em>Gabachos</em> [Americans] should leave some water for us.</p>\n<figure class=\"element element-image img--landscape element--showcase  fig--narrow-caption fig--has-shares \" id=\"img-3\">\n<meta>\n<meta>\n<meta>\n<a href=\"https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/oct/21/the-lost-river-mexicans-fight-for-mighty-waterway-taken-by-the-us?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other#img-3\" class=\"article__img-container js-gallerythumbs in-body-link--immersive\">\n<div class=\"u-responsive-ratio\">\n<picture>\n\n<source srcset=\"https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/92c155cd77ec1f3df7b30900f0de59c1945b51f2/0_0_3874_2583/master/3874.jpg?width=880&amp;quality=45&amp;auto=format&amp;fit=max&amp;dpr=2&amp;s=2797ca233769e690c22456f2a118fb3c 1760w\">\n<source srcset=\"https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/92c155cd77ec1f3df7b30900f0de59c1945b51f2/0_0_3874_2583/master/3874.jpg?width=880&amp;quality=85&amp;auto=format&amp;fit=max&amp;s=7a69d9d2c9619822176a0813a8060626 880w\">\n<source srcset=\"https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/92c155cd77ec1f3df7b30900f0de59c1945b51f2/0_0_3874_2583/master/3874.jpg?width=800&amp;quality=45&amp;auto=format&amp;fit=max&amp;dpr=2&amp;s=4af85835b4b5317572a7e0f5e6bec902 1600w\">\n<source srcset=\"https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/92c155cd77ec1f3df7b30900f0de59c1945b51f2/0_0_3874_2583/master/3874.jpg?width=800&amp;quality=85&amp;auto=format&amp;fit=max&amp;s=cbee5385109d8fd22980c2d1691b6944 800w\">\n<source srcset=\"https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/92c155cd77ec1f3df7b30900f0de59c1945b51f2/0_0_3874_2583/master/3874.jpg?width=640&amp;quality=45&amp;auto=format&amp;fit=max&amp;dpr=2&amp;s=8ad033d9acb72ca3dacdcebeef750d53 1280w\">\n<source srcset=\"https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/92c155cd77ec1f3df7b30900f0de59c1945b51f2/0_0_3874_2583/master/3874.jpg?width=640&amp;quality=85&amp;auto=format&amp;fit=max&amp;s=60e6d16ad9acd821bf88f1345c09361a 640w\">\n<source srcset=\"https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/92c155cd77ec1f3df7b30900f0de59c1945b51f2/0_0_3874_2583/master/3874.jpg?width=620&amp;quality=45&amp;auto=format&amp;fit=max&amp;dpr=2&amp;s=000d90feb65333ffc37b43042f63ed82 1240w\">\n<source srcset=\"https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/92c155cd77ec1f3df7b30900f0de59c1945b51f2/0_0_3874_2583/master/3874.jpg?width=620&amp;quality=85&amp;auto=format&amp;fit=max&amp;s=44c46ef14e4506f8bcb820dd48c96a01 620w\">\n<source srcset=\"https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/92c155cd77ec1f3df7b30900f0de59c1945b51f2/0_0_3874_2583/master/3874.jpg?width=605&amp;quality=45&amp;auto=format&amp;fit=max&amp;dpr=2&amp;s=3dd1a74f425a5271622dff7e1312ba4d 1210w\">\n<source srcset=\"https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/92c155cd77ec1f3df7b30900f0de59c1945b51f2/0_0_3874_2583/master/3874.jpg?width=605&amp;quality=85&amp;auto=format&amp;fit=max&amp;s=18fe683264f8ed1504da2853c0acd990 605w\">\n<source srcset=\"https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/92c155cd77ec1f3df7b30900f0de59c1945b51f2/0_0_3874_2583/master/3874.jpg?width=445&amp;quality=45&amp;auto=format&amp;fit=max&amp;dpr=2&amp;s=9f9fce83ef6198e4f4522191fe8959be 890w\">\n<source srcset=\"https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/92c155cd77ec1f3df7b30900f0de59c1945b51f2/0_0_3874_2583/master/3874.jpg?width=445&amp;quality=85&amp;auto=format&amp;fit=max&amp;s=46d1a324033f601ffc7d118bd5c9c6b2 445w\">\n\n<img class=\"gu-image\" alt=\"Lupe Aderete at home in the neighborhood of Miguel Aleman, Baja California on 6 September 2019.\" src=\"https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/92c155cd77ec1f3df7b30900f0de59c1945b51f2/0_0_3874_2583/master/3874.jpg?width=300&amp;quality=85&amp;auto=format&amp;fit=max&amp;s=0422c6919b76cf3b6f79996c4351572f\">\n</picture>\n</div>  </a>\n\n<figcaption class=\"caption caption--img caption caption--img\">\n Lupe Aderete at home in the neighborhood of Miguel Alem&#xE1;n, Baja California, on 6 September 2019. Photograph: Meghan Dhaliwal/The Guardian\n</figcaption>\n</figure>\n<p>The restoration site at Laguna Grande is a shady oasis of gangly cottonwood and willow trees surrounded by desert and farmland, visited by over 2,000 people last year.</p>\n<p>&#x201C;For most children, it&#x2019;s the first time they&#x2019;ve seen a forest, and for the adults it brings back memories. Connecting to nature is emotional, and visitors cry all the time,&#x201D; said Gabriela Gonz&#xE1;lez, education coordinator at the Sonora Institute which runs Laguna Grande.</p>\n<p>There&#x2019;s little or no chance that the river will ever flow freely again, but plans are afoot to repeat the pulse flow, this time flooding only the spots which most benefited last time. And there is hope of expanding native forests to create a green corridor with<em> </em>wetlands and lagoons channelling into the sea.</p>\n<p>An indigenous community, the Cucap&#xE1;, has been involved in dredging efforts, paid to shovel out thick mud to create connectivity channels that are crucial to sustainable ecosystems. Patches of native salty grass and flocks of raucous brown and white pelicans at the lower part of the estuary indicate that plentiful fish were swept in by recent high tides.</p>\n<p>The next pulse flow should take place in 2021 or 2022. Regardless, this region will remain more desert than delta.</p>\n<p>At home in Miguel Alem&#xE1;n, a poor makeshift neighbourhood with little shade, the Rodr&#xED;guez brothers ditch their school stuff, grab a plastic bucket and rush back across the parched terrain to the concrete drainage canal running parallel to the littered riverbed.</p>\n<p>They fearlessly dive into the polluted waterway, which emerges under the metal border wall, to cool down and catch some fish for dinner.</p>\n<p><em>To contact Nina Lakhani, the Guardian&#x2019;s new environmental justice reporter, e-mail nina.lakhani@theguardian.com</em></p>\n<figure class=\"element element-interactive interactive\">\n</figure>\n\n</div></div>","url":"https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/oct/21/the-lost-river-mexicans-fight-for-mighty-waterway-taken-by-the-us","date_published":"2019-10-21T10:00:24+00:00","author":{"name":"Nina Lakhani"}},{"id":"1745","title":"Adventure: Stalking the Wild Kiwi | New Zealand Multisport Vacation","content_html":"<div class=\"article-content-container two-col-content-container\"> <p>I am 40 feet above the ground, precariously balanced on a tightrope with a pair of rope handholds (my training wheels). The goal&#x2014;a small wooden platform in a pine tree&#x2014;is just 20 feet away, but I&apos;m only inching forward because the tightrope started to sway as soon as my full weight was on it. I manage to take a few wobbly steps, and then I get it: I have to push the hand ropes out hard, locking my elbows, and walk with my feet turned out, like a ballerina. It works, and instantly I&apos;m Philippe Petit&#x2014;until I near the finish. With my weight now all at one end, the three ropes abruptly sag in unison. I cover the last few feet of the incline by pulling myself up the tightrope, hand over hand. </p> <p>And this is just the foreplay. </p> <p>The perch is but the jumping-off point for the main event, the Flying Fox Zipline, a New Zealand brand of daredevilry in which you hang from a small wheeled carriage and ride a 750-foot-long cable down and across a valley. Damian Johansen, who runs the Zipline, quickly hooks my safety harness onto the carriage and I&apos;m off. I pull my knees in to my chest to maximize acceleration, then, after shooting through a little notch in the pines, extend them to create some drag, and watch, more fascinated than frightened, as the ground rushes up at me. &quot;Feet up, feet up,&quot; comes the cry from the landing area, but it&apos;s too late. I hit soles first, carom and spin, then slow myself by digging in my heels.</p> <p>This ride is the beginning of day five of Backroads&apos; 10-day New Zealand Multisport Trip, which I took in January, and it leaves me with the giddy sense that the rest of the day is a lagniappe. The trip skips down the east coast of New Zealand&apos;s North Island, taking in four major regions of spectacular natural beauty: the Bay of Islands, a vast canvas of rocky headlands and turquoise water; the rampart coast of the Coromandel Peninsula; Lake Rotorua&apos;s geothermal ferment; and the alpine splendor of Lake Taupo, created in 181 a.d. by a volcanic eruption that blew a 238-square-mile hole in the earth (now the lake) and dimmed the sun as far away as China. Over the course of the trip, I bicycle 87 miles (including one 50-mile trip) and hike 20 miles; kayak and river raft; tumble down a hillside inside a Zorb, a plastic ball nine feet in diameter that&apos;s partially filled with water; pitch myself off a 20-foot-high rock into the ocean; and watch three members of my group bungee jump from a platform 154 feet above the Waikato River. I also have a couple of memorable meals and make a New Year&apos;s resolution I won&apos;t break: to start filling my wine cellar with bottles of the New Zealand Pinot Noirs that I had at dinner along the way, particularly those of Herzog and Palliser Estate. </p> <p>Meeting the Flying Foxes</p> <p>The trip starts where the nation of New Zealand started: at the Waitangi Treaty Grounds, a National Trust property, in Paihia, on the northeast coast of the North Island. On the first evening, my Backroads group gathers at the visitors&apos; center to get a quick historical overview of New Zealand&apos;s founding. It was on this spot in 1840 that the major Maori chiefs, wearied by internecine warfare and white-settler lawlessness, accepted Britain&apos;s offer to govern the islands, which it did until 1947, when New Zealand gained its independence. </p> <p>Then, over cocktails and dinner, I get acquainted with the 13 other participants and our leaders, Wally Bruce, a Kiwi, and Deb Skelton, a Canadian. The group ranges in age from early 30s to early 70s and consists of three couples, one single man (me) and seven single women, four of whom are in the midst of major life changes (job, career, partner). The women quickly form a you-go-girl sorority, dubbing themselves the Flying Foxes after doing the Zipline. The class clown (and flirt) turns out to be Andy Hajducky, whose surname, pronounced HAY-ducky, is deftly turned into &quot;Heychicky&quot; by the Flying Foxes. </p> <p>The first day begins with a cruise on the Bay of Islands; we&apos;re in search of dolphins to swim with. The only pod we find, however, has babies in tow, and a New Zealand law designed to protect toddler dolphins from playful humans prohibits our swimming with them. But the cruise is terrific, and the dolphins loiter beside us, doing barrel rolls and synchronized breaching. </p> <p>We dock at Urupukapuka Island for a fish-and-chips lunch at a little beachside caf&#xE9;. (Lunches on the trip are simple, packed by Backroads or eaten at small caf&#xE9;s, because we&apos;re in rural areas and on the go.) Then we&apos;re off on a magnificent five-mile walk around the perimeter of the island, a trip high point. The well-groomed trails climb steeply to hilltops that sheep have cropped to a putting-green sheen, then run along ridges that offer vistas of a landscape quilted with shadows. From the hillcrests, I can see the coastline, a scroll painting of long-fingered bays and beveled headlands. The day ends with a barbecue dinner at Paihia Beach Resort.</p> <p>Obstinate storm clouds keep us from taking off on time the next morning. We&apos;re headed for Pauanui, 300 miles south on the Coromandel Peninsula, in a pair of eight-seater planes, to a grass airstrip with no control tower. Only after collating reports from two other pilots and from Wally (who is in Pauanui, having left at dawn to drive the bicycles down) do our pilots decide it&apos;s safe. We fly through some squall lines, then a bank of clouds&#x2014;and abruptly the sky is what pilots call &quot;severe clear.&quot; We can almost see Auckland, 50 miles off the right side. </p> <p>Our hotel in Pauanui, Puka Park, is a collection of small, homey cabins built on stout pilings in the bush. Stepping out on my deck, I find myself looking down into the tops of immature trees. That evening I get into a conversation with the bartender, John MacFarlane, and discover that he&apos;s a lover of the country&apos;s Pinot Noirs, which are not as well-known internationally as its Sauvignon Blancs. He suggests the Gibbston Valley, from Central Otago on the South Island, which has very plump forward fruit, akin to some Pinots from California&apos;s Central Coast. I head to dinner with a souvenir: MacFarlane&apos;s list of Pinot Noirs to seek out, at the top of which is the cult Felton Road, along with some familiar names like Ata Rangi and Martinborough Vineyard. These wines, MacFarlane told me, are more nuanced and structured than the Central Otago Pinots I&apos;d been tasting.</p> <p>The next morning is our first strenuous activity, a 20-mile ride to Hahei Beach. It includes one steep winding climb, during which I manage to keep pace with a tractor-trailer laboring up the grade. From the beach we hike 40 minutes to Cathedral Cove, named for a V-shaped nave that the sea has cut clear through a cliff. It&apos;s a glorious place, two small beaches backed by vertical rock faces and a bay checkerboarded with islands. The water is brisk and the onshore breeze more so, but the mushroom-cap rock 20 yards out is too good a diving platform to pass up. A few of us spend the next half hour doing cannonballs and flips off of it, then retire to the beach. </p> <p>Visiting the Hobbits</p> <p>By day four the group dynamic has taken shape. The Flying Foxes and the Hajduckys form a raucous (and increasingly ribald) nucleus. One ring out are Wally and Judy Waugh, an older couple from Washington, who look benignly (though sometimes quizzically) across the generations. Aligned with them are Toronto oenophiles Sheila and Ossie Doyle, she poker-faced, he possessed of a Canada-dry wit that often has the group in stitches. I&apos;m a free electron but spend most dinners with the Doyles, honing my knowledge of New Zealand Pinot Noir. </p> <p>The next morning, after the Zipline, we set off for the town of Matamata, now better known as Hobbiton of Middle Earth. (The sets for <i>Lord of the Rings</i> were built right outside of town but only on condition that they be torn down after filming was finished, a decision doubtlessly regretted now. Only a few remnants of one set remain.) We have the tastiest lunch of the trip so far at the retro-kitsch Workmans Cafe. One entire wall is papered in funky postcards, and a cake stand on the bar serves as the plinth for a male mannequin head with thick black hair and well-rouged lips. The chook (Kiwi patois for <i>chicken</i>) tandoori is a tangy-hot, diner version of the Indian classic, and the &quot;Bestest Bowl of Fries&quot; lives up to its name. </p> <p>For the next two days, we stay at the best hotel of the trip, Kawaha Point Lodge, a spacious 1930s-era residence on the shore of Lake Rotorua. The grounds are English perfect: box-hedged croquet lawn abutting a glass conservatory, banks of agapanthus, superb pergola in a terraced garden, wooded lakeside gazebo. There&apos;s even a dovecote. On the second floor of the main building, French doors lead from the living and dining rooms to a wraparound veranda, which has a marvelous view of the lake and the hills running up from the far shore. </p> <p>Inside the atmosphere is slightly Gallic, in part due to Andr&#xE9; Riaille, the bantamweight, mustachioed, very debonair ma&#xEE;tre d&apos;. He&apos;s everywhere at once, taking drink orders, closing the doors in the dining room when the wind comes up, rendering a firm opinion on which Pinot Noir goes best with the wine-poached <i>tarakihi</i>&#x2014;a type of perch. (Only the lighter ones, the Collards Queen Charlotte, from Marlborough on the South Island, or the Morton Estate Black Label East Coast, from the North Island, will do, he insists.) The chef, Silvio Sakrzewski, trained in a trio of German Michelin-one-starred kitchens, and his cooking shows a Teutonic adherence to classic flavors applied to New Zealand specialties. Sakrzewski roasts rack of lamb with rosemary and thyme and hot-smokes South Island salmon over indigenous manuka wood, then serves the fish with a creamy Pernod-and-chive sauce that has me nostalgic for the days of Happy Rockefeller at the Four Seasons. </p> <p>The Ultimate Challenge</p> <p>Our most strenuous bicycling day is all about humidity and headwinds. We head from Rotorua into the Waikite Valley bound for Waikite Hot Springs, where the water comes out of the ground nearly boiling. It&apos;s a lark&#x2014;mostly a high-gear ride through a landscape of no-store villages, elephant-rump hills and mammoth lava escarpments. We break for lunch at a nearby caf&#xE9;, where most of the group decides soaking is better than cycling. Only four of us undertake the second leg of the trip, 25 challenging miles that include long pulls up gravel roads and culminate in a three-mile stretch with several sharp climbs.</p> <p>On the penultimate hill, I click the lever to downshift, but there&apos;s no lower gear left. My only choice is to drop into the granny gears, something I haven&apos;t done the entire trip and am not about to do now. Numb left foot notwithstanding, I grind out the grade, still in the lead, only to find the one really fit Flying Fox (Susannah Gordon) passing me at the crest. And then, to my dismay, she surges ahead until I have no hope of overtaking her. As she disappears around a curve, I doff my sweat-soaked hat in tribute.</p> <p>The Tongariro Crossing, our last day, is billed as &quot;the finest one-day walk in New Zealand.&quot; <i>Finest</i> is accurate, but <i>walk</i> is understated. It&apos;s only 13 miles long but has an elevation gain of 2,800 feet, with a third of it coming in a roughly one-mile, maximus-gluteus stretch called Devil&apos;s Staircase. It takes the fastest of us six and a half hours to finish.</p> <p>The trail starts off by traversing a landscape of volcanic destruction&#x2014;fields of burnt-popcorn boulders, swales of fudgy lava thinly covered with wild grass. At the top of Devil&apos;s Staircase, we have a dead-on view of the ominous-looking Mount Ngauruhoe, which <i>Lord of the Rings</i> fans know as Mount Doom. Then the trail heads across South Crater and steeply climbs the far wall. Halfway up, the temperature drops 10 or 15 degrees, and the wind suddenly blows stiffly. At the summit of Mount Tongariro, Red Crater, the wind abruptly dies, the ground is warm to the touch, and smoke issues from a huge frog-mouthed vent in the side of the crater. All that&apos;s missing are the Mars rovers.</p> <p>Then we go into the tricky descent, a slope of loose gravel that drops off several hundred feet on each side. I snowplow down to Emerald Lakes, a trio of sparkling crystal-blue ovals. After one last push, we round a long curve and suddenly see the landscape spread out before us, dominated by the silvery surface of Lake Taupo. Below us the trail slaloms down the mountainside, and to the left, Ketetahi Springs fumes away. It&apos;s a grand finale&#x2014;and the better for being all downhill from here.</p> <p><i>Gary Walther, the former editor in chief of</i> Departures <i>and</i> Expedia Travels, <i>has written for</i> Town &amp; Country <i>and</i> Forbes FYI.</p> </div>","url":"https://www.foodandwine.com/articles/adventure-stalking-the-wild-kiwi-new-zealand-multisport-vacation","date_published":"2019-10-20T18:38:43+00:00","author":{"name":""}},{"id":"1673","title":"Senate unanimously calls for Trump to release Ukraine whistleblower complaint — Axios","content_html":"<div class=\"content\"> <div class=\"inner-content has-icon\"> <img class=\"app-icon\" src=\"https://apple.news/images/Appicon_v6.png\" alt=\"Apple News\" srcset=\"https://apple.news/images/Appicon_v6.png 1x, https://apple.news/images/Appicon_v6@2x.png 2x, https://apple.news/images/Appicon_v6@3x.png 3x\"> <p><a href=\"https://www.axios.com/senate-whistleblower-complaint-ukraine-38249a7e-83e9-4467-944b-8496df3157de.html\">Click here</a> if the story doesn&#x2019;t open after a few seconds.</p> <p><a class=\"more\" href=\"https://www.apple.com/news/\">Learn more about Apple News</a></p></div> </div>","url":"https://apple.news/AsOVQv7b0Q_CbwuqVX47ttw","date_published":"2019-09-24T21:25:38+00:00","author":{"name":""}},{"id":"1672","title":"Senate unanimously calls for Trump to release Ukraine whistleblower complaint — Axios","content_html":"<div class=\"content\"> <div class=\"inner-content has-icon\"> <img class=\"app-icon\" src=\"https://apple.news/images/Appicon_v6.png\" alt=\"Apple News\" srcset=\"https://apple.news/images/Appicon_v6.png 1x, https://apple.news/images/Appicon_v6@2x.png 2x, https://apple.news/images/Appicon_v6@3x.png 3x\"> <p><a href=\"https://www.axios.com/senate-whistleblower-complaint-ukraine-38249a7e-83e9-4467-944b-8496df3157de.html\">Click here</a> if the story doesn&#x2019;t open after a few seconds.</p> <p><a class=\"more\" href=\"https://www.apple.com/news/\">Learn more about Apple News</a></p></div> </div>","url":"https://apple.news/AsOVQv7b0Q_CbwuqVX47ttw","date_published":"2019-09-24T21:25:28+00:00","author":{"name":""}},{"id":"1671","title":"Facebook: Politicians who lie and break rules can still post — POLITICO","content_html":"<div class=\"content\"> <div class=\"inner-content has-icon\"> <img class=\"app-icon\" src=\"https://apple.news/images/Appicon_v6.png\" alt=\"Apple News\" srcset=\"https://apple.news/images/Appicon_v6.png 1x, https://apple.news/images/Appicon_v6@2x.png 2x, https://apple.news/images/Appicon_v6@3x.png 3x\"> <p><a href=\"https://www.politico.com/story/2019/09/24/facebook-nick-clegg-politicians-1509931?cid=apn\">Click here</a> if the story doesn&#x2019;t open after a few seconds.</p> <p><a class=\"more\" href=\"https://www.apple.com/news/\">Learn more about Apple News</a></p></div> </div>","url":"https://apple.news/ACppEKTKlRTyWeG-3FmReyw","date_published":"2019-09-24T21:16:08+00:00","author":{"name":""}},{"id":"1639","title":"Kierkegaard at the Dentist","content_html":"<div id=\"content\"> <center> <ins class=\"adsbygoogle\"></ins> </center> <a href=\"http://existentialcomics.com/\"><img src=\"http://static.existentialcomics.com/title.jpg\" alt=\"A philosophy webcomic about the inevitable anguish of living a brief life in an absurd world. Also Jokes\"></a> <div class=\"merch\"> <a href=\"https://www.teepublic.com/user/existentialcomics?ref_id=1499&amp;ref_type=aff\"><img src=\"http://static.existentialcomics.com/merch.png\" class=\"merch\"></a> </div> <img class=\"comicImg\" src=\"http://static.existentialcomics.com/comics/KierkegaardDentist.png\" alt=\"Schopenhauer: &quot;Hey Kierkegaard, how&apos;s it going?&quot; Kierkegaard: &quot;Not good, Schopenhauer, I&apos;m in complete despair.&quot; Schopenhauer: &quot;Oh? Why is that?&quot; Kierkegaard: &quot;It&apos;s just that i have this horrible toothache.&quot; Schopenhauer: &quot;Oh...uh...okay...&quot; Kierkegaard: &quot;What?&quot; Schopenhauer: &quot;It&apos;s just, i thought it would be for some kind of...you know... deep existential reason.&quot; Kierkegaard: &quot;Oh right, i mean yeah, deep existential reasons too, life is meaningless and... OWWW ...it&apos;s just it hurts all the time, it&apos;s so annoying!&quot; Schopenhauer: &quot;You should probably go to the dentist...&quot; Kierkegaard: &quot;And just when i thought my despair couldn&apos;t get worse!&quot; Schopenhauer: &quot;Dude, just go, it&apos;ll be fine.&quot; Dentist: &quot;Alright, all finished, how do you feel?&quot; Description: Kierkegaard is sitting in the dentist chair. Kierkegaard: &quot;I feel a terrible despair, for life is finite and we are alone, without guidance, and yet every choice we make is permanent and absolute, forever closing off the possible lives we could have lived!&quot; Dentist: &quot;Uh...&quot; Kierkegaard: &quot;No, that&apos;s good, it means the toothache is gone and i can once again focus on the despair that haunts the core of my being. Thank you!&quot; \"> </div>","url":"http://existentialcomics.com/comic/306","date_published":"2019-09-09T17:07:06+00:00","author":{"name":""}},{"id":"1637","title":"A House Full of Pain: How the Greatest Punk Album of the '70s Was Made by Pink Floyd","content_html":"<div><p>By Brent Ables | 6 August 2013</p><div class=\"articleborder\"> <p>A conventional narrative of Pink Floyd might go something like this. In mid-1960s London, four working-class musicians with a proclivity for experimentation bolstered by the psychedelic zeitgeist of the time come together under the leadership of a brilliant songwriter named Syd Barrett. From the beginning, the Pink Floyd Sound (as they are called in the early days) make their name with a distinctive mix of tight, high-wire pop ditties like &#x201C;See Emily Play&#x201D; and drawn out, don&#x2019;t-bother-listening-sober jams with cosmic names like &#x201C;Interstellar Overdrive&#x201D; and &#x201C;Astronomy Domine.&#x201D; The band finds quick success, thanks in large part to cutthroat management, and the pressures of fame along with his latent schizophrenia lead bandleader Barrett to a mental breakdown from which he would never recover. In his stead, Roger Waters and new guitarist David Gilmour take creative control, spending the late &#x2019;60s and early &#x2019;70s forging the band&#x2019;s signature style. This aesthetic, which drifted indifferently somewhere between the warm enclosures of childhood and the dread emptiness of space, was captured in its purest&#x2014;and arguably best&#x2014;form on 1971&#x2019;s sublime <em>Meddle</em>. But the Pink Floyd that people now know&#x2014;the classic rock dinosaur anyone growing up within earshot of classic rock radio could be forgiven for wanting to forget entirely&#x2014;had yet to show itself in these halcyon days.</p> <p>With <em>Dark Side of the Moon</em> (1973), Pink Floyd created a behemoth that still holds the record for longest time spent on the Billboard charts (remember those?). <em>Dark Side</em> propelled the now-mature band to the kind of international fame that would ensure close critical and public scrutiny of the band&#x2019;s every move from then until eternity. More importantly for the band&#x2019;s future artistic direction, it made them a valuable commodity to anyone associated with the group&#x2014;including, most notably, <span class=\"caps\">EMI</span> Records. </p> <p>The effects of this parasitism began to make themselves felt on <em>Wish You Were Here</em> (1975), a conceptually peculiar album splitting epic tributes to Barrett with sarcastic satires of the music industry like &#x201C;Have a Cigar&#x201D; and &#x201C;Welcome to the Machine.&#x201D; Next came <em>Animals</em> (1977), which found an increasingly bitter Roger Waters (who had gradually established himself as bandleader over the course of the &#x2019;70s) so determined to avoid a hit single that he constructed an album with three ten-plus minute epics bookended by a brief prologue and its refrain. Despite the lack of radio hits and persistent vitriol, the album did well. This pattern would essentially repeat itself with <em>The Wall</em> (1979), a truly fucking awful spectacle of rock egoism fellating itself to the tune of a never-ending palm-muted D-minor chord. One of the conceits of the record was that rock music fans are as mindless and stupid as fascists. It sold twenty million copies. </p> <p>There&#x2019;s more to the story, but it only gets worse from there. Also, punk happened. When the Sex Pistols came storming into the world and changed the face of guitar music forever, they did so in direct response to the excesses of bands like Floyd: Johnny Rotten was known to wear a Pink Floyd shirt with &#x201C;I <span class=\"caps\">HATE</span>&#x201D; scribbled above the band&#x2019;s name. It makes a certain amount of sense. As wearying as the radio dominance of &#x201C;Money&#x201D; and &#x201C;Comfortably Numb&#x201D; was for an American kid like me in the &#x2019;80s and &#x2019;90s, it could only have been worse in Britain during the band&#x2019;s reign. Moreover, no one could have served as a better scapegoat for the anti-conceptual immediacy of the likes of Rotten: the concepts were always the least interesting parts of Pink Floyd&#x2019;s music, but they are perhaps its most recognizable. So they became the enemy. Never mind that the Sex Pistols were also signed to <span class=\"caps\">EMI</span> Records; never mind that Johnny Rotten is himself more of a concept than a musician. The Establishment needed a face to spit in. But the punks didn&#x2019;t look deeply enough. If they had, they would have realized that for the space of an album, Pink Floyd had already done everything they wanted to do and had done it better. <em>Animals</em> was already the greatest punk rock album of the decade, and punk hadn&#x2019;t even been christened yet. </p> <p>&#x201C;But wait,&#x201D; you might say; &#x201C;<em>Animals</em> is <em>not</em> punk rock.&#x201D; Which leads to an important question: what do we want punk to be?</p> <p>First charge: <em>Animals</em> can&#x2019;t be punk because it indulges in seventeen minute epics rather than the three-chord blasts of the Ramones and Sex Pistols. Punk rock is simple and direct, &#x201C;Sheep&#x201D; is long and cryptic. But didn&#x2019;t Television, whose <em>Marquee Moon</em> debuted in February 1977, a month after <em>Animals</em>, sufficiently refute this axiom? The title track has a guitar solo as long as any David Gilmour ever recorded, and nobody questions <em>Marquee</em>&#x2019;s punk credentials. Suppose we disregard length; purists will argue that the central tracks on <em>Animals</em> are closer to prog than punk, but I see no reason an album can&#x2019;t be both. Consider what happens if we define punk by some formal model or another: we will have to admit Green Day and Sum 41 into the lexicon along with the Clash and Minor Threat. The sad story of punk rock is the story of an explosion of rebellious fury that eventually became one of the tamest, least provocative, most commercial sounds in the history of popular music. If punk is a style, then punk is absolutely and irrevocably dead and buried. If, on the other hand, punk is an ethos, then our perception of this moment in history changes.</p> <p><em>Animals</em> is, by some distance, the most venomous, bleak, cutting, ruthless lyrical document released by a major rock band in the 1970s. Roger Waters&#x2019; attempt to ward off radio is only the beginning of it: over the album&#x2019;s three core tracks, Waters unleashes a furious condemnation of you, your family, your boss, your lover, and the depths of your corrupted festering soul. No one is safe. If you&#x2019;re a capitalist baron lording over your vassals, you are (naturally) a Pig. You radiate shafts of broken glass; you&#x2019;re hot stuff with a hatpin and good fun with a hand gun. You are a charade. If you&#x2019;re playing the game to rise to the top, you&#x2019;re a snarling Dog, and Waters sentences you to die alone rotting of cancer. And if you&#x2019;re a good-natured Sheep, harming no one and minding your own sheeply business, why then you&#x2019;re the worst scum of all. You&#x2019;re so bad, Waters had to rewrite the Lord&#x2019;s Prayer just to articulate how you&#x2019;re going to be cut up and hung on hooks. In the course of these condemnations Waters pens some of the most memorable lines of his career, but that&#x2019;s beside the point, and the point is that you and everyone you know is totally fucked. What is this but the punk ethos in its purest form?</p> <p>A great album is made great by its form, however, as well as its content. What is so endearing&#x2014;and so very, very punk rock&#x2014;about the way the band presents this material is how they side with neither Dogs, Pigs, or Sheep, but rather with dogs, pigs, and sheep. It&#x2019;s as though Roger Waters feels compelled to defend the animal namesakes against the humans who sully their images. Witness how, at the five minute mark of &#x201C;Dogs,&#x201D; David Gilmour ends a lyrical guitar solo and hands the track over to a dog for a minute. It&#x2019;s a dog solo: rather the same trick Pink Floyd pulled on <em>Meddle</em>&#x2019;s &#x201C;Seamus,&#x201D; except now with purpose. The band will repeat the trick with pigs and sheep, even going so far as to coax porcine snorts out of Gilmour&#x2019;s Stratocaster. And yes, these moments are nestled among four minute synth escapades and the best guitar work of David Gilmour&#x2019;s career, but even the guitar solos sound vital and urgent, trying to make us feel the horrors Waters&#x2019; biting satire can only hint at. It&#x2019;s a concept album, but the concept is so perfectly realized that there&#x2019;s nothing indulgent about it&#x2014;nothing besides the pigs. </p> <p>So I ask again: what do we want punk to be? One answer is, nothing. It died a gruesome death; let it rest. Another is: I&#x2019;m waiting for the Fugazi reunion too, pal. But in a time where the prospect of music having any kind of political effect is all but unthinkable, the other answer is that we should cherish those bands that, if only for a track or three, articulately used all the resources at their command to expose the cruel lie at the heart of the capitalist machine in which we&#x2019;re all caught. For the space of an album, before they disappeared up their own ass, Pink Floyd was that band. Question their punk cred if you want; all I know is that now, thirty-five years later, while Roger Waters goes before the United Nations in defense of Palestinian rights, Johnny Rotten is growing fat from VH1 reality shows and butter commercials. And as I think we can all agree, there&#x2019;s nothing less punk than a <a href=\"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7mSE-Iy_tFY\"><strong>fucking butter commercial.</strong></a></p> </div></div>","url":"http://cokemachineglow.com/features/article-ahousefullofpain-2013/","date_published":"2019-09-09T16:50:38+00:00","author":{"name":""}},{"id":"1634","title":"Exploring Brexit","content_html":"<div class=\"post hentry uncustomized-post-template\">\n<meta>\n<meta>\n<meta>\n<a></a> <div class=\"post-body entry-content\" id=\"post-body-8992585804060921873\"> <br>\n<p class=\"p1\">\nThe first rule of brexit is <b>&#x201C;you&#x2019;re wrong&#x201D;.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">&#xA0;</span></b></p> <p class=\"p1\">\nNo matter what you say on brexit then someone will argue that you&#x2019;re wrong and that they&#x2019;re right. So let us start by concluding that whatever map I&#x2019;m going to produce on the subject is wrong which is ok because all maps are wrong anyway. The purpose of a map is never about being right but instead helping to create a better map. Hence, I&#x2019;m going to start by saying that I accept that the maps are wrong but I&#x2019;m not interested in why they are wrong, I am only interested in a better map. So, if you want to discuss this subject then produce a better map. Everything else I will consider a waste of time wrapped up in individual political capital, stories and desires. If you want to have a shouting match over some narrative then find a mirror and knock yourself out silly. Since the map is wrong, I&#x2019;m going to assume the assumptions are wrong as well. It&#x2019;s all wrong but that&#x2019;s ok. The question is whether it can be useful.</p> <p class=\"p1\">\nIn discussions with a group of people who voted Leave and Remain a couple of key words and phrases resonated. On the Leave side there was the idea of an elite (the few) versus the people (the many). This concept of &#x201C;the many&#x201D; was also replicated in the Remain discussion but through terms such as populist, appealing to populism and even a mob. Whilst variation existed in what those terms actually meant and who those groups were, the idea of a many and a few was fairly consistent. Hence, I will start with those as my main two users - the many and the few.</p> <p class=\"p1\">\nOn the Leave side emphasis seems to placed on two key concepts - democracy and control. Both we couched in terms of the collective rather than the individual i.e. <i>&#x201C;our democracy&#x201D;</i> and <i>&#x201C;we are taking back control&#x201D;</i>. On the Remain side emphasis seems to be placed on belonging and freedom. This was often a mix of both individual and collective as in <i>&#x201C;We are European&#x201D;</i>, &#x201C;<i>We are part of Europe&#x201D;</i> (i.e. a sense of belonging to a wider collective) and <i>&#x201C;Benefits of freedom of movement&#x201D;</i> (i.e. how I or other individuals benefit from this). To a lesser extent this also occurred with discussions over wealth, as in the Leave side tending to more grandiose discussions of a <i>&#x201C;Global Britain&#x201D;</i> invoking a more collective slant whereas the remain side tended to discuss both the economic impact to them and issues of safety to the unfortunate - <i>&#x201C;Do I need to hoard food?&#x201D;</i></p> <p class=\"p1\">\nTwo other interesting ideas appeared early on in the discussion which were the idea of hierarchy and responsibility. Whilst hierarchy could often be well articulated and agreed upon, its associations seems to diverge. In almost all cases it was described in relationship to ideas of control but in some cases it was associated with belonging as in&#xA0;<i>&#x201C;a tribe needs a leader&#x201D;</i>. I tend to avoid the use of the word tribe finding faction a far more appropriate term, hence I will use faction in this description.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">&#xA0;However, what was&#xA0;</span>highlighted was a distinction between meaning i.e. does an accepted meaning exist for the term) and association (the strength or weakness of associations between meanings. Hence we can agree on what hierarchy means but can disagree on what it is connected to i.e. belonging.</p> <p class=\"p1\">\nIn contrast, and quite unexpectedly, the notion of responsibility exhibited differences in meaning. For some, when describing ideas such as <i>&#x201C;We need to pull together&#x201D;</i> what is meant by &#x201C;together&#x201D; is not the same. For some, together describes more of a collection of individual responsibilities i.e. in the melting pot of the market, the overall effect caused is through a collection of individuals acting. For others together describes a collective responsibility i.e. we as a group need to achieve something.</p> <p class=\"p1\">\nOf all the terms raised, notions of &#x201C;safety&#x201D; and the term &#x201C;democracy&#x201D; were particularly fascinating. Safety showed not only disagreement over specifics but people exhibited a reluctance to discuss the issue in the company of others with a different view. The reactions were often either quickly defensive, closing down the conversation, talking over each other, failure to listen or simply not engaging.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">&#xA0; </span>These reactions are the sorts of behaviours often seen when discussing in psychologically unsafe environments.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">&#xA0; </span>The notion of safety also had strong resonance with the Remain parts of the group in terms of membership of the EU with the benefits of <i>&quot;a larger trading block&quot;</i>, dealing with defence and outside threats.&#xA0;</p> <p class=\"p1\">\nThe idea of democracy had some peculiar divergence with general agreement on the term and ideas of fairness and equality but disagreement on what is fair with notions of the referendum being &#x201C;<i>cheated</i>&#x201D; or &#x201C;<i>stolen</i>&#x201D; or the Parliament <i>&quot;subverting the will of the people&quot;</i>.</p> <p class=\"p1\">\nSo, to begin with we have concepts of a few vs many, individual vs collective, democracy and control, belonging and freedom, wealth and safety, responsibility and hierarchy, safety and democracy. Many of the terms had disagreement over specifics or associations but convergence in terms of general meaning. From these discussions, we have enough components to create basic map using the axis of &#x201C;ethical values&#x201D; described in Part I.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">&#xA0;</span></p> <p class=\"p1\">\nI&#x2019;ve used the ethical values axis simply because it appears more meaningful in this context. Hence we start with concepts, emerging meanings, converging meanings and things which are universally accepted and agreed upon. Remember, the terms are simply labels for the different stages of evolving capital. Where possible, I&#x2019;ve also avoided adding in any principles (e.g. communication and challenge) or concepts of values in both society and local groups. I&#x2019;ve also added in the term Agency as in the power and independence to influence one&#x2019;s own environment as it was an idea that was often described with few being able to give meaning to that term. Lastly, remember that we will assume the map is wrong, the sample size is far too small but that&#x2019;s ok as this is only a stepping stone to a better map (see figure 1). I&apos;ve highlighted weak associations as dotted lines.</p> <p class=\"p1\">\n<b>Figure 1 - Brexit</b></p> <div class=\"separator\">\n<a href=\"https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-jAxJ7DaUxN0/XXEYCiA7zFI/AAAAAAAAOqM/hLsDR2O3cykiCxOilC1qqPSZxcx7wfZuACLcBGAs/s1600/Culture%2BRes.001.jpeg\"><img src=\"https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-jAxJ7DaUxN0/XXEYCiA7zFI/AAAAAAAAOqM/hLsDR2O3cykiCxOilC1qqPSZxcx7wfZuACLcBGAs/s400/Culture%2BRes.001.jpeg\" width=\"400\"></a></div> <p class=\"p1\">\nLet us use this map to describe some of the narratives that appeared to be in play.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">&#xA0;Do remember, that since I was the person recording and transcribing the interviews that I will have my own perspective and bias. Fortunately, that will be exposed in the map for you to challenge.</span></p> <p class=\"p2\">\n<b>The Few</b></p>\n<p class=\"p1\">\nOn one side, there are the few. The few wanted control for the individual (i.e. themselves) and by this we mean both the agency (the power) to act independently and control over others (a collective) through some form of hierarchy. The purpose of this agency was economic wealth, as in it both needs it and provides it and creates safety for that group. The sense of belonging here was more a tool for controlling a collective i.e. the few were the faction leaders and the sense of belonging (to the faction) was focused on controlling the collective. This narrative I&#x2019;ve shown in figure 2 as red lines and text (which I&apos;ve also made bold and increased the thickness).</p> <p class=\"p1\">\n<b>Figure 2 - The Few</b></p> <div class=\"separator\">\n<a href=\"https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-XT93naa1K8c/XXEZoBdMtQI/AAAAAAAAOqo/154Y2n5FVagncdsHwJv-pdJApzZnzGneACLcBGAs/s1600/Culture%2BRes.002.jpeg\"><img src=\"https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-XT93naa1K8c/XXEZoBdMtQI/AAAAAAAAOqo/154Y2n5FVagncdsHwJv-pdJApzZnzGneACLcBGAs/s400/Culture%2BRes.002.jpeg\" width=\"400\"></a></div> <p class=\"p2\">\n<b>The Many</b></p>\n<div class=\"p1\">\nOne the other side, there are the many. The narrative tended to again discuss control but in a sense of a collective that belongs together (as a faction) which is focused on creating safety for the entire group. This was wrapped in notions of collective responsibility with the <i>&#x201C;freedom to discuss and challenge&#x201D; </i>with each other. The notion of collective responsibility was also tied to concepts of democracy through both equality (the line of <i>&#x201C;one person, one vote&#x201D;</i>) and fairness (the glib <i>&#x201C;no taxation without representation&#x201D;</i> was stated). This narrative I&#x2019;ve shown in figure 3 as green lines and text (which I&apos;ve also made bold and increased the thickness).\n</div>\n<p class=\"p1\">\n<b>Figure 3 - The Many</b></p> <div class=\"separator\">\n<a href=\"https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-zyICCxgmDv0/XXEZ0yHuCoI/AAAAAAAAOqs/6h3v7SAqcVc3EMIpnyJzr4vL4FWbBrj_QCLcBGAs/s1600/Culture%2BRes.003.jpeg\"><img src=\"https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-zyICCxgmDv0/XXEZ0yHuCoI/AAAAAAAAOqs/6h3v7SAqcVc3EMIpnyJzr4vL4FWbBrj_QCLcBGAs/s400/Culture%2BRes.003.jpeg\" width=\"400\"></a></div> <p class=\"p1\">\n<br class=\"Apple-interchange-newline\"><b>Commonality</b><br>\nNow let us overlap these narratives - see figure 4. Whilst there maybe disagreement on the meanings and the associations between terms, common core ideas appear in both narratives - that of control, of belonging, of collective and of safety.&#xA0; I&apos;ve highlighted in blue and made those terms bold. There are also clear distinctions, in one narrative responsibility is to the individual and safety is strongly connected to economic wealth, in another the responsibility is to the collective and safety is more to do with engagement, being part of the faction. What we are slowly starting to visualise is the description (these are only narratives) of two distinct cultures with overlapping and common components.</p> <p class=\"p1\">\n<b>Figure 4 - Overlap</b></p> <div class=\"separator\">\n<a href=\"https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-g6jbGY6QcCA/XXEaTrCtv4I/AAAAAAAAOq4/qH84fh7sMpUO0fY9ytih_LM4HFqOnWX0gCLcBGAs/s1600/Culture%2BRes.004.jpeg\"><img src=\"https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-g6jbGY6QcCA/XXEaTrCtv4I/AAAAAAAAOq4/qH84fh7sMpUO0fY9ytih_LM4HFqOnWX0gCLcBGAs/s400/Culture%2BRes.004.jpeg\" width=\"400\"></a></div> <p class=\"p1\">\n<b>Why does this matter?</b><br>\nIf we can visualise the landscape then we can start to learn patterns and determine ways of manipulating this environment to our favour. For example, we might wish to educate to create a common understanding of some idea or we may wish to emphasis or create new associations. From the narrative of the few then a key component is economic wealth however from the narrative of the many then the focus appears to be on safety within the group. Hence I might wish to establish an association between the collective and economic wealth and I can do this through a sense of belonging i.e. <i>&#x201C;Make America Great Again&#x201D;</i> or <i>&#x201C;A Global and Prosperous&#xA0;Britain&#x201D;</i>. What I am emphasising is the importance of economic wealth to the collective. My intentions might be to diminish collective responsibility and emphasise individual responsibility over time hence reinforcing my advantage but I cannot start with that message (see figure 5).</p> <p class=\"p1\">\n<b>Figure 5 - Focus</b></p> <div class=\"separator\">\n<a href=\"https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-HRUB8uRhjTY/XXEcQgVABKI/AAAAAAAAOrE/HvbnSnsQ5nATY3X0tYlyDChyaZ0SY3zNQCLcBGAs/s1600/Culture%2BRes.005.jpeg\"><img src=\"https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-HRUB8uRhjTY/XXEcQgVABKI/AAAAAAAAOrE/HvbnSnsQ5nATY3X0tYlyDChyaZ0SY3zNQCLcBGAs/s400/Culture%2BRes.005.jpeg\" width=\"400\"></a></div> <div class=\"p1\">\nThe point of the map is not that it is right but that we can discuss these issues, identify common components and start to learn how to change the landscape to our favour. We can start to add these components to our future map of culture, combining these elements with communication and challenge but before we do this we need to explore further including the areas of values, symbols, rituals and embedded knowledge.\n<p>\nOh, and if you&apos;re looking for the answer to brexit then I&apos;m afraid you&apos;ll have to look elsewhere. I&apos;m much more interested in the mechanics of culture and populations.</p></div> </div> </div>","url":"https://blog.gardeviance.org/2019/09/exploring-brexit.html","date_published":"2019-09-09T15:33:00+00:00","author":{"name":"swardley"}},{"id":"1635","title":"Privacy matters because it empowers us all – Carissa Véliz | Aeon Essays","content_html":"<div class=\"has-dropcap\">\n<p>Imagine having a master key for your life. A key or password that gives access to the front door to your home, your bedroom, your diary, your computer, your phone, your car, your safe deposit, your health records. Would you go around making copies of that key and giving them out to strangers? Probably not the wisest idea &#x2013; it would be only a matter of time before someone abused it, right? So why are you willing to give up your personal data to pretty much anyone who asks for it?&#xA0;</p><p>Privacy is the key that unlocks the aspects of yourself that are most intimate and personal, that make you most you, and most vulnerable. Your naked body. Your sexual history and fantasies. Your past, present and possible future diseases. Your fears, your losses, your failures. The worst thing you have ever done, said, and thought. Your inadequacies, your mistakes, your traumas. The moment in which you have felt most ashamed. That family relation you wish you didn&#x2019;t have. Your most drunken night.</p><p>When you give that key, your privacy, to someone who loves you, it will allow you to enjoy closeness, and they will use it to benefit you. Part of what it means to be close to someone is sharing what makes you vulnerable, giving them the power to hurt you, and trusting that person never to take advantage of the privileged position granted by intimacy. People who love you might use your date of birth to organise a surprise birthday party for you; they&#x2019;ll make a note of your tastes to find you the perfect gift; they&#x2019;ll take into account your darkest fears to keep you safe from the things that scare you. Not everyone will use access to your personal life in your interest, however. Fraudsters might use your date of birth to impersonate you while they commit a crime; companies might use your tastes to lure you into a bad deal; enemies might use your darkest fears to threaten and extort you. People who don&#x2019;t have your best interest at heart will exploit your data to further their own agenda. Privacy matters because the lack of it gives others power over you.</p><p>You might think you have nothing to hide, nothing to fear. You are wrong &#x2013; unless you are an exhibitionist with masochistic desires of suffering identity theft, discrimination, joblessness, public humiliation and totalitarianism, among other misfortunes. You have plenty to hide, plenty to fear, and the fact that you don&#x2019;t go around publishing your passwords or giving copies of your home keys to strangers attests to that.</p><p>You might think your privacy is safe because you are a nobody &#x2013; nothing special, interesting or important to see here. Don&#x2019;t shortchange yourself. If you weren&#x2019;t that important, businesses and governments wouldn&#x2019;t be going to so much trouble to spy on you.</p><p>You have your attention, your presence of mind &#x2013; everyone is fighting for it. They want to know more about you so they can know how best to distract you, even if that means luring you away from quality time with your loved ones or basic human needs such as sleep. You have money, even if it is not a lot &#x2013; companies want you to spend your money on them. Hackers are eager to get hold of sensitive information or images so they can blackmail you. Insurance companies want your money too, as long as you are not too much of a risk, and they need your data to assess that. You can probably work; businesses want to know everything about whom they are hiring &#x2013; including whether you might be someone who will want to fight for your rights. You have a body &#x2013; public and private institutions would love to know more about it, perhaps experiment with it, and learn more about other bodies like yours. You have an identity &#x2013; criminals can use it to commit crimes in your name and let you pay for the bill. You have personal connections. You are a node in a network. You are someone&#x2019;s offspring, someone&#x2019;s neighbour, someone&#x2019;s teacher or lawyer or barber. Through you, they can get to other people. That&#x2019;s why apps ask you for access to your contacts. You have a voice &#x2013; all sorts of agents would like to use you as their mouthpiece on social media and beyond. You have a vote &#x2013; foreign and national forces want you to vote for the candidate that will defend their interests.&#xA0;</p><p>As you can see, you are a very important person. You are a source of power.</p><p>By now, most people are aware that their data is worth money. But your data is not valuable only because it can be sold. Facebook does not technically sell your data, for instance. Nor does Google. They sell the power to influence you. They sell the power to show you ads, and the power to predict your behaviour. Google and Facebook are not really in the business of data &#x2013; they are in the business of power. Even more than monetary gain, personal data bestows power on those who collect and analyse it, and that is what makes it so coveted.</p><p><span class=\"ld-dropcap\">T</span>here are two aspects to power. The first aspect is what the German philosopher Rainer Forst in 2014 <a href=\"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/jopp.12046\">defined</a> as &#x2018;the capacity of A to motivate B to think or do something that B would otherwise not have thought or done&#x2019;. The means through which the powerful enact their influence are varied. They include motivational speeches, recommendations, ideological descriptions of the world, seduction and credible threats. Forst argues that brute force or violence is not an exercise of power, for subjected people don&#x2019;t &#x2018;do&#x2019; anything; rather, something is done to them. But clearly brute force <em>is</em> an instance of power. It is counterintuitive to think of someone as powerless who is subjecting us through violence. Think of an army dominating a population, or a thug strangling you. In <em>Economy and Society</em> (1978), the German political economist Max Weber describes this second aspect of power as the ability for people and institutions to &#x2018;carry out [their] own will despite resistance&#x2019;.</p><p>In short, then, powerful people and institutions make us act and think in ways in which we would not act and think were it not for their influence. If they fail to influence us into acting and thinking in the way that they want us to, powerful people and institutions can exercise force upon us &#x2013; they can do unto us what we will not do ourselves.</p><p>There are different types of power: economic, political and so on. But power can be thought of as being like energy: it can take many different forms, and these can change. A wealthy company can often use its money to influence politics through lobbying, for instance, or to shape public opinion through paying for ads.</p><p class=\"pullquote\">Power over others&#x2019; privacy is the quintessential kind of power in the digital age</p><p>That tech giants such as Facebook and Google are powerful is hardly news. But exploring the relationship between privacy and power can help us to better understand how institutions amass, wield and transform power in the digital age, which in turn can give us tools and ideas to resist the kind of domination that survives on violations of the right to privacy. However, to grasp how institutions accumulate and exercise power in the digital age, first we have to look at the relationship between power, knowledge and privacy.</p><p>There is a tight connection between knowledge and power. At the very least, knowledge is an instrument of power. The French philosopher Michel Foucault goes even further, and argues that knowledge in itself is a form of <a href=\"https://aeon.co/essays/why-foucaults-work-on-power-is-more-important-than-ever\">power</a>. There is power in knowing. By protecting our privacy, we prevent others from being empowered with knowledge about us that can be used against our interests.</p><p>The more that someone knows about us, the more they can anticipate our every move, as well as influence us. One of the most important contributions of Foucault to our understanding of power is the insight that power does not only act upon human beings &#x2013; it constructs human subjects (even so, we can still resist power and construct ourselves). Power generates certain mentalities, it transforms sensitivities, it brings about ways of being in the world. In that vein, the British political theorist Steven Lukes argues in his book <em>Power</em> (1974) that power can bring about a system that produces wants in people that work against their own interests. People&#x2019;s desires can themselves be a <a href=\"https://hwcdn.libsyn.com/p/3/b/7/3b7686fcb738891b/Steven_Lukes_on_Power.mp3?c_id=9146845&amp;cs_id=9146845&amp;expiration=1564744034&amp;hwt=aa451c041eccbc35a12f3a5a888f746d\">result</a> of power, and the more invisible the means of power, the more powerful they are. Examples of power shaping preferences today include when tech uses research about how dopamine works to make you <a href=\"https://aeon.co/essays/if-the-internet-is-addictive-why-don-t-we-regulate-it\">addicted</a> to an app, or when you are shown political ads based on personal information that makes a business think you are a particular kind of person (a &#x2018;persuadable&#x2019;, as the data-research company Cambridge Analytica put it, or someone who might be nudged into not voting, for instance).</p><p>The power that comes about as a result of knowing personal details about someone is a very particular kind of power. Like economic power and political power, privacy power is a distinct type of power, but it also allows those who hold it the possibility of transforming it into economic, political and other kinds of power. Power over others&#x2019; privacy is the quintessential kind of power in the digital age.</p><p><span class=\"ld-dropcap\">T</span>wo years after it was funded and despite its popularity, Google still hadn&#x2019;t developed a sustainable business model. In that sense, it was just another unprofitable internet startup. Then, in 2000, Google launched AdWords, thereby starting the data economy. Now called Google Ads, it exploited the data produced by Google&#x2019;s interactions with its users to sell ads. In less than four years, the company achieved a 3,590 per cent increase in revenue.</p><p>That same year, the Federal Trade Commission had <a href=\"https://www.ftc.gov/reports/privacy-online-fair-information-practices-electronic-marketplace-federal-trade-commission\">recommended</a> to US Congress that online privacy be regulated. However, after the attacks of 11 September 2001 on the Twin Towers in New York, concern about security took precedence over privacy, and plans for regulation were dropped. The digital economy was able to take off and reach the magnitude it enjoys today because governments had an interest in having access to people&#x2019;s data in order to control them. From the outset, digital surveillance has been sustained through a joint effort between private and public institutions.</p><p>The mass collection and analysis of personal data has empowered governments and prying companies. Governments now know more about their citizens than ever before. The Stasi (the security service of the German Democratic Republic), for instance, managed to have files only on about a third of the population, even if it aspired to have complete information on all citizens. Intelligence agencies today hold much more information on all of the population. To take just one important example, a significant proportion of people volunteer private information in social networks. As the US filmmaker Laura Poitras put it in an interview with <em>The Washington Post</em> in 2014: &#x2018;Facebook is a gift to intelligence agencies.&#x2019; Among other possibilities, that kind of information gives governments the ability to anticipate protests, and even <a href=\"https://aeon.co/essays/do-we-really-want-to-use-predictive-policing-to-stop-crime\">pre-emptively</a> arrest people who plan to take part. Having the power to know about organised resistance before it happens, and being able to squash it in time, is a tyrant&#x2019;s dream.</p><p>Tech companies&#x2019; power is constituted, on the one hand, by having exclusive control of data and, on the other, by the ability to anticipate our every move, which in turn gives them opportunities to influence our behaviour, and sell that influence to others. Companies that earn most of their revenues through advertising have used our data as a moat &#x2013; a competitive advantage that has made it impossible for alternative businesses to challenge tech titans. Google&#x2019;s search engine, for example, is as good as it is partly because its algorithm has much more data to learn from than any of its competitors. In addition to keeping the company safe from competitors and allowing it to train its algorithm better, our data also allows tech companies to predict and influence our behaviour. With the amount of data it has access to, Google can know what keeps you up at night, what you desire the most, what you are planning to do next. It then whispers this information to other busybodies who want to target you for ads.</p><p class=\"pullquote\">Tech wants you to think that the innovations it brings into the market are inevitable</p><p>Companies might also share your data with &#x2018;data brokers&#x2019; who will create a file on you based on everything they know about you (or, rather, everything they <em>think</em> they know), and then sell it to pretty much whoever is willing to buy it &#x2013; insurers, governments, prospective employers, even fraudsters.</p><p>Data vultures are incredibly savvy at using both the aspects of power discussed above: they make us give up our data, more or less voluntarily, and they also snatch it away from us, even when we try to resist. Loyalty cards are an example of power making us do certain things that we would otherwise not do. When you are offered a discount for loyalty at your local supermarket, what you are being offered is for that company to conduct surveillance on you, and then influence your behaviour through nudges (discounts that will encourage you to buy certain products). An example of power doing things to us that we don&#x2019;t want it to do is when Google records your location on your Android smartphone, even when you tell it not to.</p><p>Both types of power can also be seen at work at a more general level in the digital age. Tech constantly seduces us into doing things we would not otherwise do, from getting lost down a rabbit hole of videos on YouTube, to playing mindless games, or checking our phone hundreds of times a day. The digital age has brought about new ways of being in the world that don&#x2019;t always make our lives better. Less visibly, the data economy has also succeeded in normalising certain ways of thinking. Tech companies want you to think that, if you have done nothing wrong, you have no reason to object to their holding your data. They also want you to think that treating your data as a commodity is necessary for digital tech, and that digital tech is progress &#x2013; even when it might sometimes look worryingly similar to social or political regress. More importantly, tech wants you to think that the innovations it brings into the market are inevitable. That&#x2019;s what progress looks like, and progress cannot be stopped.</p><p>That narrative is complacent and misleading. As the Danish economic geographer Bent Flyvbjerg points out in <em>Rationality and Power</em> (1998), power produces the knowledge, narratives and rationality that are conducive to building the reality it wants. But technology that <a href=\"https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-05707-8\">perpetuates</a> sexist and racist trends and worsens inequality is <em>not</em> progress. Inventions are far from unavoidable. Treating data as a commodity is a way for companies to earn money, and has nothing to do with building good products. Hoarding data is a way of accumulating power. Instead of focusing only on their bottom line, tech companies can and should do better to design the online world in a way that contributes to people&#x2019;s wellbeing. And we have many reasons to object to institutions collecting and using our data in the way that they do.</p><p>Among those reasons is institutions not respecting our autonomy, our right to self-govern. Here is where the harder side of power plays a role. The digital age thus far has been characterised by institutions doing whatever they want with our data, unscrupulously bypassing our consent whenever they think they can get away with it. In the offline world, that kind of behaviour would be called matter-of-factly &#x2018;theft&#x2019; or &#x2018;coercion&#x2019;. That it is not called this in the online world is yet another testament to tech&#x2019;s power over narratives.</p><p><span class=\"ld-dropcap\">I</span>t&#x2019;s not all bad news, though. Yes, institutions in the digital age have hoarded privacy power, but we <em>can</em> reclaim the data that sustains it, and we <em>can</em> limit their collecting new data. Foucault argued that, even if power constructs human subjects, we have the possibility to resist power and construct ourselves. The power of big tech looks and feels very solid. But tech&#x2019;s house of cards is partly built on lies and theft. The data economy can be disrupted. The tech powers that be are nothing without our data. A small piece of regulation, a bit of resistance from citizens, a few businesses starting to offer privacy as a competitive advantage, and it can all evaporate.</p><p>No one is more conscious of their vulnerability than tech companies themselves. That is why they are trying to convince us that they do care about privacy after all (despite what their lawyers say in court). That is why they spend millions of dollars on lobbying. If they were so certain about the value of their products for the good of users and society, they would not need to lobby so hard. Tech companies have abused their power, and it is time to resist them.</p><p>In the digital age, resistance inspired by the abuse of power has been dubbed a techlash. Abuses of power remind us that power needs to be curtailed for it to be a positive influence in society. Even if you happen to be a tech enthusiast, even if you think that there is nothing wrong with what tech companies and governments are doing with our data, you should still want power to be limited, because you never know who will be in power next. Your new prime minister might be more authoritarian than the old one; the next CEO of the next big tech company might not be as benevolent as those we&#x2019;ve seen thus far. Tech companies have helped totalitarian regimes in the past, and there is no clear distinction between government and corporate surveillance. Businesses share data with governments, and public institutions share data with companies.</p><p class=\"pullquote\">When you expose your privacy, you put us all at risk</p><p>Do not give in to the data economy without at least some resistance. Refraining from using tech altogether is unrealistic for most people, but there is much more you can do short of that. Respect other people&#x2019;s privacy. Don&#x2019;t expose ordinary citizens online. Don&#x2019;t film or photograph people without their consent, and certainly don&#x2019;t share such images online. Try to limit the data you surrender to institutions that don&#x2019;t have a claim to it. Imagine someone asks for your number in a bar and won&#x2019;t take a &#x2018;No, thank you&#x2019; for an answer. If that person were to continue to harass you for your number, what would you do? Perhaps you would be tempted to give them a fake number. That is the essence of obfuscation, as outlined by the media scholars Finn Bruton and Helen Nissenbaum in the 2015 <a href=\"https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/obfuscation\">book</a> of that name. If a clothing company asks for your name to sell you clothes, give them a different name &#x2013; say, Dr Private Information, so that they get the message. Don&#x2019;t give these institutions evidence they can use to claim that we are consenting to our data being taken away from us. Make it clear that your consent is not being given freely.</p><p>When downloading apps and buying products, choose products that are better for privacy. Use privacy extensions on your browsers. Turn your phone&#x2019;s wi-fi, Bluetooth and locations services off when you don&#x2019;t need them. Use the legal tools at your disposal to ask companies for the data they have on you, and ask them to delete that data. Change your settings to protect your privacy. Refrain from using one of those DNA home testing kits &#x2013; they are not worth it. Forget about &#x2018;smart&#x2019; doorbells that violate your privacy and that of others. Write to your representatives sharing your concerns about privacy. Tweet about it. Take opportunities as they come along to inform business, governments and other people that you care about privacy, that what they are doing is not okay.</p><p>Don&#x2019;t make the mistake of thinking you are safe from privacy harms, maybe because you are young, male, white, heterosexual and healthy. You might think that your data can work only for you, and never against you, if you&#x2019;ve been lucky so far. But you might not be as healthy as you think you are, and you will not be young forever. The democracy you are taking for granted might morph into an authoritarian regime that might not favour the likes of you.</p><p>Furthermore, privacy is not only about you. Privacy is both personal and collective. When you expose your privacy, you put us all at risk. Privacy power is necessary for democracy &#x2013; for people to vote according to their beliefs and without undue pressure, for citizens to protest anonymously without fear of repercussions, for individuals to have freedom to associate, speak their minds, read what they are curious about. If we are going to live in a democracy, the bulk of power needs to be with the people. If most of the power lies with companies, we will have a plutocracy. If most of the power lies with the state, we will have some kind of authoritarianism. Democracy is not a given. It is something we have to fight for every day. And if we stop building the conditions in which it thrives, democracy will be no more. Privacy is important because it gives power to the people. Protect it.</p> </div>","url":"https://aeon.co/essays/privacy-matters-because-it-empowers-us-all","date_published":"2019-09-09T14:49:19+00:00","author":{"name":""}},{"id":"1636","title":"Reid Hoffman on Bitcoin - Feld Thoughts","content_html":"<div id=\"content\" class=\"container\"> <p id=\"primary\" class=\"content-area\"> <main id=\"main\" class=\"site-main\"> <div class=\"posts-single--item post-16162\"> <header class=\"posts-single__header\"> <span class=\"posts-single__header__date\">Sep 5 2019</span> </header> <div class=\"posts-single__body\"> <aside class=\"posts-single__sidebar\"> </aside> <p>I got the following email from Reid Hoffman this morning.</p> <figure class=\"wp-block-embed-youtube wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<span class=\"embed-youtube\"><iframe class=\"youtube-player\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https://www.youtube.com/embed/JaMJi1_1tkA?version=3&amp;rel=1&amp;fs=1&amp;autohide=2&amp;showsearch=0&amp;showinfo=1&amp;iv_load_policy=1&amp;wmode=transparent\"></iframe></span>\n</div></figure> <blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote\"><p><em>Inspired by Lin-Manuel Miranda&#x2019;s Hamilton, I produced a battle rap music video about centralized and decentralized currencies, pitting Alexander Hamilton against Satoshi Nakamoto. I hope the video gets more people talking about crypto and its evolving role in global commerce.&#xA0;</em></p></blockquote> <p>It seemed oddly coincidental with Fred Wilson&#x2019;s post from yesterday titled <em><a href=\"https://avc.com/2019/09/some-thoughts-on-crypto/\">Some Thoughts on Crypto</a>.</em></p> <p>I&#x2019;m waiting patiently for someone to start talking about Crypto AI.</p> </div> </div> </main> </p> </div>","url":"https://feld.com/archives/2019/09/reid-hoffman-on-bitcoin.html","date_published":"2019-09-05T17:07:06+00:00","author":{"name":""}},{"id":"1398","title":"Editorial: Can Apple News+ kill 'fake news' and save journalism?","content_html":"<div><span class=\"article-leader\">Apple&apos;s News+ subscription service threatens to kill the open web&apos;s surveillance advertising clickbait model of fake news engagement to save journalism. Why would Apple want or care to do that? Here&apos;s a look. <br></span><br><div><div class=\"article-img\"><img src=\"https://photos5.appleinsider.com/gallery/30995-51335-Screen-Shot-2019-05-12-at-45835-PM-l.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"lazy\"></div><br><span class=\"minor2 small gray\"></span></div><h2>Services as software: Apple News+</h2>\nApple has portrayed News+ as an effort to save journalism. Lauren Kern, the editor-in-chief of Apple News, stated that the company is &quot;committed to supporting quality journalism, and with Apple News+, we want to celebrate the great work being done by magazines and news outlets.&quot; That might sound a bit over the top, but Apple has a strong commercial self-interest in not only keeping original news and storytelling alive but in making the photojournalism and wordcraft behind it successful in their own right. <p>\nPrint journalism certainly does appear to need saving. According to <a href=\"https://www.statista.com/statistics/587142/print-magazine-revenue/\">data</a> from Statistica, global magazine print revenues in 2015 were $86.07 billion. Next year in 2020, revenues are predicted to fall to $67.56 billion. That nearly $20 billion drop represents a precipitous decline in income as consumers increasingly ignore old fashioned, paper publications.</p><div><div class=\"article-img\"><img src=\"https://photos5.appleinsider.com/gallery/30995-51333-Screen-Shot-2019-05-12-at-40720-PM-l.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"lazy\"></div><br><span class=\"minor2 small gray\">On the Web, <em>Wired</em> delivers the typical cluttered, annoying experience of free content desperately trying to optimize you as a product to sell to advertisers.</span></div><p>\nNews+ pretty clearly aims to drive Apple&apos;s hardware sales with exclusive content the same way that <a href=\"https://appleinsider.com/articles/19/05/03/editorial-the-new-services---apple-arcade-plays-to-win-but-what-game\">Apple Arcade</a> aspires to in gaming. It also shares the potential to deliver high margin Services revenue at the scale of Apple&apos;s vast installed base. And for every dollar Apple earns, it generates roughly the same amount to directly fund the content producers creating News+ material.</p>\nUnless you&apos;re an Apple shareholder, should you care about the money involved and who collects it? Absolutely you should.\nIf you prefer to pay for the kind of food you personally like rather than lining up at an ad-supported soup kitchen&apos;s feed trough, you should also support a system centered on innovation in art, design, technology and fashion that caters to your needs rather than an economy centered purely on innovation in advertising, where you pay nothing to line up as the product to be sold to advertisers. News+ lets you vote for the production of high-quality content with your dollars. The alternative is more &quot;getting what we&apos;ve been paying for&quot; on the &quot;free&quot; web. In a system where everything is &quot;free,&quot; there&apos;s no freedom to vote for the kind of products you want. Prior to iPhones, mobile operators were largely subsidizing handsets to the point of being free, erasing any drive or even ability for phone makers to build very innovative products. When Apple introduced a far more advanced product at a higher price, it attracted so much attention that it began to drive massive profits that funded relentless improvements. And as the price of high-end iPhones has pushed upward in tandem with interest in higher quality phones with better, larger displays and more advanced cameras, the advancements Apple can introduce have similarly increased.<h2>The Netflix of Texture</h2> <p>\nApple&apos;s News+ service is based upon its reportedly <a href=\"https://appleinsider.com/articles/19/04/10/apple-allegedly-paid-485m-to-acquire-texture-the-core-of-apple-news\">$485 million</a> acquisition of Texture, the &quot;Netflix of magazines.&quot; It was initially developed as a joint venture of old media firms quite obviously trying to preserve their own relevance in an increasingly digital world: Conde Nast, Hearst Magazines, Meredith Corporation, News Corp, Rogers Media, and Time Inc.</p><div><div class=\"article-img\"><img src=\"https://photos5.appleinsider.com/gallery/30825-50864-001-Texture%27s-magazine-collection-l.jpg\" alt=\"\" height=\"\" class=\"lazy\"></div><br><span class=\"minor2 small gray\">The Texture service launched as a digital copy of print magazines</span></div> <p>\nIt first launched in 2012 as &quot;Next Issue,&quot; and relaunched as Texture in 2015. That year, the <em>New York Post</em> <a href=\"https://nypost.com/2016/06/21/the-netflix-of-magazines-is-about-to-get-a-lot-bigger/\">reported</a> that the service had generated $15 million in subscription revenues for the magazines. </p>\nWhile Texture&apos;s subscriptions were reportedly growing by 50%, the new revenues that publishers were seeing from Texture&apos;s digital magazine distribution were effectively nothing compared to their print revenues. And they were in particular nothing when compared to how fast magazines&apos; print revenues were declining. <p>\nTexture&apos;s $15 million contribution per year was absolutely inconsequential compared to the industry&apos;s overall losses of around <em>$4 billion per year</em>. Magazines sales were engulfed in flames and Texture was like a spritzer bottle. </p>\nThat explains why Texture&apos;s owners were willing to hand over control to Apple in exchange for at least $145 million in payments over the first year and then at least $240 million in the second and third years. Apple promised to increase its digital revenues by an order of magnitude, and then kick in another 50 percent on top. <div><div class=\"article-img\"><img src=\"https://photos5.appleinsider.com/gallery/30550-50206-30384-49810-texture-ending-l-l.jpg\" alt=\"\" height=\"\" class=\"lazy\"></div><br><span class=\"minor2 small gray\">Publishers created Texture but sold it to Apple after failing to make it work themselves</span></div> <p>\nThat was fantastically better than publishers could do on their own, even if they were also <a href=\"https://appleinsider.com/articles/19/03/19/apple-news-subscription-plan-said-to-cost-10-per-month-but-major-publishers-balking-at-terms\">leaking out a story</a> about how terribly unfair it was that Apple was expecting to build a new business capable of generating enough revenues in total to be earning as much for itself as the publishers were getting paid for their content. </p>\nLike Spotify and Netflix, magazine publishers really expected Apple to do all the work of lining up customers, selling them on a new payment model, and processing their subscriptions but then expected to get&#x2014;not just an equitable share of the revenues generated&#x2014;but virtually everything. Of course, if Texture&apos;s media owners knew how to build an attractive digital magazine subscription service that generated hundreds of millions of dollars, they wouldn&apos;t have been stuck at just $15 million in revenues after three years of trying, and wouldn&apos;t desperately need the help of a company like Apple. Apple examined the opportunity and decided that it could make News+ work. It appears that Apple is assuming most of the risk of failure. If users don&apos;t pay for News+, Apple will effectively be subsidizing the digital magazine service. But even if News+ doesn&apos;t make much money, it would still provide Apple with a valuable service that could help it sell iPads and Macs and make it that much more likely that subscribers would stick to buying iPhones in the future. That&apos;s worth a lot to a company that makes most of its money from premium hardware sales. <p>\nHaving a massive installed base of affluent users gives Apple the luxury of being able to take risks that others can&apos;t. Google, Microsoft, and Samsung couldn&apos;t even sell music, have struggled to sell games, and certainly aren&apos;t trying to sell <em>magazines</em>. For Apple, iTunes music and App Store games have already been spectacular home runs. News+ could be next. </p><h2>Apple&apos;s rough road to News+</h2>\nApple previously tried to help print periodicals find a digital market in the App Store with iOS 5&apos;s Newsstand in 2011, which was just a simple collection of publishers&apos; own apps selling whatever form of digital magazines they wanted under their own subscription model.<p>\nPublishers, notably <a href=\"https://appleinsider.com/articles/10/06/02/adobe_cond_nast_scrambled_to_get_wired_app_on_apples_ipad\">Conde Nast</a>, did a terrible job at creating digital representations of their existing magazines, commonly dumping out a huge collection of static images that were slow to download and clumsy to navigate. <a href=\"https://appleinsider.com/articles/12/12/03/news-corps-ipad-newspaper-the-daily-shutting-down-dec-15\">News Corp</a> also delivered a turd sandwich in producing <em>The Daily</em>, a brand new but totally boring digital magazine aimed at iPad users. It failed to attract enough subscribers to sustain the venture. </p><div><div class=\"article-img\"><img src=\"https://photos2.insidercdn.com/daily-120712.jpg\" alt=\"The Daily\" height=\"\" class=\"lazy\"></div><br><span class=\"minor2 small gray\">News Corp.&apos;s <em>The Daily</em> failed to attract enough attention</span></div> <p>\nInitially, magazines including <em>Wired</em> announced pretty healthy results in selling digital issues on iPad, only to watch as their subscribers fell off rapidly within the year. One of the problems was that publishers were trying to charge significantly more for their digital downloads. A <em>Wired</em> subscription to the mailed-out paper version cost around $1 per issue, but despite the cheaper nature of digital distribution and no physical printing or use of paper, the magazine was asking $4 per digital copy from iPad users. </p>\nHow well would iTunes have worked out if the price of digital album download had been set by music labels who demanded 4x the price of a CD, at a time when they were competing against free copies of their music on Napster? Additionally, most magazines were offering nothing that took any real advantage of the dynamic, animated nature of being on an iPad. Publishers also had trouble serving up their own issues reliably, or delivering them in a form that caught readers&apos; attention. Rather than being anything similar to the casual, familiar experience of paging through physical magazines, trying to access their digital issues often felt more like being a librarian trying to track down some old report on microfiche. Why do that in our new digital era where content finds you? <h2>The free news alternatives</h2> <p>\nOn the web, Yahoo, Google, and Facebook have worked to create proprietary portals where users can get a &quot;free&quot; news feed for nothing apart from the cost of being tracked and monitored, and where the majority of the technology involved in delivering the news isn&apos;t going to journalists or photographers or news organizations, but to the developers of <a href=\"https://appleinsider.com/articles/19/05/04/editorial-the-new-services---how-will-apple-arcades-exclusivity-privacy-affect-android-google-play\">sophisticated interest and demographic tracking</a>.</p>\nThat&apos;s turned the original lightweight, open nature of the WWW into a complex system where most of the data driving news isn&apos;t content, but rather just spyware designed and optimized not to deliver news and information, but paid messages from anyone who has money to anyone who can line up an audience of consumers. Google, Facebook, and other advertisers are generating huge revenues, but aren&apos;t splitting much of their huge wealth with news publishers. They are not even in the news content business. The revenues they collect are not from consumers paying for information. They are from advertisers looking to exploit audiences. <div><div class=\"article-img\"><img src=\"https://photos5.appleinsider.com/gallery/30995-51334-Screen-Shot-2019-05-12-at-40804-PM-l.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"lazy\"></div><br><span class=\"minor2 small gray\">Google News delivers <emwired> as a clean, sparse experience designed to search for information while selling you as a product to advertisers</emwired></span></div>\nThat means the people paying for the system have interests that are not aligned with audiences getting their &quot;news&quot; for free. Why not just serve up fake news, which is far cheaper to produce than real content, based on the expensive nature of journalism, reporting, and storytelling?<h2>Saving journalism by paying for it</h2> With Newsstand, Apple was enabling publishers to collect their own revenues. Across the board, publishers failed to deliver a good product at a fair price that iOS users wanted to pay. However, the failure of Newsstand was largely blamed on Apple. Steve Jobs&apos; stated intention of helping publishers go digital with iPad was mocked and ridiculed by the media as if it were a grievous misreading of the market and an embarrassing engineering error that Apple should have felt ashamed about attempting, rather than being an issue of publishers not being able to create digital versions of their publications and deliver them in a form that enough readers would find worthwhile to pay for in a series of expensive subscriptions. In 2015, Apple replaced the Newsstand folder in iOS 9 with its Apple News app. The new app took a more active role in formatting existing news content into a consistent form Apple could manage and deliver at scale. Apple greatly reduced publishers&apos; ability to screw things up, resulting in a clean, consistent, attractive product that began to attract a significant readership. <div><div class=\"article-img\"><img src=\"https://photos5.appleinsider.com/gallery/30995-51332-Image-1-l.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"lazy\"></div><br><span class=\"minor2 small gray\">In Apple News, <em>Wired</em> is presented as a valuable product you can subscribe to</span></div><p>\nThe greatest remaining problem was that the only monetizing option in News was display ads, which <a href=\"https://appleinsider.com/articles/19/02/25/publishers-complaining-about-atrocious-revenues-from-apple-news\">didn&apos;t contribute sustainable revenues</a> for Apple or its publisher sources, largely because Apple wasn&apos;t serving up enough ads. News+ hopes to address that the same way that Apple Arcade pays for game development: by attracting paying subscribers. </p><h2>News+ in the model of Apple Arcade</h2><p>\nNews+ splits its subscription fees among Apple&apos;s partner publishers. The program not yet open to anyone who wants to publish, likely because Apple is first working to establish that News+ can work. In the future, it may enable publishers outside of the original Texture partners and the other publishers it invited into its News+ program, notably including <em>LA Times</em>, the <em>Wall Street Journal</em> and the <em>Toronto Star</em>, to plug their content into News+. </p>\nRight now, outside publishers can only publish into the free Apple News and still only monetize via ads, or alternatively sell their work as an app or subscription service on their own. That makes News and News+ essentially identical to the model of Apple Arcade alongside the independent games and game subscriptions that exist outside of Arcade in the App Store. <p>\nLike games for Arcade, News+ intends to be available <a href=\"https://appleinsider.com/articles/19/05/08/editorial-can-apple-arcade-level-up-gaming-on-macs-and-apple-tv\">across devices</a>. In the future, we may see more video-centric news and features that adapt to viewing on Apple TV. It already includes rich online content from The Cut, theSkimm, Grub Street, Vox&apos;s Highlight, New York Magazine&apos;s Vulture, and TechCrunch&apos;s Extra Crunch. </p><div><div class=\"article-img\"><img src=\"https://photos5.appleinsider.com/gallery/30825-50862-003-Rolling-Stone-on-Apple-News+-l.jpg\" alt=\"\" height=\"\" class=\"lazy\"></div><br><span class=\"minor2 small gray\">News+ reformats articles to optimize the experience on mobile devices</span></div> But right now, the focus is on mobile iPhones, the larger canvas of iPads, and the convenience of being perusable on Macs, thanks to the UIKit on macOS frameworks Apple used to deliver News and Stocks in Mojave last summer. <p>\nAlso like Arcade titles, News+ features layouts and design that make its content stand out from the generic web. The new format includes support for magazines with animated covers, and makes photography pop with animations. That could change the perception of digital magazines on iPad, particularly for photo-rich legendary periodicals including <em>National Geographic</em>, <em>The New Yorker</em>,<em>Rolling Stone</em>, <em>Sports Illustrated</em>, <em>TIME</em>, and <em>Vanity Fair</em>.</p><div><div class=\"article-img\"><img src=\"https://photos5.appleinsider.com/gallery/30825-50860-005-Contents-pages-l.jpg\" alt=\"News+\" height=\"\" class=\"lazy\"></div><br><span class=\"minor2 small gray\">News+ can organize content visually or using text, depending on the nature of the content</span></div> <p>\nIt&apos;s notable that News+ includes current and former issues of <em>Wired</em>, the quirky tech magazine that launched in 1993 during the <a href=\"https://appleinsider.com/articles/19/04/28/editorial-will-apples-1990s-golden-age-collapse-repeat-itself\">Golden Age of Apple</a> and then asked us to &quot;pray&quot; for the <a href=\"https://appleinsider.com/articles/19/04/29/apples-millennial-leap-from-fading-golden-age-icon-to-flexible-flashy-plastic-fashion\">beleaguered</a> brand in 1997, before it stumbled into the digital tablet age and is now in a position where it could use some saving from Apple. </p><p>\nUnlike Arcade, News+ is currently limited to the United States and Canada. But if Apple can build it into a platform that works to sell premium periodical and online content as a paid subscription, we could move past the surveillance advertising of the web and have rich access to high-quality content <a href=\"https://appleinsider.com/articles/19/05/04/editorial-the-new-services---how-will-apple-arcades-exclusivity-privacy-affect-android-google-play\">without incessant and privacy-abusing ads</a>&#x2014;another feature News+ has in common with Arcade. </p><h2>News+ in the model of Apple Music</h2>\nSo can Apple News+ save journalism? Consider how Apple previously &quot;saved music.&quot; In 2001 when iPod appeared, music was being commonly stolen via file trading sites like Napster that took artists&apos; work and made infinite copies that devastated the recorded music industry&apos;s CD business and devalued the entire nature of listening to recorded music. Rather than buying and savoring an album, everyone could simply amass a hard drive full of ripped tracks, and listen to a few seconds of any imaginable song while paying nothing back into the system that organized the people who created, perfected, and packaged music for sale. People were not just ripping songs, but trashing the value of spending any time appreciating the work that went into making music or videos. &quot;File sharers&quot; effectively lost the appreciation for music as an art form. iTunes, and Apple Music today, rebuilt that appreciation, linking songs with album art and encouraging listeners to support and even follow artists, recommend their work to friends, and enjoy music as an art form worthy of paying to support. Some of the efforts Apple made to add value to music have worked, such as album art and searchable lyrics, and some have been duds, including iTunes+ bonus features and the Ping social networking. <div><div class=\"article-img\"><img src=\"https://photos5.appleinsider.com/gallery/30995-51331-Music-l.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"lazy\"></div><br><span class=\"minor2 small gray\"></span></div><p>\nTake a look at the <a href=\"https://www.ifpi.org/downloads/GMR2019.pdf\">historical mix of revenues</a> from recorded music globally during Apple&apos;s tenure. When iPod launched in 2001, virtually all revenues were coming from physical media, mostly CDs. Apple dominated the rise of digital downloads in iTunes, then pivoted to become a major player in streaming with Apple Music. The entire time, Apple not only broke even on downloads and streaming, but also made major hardware profits on sales of iPods, then iPhones, and <a href=\"https://appleinsider.com/articles/19/05/06/editorial-the-new-services---can-apple-arcade-fuel-iphone-growth-in-a-slowing-smartphone-market/\">most recently from</a> sales of Apple Watch, AirPods, HomePod, and Beats&#x2014;all four of which are largely driven by music listeners.</p>\nApple had a commercial interest in &quot;saving music&quot; that closely parallels its interest in having high-quality photojournalism and writing for its installed base of iPad and Mac users. The music of talented artists, like the wordcraft of storytellers, creates a positive, informative, entertaining, and enlightening experience for audiences to enjoy that they can be willing to pay for. For iTunes, rather than just creating a downloads archive of user-generated songs or ripped-off bootleg tracks, Apple worked to create a sustainable market for high quality, professionally performed and recorded music in iTunes. Napster and other sites did the opposite, skimming &quot;free&quot; music and trying to sell the customers who came for &quot;free&quot; content as eyeballs to advertisers. Today, it&apos;s Google and Facebook that are skimming headlines and giving people glanceable summaries of &quot;news&quot; that boil issues down into blurbs designed to generate maximize outrage, and therefore &quot;engagement,&quot; which strings people through a series of advertising messages those sites are paid to inject into their news streams. That &quot;fake news&quot; business model has devalued the work that goes into producing real journalistic content, and has effectively equated real reporting with crafted propaganda designed to simply sway political opinions or attack and vilify groups of people. Facebook isn&apos;t investing in journalism. It&apos;s investing in new ways to categorize people in order to sell their attention to groups who want to shift their behavior. Google has long operated a News product, but that, like YouTube and all of the company&apos;s other efforts, serves to simply dangle out the least real content possible in order to string people along through a series of paid messages. This is pretty clearly destroying society far worse than the music stealing of twenty years ago. By providing a real business model for credible, journalistic storytelling&#x2014;and particularly the time investing, in-depth type of content that takes effort to produce&#x2014;News+ isn&apos;t just claiming to save the world from facile streams of tawdry outrage, but is also creating something of value that intelligent people will be drawn to. And intelligent people generally have money. News+ is another iTunes-like business in that it links people who create real content&#x2014;whether music, apps, games or written work and photography&#x2014;with people who want to enjoy real content and are ready to pay for high-quality work. As the middle man, Apple takes a cut of this business. But more importantly for Apple, it creates something of real value that is uniquely available on its platforms, giving its high-end, intellectual, and affluent audience another reason to buy an iPhone rather than a commodity Android that is just as good at scrolling through Facebook, or Google News headlines or WeChat but has nothing like News+.<h2>Apple&apos;s mixed performance as a curator</h2>\nThe fact that Apple can curate high-quality content doesn&apos;t necessarily mean that it will. If its publishing partners just crank out junk that&apos;s not clearly better than free stuff that appears on the web, there won&apos;t be much more reason for today&apos;s subscribers to pay for News+ than there was back in 2011 for Newsstand apps. Apple should be curating and enhancing content, and working to create visibility for talented work. Today&apos;s News app&#x2014;along with the news feed within Apple&apos;s Stocks app&#x2014;offers rather hit and miss curation that often promotes stuff that is embarrassing drivel, and clearly not any better than what&apos;s available for free on the web. That&apos;s most noticeable in the news coverage of Apple itself. Unless you specifically subscribe to better sources of Apple content, News app defaults to a bizarre mix of &quot;Apple is doomed&quot; bloggers and third rate financial entertainment sources. <p>\nWhy does&apos;t Apple better promote the work of people who write interesting things about the company itself? <em>Above Avalon</em>, <em>AnandTech</em>, <em>Ars Technica</em>, <em>Apple 3.0</em>, <em>AppleInsider</em>, <em>Asymco</em>, <em>Daring Fireball</em>, <em>iMore</em>, <em>Six Colors</em> and other sources of good content are all News channels that users have to favorite manually. The defaults for news about Apple itself seem like they involve some sort of contractual obligation to Yahoo. Apple should rethink some of its defaults. </p>\nThe level of frivolity that gets promoted in News is also high. There are entire &quot;stories&quot; that are nothing more than a dozen paragraphs discussing some non-notable tweet or two in sassy language&#x2014;those &quot;people are saying&quot; and &quot;the Internet isn&apos;t having it&quot; pieces&#x2014;that get promoted as top News articles. This sort of fake news devalues that very thing Apple should be building. On the other hand, a primary purpose of News as a way to promote News+ subscriptions highlights that Apple is so far working to balance free content with valuable paid content. <div><div class=\"article-img\"><img src=\"https://photos5.appleinsider.com/gallery/30995-51347-Screen-Shot-2019-05-12-at-53617-PM-l.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"lazy\"></div><br><span class=\"minor2 small gray\">Apple&apos;s News curation is a <a href=\"https://twitter.com/DanielEran/status/1125372546210254850\">mixed bag</a></span></div> The parallels between news articles and video games keep surfacing: Apple can only do so much to push publishers or studios to deliver their best work. But by creating a new subscription tier of higher value titles next to the free clickbait stories of News and the free iAP games in the App Store, it may be successful in moving beyond minimal value content to deliver a new class of intellectual exercise and effort that we&apos;ll want to pay for. <p>\nIn parallel, Apple is also creating another Service that appears to be mostly&#x2014;or virtually entirely&#x2014;entertainment content that the company has produced itself. Will Apple TV+ successfully turn Apple from being merely <em>a curator of other&apos;s talent</em>, as it has been in iTunes and the App Store and as it plans with Apple Arcade and News+, into a <em>producer of its original content</em> with Apple TV+?</p></div>","url":"https://appleinsider.com/articles/19/05/12/editorial-can-apple-news-kill-fake-news-and-save-journalism","date_published":"2019-05-12T17:18:34+00:00","author":{"name":"Daniel Eran Dilger Sunday"}},{"id":"1393","title":"In the Brexit era, Britain is more Mr Bean than James Bond | Owen Jones","content_html":"<div><div class=\"content__article-body from-content-api js-article__body\">\n<p><span class=\"drop-cap\"><span class=\"drop-cap__inner\">W</span></span>e spend far too much time getting down about the state of the country &#x2013; the whole international laughing-stock, spinning manically out of control and generally going nowhere thing is pretty draining. Yet hardly any effort is spent crudely shoehorning in film references to explain our political plight. This is a real shame, because for the Tory Brexiteers who valiantly yelled &#x201C;Charge!&#x201D;, then promptly led us off a cliff, the story of the past three years has fundamentally been a clash between self-perception and reality.</p>\n<aside class=\"element element-pullquote element--supporting\">\n\n<blockquote>\n<p class=\"pullquote-paragraph\">Our macho superhero will gloriously defend a country whose government has wet itself while everyone else was watching</p>\n</blockquote>\n</aside>\n<p>If there&#x2019;s any film character with whom they identify, I&#x2019;d plump for <a href=\"https://www.theguardian.com/film/jamesbond\" class=\"u-underline\">James Bond</a>. Tough, no-nonsense, doesn&#x2019;t play by the rules &#x2013; he&#x2019;s menaced by sinister European foes but always takes them down in the end against all the odds. A chauvinist who belongs to another era but considers that a plus, because moving with the times is for wimps. The tragedy for them &#x2013; and, I feel, at this point, for the nation as a whole &#x2013; is that they&#x2019;re more like Mr Bean, a petulant, self-absorbed slapstick caricature who excels in screwing up the most basic of tasks.</p>\n<p><a href=\"https://www.theguardian.com/film/2019/apr/25/james-bond-film-launched-jamaica\" class=\"u-underline\">Bond 25</a> (there&#x2019;s still no name announced, just the rumoured Shatterhand, which sounds like an unpleasant toilet-related accident) will be the first 007 film of the Brexit era. Our macho superhero will be sent out to gloriously defend a country whose government has wet itself while everyone else was watching. His boss will be Gavin Williamson, a man whose idea of tackling Russian malfeasance was to tell them in his big-boy voice to &#x201C;<a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DLr-jfbX0zM\" class=\"u-underline\">go away and shut up</a>&#x201D;. How is anyone going to take it seriously?</p>\n<p>To be a po-faced leftie, <a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ye8KvYKn9-0\" class=\"u-underline\">James Bond</a> was traditionally cold war propaganda, basically a misogynist trying to make British imperialism look sexy, although it&#x2019;s more recently taken some interesting detours. In Quantum of Solace, comrade Bond joins the anti-imperialist resistance and tries to stop a multinational corporation in alliance with the CIA from staging a coup d&#x2019;etat to privatise Bolivia&#x2019;s water supply. Under pressure from the Bourne franchise, he&#x2019;s even shown hints of emotional vulnerability.</p>\n<aside class=\"element element-rich-link element--thumbnail element-rich-link--not-upgraded\">\n\n</aside>\n<p>Indeed, for those who saw Brexit as a cultural counter-revolution &#x2013; basically to tell those PC lefties, the party&#x2019;s over, we&#x2019;re bringing back blue passports and unapologetic racism &#x2013; there are signs that they&#x2019;re even losing James Bond to the culture war. The decision to hire <a href=\"https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2019/apr/14/james-bond-script-phoebe-waller-bridge-fleabag-daniel-craig\" class=\"u-underline\">Phoebe Waller-Bridge</a>, one of the funniest people on Earth and also a proud feminist, has sent insecure rightwing men into paroxysms of rage: one viral YouTube video <a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JvlMdVwSXaw\" class=\"u-underline\">screeches</a>, &#x201C;Feminist Attack on James Bond &#x2013; MeToo Takes Down 007&#x201D;, while alt-right Twitter claims that James Bond has been &#x201C;cucked&#x201D;.</p>\n<p>Perhaps it is for the best that James Bond is not to be updated to represent the spirit of our times. Nobody wants to watch a dribbling, embarrassing mess ordering a martini.</p>\n<p><span class=\"bullet\">&#x2022;</span> Owen Jones is a Guardian columnist</p>\n\n\n</div></div>","url":"https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/apr/26/brexit-era-britain-mr-bean-james-bond","date_published":"2019-04-26T11:39:47+00:00","author":{"name":""}},{"id":"1385","title":"How Capitalism Betrayed Privacy","content_html":"<div><article id=\"story\" class=\"css-1vxca1d e1qksbhf0\"><header class=\"css-1ie2czc euiyums1\"><p class=\"css-z6dj7x e1wiw3jv0\">The forces of wealth creation once fostered the right to be left alone. But that has changed.</p><div class=\"css-xt80pu euiyums0\"><div class=\"css-acwcvw epjyd6m0\"><div class=\"css-vp77d3 epjyd6m1\"><div class=\"css-1p10dcb ey68jwv0\"><a href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/by/tim-wu\" class=\"css-uwwqev\"><img alt=\"Tim Wu\" src=\"https://static01.nyt.com/images/2017/04/05/opinion/tim-wu/tim-wu-thumbLarge-v4.jpg\" class=\"css-1vbou05 ey68jwv2\"></a></div><div class=\"css-1baulvz\"><p class=\"css-16vrk19 e1jsehar1\">By <a href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/by/tim-wu\" class=\"css-1riqqik e1jsehar0\"><span class=\"css-1baulvz\">Tim Wu</span></a></p><div class=\"css-qsaw8 e1wtpvyy0\"><p class=\"css-ri4qrz e1wtpvyy1\">Mr. Wu is the author of &#x201C;The Attention Merchants: The Epic Struggle to Get Inside Our Heads.&#x201D;</p></div></div></div></div></div><div class=\"css-79elbk ehw59r11\"><div class=\"css-1a48zt4 ehw59r111\"><figure class=\"sizeLarge layoutVertical css-1b4fpzk toneOpinion\"><div class=\"css-bsn42l\"><span class=\"css-1dv1kvn\">Image</span><img alt=\"\" class=\"css-11cwn6f\" src=\"https://static01.nyt.com/images/2019/04/14/opinion/sunday/14Wu/14Wu-articleLarge.gif?quality=75&amp;auto=webp&amp;disable=upscale\" srcset=\"https://static01.nyt.com/images/2019/04/14/opinion/sunday/14Wu/14Wu-articleLarge.gif?quality=90&amp;auto=webp 600w, https://static01.nyt.com/images/2019/04/14/opinion/sunday/14Wu/14Wu-jumbo.gif?quality=90&amp;auto=webp 1024w, https://static01.nyt.com/images/2019/04/14/opinion/sunday/14Wu/14Wu-superJumbo.gif?quality=90&amp;auto=webp 1050w\"></div><figcaption class=\"css-17ai7jg emkp2hg0\"><span class=\"emkp2hg2 css-1nwzsjy e1z0qqy90\"><span class=\"css-1ly73wi e1tej78p0\">Credit</span><span><span class=\"css-1dv1kvn\">Credit</span><span>Erik Carter</span></span></span></figcaption></figure></div></div></header><section class=\"css-1i2y565\"><div class=\"css-1fanzo5 StoryBodyCompanionColumn\"><div class=\"css-53u6y8\"><p class=\"css-1ygdjhk evys1bk0\">For much of human history, what we now call &#x201C;privacy&#x201D; was better known as being rich. Privacy, like wealth, was something that most people had little or none of. Farmers, slaves and serfs resided in simple dwellings, usually with other people, sometimes even sharing space with animals. They had no expectation that a meaningful part of their lives would be unwatchable or otherwise off limits to others. That would have required homes with private rooms. And only rich people had those.</p><p class=\"css-1ygdjhk evys1bk0\">The spread of mass privacy, surely one of modern civilization&#x2019;s more impressive achievements, thus depended on another, even more impressive achievement: the creation of a middle class. Only over the past 300 years or so, as increasingly large numbers of people gained the means to control their physical environment through the acquisition of wealth and private property, did privacy norms and eventually privacy rights <a class=\"css-1g7m0tk\" href=\"https://www.sup.org/books/title/?id=11886\">come into existence</a>. What is a right to privacy without a room of your own?</p><p class=\"css-1ygdjhk evys1bk0\">The historical link between privacy and the forces of wealth creation helps explain why privacy is under siege today. It reminds us, first, that mass privacy is not a basic feature of human existence but a byproduct of a specific economic arrangement &#x2014; and therefore a contingent and impermanent state of affairs. And it reminds us, second, that in a capitalist country, our baseline of privacy depends on where the money is. And today that has changed.</p><p class=\"css-1ygdjhk evys1bk0\">The forces of wealth creation no longer favor the expansion of privacy but work to undermine it. We have witnessed the rise of what I call &#x201C;attention merchants&#x201D; and what the sociologist Shoshana Zuboff calls &#x201C;surveillance capitalism&#x201D; &#x2014; the commodification of our personal data by tech giants like Facebook and Google and their imitators in telecommunications, electronics and other industries. We face a future in which active surveillance is such a routine part of business that for most people it is nearly inescapable. In this respect, we are on the road back to serfdom.</p></div><aside class=\"css-o6xoe7\"></aside></div><div class=\"css-1fanzo5 StoryBodyCompanionColumn\"><div class=\"css-53u6y8\"><p class=\"css-1ygdjhk evys1bk0\">That future, however, is not preordained, for Americans overwhelmingly want stronger privacy protections. But that will require laws that do not merely tinker with but fundamentally alter the economics of privacy.</p></div><aside class=\"css-o6xoe7\"></aside></div><div class=\"\"><div class=\"large css-17dprlf\"><iframe src=\"https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/admin/100000006451534.embedded.html?\" class=\"css-sqdgy8\" width=\"100%\"></iframe></div></div><div class=\"css-1fanzo5 StoryBodyCompanionColumn\"><div class=\"css-53u6y8\"><p class=\"css-1ygdjhk evys1bk0\">To be sure, ours is not the first era in which privacy has come under attack. American moralists at the height of the temperance movement pushed for laws that gave the police broad authority to break into homes and arrest drinkers, adulterers and gay men. Authoritarian and totalitarian states, insecure in their power, have always fought mass privacy with their spies and extensive networks of secret police, as have democratic countries at war or in times of unrest.</p><p class=\"css-1ygdjhk evys1bk0\">But none of these opponents of privacy had capitalism firmly on its side. In the United States, it is safe to say, privacy &#x201C;won&#x201D; the 20th century. Its crowning triumph was the<a class=\"css-1g7m0tk\" href=\"https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/381/479\"> Supreme Court&#x2019;s recognition </a>in 1965 of a constitutional right to privacy, but the legal victory should not obscure the economic forces that were its foundation.</p><p class=\"css-1ygdjhk evys1bk0\">By the 1960s the rise of a propertied middle class had put each man in his &#x201C;castle,&#x201D; each drinker in his saloon, each worker in his own office and each child in her own bedroom. Private physical spaces, along with semiprivate spaces like motels, bathhouses and dance clubs, created their own expectations of privacy (as did, later, virtual spaces like personal computers and hard drives). It was on those foundations that legal thinkers and activists began to speak of the masses enjoying a right to privacy, to be unwatched &#x2014; a right to be &#x201C;left alone.&#x201D; Capitalism was on privacy&#x2019;s side.</p></div><aside class=\"css-o6xoe7\"></aside></div><div class=\"css-1fanzo5 StoryBodyCompanionColumn\"><div class=\"css-53u6y8\"><p class=\"css-1ygdjhk evys1bk0\">In those earlier times, surveillance wasn&#x2019;t particularly profitable, but over the last two decades, new technologies coupled with new theories of value have transformed the economics of privacy. A drastic decrease in the cost of mass surveillance (thanks to the internet) has increased the value of two types of asset: our data and our attention. The race to maximize those assets by companies big and small has made surveillance a growth industry. It is in this sense that capitalism has begun to change sides.</p><p class=\"css-1ygdjhk evys1bk0\"><em class=\"css-2fg4z9 e1gzwzxm0\">[As technology advances, will it continue to blur the lines between public and private? </em><a class=\"css-1g7m0tk\" href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/newsletters/privacy-project?action=click&amp;module=inline&amp;pgtype=Article\"><em class=\"css-2fg4z9 e1gzwzxm0\">Sign up for Charlie Warzel&#x2019;s limited-run newsletter</em></a><em class=\"css-2fg4z9 e1gzwzxm0\"> to explore what&apos;s at stake and what you can do about it.]</em></p><p class=\"css-1ygdjhk evys1bk0\">You can, of course, still make plenty of money in more traditional ways. But the richest companies in the world now generate wealth by putting as many trackers, devices and screens inside our homes and as close to our bodies as possible. Accumulated data creates competitive advantage, and money can be made by consolidating everything that is known about an individual.</p><p class=\"css-1ygdjhk evys1bk0\">This business model was pioneered by Facebook, Google and the online advertising industry, but other sectors of the economy now want in. Amazon is a convert, as are cable and telecom companies like Comcast and Verizon, as well as the electronics industry with its &#x201C;smart&#x201D; devices that spy as they serve. Many employers also now constantly watch their employees. There is good reason to believe that, if nothing is done, gratuitous surveillance will be built into nearly every business and business model.</p><p class=\"css-1ygdjhk evys1bk0\">Some <a class=\"css-1g7m0tk\" href=\"https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/books/public-parts-how-sharing-in-the-digital-age-improves-the-way-we-work-and-live-by-jeff-jarvis/2011/12/28/gIQAQ5KzwP_story.html?noredirect=on&amp;utm_term=.630c3e7df26e\">have argued</a> that there&#x2019;s no need to be concerned. After all, even in an age of constant surveillance, we&#x2019;re talking about being watched not by the secret police but by advertisers and other commercial enterprises. This &#x201C;spying,&#x201D; the argument goes, only makes products better and advertisements more &#x201C;personalized.&#x201D; The end result is selling people stuff, not sending them to Siberia.</p><p class=\"css-1ygdjhk evys1bk0\">But this argument ignores several hard truths that we have learned in the last decade. One is that data and surveillance networks created for one purpose can and will be used for others. You must assume that any personal data that Facebook or Android keeps are data that governments around the world will try to get or that thieves will try to steal.</p><p class=\"css-1ygdjhk evys1bk0\">A similar lesson can be drawn from the Cambridge Analytica scandal. Facebook collected information from millions of users for one set of purposes, but Cambridge Analytica, a political data company working for Donald Trump&#x2019;s 2016 presidential campaign, used that information to try to influence American voters.</p></div><aside class=\"css-o6xoe7\"></aside></div><div class=\"css-1fanzo5 StoryBodyCompanionColumn\"><div class=\"css-53u6y8\"><p class=\"css-1ygdjhk evys1bk0\">Perhaps the hardest truth we&#x2019;ve learned is that once you realize you&#x2019;re being watched, it is a tough sensation to shake. As our experiences with social media have made all too clear, we act differently when we know we are &#x201C;on the record.&#x201D; Mass privacy is the freedom to act without being watched and thus, in a sense, to be who we really are &#x2014; not who we want others to think we are. At stake, then, is something akin to the soul.</p><p class=\"css-1ygdjhk evys1bk0\">Some <a class=\"css-1g7m0tk\" href=\"https://thehill.com/hilltv/what-americas-thinking/421384-opting-out-of-data-sharing-is-what-americans-want-most-from-a\">92 percent of Americans say</a> they want stronger privacy protections. This is why there has been a spate of <a class=\"css-1g7m0tk\" href=\"https://privacylaw.proskauer.com/2018/07/articles/data-privacy-laws/the-california-consumer-privacy-act-of-2018/\">new state privacy laws</a> and <a class=\"css-1g7m0tk\" href=\"https://www.brookings.edu/research/breaking-down-proposals-for-privacy-legislation-how-do-they-regulate/\">new privacy bills</a> in Congress. But too many of these interventions are small bore &#x2014; more notices and disclaimers to read and click through, more excessively complex options for how to manage your account. Tinkering around the edges will not work.</p><p class=\"css-1ygdjhk evys1bk0\">To be truly effective, privacy laws must seek to change the incentives that foster gratuitous surveillance and the reckless accumulation of personalized data. We need strong bans, including those that prohibit companies from sharing their customers&#x2019; personal information. New rights for consumers have to be easy to understand (like the European Union&#x2019;s &#x201C;right to be forgotten&#x201D;) and easy to use (like a national &#x201C;do not track&#x201D; list). And companies that repeatedly fail to protect sensitive data need to face dire consequences.</p><p class=\"css-1ygdjhk evys1bk0\">Nor is there any reason not to use our buying power strategically. Those who want privacy should support and reward the companies who respect it. The economics of privacy would change if enough consumers bought from companies that don&#x2019;t spy on us and whose products actually help people avoid an unwanted gaze.</p><p class=\"css-1ygdjhk evys1bk0\">Privacy is sometimes characterized as the concern<span class=\"css-8l6xbc evw5hdy0\">  </span>of only an overly sensitive elite. But it was once only an overly sensitive elite that cared about public literacy or stopping child labor. The driving ambition of modern civilization has been to pull us out of a feudal existence, to extend what were once thought of as luxuries to everyday people.</p><p class=\"css-1ygdjhk evys1bk0\">Now is no time to drift backward &#x2014; especially not in the name of progress.</p><p class=\"css-1psfkbx etfikam0\">Tim Wu is a law professor at Columbia, the author of &#x201C;The Attention Merchants: The Epic Struggle to Get Inside Our Heads&#x201D; and a contributing New York Times Opinion writer.</p><p class=\"css-1psfkbx etfikam0\"><em class=\"css-2fg4z9 e1gzwzxm0\">Follow </em><a class=\"css-1g7m0tk\" href=\"https://twitter.com/privacyproject\"><em class=\"css-2fg4z9 e1gzwzxm0\">@privacyproject</em></a><em class=\"css-2fg4z9 e1gzwzxm0\"> on Twitter and The New York Times Opinion Section on </em><a class=\"css-1g7m0tk\" href=\"https://www.facebook.com/nytopinion\"><em class=\"css-2fg4z9 e1gzwzxm0\">Facebook</em></a><em class=\"css-2fg4z9 e1gzwzxm0\"> and</em><a class=\"css-1g7m0tk\" href=\"https://www.instagram.com/nytopinion/\"><em class=\"css-2fg4z9 e1gzwzxm0\"> Instagram</em></a><em class=\"css-2fg4z9 e1gzwzxm0\">.</em></p></div><aside class=\"css-o6xoe7\"></aside></div><section id=\"privacy-glossary-embed\" class=\"interactive-content interactive-size-scoop css-7owli e13l8dds1\"><header id=\"interactive-header\" class=\"css-cl76n0 interactive-header\"></header></section><div class=\"\"><div class=\"full css-17dprlf\"><iframe src=\"https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/admin/100000006450604.embedded.html?\" class=\"css-sqdgy8\" width=\"100%\"></iframe></div></div></section><div class=\"bottom-of-article\"><div class=\"css-vdv0al\">A version of this article appears in print on , on Page SR3 of the New York edition with the headline: The Way Capitalism Betrayed the Right to Be Left Alone<span>. <a href=\"http://www.nytreprints.com/\">Order Reprints</a> | <a href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/pages/todayspaper/index.html\">Today&#x2019;s Paper</a> | <a href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/subscriptions/Multiproduct/lp8HYKU.html?campaignId=48JQY\">Subscribe</a></span></div></div></article></div>","url":"https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/10/opinion/sunday/privacy-capitalism.html","date_published":"2019-04-11T00:30:55+00:00","author":{"name":"Tim Wu"}},{"id":"1376","title":"Food","content_html":"<div><div id=\"content\"> <div class=\"main\"> <div class=\"zone zone-5a narrow-only\"> <div class=\"hst-freeform hdnce-e hdnce-item-44358\"> <a class=\"twitter-timeline\" href=\"https://twitter.com/sfchronicle/lists/food-home\">Tweets from https://twitter.com/sfchronicle/lists/food-home</a> </div> </div> </div> <div class=\"right-rail\"> <div class=\"zone zone-5 wide-only\"> <div class=\"hst-freeform hdnce-e hdnce-item-44358\"> <a class=\"twitter-timeline\" href=\"https://twitter.com/sfchronicle/lists/food-home\">Tweets from https://twitter.com/sfchronicle/lists/food-home</a> </div> </div> </div>\n</div></div>","url":"https://www.sfchronicle.com/food/","date_published":"2019-04-05T00:18:04+00:00","author":{"name":"Soleil Ho"}},{"id":"1373","title":"‘Beyond Sketchy’: Facebook Demanding Some New Users’ Email Passwords","content_html":"<div class=\"Mobiledoc\"><p>Just two weeks after admitting it stored hundreds of millions of its users&#x2019; own passwords insecurely, Facebook is demanding some users fork over the password for their outside email account as the price of admission to the social network.</p><p>Facebook users are being interrupted by an interstitial demanding they provide the password for the email account they gave to Facebook when signing up. &#x201C;To continue using Facebook, you&#x2019;ll need to confirm your email,&#x201D; the message demands. &#x201C;Since you signed up with [email address], you can do that automatically &#x2026;&#x201D;</p><p>A form below the message asked for the users&#x2019; &#x201C;email password.&#x201D; </p><p>&#x201C;That&#x2019;s beyond sketchy,&#x201D; security consultant Jake Williams told the Daily Beast. &#x201C;They should not be taking your password or handling your password in the background. If that&#x2019;s what&#x2019;s required to sign up with Facebook, you&#x2019;re better off not being on Facebook.&#x201D;</p><p>In a statement emailed to The Daily Beast after this story published, Facebook reiterated its claim it doesn&#x2019;t store the email passwords. But the company also announced it will end the practice altogether. &#xA0;</p><p>&#x201C;We understand the password verification option isn&#x2019;t the best way to go about this, so we are going to stop offering it,&#x201D; Facebook wrote.</p><p>It&#x2019;s not clear how widely the new measure was deployed, but in its statement Facebook said users retain the option of bypassing the password demand and activating their account through more conventional means, such as &#x201C;a code sent to their phone or a link sent to their email.&#x201D; Those options are presented to users who click on the words &#x201C;Need help?&#x201D; in one corner of the page.</p><p>The additional login step <a class=\"LinkWrapper LinkWrapper--external\" href=\"https://twitter.com/originalesushi/status/1112496649891430401\">was noticed</a> over the weekend by a cybersecurity watcher on Twitter called &#x201C;e-sushi.&#x201D; The Daily Beast tested the claim by establishing a new Facebook account under circumstances the company&#x2019;s system might flag as suspicious, using a disposable webmail address and connecting through a VPN in Romania. A reporter was taken to the same screen demanding the email password.</p><p>&#x201C;By going down that road, you&apos;re practically fishing for passwords you are not supposed to know!,&#x201D; e-sushi wrote in a tweet.</p><p>Small print below the password field promises, &#x201C;Facebook won&#x2019;t store your password.&#x201D; But the company has recently been criticized for repurposing information it originally acquired for &#x201C;security&#x201D; reasons. </p><p>Last year Facebook <a class=\"TrackingLink LinkWrapper\" href=\"https://www.thedailybeast.com/facebook-lets-anyone-view-your-profile-with-2fa-phone-number\">was caught</a> allowing advertisers to target its users using phone numbers users provided for two-factor authentication; users handed over their numbers so Facebook could send a text message with a secret code when they log in. More recently the company drew the ire of privacy advocates when it began making those phone numbers searchable, so anyone can locate the matching user &#x201C;in defiance of user expectations and security best practices,&#x201D; <a class=\"LinkWrapper LinkWrapper--external\" href=\"https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/03/facebook-doubles-down-misusing-your-phone-number\">wrote</a> the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a civil liberties group.</p><p>Facebook also has a checkered history when it comes to securely handling passwords. Last month the company acknowledged that <a class=\"LinkWrapper LinkWrapper--external\" href=\"https://krebsonsecurity.com/2019/03/facebook-stored-hundreds-of-millions-of-user-passwords-in-plain-text-for-years/\">unencrypted passwords</a> for hundreds of millions of its users <a class=\"TrackingLink LinkWrapper\" href=\"https://www.thedailybeast.com/facebook-stored-hundreds-of-millions-of-passwords-in-plain-text-report\">had been stored for years</a> in company logs accessible to 2,000 employees.</p><p>Last month, amid a steady drum beat of fresh privacy scandals, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg unleashed a thousand-word manifesto describing &#xA0;a new &#x201C;privacy-focused vision&#x201D; <a class=\"TrackingLink LinkWrapper\" href=\"https://www.thedailybeast.com/mark-zuckerberg-thinks-youve-napped-through-the-last-decade\">for the company</a> built on strong encryption and cutting-edge security tools. </p><p>Even then, Zuckerberg acknowledged that Facebook&#x2019;s putative pivot-to-privacy would meet with some skepticism. &#x201C;[F]rankly we don&apos;t currently have a strong reputation for building privacy protective services.&#x201D;</p></div>","url":"https://www.thedailybeast.com/beyond-sketchy-facebook-demanding-some-new-users-email-passwords","date_published":"2019-04-02T23:22:40+00:00","author":{"name":"Kevin Poulsen"}},{"id":"1370","title":"We Built A Broken Internet. Now We Need To Burn It To The Ground.","content_html":"<div> <div class=\"subbuzz subbuzz-text xs-mb4 xs-relative \"> <p>On March 21, 2006, Jack Dorsey published the world&#x2019;s first tweet:<br></p> </div> <div class=\"subbuzz subbuzz-text xs-mb4 xs-relative \"> <p>On July 22, 2018, President Donald Trump tweeted:</p> </div> <div class=\"subbuzz subbuzz-text xs-mb4 xs-relative \"> <p>In the 12 years between those two tweets, some things happened that are worth exploring. But first, let&#x2019;s explore what happened before that very first tweet was even sent, because it laid the foundation of everything that was to come.</p><p>Twitter and my design shop, <a href=\"https://muledesign.com/\">Mule</a>, used to be right across the hall from each other in a run-down shitbox of a building in San Francisco&#x2019;s SOMA district. We were friends with a lot of the original crew that built the platform. They wanted to build a tool that let people communicate with each other easily. They were a decent bunch of guys &#x2014; and that was the problem.</p><p>They were a bunch of guys. More accurately, they were a bunch of white guys. Those white guys, and I&#x2019;ll keep giving them the benefit of the doubt and say they did it with the best of intentions, designed the foundation of a platform that would later collapse under the weight of harassment, abuse, death threats, rape threats, doxing, and the eventual takeover of the alt-right and their racist idiot pumpkin king.</p><p>All the white boys in the room, even with the best of intentions, will only ever know what it&#x2019;s like to make make decisions as a white boy. They will only ever have the experiences of white boys. This is true of anyone. You will design things that fit within your own experiences. Even those that attempt to look outside their own experiences will only ever know what questions to ask based on that experience. Even those doing good research can only ask questions they think to ask. In short, even the most well-meaning white boys don&#x2019;t know what they don&#x2019;t know. That&#x2019;s before we even deal with the ones that aren&#x2019;t well-meaning. (I see you, <a href=\"https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/carolineodonovan/uber-ceo-travis-kalanick-just-resigned\">Travis</a>.)</p><p>Twitter never built in a way to deal with harassment because none of the people designing it had ever been harassed, so it didn&#x2019;t come up. Twitter didn&#x2019;t build in a way to deal with threats because none of the people designing it had ever gotten a death threat. It didn&#x2019;t come up. Twitter didn&#x2019;t build in a way to deal with stalking because no one on the team had ever been stalked. It didn&#x2019;t come up.</p> </div> <div class=\"subbuzz subbuzz-text xs-mb4 xs-relative \"> <p>The promise of the internet was that it was going to give voice to the voiceless, visibility to the invisible, and power to the powerless. That&#x2019;s what originally excited me about it. That&#x2019;s what originally excited a ton of people about it. It was supposed to be an engine of equality. Suddenly, everyone could tell their story. Suddenly, everyone could sing their song. Suddenly, that one weird kid in Helena, Montana, could find another weird kid just like them in Bakersfield, California, and they could talk and know they weren&#x2019;t alone. Suddenly, we didn&#x2019;t need anybody&#x2019;s permission to publish. We put our stories and songs and messages and artwork where the world could find them. For a while it was beautiful, it was messy, and it was punk as fuck. We all rolled up our sleeves and helped to build it.</p><p>We were the ones who were supposed to guide it there, and we failed. We failed because we were naive enough to believe everyone had the same goals we did. We failed because we underestimated greed. We failed because we didn&#x2019;t pay attention to history. We failed because our definition of we wasn&#x2019;t big enough.</p><p>We designed and built platforms that undermined democracy across the world. We designed and built technology that is used to round up immigrants and refugees and put them in cages. We designed and built platforms that young, stupid, hateful men use to demean and shame women. We designed and built an entire industry that exploits the poor in order to make old rich men even richer.</p> </div> <div class=\"subbuzz subbuzz-pullquote xs-relative col xs-col-12 xs-z1 xs-mb4 md-text-center\"> <p class=\"pullquote\"> &#xA0;It was built on our watch and it needs to burn on our watch.&#xA0; </p> </div> <div class=\"subbuzz subbuzz-text xs-mb4 xs-relative \"> <p>If your reply is that we didn&#x2019;t design and build these things to be used this way, then all I can say is that you&#x2019;ve done a shit job of designing them, because that is what they&#x2019;re being used for. These monsters are yours, regardless of what your intentions might have been.</p><p>We can&#x2019;t control every way that people use the tools we build, but that doesn&#x2019;t make us any less responsible for them. I realize you didn&#x2019;t build these monsters on your own, but regardless of how many people&#x2019;s parts your monster is made from, the fingerprints will always be your own.</p><p>The machine we&#x2019;ve built is odious. Not only can we not participate in its operation, nor passively participate, it&#x2019;s now on us to dismantle it. It was built on our watch and it needs to burn on our watch. When a platform we designed and built to connect people across the world is used to dox the parents of murdered children, and the people who run it refuse to do anything about it; when they refuse to fix it because they don&#x2019;t see it as a problem; when they attempt to justify the profits with which they&#x2019;re lining their pockets as values, we need to burn it to the ground.</p><p>When we refuse to let our own children use the fruits of our labor while still cashing the checks we&#x2019;re earning by addicting other people&#x2019;s children &#x2014; all the while rending our garments over &#x201C;what&#x2019;s happening to kids today!&#x201D; &#x2014; we need to burn all our work down.</p><p>Nothing is happening to the children. We are doing something to the children. Let it all burn down, and let those that come after us sift through the ashes to learn from our mistakes.</p> </div> <div class=\"subbuzz subbuzz-text xs-mb4 xs-relative \"> <p>The prevailing wisdom of the era that produced this nightmare was that you build the things you and your team wanted to use. You&#x2019;d sometimes hear this phrased as &#x201C;eating your own dog food.&#x201D; Charming. The problem is that when your team all have roughly the same experiences, and you end up building the tool that works for that team, you&#x2019;ve marginalized everyone else.</p><p>Did I say prevailing wisdom of that era?</p><p>I shit you not, as I was writing that paragraph, my wife Erika Hall sent me this tweet:</p> </div> <div class=\"subbuzz subbuzz-text xs-mb4 xs-relative \"> <p>That&#x2019;s from Brian Norgard, formerly the chief product officer at Tinder, also an investor in SpaceX and Lyft. Sent out on July 25, 2018. The idea that you build the product you want to use is alive and well in Silicon Valley. (As is the idea that guesswork is the alternative to bravado.)<br></p><p>Product teams in Silicon Valley are dominated by white males. Only 25% of computing jobs are held by women, according to The National Center for Women &amp; Information Technology&#x2019;s Women In Tech 2016 report. The majority of those jobs are held by white women. Latinx women clocked in at 1% of that particular workforce.</p><p>That means not only are we excluding everyone who&#x2019;s not white and male (gonna go out on a crazy limb here and include heterosexual and cis in that description) from designing and building the tools of the future, we&#x2019;re explicitly excluding them from being served by those tools. We are white men building tools for white men.</p><p>For 10 years, Twitter has been dealing with harassment and abuse on its platform. It&#x2019;s gone through a few CEOs. All white. All male. Every time there&#x2019;s a high-profile attack, one of those CEOs comes out and does a dog and pony show about how Twitter will now finally &#x2014; no really this time for real &#x2014; actually look into cutting down abuse and then three weeks later, they roll out rounded corners for tweets instead. (I guess the tweets won&#x2019;t hurt as much now that the corners aren&#x2019;t so sharp?)</p><p>Twitter doesn&#x2019;t deal with harassment and abuse because it doesn&#x2019;t want to. As Upton Sinclair said, &#x201C;It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.&#x201D; But there&#x2019;s another reason. The second reason is that Twitter is too hard to fix. Twitter was broken from conception. Twitter&#x2019;s original sin occurred the day that four white boys sat around a room and designed the seed of what the platform would be.</p><p>Having one very narrow singular viewpoint for a tool that ended up having a global reach was akin to building a time bomb within the foundation. As Twitter grew, it became harder and harder to go back and fix the foundation that was now propping up a towering inferno of garbage. At this point, abuse and harassment are as much a part of the Twitter experience as retweets and faves.</p><p>We have to be ready for any tool we build to have a global impact. But even if it only impacts the area around you, chances are it is going to, hopefully, reach people who are different from you. People who have different needs, different abilities, different cultures, different languages, different experiences, different tastes. Don&#x2019;t you want all of those people using your tool? Don&#x2019;t you want them to be able to participate in what you&#x2019;re making?</p><p>Don&#x2019;t you want it to work for them? And, for the capitalists who might still be reading: Don&#x2019;t you want their money? If we intend to build successful tools, we need to expand our definition of &#x201C;we.&#x201D;</p> </div> </div>","url":"https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/mikemonteiro/we-built-a-broken-internet-now-we-need-to-burn-it","date_published":"2019-04-02T15:06:37+00:00","author":{"name":""}},{"id":"1369","title":"History | People-Centered Economic Development","content_html":"<div class=\"field-item even\">\n<p><em>People-Centered Economic Development, P-CED, derived from a paper for the steering committee to reelect the [US] President in 1996. Following is a synopsis of that paper.</em></p>\n<p>I..</p>\n<p>At first glance, it might seem redundant to emphasize people as the central focus of economics. After all, isn&#x2019;t the purpose of economics, as well as business, people? Aren&#x2019;t people automatically the central focus of business and economic activities? Yes and no.</p>\n<p>People certainly gain and benefit, but the rub is: which people? More than a billion children, women, and men on this planet suffer from hunger. It is a travesty that this is the case, a blight upon us all as a global social group. Perhaps an even greater travesty is that it does not have to be this way; the problems of human suffering on such a massive scale are not unsolvable. If a few businesses were conducted only slightly differently, much of the misery and suffering as we now know it could be eliminated. This is where the concept of a &#x201C;people-centered&#x201D; economics system comes in.</p>\n<p>The P-CED concept is to create new businesses that do things differently from their inception, and perhaps modify existing businesses that want to do it. This business model entails doing exactly the same things by which any business is set up and conducted in the free-market system of economics. The only difference is this: that at least fifty percent of profits go to stimulate a given local economy, instead of going to private hands. In effect, the business would operate in much the same manner as a charitable, non-profit organization whose proceeds go to local, national, and international charities. Non-profits, however, are typically very restricted in the type of business they can conduct. In the United States, all non-profits must constantly pay heed that they are not violating those restrictions, lest they suffer the wrath of the Internal Revenue Service. For-profits, on the other hand, have a relatively free hand when it comes to doing business. The only restrictions are the normal terms and conditions of free-enterprise. If a corporation wants to donate to its local community, it can do so, be it one percent, five percent, fifty or even seventy percent. There is no one to protest or dictate otherwise, except a board of directors and stockholders. This is not a small consideration, since most boards and stockholders would object. &#xA0;But, if an a priori arrangement has been made with said stockholders and directors such that this direction of profits is entirely the point, then no objection can emerge. Indeed, the corporate charter can require that these monies be directed into community development funds, such as a permanent, irrevocable trust fund. The trust fund, in turn, would be under the oversight of a board of directors made up of corporate employees and community leaders.</p>\n<p>How can such a thing work? Where would the initial venture capital come from? This capital in each case can come from each community if available, or from sponsoring communities or funding organizations. In Chapel Hill, North Carolina, for example &#x2014; where P-CED was born in 1997 &#x2014; multi-millions of dollars are donated each year to charities, after which the money is typically given away, spent, and gone. Two churches adjacent to the university campus recently raised in excess of four million dollars to improve their buildings. (As a counterbalance, a third church chose to forego its own plans for a building and donated its entire building fund to a badly-needed support program for the elderly.) If twenty percent were set aside to fund a &#x201C;P-CED enterprise&#x201D;, that money would never go away, but would instead grow as it should in business. Once the seed capital is available and the business plan implemented, everything after that goes the normal way of business. Employees are paid according to the local pay scales, receive benefits, and so on. They would also enjoy profit-sharing directly for themselves from a total pool of ten percent of profits. Forty percent of profits would be rolled back over into the company for growth. The remaining fifty percent would go to the trust fund. Thus, aside from the final direction of profits, everything is exactly the same as with any other business enterprise.</p>\n<p>II.</p>\n<p>We are at the very beginning of a new type of society and civilization, the Information Age. Historically, this is only the third distinct age of civilization. We lived in an agricultural age for thousands of years, which gave way to the Industrial Revolution and Industrial Age during the last three hundred years. The Industrial Age is now giving way to the Information Revolution, which is giving rise to the Information Age. Understanding this, it is appropriate to be concerned with the impact this transition is having and will continue to have on the lives of all of us. In that it is a fundamental predicate of &#x201C;people-centered&#x201D; economic development that no person is disposable, it follows that close attention be paid to those in the waning Industrial Age who are not equipped and prepared to take active and productive roles in an Information Age. Many, in fact, are scared, angry, and deeply resentful that they are being left out, ignored, effectively disenfranchised, discarded, thrown away as human flotsam in the name of human and social progress. We have only to ask ourselves individually whether or not this is the sort of progress we want, where we accept consciously and intentionally that human progress allows for disposing of other human beings.</p>\n<p>This is a tricky question. Except in the case of self-defense, if for any reason we answer &#x201C;Yes&#x201D;, regardless of what that reason is, we are in effect agreeing with the proposition of disposing of human beings. Whether disposal be from deprivation or execution, the result is the same for the victim. If we agree that sometimes, for some reasons, it is acceptable and permissible to dispose of human beings, actively or passively, the next question is &#x201C;Which people?&#x201D; Of course I will never argue that one of them should be me, though perhaps it should be you. You respond in kind, it cannot be you, but maybe it should be me. Not only can it not be you, it also cannot be your spouse, your children, your mother or father, your friends, your neighbors, but, maybe someone else. Naturally I feel the same way. Maybe we come to an agreement that it shouldn&#x2019;t be either you or me, or our families and friends, that can be disposed of, but perhaps someone else. While we are debating this &#x2014; passionately and sincerely, no doubt &#x2014; a third party comes along and without warning disposes of the both of us, or our families, or our friends. And there is the trap we have fallen into, because whether or not we approve of our or our families&#x2019; and friends&#x2019; demise is irrelevant. It is fair because we accepted the principle of human disposability. We just didn&#x2019;t intend that it be us who are tossed, but if we or our families and friends die, it is in accordance with principles that we ourselves have accepted and so must live &#x2014; and die &#x2014; by.</p>\n<p>We can actually engineer, very precisely and intentionally, a social system whereby human beings are not disposable, and then go about setting forward our social machinery with this requirement built-in as a part of our &#x201C;social software&#x201D;, as it were. Or, we can decide not to do it. Either way, a decision is made as to the fate of those who would be dispossessed, unwanted, and in the way.</p>\n<p><strong>Listen</strong>: these people are not going to go quietly into the night. Once a person is intentionally cast aside, all prevailing social contracts which might pertain no longer apply and all previous bets are off. It becomes self-defense for the intended victim.</p>\n<p>Once a nation or government puts people in the position of defending their own lives, or that of family and friends, and they all will die if they do nothing about it, at that point all laws, social contracts and covenants end. Laws, social contracts and covenants define civilization. Without them, there is no civilization at all, there is only the law of the jungle: kill, or be killed. This is where we started, tens of thousands of years ago.</p>\n<p>By leaving people in poverty, at risk of their lives due to lack of basic living essentials, we have stepped across the boundary of civilization. We have conceded that these people do not matter, are not important. Allowing them to starve to death, freeze to death, die from deprivation, or simply shooting them, is in the end exactly the same thing. Inflicting or allowing poverty on a group of people or an entire country is a formula for disaster.</p>\n<p>The greatest initial social and economic risk of the Information Age is in creating two distinctly different classes of people: the technological haves and have-nots. Those who have access to information and information technology have a reasonable expectation to survive and prosper. Those with limited or no access will be left out. This holds true for individuals as well as nations. The key to the future is access to free flow of information. To the extent that the free flow of information is restricted or diminished, people will be left to endure diminished prospects of prosperity and even survival.</p>\n<p>In order for economic development to take place in any given location, the very first thing required, before anything else can possibly happen, is information. This information includes first and foremost where to look for the necessary resources to do anything. If new businesses are needed, knowing they are needed and finding funding for them are two very different things. The first step is to locate possible capital resources in order to move forward, and this step is no more and no less than information. Once resources are located, the next step is what terms and conditions are involved in obtaining those resources &#x2014; more information. Once this is known, paperwork must be completed, business plans made, market research and due diligence conducted, and all of this compiled and forwarded to the appropriate parties. Again, nothing more than information. In fact, most of the work involved between identifying a need and solving the problem is information acquisition and management: getting and developing information.</p>\n<p>As Alvin Toffler predicted in Power Shift, where once violence and then wealth were dominant forms of power, information is now becoming the dominant power. Those nations with the greatest freedom of information and means of transmitting it have now become the most powerful and influential, and the strongest economically. Toffler also predicted the collapse of the Soviet Union would come about due primarily to its authoritarian control and limiting of information. Unfortunately for Russian citizens, this old habit has continued for them beyond the collapse of the former Soviet Union and will at the least make an interesting case study on the survivability of a once strong nation which still remains committed to limiting and controlling information.</p>\n<p>By going with the normal flow of free-market enterprise and the emerging replacement of monetary capital with intellectual capital as the dominant form of basic enterprise capitalization, it becomes easier to set up new companies primarily on the basis of invested intellectual capital. (See Post-Capitalist Society, by Peter Drucker). In plain English, socially responsible and forward-thinking companies can be set up quickly and cheaply&#x2013;and these companies have indefinite potential for earnings and localized, targeted economic development. The initial objective is to develop model enterprises and communities, then implement successful strategies from those models into surrounding communities regionwide or nationwide, as needed.</p>\n<p>With an initial P-CED business enterprise set up in a given community, it becomes possible to bring people into the fold, so to speak, of the Information Age. No existing company need change anything whatsoever about how it does business. New web development, software development and information management enterprises, for example, can be set up quickly for extremely low seed capital outlays. Existing businesses who need web/software development and management services can have their business readily enhanced for costs that are relatively insignificant compared to increased viability and long-term profitability of entering into a much broader marketplace&#x2013;without a brick being laid. The design firm wins, the existing business wins. Most importantly, the community-at-large wins by way of decreased poverty and unemployment, since the design firm&#x2019;s profits for the most part go back into the community&#x2013;for adult education or retraining, high-tech head start programs for underprivileged children, seeding new small businesses, and social relief. Along the way, the design firm&#x2019;s employees benefit from good wages, profit sharing, and normal benefit packages. Well paid employees in effect produce, inevitably, highly desirable social and community outcomes. In short, everyone benefits. In that this new enterprise effectively becomes a primary node and locus of much-needed information for the community, it is appropriate to seek seed capital to start the enterprise from traditional development and aid funding sources. The result is a self-sustaining and self-perpetuating enterprise that feeds on the very need, or demand, for resources that hampered the community and its people to begin with.</p>\n<p>With globally dispersed web sites deployed, the global resource base becomes available as a means for each community to best determine resource locations to meet its needs. Such a localized determination of needs, and connection into a global resource network that provides a means to actually address those needs, has not been possible prior to the onset of the Information Revolution and the emergence of the Internet and Web.</p>\n<p>The direction and character of our new age of civilization can, for the first time in human history, be proactively determined, planned and managed for the global public good.</p>\n<p>III.</p>\n<p>A primary impetus for the P-CED project was the opportunity to pitch the idea at the very top&#x2013;i.e.., to the White House. President Clinton invited me in 1995 to an honorary appointment to his re-election steering committee. Quite frankly, I wasn&#x2019;t sure how to take the idea of an honorary appointment: did it mean an active, passive, or invisible (just send money) role in the re-election campaign? I suspected the latter and opted for the former. After a great deal of reflection and consideration, I accepted the appointment by way of a cover letter and an accompanying position paper which was the outline and foundation for P-CED. This document is a synopsis of that paper.</p>\n<p>The initial business model included in the paper was to set up a high-tech marketing company which would operate along the same lines as the web site design firm mentioned above. The marketing firm would focus on marketing hardware and software components needed to build the global information infrastructure, or GII &#x2014; a project being heavily promoted by the US Department of Commerce. The thinking was that this is going to happen anyway, so why not set up a firm to participate in the process which would guarantee economic benefit to at-risk US as well as global citizens? Similar enterprises could be implemented in widely dispersed local areas, even areas as small as rural third world villages, as the GII is extended. It is now possible to connect most remote areas to the GII. A key ingredient in the deployment would be wireless Internet connectivity, simply because it is faster and cheaper to set up and offers maximum usage flexibility for network users.</p>\n<p>Additionally, the proposed firm would follow in behind the physical deployment of the information infrastructure by making it practical and useful by setting up web and software development activities and following with information management.</p>\n<p>The benefit to the initial marketing firm is perhaps fairly obvious. How much money will be made in the construction of the GII? How much in the way of total global annual revenues will it support once deployed? Will deployment ever be &#x201C;finished&#x201D;, or will it be an ongoing process yielding ongoing construction/maintenance profits? In my view, we are facing not just the emergence of the next age of human civilization, but also the mushrooming of the most powerful economic force ever to appear on the face of the earth. By its very nature of decentralized information and education, it invites participation, involvement, and potential benefit for essentially every locale on the planet. During 1997, the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill and IBM teamed together to make UNC&#x2019;s curriculum and degree programs available by way of distance learning on the Internet to the far reaches of the globe. Duke University has implemented an MBA program available online, requiring only a half-dozen or so meetings during the course&#x2013;each in different parts of the world.</p>\n<p>Top-notch education is leaving the confines of physical campus and four walls. A student in remote Zaire, given an Internet connection, can become a Duke-educated Master of Business Administration, while remaining mostly in his or her home village to the village&#x2019;s benefit. The prospect of such decentralized localization of education and economic activity allows a great deal of autonomy, freedom and self-determinism in the village&#x2019;s own character and identity. It need not be a risk to cultural heritage and integrity to benefit economically; the means by which such benefit will occur, how local citizens can have food, shelter, health care, and a basic sustaining human standard of existence can be determined at the local village level and then communicated at the regional, national, and global level simultaneously at virtually no cost via the Internet and a web site. It is this basic level of human sustenance, coupled with self-sustaining enterprise to provide this basic level of support, that I refer to as sustainable development &#x2014; which is just another way of saying &#x201C;people-centered&#x201D; economic development.</p>\n<p>The P-CED &#x201C;type&#x201D; of firm demonstrates how a for-profit enterprise can be created and operated for the benefit of those who need the profits, and who will not have access to financial markets otherwise. In effect, those in poverty would benefit much as if they were actual stockholders in the enterprise. Networking with business development organizations enables the poor to develop their own business enterprises. Microcredit, or microfinance, organizations have proven to be very effective tools in fostering small business development in cash-starved locations. A very successful loan program in the US, Good Work, Inc., has operated in Durham, North Carolina since 1992, with the aim of providing loans and microloans in amounts from $500 to $10,000 to people who would not be able to find money otherwise. Business planning and management training are provided to applicants to ensure loan viability and business success. Good Work reports a business survival rate of more than ninety percent.</p>\n<p>Clearly, profits can be used very effectively in ways other than traditional investment and profit outcomes. Moreover, this is not charity, it is business&#x2013;good business. One P-CED firm could be expected to spin off dozens of new firms and businesses, all of which create new jobs and all of which operate under traditional free-enterprise practices. That is, if a spin-off business were to profit a million dollars a year, the owners can bank the money for themselves and their stockholders as is the normal practice. There is nothing wrong with individuals becoming wealthy. It is only when wealth begins to concentrate in the hands of a relative few at the expense of billions of others who are denied even a small share of finite wealth that trouble starts and physical, human suffering begins. It does not have to be this way. Massive greed and consequent massive human misery and suffering do not have to be accepted as a givens, unavoidable, intractable, irresolvable. Just changing the way business is done, if only by a few companies, can change the flow of wealth, ease and eliminate poverty, and leave us all with something better to worry about. Basic human needs such as food and shelter are fundamental human rights; there are more than enough resources available to go around&#x2013;if we can just figure out how to share. It cannot be &#x201C;Me first, mine first&#x201D;; rather, &#x201C;Me, too&#x201D; is more the order of the day.</p>\n<p>Terry Hallman</p>\n<p>Chapel Hill, NC</p>\n<p>August, 1997</p> <p>Bibliography</p>\n<ul>\n<li>Anastasi, Anne.&#xA0; Psychological Testing.&#xA0; Macmillan, New York, 1976.</li>\n<li>Capra, Fritjof.&#xA0; The Tao of Physics.&#xA0; Shambhala, Berkeley,&#xA0; 1975.</li>\n<li>Capra, Fritjof.&#xA0; The Turning Point: Science, Society, and the Rising Culture.&#xA0; Simon and Schuster, New York, 1982.</li>\n<li>Davis and Hersh.&#xA0; The Mathematical Experience.&#xA0; Birkha&#x308;user, Boston, 1981.</li>\n<li>Drucker, Peter F.&#xA0; Post-capitalist society.&#xA0; Harper, New York, 1993.</li>\n<li>Ferguson, Marilyn.&#xA0; The Aquarian Conspiracy : personal and social transformation in the 1980s. JP Tarcher, Los Angeles, dist. by St. Martin&#x2019;s Press, NY, 1980.</li>\n<li>Fromm, Erich.&#xA0; The Art of Loving.&#xA0; Harper, New York, 1956.</li>\n<li>May, Rollo.&#xA0; Man&#x2019;s search for himself.&#xA0; W. W. Norton, New York, 1967.</li>\n<li>May, Rollo.&#xA0; Love and Will.&#xA0; W. W. Norton, New York, 1969.</li>\n<li>Ouchi, William G.&#xA0; Theory Z : how American business can meet the Japanese challenge.&#xA0; Addison-Wesley, Reading Massachusets, 1981.</li>\n<li>Peters and Waterman.&#xA0; In search of excellence : lessons from America&#x2019;s best-run companies.&#xA0; Harper and Row, New York, 1982</li>\n<li>Rogers, Carl.&#xA0; On Becoming a Person.&#xA0; Houghton Mifflin, New York, 1961.</li>\n<li>Rogers, Carl.&#xA0; Client-Centered Therapy.&#xA0; Houghton Mifflin, Boston, 1965.</li>\n<li>Toffler, Alvin and Heidi.&#xA0; Powershift : knowledge, wealth, and violence at the edge of the 21st century.&#xA0; Bantam Books, New York, 1990.</li>\n</ul>\n</div>","url":"http://wp.p-ced.org/about-p-ced/history/","date_published":"2019-04-02T01:25:30+00:00","author":{"name":""}},{"id":"1368","title":"History | People-Centered Economic Development","content_html":"<div class=\"field-item even\">\n<p><em>People-Centered Economic Development, P-CED, derived from a paper for the steering committee to reelect the [US] President in 1996. Following is a synopsis of that paper.</em></p>\n<p>I..</p>\n<p>At first glance, it might seem redundant to emphasize people as the central focus of economics. After all, isn&#x2019;t the purpose of economics, as well as business, people? Aren&#x2019;t people automatically the central focus of business and economic activities? Yes and no.</p>\n<p>People certainly gain and benefit, but the rub is: which people? More than a billion children, women, and men on this planet suffer from hunger. It is a travesty that this is the case, a blight upon us all as a global social group. Perhaps an even greater travesty is that it does not have to be this way; the problems of human suffering on such a massive scale are not unsolvable. If a few businesses were conducted only slightly differently, much of the misery and suffering as we now know it could be eliminated. This is where the concept of a &#x201C;people-centered&#x201D; economics system comes in.</p>\n<p>The P-CED concept is to create new businesses that do things differently from their inception, and perhaps modify existing businesses that want to do it. This business model entails doing exactly the same things by which any business is set up and conducted in the free-market system of economics. The only difference is this: that at least fifty percent of profits go to stimulate a given local economy, instead of going to private hands. In effect, the business would operate in much the same manner as a charitable, non-profit organization whose proceeds go to local, national, and international charities. Non-profits, however, are typically very restricted in the type of business they can conduct. In the United States, all non-profits must constantly pay heed that they are not violating those restrictions, lest they suffer the wrath of the Internal Revenue Service. For-profits, on the other hand, have a relatively free hand when it comes to doing business. The only restrictions are the normal terms and conditions of free-enterprise. If a corporation wants to donate to its local community, it can do so, be it one percent, five percent, fifty or even seventy percent. There is no one to protest or dictate otherwise, except a board of directors and stockholders. This is not a small consideration, since most boards and stockholders would object. &#xA0;But, if an a priori arrangement has been made with said stockholders and directors such that this direction of profits is entirely the point, then no objection can emerge. Indeed, the corporate charter can require that these monies be directed into community development funds, such as a permanent, irrevocable trust fund. The trust fund, in turn, would be under the oversight of a board of directors made up of corporate employees and community leaders.</p>\n<p>How can such a thing work? Where would the initial venture capital come from? This capital in each case can come from each community if available, or from sponsoring communities or funding organizations. In Chapel Hill, North Carolina, for example &#x2014; where P-CED was born in 1997 &#x2014; multi-millions of dollars are donated each year to charities, after which the money is typically given away, spent, and gone. Two churches adjacent to the university campus recently raised in excess of four million dollars to improve their buildings. (As a counterbalance, a third church chose to forego its own plans for a building and donated its entire building fund to a badly-needed support program for the elderly.) If twenty percent were set aside to fund a &#x201C;P-CED enterprise&#x201D;, that money would never go away, but would instead grow as it should in business. Once the seed capital is available and the business plan implemented, everything after that goes the normal way of business. Employees are paid according to the local pay scales, receive benefits, and so on. They would also enjoy profit-sharing directly for themselves from a total pool of ten percent of profits. Forty percent of profits would be rolled back over into the company for growth. The remaining fifty percent would go to the trust fund. Thus, aside from the final direction of profits, everything is exactly the same as with any other business enterprise.</p>\n<p>II.</p>\n<p>We are at the very beginning of a new type of society and civilization, the Information Age. Historically, this is only the third distinct age of civilization. We lived in an agricultural age for thousands of years, which gave way to the Industrial Revolution and Industrial Age during the last three hundred years. The Industrial Age is now giving way to the Information Revolution, which is giving rise to the Information Age. Understanding this, it is appropriate to be concerned with the impact this transition is having and will continue to have on the lives of all of us. In that it is a fundamental predicate of &#x201C;people-centered&#x201D; economic development that no person is disposable, it follows that close attention be paid to those in the waning Industrial Age who are not equipped and prepared to take active and productive roles in an Information Age. Many, in fact, are scared, angry, and deeply resentful that they are being left out, ignored, effectively disenfranchised, discarded, thrown away as human flotsam in the name of human and social progress. We have only to ask ourselves individually whether or not this is the sort of progress we want, where we accept consciously and intentionally that human progress allows for disposing of other human beings.</p>\n<p>This is a tricky question. Except in the case of self-defense, if for any reason we answer &#x201C;Yes&#x201D;, regardless of what that reason is, we are in effect agreeing with the proposition of disposing of human beings. Whether disposal be from deprivation or execution, the result is the same for the victim. If we agree that sometimes, for some reasons, it is acceptable and permissible to dispose of human beings, actively or passively, the next question is &#x201C;Which people?&#x201D; Of course I will never argue that one of them should be me, though perhaps it should be you. You respond in kind, it cannot be you, but maybe it should be me. Not only can it not be you, it also cannot be your spouse, your children, your mother or father, your friends, your neighbors, but, maybe someone else. Naturally I feel the same way. Maybe we come to an agreement that it shouldn&#x2019;t be either you or me, or our families and friends, that can be disposed of, but perhaps someone else. While we are debating this &#x2014; passionately and sincerely, no doubt &#x2014; a third party comes along and without warning disposes of the both of us, or our families, or our friends. And there is the trap we have fallen into, because whether or not we approve of our or our families&#x2019; and friends&#x2019; demise is irrelevant. It is fair because we accepted the principle of human disposability. We just didn&#x2019;t intend that it be us who are tossed, but if we or our families and friends die, it is in accordance with principles that we ourselves have accepted and so must live &#x2014; and die &#x2014; by.</p>\n<p>We can actually engineer, very precisely and intentionally, a social system whereby human beings are not disposable, and then go about setting forward our social machinery with this requirement built-in as a part of our &#x201C;social software&#x201D;, as it were. Or, we can decide not to do it. Either way, a decision is made as to the fate of those who would be dispossessed, unwanted, and in the way.</p>\n<p><strong>Listen</strong>: these people are not going to go quietly into the night. Once a person is intentionally cast aside, all prevailing social contracts which might pertain no longer apply and all previous bets are off. It becomes self-defense for the intended victim.</p>\n<p>Once a nation or government puts people in the position of defending their own lives, or that of family and friends, and they all will die if they do nothing about it, at that point all laws, social contracts and covenants end. Laws, social contracts and covenants define civilization. Without them, there is no civilization at all, there is only the law of the jungle: kill, or be killed. This is where we started, tens of thousands of years ago.</p>\n<p>By leaving people in poverty, at risk of their lives due to lack of basic living essentials, we have stepped across the boundary of civilization. We have conceded that these people do not matter, are not important. Allowing them to starve to death, freeze to death, die from deprivation, or simply shooting them, is in the end exactly the same thing. Inflicting or allowing poverty on a group of people or an entire country is a formula for disaster.</p>\n<p>The greatest initial social and economic risk of the Information Age is in creating two distinctly different classes of people: the technological haves and have-nots. Those who have access to information and information technology have a reasonable expectation to survive and prosper. Those with limited or no access will be left out. This holds true for individuals as well as nations. The key to the future is access to free flow of information. To the extent that the free flow of information is restricted or diminished, people will be left to endure diminished prospects of prosperity and even survival.</p>\n<p>In order for economic development to take place in any given location, the very first thing required, before anything else can possibly happen, is information. This information includes first and foremost where to look for the necessary resources to do anything. If new businesses are needed, knowing they are needed and finding funding for them are two very different things. The first step is to locate possible capital resources in order to move forward, and this step is no more and no less than information. Once resources are located, the next step is what terms and conditions are involved in obtaining those resources &#x2014; more information. Once this is known, paperwork must be completed, business plans made, market research and due diligence conducted, and all of this compiled and forwarded to the appropriate parties. Again, nothing more than information. In fact, most of the work involved between identifying a need and solving the problem is information acquisition and management: getting and developing information.</p>\n<p>As Alvin Toffler predicted in Power Shift, where once violence and then wealth were dominant forms of power, information is now becoming the dominant power. Those nations with the greatest freedom of information and means of transmitting it have now become the most powerful and influential, and the strongest economically. Toffler also predicted the collapse of the Soviet Union would come about due primarily to its authoritarian control and limiting of information. Unfortunately for Russian citizens, this old habit has continued for them beyond the collapse of the former Soviet Union and will at the least make an interesting case study on the survivability of a once strong nation which still remains committed to limiting and controlling information.</p>\n<p>By going with the normal flow of free-market enterprise and the emerging replacement of monetary capital with intellectual capital as the dominant form of basic enterprise capitalization, it becomes easier to set up new companies primarily on the basis of invested intellectual capital. (See Post-Capitalist Society, by Peter Drucker). In plain English, socially responsible and forward-thinking companies can be set up quickly and cheaply&#x2013;and these companies have indefinite potential for earnings and localized, targeted economic development. The initial objective is to develop model enterprises and communities, then implement successful strategies from those models into surrounding communities regionwide or nationwide, as needed.</p>\n<p>With an initial P-CED business enterprise set up in a given community, it becomes possible to bring people into the fold, so to speak, of the Information Age. No existing company need change anything whatsoever about how it does business. New web development, software development and information management enterprises, for example, can be set up quickly for extremely low seed capital outlays. Existing businesses who need web/software development and management services can have their business readily enhanced for costs that are relatively insignificant compared to increased viability and long-term profitability of entering into a much broader marketplace&#x2013;without a brick being laid. The design firm wins, the existing business wins. Most importantly, the community-at-large wins by way of decreased poverty and unemployment, since the design firm&#x2019;s profits for the most part go back into the community&#x2013;for adult education or retraining, high-tech head start programs for underprivileged children, seeding new small businesses, and social relief. Along the way, the design firm&#x2019;s employees benefit from good wages, profit sharing, and normal benefit packages. Well paid employees in effect produce, inevitably, highly desirable social and community outcomes. In short, everyone benefits. In that this new enterprise effectively becomes a primary node and locus of much-needed information for the community, it is appropriate to seek seed capital to start the enterprise from traditional development and aid funding sources. The result is a self-sustaining and self-perpetuating enterprise that feeds on the very need, or demand, for resources that hampered the community and its people to begin with.</p>\n<p>With globally dispersed web sites deployed, the global resource base becomes available as a means for each community to best determine resource locations to meet its needs. Such a localized determination of needs, and connection into a global resource network that provides a means to actually address those needs, has not been possible prior to the onset of the Information Revolution and the emergence of the Internet and Web.</p>\n<p>The direction and character of our new age of civilization can, for the first time in human history, be proactively determined, planned and managed for the global public good.</p>\n<p>III.</p>\n<p>A primary impetus for the P-CED project was the opportunity to pitch the idea at the very top&#x2013;i.e.., to the White House. President Clinton invited me in 1995 to an honorary appointment to his re-election steering committee. Quite frankly, I wasn&#x2019;t sure how to take the idea of an honorary appointment: did it mean an active, passive, or invisible (just send money) role in the re-election campaign? I suspected the latter and opted for the former. After a great deal of reflection and consideration, I accepted the appointment by way of a cover letter and an accompanying position paper which was the outline and foundation for P-CED. This document is a synopsis of that paper.</p>\n<p>The initial business model included in the paper was to set up a high-tech marketing company which would operate along the same lines as the web site design firm mentioned above. The marketing firm would focus on marketing hardware and software components needed to build the global information infrastructure, or GII &#x2014; a project being heavily promoted by the US Department of Commerce. The thinking was that this is going to happen anyway, so why not set up a firm to participate in the process which would guarantee economic benefit to at-risk US as well as global citizens? Similar enterprises could be implemented in widely dispersed local areas, even areas as small as rural third world villages, as the GII is extended. It is now possible to connect most remote areas to the GII. A key ingredient in the deployment would be wireless Internet connectivity, simply because it is faster and cheaper to set up and offers maximum usage flexibility for network users.</p>\n<p>Additionally, the proposed firm would follow in behind the physical deployment of the information infrastructure by making it practical and useful by setting up web and software development activities and following with information management.</p>\n<p>The benefit to the initial marketing firm is perhaps fairly obvious. How much money will be made in the construction of the GII? How much in the way of total global annual revenues will it support once deployed? Will deployment ever be &#x201C;finished&#x201D;, or will it be an ongoing process yielding ongoing construction/maintenance profits? In my view, we are facing not just the emergence of the next age of human civilization, but also the mushrooming of the most powerful economic force ever to appear on the face of the earth. By its very nature of decentralized information and education, it invites participation, involvement, and potential benefit for essentially every locale on the planet. During 1997, the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill and IBM teamed together to make UNC&#x2019;s curriculum and degree programs available by way of distance learning on the Internet to the far reaches of the globe. Duke University has implemented an MBA program available online, requiring only a half-dozen or so meetings during the course&#x2013;each in different parts of the world.</p>\n<p>Top-notch education is leaving the confines of physical campus and four walls. A student in remote Zaire, given an Internet connection, can become a Duke-educated Master of Business Administration, while remaining mostly in his or her home village to the village&#x2019;s benefit. The prospect of such decentralized localization of education and economic activity allows a great deal of autonomy, freedom and self-determinism in the village&#x2019;s own character and identity. It need not be a risk to cultural heritage and integrity to benefit economically; the means by which such benefit will occur, how local citizens can have food, shelter, health care, and a basic sustaining human standard of existence can be determined at the local village level and then communicated at the regional, national, and global level simultaneously at virtually no cost via the Internet and a web site. It is this basic level of human sustenance, coupled with self-sustaining enterprise to provide this basic level of support, that I refer to as sustainable development &#x2014; which is just another way of saying &#x201C;people-centered&#x201D; economic development.</p>\n<p>The P-CED &#x201C;type&#x201D; of firm demonstrates how a for-profit enterprise can be created and operated for the benefit of those who need the profits, and who will not have access to financial markets otherwise. In effect, those in poverty would benefit much as if they were actual stockholders in the enterprise. Networking with business development organizations enables the poor to develop their own business enterprises. Microcredit, or microfinance, organizations have proven to be very effective tools in fostering small business development in cash-starved locations. A very successful loan program in the US, Good Work, Inc., has operated in Durham, North Carolina since 1992, with the aim of providing loans and microloans in amounts from $500 to $10,000 to people who would not be able to find money otherwise. Business planning and management training are provided to applicants to ensure loan viability and business success. Good Work reports a business survival rate of more than ninety percent.</p>\n<p>Clearly, profits can be used very effectively in ways other than traditional investment and profit outcomes. Moreover, this is not charity, it is business&#x2013;good business. One P-CED firm could be expected to spin off dozens of new firms and businesses, all of which create new jobs and all of which operate under traditional free-enterprise practices. That is, if a spin-off business were to profit a million dollars a year, the owners can bank the money for themselves and their stockholders as is the normal practice. There is nothing wrong with individuals becoming wealthy. It is only when wealth begins to concentrate in the hands of a relative few at the expense of billions of others who are denied even a small share of finite wealth that trouble starts and physical, human suffering begins. It does not have to be this way. Massive greed and consequent massive human misery and suffering do not have to be accepted as a givens, unavoidable, intractable, irresolvable. Just changing the way business is done, if only by a few companies, can change the flow of wealth, ease and eliminate poverty, and leave us all with something better to worry about. Basic human needs such as food and shelter are fundamental human rights; there are more than enough resources available to go around&#x2013;if we can just figure out how to share. It cannot be &#x201C;Me first, mine first&#x201D;; rather, &#x201C;Me, too&#x201D; is more the order of the day.</p>\n<p>Terry Hallman</p>\n<p>Chapel Hill, NC</p>\n<p>August, 1997</p> <p>Bibliography</p>\n<ul>\n<li>Anastasi, Anne.&#xA0; Psychological Testing.&#xA0; Macmillan, New York, 1976.</li>\n<li>Capra, Fritjof.&#xA0; The Tao of Physics.&#xA0; Shambhala, Berkeley,&#xA0; 1975.</li>\n<li>Capra, Fritjof.&#xA0; The Turning Point: Science, Society, and the Rising Culture.&#xA0; Simon and Schuster, New York, 1982.</li>\n<li>Davis and Hersh.&#xA0; The Mathematical Experience.&#xA0; Birkha&#x308;user, Boston, 1981.</li>\n<li>Drucker, Peter F.&#xA0; Post-capitalist society.&#xA0; Harper, New York, 1993.</li>\n<li>Ferguson, Marilyn.&#xA0; The Aquarian Conspiracy : personal and social transformation in the 1980s. JP Tarcher, Los Angeles, dist. by St. Martin&#x2019;s Press, NY, 1980.</li>\n<li>Fromm, Erich.&#xA0; The Art of Loving.&#xA0; Harper, New York, 1956.</li>\n<li>May, Rollo.&#xA0; Man&#x2019;s search for himself.&#xA0; W. W. Norton, New York, 1967.</li>\n<li>May, Rollo.&#xA0; Love and Will.&#xA0; W. W. Norton, New York, 1969.</li>\n<li>Ouchi, William G.&#xA0; Theory Z : how American business can meet the Japanese challenge.&#xA0; Addison-Wesley, Reading Massachusets, 1981.</li>\n<li>Peters and Waterman.&#xA0; In search of excellence : lessons from America&#x2019;s best-run companies.&#xA0; Harper and Row, New York, 1982</li>\n<li>Rogers, Carl.&#xA0; On Becoming a Person.&#xA0; Houghton Mifflin, New York, 1961.</li>\n<li>Rogers, Carl.&#xA0; Client-Centered Therapy.&#xA0; Houghton Mifflin, Boston, 1965.</li>\n<li>Toffler, Alvin and Heidi.&#xA0; Powershift : knowledge, wealth, and violence at the edge of the 21st century.&#xA0; Bantam Books, New York, 1990.</li>\n</ul>\n</div>","url":"http://wp.p-ced.org/about-p-ced/history/","date_published":"2019-04-02T01:24:18+00:00","author":{"name":""}},{"id":"1364","title":"Why You Procrastinate (It Has Nothing to Do With Self-Control) — The New York Times","content_html":"<div class=\"content\"> <div class=\"inner-content has-icon\"> <img class=\"app-icon\" src=\"https://apple.news/images/Appicon_v5.png\" alt=\"Apple News\" srcset=\"https://apple.news/images/Appicon_v5.png 1x, https://apple.news/images/Appicon_v5@2x.png 2x, https://apple.news/images/Appicon_v5@3x.png 3x\"> <p><a href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/25/smarter-living/why-you-procrastinate-it-has-nothing-to-do-with-self-control.html\">Click here</a> if the story doesn&#x2019;t open after a few seconds.</p> <p><a class=\"more\" href=\"https://www.apple.com/news/\">Learn more about Apple News</a></p></div> </div>","url":"https://apple.news/AzHCpQmnuTDeDqe34lq9cvg","date_published":"2019-03-28T21:57:46+00:00","author":{"name":""}},{"id":"1361","title":"A Glitch In The Matrix","content_html":"<div class=\"body markup\"><a class=\"image-link\" href=\"https://d3b3sm9t19x0yd.cloudfront.net/image/fetch/c_limit,q_auto:good,f_auto/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F4c6f80a9-e9e6-4184-b0d1-f7d539de0930_1200x577.png\"><img src=\"https://workfutures.substack.com/p/%7B%22src%22:%22https://bucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/4c6f80a9-e9e6-4184-b0d1-f7d539de0930_1200x577.png%22,%22height%22:529,%22width%22:1100,%22alt%22:null,%22title%22:null,%22type%22:%22image/png%22,%22href%22:null%7D\"></a><p><strong>Beacon NY - 2019-03-27</strong> &#x2014; I have been noticing a downturn in writing from the people I like to read the most. I&apos;m not naming names, or finding fault. Maybe it&apos;s the time of year, the press of events, a glitch in the matrix. But whatever it is, I hope it comes to a close.</p><p>:::</p><p>If you&apos;re getting this you probably signed up at <a href=\"http://workfutures.org/\">workfutures.org</a> (or one of its predecessors) or <a href=\"http://stoweboyd.com/\">stoweboyd.com</a>. If someone forwarded this to you, sign up <a href=\"https://www.getrevue.co/profile/workfutures\">here</a>.</p><p>Consider becoming a <a href=\"https://workfutures.substack.com/subscribe\">paid sponsor</a> to support our work, and to receive in-depth investigative reporting and discounts to other events, reports, and activities.</p><p><strong>Stories</strong></p><p><a href=\"https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2019/03/26/706683593/why-hasnt-the-gig-economy-killed-traditional-work\">Why Hasn&apos;t The Gig Economy Killed Traditional Work?</a> | <strong>Greg Rosalsky</strong> talks to Arun Sundararajan, a professor at the NYU Stern School of Business and the author of <em><a href=\"https://www.amazon.com/Sharing-Economy-Employment-Crowd-Based-Capitalism/dp/0262034573\">The Sharing Economy: The End of Employment and the Rise of Crowd-Based Capitalism</a></em> who is a &apos;true believer in the gig revolution&apos; despite counter-indications about the trend:</p><blockquote><p>Sundararajan has been pushing the idea that the gig economy &#x2014; and specifically work done through digital platforms like Uber and Airbnb &#x2014; will conquer traditional employment. Instead of an economy dominated by big corporations, he believes it will be dominated by &quot;a crowd&quot; of self-employed entrepreneurs and workers transacting with customers through digital platforms. &quot;We are in the early days of a fundamental reorganization of the economy,&quot; Sundararajan said while riding to the airport in, naturally, an Uber.</p><p>When asked about the onslaught of data contradicting his thesis, Sundararajan said the Bureau of Labor Statistics continues &quot;to underestimate the size of the gig economy and in particular of the platform-based gig economy.&quot; The best BLS estimate of the number of gig workers employed through digital platforms &#x2014; whether full-time, part-time or occasionally &#x2014; is <a href=\"https://www.bls.gov/cps/electronically-mediated-employment.htm#highlights\">one percent of the total U.S. workforce</a>, or about 1.6 million workers, as of mid-2017. Sundararajan argues that the survey questions the BLS used to gather this data were clunky and don&apos;t quite capture what&apos;s going on.</p><p>While Sundararajan disagrees with estimates about the size of the gig economy, he agrees that most people doing new gig work are either Uber and Lyft drivers or Airbnb hosts. It&apos;s no coincidence that housing and transportation have been the two main areas of growth. Homes and cars are the most valuable things many people possess, and the Internet and smartphones have made using them to make extra money much easier. Sundararajan makes a good case that there will be growth in areas like health care and accounting as well, but there is little evidence to suggest we&apos;re witnessing &quot;the end of employment.&quot;</p></blockquote><p>Larry Katz and Alan Krueger announced that the gig economy made up a great part of job growth for the period 2010-2015 (see <a href=\"https://workfutures.substack.com/p/swift-trust-in-the-gig-economy\">Swift Trust in the Gig Economy</a> and <a href=\"https://workfutures.substack.com/p/what-does-alternative-work-mean\">What Does Alternative Work Mean?</a>), but dialed that back in recent writing <a href=\"https://www.nber.org/papers/w25425\">Understanding Trends in Alternative Work Arrangements in the United States</a>, where they state:</p><blockquote><p>We conclude that there likely has been a modest upward trend in the share of the U.S. workforce in alternative work arrangements during the 2000s.</p></blockquote><p>I bet that part of this confusion comes from the unclarity regarding gig economy workers and plain old freelancers.</p><p>But the big bang will come from the rise of platform-based ecosystems, which Airbnb may be the simplest and most atomic example. More to follow on this topic.</p><p>:::</p><p><a href=\"https://hbr.org/2015/03/how-to-know-if-there-are-too-many-people-in-your-meeting?autocomplete=true\">How to Know If There Are Too Many People in Your Meeting</a> | An excerpt from <em>Running Meetings</em> offer up a useful rule of thumb about the size of meetings: the <em><strong>8-18-1800 rule</strong></em>.</p><blockquote><p>Some people use what&#x2019;s known as the 8-18-1800 rule as a rough guideline:</p><p>If you have to solve a problem or make a decision, invite no more than 8 people. If you have more participants, you may receive so much con&#xFB02;icting input that it&#x2019;s dif&#xFB01;cult to deal with the problem or make the decision at hand.</p><p>If you want to brainstorm, then you can go as high as 18 people.</p><p>If the purpose of the meeting is for you to provide updates, invite however many people need to receive the updates. However, if everyone attending the meeting will be providing updates, limit the number of participants to no more than 18.</p><p>If the purpose of the meeting is for you to rally the troops, go for 1,800 &#x2014; or more!</p></blockquote><p>:::</p><p><a href=\"https://hbr.org/2019/03/an-exercise-to-help-your-team-feel-more-comfortable-with-conflict\">An Exercise to Help Your Team Feel More Comfortable with Conflict</a> | <strong>Liane Davey</strong> thinks that a namby-pamby, conflict-avoidance mindset around dissent builds up &apos;conflict debt&apos; and if not dealt will block groups from their best work. How to fix?</p><blockquote><p>For the past ten years, I&#x2019;ve been working on methods to normalize conflict to make everyday issues less of a burden on all involved.</p><p>One of the approaches I&#x2019;ve had the most success with goes right to the heart of our language and metaphors about teamwork. I attack misguided tropes that portray teamwork as a harmonious, happy endeavor. My personal favorite (and by that, I mean the one that causes me to tear my hair out) is the office poster with a crew of rowers making synchronous ripples in the serene blue water. If that&#x2019;s hanging on the wall of your conference room, it&#x2019;s no surprise that your team has problems with conflict. You&#x2019;re sending the message that good team players pull in the same direction.</p><p>Play out the rower metaphor for a moment. If you&#x2019;re a team member with the expectation that everyone is <em>in the same boat</em> and should be <em>pulling in the same direction</em>, then when someone disagrees with you, it&#x2019;s only natural that it creates friction. &#x201C;Who is this jerk who doesn&#x2019;t agree with my point?&#x201D; Friction leads people to either dig in or give up &#x2014; two very unproductive forms of conflict.</p></blockquote><p>She suggests first, to get people to see that tensions should exist between different roles or organizational groups, for example between sales and marketing, or customer support and product development. &apos;If Sales and Operations aren&#x2019;t frustrating one another, someone isn&#x2019;t pushing hard enough. &apos;</p><p>Then, have the group undertake an exercise to &apos;map out the unique value of each role and the tensions that <em>should</em> exist among them.&apos;</p><blockquote><p>Draw a circle and divide that circle into enough wedges to represent each role on your team. For each role, ask:</p><p>1) What is the unique value of this role on this team? What should this person be paying attention to that no one else is? What would we miss if this role wasn&#x2019;t here?</p><p>2) On which stakeholders is this role focused? Whom does it serve? Who defines success?</p><p>3) What is the most common tension this role puts on team discussions? What one thing does the person in this role have to say that frequently makes others bristle?</p><p>Answer those questions for each member of the team, filling in the wedges with the answers. As you go, emphasize how the different roles are <em>supposed</em> to be in tension with one another. As you go through the exercise, use examples of contentious issues that your team has been stuck on to illustrate these points. </p></blockquote><p>Really good stuff.</p><p>::: </p><p><a href=\"https://www.wsj.com/articles/weworks-annual-loss-doubles-to-nearly-2-billion-amid-rapid-expansion-11553552216\">WeWork&#x2019;s Annual Loss Doubles to Nearly $2 Billion Amid Rapid Expansion</a> | <strong>Eliot Brown</strong> reports on <strong>WeWork</strong>&apos;s losses, and the cooling interest of investors for this real estate arbitrage gamble. </p><blockquote><p>While WeWork executives years ago predicted the company would be profitable by now, losses have continued to mount, fueled by the enormous interest from investors willing to keep funding its losses.</p><p>There are signs that interest could be easing somewhat. In January, SoftBank backed out of a planned $16 billion deal that included $6 billion of new funding, instead opting for a $2 billion deal with $1 billion of new funding.</p><p>That came after SoftBank&#x2019;s main backers of its Vision Fund&#x2014;wealth funds from Saudi Arabia and Abu Dhabi&#x2014;were reluctant to put more money in WeWork, people familiar with the matter have said, raising concerns about where WeWork will be able to keep finding new investment.</p></blockquote><p>What happens in a recession, when all the freelancers and small businesses drop their memberships and work out of their homes, instead?</p><p><strong>Quote of the Day</strong></p><blockquote><p>If I can tell you exactly what I want you to do today, I can find someone cheaper than you to do it. People who have a job where they are waiting for instruction are stressed out of their minds because they know they are not going to have that job for long.</p></blockquote><p>| <strong>Seth Godin</strong>, cited by <strong>Gene Hammett</strong> in <a href=\"https://medium.com/inc./the-future-of-work-with-seth-godin-hr-leaders-and-managers-will-not-like-this-3d21edeb3f7a\">The Future of Work With Seth Godin. HR Leaders and Managers Will Not Like This</a></p><p><strong>Elsewhere</strong></p><p><a href=\"https://www.cnbcevents.com/work-talent-hr/\">@Work Talent + HR - CNBC Events</a> | I will be attending this 2 April 2019 event in NYC. If you&apos;re going to be there, look for me.</p><p>:::</p><p><a href=\"https://stoweboyd.com/post/183720447527/gerrymandering-paradox\">Gerrymandering Paradox</a> | I take a look at the paradox of using gerrymandering technology to provide the Supreme Court with a test of whether a state&apos;s districting is overly partisan.</p><p>:::</p><p><a href=\"http://www.niemanlab.org/2019/03/the-long-complicated-and-extremely-frustrating-history-of-medium-2012-present/\">The long, complicated, and extremely frustrating history of Medium, 2012&#x2013;present</a> | <strong>Laura Hazard Owen</strong> chronicles the excruciating pivots of <strong>Ev Williams</strong> and <strong>Medium</strong>.</p><p>:::</p><p><a href=\"https://workfutures.substack.com/p/work-futures-daily-a-lost-issue\">Work Futures Daily - A Lost Issue</a> | I found an unpublished (I think) newsletter issue from January 2017. Like looking at a selfie from years ago.</p></div>","url":"https://workfutures.substack.com/p/work-futures-daily-a-glitch-in-the","date_published":"2019-03-27T18:59:09+00:00","author":{"name":""}},{"id":"1358","title":"NASA scraps first all-female spacewalk for want of a medium-sized spacesuit — NPR","content_html":"<div class=\"content\"> <div class=\"inner-content has-icon\"> <img class=\"app-icon\" src=\"https://apple.news/images/Appicon_v4.png\" alt=\"Apple News\" srcset=\"https://apple.news/images/Appicon_v4.png 1x, https://apple.news/images/Appicon_v4@2x.png 2x, https://apple.news/images/Appicon_v4@3x.png 3x\"> <p><a href=\"https://www.npr.org/2019/03/26/706779637/nasa-scraps-first-all-female-spacewalk-for-want-of-a-medium-sized-spacesuit\">Click here</a> if the story doesn&#x2019;t open after a few seconds.</p> <p><a class=\"more\" href=\"https://www.apple.com/news/\">Learn more about Apple News</a></p></div> </div>","url":"https://apple.news/A4usHQTGLSk2rteS-RsH-HA","date_published":"2019-03-26T16:58:10+00:00","author":{"name":""}},{"id":"1355","title":"Math rock","content_html":"<div><div id=\"mw-content-text\" class=\"mw-content-ltr\"><div class=\"mw-parser-output\"><div class=\"mf-section-0\" id=\"mf-section-0\">\n<p><b>Math rock</b> is a style of <a href=\"https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indie_rock\">indie rock</a><sup id=\"cite_ref-AMG_2-0\" class=\"reference\"><a href=\"https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Math_rock#cite_note-AMG-2\">[2]</a></sup> that emerged in the late 1980s in the <a href=\"https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States\">United States</a>, influenced by <a href=\"https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-hardcore\">post-hardcore</a>,<sup id=\"cite_ref-MathRockDOS_3-0\" class=\"reference\"><a href=\"https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Math_rock#cite_note-MathRockDOS-3\">[3]</a></sup> <a href=\"https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progressive_rock\">progressive rock</a> bands such as <a href=\"https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_Crimson\">King Crimson</a>, and 20th century <a href=\"https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimal_music\">minimal music</a> composers such as <a href=\"https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Reich\">Steve Reich</a>. Math rock is characterized by complex, atypical <a href=\"https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhythm\">rhythmic</a> structures (including irregular stopping and starting), <a href=\"https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Counterpoint\">counterpoint</a>, odd time signatures, angular melodies, and extended, often <a href=\"https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consonance_and_dissonance\">dissonant</a>, <a href=\"https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extended_chord\">chords</a>. It bears similarities to <a href=\"https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-rock\">post-rock</a>.<sup id=\"cite_ref-AMG_2-1\" class=\"reference\"><a href=\"https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Math_rock#cite_note-AMG-2\">[2]</a></sup></p><figure class=\"infobox\"></figure><div class=\"thumb tright\"><div class=\"thumbinner\"><a href=\"https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Albini_atp.jpg\" class=\"image\"><img alt=\"\" src=\"https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/12/Albini_atp.jpg/220px-Albini_atp.jpg\" width=\"220\" height=\"330\" class=\"thumbimage\"></a>  <div class=\"thumbcaption\"><div class=\"magnify\"><a href=\"https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Albini_atp.jpg\" class=\"internal\"></a></div><a href=\"https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Albini\">Steve Albini</a> was an influence in the math rock genre</div></div></div>\n\n\n\n</div><div class=\"mf-section-1 collapsible-block\" id=\"mf-section-1\">\n<p>Whereas most rock music uses a 4/4 <a href=\"https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meter_(music)\" class=\"mw-redirect\">meter</a> (however <a href=\"https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accent_(music)\">accented</a> or <a href=\"https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syncopation\">syncopated</a>), math rock frequently uses non-standard <a href=\"https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_signature\">time signatures</a> such as 7/8, 11/8, or 13/8, or features constantly changing meters based on various groupings of 2 and 3. This rhythmic complexity, seen as <i><a href=\"https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathematical\" class=\"mw-redirect\">mathematical</a></i> in character by many listeners and critics, is what gives the genre its name.\n</p><p>The sound is usually dominated by guitars and drums as in traditional rock, and because of the complex rhythms, the drums section of math rock groups tend to be more salient than in other genres. It is commonplace to find guitarists in math rock groups using the <a href=\"https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tapping\">tapping</a> technique of guitar playing, and loop pedals are occasionally incorporated, as by the band <a href=\"https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battles_(band)\">Battles</a>. Guitars are also often played in clean tones more than in other upbeat rock songs, but some groups also use distortion.\n</p><p><a href=\"https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lyrics\">Lyrics</a> are generally not the focus of math rock; the voice is treated as just another sound in the mix. Often, vocals are not <a href=\"https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overdub\" class=\"mw-redirect\">overdubbed</a>, and are positioned low in the mix, as in the recording style of <a href=\"https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Albini\">Steve Albini</a>, or Rolling Stones producer <a href=\"https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jimmy_Miller\">Jimmy Miller</a>. Many of math rock&apos;s most famous groups are entirely <a href=\"https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instrumental_rock\">instrumental</a> such as <a href=\"https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_Caballero\">Don Caballero</a> or <a href=\"https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hella_(band)\">Hella</a>, though both have experimented with singing to varying degrees.\n</p><p>The term <i>math rock</i> has often been passed off as a joke that has developed into what some believe is a musical style. An advocate of this is <a href=\"https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matt_Sweeney\">Matt Sweeney</a>, singer with <a href=\"https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chavez_(band)\">Chavez</a>, who themselves were often linked to the math rock scene.<sup id=\"cite_ref-4\" class=\"reference\"><a href=\"https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Math_rock#cite_note-4\">[4]</a></sup></p><p>A significant intersection exists between math rock and <a href=\"https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emo\">emo</a>, exemplified by bands such as <a href=\"https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiny_Moving_Parts\">Tiny Moving Parts</a><sup id=\"cite_ref-5\" class=\"reference\"><a href=\"https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Math_rock#cite_note-5\">[5]</a></sup> or <a href=\"https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Football_(band)\">American Football</a>, whose sound has been described as &quot;twinkly, mathy rock, a sound that became one of the defining traits of the emo scene throughout the 2000s.&quot;<sup id=\"cite_ref-6\" class=\"reference\"><a href=\"https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Math_rock#cite_note-6\">[6]</a></sup></p>\n</div><div class=\"mf-section-2 collapsible-block\" id=\"mf-section-2\">\n\n<p>The Canadian <a href=\"https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punk_rock\">punk rock</a> group <a href=\"https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nomeansno\">Nomeansno</a> (founded in 1979 and inactive as of 2016) have been cited by music critics as a &quot;secret influence&quot; on math rock,<sup id=\"cite_ref-7\" class=\"reference\"><a href=\"https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Math_rock#cite_note-7\">[7]</a></sup> predating much of the genre&apos;s development by more than a decade. An even more avant-garde group of the same era, <a href=\"https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massacre_(experimental_band)\">Massacre</a>, featured the guitarist <a href=\"https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Frith\">Fred Frith</a> and the bassist <a href=\"https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Laswell\">Bill Laswell</a>. With some influence from the rapid-fire energy of punk, Massacre&apos;s influential music used complex rhythmic characteristics. <a href=\"https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Flag_(band)\">Black Flag&apos;s</a> 1984 album <i><a href=\"https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_War\">My War</a></i> also included unusual polyrhythms.<sup id=\"cite_ref-Blush2010_8-0\" class=\"reference\"><a href=\"https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Math_rock#cite_note-Blush2010-8\">[8]</a></sup></p>\n<h3 class=\"in-block\"><span class=\"mw-headline\" id=\"Australian_groups\">Australian groups</span></h3>\n<p>Bands such as <a href=\"https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Because_of_Ghosts\">Because of Ghosts</a>, <a href=\"https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sinking_Citizenship\">The Sinking Citizenship</a>, and <a href=\"https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Disco\">My Disco</a> emerged in the early 2000s in <a href=\"https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melbourne\">Melbourne</a>.\n</p>\n<h3 class=\"in-block\"><span class=\"mw-headline\" id=\"European_groups\">European groups</span></h3>\n<p>The European math rock scene started in the late 90s to early 2000, including bands such as <a href=\"https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adebisi_Shank\">Adebisi Shank</a> (Ireland), <a href=\"https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kobong_(band)\">Kobong</a> (Poland), <a href=\"https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Redneck_Manifesto_(band)\">The Redneck Manifesto</a> (Ireland), <a href=\"https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Trapped_Tigers\">Three Trapped Tigers</a> and <a href=\"https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/This_Town_Needs_Guns\">This Town Needs Guns</a> (United Kingdom) and <a href=\"https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uzeda\">Uzeda</a> (Italy). <a href=\"https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foals_(band)\">Foals</a> (England) was formed in 2005.\n</p>\n<h3 class=\"in-block\"><span class=\"mw-headline\" id=\"Japanese_groups\">Japanese groups</span></h3>\n<div class=\"hatnote navigation-not-searchable\">Main article: <a href=\"https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_noise_rock\" class=\"mw-redirect\">Japanese noise rock</a></div>\n<p>The most significant Japanese groups include <a href=\"https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruins_(Japanese_band)\">Ruins</a>, <a href=\"https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeni_Geva\">Zeni Geva</a>, <a href=\"https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boredoms\">Boredoms</a>, <a href=\"https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aburadako\">Aburadako</a>, <a href=\"https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tricot_(band)\">Tricot</a> and <a href=\"https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doom_(Japanese_band)\">Doom</a>. <a href=\"https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yona-Kit\">Yona-Kit</a> is a collaboration between Japanese and U.S. musicians. Other Japanese groups which incorporate math rock in their music include <a href=\"https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ling_Tosite_Sigure\" class=\"mw-redirect\">Ling Tosite Sigure</a>, <a href=\"https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toe_(band)\">Toe</a>, <a href=\"https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zazen_Boys\">Zazen Boys</a>, <a href=\"https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lite_(band)\">Lite</a> and <a href=\"https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mouse_on_the_Keys\">Mouse on the Keys</a>. <a href=\"https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skin_Graft_Records\">Skin Graft Records</a> and <a href=\"https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tzadik_Records\">Tzadik Records</a> have released Japanese math rock albums in the United States.\n</p>\n<h3 class=\"in-block\"><span class=\"mw-headline\" id=\"United_States\">United States</span></h3>\n<p>The city of Pittsburgh is home to <a href=\"https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_Caballero\">Don Caballero</a>, whose drummer, <a href=\"https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Damon_Che\">Damon Che</a>, is also involved with the international math rock band <a href=\"https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bellini_(band)\" class=\"mw-redirect\">Bellini</a> as well as <a href=\"https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tabula_Rasa_(Pittsburgh_band)\">Tabula Rasa</a>, and <a href=\"https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knot_Feeder\">Knot Feeder</a>.<sup id=\"cite_ref-9\" class=\"reference\"><a href=\"https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Math_rock#cite_note-9\">[9]</a></sup> Bands from Washington, D.C. include <a href=\"https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dismemberment_Plan\">The Dismemberment Plan</a>, <a href=\"https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shudder_to_Think\">Shudder to Think</a>, <a href=\"https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoover_(band)\">Hoover</a>, <a href=\"https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faraquet\">Faraquet</a>, <a href=\"https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1.6_Band\">1.6 Band</a>, <a href=\"https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autoclave_(band)\">Autoclave</a>, later <a href=\"https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jawbox\">Jawbox</a>, and <a href=\"https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circus_Lupus\">Circus Lupus</a>.  <a href=\"https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polvo\">Polvo</a> of <a href=\"https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chapel_Hill,_North_Carolina\">Chapel Hill, North Carolina</a> is often considered math rock, although the band has disavowed that categorization.<sup id=\"cite_ref-10\" class=\"reference\"><a href=\"https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Math_rock#cite_note-10\">[10]</a></sup></p><p>In California, math rock groups from San Diego include <a href=\"https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upsilon_Acrux\">Upsilon Acrux</a>, <a href=\"https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drive_Like_Jehu\">Drive Like Jehu</a>, <a href=\"https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antioch_Arrow\">Antioch Arrow</a>, <a href=\"https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tristeza_(band)\">Tristeza</a>, <a href=\"https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_Knife\">No Knife</a>, <a href=\"https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heavy_Vegetable\">Heavy Vegetable</a>, <a href=\"https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleeping_People\">Sleeping People</a>, <a href=\"https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tera_Melos\">Tera Melos</a>, and <a href=\"https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chon_(band)\">Chon</a>. Northern California was the base of <a href=\"https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_Theory_(band)\">Game Theory</a> and <a href=\"https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Loud_Family\">The Loud Family</a>, both led by <a href=\"https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott_Miller_(pop_musician)\">Scott Miller</a>, who was said to &quot;tinker with pop the way a born mathematician tinkers with numbers&quot;.<sup id=\"cite_ref-nyt1993_11-0\" class=\"reference\"><a href=\"https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Math_rock#cite_note-nyt1993-11\">[11]</a></sup> The <a href=\"https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_Theory_(band)#Meaning_of_%22Game_Theory%22\">origin of Game Theory&apos;s name</a> is mathematical, suggesting a &quot;nearly mathy&quot; sound cited as &quot;IQ rock.&quot;<sup id=\"cite_ref-amar-mwh_12-0\" class=\"reference\"><a href=\"https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Math_rock#cite_note-amar-mwh-12\">[12]</a></sup></p>\n</div><div class=\"mf-section-3 collapsible-block\" id=\"mf-section-3\">\n<div class=\"hatnote navigation-not-searchable\">See also: <a href=\"https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_math_rock_groups\">List of math rock groups</a></div>\n<p>By the turn of the 21st century, most of the later generation bands such as <a href=\"https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweep_the_Leg_Johnny\">Sweep the Leg Johnny</a> had disbanded and the genre had been roundly disavowed by <a href=\"https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_math_rock_groups\">most bands labeled with the &quot;math rock&quot; moniker</a>. Bands in the late 90&apos;s and 2000s, such as <a href=\"https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/This_Town_Needs_Guns\">This Town Needs Guns</a> and <a href=\"https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Football_(band)\">American Football</a>, began combining math rock and <a href=\"https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emo\">emo</a>, creating a much more vocally oriented sound.\n</p><p>In the mid-2000s, many math rock bands enjoyed renewed popularity. <a href=\"https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slint\">Slint</a> and <a href=\"https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chavez_(band)\">Chavez</a> embarked on reunion tours, while <a href=\"https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shellac_(band)\">Shellac</a> toured and released their <a href=\"https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Excellent_Italian_Greyhound\">first album in seven years</a>. <a href=\"https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_Caballero\">Don Caballero</a> reunited with a new lineup and released an album in 2006, while several of its original members joined new projects, such as the band <a href=\"https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knot_Feeder\">Knot Feeder</a>.\n</p>\n</div><div class=\"mf-section-4 collapsible-block\" id=\"mf-section-4\">\n<div class=\"div-col columns column-width\">\n<ul><li><a href=\"https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_math_rock_groups\">List of math rock groups</a></li>\n<li><a href=\"https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_musical_works_in_unusual_time_signatures\">List of musical works in unusual time signatures</a></li>\n<li><a href=\"https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathcore\">Mathcore</a></li>\n<li><a href=\"https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Music_and_mathematics\">Music and mathematics</a></li>\n<li><a href=\"https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noise_rock\">Noise rock</a></li>\n<li><a href=\"https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-hardcore\">Post-hardcore</a></li>\n<li><a href=\"https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-rock\">Post-rock</a></li>\n<li><a href=\"https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progressive_metal\">Progressive metal</a></li></ul></div>\n\n</div><div class=\"mf-section-5 collapsible-block\" id=\"mf-section-5\">\n<div class=\"reflist columns references-column-width\">\n<ol class=\"references\"><li id=\"cite_note-postAM-1\"><span class=\"mw-cite-backlink\"><b><a href=\"https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Math_rock#cite_ref-postAM_1-0\">^</a></b></span> <span class=\"reference-text\"><cite class=\"citation web\"><a class=\"external text\" href=\"https://www.allmusic.com/style/post-rock-ma0000002790\">&quot;Post-Rock Music Genre Overview&quot;</a>. <a href=\"https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/AllMusic\">AllMusic</a><span class=\"reference-accessdate\">. Retrieved <span class=\"nowrap\">December 24,</span> 2016</span>.</cite><span class=\"Z3988\"></span></span>\n</li>\n<li id=\"cite_note-AMG-2\"><span class=\"mw-cite-backlink\">^ <a href=\"https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Math_rock#cite_ref-AMG_2-0\"><sup><i><b>a</b></i></sup></a> <a href=\"https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Math_rock#cite_ref-AMG_2-1\"><sup><i><b>b</b></i></sup></a></span> <span class=\"reference-text\"><cite class=\"citation web\"><a class=\"external text\" href=\"https://www.allmusic.com/style/math-rock-ma0000012250\">&quot;Math Rock Music Genre Overview&quot;</a>. <a href=\"https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/AllMusic\">AllMusic</a><span class=\"reference-accessdate\">. Retrieved <span class=\"nowrap\">October 23,</span> 2016</span>.</cite><span class=\"Z3988\"></span></span>\n</li>\n<li id=\"cite_note-MathRockDOS-3\"><span class=\"mw-cite-backlink\"><b><a href=\"https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Math_rock#cite_ref-MathRockDOS_3-0\">^</a></b></span> <span class=\"reference-text\"><cite class=\"citation web\">Diver, Mike (April 24, 2008). <a class=\"external text\" href=\"http://drownedinsound.com/in_depth/3205162-math-rock-family-tree--exploring-the-roots-of-foals\">&quot;Math-Rock Family Tree: exploring the roots of Foals&quot;</a>. <i><a href=\"https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drowned_in_Sound\">Drowned in Sound</a></i><span class=\"reference-accessdate\">. Retrieved <span class=\"nowrap\">September 7,</span> 2016</span>.</cite><span class=\"Z3988\"></span></span>\n</li>\n<li id=\"cite_note-4\"><span class=\"mw-cite-backlink\"><b><a href=\"https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Math_rock#cite_ref-4\">^</a></b></span> <span class=\"reference-text\"><cite class=\"citation web\"><a class=\"external text\" href=\"http://pitchfork.com/features/interviews/6502-chavez/\">&quot;Interview: Chavez&quot;</a>. Pitchfork Media. August 12, 2006<span class=\"reference-accessdate\">. Retrieved <span class=\"nowrap\">July 17,</span> 2015</span>.</cite><span class=\"Z3988\"></span></span>\n</li>\n<li id=\"cite_note-5\"><span class=\"mw-cite-backlink\"><b><a href=\"https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Math_rock#cite_ref-5\">^</a></b></span> <span class=\"reference-text\"><a class=\"external free\" href=\"https://noisey.vice.com/en_us/article/rmzmn6/a-tiny-interview-with-tiny-moving-parts\">https://noisey.vice.com/en_us/article/rmzmn6/a-tiny-interview-with-tiny-moving-parts</a></span>\n</li>\n<li id=\"cite_note-6\"><span class=\"mw-cite-backlink\"><b><a href=\"https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Math_rock#cite_ref-6\">^</a></b></span> <span class=\"reference-text\"><cite class=\"citation web\"><a class=\"external text\" href=\"https://noisey.vice.com/blog/never-meant-the-complete-oral-history-of-american-football\">&quot;Never Meant: The Complete Oral History of American Football | NOISEY&quot;</a>. <i>NOISEY</i><span class=\"reference-accessdate\">. Retrieved <span class=\"nowrap\">February 2,</span> 2016</span>.</cite><span class=\"Z3988\"></span></span>\n</li>\n<li id=\"cite_note-7\"><span class=\"mw-cite-backlink\"><b><a href=\"https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Math_rock#cite_ref-7\">^</a></b></span> <span class=\"reference-text\"><cite class=\"citation web\"><a class=\"external text\" href=\"https://www.allmusic.com/album/r14208/review\">&quot;Live and Cuddly&quot;</a>. Allmusic<span class=\"reference-accessdate\">. Retrieved <span class=\"nowrap\">August 1,</span> 2007</span>.</cite><span class=\"Z3988\"></span></span>\n</li>\n<li id=\"cite_note-Blush2010-8\"><span class=\"mw-cite-backlink\"><b><a href=\"https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Math_rock#cite_ref-Blush2010_8-0\">^</a></b></span> <span class=\"reference-text\"><cite class=\"citation book\"><a href=\"https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steven_Blush\">Blush, Steven</a> (2010). &quot;Black Flag &amp; SST: Thirsty and miserable&quot;. <a class=\"external text\" href=\"https://books.google.com/books?id=PFJjCwAAQBAJ&amp;pg=PA72\"><i>American Hardcore: A Tribal History</i></a>. Los Angeles: <a href=\"https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feral_House\">Feral House</a>. p.&#xA0;72. <a href=\"https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Standard_Book_Number\">ISBN</a>&#xA0;<a href=\"https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/978-1-932595-98-7\">978-1-932595-98-7</a>. <q>&#xA0;... its seven-minute Metal dirges and Fusion-style time signatures confused many fans.</q></cite><span class=\"Z3988\"></span></span>\n</li>\n<li id=\"cite_note-9\"><span class=\"mw-cite-backlink\"><b><a href=\"https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Math_rock#cite_ref-9\">^</a></b></span> <span class=\"reference-text\"><cite class=\"citation web\">Gentile, J. (December 2, 2007). <a class=\"external text\" href=\"http://mathandnoise.blogspot.com/2007/12/knot-feeder.html\">&quot;Math &amp; Noise: Knot Feeder&quot;</a>. <i>mathandnoise.blogspot.com</i><span class=\"reference-accessdate\">. Retrieved <span class=\"nowrap\">October 3,</span> 2016</span>.</cite><span class=\"Z3988\"></span></span>\n</li>\n<li id=\"cite_note-10\"><span class=\"mw-cite-backlink\"><b><a href=\"https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Math_rock#cite_ref-10\">^</a></b></span> <span class=\"reference-text\"><cite class=\"citation web\">Redford, Chad. <a class=\"external text\" href=\"https://web.archive.org/web/20110812060217/http://clatl.com/atlanta/you-can-call-polvo-math-rock-but-the-numbers-just-dont-add-up/Content?oid=1276608\">&quot;You can call Polvo math rock, but the numbers just don&apos;t add up&quot;</a>. <i>creativeloafing.com</i>. Archived from the original on August 12, 2011<span class=\"reference-accessdate\">. Retrieved <span class=\"nowrap\">October 3,</span> 2016</span>.</cite><span class=\"Z3988\"></span><span class=\"cs1-maint citation-comment\">CS1 maint: BOT: original-url status unknown (<a href=\"https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:CS1_maint:_BOT:_original-url_status_unknown\">link</a>)</span></span>\n</li>\n<li id=\"cite_note-nyt1993-11\"><span class=\"mw-cite-backlink\"><b><a href=\"https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Math_rock#cite_ref-nyt1993_11-0\">^</a></b></span> <span class=\"reference-text\"><cite class=\"citation news\">Schoemer, Karen (April 2, 1993). <a class=\"external text\" href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/1993/04/02/arts/sounds-around-town-832093.html\">&quot;Sounds Around Town: Miller Writ Loud&quot;</a>. <i><a href=\"https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_Times\" class=\"mw-redirect\">New York Times</a></i>. <a class=\"external text\" href=\"https://web.archive.org/web/20131113235140/http://www.nytimes.com/1993/04/02/arts/sounds-around-town-832093.html\">Archived</a> from the original on November 13, 2013.</cite><span class=\"Z3988\"></span></span>\n</li>\n<li id=\"cite_note-amar-mwh-12\"><span class=\"mw-cite-backlink\"><b><a href=\"https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Math_rock#cite_ref-amar-mwh_12-0\">^</a></b></span> <span class=\"reference-text\"><cite class=\"citation journal\">Amar, Erin (July 2011). <a class=\"external text\" href=\"http://www.rockerzine.com/index.php/2013/04/scott-miller-music-what-happene\">&quot;Music: What Happened? Scott Miller on 50 Years of Singles in 258 Pages&quot;</a>. <i>Rocker Magazine</i>. <a class=\"external text\" href=\"https://web.archive.org/web/20131101183016/http://www.rockerzine.com/index.php/2013/04/scott-miller-music-what-happene\">Archived</a> from the original on November 1, 2013.</cite><span class=\"Z3988\"></span></span>\n</li>\n</ol></div>\n</div><div class=\"mf-section-6 collapsible-block\" id=\"mf-section-6\">\n<ul><li><cite class=\"citation book\">Dale, P. (2016). <a class=\"external text\" href=\"https://books.google.com/books?id=PZgGDAAAQBAJ&amp;pg=PT237\"><i>Anyone Can Do It: Empowerment, Tradition and the Punk Underground</i></a>. Ashgate Popular and Folk Music Series. Taylor &amp; Francis. p.&#xA0;pt237&#x2013; . <a href=\"https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Standard_Book_Number\">ISBN</a>&#xA0;<a href=\"https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/978-1-317-18024-1\">978-1-317-18024-1</a>.</cite><span class=\"Z3988\"></span></li>\n<li><cite id=\"CITEREFEberhart2016\" class=\"citation web\">Eberhart, Max (September 29, 2016). <a class=\"external text\" href=\"http://thesantaclara.org/calculating-the-influence-of-math-rock/\">&quot;Calculating the Influence of Math Rock&quot;</a>. <i><a href=\"https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Santa_Clara\">The Santa Clara</a></i><span class=\"reference-accessdate\">. Retrieved <span class=\"nowrap\">October 3,</span> 2016</span>.</cite><span class=\"Z3988\"></span></li></ul></div><div class=\"mf-section-7 collapsible-block\" id=\"mf-section-7\">\n<ul><li><a class=\"external text\" href=\"https://www.allmusic.com//style/ma0000012250\">Math Rock</a> at <a href=\"https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/AllMusic\">AllMusic</a></li></ul>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n</div></div></div></div>","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Math_rock","date_published":"2019-03-26T16:11:34+00:00","author":{"name":"Wikipedia Contributors"}},{"id":"1356","title":"Lyft drivers' protest exposes ride-hailing Achilles' heel","content_html":"<section class=\"body\"> <p>As Lyft and Uber prepare for multibillion-dollar Wall Street debuts, the ride-hailing companies face rising tensions with their drivers, the independent contractors who are the backbone of both services. Some drivers are joining forces, both online and in person, to voice grievances about their pay and other working conditions.</p> <p>Driver protests, though small, expose a critical weakness of ride-hailing companies&#x2019; business models. They depend on an independent contractor workforce of drivers, but their best paths to making money are to cut those drivers&#x2019; pay, which could cause drivers to flee; or to raise riders&#x2019; rates, which could decrease demand.</p> <p>On Monday, waving homemade signs and banners and chanting about their desire for a living wage, about 60 drivers staged a protest outside San Francisco&#x2019;s Omni Hotel, where Lyft was reportedly holding meetings to pitch investors on its initial public offering, expected this Friday.</p> <p>&#x201C;Drivers are not getting a fair deal,&#x201D; said Emmanuel Oditah of Vallejo, who&#x2019;s driven for three years for both Uber and Lyft. &#x201C;Pay has gone down.&#x201D;</p> <p>Oditah, who has three children and whose wife works as a caregiver, said he used to earn about $1,700 to $2,000 before gas and other expenses for a 40-hour week of driving. &#x201C;Now for 50 to 60 hours, I barely make $1,200 to $1,300,&#x201D; he said.</p> <p>Also on Monday, some drivers for Lyft and Uber in Los Angeles and San Diego staged temporary strikes over pay issues. The three actions were coordinated by labor-backed groups &#x2014; Gig Workers Rising in San Francisco and Rideshare Drivers United in Southern California &#x2014; that are helping drivers organize.</p> <p>Monday&#x2019;s activities resemble some other recent gig-worker crusades that wrung concessions, such as <a href=\"https://www.sfchronicle.com/business/article/Instacart-backtracks-on-misguided-tip-13595059.php\">Instacart drivers&#x2019; successful quest</a> for the grocery-delivery company to backtrack on how it apportioned tips. <a href=\"https://www.sfchronicle.com/business/article/Revolt-of-the-gig-workers-How-delivery-rage-13605726.php\">Uber and Lyft drivers in New York</a> won a law guaranteeing them at least $17.22 an hour after expenses ($26.51 before expenses) after two years of protests with the Independent Drivers Guild, a union-affiliated group.</p> <p>Several analysts have pointed to the ride-hailing companies&#x2019; conundrum. The issue is especially stark now with Lyft&#x2019;s initial public offering coming Friday, and Uber expected to follow suit to the public next month. Although neither company has ever turned a penny of profit, both seek sky-high valuations on Wall Street. Lyft last week said it expects to be <a href=\"https://www.sfchronicle.com/business/article/Lyft-says-it-s-worth-up-to-23-billion-Will-13697752.php\">worth up to $23 billion,</a> with shares going for $62 to $68 each as it seeks to raise about $2 billion. Uber could be worth as much as $120 billion.</p> <p>&#x201C;Lyft faces an all-but-insurmountable barrier to positive earnings,&#x201D; wrote <a href=\"http://ctwinvestmentgroup.com/\">CTW Investment Group,</a> a union pension-fund adviser, in a letter to potential investors last week. &#x201C;Absent a price increase, Lyft can only become profitable by reducing the drivers&#x2019; share of revenue.&#x201D;</p> <p>CTW said that Uber has the same challenge. &#x201C;Uber&#x2019;s financial data indicates that the market-dominant company cannot sustainably push driver pay low enough to ensure profitability,&#x201D; it said.</p> <p>Lyft said its Driver Advisory Councils provide a forum for drivers to communicate with it, and noted that most drivers work for it only temporarily and part time.</p> <p>&#x201C;Lyft has a strong track record of helping drivers increase their earnings, and has led the industry in initiatives like in-app tipping, same-day payments, access to affordable rental vehicles, and more,&#x201D; Lyft said.</p> <p>Uber said it was changing its per-minute, per-mile and minimum fare rates to make rates comparable to what they were in September &#x201C;while giving drivers more control over how they earn by allowing them to build a model that fits their schedule best.&#x201D;</p> <p>In acknowledgment of drivers&#x2019; critical role, both Lyft and Uber say they want to give them a share of their IPO riches. But <a href=\"https://www.sfchronicle.com/business/article/Lyft-to-share-Wall-Street-wealth-with-drivers-13680614.php\">Lyft&#x2019;s plan</a> to give $1,000 bonuses to drivers who have given at least 10,000 rides and $10,000 to those with 20,000 rides will help only a small fraction of drivers. Those drivers can choose to spend that money on Lyft shares at the IPO opening price. Uber has not said how it might structure drivers&#x2019; participation.</p> <p>Adding to the financial pressure on Uber and Lyft, regulatory changes could dramatically increase their expenses.</p> <p>California is now wrestling with how to move forward after a groundbreaking state Supreme Court decision made it harder for companies to claim that workers are independent contractors.</p> <p>If that Dynamex decision gets codified with <a href=\"https://www.sfchronicle.com/business/article/California-to-thrash-out-gig-worker-status-in-13585979.php\">a potential bill</a> now pending in Sacramento, Lyft and Uber drivers could become employees entitled to minimum wage, overtime and benefits like workers&#x2019; comp. The companies, which say they value the flexibility of independent contractors, are negotiating to provide some benefits but keep the drivers&#x2019; gig-worker status. That route would also cost them more money, however.</p> <p>Many drivers at the protest said they didn&#x2019;t care if they were employees or not. What&#x2019;s important to them, they said, are four things: earning decent wages, having transparency about how rates are calculated, having protections like workers&#x2019; compensation and having a voice in corporate policies that affect them.</p> <p>&#x201C;Lyft is deceptive for drivers; we have no employee rights,&#x201D; said Lauren Swiger of Oakland, who was wearing a skirt and top in Lyft&#x2019;s signature hot-pink color. &#x201C;The algorithm is so complicated, it&#x2019;s impossible to figure out what we&#x2019;re earning.&#x201D;</p> <p>That black box of code that determines both driver pay and working conditions, such as how many rides they get, is a sore point for many drivers.</p> <p>Valentina Tulau of San Francisco said she&#x2019;d visited the Lyft driver support hub with her earnings statements to try to understand the fluctuating pay rates. &#x201C;Nobody there could tell me how they calculate it,&#x201D; she said.</p> <p>Since she lacks workers&#x2019; compensation, she&#x2019;s stopped helping riders with their luggage, in fear that she&#x2019;d throw out her back, she said.</p> <p>Another issue: &#x201C;Lyft doesn&#x2019;t cap drivers,&#x201D; she said. &#x201C;There are too many, so drivers barely get enough riders and can&#x2019;t reach the bonus&#x201D; threshold. Both Lyft and Uber pay extra for reaching a certain quota of rides at specified times.</p> <p>That concern, too, was shared by some analysts. The ride-hailing companies provide &#x201C;far more capacity than could be economically justified,&#x201D; wrote Hubert Horan, a transportation industry expert and consultant.</p> <em><p>Carolyn Said is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: <a href=\"mailto:csaid@sfchronicle.com\">csaid@sfchronicle.com</a> Twitter: <a href=\"https://twitter.com/csaid\">@csaid</a></p></em> </section>","url":"https://www.sfchronicle.com/business/article/Lyft-drivers-protest-exposes-ride-hailing-13715265.php","date_published":"2019-03-26T00:12:43+00:00","author":{"name":""}},{"id":"1354","title":"Welcome to Elsewhere","content_html":"<div class=\"body markup\"><a class=\"image-link\" href=\"https://d3b3sm9t19x0yd.cloudfront.net/image/fetch/c_limit,q_auto:good,f_auto/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F11246ac1-6487-435c-85ea-4dc8ceea3e7d_1200x507.png\"><img src=\"https://workfutures.substack.com/p/%7B%22src%22:%22https://bucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/11246ac1-6487-435c-85ea-4dc8ceea3e7d_1200x507.png%22,%22height%22:465,%22width%22:1100,%22alt%22:null,%22title%22:null,%22type%22:%22image/png%22,%22href%22:null%7D\"></a><p><strong>Beacon NY - 2019-03-23</strong> &#x2014; Adding a new feature to <strong>Work Futures Daily</strong> called <strong>Elsewhere</strong>, found below the quote of the day. Basically, a few links on topics immediately adjacent to the themes and memes featured here on WFD. Also, I may feature stories from other newsletters from <strong>Work Futures</strong> (if we had other newsletters&#x2026;.).</p><p>:::</p><p>If you&apos;re getting this you probably signed up at <a href=\"http://workfutures.org/\">workfutures.org</a> (or one of its predecessors) or <a href=\"http://stoweboyd.com/\">stoweboyd.com</a>. If someone forwarded this to you, sign up <a href=\"https://www.getrevue.co/profile/workfutures\">here</a>.</p><p>Consider becoming a <a href=\"https://workfutures.substack.com/subscribe\">paid sponsor</a> to support our work, and to receive in-depth investigative reporting and discounts to other events, reports, and activities.</p><p><strong>Stories</strong></p><p><a href=\"https://www.themyersbriggs.com/trends\">2019 Trends Report</a> | <strong>The Myers-Briggs Company</strong> has released a report that I will be reading in depth. Here&apos;s just one factoid from the report that might motivate you to download it [emphasis mine]:</p><blockquote><p>In her <a href=\"https://www.strategy-business.com/article/12102?gko=0334d\">Five Millennial Myths article</a>, Jennifer Deal of the Center for Creative Leadership (CCL) found that &#x201C;.... stereotypes of millennials in the workplace are inconsistent at best and destructive at worst.&#x201D; Similarly, IBM&#x2019;s <a href=\"https://www.ibm.com/thought-leadership/institute-business-value/report/millennialworkplace\">multigenerational study of employees in 12 countries</a> concluded that millennials are a lot like their older colleagues. </p><p>These research initiatives evaluated a range of assumptions and stereotypes about millennials. Assumptions include: </p><ul><li><p>they don&#x2019;t want to be told what to do </p></li><li><p>lack organizational loyalty </p></li><li><p>are not interested in work</p></li><li><p>want constant acclaim</p></li><li><p>are more motivated by perks and high pay</p></li><li><p>have different career goals and expectations</p></li></ul><p><strong>All these assumptions were found to be inaccurate. Any differences were minor, and some were even favorable toward millennials.</strong> </p><p>In the CCL research, the claim that &#x2018;Millennials want more work-life balance&#x2019; was supported, but even this was only marginally different from Generation X-ers and was probably related to stage-of-life rather than generational shift. And <strong>in the IBM study, the one meaningful difference regarding millennials was not attitudinal or behavioral but that they are the first wave of digital natives to enter the workforce.</strong> </p></blockquote><p>There are a few ways that Millennials differ, as I reported in <a href=\"http://workfutures.org/post/179753244958/millennials-and-the-leadership-gap\">Millennials and the leadership gap</a>:</p><blockquote><p>One central finding: the millennials had similar patterns of communication &#x2014; using mobile devices, communications apps, collaboration tools, and face-to-face meetings, for example &#x2014; but they were less ambivalent about them than other demographic groups. The younger you are, it seems, the more willing you are to invest time and energy into new tools and techniques that promise higher degrees of productivity and connection.</p></blockquote><p>They aren&apos;t jaded about using &apos;yet-another-communication-tool&apos;.</p><p>:::</p><p><a href=\"http://fortune.com/2019/03/20/cleo-series-b-working-parents/\">Cleo Raises $27.5 Million to Help Companies Support Working Parents</a> | <strong>Emma Hinchcliffe</strong> looks into a new round of funding for Cleo (formerly LUCY). As the founder/CEO wrote in 2017, </p><blockquote><p>Largely because of the lack of workplace support, more than <a href=\"https://www.census.gov/prod/2011pubs/p70-128.pdf\">40% of women will leave the workforce</a> within one year of their first baby being born. This means that ~1.6 million women will decide not to return to their jobs. And companies will spend between 20&#x2013;30% of that employee&#x2019;s salary to hire a replacement. This is a costly reality.</p></blockquote><p>Hinchliffe picks up the thread, and elaborates the value proposition of &apos;femtech&apos;:</p><blockquote><p>But the pitch to clients is about more than just its healthcare costs. As a growing number of millennials have children, companies face the same worries about attrition that troubled Immelt. &#x201C;People are waiting until they&#x2019;re older to start families. And because men and women are older, they are directors, senior directors, VP and C-level,&#x201D; co-founder and CEO Spanhake says. &#x201C;The cost of attrition for a VP to leave a company is really high. Employers are recognizing that because men and women are waiting until they&#x2019;re older and more accomplished [to start families], that they have to invest a bit more.&#x201D;</p><p>Cleo also touts its assistance for women who are breastfeeding, making the transition back to work smoother, and, according to the company, improving productivity for employees when they do return. According to Cleo, 93% of the moms who use its service ultimately go back to work. It is, however, worth noting that not all the parents who use the service are birth moms. One-third of Cleo&#x2019;s users are fathers, partners, or adoptive parents.</p></blockquote><p>Cleo&apos;s a no-brainer for companies in a tight job market, I think.</p><p>:::</p><p><a href=\"https://www.motherjones.com/media/2019/03/what-will-happen-when-machines-write-songs-just-as-well-as-your-favorite-musician/\">What Will Happen When Machines Write Songs Just as Well as Your Favorite Musician?</a> | <strong>Clive Thompson</strong> wonders about AI-generated music, focusing on <strong>Jukedeck</strong>, a leading app in this new industry:</p><blockquote><p>Jukedeck has since penned more than 1 million songs, and in the past few years several similar firms&#x2014;<a href=\"https://www.ampermusic.com/\">Amper</a> in New York, <a href=\"http://popgun.ai/\">Popgun</a> in Australia, and <a href=\"https://www.aiva.ai/\">AIVA</a> in Luxembourg&#x2014;have emerged to join this weird new industry. Their tools are point-and-click easy: Pick a genre, a &#x201C;mood,&#x201D; and a duration, and boom&#x2014;Jukedeck churns out a free composition for your personal project or, if you pay a fee, for commercial use. Songs composed by Jukedeck and its ilk are already showing up in podcasts, video games, and YouTube content, &#x201C;from explainer videos to family holiday videos to sports videos,&#x201D; says <a href=\"https://twitter.com/paddystobbs?lang=en\">Patrick Stobbs</a>, Jukedeck&#x2019;s co-founder. For years, DIY video makers have licensed tunes from huge &#x201C;libraries&#x201D; of Muzak-y stuff produced by humans. Now, AI offers fresh compositions at the press of a button.</p><p>The songs can be surprisingly good. I generated a 90-second folk-pop tune on Jukedeck using the &#x201C;uplifting&#x201D; option, with bass, drums, synthesizers, and jangly artificial guitar. The robot composer even threw in a few slick little melodic breaks. As a part-time musician, I&#x2019;ve composed and recorded enough to be impressed. The tune wasn&#x2019;t brilliant or memorable, but it easily matched the quality of human work you&#x2019;d hear in videos and ads. It would take a human composer at least an hour to create such a piece&#x2014;Jukedeck did it in less than a minute. All of which raises some thorny questions. We&#x2019;ve all heard about how AI is getting progressively better at accomplishing eerily lifelike tasks: driving cars, recognizing faces, translating languages. But when a machine can compose songs as well as a talented musician can, the implications run deep&#x2014;not only for people&#x2019;s livelihoods, but for the very notion of what makes human beings unique.</p></blockquote><p>Leaving aside the &apos;what makes human beings unique&apos; philosophical meanderings, what about the impacts on the music industry? </p><blockquote><p>The US market for background music hit $660 million in 2017, up 18 percent from two years earlier, according to industry consultant <a href=\"http://www.massarskyconsulting.com/\">Barry Massarsky</a>, and preliminary figures show 11 percent growth in 2018. Composers worldwide <a href=\"https://web.archive.org/web/20190130145643/https://www.theguardian.com/money/2017/jun/10/make-music-income-stream-compose-stock-music\">make ends meet</a> by contributing to the tune libraries used by You&#xAD;Tubers, corporations, radio shows&#x2014;whoever needs a sonic backdrop. This is basically the audio version of the market for stock photos: The songs are predictable, often hackneyed, but good enough for a how-to makeup video or sports podcast.</p><p>AI will seriously disrupt that labor market. Background tracks are pretty algorithmic even when humans write them: You introduce one motif, then another, layer them together, rinse, and repeat. It&#x2019;s what Amper founder <a href=\"http://drewsilverstein.com/\">Drew Silverstein</a>, a former Hollywood composer, calls &#x201C;functional&#x201D; music. &#x201C;We don&#x2019;t necessarily care how it was created and where it came from,&#x201D; he says. &#x201C;The most extreme example is elevator music, right? It&#x2019;s music that is serving a purpose.&#x201D; Here, Amper radically outperforms humans. &#x201C;Amper is not a music tool. It&#x2019;s not a music solution,&#x201D; Silverstein insists. &#x201C;Amper is an <em>efficiency</em> tool. Fundamentally.&#x201D; Given the choice between paying a slow human or asking a lightning-fast, almost-free bot to generate a purely functional soundtrack, which would you choose?</p><p>[&#x2026;]</p><p>Humans, of course, will need to adapt. The ability to generate a three-minute instrumental probably won&#x2019;t cut it anymore. To feed their families, composers likely will have to move up the food chain and do work that requires collaboration, stuff bots can&#x2019;t achieve. &#x201C;Musicians and composers, your job will not exist in five years,&#x201D; Silverstein says. &#x201C;Your <em>career</em> certainly will.&#x201D;</p></blockquote><p>Go read <a href=\"https://www.motherjones.com/media/2019/03/what-will-happen-when-machines-write-songs-just-as-well-as-your-favorite-musician/\">it</a>.</p><p>:::</p><p><a href=\"https://www.theatlantic.com/sponsored/jpmc-2018/alternatives-to-traditional-mentoring/2047/\">It&#x2019;s Time to Rethink Traditional Mentoring</a> | Proof that good ideas can pop up any where, I discovered this snippet in sponsored content from <strong>JP Morgan Chase</strong> pushed out by <strong>The Atlantic</strong>. Basically, the insight is to not seek out one mentor, but a network of them:</p><blockquote><p>The solution: Instead of looking to one mentor for advice, seek out several. In essence, create your own &#x201C;personal board of directors,&#x201D; an informal group of six to eight people who can provide different perspectives and take on different roles. While there&#x2019;s no universally accepted board makeup that career experts suggest, recommended personas include fans (who will support you unconditionally), sponsors (who can advocate for you), and even critics (who will speak candidly about your weak spots and hold you accountable). Some experts even recommend including a mentee, who can teach you how to be an effective mentee yourself.</p></blockquote><p>This sounds like the corollary to creating a diverse personal network so that you learn new information all the time. Although in this case, the new information is about you.</p><p><strong>Quote of the Day</strong></p><blockquote><p>We can ill afford to be a country where women drop out of the work force.</p></blockquote><p>| <strong>Indra Nooyi</strong>, former CEO of PepsiCo, cited by <strong>David Gelles</strong> in <a href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/21/business/indra-nooyi-corner-office-pepsi.html\">Indra Nooyi: &#x2018;I&#x2019;m Not Here to Tell You What to Eat&#x2019;</a></p><p><strong>Elsewhere</strong></p><p><a href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/19/business/economy/what-is-crane-index.html\">Another Role for Construction Cranes: Economic Indicator</a> | The <em>Crane Index</em> reminds me of Paul Kedrosky&apos;s <em>Ladder Index</em>, that I wrote about in <a href=\"https://medium.com/@stoweboyd/trawling-with-engines-of-meaning-fc7df3139428\">Trawling with Engines of Meaning</a>.</p><p>:::</p><blockquote><p>The High Line, which once seemed like a triumph of urban reimagination, now seems to me the embodiment of this narcotic nowhere-ness: a beautiful highway that has sliced through a living neighborhood, Robert Moses style, leaving luxury buildings in its wake. </p></blockquote><p>| <strong>Alexandra Schwartz</strong>, <a href=\"https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.newyorker.com%2Fculture%2Fcultural-comment%2Fhudson-yards-is-the-hotel-california-of-new-york&amp;t=ZjY3ODgxMjlkYjZhMTllYzNlYmNiMDU0YWFkNDQ3MDVjOWRhNjU4ZSxzNFFuY2FPZg%3D%3D&amp;b=t%3AGs6I4BFv-h1LegvV1iFKiA&amp;p=https%3A%2F%2Fstoweboyd.com%2Fpost%2F183660108422%2Fin-that-sense-hudson-yards-is-a-neighborhood-of&amp;m=0\">There&#x2019;s No Good Reason for a New Yorker to Go to Hudson Yards</a> </p><p>:::</p><p><a href=\"https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F2019%2F03%2F21%2Fopinion%2Fhouse-of-representatives-women.html&amp;t=YWI1NDA0MGFkMjUzNWQ4NDk2ZjQyYTU5YTI2NDMwZjMwOGQ0MWYxYixsYmx3ZGJKaw%3D%3D&amp;b=t%3AGs6I4BFv-h1LegvV1iFKiA&amp;p=https%3A%2F%2Fstoweboyd.com%2Fpost%2F183629397607%2Fthe-outspoken-women-of-the-house-michelle-cottle&amp;m=0\">The Outspoken Women of the House</a> | <strong>Michelle Cottle</strong> debunks the conventional wisdom about women being more conciliatory than men, in general and specifically in politics [<a href=\"https://stoweboyd.com/post/183629397607/the-outspoken-women-of-the-house-michelle-cottle\">more</a>].</p><p>:::</p><blockquote><p>There&#x2019;s a name for this phenomenon I&#x2019;ve given into, the feeling that data collection is so inescapable that I might as well live with it: digital resignation. Coined by the researchers Nora Draper and Joseph Turow, digital resignation happens when people see no way out of the privacy invasions that have become a common feature of their digital lives, and instead look for ways to live within them as a new normal. Draper says that in a survey on the phenomenon, people who knew about how social media work were likely to see no escape from its invasive realities.</p></blockquote><p>| <strong>Amanda Mull,</strong> <a href=\"https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2019/03/shop-until-you-drop-instagram/585268/\">What Instagram&#x2019;s New Shopping Feature Means for Your Data</a></p></div>","url":"https://workfutures.substack.com/p/work-futures-daily-welcome-to-elsewhere","date_published":"2019-03-25T18:38:08+00:00","author":{"name":""}},{"id":"1357","title":"Man stole $122m from Facebook and Google by sending them random bills, which the companies dutifully paid","content_html":"<div><div id=\"story\"> <p> Last week, Evaldas Rimasauskas of Lithuania plead guilty to US wire fraud, aggravated identity theft, and money laundering charges, admitting that he had stolen $99m from Facebook and $23m from Google between 2013 and 2015. </p> <span id=\"more-707352\"></span> <p> Rimasauskas&apos;s grift was pretty bold. He merely sent Google and Facebook invoices for items they hadn&apos;t purchased and that he hadn&apos;t provided, which the companies paid anyway. The invoices were accompanied by &quot;forged invoices, contracts, and letters that falsely appeared to have been executed and signed by executives and agents of the Victim Companies, and which bore false corporate stamps embossed with the Victim Companies&#x2019; names, to be submitted to banks in support of the large volume of funds that were fraudulently transmitted via wire transfer.&quot; He also spoofed emails that appeared to come from corporate execs. </p><p> Apparently, no one checked first to see if these corresponded to invoices/POs that had been issued within the companies. </p><p> Rimasauskas was pretending to be the giant Taiwanese hardware manufacturer Quanta Computer Inc, and had registered a company in Latvia with the same name. </p><p> He&apos;s agreed to forfeit about $50m. It&apos;s not clear what&apos;s happened to the other $73m, but Rimasauskas was a prolific and baroque money-launderer who squirreled cash away in Cyprus, Lithuania, Hungary, Slovakia, and Latvia. Google has said that &quot;We detected this fraud and promptly alerted the authorities. We recouped the funds and we&apos;re pleased this matter is resolved.&quot; </p><p> Rimasauskas will be sentenced on July 29. He faces up to 30 years. <blockquote> <p> &quot;As Evaldas Rimasauskas admitted today, he devised a blatant scheme to fleece U.S. companies out of over $100 million, and then siphoned those funds to bank accounts around the globe,&quot; stated Manhattan U.S. Attorney Geoffrey S. Berman in the DoJ press release containing the unsealed indictment from March 21, 2017. </p><p> According to the indictment [.PDF], Rimasauskas registered and incorporated a Latvian company with the same name as the Asian computer hardware manufacturer Quanta Computer Inc as reported by Bloomberg, and also opened multiple accounts at banks from Cyprus, Lithuania, Hungary, Slovakia, and Latvia to receive the fraudulent payments. </p></blockquote> </p><p> <a href=\"https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/lithuanian-pleads-guilty-to-stealing-100-million-from-google-facebook/\">Lithuanian Pleads Guilty to Stealing $100 Million From Google, Facebook</a> [Sergiu Gatlan/Bleeping Computer] </p><p> (<i>via <a href=\"https://slashdot.org/\">/.</a></i>) </p></div><div id=\"next-post-thumbnails\"> <div class=\"nextstory\"> <a href=\"https://boingboing.net/2019/03/22/secret-emails-show-facebook-kn.html?utm_source=moreatbb&amp;utm_medium=nextpost&amp;utm_campaign=nextpostthumbnails\"><img width=\"600\" src=\"https://i1.wp.com/media.boingboing.net/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/facebook-1.jpg?w=936&amp;ssl=1%20936w,%20https://i1.wp.com/media.boingboing.net/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/facebook-1.jpg?resize=300%2C144&amp;ssl=1%20300w,%20https://i1.wp.com/media.boingboing.net/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/facebook-1.jpg?resize=600%2C288&amp;ssl=1%20600w,%20https://i1.wp.com/media.boingboing.net/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/facebook-1.jpg?resize=768%2C369&amp;ssl=1%20768w,%20https://i1.wp.com/media.boingboing.net/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/facebook-1.jpg?resize=930%2C447&amp;ssl=1%20930w\" class=\"attachment-medium size-medium wp-post-image\" alt=\"\" srcset=\"https://i1.wp.com/media.boingboing.net/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/facebook-1.jpg?w=936&amp;ssl=1 936w, https://i1.wp.com/media.boingboing.net/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/facebook-1.jpg?resize=300%2C144&amp;ssl=1 300w, https://i1.wp.com/media.boingboing.net/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/facebook-1.jpg?resize=600%2C288&amp;ssl=1 600w, https://i1.wp.com/media.boingboing.net/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/facebook-1.jpg?resize=768%2C369&amp;ssl=1 768w, https://i1.wp.com/media.boingboing.net/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/facebook-1.jpg?resize=930%2C447&amp;ssl=1 930w\"></a> <p>&#x201C;The general public itself has little or no interest in this Document that could warrant exposing Facebook to the risks that would inevitably accompany disclosure.&#x201D; &#x2014; Facebook</p> <h3><a href=\"https://boingboing.net/2019/03/22/secret-emails-show-facebook-kn.html\">READ THE REST</a></h3> </div> <div class=\"nextstory\"> <a href=\"https://boingboing.net/2019/03/21/facebook-stored-millions-of-pa.html?utm_source=moreatbb&amp;utm_medium=nextpost&amp;utm_campaign=nextpostthumbnails\"><img width=\"600\" src=\"https://i2.wp.com/media.boingboing.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/zuckerberg.jpg?w=1024&amp;ssl=1%201024w,%20https://i2.wp.com/media.boingboing.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/zuckerberg.jpg?resize=300%2C200&amp;ssl=1%20300w,%20https://i2.wp.com/media.boingboing.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/zuckerberg.jpg?resize=600%2C400&amp;ssl=1%20600w,%20https://i2.wp.com/media.boingboing.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/zuckerberg.jpg?resize=768%2C512&amp;ssl=1%20768w,%20https://i2.wp.com/media.boingboing.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/zuckerberg.jpg?resize=930%2C619&amp;ssl=1%20930w\" class=\"attachment-medium size-medium wp-post-image\" alt=\"\" srcset=\"https://i2.wp.com/media.boingboing.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/zuckerberg.jpg?w=1024&amp;ssl=1 1024w, https://i2.wp.com/media.boingboing.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/zuckerberg.jpg?resize=300%2C200&amp;ssl=1 300w, https://i2.wp.com/media.boingboing.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/zuckerberg.jpg?resize=600%2C400&amp;ssl=1 600w, https://i2.wp.com/media.boingboing.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/zuckerberg.jpg?resize=768%2C512&amp;ssl=1 768w, https://i2.wp.com/media.boingboing.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/zuckerberg.jpg?resize=930%2C619&amp;ssl=1 930w\"></a> <p>&#x201C;Change your Facebook password right now&#x201D; is the instructive title of a news story at Wired today, sourced to a report at Krebs on Security.</p> <h3><a href=\"https://boingboing.net/2019/03/21/facebook-stored-millions-of-pa.html\">READ THE REST</a></h3> </div> <div class=\"nextstory\"> <a href=\"https://boingboing.net/2019/03/19/facebook-blocked-trumps-soci.html?utm_source=moreatbb&amp;utm_medium=nextpost&amp;utm_campaign=nextpostthumbnails\"><img width=\"600\" src=\"https://i2.wp.com/media.boingboing.net/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/scav.jpg?w=914&amp;ssl=1%20914w,%20https://i2.wp.com/media.boingboing.net/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/scav.jpg?resize=300%2C236&amp;ssl=1%20300w,%20https://i2.wp.com/media.boingboing.net/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/scav.jpg?resize=600%2C473&amp;ssl=1%20600w,%20https://i2.wp.com/media.boingboing.net/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/scav.jpg?resize=768%2C605&amp;ssl=1%20768w\" class=\"attachment-medium size-medium wp-post-image\" alt=\"\" srcset=\"https://i2.wp.com/media.boingboing.net/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/scav.jpg?w=914&amp;ssl=1 914w, https://i2.wp.com/media.boingboing.net/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/scav.jpg?resize=300%2C236&amp;ssl=1 300w, https://i2.wp.com/media.boingboing.net/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/scav.jpg?resize=600%2C473&amp;ssl=1 600w, https://i2.wp.com/media.boingboing.net/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/scav.jpg?resize=768%2C605&amp;ssl=1 768w\"></a> <p>Facebook says it temporarily blocked Dan Scavino because he was behaving like a bot. Seems reasonable.</p> <h3><a href=\"https://boingboing.net/2019/03/19/facebook-blocked-trumps-soci.html\">READ THE REST</a></h3> </div> <p> <div class=\"nextstory\"> <a href=\"https://boingboing.net/2019/03/26/name-your-price-for-this-compl.html?utm_source=moreatbb&amp;utm_medium=nextpost&amp;utm_campaign=nextpostthumbnails\"><img width=\"600\" src=\"https://i2.wp.com/media.boingboing.net/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/sale_15856_primary_image.jpg?w=630&amp;ssl=1%20630w,%20https://i2.wp.com/media.boingboing.net/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/sale_15856_primary_image.jpg?resize=300%2C225&amp;ssl=1%20300w,%20https://i2.wp.com/media.boingboing.net/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/sale_15856_primary_image.jpg?resize=600%2C450&amp;ssl=1%20600w\" class=\"attachment-medium size-medium wp-post-image\" alt=\"\" srcset=\"https://i2.wp.com/media.boingboing.net/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/sale_15856_primary_image.jpg?w=630&amp;ssl=1 630w, https://i2.wp.com/media.boingboing.net/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/sale_15856_primary_image.jpg?resize=300%2C225&amp;ssl=1 300w, https://i2.wp.com/media.boingboing.net/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/sale_15856_primary_image.jpg?resize=600%2C450&amp;ssl=1 600w\"></a> <p>If you&#x2019;re going to pursue a career in graphic design, videography or web development, there are some essential tools you need to have &#x2013; and all of them are included in the Adobe Creative Cloud. And whether you need to brush up on Illustrator, Photoshop or InDesign &#x2013; or are a beginner to them all [&#x2026;]</p> <h3><a href=\"https://boingboing.net/2019/03/26/name-your-price-for-this-compl.html\">READ THE REST</a></h3> </div> <div class=\"nextstory\"> <a href=\"https://boingboing.net/2019/03/25/get-behind-the-camera-with-thi.html?utm_source=moreatbb&amp;utm_medium=nextpost&amp;utm_campaign=nextpostthumbnails\"><img width=\"600\" src=\"https://i0.wp.com/media.boingboing.net/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/cinema.jpeg?w=800&amp;ssl=1%20800w,%20https://i0.wp.com/media.boingboing.net/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/cinema.jpeg?resize=300%2C200&amp;ssl=1%20300w,%20https://i0.wp.com/media.boingboing.net/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/cinema.jpeg?resize=600%2C400&amp;ssl=1%20600w,%20https://i0.wp.com/media.boingboing.net/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/cinema.jpeg?resize=768%2C512&amp;ssl=1%20768w\" class=\"attachment-medium size-medium wp-post-image\" alt=\"\" srcset=\"https://i0.wp.com/media.boingboing.net/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/cinema.jpeg?w=800&amp;ssl=1 800w, https://i0.wp.com/media.boingboing.net/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/cinema.jpeg?resize=300%2C200&amp;ssl=1 300w, https://i0.wp.com/media.boingboing.net/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/cinema.jpeg?resize=600%2C400&amp;ssl=1 600w, https://i0.wp.com/media.boingboing.net/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/cinema.jpeg?resize=768%2C512&amp;ssl=1 768w\"></a> <p>Got a vision to put on film? The Film &amp; Cinematography Mastery Bundle shows you how to put it there, with classes covering gear, lighting, production &#x2013; even marketing. Even in this age of indie cinema, filmmaking can seem like an exclusive world for the chosen few. But with the right eye &#x2013; and the [&#x2026;]</p> <h3><a href=\"https://boingboing.net/2019/03/25/get-behind-the-camera-with-thi.html\">READ THE REST</a></h3> </div> <div class=\"nextstory\"> <a href=\"https://boingboing.net/2019/03/24/kickstart-your-mad-science-wit.html?utm_source=moreatbb&amp;utm_medium=nextpost&amp;utm_campaign=nextpostthumbnails\"><img width=\"600\" src=\"https://i2.wp.com/media.boingboing.net/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/product_24818_product_shots3_image.jpg?w=630&amp;ssl=1%20630w,%20https://i2.wp.com/media.boingboing.net/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/product_24818_product_shots3_image.jpg?resize=300%2C225&amp;ssl=1%20300w,%20https://i2.wp.com/media.boingboing.net/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/product_24818_product_shots3_image.jpg?resize=600%2C450&amp;ssl=1%20600w\" class=\"attachment-medium size-medium wp-post-image\" alt=\"\" srcset=\"https://i2.wp.com/media.boingboing.net/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/product_24818_product_shots3_image.jpg?w=630&amp;ssl=1 630w, https://i2.wp.com/media.boingboing.net/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/product_24818_product_shots3_image.jpg?resize=300%2C225&amp;ssl=1 300w, https://i2.wp.com/media.boingboing.net/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/product_24818_product_shots3_image.jpg?resize=600%2C450&amp;ssl=1 600w\"></a> <p>If you&#x2019;re into tech at all, you should definitely consider unleashing your inner tinkerer on a Raspberry Pi board. If you&#x2019;re intimidated, don&#x2019;t be. It&#x2019;s a statistical probability that people half your age have created cooler things than you can imagine with the versatile kit. Not sure where to start? The Complete Raspberry Pi 3B+ [&#x2026;]</p> <h3><a href=\"https://boingboing.net/2019/03/24/kickstart-your-mad-science-wit.html\">READ THE REST</a></h3> </div> </p></div></div>","url":"https://boingboing.net/2019/03/24/evaldas-rimasauskas.html","date_published":"2019-03-24T11:22:21+00:00","author":{"name":"Cory Doctorow"}},{"id":"1353","title":"‘This could ruin us’: A class-action suit imperils California freelancers","content_html":"<div class=\"col-sm-10 col-md-6 body-text-all\" id=\"article-content\"> <p><span><strong>Carrie Bell likes being</strong> her own boss. A full-time freelancer for nearly 18 years, she covers entertainment and travel for outlets like Yahoo and PopSugar. Despite the rollercoaster highs and lows of working independently, freelancing agrees with her. &#x201C;I worked full-time. It wasn&#x2019;t really my style. I work really well at 3am.&#x201D;</span></p>\n<p><span>But late last year, the Los Angeles&#x2013;based writer got an ominous email from a longtime client. An HR representative was cutting her loose. An apologetic note from her editor at the publication followed.</span></p>\n<p><span>&#x201C;I was like, &#x2018;Did I do something wrong?&#x2019;&#x201D; Bell recalls.</span></p>\n<p><span>The answer relieved Bell&#x2019;s worry, but presented another. It wasn&#x2019;t her; Bell&#x2019;s employers were worried about Dynamex.</span></p>\n<p><span>Dynamex is shorthand for a</span><a href=\"https://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-independent-contract-20180430-story.html\"><span> class-action lawsuit</span></a><span> in California about the employment status of delivery truck drivers. Last April, the state Supreme Court ruled unanimously that Dynamex Operations West, a package delivery company, had misclassified its drivers as independent contractors rather than employees. The ruling also covers</span><a href=\"https://www.llrlaw.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/Dancers-Are-Employees-Under-Dynamex-Calif.-Judge-Rules.pdf\"><span> exotic dancers</span></a><span>, hairdressers, freelance reporters, and anyone else who works as an independent contractor (IC) in the Golden State. Heralded by labor groups as protecting the rights of vulnerable workers and confronting the abuses of the gig economy, Dynamex has also created widespread confusion about who&#x2019;s exempt, who&#x2019;s in trouble, and what the ruling will mean for freelancers. To say that it&#x2019;s having an impact would be an understatement.</span><a href=\"https://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-dynamex-contractors-20190223-story.html?fbclid=IwAR2D4FS5pemD1qb5ciJ3x20t7i8gC7mGBxSv52JOzAuMlpkbCsaj8UcpI_I\"><span> People are freaking out</span></a><span>.</span></p>\n<p><strong>ICYMI:<a href=\"https://www.cjr.org/business_of_news/mcclatchy-upgrades-ceo-forman-housing-stipend-35k-month-buyouts.php\">&#xA0;Newspaper upgrades CEO&#x2019;s housing stipend to $35K a month amid buyouts</a></strong></p>\n<p><span>The ruling established an ABC test whose three parameters must be met for a worker to be independent under California wage orders that govern things such as minimum wage and overtime. Part A says that an IC must be &#x201C;free from the control and direction of the hirer in connection with the performance of the work.&#x201D; Part C requires the &#x201C;worker is customarily engaged in an independently established trade, occupation, or business of the same nature as the work performed.&#x201D; But it&#x2019;s part B that presents a problem for freelance journalists: someone is an independent contractor only if they perform work &#x201C;outside the usual course of the hiring entity&#x2019;s business.&#x201D; In the archetypal example, a plumber fixing a restaurant toilet clearly qualifies. A freelancer journalist writing a column for a magazine? Not so much.</span></p>\n<p><span>While many media companies and publications seem unaware or unfazed by the ruling, others are severing ties to California writers to ensure compliance. Bell&#x2019;s client, New Jersey-based Northstar Travel Media, which produces travel industry trade journals, has stopped working with a number of California freelancers. (Disclosure: I&#x2019;ve freelanced for Northstar over the past four years, and transitioned to being a part-time employee in January.) San Diego journalist Randy Dotinga lost a potential public broadcasting client that suddenly announced a no-freelance policy post Dynamex. They didn&#x2019;t specify the cause, according to Dotinga, but the timing suggested they might be spooked.</span></p>\n<p><span>Cecilia Hae-Jin Lee, an LA-based writer and photographer, hadn&#x2019;t given the ruling much thought until one of her long-time editors emailed to say they couldn&#x2019;t keep working with her. &#x201C;I lost a regular client because of this,&#x201D; she says. &#x201C;They just blanket decided not to hire any California freelancers.&#x201D;</span></p>\n<p><span>I reached out to Northstar, Thomson Reuters, and the Editorial Freelancers Association to ask about Dynamex, but all three declined to comment for this piece. The </span><i><span>Los Angeles Times</span></i><span>, Freelancers Union, and News Guild didn&#x2019;t reply at all.</span></p>\n<p><span>California isn&#x2019;t the only state with an ABC test. The ruling was based on a Massachusetts statute that sets roughly the same parameters, but when I tried to find a Massachusetts writer who was aware of the law&#x2014;let alone affected by it&#x2014;I came up empty. Boston University School of Law Professor and employment law expert Michael Harper attributes that to alarmism in response to the new standard. Among &#x201C;high-skill&#x201D; industries, he says, &#x201C;it would have to be used by the workers against employers. If it&#x2019;s a relationship that people are happy with. . . they&#x2019;re not going to bring a case.&#x201D;</span></p>\n<p><span>Dotinga is alarmed. A former newspaper reporter who has freelanced full time for the past 20 years and previously served as the president of the American Society of Journalists and Authors, Dotinga has been working with a coalition of 16 national non-profit groups that represent professional creatives to draft a letter to legislators explaining the impact of Dynamex. &#x201C;For all of us who are freelancers, this could ruin us,&#x201D; Dotinga says. &#x201C;We could be unable to find work. It&#x2019;s potentially really devastating.&#x201D;</span></p>\n<p><strong>ICYMI:&#xA0;<a href=\"https://www.cjr.org/special_report/why-the-left-cant-stand-the-new-york-times.php\">Why the left can&#x2019;t stand<em>&#xA0;The New York Times</em></a></strong></p>\n<p><span>Exemptions to the wage orders&#x2014;and therefore Dynamex&#x2014;already exist, granted to some &#x201C;professionals&#x201D; such as doctors and architects and &#x201C;creatives&#x201D; such as artists. Writers fall into a sort of gray zone&#x2014;not explicitly exempt and not explicitly subject. Brigid O&#x2019;Farrell, with the Northern California chapter of the National Writers Union, says the organization supports the Dynamex ruling, but is also concerned about its effect on freelance creatives who satisfy all but Part B of the new test. Along with Dotinga, the NWU is working on specific language that would protect independent writers who are truly independent.</span></p>\n<p><span>California Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez, who&#x2019;s sponsoring a bill that would codify Dynamex as law, has met with the group. Gonzalez says she&#x2019;s concerned that workers are covered with protections like health insurance, disability, and worker&#x2019;s compensation; that employers aren&#x2019;t shifting those costs to the state; and that contractors have the power to dictate the terms of their work. If freelancers satisfy those stipulations, then Gonzalez gives it a green light. &#x201C;In those situations they&#x2019;re acting like a tiny little business, and I think that&#x2019;s how independent contractors are supposed to work,&#x201D; she says. When it comes to a blanket exemption, though, she&#x2019;s less convinced, pointing to the potential for freelancers to break a union or for companies to hire permalancers in place of employees.</span></p>\n<p><span>The most coveted freelance gigs&#x2014;recurring columns or features that journalists can count on month after month&#x2014;seem especially vulnerable. Gonzalez says she&#x2019;s less concerned about journalistic piece-work. However, when a magazine uses a freelancer to write weekly movie reviews or a photographer shoots exclusively for a single paper, she asks, &#x201C;Doesn&#x2019;t that start to feel like they&#x2019;re actually misclassified?&#x201D;</span></p>\n<p><span>&#x201C;Freelancing gets a bad rap,&#x201D; Dotinga says. &#x201C;The fact is a lot of us do really well, and we do have a lot of job security. I&#x2019;m sure if I had been a newspaper reporter for the last 20 years, I would have been laid off a few times. For me, being a freelancer is the way I&#x2019;ve been able to continue being a journalist.&#x201D;</span></p>\n<p><span>In the wake of massive media layoffs earlier this year, the same thing is true for many former newsroom staffers, though the ability to outsource content&#x2014;and the accompanying payroll taxes&#x2014;could also be a factor in declining editorial jobs. </span></p>\n<p><span>Harper, meanwhile, wants to apply his own ABC test to me and this assignment.</span></p>\n<p><span>&#x201C;When you say you&#x2019;re writing a story, does that mean they&#x2019;re paying you?&#x201D; he asks.</span></p>\n<p><span>Yes, I tell him. I pitched the story, agreed upon a rate, and set a deadline, made a one-time deal for this article without restrictions on what I can write for anybody else. CJR could kill the story, or I could pull it myself with no repercussions beyond a bridge burnt and a missing paycheck.</span></p>\n<p><span>Satisfied, Harper says that I sound like an independent contractor. &#x201C;But,&#x201D; he sighs, &#x201C;I understand how lawyers could make them nervous.&#x201D;</span></p>\n<p><strong>ICYMI:&#xA0;<a href=\"https://www.cjr.org/investigation/ben-bagdikian-pentagon-papers.php\">The FBI&#x2019;s secret investigation of a journalist</a></strong></p> <small class=\"bio-overline\"><strong>Sarah Feldberg is a freelance writer and editor based in the Bay Area. Her work has appeared in <i>National Geographic</i>, <i>The Atlantic<i>, Afar and ESPN. Follow her on Twitter <a href=\"https://twitter.com/sarahfeldberg\">@sarahfeldberg</a>.</i></i></strong></small> </div>","url":"https://www.cjr.org/united_states_project/california-freelancer-dynamex.php","date_published":"2019-03-23T21:50:58+00:00","author":{"name":""}},{"id":"1351","title":"The Well-Meaning Bad Ideas Spoiling a Generation","content_html":"<div class=\"page-content\"> <p><span class=\"dropcap\">I</span>n 2011, a friend of mine in college asked me if I&#x2019;d read <i>The Happiness Hypothesis: Finding Modern Truth in Ancient Wisdom</i>, by Jonathan Haidt. Haidt&#x2019;s aim was to probe and distill&#x2014;and &#x201C;savor&#x201D;&#x2014;the moral precepts of antiquity in the light of modern science. The 2006 book was an answer to an overabundance of too-little-appreciated advice. &#x201C;We might have already encountered the Greatest Idea, the insight that would have transformed us had we savored it, taken it to heart, and worked it into our lives,&#x201D; Haidt wrote. My friend was happy to encounter it: Haidt helped him through a difficult breakup.</p> <p>I hadn&#x2019;t heard of the book, but I had heard of its author. A paper of Haidt&#x2019;s, &#x201C;The Emotional Dog and Its Rational Tail: A Social Intuitionist Approach to Moral Judgment,&#x201D; had been assigned in my moral psychology course, and I was in the middle of writing an essay that argued against its conclusion. Haidt wrote that reason, compared to emotion, typically matters little to what we believe is right or wrong. The idea that feelings like disgust, as opposed to deliberation, tend to play a more powerful role in driving what we deem ethical was, to me, an aspiring philosopher that prized rationality, distasteful. Those were the days ...</p><blockquote class=\"pull-quote\"><p>I believe that if you really want to make a difference in the world, you need to commit to really studying the world.</p> </blockquote><p>Haidt, meanwhile, was about to put out his next book, <i>The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion</i>. In recent a conversation with <i>Nautilus</i>, at his office in the NYU Stern School of Business, Haidt said he began writing the book after George W. Bush won the United States presidential election. He was determined to help the Democrats win. &#x201C;Liberalism seemed so obviously ethical,&#x201D; he wrote. His research led him to an awakening. &#x201C;Once I actually started reading the best conservative writing, going back to Edmund Burke and Michael Oakeshott in the 20th century, and Thomas Sowell more recently, and then libertarians,&#x201D; he said, &#x201C;I realized, Wow, you actually need to expose yourself to critics, to people who start from a different position.&#x201D; The result was his &#x201C;moral foundations&#x201D; theory&#x2014;roughly, there&#x2019;s more to morality than the liberal emphasis on harm and fairness&#x2014;which led Haidt to identify with no political tribe. He now defines himself as a centrist.<br></p> <p>Which brings us to his latest salvo, <i>The Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas Are Setting Up a Generation for Failure</i>, co-authored with Greg Lukianoff, the president and CEO of F.I.R.E., the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education. It is a kind of culmination of, or epilogue to, the ideas Haidt wrote about in his first two books. In <i>The Coddling of the American Mind</i>, Haidt and Lukianoff look at the fraught climate on elite college campuses and the effect that social media and paranoid parenting, among other things, have had on generation Z, or i-Gen, the most recent cohort (born post-1995) after the millennials. Some of the chapters in the book, for example, go by names like &#x201C;The Search for Wisdom,&#x201D; &#x201C;The Polarization Cycle,&#x201D; and &#x201C;The Quest for Justice.&#x201D; It is, in part, an anatomy of the psychology of activism.</p> <p>During his interview with <i>Nautilus</i>, Haidt described his thoughts on these contentious topics with both care and gusto. (Disclosure: I serve as communications director at Ethical Systems, a research group formed by Haidt, housed at NYU.) Our talk ventured from his sizing-up of the &#x201C;intellectual dark web&#x201D; to his notes on New Atheism, his reaction to the &#x201C;grievance studies&#x201D; hoax, and the parenting advice he has for new fathers, like me. The public intellectual brought his A-game.<sup><a href=\"javascript:;\" class=\"footnote-ref\">1</a></sup></p><p><img class=\"vimeo-breakers\" src=\"https://i.vimeocdn.com/video/764516147_640.jpg\"></p><center><a class=\"mobile button button_active_hover\" href=\"https://vimeo.com/321734235\">View Video</a></center> <p><b>Has something gone wrong with our conception of social justice?</b></p> <p>Social justice has many meanings. I think the term was used [to refer to] a Catholic social justice in the 19th century. Some people, on the right especially, claim that the term is meaningless, that there&#x2019;s only justice. I think that&#x2019;s not right. I think that there are certain conceptions of justice that are about groups in society; and especially when groups are shut out or treated with lack of dignity, then I think talking about social justice as a particular subset of justice is useful.</p> <p>What I&#x2019;ve observed on campus&#x2014;and what Greg Lukianoff and I wrote about in our book&#x2014;is that there&#x2019;s an increasing tendency to define, to look at any place where there&#x2019;s not numerical parity, where any group is underrepresented relative to the population and to say, &#x201C;that is unjust.&#x201D; And any social scientist who&#x2019;s thinking in any <i>other </i>domain would say, &#x201C;well, no, wait a second. You have to know the pipeline. You have to know how many people were trying to get in, were people treated differently because of their group membership?&#x201D;</p> <p>In fact, just today, <i>The New York Times</i> announced that it&#x2019;s going to commit to publishing an equal number of letters from men and women, even though 75 percent of the letter writers are men. Men like to put themselves out in public and show off. But <i>The New York Times</i> has committed to this equal outcomes social justice, which says we&#x2019;re gonna treat people unequally in order to attain equal outcomes.</p> <p>That I think is unfair. Most Americans think it&#x2019;s unfair. Most Americans think that you should treat people as individuals and not discriminate against anyone because of their race or gender. So yes, we are in the middle of a time in which many people who call themselves social justice activists are trying to achieve policies that most people think will treat individuals unfairly.</p><p><img class=\"vimeo-breakers\" src=\"https://i.vimeocdn.com/video/764516304_640.jpg\"></p> <center><a class=\"mobile button button_active_hover\" href=\"https://vimeo.com/321734721\">View Video</a></center><p><b>How should we understand the concept of intersectionality?</b></p> <p>Intersectionality is a very important concept on campus these days and it starts with an insight that I think is important and absolutely right. Which is that the experience of any person is not just the sum of the experiences of the various identities. So to be a black woman in American today is not just the sum of what it&#x2019;s like to be a woman added on to what it&#x2019;s like to be black. So Kimberle Crenshaw, the woman who popularized the concept and developed it, makes the point that there are distinctive indignities that black women would face that might not be faced by women or by black men let&#x2019;s say.</p> <p>So if the point is just that identities intersect or interact, it&#x2019;s absolutely right. You can&#x2019;t argue that. Where it&#x2019;s gone wrong I believe is that it has become such a part of teaching on campus, it becomes wedded to a notion of society as a matrix of oppression in which young people learn to see society as being composed of all kinds of binary distinctions where the people on top are powerful and therefore bad. They are oppressors so they are morally bad. People on the bottom are the victims and therefore morally good.</p> <p>Now of course oppression is bad, but to teach young people whose minds are ... human minds evolved to do tribalism. We evolved to do us versus them, binary thinking, black and white thinking, good versus evil. To take 18-year-olds, and rather than try to turn that down and say &#x201C;okay hold on, don&#x2019;t be so moralistic. Let&#x2019;s try to give people a chance. Let&#x2019;s judge people as individuals.&#x201D; That was the great achievement of the 20th century&#x2014;to make progress there. Instead in the 21st century to say, &#x201C;okay welcome to campus. Here are five or six dimensions; we&#x2019;re going to teach you to see men, maleness, masculinity as bad, everyone else is good. White is bad, everyone else is good. Straight is bad, everyone else is good.&#x201D; This is Manicheism. This is ramping up our tendency to dualistic thinking.</p><p><img class=\"vimeo-breakers\" src=\"https://i.vimeocdn.com/video/764516617_640.jpg\"></p><center><a class=\"mobile button button_active_hover\" href=\"https://vimeo.com/321734831\">View Video</a></center> <p><b>How did this sort of dualistic thinking that students are learning gain purchase in the academy?</b></p> <p>Within each school, there are discrete departments that have a lot of autonomy. Deans and presidents can&#x2019;t really tell departments what to teach or who to hire. So each department, each field in the academy evolves over the course of decades according to its own logic and the logic of its broader field outside of the university.</p><div class=\"reco\">\n<article class=\"issue-article\">\n<div>\n<a href=\"http://nautil.us/issue/69/Patterns/watch-and-see-the-medium-really-is-the-message\" class=\"obnd_lnk\">\n<img src=\"http://static.nautil.us/15762_4524b5e84762d68528525a226797c4d2.png\" alt=\"Sapolsky_TH-F1\" width=\"314\">\n</a>\n</div>\n<div>\n<span class=\"article-tag\">\n<span class=\"article-tag\"> <span class=\"article-tag-focus\"><a href=\"http://nautil.us/term/f/Sociology\">Also in Sociology</a></span>&#xA0;&#xA0;</span>\n</span> <p class=\"article-author\">By Kevin Berger</p>\n<p>\nCesar Hidalgo, director of the Collective Learning group at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Media Lab, would like you to know that Marshall McLuhan was right. And he has the datasets to prove it. In a new paper, &#x201C;How the...<strong><a href=\"http://nautil.us/issue/69/Patterns/watch-and-see-the-medium-really-is-the-message\" class=\"obnd_lnk\">READ MORE</a></strong>\n</p> </div> </article>\n</div> <p>So I think that there are certain fields that are colloquially called the grievance studies departments. Fields that are not focused on doing basic research or on understanding social dynamics, but on activism, on changing social dynamics. In general, trying to change things and trying to understand them don&#x2019;t go well together. The mission of a university I believe should be to understand. And if you do a great job of research, that can be the basis for all kinds of activism later. But if you start with a commitment to a certain way of seeing the world, and you start with a belief that some people are good and some people are bad, I think it makes it very hard to understand real social systems.</p> <p>I think that there are certain areas, certain departments, certain majors that have more of an activist flavor than a research flavor. Students who major in those departments&#x2014;I mean students get a lot of different experiences&#x2014;but those who major in those departments and tend to socialize with people who think that way may come out of the university less wise than when they went in.</p><p><img class=\"vimeo-breakers\" src=\"https://i.vimeocdn.com/video/764516906_640.jpg\"></p> <center><a class=\"mobile button button_active_hover\" href=\"https://vimeo.com/321734883\">View Video</a></center><p><b>How should students leaving college think about trying to advance social justice?</b></p> <p>Many students come to college with a dream or desire or goal of making the world a better place. This is an aspect of post-materialist societies: Prosperity, and general peace lead people to care more about women&#x2019;s rights, gay rights, animal rights, the environment. This is a trend that happens all over the world. It&#x2019;s happening in Asia as well. So increasingly students want to make a different in the world in a certain way in terms of social justice-type concerns. And that would be great <i>if</i> they were to commit to understanding first. If they would commit to understanding institutions first before they try to change them, then they&#x2019;d have some success.</p> <p>Unfortunately, social institutions are incredibly complicated and difficult to change. If you get a group of 20 top experts to study poverty let&#x2019;s say, or child abuse or anything else, it&#x2019;s often very difficult to really find a solution. It can take years of study. We then roll out programs, and it often turns out that the programs backfire. So I think that college students, if they really want to make a difference in the world, they should not become activists in their freshman year. They should devote themselves to studying and learning, and maybe by senior year, if they&#x2019;re really expert in something, maybe they could get behind it.</p> <p>Now there is one nice exception. The students at Stoneman Douglas High School in Florida, they did a wonderful job of reviewing the research on gun control. Because, it&#x2019;s a much harder problem than many people think. They really researched it, they came up with a set of recommendations that I read and I thought, &#x201C;wow, this is really well informed. This is great.&#x201D; And then they went to the legislature and tried to put pressure on them to pass those reforms. <i>That&#x2019;s</i> the way to do it.</p> <p>Unfortunately, what we have on campus often is certain popular ideas that have no empirical support: mandatory diversity training, more ethnic identity centers, bias response teams so that anybody can report anybody else anonymously. These might sound good to some people, but there&#x2019;s no evidence that they&#x2019;ll make a more inclusive, open, trusting environment. And there&#x2019;s sometimes evidence that they&#x2019;ll make things worse. So I believe that if you really want to make a difference in the world, you need to commit to really studying the world. Don&#x2019;t get caught up in a group that is so passionate and so committed that it&#x2019;s going to basically be blind to counter evidence.</p><p><img class=\"vimeo-breakers\" src=\"https://i.vimeocdn.com/video/764521059_640.jpg\"></p><center><a class=\"mobile button button_active_hover\" href=\"https://vimeo.com/321735443\">View Video</a></center> <p><b>Tell us the six explanatory threads that make up your book, <i>The Coddling of the American Mind</i>.</b></p> <p>So in <i>The Coddling of the American Mind</i>, my co-author Greg Lukianoff and I are trying to figure out why campus culture changed so rapidly. Not everywhere&#x2014;not even at most schools&#x2014;but at most of the elite schools in the northeast and the west coast and elsewhere. Why was there suddenly this huge influx of these new ideas about safe spaces, microaggressions, trigger warnings, speech is violent, protect us from this violent speaker. Greg runs the foundation for individual rights in education. He&#x2019;s always been trying to protect student free speech rights. And suddenly in 2014, students themselves were saying ban this, protect us from that, that&#x2019;s violent, shut that down. And they were talking about safety. And they meant emotional safety. Where did this come from?</p> <p>So Greg and I dug into it for several years, and what we came up with in our book&#x2014;we&#x2019;re very proud of&#x2014;is a kind of social science detective story. We don&#x2019;t say, &#x201C;oh it&#x2019;s all social media. Or oh it&#x2019;s &#x2026;&#x201D;&#x2014;it&#x2019;s no one thing. So in the book, we show that there are at least six intersecting or interacting threads.</p> <p>The rise in polarization of the country, as left and right hate each other more and more every year since the 1990s. There&#x2019;s much more of an impetus to yell and scream, become passionate, and shut down speech that in <i>any </i>way seems to give comfort to the other side. That&#x2019;s a huge one. The nastiness of our culture war. And related to that, the 2016 election and the inauguration of Trump. Right around then is when we see most of the actual violence. There hasn&#x2019;t been a lot of violence on campus, but what there was especially happened right after the inauguration.</p> <p>Another intersecting thread is the huge rise in depression and anxiety that began around 2012. Students who were born after 1995 are not millennials&#x2014;they are Gen Z. Gen Z has much higher rates of anxiety and depression. And when you bring that cognitive style onto campus&#x2014;there&#x2019;s research we talk about in the book&#x2014;there&#x2019;s research showing that depressed and anxious people are more prone to put the worst possible reading on things. If there&#x2019;s ambiguity, they&#x2019;ll see the most threatening, negative version possible and it&#x2019;s very difficult to change their minds about it. So that makes it very hard to have a seminar class. It makes it very hard to have a discussion about complex topics. So rise in mental illness.</p> <p>Third is paranoid parenting. We started telling kids in the 1990s, and especially after 9/11 and Columbine: The world is dangerous. If you&#x2019;re outside, you&#x2019;ll be kidnapped. Now, this was never true. The world&#x2019;s getting safer and safer. I grew up in the &#x2019;70s during a gigantic crime wave. Just as the crime wave was ending in the 1990s, we freaked out and thought the world too dangerous to let kids out.</p> <p>Related to that then, the fourth thread, is that in addition to telling the world is scary, we said &#x201C;you don&#x2019;t get to play anymore. You don&#x2019;t get unsupervised playtime.&#x201D; Lots of soccer practice, lots of organized activities after school. But we&#x2019;re never gonna give you the chance to just be outside on your own, exploring the woods, going to town, buying a candy bar with your friends. Not until you&#x2019;re 14, or 12, something like that. So we took the most important experiences of childhood away from kids in the 1990s. That&#x2019;s the fourth one.</p> <p>Fifth one is bureaucratic changes driven in part by fear of liability that led university administrators to crack down on speech more and to implement reforms that put us all on eggshells. So, for example, in every bathroom at NYU, there are signs telling students how to report me anonymously if I say something that they find offensive. That means I can&#x2019;t take chances, I can&#x2019;t tell jokes, I can&#x2019;t trust them, even though most of them are great. But if one student in the class takes offense to one thing I say it could mire me in weeks and weeks of bureaucratic difficulty. So I don&#x2019;t take chances.</p> <p>And then, the last one is new ideas about social justice. Everybody agrees that people should have equal opportunity. That, there&#x2019;s widespread agreement about. But when some groups are now arguing that nothing is fair until it&#x2019;s exactly proportional, 50 percent female, 15 percent African American, that might be a desirable endpoint, but if you treat every institution as corrupt and evil until it achieves that, you&#x2019;re misunderstanding institutions and you&#x2019;re committing yourself to kinds of activism that will never be successful. If you won&#x2019;t look at the pipeline, if you won&#x2019;t look at the preconditions, you cannot understand how an institution works. So you put those all together and I think we have the package of almost like fuses that sort of all came together and came to a single point around 2014, 2015.</p><p><img class=\"vimeo-breakers\" src=\"https://i.vimeocdn.com/video/764614591_640.jpg\"></p><center><a class=\"mobile button button_active_hover\" href=\"https://vimeo.com/321735947\">View Video</a></center> <p><b>What&#x2019;s a lecture topic that you feel you need to be guarded in explaining?</b></p> <p>Anything about gender differences. I teach a course on professional responsibility. I teach a course on work, wisdom, and happiness. And in both classes, here I am in a business school, men and women are basically equal in abilities. There are very few areas where men are superior or women are superior&#x2014;there are a couple where there&#x2019;s small differences&#x2014;but the huge difference between men and women is what they choose, what they enjoy. And you see this in the play preferences of boys and girls. Now, I can say this to you on camera because you&#x2019;re not my student. You can&#x2019;t report me. If somebody sees this video they can&#x2019;t arrest me for saying this.</p> <p>But I wouldn&#x2019;t want to talk about this in class. I always did, up until a few years ago. If we&#x2019;re trying to say, &#x201C;What makes people happy in work?&#x201D; And, there are differences in ambition. There are differences in workaholism. Men are motivated to socially display, to display success and wealth, and so they tend to have their &#x2026; there&#x2019;s research that shows they&#x2019;re higher in achievement motives. Women, on average, are higher on relatedness motives. This is very relevant to understanding why men choose certain careers and women choose others.</p> <p>But if I talk about this in class and someone says, &#x201C;Are you saying that the cause of these differences is not sexism? Are you denying my experience?&#x201D; Someone could be offended by that; and from the time of Socrates, until about 2014, it was okay to be provocative as a professor, and if a student got upset by it, well, that upset could be productive and you could work through, like, &#x201C;What&#x2019;s going on here? Why do <i>you</i> think it is?&#x201D; You could have a debate or discussion. But I wouldn&#x2019;t try that now.</p><p><img class=\"vimeo-breakers\" src=\"https://i.vimeocdn.com/video/764522278_640.jpg\"></p><center><a class=\"mobile button button_active_hover\" href=\"https://vimeo.com/321739155\">View Video</a></center> <p><b>What advice do you have for new fathers like myself?</b></p> <p>So my book, <i>The Coddling of the American Mind</i> with Greg Lukianoff, it began as a book about what&#x2019;s going on on campus&#x2014;but it quickly became a book on child rearing and parenting. Originally, when we wrote our <i>Atlantic</i> article in 2015, Greg and I thought that the problems&#x2014;the fragility, the claims about emotional safety&#x2014;we thought those originated on some college campuses. But we very quickly learned: no, the problems are baked in by the time students get to college. What we didn&#x2019;t understand back then is that the social world for kids born in 1995 and later is <i>really</i> different from the world of kids born before then.</p> <p>Before the 1990s, kids had a lot of independence. They went out to play. They had time unsupervised. That&#x2019;s crucial for child development. Kids are anti-fragile, they need to fall down, they need to get in fights, they need to get lost and find their way back. In doing so, in facing risk and facing challenges, we get stronger, stronger, stronger, stronger until we&#x2019;re ready to go off to college and live independently. But in the 1990s, we decided: no more of that, the world&#x2019;s too dangerous, no more practice being independent until you go off to college&#x2014;and then you&#x2019;re not independent. The cost has been devastating. The rates of anxiety and depression are skyrocketing, especially for girls. And so I think the most important lessons that we can take for child rearing now are that we have grossly overdone the protection and the academic pressures in elementary school.</p> <p>Kids need to play. They need to play without supervision. They need to play. I&#x2019;m not talking about 2-year-olds. Two-year-olds you can supervise; they can really hurt themselves. But by the time they&#x2019;re 5 or 6, they need some time unsupervised. And we keep taking that away from them thinking it&#x2019;s more important that they learn to read, that they do math. So the most important advice that we can give to parents is: Back off. Let your kid play. Let your kid grow. Don&#x2019;t over parent.</p> <p>Now, you can&#x2019;t just decide this on your own because you and your kids are strongly influenced by what others are doing in your neighborhood and then what happens at school. So be very careful, especially if you send your kids to private school. A lot of private schools are ... they&#x2019;re very variable. Some, I think, like Waldorf or Montessori, do give more independence; but a lot of them are very over-protective and then when they get older they teach some really awful ideologies that I think are very political and are not good for kids.</p> <p>So be very careful if you choose a private school. And basically remember that your kids are antifragile, not fragile. They have to have some setbacks, some failure, some suffering even, at some point. You can&#x2019;t protect them from everything and if you do, you&#x2019;re harming them. I urge all parents to go to <a href=\"https://letgrow.org/\">letgrow.org</a>. It&#x2019;s a wonderful organization started by Lenore Skenazy, the woman who wrote <i>Free-Range Kids</i>, and it&#x2019;s full of advice for how you can create conditions in which your kid will actually grow and become an independent, functioning human being.</p> <p><b>Brian</b>: Your young daughter recently walked home by herself. How did that make you feel? </p> <p>So recently, my daughter, who&#x2019;s 9, walked to school all by herself, in New York City. Now, when my parents grew up in New York City, they took the subway to school. They did all sorts of things at the age of 7, 8, 9. But today, if you let a 9-year-old out, you can be arrested in some parts of the country because, &#x201C;Oh my God, what a terrible parent. What if she&#x2019;s abducted?&#x201D;</p> <p>My daughter is very independent-minded. She actually has read Lenore Skenazy&#x2019;s book, <i>Free Range Kids</i>. It&#x2019;s a very easy book to read; we read it together actually. And she&#x2019;s very proud of the fact that she&#x2019;s allowed to go out and play in Washington Square Park all by herself&#x2014;and we&#x2019;ve been doing that since she was 8. She&#x2019;s wanted to go to school all by herself, and because Seventh Avenue near us is big and complicated, I said, &#x201C;Not yet; not yet.&#x201D;</p> <p>She can cross Sixth Avenue, which is easy. She can go to the pet store and buy worms for her gecko. So she loves being independent. And finally, after we practiced crossing Seventh Avenue (it&#x2019;s complicated) ... we practiced crossing it a lot of times and I sent her out on other errands, like getting bagels in the morning. I felt she was ready. And so yeah, last week for the first time in her life, she walked by herself to school. Now she&#x2019;s not allowed to walk home. That&#x2019;s illegal. The school would never let a child walk home, but they can&#x2019;t stop us from letting her walk to school by herself. And she loved it.</p><p><img class=\"vimeo-breakers\" src=\"https://i.vimeocdn.com/video/764522897_640.jpg\"></p> <center><a class=\"mobile button button_active_hover\" href=\"https://vimeo.com/321739448\">View Video</a></center><p><b>You&#x2019;ve written that Republicans understand moral psychology better than Democrats. Do you think that&#x2019;s still true in the age of Donald Trump?</b></p> <p>So, my own research is on the psychological foundations of morality, and my original research in this area was a theory that my colleagues and I called moral foundations theory, where we showed that there are at least six taste buds of the moral sense: Care, fairness, loyalty, liberty, authority, and sanctity or purity.</p> <p>We also showed that people who call themselves progressive or on the left sort of put all their eggs in one&#x2014;not one basket&#x2014;but they especially build on concerns about care for victims and fairness as a quality, and then sometimes also liberty. And they tend to reject moral appeals based on group loyalty or authority or a sense of sanctity or purity; not always; they can use sanctity, purity for environmental concerns.</p> <p>So in the 1990s and then in the 2000s, it was generally the case that the left/right spectrum in America had social conservatives on the right leading the Republican Party, and progressives on the left leading the Democratic Party. During that time, I published research, led by Jesse Graham, who&#x2019;s now at the University of Utah, showing that if you ask ... At our research site, YourMorals.org, in one study we assigned people to fill out the Moral Foundations Questionnaire&#x2014;our main survey&#x2014;fill it out as yourself or for one-third, fill it out as if you were a conservative, or as one-third, fill it out as if you were a progressive or liberal.</p> <p>What we found&#x2014;because we actually knew how do progressive and conservatives fill it out&#x2014;what we were able to show is that conservatives can pretend to be progressives and they can accurately fill it out as though they were one. But progressives can&#x2019;t pretend to be a conservative and fill it out accurately because they don&#x2019;t really get the group loyalty, respect for authority, and sanctity or purity. They don&#x2019;t really get those so they kind of dismiss those and they assume that conservatives just like to kill puppies and things like that.</p> <p>That was the case for a number of decades. Trump has shifted a lot of things around. The Republican Party is no longer the social conservative party. I believe, in other research I&#x2019;ve published with Karen Stenner, a political scientist in Australia, Trump is appealing to more authoritarian tendencies. It&#x2019;s very hard to see how Donald Trump is a conservative. So the psychology that I just described a moment ago no longer quite applies. The Republican Party, I don&#x2019;t know what&#x2019;s happening to it, but it is bringing in elements that are overtly racist. It is bringing in desires for rapid change, which is not a conservative virtue, generally.</p> <p>So I think we&#x2019;re in a time of chaos in which both parties are in flux. What might come out is we might get ever further away from having a center-left Democratic Party and a center-right Republican Party, which is what we had for a number of decades. We might have two much more polarized or ideologically disparate parties and it could make for some very interesting politics and even less cooperation than we have now.</p> <p><b>Brian</b>: Do you think that the emphasis on sanctity has moved to the left more?</p> <p>Yeah, let&#x2019;s talk about that. So, of all the moral foundations, the most confusing and, I think, the most interesting, is the sanctity foundation. This is the idea that human beings are able to make something sacred. That means it has value beyond its material properties.</p> <p>So, you can see this most clearly in a flag. The American flag is a piece of cloth, and if you think it&#x2019;s a piece of cloth and you want to use it for self-expression purposes, you should be able to burn it. The First Amendment guarantees you the right to political expression. But if you think that flags have almost magical properties and it&#x2019;s vital that the flag not touch the ground, that would sully it. That would desecrate it. And it&#x2019;s the same thing for books. If you treat the Bible as the physical object of the Bible must be protected&#x2014;that shows that your mind is able to invest sanctity or sacredness or purity in something and you want to keep it safe from contamination.</p> <p>This is used, especially on the political right, for social conservatives for God and country. But we&#x2019;ve all seen it on the left too. If you go into natural food stores, if you go into any community that does yoga, they&#x2019;ll talk a lot that sort of the far left will have, or the cultural left&#x2014;they&#x2019;ll have a lot of ideas about toxins and purity that they tend to use about the body, and then also about the environment.</p> <p>Now, obviously, there are real toxins in the environment. I mean, I&#x2019;m an environmentalist. It&#x2019;s the left which pushes to protect the environment. That&#x2019;s all good. But you can see this, for example, in nuclear power. If you really care about global warming, you&#x2019;ve got to support nuclear power, at least for a while. We&#x2019;ve got to get off coal. There&#x2019;s no two ways about this. No renewables are going to replace coal in the next couple of decades. We have to have nuclear.</p> <p>But if you treat nuclear as this as a desecration of the Earth, as though it&#x2019;s contagious, under no circumstances would you allow nuclear, you&#x2019;re showing sanctity thinking, and that is a kind of a religious mindset. You&#x2019;re committed religiously to certain propositions and you might react very strongly, especially to a member of your in-group who says, &#x201C;You know what? Maybe we should try nuclear.&#x201D; Like, &#x201C;Whoa. You&#x2019;re out of here.&#x201D; So, blasphemy. If people are showing signs of blasphemy laws, of punishing non-orthodox thinking, that&#x2019;s how you know you&#x2019;re in the realm of sanctity and purity.</p><p><img class=\"vimeo-breakers\" src=\"https://i.vimeocdn.com/video/764522389_640.jpg\"></p> <center><a class=\"mobile button button_active_hover\" href=\"https://vimeo.com/321739801\">View Video</a></center><p><b>How do you understand your role as a public intellectual?</b></p> <p>So, I&#x2019;m a social scientist. I am a social psychologist but I love all the social sciences, and I think to understand any complicated social problem, you need sociology, and psychology, and political science, and economics. So I love the social sciences. And I see my role as someone who has spent his life studying morality from every possible angle. Historical, evolutionary, cultural, anthropological.</p> <p>We have a lot of problems in our society brought on by the hyper-activation of our ancient tribal moral psychology. We evolved for life in small-scale societies that were frequently at war or in violent skirmishes with nearby groups. Somehow, we managed to grow into gigantic prosperous societies that are generally peaceful. The trend on that has been amazingly wonderful as Steven Pinker has shown in his books. But I think the arrival of social media, in particular, has reactivated a lot of our mob-based or tribal sentiments in ways that make democracy more difficult.</p> <p>I see my role as someone who&#x2019;s not on either team&#x2014;I&#x2019;m not on the left, I&#x2019;m not on the right. In terms of voting I&#x2019;m on one side. I&#x2019;m not a fan of the Republican Party, but I&#x2019;m not a member of either team. And for that reason, I think a lot of people feel that they can invite me to conferences or to comment on things and I&#x2019;m not just there to score partisan points. My view is that all social scientists should be committed to understanding society much more so than fighting for one side.</p><p><img class=\"vimeo-breakers\" src=\"https://i.vimeocdn.com/video/764523031_640.jpg\"></p><center><a class=\"mobile button button_active_hover\" href=\"https://vimeo.com/321740156\">View Video</a></center> <p><b>Why do you identify as a centrist?</b></p> <p>So I consider myself to be a centrist because I take very seriously the psychology that I reviewed in my book, <i>The Righteous Mind</i>&#x2014;most of it not my own work but the work of others&#x2014;showing that we are all designed by evolution to confirm what we want to believe. We&#x2019;re very, very good at confirming hypotheses. We&#x2019;re not very good at challenging them&#x2014;our own hypotheses; we&#x2019;re really good at challenging other people&#x2019;s hypotheses. And what this means is that if you put me together with a bunch of people who think just like me, we can&#x2019;t possibly find the truth about anything complicated because we&#x2019;re just going to confirm each other&#x2019;s share. We&#x2019;re going to confirm the values, the hypotheses, the explanatory forces that are our favorite mechanisms to talk about. </p> <p>I began writing <i>The Righteous Mind</i> in order to help the Democrats win. That was my goal in 2004 when I began this line of research. But once I actually started reading the best conservative writing, going back to Edmund Burke and Michael Oakeshott in the 20th century, and Thomas Sowell more recently&#x2014;once I began reading conservatives and then libertarians, I realized, &#x201C;wow, you actually need to expose yourself to critics, to people who start from a different position.&#x201D; You can&#x2019;t find the truth about complex or wicked problems unless you have a community that includes guaranteed dissent. So I consider myself a centrist because I am committed to the idea that you have to be listening to both sides. It doesn&#x2019;t mean that the answer is always in the middle. It&#x2019;s not. Sometimes the left is correct, sometimes the right is correct. But if you start from an <i>a priori</i> position that our side is right, their side is evil and I&#x2019;m not going to listen to their arguments, you&#x2019;re guaranteed to get it wrong.</p><p><img class=\"vimeo-breakers\" src=\"https://i.vimeocdn.com/video/764524877_640.jpg\"></p> <center><a class=\"mobile button button_active_hover\" href=\"https://vimeo.com/321740956\">View Video</a></center><p><b>What is the rationalist delusion?</b></p> <p>In <i>The Righteous Mind</i> I wrote about something called the rationalist delusion. And that is the belief that people can be perfectly rational, and if only they <i>would</i> be perfectly rational then those rational people would find the truth. And this grew out of, if your viewers remember, the New Atheists.</p> <p>There was a period &#x2026; I think after 9/11, a lot of people began thinking about the power of religion to lead to mass murder. And a bunch of books came out in rapid succession by Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, and Daniel Dennett. Also Christopher Hitchens. So they were called the Four Horsemen of the New Atheist movement. And most of them tended to speak as though if only we could be rational like scientists, not stupid like religious people. And I&#x2019;m an atheist. I&#x2019;m a Jewish atheist. I have no particular love for religion. But given that I was studying how we&#x2019;re all driven by our emotions and motives, and we have these intuitions and we seek to justify them, I thought scientists aren&#x2019;t necessarily better than anyone else as individuals.</p> <p>We&#x2019;re not more rational as individuals. We&#x2019;re more rational because this social institution that began developing in Europe in the 17th century, a community of people who would read scientific treatises and letters and then critique each other&#x2014;that&#x2019;s what science is. It&#x2019;s institutionalized critique. It&#x2019;s guaranteed dissent. That makes people smarter. And so I love science. I think science is a better guide to reality than religion, certainly material reality. But I thought that the New Atheists had it wrong, and so I saw signs in some of them of quasi-religiosity&#x2014;that is, worshiping reason. Now, reason is great but if you worship it, that means you&#x2019;re blind to evidence, that it&#x2019;s not perfect. And it&#x2019;s not perfect. In fact, it&#x2019;s very, very flawed. It&#x2019;s very, very social. So I think that people can be rational but only if you put them in groups that make them rational despite their flaws.</p> <p><b>Brian</b>: I think Johns Hopkins Philosophy Department <a href=\"http://nautil.us/blog/why-did-a-billionaire-give-75-million-to-a-philosophy-department\">received</a> a $75 million donation recently. Are you skeptical of the idea that we can teach students to be more responsive to reasons and reasoned argument? </p> <p>I was thrilled that Johns Hopkins received that gigantic donation to create, I think they call it the Agora Institute. And I&#x2019;ve spoken with the president of Hopkins about this. I&#x2019;m actually very optimistic. I think, from what I know, they&#x2019;re going about this in an intelligent way. As long as they can teach about humility; teach students how the mind actually works; teach them the problems of democracy, the reasons why our founding fathers were so worried&#x2014;because they read the ancient Greeks and the Romans. They saw what happens in all kinds of political systems. So I think as long as they don&#x2019;t make it seem as though, &#x201C;oh, you&#x2019;re here to study reason&#x201D;; no, you&#x2019;re here to study society, I&#x2019;m optimistic about this. They know that Western liberal democracies are facing potentially existential threats. And they&#x2019;re just beginning, but I think they&#x2019;re off to a good start.</p><p><img class=\"vimeo-breakers\" src=\"https://i.vimeocdn.com/video/764525512_640.jpg\"></p><center><a class=\"mobile button button_active_hover\" href=\"https://vimeo.com/321742328\">View Video</a></center> <p><b>Do you think that morality is a matter of taste?</b></p> <p>So what is morality? There are two easy positions. One is moral truths are just like other kinds of truths. So Earth is the third planet from the sun; gold is a better conductor of electricity than is aluminum. Those are facts, man. That&#x2019;s physics and chemistry and astronomy. And it was true before humans existed. And if extraterrestrials were to come to our solar system, they would find out that those two things are true.</p> <p>Similarly, everyone should have equal rights. Men and women should all have the same roles and opportunities, and we should not divide anything by gender. It should be everything. These are facts, man. They were always true and they&#x2019;d be true even if extraterrestrials came here and they had different genetics and different social structure. They would agree with us if they were sufficiently rational. That&#x2019;s one idea, moral realism. And that&#x2019;s an idea that Sam Harris put forward in his book, <i>The Moral Landscape</i>. It&#x2019;s one that I disagree with.</p> <p>The alternative view is, &#x201C;hey, there&#x2019;s no moral facts, there&#x2019;s no moral treatise. You like vanilla, I like chocolate. Neither one&#x2019;s right. You like mass murder, I don&#x2019;t. Neither one&#x2019;s right. It&#x2019;s just a taste, man.&#x201D; And I&#x2019;m sort of paraphrasing Isaiah Berlin there. He said something to that effect. So there&#x2019;s either moral realism or there&#x2019;s moral subjectivism. It&#x2019;s just my taste, my preference. I don&#x2019;t think moral truths fit in either of those categories.</p> <p>I call myself an emergentist. That means moral truths emerge from certain kinds of interaction just like prices in a marketplace. So right now I believe platinum has a higher price than gold, which has a higher price than silver. That&#x2019;s a fact, man. But it wouldn&#x2019;t be a fact if extraterrestrials came here and there were not people, there was just platinum and gold and silver in the ground. It has no intrinsic value. As we trade in marketplaces, the prices emerge. Similarly, as we interact with each other over time, rights emerge. Now, they don&#x2019;t emerge early in our development&#x2014;only once we develop a certain degree of material prosperity, freedom from the demands of survival in daily life, then rights begin to emerge and they become facts. It is now a fact that every career, with maybe just a few exceptions, every career should be equally open to men and women. That&#x2019;s a fact now. But I am hesitant to say that 100,000 years ago, proto-humans were wrong to divide hunting and gathering. That was just wrong for them to be specialized by gender. So I think moral truths exist but they exist as emergent facts about interaction, not as truths of physics.</p><p><img class=\"vimeo-breakers\" src=\"https://i.vimeocdn.com/video/764525766_640.jpg\"></p><center><a class=\"mobile button button_active_hover\" href=\"https://vimeo.com/321742533\">View Video</a></center> <p><b>How have philosophers responded to your views on moral reasoning and moral facts?</b></p> <p>I&#x2019;ve engaged with philosophers a lot. I spent a wonderful year at Princeton in the Center for Human Values, which is mostly a group of philosophers that are interested in social science questions. And we spent a lot of the time kind of miscommunicating and misunderstanding each other over the question of whether empirical research in psychology, or neuroscience, what implications does that have for normative ethics, for claims about what is right, what we should do?</p> <p>I was a philosophy major myself. That&#x2019;s how I got started on this. I wrote my senior essay as an undergraduate on free will and determinism. The question: If determinism is true, if the movement of every atom and electron and every neuron is determined by the state of the universe just before, does that mean that we&#x2019;re predetermined to act in certain ways? And if so, how can you blame anyone? How can free will be compatible with causal determinism, or how can moral responsibility be compatible with causal determinism?</p> <p>So I&#x2019;ve always been interested in philosophical questions. And I think a lot of philosophers have read my work now and have engaged with it, and many of them are critical. Some of them embrace it. So I think there&#x2019;s a very healthy discussion between philosophy and psychology. It especially grew as Stephen Stich at Rutgers was one of the people right around the time I began writing in the 1990s, who really was bringing together philosophers and psychologists. So we have a healthy relationship, which I think is mutually beneficial.</p><p><img class=\"vimeo-breakers\" src=\"https://i.vimeocdn.com/video/764526755_640.jpg\"></p><center><a class=\"mobile button button_active_hover\" href=\"https://vimeo.com/321743035\">View Video</a></center> <p><b>What is Heterodox Academy and why did you start it?</b></p> <p>I co-founded an organization called Heterodox Academy in 2015 because I began to notice that the quality of discussions among faculty in the social sciences was suffering because we didn&#x2019;t have enough viewpoint diversity. In 2011 I was invited to give a talk on the future of social psychology at the big annual convention of social psychologists, and I gave my talk on the bright post-partisan future. I imagined some day, we&#x2019;ll realize that we need dissent, we need argument and we will actually try to recruit more conservatives&#x2014;because almost everybody is on the left. I was only able to find one person in my whole field who wasn&#x2019;t on the left.</p> <p>And so I gave this talk in 2011. It was actually very well received. My field is everyone&#x2019;s on the left just about, but they&#x2019;re not ideologues. They&#x2019;re scientists first. So I made my arguments carefully and people generally said, &#x201C;Oh, that&#x2019;s a good argument. Yeah, you may be right about that.&#x201D; But then as time went on and as the culture war heated up, and as left and right hated each more and more, I started noticing that really important public policy questions about immigration, inequality, gender, race&#x2014;I&#x2019;d be in a room with other social scientists and someone would say some hypothesis, and there&#x2019;s obviously a confound there or there&#x2019;s some reason to question it, but nobody would say it. Because you don&#x2019;t want to be seen to be questioning the narrative about pervasive racism, sexism, homophobia, et cetera.</p> <p>And if you can&#x2019;t question a hypothesis, then it&#x2019;s not science. So a few of us in psychology wrote a paper explaining how the loss of viewpoint diversity, it will reduce the quality of our research. That was published in 2015. I happened to have lunch with Nick Rosenkranz, a professor in law at Georgetown Law School, and he had just written a paper that showed the same problem in law. Law professors are almost all on the left. Yet lawyers are trained and they have to go out and argue cases before judges, half of whom were appointed by Republicans. And so we&#x2019;re not training our students well if they&#x2019;ve never encountered a conservative legal mind.</p> <p>And so Nick and I thought, &#x201C;wow, this could be a problem all over.&#x201D; A sociology grad student named Chris Martin happened to send me a paper. Same problem in sociology. Everyone&#x2019;s on the left and that means we don&#x2019;t ask certain questions, we can&#x2019;t find certain answers. So the three of us thought, wow, we should get together and put up a website and put our papers up there and see what else is out there. So that became Heterodox Academy. It was entirely a faculty affair about the quality of social science work in September of 2015.</p> <p>A couple of months later was the Halloween protests at Yale University which then went national, and we had a couple of years of a lot of protest and changing political norms. And so I believe that the climate for speech on campus is worse now than it was a few years ago. So Heterodox Academy is still mostly focused on research, but it&#x2019;s also now working to improve the campus speech climate.</p> <p>It&#x2019;s not about free speech, like you can say whatever you want; it&#x2019;s about free inquiry and being able to speak up in class. Can you engage in a dialogue in a classroom? A lot of students all over the country tell us, &#x201C;No, we feel like we&#x2019;re walking on eggshells. We self-censor.&#x201D; The organization is now run by Debra Mashek who is a professor at Harvey Mudd College in California, and as one of her students put it, &#x201C;My motto is silence is safer.&#x201D; That&#x2019;s the way to get through college. Just don&#x2019;t say anything. You won&#x2019;t get in trouble. That&#x2019;s a terrible attitude to have in college, but it&#x2019;s one that many students are beginning to adopt.</p><p><img class=\"vimeo-breakers\" src=\"https://i.vimeocdn.com/video/764526902_640.jpg\"></p> <center><a class=\"mobile button button_active_hover\" href=\"https://vimeo.com/321743484\">View Video</a></center><p><b>What did you make of the recent hoax on academic journals that ostensibly focus on &#x201C;grievance studies?&#x201D;</b></p> <p>I really enjoyed the grievance studies hoax because we&#x2019;ve all kind of lived with ... In the academy, most of us feel that our purpose is truth. What we worship is truth. I think each institution has to be clear about its <i>telos</i> and ours is truth. We must never sacrifice truth and we hold each other to account. If a professor says, &#x201C;All of <i>X</i> are <i>Y</i>,&#x201D; someone said, &#x201C;Wait a sec, you don&#x2019;t mean all; you mean almost all.&#x201D; We&#x2019;re really supposed to not say things that are not true.</p> <p>But there are certain departments in which it&#x2019;s clear that the rhetoric is not this sort of careful academic, &#x201C;is it true?&#x201D; It&#x2019;s &#x201C;we&#x2019;re in a fight against evil and are you on our side?&#x201D; We&#x2019;ve all kind of lived with that for a long time, the gender studies department, various race studies departments, the education school, social work, parts of anthropology, parts of sociology. Those are the areas that are more activist.</p> <p>I don&#x2019;t want to paint with too broad a brush. There&#x2019;s some great scholars in each of those departments, especially in anthro and sociology&#x2014;I love those fields. But it&#x2019;s long been clear that as long as you show that you hate the right people or groups or forces, you&#x2019;re going to be sort of ... The standard for publications is very low. That was the point of the Sokal hoax long ago. Alan Sokal showed that as long as he said, &#x201C;Oh, everything&#x2019;s a social construction.&#x201D; They waved him in even though nobody could understand his garbage paper. So in the grievance studies hoax, it was on a much bigger scale. They had a lot of fun with it. I mean, they paraphrased a section of <i>Mein Kampf</i> and submitted that for publication with just changes to who the bad guys were. So it was delicious. It was delightful.</p> <p>I think it really was showing up whole areas of the academy that are in massive violation of our <i>telos</i>. They are activists, not first and foremost scholars. The culture in those departments is one of ideology and orthodoxy, not of openness to the truth and educating minds to be better at perceiving truth. So I think it&#x2019;s important that they were humiliated, as it were. I should point out in sociology, none of the articles were accepted. Sociology is a real academic field. But a lot of the studies departments I think are not necessarily real academic fields.</p><p><img class=\"vimeo-breakers\" src=\"https://i.vimeocdn.com/video/764527814_640.jpg\"></p> <center><a class=\"mobile button button_active_hover\" href=\"https://vimeo.com/321743715\">View Video</a></center><p><b>What is your view of the so-called intellectual dark web?</b></p> <p>The intellectual dark web is a label put on a bunch of people who are intellectuals&#x2014;some are professors or former professors. As far as I can tell, it mostly just refers to people, most of whom are on the left or consider themselves to be on the left, who are critical of certain trends of the intellectual left.</p> <p>So, there&#x2019;s a webpage that lists me as a member, and Steve Pinker, Nicholas Christakis. There&#x2019;s nothing dark about us. We are tenured professors. We can publish in <i>The New York Times</i>. So as a label, the dark part is kind of ridiculous. That doesn&#x2019;t really apply. But to the extent, if there is a kind of a political orthodoxy in many parts of the university, there is also this new media ecosystem based around podcasts, which is much more free flowing and where people can say things that they wouldn&#x2019;t say in the classroom.</p> <p>I&#x2019;ll talk to the people in the right or the left&#x2014;I won&#x2019;t talk to anybody in the world. I mean, there are certainly groups I wouldn&#x2019;t talk to&#x2014;but I&#x2019;ve spoken with ... I was just on Joe Rogan. I&#x2019;ve done, Rubin, Jordan Peterson. So there are a bunch of people who have discussions that reach millions of people. So there is something there. There is taking advantage of the new technology. There is a rich intellectual life that&#x2019;s not at the university, which I think is really interesting, especially because what really is amazing to me now is for decades we&#x2019;re all supposed to say, &#x201C;Oh, people&#x2019;s attention spans, oh, the kids today.&#x201D; Now, it&#x2019;s a tweet, now it&#x2019;s 120 characters, oh, the attention! But yet there&#x2019;s this gigantic market for two and three-hour conversations. So I think that&#x2019;s pretty cool.</p><p><img class=\"vimeo-breakers\" src=\"https://i.vimeocdn.com/video/764528854_640.jpg\"></p><center><a class=\"mobile button button_active_hover\" href=\"https://vimeo.com/321744700\">View Video</a></center> <p><b>You&#x2019;ve also helped found another organization called Ethical Systems* that tries to get organizations and other sorts of systems to behave more ethically. How do you do that?</b></p> <p>So we&#x2019;re sitting here at the Stern School of Business at New York University. This is where I work now. I happened to come here in 2011 just because I needed a way to pay the real estate costs when my last book came out. I had no training in business or in business ethics and I just wanted to be in New York City for a year when <i>The Righteous Mind</i> came out. So I called up a professor here that I knew, I&#x2019;d spoken here in their ethics series, and I said, &#x201C;Bruce, is there any way I could teach ethics for a year here so that I can be here when my book comes out?&#x201D; He said, &#x201C;Sure, we&#x2019;d love to have you.&#x201D;</p> <p>So he made a space for me. Got me a nice NYU subsidized rent apartment. I moved up here with my family. Because this was right after the financial crisis, well, this was 2011, so still very much in the wake of the global financial crisis, the Bernie Madoff scandal, lots of scandals in business. A lot of people then were saying, &#x201C;Those business schools, they&#x2019;ve got to teach those MBAs ethics. They&#x2019;ve got to put ethics into their heads,&#x201D; is the idea. But as I said in <i>The Righteous Mind</i>, no one will ever invent an ethics class that makes students behave ethically after they leave the classroom.</p> <p>Because I&#x2019;m a social psychologist, I think we&#x2019;re influenced more by the forces around us than by our inner core commitments. So I wrote that line and then Stern offered me a job. They said, &#x201C;Do you want to stay here? You want to join our faculty? Oh, and by the way, you&#x2019;ll teach the ethics class.&#x201D; So then I had to design the ethics class that would do this. But what I did was I embraced the social psychology. I said, &#x201C;We&#x2019;re not going to teach MBA students, be ethical, be ethical, and then expect them to resist these incredible forces at work on them in real situations.&#x201D;</p> <p>Rather, let&#x2019;s teach them ethical systems design. Let&#x2019;s use the social psychology and help leaders who want to create ethical organizations, help them to change the social forces, improve the culture. Culture is incredibly powerful. If your culture values cleverness, getting around the rules to show how clever you are, well, you&#x2019;re basically putting huge amounts of risk, ethical risk, which turns into legal risk, lawsuits, regulatory interventions. But if you, as many executives do, if you want your organization to have an ethical culture in which people trust each other, in which people&#x2019;s word is their bond, in which you don&#x2019;t have to constantly monitor people because everyone shares the same mission, well, it turns out that actually is more profitable because trust is more efficient.</p> <p>So how can you do that? How can you create an ethical culture? So Ethical Systems, I founded it by inviting lots of other professors, researchers who knew about accounting and finance and conflicts of interest, areas that I didn&#x2019;t know anything about&#x2014;and together we summarized the research. We make it very easily available to business people all around the world for free. Now, we&#x2019;re doing a variety of projects to help companies measure their ethical culture and then do simple procedures, simple steps to improve it. We think that business is basically good. Business is about bringing people together to do something, create value for others that they couldn&#x2019;t create on their own. Business is incredibly powerful and when businesses go off the rails, when industries become predatory, a lot of people suffer; but when they&#x2019;re honest, when they make a good product, when they treat all their stakeholders well, the benefit to society is immense. So that&#x2019;s what ethical systems is about.</p><p><img class=\"vimeo-breakers\" src=\"https://i.vimeocdn.com/video/764528437_640.jpg\"></p> <center><a class=\"mobile button button_active_hover\" href=\"https://vimeo.com/321745048\">View Video</a></center><p><b>What would you be if you weren&#x2019;t a scientist?</b></p> <p>Well, historically, what I can say is that when I got out of college I had no idea what to do with my life. I had learned how to be a computer programmer, and I thought of moving to Spain and starting a computer consulting business because I spoke Spanish. I love Europe, I love living in Europe. So I thought of doing that, but I didn&#x2019;t quite have the guts and it would have been very difficult in terms of regulatory affairs.</p> <p>I almost went into computer science and computer programming in various ways. I almost applied to grad school in computer science. I think I love the academy. I love being a professor. I might&#x2019;ve been in a different field ... I don&#x2019;t know. I suppose I might&#x2019;ve worked in a think tank or a foundation. I&#x2019;ve always been the sort of person who is much more interested in ideas than in things or people. And that&#x2019;s sort of the big three: ideas, things, or people. Most of us, if we had to pick one to make our life in, we&#x2019;d pick one or the other.</p> <p><i>Brian Gallagher is the editor of Facts So Romantic, the</i> Nautilus <i>blog. Follow him on Twitter <a href=\"https://twitter.com/brianga11agher\">@brianga11agher</a>.</i></p> <section class=\"leaderboard-ad-belt\"> </section> </div>","url":"http://nautil.us/issue/70/variables/the-well_meaning-bad-ideas-spoiling-a-generation","date_published":"2019-03-23T16:15:34+00:00","author":{"name":"Brian Gallagher By Brian "}},{"id":"1359","title":"Birmingham pub bombings: IRA bomber names four men he says were responsible","content_html":"<div><div class=\"content__article-body from-content-api js-article__body\">\n<p>A convicted IRA bomber known as Witness O has named four men he says were responsible for the Birmingham pub bombings, telling the inquest he had been given permission to do so by the current head of the IRA in Dublin.</p>\n<p>Twenty-one people were killed and more than 200 injured when bombs were detonated in two city centre pubs &#x2013; the Mulberry Bush and the Tavern in the Town &#x2013; on the evening of 21 November 1974.</p>\n<p>Giving evidence in court on Friday, the anonymous former IRA volunteer said he had been told by the head of the IRA six months ago in Dublin that he could name those he knew were involved.</p>\n<p>Speaking over a secure videolink, he named the officer commanding the Birmingham IRA at the time as Seamus McLoughlin, who he said was the person responsible for selecting the targets. He said he gave McLoughlin&#x2019;s name to two police detectives days after the bombings while he was serving time in HMP Winson Green, but heard nothing more.</p>\n<p>He said Mick Murray was one of the bombers. Murray, who died in 1999, was one of two <a href=\"https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/feb/13/chris-mullin-names-birmingham-pub-bombings-suspects\" class=\"u-underline\">men named by the former Labour MP Chris Mullin</a> in an article in the London Review of Books published in February.</p>\n<p>Asked about James Gavin, who was also named by Mullin and died in 2002, he replied: &#x201C;Well, he was [involved], I met him in Dublin and he said he was.&#x201D;</p>\n<p>Witness O was asked if <a href=\"https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/jul/10/birmingham-pub-bombings-suspect-michael-christopher-hayes-sorry-ira-atrocity\" class=\"u-underline\">Michael Hayes</a> was in the bombing team. He said he was, but added, in apparent reference to the Good Friday agreement: &#x201C;But he can&#x2019;t be arrested. There is nobody going to be charged with this atrocity. The British government have signed an agreement with the IRA.&#x201D;</p>\n<p>He said that two other men he knew as Dublin Dave and Socks had also been involved, but that he did not know either man&#x2019;s real name.</p>\n<p>Witness O was also asked about the role of Michael Patrick Reilly &#x2013; a man who has previously been alleged to be a perpetrator &#x2013; but was unable to confirm his identity.</p>\n<p>The inquest into the deaths was opened in November 1974, but was adjourned to allow for a criminal investigation. In 1975, six men &#x2013; who became known as the Birmingham Six &#x2013; were convicted for the bombings but were acquitted 16 years later in 1991.</p>\n<p>Murray was tried alongside the Birmingham Six and convicted of conspiracy to cause explosions. Gavin was also tried alongside the Birmingham Six and convicted of the possession of explosives. <br><br>Murray, Gavin, McLoughlin and Hayes were named in 1990 in the Granada Television documentary drama Who Bombed Birmingham?.</p>\n<p>Fresh inquests into the deaths were ordered in 2016 but were delayed by disputes over whether the hearings should examine who might be responsible for the bombings.</p>\n<p>In January 2018, the high court overturned a ruling by the coroner Sir Peter Thornton that alleged perpetrators would not fall within the framework of the inquest. Thornton appealed against that decision the following July and the court of appeal ruled in his favour in September.</p>\n<p>Speaking outside court on Friday, Julie Hambleton, whose sister Maxine was killed in the Tavern in the Town, said: &#x201C;Witness O has today named the bombers involved in the Birmingham pub bombings.</p>\n<p>&#x201C;I have a letter from David Thompson, chief constable of West Midlands police, that says this is an ongoing live investigation &#x2013; as such we expect action. [We expect] information as a matter of urgency now as to what is going to happen, what, where and when.&#x201D;</p>\n<p>Speaking via videolink from Dublin on Thursday, the former IRA intelligence chief Kieran Conway said he knew the names of those who were responsible for the bombings but would not name them. He described the attacks as an IRA operation that went badly wrong and said the public outrage caused by the bombings had nearly destroyed the group.</p>\n<p>Conway, who is a criminal defence solicitor in Ireland and was convicted of handling explosives in Derry in the 1970s, was asked if he thought the attacks constituted murder. He replied: &#x201C;No, I don&#x2019;t agree. I believe it was an IRA operation that went wrong.&#x201D;</p>\n<p>&#x201C;Had the IRA deliberately targeted that pub with the intention of killing civilians then that would have been murder, yes. But in the circumstances, as I have been told, I don&#x2019;t accept that it was murder,&#x201D; he said. &#x201C;I say that it was an IRA operation that went badly wrong.&#x201D;</p>\n<p>Asked how he would have described the deaths, he said: &#x201C;I understand perfectly that this is unacceptable to the British people but I would categorise them as accidental.&#x201D;</p>\n<p>After the attacks, an internal IRA court of inquiry, convened in Ireland, cleared those involved in the bombings, Conway said, with IRA chiefs agreeing that the atrocity was down to the delay in calling in the coded warning because the chosen phone box was out of order.</p>\n<p>Conway said that at the time of the bombings IRA operations in England were carried out by active service units autonomous of the organisation&#x2019;s command in Ireland, who were picking bombing targets themselves. Civilian targets were &#x201C;strictly and loudly forbidden&#x201D;, he said.</p>\n\n\n</div></div>","url":"https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/mar/22/birmingham-pub-bombings-ira-bomber-names-four-men-he-says-were-responsible","date_published":"2019-03-22T13:33:57+00:00","author":{"name":"Frances Perraudin"}},{"id":"1360","title":"Debunking the Capitalist Cowboy","content_html":"<div><div class=\"detail-body\" id=\"detail-body\"> <p>Capitalism, like the United States itself, has a mythology, and for five decades one of its central characters has been the nineteenth-century maverick cigarette entrepreneur, James B. Duke. Duke&#x2019;s risk-taking investment in the newfangled machine-made cigarette, so the story goes, displaced the pricey, hand-rolled variety offered by his stodgy competitors. This, in turn, won Duke control of the national, and soon global, cigarette market. Repeated ad nauseam in <a href=\"http://www.investors.com/news/management/leaders-and-success/james-duke-hit-it-big-in-tobacco/\">business and history journals</a>, high school and university curricula, <a href=\"http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-20042217\">popular magazines</a>, and websites, the story has taught that disruptive innovation drives capitalist progress.</p> <p>The problem? The Duke story is false: mid-century business historians fabricated it to accord with the theory of creative destruction, developed by libertarian economist Joseph Schumpeter. For generations, we have learned from this myth to fetishize entrepreneurial innovation as the engine of capitalism, while missing Duke&#x2019;s instrumental role in rampant corporate empowerment.</p>\n<pullquote>\n<p>For generations, we have learned to fetishize entrepreneurial innovation as the engine of capitalism.</p>\n</pullquote> <p>Duke&#x2019;s true &#x201C;innovation&#x201D; came not in the 1880s, when the cigarette machine transformed the production process, but in the 1890s, when business corporations shed the fetters of state regulation and radically redefined themselves. Duke&#x2019;s American Tobacco Company (ATC) moved to the cutting edge of this process when it repelled legal challenges to its monopoly by drawing on new notions of corporate personhood in the wake of the Fourteenth Amendment. Passed during Reconstruction, the Fourteenth Amendment established federal protections of property and due process, rights previously controlled by state law, so that freed slaves would be able to claim full citizenship no matter where they resided. Though the amendment referred to &#x201C;persons born or naturalized in the United States,&#x201D; which suggests human persons, lawyers attempted to use the amendment to shield corporate &#x201C;persons&#x201D; from state regulations. With the ATC&#x2019;s win in court, the corporation claimed an enhanced legal personhood, protection from states, and status as a private rather than public entity. Unrestrained, the ATC rapidly gobbled up companies across the United States and the globe, catapulting Duke to spectacular wealth and power. These changes in the corporation, though dramatic and unprecedented, came to seem so natural that they became nearly invisible. And what is natural and invisible is impervious to critique.</p> <p>&#x2022; &#x2022; &#x2022;</p> <p>The myth of Duke has enjoyed a decades-long career legitimating free-market capitalism. Born at the Harvard Business School in the years after World War II, the myth took shape in the <a href=\"https://read.dukeupress.edu/hope/article-abstract/49/2/267/12893/The-Harvard-Research-Center-in-Entrepreneurial\">Research Center in Entrepreneurial History</a>. Established in 1948 with a grant from the Rockefeller Foundation, the interdisciplinary Research Center linked Harvard&#x2019;s economics department with the business school and business historians. Joseph Schumpeter joined the faculty in the economics department in 1932 and was a founding member of the Research Center. Much like an urban legend, the Duke myth was not the result of conscious lies. Rather, the economically flush and ideologically siloed space of the Research Center led to a narrowing of critical debate and a cascading failure of rigorous historical methods.</p>\n<pullquote>\n<p>The Fourteenth Amendment allowed corporations to&#xA0;claim&#xA0;legal personhood, protection from states, and status as a private rather than public entity.</p>\n</pullquote> <p>Schumpeter eagerly used the Research Center to promote ideas on innovation that he had been developing since the 1930s. Schumpeter&#x2019;s theory narrated a drama of capitalism in which the entrepreneur entered as hardnosed antihero, the driver of capitalist innovation and progress. Schumpeter gave the entrepreneur &#x201C;glamour,&#x201D; in the words of economist Arthur Smithies, by painting the entrepreneur as a prescient rogue. While most businessmen are &#x201C;fenced in by social habits or&#xA0;conventions and the like,&#x201D; the innovative entrepreneur, Schumpeter claimed, is &#x201C;the most rational and the most egotistical of all.&#x201D; He is &#x201C;more self-centered than other types, because he relies less than they do on tradition and connection and because his characteristic task . . . consists precisely in breaking up old, and creating new, tradition.&#x201D; In other words, if you see an antisocial, egotistical entrepreneur leaving a path of wreckage in his wake&#x2014;destroyed markets, lost jobs, bloated monopolies&#x2014;you should celebrate rather than lament, because this is how the capitalist market revitalizes itself. Schumpeter never referenced the cowboy explicitly, but his antihero entrepreneur markedly resembled a John Wayne character. (Incidentally, Schumpeter loved riding horses and often showed up to Harvard faculty meetings in his jodhpurs.)</p> <p>Schumpeter&#x2019;s third wife, <a href=\"http://snaccooperative.org/ark:/99166/w60x2t0t\">Romaine Elizabeth Boody</a>, whom he married in 1937, advised him on how to promote his ideas over those of his archrival, John Maynard Keynes, who advocated for government intervention and regulation. A respected economist in her own right, Boody urged Schumpeter to make his claims bigger and to coin his own term&#x2014;&#x201C;creative destruction&#x201D;&#x2014;which he did in his 1942 masterpiece <em><a href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitalism,_Socialism_and_Democracy\">Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy</a></em>. In that volume, Schumpeter boldly declared that creative destruction defined capitalism itself: &#x201C;This process of Creative Destruction is the essential fact about capitalism,&#x201D; he wrote. &#x201C;It is what capitalism consists in and what every capitalist concern has got to live in.&#x201D; Here is the punch line: because the maverick entrepreneur is &#x201C;the pivot on which everything turns,&#x201D; he should be given free rein to act and not be hampered by regulation. Schumpeter&#x2019;s ideal of the rogue entrepreneur conferred glamour on his own libertarian conservative views.</p> <p>Business history emerged in the 1930s with the goal of defending the capitalist system, and like others at the Research Center, Schumpeter saw the field as a platform for the popularization of economic theory. He published a call for business students and historians to &#x201C;test&#x201D; his theory of creative destruction by examining &#x201C;the already available secondary literature for data upon entrepreneurial characteristics and phenomena.&#x201D; Advanced business and history students obliged by writing two articles for the <em>Harvard Business Review</em> that applied the theory of creative destruction to historical entrepreneurs, among them Duke.</p>\n<pullquote>\n<p>&#x2018;Creative Destruction is the essential fact about capitalism. It is what&#xA0;every capitalist concern has got to live in.&#x2019;</p>\n</pullquote> <p>No surprise, the authors found that Duke exactly matched the Schumpeterian model of the entrepreneur. A <a href=\"https://www.jstor.org/stable/3112233?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents\">1963 article</a> claimed that &#x201C;Duke illustrates classically the Schumpeterian activities of innovation.&#x201D; He was the &#x201C;bold opportunist&#x201D; who introduced the cigarette machine as a &#x201C;new production technique.&#x201D; His &#x201C;cunning&#x201D; allowed him to negotiate the lowest royalty rate for the machine. Because of his &#x201C;tempermental difference . . . [from his] lethargic competitors,&#x201D; Duke gained control of the market and forced the formation of the ATC monopoly &#x201C;with Duke as president.&#x201D; Another <a href=\"https://www.jstor.org/stable/3111987?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents\">article</a> argued that Duke displayed the personality traits of the Schumpeterian entrepreneur by being &#x201C;vigorous,&#x201D; &#x201C;shrewd and tough,&#x201D; &#x201C;ambitious and fiercely competitive.&#x201D; Duke&#x2019;s &#x201C;most significant innovation,&#x201D; the introduction of the cigarette machine, allowed him to &#x201C;revolutionize the entire industry.&#x201D; Duke&#x2019;s innovations &#x201C;caught his competitors napping.&#x201D; &#x201C;By the time the other manufacturers saw the error of their ways,&#x201D; the article went on, &#x201C;Duke had stolen a long and quiet march on them.&#x201D; Duke was first to see the potential of the cigarette and the first to market it abroad.</p> <p>None of these points is accurate. Duke was not the first to use the cigarette machine; in fact, all of the major producers used it by 1887. Nor did he have the best royalty deal for the most efficient machine; that was held by the Lone Jack Tobacco Company. Duke was not the first U.S. entrepreneur to make a success with cigarettes or to find a foreign market for them; Lewis Ginter of Richmond, Virginia, achieved as much before Duke even began making cigarettes. Duke did not force his competitors to merge into the ATC, and he was not its first president. The five major producers formed the corporation in order to gain clout in negotiations for the foreign rights to the best cigarette machine, and Ginter was the first president. No one checked the story against primary sources. Even a look at <em>New York Times</em> articles from the 1880s would have revealed telling inconsistencies and errors.</p> <p>The myth of Duke went viral when Alfred Chandler, long considered the doyen of U.S. business history, included it in his opus, <em><a href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Visible_Hand:_The_Managerial_Revolution_in_American_Business\">The Visible Hand</a></em> (1977). Chandler credited the Research Center as one of his most important influences, and his graduate student, Glenn Porter, had written one of the articles on Duke. <em>The Visible Hand</em> focused on the role of managers rather than entrepreneurs, but Chandler celebrated innovative firms that achieved vertical and horizontal integration, the ATC among them, and cast their entrepreneurs in Schumpeterian terms. The book won the Pulitzer Prize and became the single most influential business history text of the century, read by academics and general readers alike. The book shaped business-related curricula from grade school to business school. The Duke myth has remained unchallenged and unrevised in the forty years since.</p> <p>&#x2022; &#x2022; &#x2022;</p>\n<pullquote>\n<p>Duke was not the first entrepreneur to make a success with cigarettes. So how did he&#xA0;achieve his extraordinary power?</p>\n</pullquote> <p>So how <em>did</em> Duke achieve his extraordinary power, if not through clever innovations with the cigarette machine? Three maneuvers gave him control of the ATC and transformed the corporation itself. The ATC&#x2019;s opposition, ironically, supplied the first maneuver. The ATC originally incorporated in Virginia with Ginter, a Virginia resident, as president. But just days after approving the ATC&#x2019;s charter, alarmed tobacco planters in the Virginia legislature launched a successful campaign to rescind it. They claimed they <em>had</em> read the bill they had just voted on, but fear of the impact of the new monopoly on tobacco leaf prices had spread like wildfire through the state, prompting their about-face. The five companies then turned to New Jersey for a corporate charter, and Duke, the second most powerful of the ATC entrepreneurs, assumed the presidency.</p> <p>The move to New Jersey was profoundly consequential because lawyers there had just succeeded in radically weakening the state&#x2019;s incorporation laws so that corporations could do virtually anything they wished. The Delaware of the nineteenth century, New Jersey drew the ire of other states because incorporators rushed to establish their charters there, and New Jersey raked in tax revenues. The ATC was one of the first.</p> <p>When Duke proceeded to pursue controversial, monopolistic business practices, now perfectly legal in New Jersey, he faced pitched opposition from his fellow incorporators. Some objected to practices that they deemed unethical, while others believed Duke neglected the markets they had built in order to take over the pipe and chewing tobacco industry. But Duke made an alliance with financiers who wanted a piece of the action and forced the other entrepreneurs out of the corporation. Duke now enjoyed unchallenged authority over ATC decision-making.</p> <p>The most significant maneuver, however, happened in the courts, when the ATC prevailed against lawsuits challenging its monopolistic practices and thereby solidified the corporation&#x2019;s legal redefinition. The ATC&#x2019;s lawyers drew on the Fourteenth Amendment to declare that the corporation should be treated &#x201C;as if it were an individual carrying on the same business.&#x201D; The corporation was not a public but a private entity, &#x201C;owing no duty to the public or any part of it.&#x201D;</p>\n<pullquote>\n<p>New Jersey&#x2019;s&#xA0;laws put virtually no limits on corporate activities and corporate law did not yet exist. It was the corporate version of the Wild West.</p>\n</pullquote> <p>As a New Jersey corporation, the ATC freely used its monopoly over cigarettes to force previously independent distributors to carry its products exclusively. Distributors quickly lost their status as business owners and became dependent, contract employees of the ATC, with a dramatic decline in income. Competitors, meanwhile, could no longer get their products to retailers or consumers. Already the biggest cigarette firm in the country, the ATC got bigger still. Though common in today&#x2019;s economy ruled by Amazon and Walmart, these business practices were highly controversial at the time because they stifled competition, believed to be necessary to a healthy economy.</p> <p>Previously, business practices like these could be challenged legally by claiming a corporation had exceeded state incorporation laws as expressed in its charter&#x2014;called an ultra vires (&#x201C;beyond the powers&#x201D;) complaint. But New Jersey&#x2019;s new laws put virtually no limits on corporate activities and corporate law did not yet exist. It was the corporate version of the Wild West.</p> <p>The ATC&#x2019;s power grab won it many enemies, some of them in powerful places. A coalition quickly formed to bring creative legal challenges to the ATC&#x2019;s practices&#x2014;and by implication, the New Jersey laws&#x2014;through linked cases in New Jersey (1893) and New York (1895). The coalition consisted of the National Cigarette and Tobacco Company (a company formed with the sole purpose of challenging the ATC in court), the attorneys general of both New York and New Jersey, and distributors. Duke saw these cases as serious threats: he paid the ATC&#x2019;s top lawyer an annual salary of $50,000&#x2014;roughly $1.3 million today&#x2014;and prepared for war.</p> <p>Both cases had the potential to stop the advance of the ATC and to put great pressure on New Jersey to revise its lax incorporation laws. The New Jersey case, brought in equity court, claimed that ATC business practices harmed trade and commerce in the state and demanded that the corporation be restrained from utilizing its charter. New Jersey state lawyer Benjamin F. Einstein argued that states chartered corporations for the public good and that states had the power to restrain corporations that caused public injury. Had this case succeeded, the ATC would have been forced to cease operations and New Jersey&#x2019;s courts would have been at odds, likely carrying the case to the Supreme Court and forcing a national debate about the corporation&#x2019;s expanding legal powers.</p> <p>In New York, Attorney General Theodore E. Hancock had more distant jurisdiction but drew on a new anti-monopoly law that enabled him to charge the ATC in criminal court with &#x201C;conspiring to stifle competition.&#x201D; Hancock insisted that New York state had &#x201C;sufficient jurisdiction&#x201D; to restrain a corporation &#x201C;from transacting an illegal business.&#x201D; The ATC&#x2019;s lawyers cleverly responded to the charge by arguing that two are needed to conspire and, because the ATC corporation should be considered a single individual, it was impossible for it to conspire. Had the ATC been found guilty, its New York state certificate would have been cancelled and its executives could have faced jail time. Since New York was the site of the company&#x2019;s headquarters, its largest factories, and its largest market, a loss there would also have ground the company&#x2019;s engine to a halt.</p> <p>Both cases failed to stop the ATC. In New Jersey, Vice Chancellor Alfred Reed, the case&#x2019;s judge, parroted ATC lawyers by accepting the equation between the corporation and a private individual, according them the &#x201C;same authority&#x201D; and protections under the law. He also scolded the plaintiffs for bringing the case in equity court rather than making an ultra vires complaint, even though such a complaint would be futile given the changes in New Jersey&#x2019;s laws. Anyone wishing to challenge a New Jersey corporation after the ATC&#x2019;s case faced a catch-22.</p>\n<pullquote>\n<p>The Fourteenth Amendment was created to protect&#xA0;African Americans. Instead corporations immediately began using it to protect themselves.</p>\n</pullquote> <p>In New York, the judge ridiculed the lawyers&#x2019; argument that the corporation was a single individual and therefore could not conspire, but the criminal court jury was hung and failed to bring a conviction. The ATC quickly patched its distributor contracts in New York to undermine the effectiveness of a retrial. With these wins, Duke&#x2019;s ATC insulated itself from significant regulation for another fourteen years, until the 1911 Supreme Court busted the behemoth into four still-huge companies. In the meantime, the ATC expanded across the United States and the globe and Duke became the world&#x2019;s most powerful tobacco executive.</p> <p>With these cases, the ATC succeeded in using the Fourteenth Amendment to insist that the corporation not be seen as a public institution, chartered by a state for the public good, but as a private individual, deserving protection <em>from</em> the state. In the end, the ATC&#x2019;s victory became part of the story of Reconstruction&#x2019;s failures and unforeseen consequences: the Fourteenth Amendment had meant to create enhanced federal protections for individual private property rights in order to shield African Americans from state-level attacks after the close of the Civil War. Instead corporations immediately began using the Fourteenth Amendment to protect themselves from state-level regulations&#x2014;and because corporations were chartered by states, all regulations at this time were at the level of the state.</p> <p>The point was not whether corporations were persons, but what kind of persons they were, with what rights and protections. The common law basis of the U.S. and British legal systems is based on the individual as the unit of law. The form of the corporation developed as a way to legally render a collective as a singular entity, or legal person. States chartered such corporations as <em>public</em> persons with obligation to the public good. A wide variety of projects took corporate form, from public works projects, to schools, to businesses. The British East India Company and Virginia Company are two examples of British corporations chartered to pursue colonization for the good of England. As big business grew in the late nineteenth century, a conflict arose between the way states regulated large corporations such as the ATC and the legal standing of equally large companies that did not incorporate. The federal protections of the Fourteenth Amendment were a boon to lawyers looking for tools to free corporations from state-level controls.</p> <p>The historically public nature of corporations could have become a way of legally construing and regulating the relationship of rapidly growing business corporations and other large companies to undeniably public resources such as water, land, infrastructures such as railroads and highways, and labor. Instead, business corporations became defined as private and their use of public resources became protected by laws historically designed to protect the privacy of white male individuals and their households, laws specifically strengthened by the Fourteenth Amendment. What does the corporation owe to the public? Duke&#x2019;s lawyers were correct: if a corporation is a <em>private</em> &#x201C;person,&#x201D; it legally owes nothing whatsoever. This shift also set the ground for corporations&#x2019; successful claim in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries on liberty rights, such as the right to free speech, that originally had been intended for human individuals.</p> <p>African Americans did not fare as well by these same legal changes. At the same time that crucial state-level attempts to limit corporate claims on the Fourteenth Amendment failed, states succeeded in passing Jim Crow laws, limiting access to jobs and other public resources, such as public transport. The federal government endorsed these restrictions in <em>Plessy v. Ferguson</em> in 1896, ushering in a half century of legal apartheid that lasted until the 1964 Civil Rights Act.</p> <p>&#x2022; &#x2022; &#x2022;</p> <p>This history shapes our collective imagination about capitalism as much as it shapes our reality. Though corporate law, regulations, and ideas of corporate responsibility surfaced in the twentieth century, the notion that so-called &#x201C;private&#x201D; businesses gain their power and wealth from public resources and therefore owe a duty to the public remains a difficult argument to make more than a century later. Instead we talk endlessly about innovation and the next brilliant (or despicable) entrepreneur.</p>\n<pullquote>\n<p>Historians&#xA0;find in Duke&#x2019;s inflated corporate power the roots of chronic inequality, economic instability, and the heedless promotion of a deadly product.&#xA0;</p>\n</pullquote> <p>This brings us back to the Duke myth and its power to shape the present-day conversation about capitalism. Schumpeter&#x2019;s economic theory battled with Keynes&#x2019;s for decades, but were the two men still alive today, Schumpeter likely would be claiming the last laugh. Even Duke&#x2019;s harshest critics repeat the Schumpeterian story and aid its circulation. Historians of labor and medicine find in Duke&#x2019;s inflated corporate power the roots of chronic inequality, economic instability, and the heedless promotion of a deadly and addictive product. One such strident title in medical history, Robert N. Proctor&#x2019;s <em><a href=\"https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520270169/golden-holocaust\">Golden Holocaust</a> </em>(2012), jolts readers to recognize the scale of corporate crimes. But these historians, too, fail to check the story of how Duke gained his power, likely because the Schumpeterian mythos of the entrepreneur easily accommodates their outrage. Duke as a selfish and bombastic egotist who wrested power from calmer men while he raked in the cash? They concur and simply spin the story of innovation to the left rather than the right. Schumpeter made no secret of his conservative libertarian perspective, but his theory of creative destruction underpins many explicitly left-leaning interpretations of capitalist history.</p> <p>Schumpeter&#x2019;s influence has skyrocketed since the decline of Keynesian economics and the rise of neoliberal deregulation of free markets, but today the person most associated with the idea of the disruptive entrepreneur is Clayton M. Christiansen. A Harvard economist, Christiansen unveiled the theory of &#x201C;disruptive innovation&#x201D; in his 1997 book <em><a href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Innovator%27s_Dilemma\">The Innovator&#x2019;s Dilemma</a></em><em>.</em> Christiansen was heavily influenced by Schumpeter&#x2019;s theory of creative destruction, but whereas Schumpeter focused on the entrepreneur, Christiansen elevated the startup&#x2014;the innovative smaller company that catches its sleepy competition unaware. With fewer resources than its larger competitors, the small company or startup nonetheless disrupts established business practice by offering a cheaper, often inferior product, thereby capturing a new element of the market ignored by established companies. Think personal computers versus the old mainframes. When even established consumers switch to the cheaper product, forcing older companies to mimic the new business model, disruptive innovation has occurred.</p> <p>As the words &#x201C;big government&#x201D; helped dismantle two generations of Keynesian social and economic policy, Schumpeter&#x2019;s ideas of creative destruction finally triumphed over those of his old rival and found new life in destructive innovation. &#x201C;Ever since <em>The Innovator&#x2019;s Dilemma</em>,&#x201D; historian Jill Lepore writes, &#x201C;everyone is either disrupting or being disrupted.&#x201D; As regulations fell and income inequality rose, a euphoric discourse of innovation reassured at least part of the public that society&#x2019;s numerous ills were necessary&#x2014;and inevitable&#x2014;growing pains for a capitalist economy. Lepore&#x2019;s <a href=\"https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/06/23/the-disruption-machine\">scathing expos&#xE9;</a> of disruptive innovation reveals how the idea has enjoyed ridiculously wide uptake in contemporary life, from business to health care to higher education to media. The idea has become so popular, she argues, that it operates as a theory of history, shaping our view of the world and how it works. Lepore researched some of the &#x201C;handpicked case studies&#x201D; used to prove the theory in <em>The Innovator&#x2019;s Dilemma</em> and found that Christiansen had selectively sifted and arranged historical facts with his theory in mind. Lepore also notes that Christiansen has faced very few challengers&#x2014;a fact that may explain the <a href=\"https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesleadershipforum/2014/06/30/what-jill-lepore-gets-wrong-about-clayton-christensen-and-disruptive-innovation/#315bfdb137f4\">outrage</a> with which disruptive innovation&#x2019;s true believers attacked her article.</p> <p>Perhaps disruptive innovation seems so natural because the Duke myth has reigned in our school lessons and our public culture for so many decades. Corporations continue their barely restrained plunder of public resources, while &#x201C;innovation&#x201D; is the buzzword that keeps on buzzing.</p> <span id=\"most-related-view-mobile\"></span> </div></div>","url":"http://bostonreview.net/class-inequality/nan-enstad-debunking-capitalist-cowboy","date_published":"2019-03-20T18:22:08+00:00","author":{"name":""}},{"id":"1348","title":"May’s latest screeching U-turn makes her utterly unfit to lead | Jonathan Freedland","content_html":"<div><div class=\"content__article-body from-content-api js-article__body\">\n<p><span class=\"drop-cap\"><span class=\"drop-cap__inner\">N</span></span>o matter how bad you think Theresa May is, she always manages to get worse. Her record of insisting on one thing, only to U-turn weeks, days or even hours later is almost impressive in its scope. There would be no snap election, she vowed &#x2013; and then there was one. Her Brexit deal would be subject to a <a href=\"https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/dec/10/theresa-may-postpones-brexit-deal-meaningful-vote-eu\" class=\"u-underline\">meaningful vote in December</a> &#x2013; and then the vote was pulled, punted into the new year. <a href=\"https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/feb/27/theresa-may-says-britain-can-still-leave-eu-on-29-march\" class=\"u-underline\">Brexit would happen on 29 March </a>&#x2013; and now it won&#x2019;t.</p>\n<p>This latest example is the Russian doll of reversals, with several other reversals contained within it. For just last week, May&#x2019;s de facto deputy, David Lidington, was adamant that <a href=\"https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/mar/15/david-lidington-insists-cabinet-united-despite-some-voting-against-brexit-delay\" class=\"u-underline\">any delay to Brexit would have to be lengthy</a>, since a short, one-off extension would be both pointless &#x2013; leaving too little time to do anything &#x2013; and &#x201C;downright reckless&#x201D;, as well as being &#x201C;completely at odds with the position&#x201D; MPs had taken the previous evening. May had told the Commons that, if MPs voted down her agreement with the EU &#x2013; which they did &#x2013; she would be seeking a long extension. She delivered the same message to the cabinet only yesterday.</p>\n<aside class=\"element element-rich-link element--thumbnail element-rich-link--not-upgraded\">\n\n</aside>\n<p>Yet <a href=\"https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/mar/20/theresa-may-asks-eu-for-brexit-delay-until-30-june\" class=\"u-underline\">now we have her letter to Donald Tusk</a> and, guess what, she&#x2019;s asking for only a short delay till 30 June, leaving heavy hints that she would rather resign than postpone our EU exit beyond that date. These screeching, rubber-burning U-turns of May&#x2019;s can make you queasy. What was once her preferred course of action has, within 24 hours, become so unpalatable to May that she&#x2019;ll walk if you make her do it.</p>\n<p>All of which confirms what a broken reed of a prime minister she is, useless in every regard. She cannot impose her will on her own cabinet, but is instead a prisoner of it, especially the Brexiter faction which refused to countenance a long extension. The former Tory MP Anna Soubry surely got to the heart of the matter when she <a href=\"https://twitter.com/BBCr4today/status/1108309341021655040\" class=\"u-underline\">asked on the Today programme</a>, &#x201C;Who is running Britain? The answer is the ERG, a party within a party.&#x201D;</p>\n<p>So much for the origins of this decision. What of its impact? Sadly, the clearest reading was also offered by Lidington in those same remarks to the Commons. A short extension, he said, would make &#x201C;a no-deal scenario far more rather than less likely.&#x201D; He&#x2019;s right and this represents the oddest of May&#x2019;s reverses, upending not only her publicly stated position but also her own strategy for getting her deal across the line.</p>\n<p>For what was May&#x2019;s gameplan? It was to present hardcore Brexiters with an <a href=\"https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/mar/14/theresa-may-brexit-article-50-delay\" class=\"u-underline\">awful choice</a>: either back her plan or watch Brexit get swallowed up in the long grass from which it might never emerge. That was her tactic, admitted last month by <a href=\"https://www.itv.com/news/2019-02-12/exclusive-uk-chief-brexit-negotiator-olly-robbins-warns-mps-the-choice-is-mays-deal-or-extension/\" class=\"u-underline\">Olly Robbins, her chief Brexit negotiator</a>, overheard in a Brussels bar.</p>\n<p> (Almost) everyone knows that to leave without a deal will be a disaster. Everyone also knows the Commons has it in its power to avert that disaster. And yet today we have taken another step towards it, led by a prime minister utterly unable to lead.</p>\n<p><span class=\"bullet\">&#x2022;</span> Jonathan Freedland is a Guardian columnist</p>\n<aside class=\"element element-rich-link element--thumbnail element-rich-link--not-upgraded\">\n\n</aside>\n\n\n</div></div>","url":"https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/mar/20/may-brexit-uturn-unfit-lead-extension-erg","date_published":"2019-03-20T16:20:47+00:00","author":{"name":""}},{"id":"1349","title":"Why Jacinda Ardern Matters","content_html":"<div><article id=\"story\" class=\"css-1vxca1d e1qksbhf0\"><header class=\"css-1ie2czc euiyums1\"><p class=\"css-z6dj7x e1wiw3jv0\">New Zealand&#x2019;s prime minister is emerging as the progressive antithesis to right-wing strongmen like Trump, Orban and Modi, whose careers thrive on illiberal, anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant rhetoric.</p><div class=\"css-xt80pu euiyums0\"><div class=\"css-acwcvw epjyd6m0\"><div class=\"css-vp77d3 epjyd6m1\"><div class=\"css-1baulvz\"><p class=\"css-16vrk19 e1jsehar1\">By <span class=\"css-1baulvz\">Sushil Aaron</span></p><div class=\"css-qsaw8 e1wtpvyy0\"><p class=\"css-ri4qrz e1wtpvyy1\">Mr. Aaron is a journalist.</p></div></div></div></div></div><div class=\"css-79elbk ehw59r11\"><div class=\"css-1a48zt4 ehw59r111\"><figure class=\"sizeMedium layoutHorizontal css-1b4fpzk toneOpinion\"><div class=\"css-bsn42l\"><span class=\"css-1dv1kvn\">Image</span><img alt=\"\" class=\"css-11cwn6f\" src=\"https://static01.nyt.com/images/2019/03/19/opinion/19Aaron1/merlin_152212614_83c855de-df8f-4e94-8b70-7f40396d4a09-articleLarge.jpg?quality=75&amp;auto=webp&amp;disable=upscale\" srcset=\"https://static01.nyt.com/images/2019/03/19/opinion/19Aaron1/merlin_152212614_83c855de-df8f-4e94-8b70-7f40396d4a09-articleLarge.jpg?quality=90&amp;auto=webp 600w, https://static01.nyt.com/images/2019/03/19/opinion/19Aaron1/merlin_152212614_83c855de-df8f-4e94-8b70-7f40396d4a09-jumbo.jpg?quality=90&amp;auto=webp 1024w, https://static01.nyt.com/images/2019/03/19/opinion/19Aaron1/merlin_152212614_83c855de-df8f-4e94-8b70-7f40396d4a09-superJumbo.jpg?quality=90&amp;auto=webp 2048w\"></div><figcaption class=\"css-17ai7jg emkp2hg0\"><span class=\"css-8i9d0s e13ogyst0\">Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, consoles a woman as she visited Kilbirnie Mosque in Wellington on Sunday to lay flowers among tributes to Christchurch attack victims.</span><span class=\"emkp2hg2 css-1nwzsjy e1z0qqy90\"><span class=\"css-1ly73wi e1tej78p0\">Credit</span><span><span class=\"css-1dv1kvn\">Credit</span><span>TVNZ, via Associated Press</span></span></span></figcaption></figure></div></div></header><section class=\"css-1i2y565\"><div class=\"css-1fanzo5 StoryBodyCompanionColumn\"><div class=\"css-53u6y8\"><p class=\"css-1ygdjhk evys1bk0\">AUCKLAND, New Zealand &#x2014; Jacinda Ardern, the prime minister of New Zealand, has been exemplary in her response to the massacre in Christchurch, where 50 Muslims were killed in two mosques by an Australian white supremacist and his accomplices. </p><p class=\"css-1ygdjhk evys1bk0\">Ms. Arden provided a frame for national grief by embracing the Muslim immigrant community and by firmly insisting, in a <a class=\"css-1g7m0tk\" href=\"https://twitter.com/jacindaardern/status/1106397870628847617\">tweet</a> after the attack, &#x201C;Many of those affected will be members of our migrant communities &#x2014; New Zealand is their home &#x2014; they are us.&#x201D; She set the tone for the country&#x2019;s response, framed the incident as a terrorist attack and insisted that her country will reject violent extremism.</p><p class=\"css-1ygdjhk evys1bk0\">Ms. Ardern, 38, took over as prime minister in October 2017, after generating a measure of &#x201C;<a class=\"css-1g7m0tk\" href=\"https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/sep/02/jacindamania-rocketing-rise-of-new-zealand-labours-fresh-political-hope\">Jacindamania</a>&#x201D; and leading her New Zealand Labour Party to victory. Her stature as a serious progressive politician has not been affected by her celebrity status; Ms. Ardern leads in <a class=\"css-1g7m0tk\" href=\"https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&amp;objectid=12205019\">polls</a> even as some of her policies receive mixed reviews.</p><p class=\"css-1ygdjhk evys1bk0\">Christchurch marks a turning point for Ms. Ardern and for New Zealand. She has set high benchmarks for messaging and leadership during this crisis. She is <a class=\"css-1g7m0tk\" href=\"https://www.odt.co.nz/news/national/surrender-guns-now-law-change-pm\">expected</a> to unveil specific proposals to reform the country&#x2019;s gun laws before Monday. Ms Ardern, wearing a black scarf, comforted families of the victims &#x2014; a remarkable gesture given the reactions Muslim women&#x2019;s headgear provokes in <a class=\"css-1g7m0tk\" href=\"https://qz.com/1264206/where-are-headscarves-and-face-veils-banned-in-europe/\">many Western countries</a>.</p></div><aside class=\"css-o6xoe7\"></aside></div><div class=\"css-1fanzo5 StoryBodyCompanionColumn\"><div class=\"css-53u6y8\"><p class=\"css-1ygdjhk evys1bk0\">New Zealanders have followed their leader&#x2019;s example. Citizens are declaring that the attacker does not speak for them, <a class=\"css-1g7m0tk\" href=\"https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&amp;objectid=12213608\">donations</a> are pouring in for families, <a class=\"css-1g7m0tk\" href=\"https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/christchurch-shooting/111396560/grieving-public-sign-condolence-book-for-shooting-victims\">condolence books</a> are being signed, flowers placed in front of mosques. On Sunday, church congregations sang New Zealand&#x2019;s soaring <a class=\"css-1g7m0tk\" href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j6qmdqvItkM\">national anthem</a> that speaks about &#x201C;men of every creed and race&#x201D; gathering before God&#x2019;s face in a &#x201C;free land.&#x201D;</p><p class=\"css-1ygdjhk evys1bk0\">Through the aftermath, Ms. Ardern has consciously sought to reinforce state ideology and elevate it above private prejudice. She recognizes politics as the domain that decides a nation&#x2019;s values and is providing strong narrative direction for a society suddenly dealing with exposed fault lines. She is reminding Kiwis to come to terms with the altered composition of her nation and, in fact, <a class=\"css-1g7m0tk\" href=\"https://www.reuters.com/article/us-newzealand-shootout-ardern-idUSKCN1QY0CZ\">told Donald Trump</a> that the best way he could support New Zealand was by offering &#x201C;sympathy and love for all Muslim communities.&#x201D; </p><p class=\"css-1ygdjhk evys1bk0\">On Tuesday, while speaking in the Parliament, she told the grieving families, &#x201C;We cannot know your grief, but we can <a class=\"css-1g7m0tk\" href=\"https://www.beehive.govt.nz/release/pm-house-statement-christchurch-mosques-terror-attack\">walk with you </a>at every stage.&#x201D; And in a pathbreaking gesture, Ms. Ardern said she will never <a class=\"css-1g7m0tk\" href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/19/world/asia/new-zealand-shooting-suspect-name.html?module=inline\">mention the name</a> of the terrorist, thus withholding the notoriety he sought. She implored others to &#x201C;speak the names of those who were lost, rather than name of the man who took them.&#x201D; </p></div><aside class=\"css-o6xoe7\"></aside></div><div class=\"css-79elbk ehw59r11\"><div class=\"css-1a48zt4 ehw59r111\"><figure class=\"css-jcw7oy e1g7ppur0\"><div class=\"css-1xdhyk6 erfvjey0\"><span class=\"css-1ly73wi e1tej78p0\">Image</span><img alt=\"\" class=\"css-1m50asq\" src=\"https://static01.nyt.com/images/2019/03/19/opinion/19Aaron2/merlin_152140599_719cbb83-c57b-4c31-b9af-3bc4a16d3c53-articleLarge.jpg?quality=75&amp;auto=webp&amp;disable=upscale\" srcset=\"https://static01.nyt.com/images/2019/03/19/opinion/19Aaron2/merlin_152140599_719cbb83-c57b-4c31-b9af-3bc4a16d3c53-articleLarge.jpg?quality=90&amp;auto=webp 600w, https://static01.nyt.com/images/2019/03/19/opinion/19Aaron2/merlin_152140599_719cbb83-c57b-4c31-b9af-3bc4a16d3c53-jumbo.jpg?quality=90&amp;auto=webp 1024w, https://static01.nyt.com/images/2019/03/19/opinion/19Aaron2/merlin_152140599_719cbb83-c57b-4c31-b9af-3bc4a16d3c53-superJumbo.jpg?quality=90&amp;auto=webp 2048w\"></div><figcaption class=\"css-1l44abu e1xdpqjp0\"><span class=\"css-8i9d0s e13ogyst0\">Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern speaking to reporters on Saturday, in Wellington, New Zealand.</span><span class=\"css-vuqh7u e1z0qqy90\"><span class=\"css-1ly73wi e1tej78p0\">Credit</span><span>Mark Tantrum/Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure></div></div><div class=\"css-1fanzo5 StoryBodyCompanionColumn\"><div class=\"css-53u6y8\"><p class=\"css-1ygdjhk evys1bk0\">Ms. Ardern is emerging as the definitive progressive antithesis to the crowded field of right-wing strongmen like President Trump, Viktor Orban of Hungary and Narendra Modi of India, whose careers thrive on illiberal, anti-Muslim rhetoric.</p></div><aside class=\"css-o6xoe7\"></aside></div><div class=\"css-1fanzo5 StoryBodyCompanionColumn\"><div class=\"css-53u6y8\"><p class=\"css-1ygdjhk evys1bk0\">Like its exceptional prime minister, New Zealand has a national culture unlike any other in Europe or the Americas. Its isolation and distance makes its distinctiveness possible, and the difference is palpable. It is a spectacularly beautiful country with a population of five million occupying an area larger than Britain. Though an <a class=\"css-1g7m0tk\" href=\"http://archive.stats.govt.nz/browse_for_stats/population/Migration/internal-migration/urban-rural-migration.aspx\">urbanized</a> country with a stable developed <a class=\"css-1g7m0tk\" href=\"https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-09-19/new-zealand-economy-grew-more-than-forecast-in-second-quarter\">economy</a>, it has a pace and an outlook of life that seem at odds with the extractive demands of modernity.</p><p class=\"css-1ygdjhk evys1bk0\">Migrants from developing countries relate easily to friendly Kiwis and are often surprised to see children and adults walk the streets <a class=\"css-1g7m0tk\" href=\"https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&amp;objectid=12108763\">barefoot</a>. There are superb public libraries and innumerable public spaces in the form of beaches, bays and parks. Community ties are crucial, work-life balance matters, long weekends are sacred. </p><p class=\"css-1ygdjhk evys1bk0\">Public-funded advice bureaus help migrants settle in. The streets are safe, schools are <a class=\"css-1g7m0tk\" href=\"https://www.newzealandnow.govt.nz/living-in-nz/education/school-system\">free</a> and university costs are relatively modest. Kiwis complain about lack of public investment in specialized health care but it is already impressive for a foreigner: a full course of <a class=\"css-1g7m0tk\" href=\"https://www.health.govt.nz/your-health/conditions-and-treatments/treatments-and-surgery/medications/prescription-charges\">prescribed antibiotics</a> costs $3.43. New Zealand grapples with neoliberal pressures but is attempting to hold on to its social democracy.</p><p class=\"css-1ygdjhk evys1bk0\">Of course, the country has its problems. Lack of <a class=\"css-1g7m0tk\" href=\"https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/property/108965728/editorial-size-is-everything-in-the-new-zealand-housing-shortage\">housing</a> is a serious concern, attributed to a property market spiked reportedly by Chinese <a class=\"css-1g7m0tk\" href=\"https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/property/106836362/chinese-pour-15-billion-into-nz-housing-market-last-year\">investors</a> over the years. Maori communities seek compensation for historical dispossession, which is being addressed by a <a class=\"css-1g7m0tk\" href=\"https://www.waitangitribunal.govt.nz/about-waitangi-tribunal/\">tribunal</a> and conscious promotion of indigenous culture. <a class=\"css-1g7m0tk\" href=\"https://thespinoff.co.nz/politics/04-12-2018/what-you-need-to-know-about-the-mental-health-inquiry-report/\">Mental health</a> comes up as an underdiscussed issue and public infrastructure needs more investment.</p><p class=\"css-1ygdjhk evys1bk0\">Cities like Auckland grew rapidly in the last decade owing to thousands of foreign students and workers, which increased pressure on services in ways that Kiwis did not expect. Many New Zealanders are still getting used to diversity and often regret that &#x201C;the country has changed.&#x201D; This yields resentment among some that right-wing figures seek to stoke. Muslims have been subject to racial slurs and hate speech since the Sept. 11 attacks in the United States, but as Mohamed Hassan, a Kiwi journalist put it, not in ways that one&#x2019;s &#x201C;<a class=\"css-1g7m0tk\" href=\"https://twitter.com/trtworld/status/1106634921722863616\">life would be on the line</a>.&#x201D; </p><p class=\"css-1ygdjhk evys1bk0\">But there is a vibrant political debate on immigration and about the need to import skilled labor without provoking domestic tensions &#x2014; all conducted without rancor or vitriol. Migrants will not deny sensing subtle forms of exclusion in securing jobs or promotions at work, but the ingrained commitment to everyday civility among New Zealanders is something an immigrant appreciates the most.</p><p class=\"css-1ygdjhk evys1bk0\">Ms. Ardern has a tough road ahead to ensure that the country&#x2019;s &#x201C;profile&#x201D; does not change. The challenges she faces resonate with those in other democracies. It remains to be seen if in her case normative habits and deliberative practice can prevail over nasty right-wing subcultures that are amplified by technology, social media and weapons.</p></div><aside class=\"css-o6xoe7\"></aside></div><div class=\"css-1fanzo5 StoryBodyCompanionColumn\"><div class=\"css-53u6y8\"><p class=\"css-1ygdjhk evys1bk0\">Combating bigotry and prejudice entails both law enforcement and cultural change. The former is easier, the latter less so. Ms. Ardern will need to use her country&#x2019;s civility to confront social divisions rather than allow it to foster silences that block a fuller expression of equality for marginal groups. </p><p class=\"css-1ygdjhk evys1bk0\">Her government will need to craft newer meanings of national belonging to translate the tolerated and unwanted into the desirable. Democratic discourses must ultimately aim to bridge ethnic silos and parallel cultural lives. </p><p class=\"css-1ygdjhk evys1bk0\">It is an challenge fraught with risk for a liberal politician, as a perceived overreach in social engineering can provoke a conservative backlash. It is not easy dealing with both a grieving community and a nation whose self-image has been dented. Right now her moral clarity is inspiring the world.</p><p class=\"css-1psfkbx etfikam0\">Sushil Aaron is an Indian journalist currently based in New Zealand. </p><p class=\"css-1psfkbx etfikam0\"><em class=\"css-2fg4z9 e1gzwzxm0\">The Times is committed to publishing </em><a class=\"css-1g7m0tk\" href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/31/opinion/letters/letters-to-editor-new-york-times-women.html\"><em class=\"css-2fg4z9 e1gzwzxm0\">a diversity of letters</em></a><em class=\"css-2fg4z9 e1gzwzxm0\"> to the editor. We&#x2019;d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some </em><a class=\"css-1g7m0tk\" href=\"https://help.nytimes.com/hc/en-us/articles/115014925288-How-to-submit-a-letter-to-the-editor\"><em class=\"css-2fg4z9 e1gzwzxm0\">tips</em></a><em class=\"css-2fg4z9 e1gzwzxm0\">. And here&#x2019;s our email: </em><a class=\"css-1g7m0tk\" href=\"mailto:letters@nytimes.com\"><em class=\"css-2fg4z9 e1gzwzxm0\">letters@nytimes.com</em></a><em class=\"css-2fg4z9 e1gzwzxm0\">.</em></p><p class=\"css-1psfkbx etfikam0\"><em class=\"css-2fg4z9 e1gzwzxm0\">Follow The New York Times Opinion section on </em><a class=\"css-1g7m0tk\" href=\"https://www.facebook.com/nytopinion\"><em class=\"css-2fg4z9 e1gzwzxm0\">Facebook</em></a><em class=\"css-2fg4z9 e1gzwzxm0\">, </em><a class=\"css-1g7m0tk\" href=\"http://twitter.com/NYTOpinion\"><em class=\"css-2fg4z9 e1gzwzxm0\">Twitter (@NYTopinion)</em></a><em class=\"css-2fg4z9 e1gzwzxm0\"> and </em><a class=\"css-1g7m0tk\" href=\"https://www.instagram.com/nytopinion/\"><em class=\"css-2fg4z9 e1gzwzxm0\">Instagram</em></a><em class=\"css-2fg4z9 e1gzwzxm0\">.</em></p></div><aside class=\"css-o6xoe7\"></aside></div></section></article></div>","url":"https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/19/opinion/jacinda-ardern-new-zealand.html","date_published":"2019-03-19T17:23:52+00:00","author":{"name":"Sushil Aaron"}},{"id":"1342","title":"17 Things You Probably Didn’t Know About Barcelona","content_html":"<div class=\"col-md-9 article-post\"> <div id=\"content_container_525772_525772\"> <p>Like any European city, Barcelona has its fair share of mysteries. But some of these cool facts might really surprise you. From secrets below the streets, quirky Catalan traditions to Atoni Gaudi&#x2019;s partner in crime, we&apos;ve made some cool discoveries about the city. These facts will not only fascinate you but will also make your trip to Barcelona unforgettable with tips, recommendations and things to look out for. Check out 17 Things You Probably Didn&apos;t Know about the Spanish metropolis...</p><p><em>Need a hostel in Barcelona? <a href=\"https://www.st-christophers.co.uk/hostels/europe/barcelona\">Check out St Christopher&apos;s Inns</a>, right in the city centre</em></p><h2>1 Sagrada Familia will take longer to build than the Egyptian Pyramids</h2><blockquote class=\"instagram-media\"><div><p><a href=\"https://www.instagram.com/p/BjcW6OTnnNa/\">A post shared by ro plazas (@ro.plazas)</a> on <time> May 31, 2018 at 6:13am PDT </time></p></div></blockquote><p>When La Sagrada Familia is completed, it will have taken longer to build than the Egyptian Pyramids. Pretty crazy to hear that construction is still not complete, it&#x2019;s taken over a century. It&#x2019;s expected to be completed between 2026&#x2013;2028.</p><h2>2 Gaudi&#x2019;s wasn&#x2019;t the only brain behind a lot of his most famous designs</h2><blockquote class=\"instagram-media\"></blockquote><p>Think Gaudi was the sole designer of Park Guell, the Casa Batllo and the Casa Mila? Well so do most other people, and it&#x2019;s totally not true! Josep Maria Jujol was Gaudi&#x2019;s design partner, and sadly for him he barely ever receives credit for the effort he put into any of these world-famous designs!</p><h2>3 The Eiffel Tower was actually designed for Barcelona</h2><blockquote class=\"instagram-media\"></blockquote><p>Weird seeing the Eiffel Tower in a Barcelona article but believe it or not, the now most famous Parisian landmark was originally intended to be built in Barcelona. However plans for this were rejected by the city as everyone thought it would look hideous. Gustave Eiffel instead had to pitch his idea somewhere else, and eventually decided to try Paris. It might now be Paris&#x2019; biggest tourist attraction, however the local people hated it to begin with - some referred to it as a &#x2018;metal asparagus&#x2019;! Quel horreur!</p><p><a href=\"https://www.st-christophers.co.uk/hostels/europe/paris\"><em>Looking for a hostel in Paris? Check out St Christopher&apos;s</em> </a></p><h2>4 Sometimes you&#x2019;ve gotta look up for the best photo opportunities&#x2026;</h2><blockquote class=\"instagram-media\"></blockquote><p>Head into a maze in search of Placa Milans for one of Barcelona&#x2019;s best Instagram opportunities. It&#x2019;s not easy to find, but walk down Avinyo, past the Delicatessen Venus, the AM Boutique, the Barcelona Seed Centre, Le Fortune and Wasabi and eventually you&#x2019;ll be able to look up and see the buildings form a satisfyingly smooth curve that&#x2019;s picture-perfect.</p><p><em><a href=\"https://www.st-christophers.co.uk/travel-tips/blogs/2017/25-most-instagrammable-spots-in-barcelona\">Check out the 25 Most Instagrammable Spots in Barcelona</a> </em></p><h2>5 Do you know why 13 white geese roam the courtyard of Barcelona Cathedral?</h2><blockquote class=\"instagram-media\"><div><p><a href=\"https://www.instagram.com/p/BhXGBbcnxSe/\">A post shared by Maxim (@maximpisarev)</a> on <time> Apr 9, 2018 at 12:07pm PDT </time></p></div></blockquote><p>Barcelona Cathedral is home to 13 white geese who roam the enclosed garden with the fountain and pond. The number 13 represents the age that the co-patron saint of Barcelona, Saint Eulalia was martyred, while the white geese honour her memory.</p><h2>6 There&#x2019;s a Catalan tradition of building human towers...</h2><blockquote class=\"instagram-media\"><div><p><a href=\"https://www.instagram.com/p/BjavD0CH_tr/\">A post shared by Bergants CT (@bergantsct)</a> on <time> May 30, 2018 at 3:06pm PDT </time></p></div></blockquote><p>&#x2018;Castells&#x2019; is the traditional day of human tower building in Barcelona, and it&#x2019;s been a thing since the 18th century. Sounds whacky, but the people of Barca take this day very seriously, aiming to build the tower as high as they possibly can which can be up to 10 stories high! If you happen to be in the city and manage to get a glimpse of this happening, you&#x2019;ll see just how impressive it actually is!</p><h2>7 The Cactus Garden is insanely cool</h2><blockquote class=\"instagram-media\"></blockquote><p>It&#x2019;s called Jardin de Cactus de Moss&#xE8;n Costa i Llobera and for some reason, not many tourists have heard of it, making it a real hidden gem. Plus it&#x2019;ll seriously spice up your Insta feed.</p><h2>8 Barceloneta Beaches are Artificial</h2><blockquote class=\"instagram-media\"><div><p><a href=\"https://www.instagram.com/p/BivupsVlT0z/\">A post shared by &#x423;&#x43B;&#x44C;&#x44F;&#x43D;&#x430; &#x41A;&#x43E;&#x440;&#x436; (@ulyana_korzh)</a> on <time> May 13, 2018 at 10:15pm PDT </time></p></div></blockquote><p>Before the Olympic Games, Barcelona&#x2019;s seaside was completely built over by industries and factories; meaning that there were no beaches. In the run up to the 1992 Summer Olympic Games,&#xA0;&#xA0;Barcelona went under mass redevelopment and the beaches were rebuilt to convert the concrete waterfront to a sandy paradise.</p><h2>9 And did you know there are 10 different beaches in Barcelona?</h2><blockquote class=\"instagram-media\"><div><p><a href=\"https://www.instagram.com/p/BhdmqtdAY8u/\">A post shared by frv17 (@jacky_electron)</a> on <time> Apr 12, 2018 at 12:48am PDT </time></p></div></blockquote><p>Don&#x2019;t just follow the crowd to Barceloneta (although it&#x2019;s a beautiful beach, it does get super crowded), there are plenty more beaches in the city to enjoy on a hot day!</p><p><em><a href=\"https://www.st-christophers.co.uk/travel-tips/blogs/2017/8-best-beaches-in-and-around-barcelona\">Check out the 8 Best Beaches in and Around Barcelona here</a> </em></p><h2>10 You&#x2019;re wrong if you think La Ramblas is just one street</h2><blockquote class=\"instagram-media\"><div><p><a href=\"https://www.instagram.com/p/BjS3wkQFkDR/\">A post shared by Morgan Oey (@morganoey)</a> on <time> May 27, 2018 at 1:48pm PDT </time></p></div></blockquote><p>Las Ramblas, the famous street in Barcelona&#x2019;s Gothic Quarter actually comprises of 5 different avenues. But a lot of tourists think it&#x2019;s just one stretch. The different avenues include Canaletes, Estudis, Sant Josep, Caputxins and Santa Monica, and lastly La Boqueria (home to the biggest food market in Barcelona).</p><h2>11 The city is home to 12 haunted underground metro stations</h2><blockquote class=\"instagram-media\"></blockquote><p>There are secrets hidden below Barcelona&#x2019;s streets. There are 12 abandoned metro stations deep underground - and apparently they are haunted with claims that people have seen shadows of humans or ghosts. You can even take ghost tours of these hidden, haunted metro stations.</p><h2>12 Barcelona has 9 UNESCO World Heritage Sites</h2><blockquote class=\"instagram-media\"></blockquote><p>And seven of them were created by Gaudi. The 9 World Heritage sites are Park G&#xFC;ell, Palau G&#xFC;ell, Casa Mil&#xE0;, Casa Vicens, La Sagrada Fam&#xED;lia, Casa Batll&#xF3; and Crypt of the Church at Colonia Guell.</p><h2>13 Take a cable car for the best views</h2><blockquote class=\"instagram-media\"><div><p><a href=\"https://www.instagram.com/p/BecrP1Xh2KR/\">A post shared by OR_PHOTOGRAPH (@or445)</a> on <time> Jan 27, 2018 at 1:34am PST </time></p></div></blockquote><p>Montjuic is the Olympic site of Barcelona where the 1992 Olympic Games were held. With an elevation of 173m, the park is higher than any building in the city so you need to take the cable car to get there. At the top, you can get the best panoramic views of Barcelona, a full 360 degree view.</p><h2>14 Look out for bad drivers</h2><blockquote class=\"instagram-media\"><div><p><a href=\"https://www.instagram.com/p/BjFfFj_BHO2/\">A post shared by dimradu (@dimradu)</a> on <time> May 22, 2018 at 9:02am PDT </time></p></div></blockquote><p>Barcelona&#x2019;s drivers are considered the worst drivers in the world. An accident occurs every 19 seconds on the streets of Barcelona. Crikey! We&#x2019;ll stick to walking...</p><h2>15 Learn the secrets of FC Barcelona</h2><blockquote class=\"instagram-media\"></blockquote><p>FC Barcelona has been around for over 100 years and for locals, the football club is a massive part of their identity. Secrets that contributed to FC Barcelona&#x2019;s history can be found dotted all around the city, and surprisingly closer towards Barcelona&#x2019;s city centre rather than near the Camp Nou stadium. With the Secrets of Barcelona tour, you can discover the clubs secrets on a 2-hour guided tour through Barcelona&#x2019;s city center (even the exact building where the club was founded).</p><h2>16 Some of the city is built in blocks</h2><blockquote class=\"instagram-media\"></blockquote><p>Much like New York, a particular part of Barcelona has been laid out in square blocks. In the district Eixample, the construction follows a strict grid pattern with long straight streets, crossed by wide avenues. The Sagrada Familia lies in the Eixample district!</p><h2>17 There&apos;s a hole in a wall that used to be a baby drop-off</h2><blockquote class=\"instagram-media\"></blockquote><p>The small wooden inlet in the heart of El Raval was once used as a place where people could anonymously drop off their baby to the orphanage behind it. Between 1853 and 1931, the orphanage saw hundreds of babies come through the turning circular door, left by parents who could not or did not want to take care of them.</p><p><em>Want more? <a href=\"https://www.st-christophers.co.uk/travel-tips/blogs/2017/10-cool-facts-you-probably-didnt-know-about-prague\">Here are 13 Cool Things You Probably Didn&apos;t Know About Prague</a></em></p><p>And <em><a href=\"https://www.st-christophers.co.uk/travel-tips/blogs/2017/11-things-you-probably-didnt-know-about-berlin\">11 Things You Probably Didn&apos;t Know About Berlin</a></em></p><p>Article by <strong>Shereen Sagoo and Darcy King</strong></p> </div> </div>","url":"https://www.st-christophers.co.uk/travel-tips/blogs/2017/15-things-you-probably-didnt-know-about-barcelona","date_published":"2019-03-16T22:10:38+00:00","author":{"name":""}},{"id":"1341","title":"Cultural Identities: Barcelona (Spain)","content_html":"<div> <p><strong>Context</strong> 1855 was the year when the Government authorized the demolition of the walls of the ancient city, and also when the engineer Ildefons Cerd&#xE0; (1815-1876) drew up the blueprint of the Extension Plan of Barcelona. This was based on the excellent topographic map of the city and its neighbouring territory, drawn up under the engineer&apos;s own direction (fig. 1). We can find in it the broad surface, named &apos;Pla de Barcelona&apos;, placed between the overcrowded walled town and the pre-litoral chain of mountains, closing the area. This smoothly sloped plain was for centuries artificially kept free from any kind of urbanisation due to military reasons, only gathering by Cerd&#xE0;&apos;s time some traditional towns (Sants, Sarri&#xE0;, Gr&#xE0;cia and Sant Andreu, among other smaller ones), which today constitute the core of the different boroughs in Barcelona. The Extension Plan was basically conceived by Cerd&#xE0; as an antidote to the extremely high density &quot;that kills&quot;, of near 900 inhabitants per hectare, and the resultant unhealthy living conditions.<p><strong>Dynamic process</strong>The Cerd&#xE0; Plan for the Extension of Barcelona, dated 1859 (fig. 2) -some 1300 hectares of rectangular blocks (113 x 113 m), covering 14% of the present municipal surface area-, has been implemented in different stages, from the start of industrialisation in Catalonia. It is seen by many scholars as a consistent framework which has conferred to the city not only an individual personality, but also a special ability to accommodate changes in social structure, economy or land use regulations throughout time . More than this, it has proved to be a framework able to produce dynamic impulses as well as be responsible for much stability in the urban system, while keeping its basic spatial functions. It makes the urban system develop as a coherent whole in the fields of productivity, competition and internal cohesion.</p>That has something to do with the creative forces emanating from the strong interaction between some crucial elements starting in the middle of the 19th century. We refer mainly to the birth of a new industrial bourgeoisie, the investment of profits both in building a modern commercial port, and the urbanisation of the &apos;Pla de Barcelona&apos;, following Cerd&#xE0;&apos;s designs, beyond the demolished walls of the overcrowded ancient city.<p>We can trace in this context the theme of Catalan entrepreneurship, for instance, in the foresteps of utility networks closely related to the rectangular grid development. Yet we find today firms with international leadership in this field (AGBAR, Gas Natural). Anyway, the rational approach in the plan with respect to water, sewage, electricity and gas services, helped a great deal to guarantee equality of access to them: &quot;what starts as being good for a few is going to be profitable for everyone&quot;</p></p> <p><br> <strong>Urban development issues and socio-cultural cohesion</strong> The humanistic side of the engineer is reflected in the way, rather unusual by that time, Cerd&#xE0; scientifically analyzed many theoretical aspects, for example urban and housing standards. A wide range of topics of this nature were developed in his comprehensive work &apos;Teor&#xED;a General de la Urbanizaci&#xF3;n&apos; (General Theory of Urbanisation), where some find the very beginning of Urbanism as a separate branch in social sciences. Among other meaningful aspects his holistic conception of the urbanisation process has to be stressed: coherent design of streets / blocks, public / private spaces, utility networks, public / private transportation, considering as well the subtle link between housing economics and issues of social integration. The Extension&apos;s implementation -mainly through legal and financial regulations linked to the development process- was done in such a way as to allow the different social strata to live together in the same building: quality flats on the first floor with back gardens for owners and high income families, upper level flats -more modest, but subject to the established standards- for workers. The point is that such a model implies equal access to the same neighbourhood and commercial facilities. This has been the case for many decades, and we can understand it as a fundamental part of an implicit social contract between the bourgeoisie and working classes, which has clearly contributed to smoother relations, the removal of radical conflicts and more room for dialogue. This situation has been described also as being at the origin of the positive &apos;melting pot&apos; pattern, in the way Giovanni Sartori (The multiethnic society) describes the delicate but consistent contrast between reaching interculturality -as a means for differences to coexist in tolerant respect- and becoming multicultural -a blurred mix draining the shape and breath from existing traditions, and, at the extreme, threatening democracy. There is a hope that urban structure always has some role to play. The fact is, anyway, that Catalonia&apos;s identity has not only resisted through history several migration influxes from other Spanish regions that are culturally different, but has come up with incentives to foster common aims. Figures are clear: from 1900 (1,95 million) to 2000 (6,05 million) Catalonia tripled its population, while that of the rest of Spain hardly doubled. A most amazing contrast we find if we consider that in 1855, the ancient city (2,35 sq km) was overwhelmed by nearly 200.000 people, showing no significant exchanges on a daily basis with its surrounding towns, while currently, we talk about a metropolitan area (3.200 sq km) with 4,2 million people, based on strong commuting interrelations.<p><strong>Other issues of influence</strong>The standard parcelling displayed in the plan lays pace to diversity -a wide variety of land uses quite close together-, allowing efficient locations for fluid inner transformation, as successive changes, induced by alternatives in economic cycles, are imminent. The playboard results both simple and complete, notwithstanding the enormous variety of architectural styles in place: a single urban structure for the wide variety of architectural styles that use to amaze the growing array of visitors. A new tourist culture demanding more than sun, beaches or landscapes. Even at the risk of occasional congestion, diversity and compactness bring proximity - a large number of closer contacts over a limited time- and a continuing occupation of public spaces -which so become more efficient and safe.</p>The large urban facilities in Barcelona have to find a way of fitting into the grid, allowing easy access for everybody, without interfering with the functionality of the whole. For more than a century they have systematically adopted the trend to embrace complete block units into a range from one (several goods markets, the old seminar), two (prison, Central University, Hospital Cl&#xED;nic), three (Antoni Gaudi&apos;s Holy Family sanctuary, for instance), four (ancient poly-technic university, the old slaughter house turned into urban park in recent times) to nine (Sant Pau hospital).It is also easy to see the influence of the urban conditions provided by the character of Cerd&#xE0;&apos;s Extension on socio-cultural aspects, as deep rooted associationism (music, literature, sports, different scientific fields), coming very often from spontaneous private initiatives. Also to mention the undisputed leadership of Barcelona to figure out the peculiar pattern of the cultural identity of Catalonia: &apos;seny&apos; (a steady attitude of &apos;common sense&apos;), discretion, cooperation, which one can notice during traditional mass celebrations (the patron saint St. George holiday -a book and a rose for the best loved friends-, the building up of human castles, or the popular dance of &apos;Sardana&apos;).So a certain atmosphere of unity underlying the different city visions makes the urban playground resistant to segmentation, with sufficient strong attractions for a significant majority of newcomers to feel easily caught up in the common project. Why then if not, ghettos (prostitution, crime) have been banished until very recent times to the nuclear ancient city, which successive municipal administrations have failed to restructure in the physical dimension that Cerd&#xE0; himself was proposing (more radical renewal to ensure continuity, only very partially implemented, of some inner streets with the Extension grid) (fig. 5).<p><strong>Present day opportunities</strong>Time has proved those virtues some 150 years after the beginning of the whole process. This part of the city maintains traffic circulation and compact diversity for living and activity, in spite of relentless densification, if we compare with the rest of the districts, even those more recently developed (figs. 3 and 4). A chain of successive permissive building regulations - only broken in 1976, thanks to the land use metropolitan plan still applying today - have brought the Extension density far beyond Cerd&#xE0;&apos;s initial perspectives. On the other hand, recent physical proposals such as the Olympic Village or the industrial restructuring on the Extension&apos;s east side, to TIC new economy, are shown to be able to be easily fitted into the same scheme (fig. 6). So there is a possibility of urban sustainability in a grand sense. Both examples constitute indeed radical transformations - a modern housing neighbourhood which was once a slum, and third wave clean industry able to be mixed with housing- that have become compatible with the opening of the city to the seafront, now rediscovered for the benefit of urban quality, by just lengthening the grid axis to its natural limits.</p> </p> </div>","url":"http://www.planum.net/cultural-identities-barcelona-spain","date_published":"2019-03-16T22:09:24+00:00","author":{"name":""}},{"id":"1335","title":"Addressing Spotify’s Claims","content_html":"<div class=\"component-content\"> <p class=\"pagebody-copy\">We believe that technology achieves its true potential when we infuse it with human creativity and ingenuity. From our earliest days, we&#x2019;ve built our devices, software and services to help artists, musicians, creators and visionaries do what they do best.\n</p> <p class=\"pagebody-copy\">Sixteen years ago, we launched the iTunes Store with the idea that there should be a trusted place where users discover and purchase great music and every creator is treated fairly. The result revolutionized the music industry, and our love of music and the people who make it are deeply engrained in Apple.\n</p> <p class=\"pagebody-copy\">Eleven years ago, the App Store brought that same passion for creativity to mobile apps. In the decade since, the App Store has helped create many millions of jobs, generated more than $120 billion for developers and created new industries through businesses started and grown entirely in the App Store ecosystem.\n</p> <p class=\"pagebody-copy\">At its core, the App Store is a safe, secure platform where users can have faith in the apps they discover and the transactions they make. And developers, from first-time engineers to larger companies, can rest assured that everyone is playing by the same set of rules.\n</p> <p class=\"pagebody-copy\">That&#x2019;s how it should be. We want more app businesses to thrive &#x2014; including the ones that compete with some aspect of our business, because they drive us to be better.\n</p> <p class=\"pagebody-copy\">What Spotify is demanding is something very different. After using the App Store for years to dramatically grow their business, Spotify seeks to keep all the benefits of the App Store ecosystem &#x2014; including the substantial revenue that they draw from the App Store&#x2019;s customers &#x2014; without making any contributions to that marketplace. At the same time, they distribute the music you love while making ever-smaller contributions to the artists, musicians and songwriters who create it &#x2014; even going so far as to take these creators to court.\n</p> <p class=\"pagebody-copy\">Spotify has every right to determine their own business model, but we feel an obligation to respond when Spotify wraps its financial motivations in misleading rhetoric about who we are, what we&#x2019;ve built and what we do to support independent developers, musicians, songwriters and creators of all stripes.\n</p> <p class=\"pagebody-copy\">So we want to address a few key points:\n</p> </div>","url":"https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2019/03/addressing-spotifys-claims/","date_published":"2019-03-15T15:40:30+00:00","author":{"name":""}},{"id":"1336","title":"Don’t Blame Robots for Low Wages","content_html":"<div><article id=\"story\" class=\"css-1vxca1d e1qksbhf0\"><header class=\"css-1ie2czc euiyums1\"><p class=\"css-z6dj7x e1wiw3jv0\">Progressives shouldn&#x2019;t fall for facile technology fatalism.</p><div class=\"css-xt80pu euiyums0\"><div class=\"css-acwcvw epjyd6m0\"><div class=\"css-vp77d3 epjyd6m1\"><div class=\"css-1p10dcb ey68jwv0\"><a href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/by/paul-krugman\" class=\"css-uwwqev\"><img alt=\"Paul Krugman\" src=\"https://static01.nyt.com/images/2018/04/02/opinion/paul-krugman/paul-krugman-thumbLarge.png\" class=\"css-1vbou05 ey68jwv2\"></a></div><div class=\"css-1baulvz\"><p class=\"css-16vrk19 e1jsehar1\">By <a href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/by/paul-krugman\" class=\"css-1riqqik e1jsehar0\"><span class=\"css-1baulvz\">Paul Krugman</span></a></p></div></div></div></div><div class=\"css-79elbk ehw59r11\"><div class=\"css-1a48zt4 ehw59r111\"><figure class=\"sizeLarge layoutHorizontal css-1b4fpzk toneOpinion\"><div class=\"css-bsn42l\"><span class=\"css-1dv1kvn\">Image</span><img alt=\"\" class=\"css-11cwn6f\" src=\"https://static01.nyt.com/images/2019/03/14/opinion/14krugmanWeb/merlin_118612223_8567fab0-87ce-4cef-8cec-62a9f2fcd13f-articleLarge.jpg?quality=75&amp;auto=webp&amp;disable=upscale\" srcset=\"https://static01.nyt.com/images/2019/03/14/opinion/14krugmanWeb/merlin_118612223_8567fab0-87ce-4cef-8cec-62a9f2fcd13f-articleLarge.jpg?quality=90&amp;auto=webp 600w, https://static01.nyt.com/images/2019/03/14/opinion/14krugmanWeb/merlin_118612223_8567fab0-87ce-4cef-8cec-62a9f2fcd13f-jumbo.jpg?quality=90&amp;auto=webp 1024w, https://static01.nyt.com/images/2019/03/14/opinion/14krugmanWeb/merlin_118612223_8567fab0-87ce-4cef-8cec-62a9f2fcd13f-superJumbo.jpg?quality=90&amp;auto=webp 2048w\"></div><figcaption class=\"css-17ai7jg emkp2hg0\"><span class=\"css-8i9d0s e13ogyst0\">Trucking and cargo-handling used to provide lots of good jobs. Used to.</span><span class=\"emkp2hg2 css-1nwzsjy e1z0qqy90\"><span class=\"css-1ly73wi e1tej78p0\">Credit</span><span><span class=\"css-1dv1kvn\">Credit</span><span>Luke Sharrett/Bloomberg</span></span></span></figcaption></figure></div></div></header><section class=\"css-1i2y565\"><div class=\"css-1fanzo5 StoryBodyCompanionColumn\"><div class=\"css-53u6y8\"><p class=\"css-1ygdjhk evys1bk0\">The other day I found myself, as I often do, at a conference discussing lagging wages and soaring inequality. There was a lot of interesting discussion. But one thing that struck me was how many of the participants just assumed that robots are a big part of the problem &#x2014; that machines are taking away the good jobs, or even jobs in general. For the most part this wasn&#x2019;t even presented as a hypothesis, just as part of what everyone knows.</p><p class=\"css-1ygdjhk evys1bk0\">And this assumption has real implications for policy discussion. For example, a lot of the agitation for a universal basic income comes from the belief that jobs will become ever scarcer as the robot apocalypse overtakes the economy.</p><p class=\"css-1ygdjhk evys1bk0\">So it seems like a good idea to point out that in this case what everyone knows isn&#x2019;t true. Predictions are hard, especially about the future, and maybe the robots really will come for all our jobs one of these days. But automation just isn&#x2019;t a big part of the story of what happened to American workers over the past 40 years. </p><p class=\"css-1ygdjhk evys1bk0\">We do have a big problem &#x2014; but it has very little to do with technology, and a lot to do with politics and power.</p></div><aside class=\"css-o6xoe7\"></aside></div><div class=\"css-1fanzo5 StoryBodyCompanionColumn\"><div class=\"css-53u6y8\"><p class=\"css-1ygdjhk evys1bk0\">Let&#x2019;s back up for a minute, and ask: What is a robot, anyway? Clearly, it doesn&#x2019;t have to be something that looks like C-3PO, or rolls around saying &#x201C;Exterminate! Exterminate!&#x201D; From an economic point of view, a robot is anything that uses technology to do work formerly done by human beings.</p><p class=\"css-1ygdjhk evys1bk0\">And robots in that sense have been transforming our economy literally for centuries. David Ricardo, one of the founding fathers of economics, wrote about the <a class=\"css-1g7m0tk\" href=\"https://economistsview.typepad.com/economistsview/2012/09/david-ricardo-on-machinery.html\">disruptive effects of machinery</a> in 1821!</p><p class=\"css-1ygdjhk evys1bk0\"><a class=\"css-1g7m0tk\" href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/newsletters/paul-krugman?action=click&amp;module=inline&amp;pgtype=Article\"><em class=\"css-2fg4z9 e1gzwzxm0\">[Paul Krugman did explanatory journalism before it was cool, moving from a career as a world-class economist to writing hard-hitting opinion columns. For an even deeper look at what&#x2019;s on his mind, sign up for his weekly newsletter.]</em></a></p><p class=\"css-1ygdjhk evys1bk0\">These days, when people talk about the robot apocalypse, they don&#x2019;t usually think of things like strip mining and mountaintop removal. Yet these technologies utterly transformed coal mining: Coal production <a class=\"css-1g7m0tk\" href=\"https://www.eia.gov/totalenergy/data/annual/showtext.php?t=ptb0702\">almost doubled</a> between 1950 and 2000 (it only began falling a few years ago), yet the <a class=\"css-1g7m0tk\" href=\"https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=nhbv\">number of coal miners</a> fell from 470,000 to fewer than 80,000.</p><p class=\"css-1ygdjhk evys1bk0\">Or consider freight containerization. Longshoremen used to be a big part of the scene in major port cities. But while global trade has soared since the 1970s, the share of U.S. workers engaged in &#x201C;<a class=\"css-1g7m0tk\" href=\"https://factfinder.census.gov/faces/tableservices/jsf/pages/productview.xhtml?pid=BP_2016_00A1&amp;prodType=table\">marine cargo handling</a>&#x201D; has fallen by two-thirds.</p></div><aside class=\"css-o6xoe7\"></aside></div><div class=\"css-1fanzo5 StoryBodyCompanionColumn\"><div class=\"css-53u6y8\"><p class=\"css-1ygdjhk evys1bk0\">Technological disruption, then, isn&#x2019;t a new phenomenon. Still, is it accelerating? Not according to the data. If robots really were replacing workers en masse, we&#x2019;d expect to see the amount of stuff produced by each remaining worker &#x2014; labor productivity &#x2014; soaring. In fact, productivity grew a <a class=\"css-1g7m0tk\" href=\"https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/fredgraph.png?g=nhbW\">lot faster</a> from the mid-1990s to the mid-2000s than it has since.</p><p class=\"css-1ygdjhk evys1bk0\">So technological change is an old story. What&#x2019;s new is the failure of workers to share in the fruits of that technological change.</p><p class=\"css-1ygdjhk evys1bk0\">I&#x2019;m not saying that coping with change was ever easy. The decline of coal employment had devastating effects on many families, and much of what used to be coal country has <a class=\"css-1g7m0tk\" href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/21/business/economy/harlan-county-republican-welfare.html?module=inline\">never recovered</a>. The loss of manual jobs in port cities surely contributed to the <a class=\"css-1g7m0tk\" href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/When_Work_Disappears\">urban social crisis</a> of the &#x2019;70s and &#x2019;80s.</p><p class=\"css-1ygdjhk evys1bk0\">But while there have always been some victims of technological progress, until the 1970s rising productivity translated into rising wages for a great majority of workers. Then the <a class=\"css-1g7m0tk\" href=\"https://www.epi.org/productivity-pay-gap/\">connection was broken</a>. And it wasn&#x2019;t the robots that did it.</p><p class=\"css-1ygdjhk evys1bk0\">What did? There is a growing though incomplete consensus among economists that a key factor in wage stagnation has been workers&#x2019; declining bargaining power &#x2014; a decline whose roots are ultimately political.</p><p class=\"css-1ygdjhk evys1bk0\">Most obviously, the federal minimum wage, adjusted for inflation, has <a class=\"css-1g7m0tk\" href=\"https://fredblog.stlouisfed.org/2015/07/the-real-minimum-wage/\">fallen by a third</a> over the past half century, even as <a class=\"css-1g7m0tk\" href=\"https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/OPHNFB\">worker productivity</a> has risen 150 percent. That divergence was politics, pure and simple.</p><p class=\"css-1ygdjhk evys1bk0\">The <a class=\"css-1g7m0tk\" href=\"http://www.unionstats.com/\">decline of unions</a>, which covered a quarter of private-sector workers in 1973 but only 6 percent now, may not be as obviously political. But other countries haven&#x2019;t seen the same kind of decline. Canada is as unionized now as the U.S. was in 1973; in the Nordic nations unions cover <a class=\"css-1g7m0tk\" href=\"https://stats.oecd.org/Index.aspx?DataSetCode=TUD\">two-thirds</a> of the work force. What made America exceptional was a political environment deeply hostile to labor organizing and friendly toward union-busting employers.</p></div><aside class=\"css-o6xoe7\"></aside></div><div class=\"css-1fanzo5 StoryBodyCompanionColumn\"><div class=\"css-53u6y8\"><p class=\"css-1ygdjhk evys1bk0\">And the decline of unions has made a huge difference. Consider the case of trucking, which used to be a good job but now pays <a class=\"css-1g7m0tk\" href=\"https://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2017/05/23/trucking-and-blue-collar-woes/\">a third less</a> than it did in the 1970s, with terrible working conditions. What made the difference? De-unionization was a big part of the story.</p><p class=\"css-1ygdjhk evys1bk0\">And these easily quantifiable factors are just indicators of a sustained, across-the-board anti-worker bias in our politics.</p><p class=\"css-1ygdjhk evys1bk0\">Which brings me back to the question of why we&#x2019;re talking so much about robots. The answer, I&#x2019;d argue, is that it&#x2019;s a diversionary tactic &#x2014; a way to avoid facing up to the way our system is rigged against workers, similar to the way talk of a &#x201C;<a class=\"css-1g7m0tk\" href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/31/opinion/krugman-jobs-and-skills-and-zombies.html?module=inline\">skills gap</a>&#x201D; was a way to divert attention from bad policies that kept unemployment high.</p><p class=\"css-1ygdjhk evys1bk0\">And progressives, above all, shouldn&#x2019;t fall for this facile fatalism. American workers can and should be getting a much better deal than they are. And to the extent that they aren&#x2019;t, the fault lies not in our robots, but in our political leaders.</p><p class=\"css-1psfkbx etfikam0\"><em class=\"css-2fg4z9 e1gzwzxm0\">The Times is committed to publishing </em><a class=\"css-1g7m0tk\" href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/31/opinion/letters/letters-to-editor-new-york-times-women.html\"><em class=\"css-2fg4z9 e1gzwzxm0\">a diversity of letters</em></a><em class=\"css-2fg4z9 e1gzwzxm0\"> to the editor. We&#x2019;d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some </em><a class=\"css-1g7m0tk\" href=\"https://help.nytimes.com/hc/en-us/articles/115014925288-How-to-submit-a-letter-to-the-editor\"><em class=\"css-2fg4z9 e1gzwzxm0\">tips</em></a><em class=\"css-2fg4z9 e1gzwzxm0\">. And here&#x2019;s our email: </em><a class=\"css-1g7m0tk\" href=\"mailto:letters@nytimes.com\"><em class=\"css-2fg4z9 e1gzwzxm0\">letters@nytimes.com</em></a><em class=\"css-2fg4z9 e1gzwzxm0\">.</em></p><p class=\"css-1psfkbx etfikam0\"><em class=\"css-2fg4z9 e1gzwzxm0\">Follow The New York Times Opinion section on </em><a class=\"css-1g7m0tk\" href=\"https://www.facebook.com/nytopinion\"><em class=\"css-2fg4z9 e1gzwzxm0\">Facebook</em></a><em class=\"css-2fg4z9 e1gzwzxm0\">, </em><a class=\"css-1g7m0tk\" href=\"http://twitter.com/NYTOpinion\"><em class=\"css-2fg4z9 e1gzwzxm0\">Twitter (@NYTopinion)</em></a><em class=\"css-2fg4z9 e1gzwzxm0\"> and </em><a class=\"css-1g7m0tk\" href=\"https://www.instagram.com/nytopinion/\"><em class=\"css-2fg4z9 e1gzwzxm0\">Instagram</em></a><em class=\"css-2fg4z9 e1gzwzxm0\">.</em></p></div><aside class=\"css-o6xoe7\"></aside></div></section><div class=\"bottom-of-article\"><div class=\"css-wg1cha e17092zo0\"><div class=\"css-x8f8u9 e1e7j8ap0\"><div><p>Paul Krugman has been an Opinion columnist since 2000 and is also a Distinguished Professor at the City University of New York Graduate Center. He won the 2008 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences for his work on international trade and economic geography. <span class=\"css-4w91ra\"> <a href=\"https://twitter.com/PaulKrugman\" class=\"css-1rj8to8\"><span class=\"css-0\">@</span>PaulKrugman</a> </span></p></div></div></div></div></article></div>","url":"https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/14/opinion/robots-jobs.html","date_published":"2019-03-14T22:30:03+00:00","author":{"name":"Paul Krugman"}},{"id":"1347","title":"The Servant Economy","content_html":"<p class=\"l-article__container__container\"> <section class=\"l-article__section s-cms-content\" id=\"article-section-1\"> <p class=\"c-recirculation-link\" id=\"injected-recirculation-link-0\"><a href=\"https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/11/uber-is-not-the-future-of-work/415905/\">Read: Uber is not the future of work</a></p><p>Of this group, four&#x2014;DoorDash, Grubhub, Instacart, and Postmates&#x2014;are unicorns, start-ups valued at more than $1 billion. (Notably, all are in the delivery business.) Forty-seven are gone&#x2014;28 simply closed down; 19 were acquired. But 53 are neither unicorn nor roadkill. They remain alive in the great morass of the economy, successful but lacking explosive growth; or stumbling along with scaled-back ambitions; or barely functioning, like zombie start-ups. There are your weed start-ups <a href=\"https://www.eaze.com/blog/posts/eaze-closes-series-c-funding-round\">such as Eaze</a>, your high-end-grocery delivery <a href=\"https://techcrunch.com/2018/05/15/good-eggs-funding/\">such as Good Eggs</a>, and some less high-profile companies that have found their footing as regular businesses <a href=\"https://www.syracuse.com/business-news/index.ssf/2018/07/plowz_mowz_raises_5m_to_double_syracuse_workforce_in_move_downtown.html\">such as Plowz &amp; Mowz</a>, a company in upstate New York that&#x2019;s Uber for plowing and mowing. Blue Apron went public to much fanfare, but it has seen its share price <a href=\"https://www.google.com/search?safe=off&amp;rlz=1C5CHFA_enUS738US738&amp;tbm=fin&amp;q=NYSE:+APRN&amp;stick=H4sIAAAAAAAAAONgecRowS3w8sc9YSn9SWtOXmPU5OIKzsgvd80rySypFJLmYoOyBKX4uXj10_UNDVPizUtSkvOSeBaxcvlFBrtaKTgGBPkBABTySwBKAAAA&amp;biw=1098&amp;bih=555\">fall under $1</a> as its results disappoint public investors. Other companies&#x2014;such as the dog walkers Wag and Rover&#x2014;are still on the rise, and knocking on the $1 billion private valuation. And then there are the more under-the-radar players, such as Waitr, which recently went public and, <a href=\"https://www.google.com/search?safe=off&amp;rlz=1C5CHFA_enUS738US738&amp;ei=5q1-XIjnBsWc-gSH-46wBw&amp;q=Waitr+shares&amp;oq=Waitr+shares&amp;gs_l=psy-ab.3..35i39.209958.211270..211351...0.0..0.78.814.12......0....1..gws-wiz.......0i71j0i131j0j0i67j0i20i263j0i131i20i263j0i22i30.02u8JoVsvEE\">though its shares have been volatile</a>, has a public valuation of more than $600 million.</p><figure><picture><img alt=\"\" class=\"lazyload\" src=\"https://cdn.theatlantic.com/assets/media/img/posts/2019/03/The_Fate_of_Ubers_for_X/0ae8022a5.png\"></picture><figcaption class=\"caption\">What happened to all those Uber-for-X companies (Alexis Madrigal)</figcaption></figure><p>The unicorns have taken huge sums of money: on average, $1 billion in venture funding each. For comparison, before going public, Google&#x2014;in total&#x2014;raised $36.1 million. But it takes more money to open up offices in cities across the country than it does to scale up a software platform by spinning up more clusters at a data center. So the Uber-for-X companies followed much more closely in the footsteps of Uber, which has raised more than $24 billion in private markets.</p><figure><picture><img alt=\"\" class=\"lazyload\" src=\"https://cdn.theatlantic.com/assets/media/img/posts/2019/03/venture_capital_received_uber_for_x/78c094026.png\"></picture><figcaption class=\"caption\">Venture capital received&#x2014;note the logarithmic scale (Alexis Madrigal)</figcaption></figure><p>As a group, all of these companies have brought hundreds of thousands of people into new work arrangements that are more than a gig but less than a job. They&#x2019;ve rearranged the way people get basic tasks done, and they&#x2019;ve wired those in local industries&#x2014;handymen, house cleaners, dog walkers, dry cleaners&#x2014;into the tech- and capital-rich global economy. These people are now submitting to a new middleman, who they know controls the customer relationship and will eventually have to take a big cut, as Uber drivers would be happy to tell them. And because the ideas themselves are not rocket science, the competition has been fierce. Just in this sample, there are eight Ubers for doctors, six booze-delivery companies, five laundry services, and four each of massage, dog-walking, and car-washing start-ups. To drive faster growth, they have to charge customers less (increasing demand) and pay workers more (increasing supply), then fill the gap with venture-capital funding.</p><p>That&#x2019;s one reason why most of these companies&#x2014;even the huge ones that have taken hundreds of millions of dollars&#x2014;are not making money, but losing it nearly as quickly <a href=\"https://www.reuters.com/article/us-uber-results/uber-posts-1-billion-loss-in-quarter-as-growth-in-bookings-slows-idUSKCN1NJ2YM\">as Uber itself</a>. The basic economics of moving human beings and stuff around the physical world at the touch of a button is not an obviously profitable enterprise. And even when venture capitalists are willing to buy growth for these companies, they still tend to pay their workers close to minimum wage&#x2014;especially after considering expenses&#x2014;and generally don&#x2019;t provide the nominal security of an actual job.</p> </section></p>","url":"https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2019/03/what-happened-uber-x-companies/584236/","date_published":"2019-03-06T17:49:25+00:00","author":{"name":""}},{"id":"1367","title":"Why vinyl records survive in the digital age","content_html":"<div class=\"article-content post-page\"> <figure class=\"intro-image intro-left\"> <img src=\"https://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/Screen-Shot-2019-01-08-at-6.14.42-PM-800x302.png\" alt=\"Why vinyl records survive in the digital age\"> <figcaption class=\"caption\"></figcaption> </figure> <aside id=\"social-left\"> <a class=\"comment-count icon-comment-bubble-down\" href=\"https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2019/03/the-ux-of-vinyl-the-medium-is-the-message/?comments=1\"> </a> </aside> <p>Ask a record-collecting audiophile why vinyl is back and you may hear a common refrain: &quot;Of course vinyl&apos;s back! It&apos;s a more accurate reproduction of the original! It just sounds better than digital!&quot;</p>\n<p>To this I reply, &quot;Does it really, though? Or is it just EQ&apos;d better? And since when did we start caring so much about the perfect fidelity of our recordings? I grew up&#x2014;as did many of you&#x2014;listening to cassette tapes on a boom box. They sounded horrible, and we loved them.&quot;</p>\n<p>I think the real reason for vinyl&apos;s return goes much deeper than questions of sound quality. As media analyst Marshall McLuhan famously wrote, &quot;The medium is the message.&quot; In other words, &quot;the form of a medium embeds itself in any message it would transmit or convey, creating a symbiotic relationship by which the medium influences how the message is perceived.&quot; Nowhere does this hold truer than in the world of recorded sound.</p>\n<h2>Multi-sensory</h2>\n<p>The entire experience of vinyl helps to create its appeal. Vinyl appeals to multiple senses&#x2014;sight, sound, and touch&#x2014;versus digital/streaming services, which appeal to just one sense (while offering the delight of instant gratification). Records are a tactile and a visual and an auditory experience. You feel a record. You hold it in your hands. It&apos;s not just about the size of the cover art or the inclusion of accompanying booklets (not to mention the unique beauty of picture disks and colored vinyl). A record, by virtue of its size and weight, has gravitas, has heft, and the size communicates that it matters.</p>\n<p>Records, in all their fragility and physicality, pay proper respect to the music, proper respect to the past. They must be handled carefully, for the past deserves our preservation. They are easily scratched, and their quality is diminished as a result of those scratches. They are subject to the elements&#x2014;left in the sun, they warp. Like living things, they are ephemeral.</p>\n<p>While the process of launching Spotify and searching for a track (Any track! You have 30 million choices!) is clearly the most efficient means of listening to music, sometimes efficiency isn&apos;t what the experience is about. Record albums are analog, the closest thing we have to the soundwaves. These waves are coaxed out of a flattened, spinning disk of vinyl by a diamond. The diamond is literally taking a ride on the record. The bumps in the grooves push the diamond up and down. Everything about the process has a tactile physicality to it that differs in feel from digital services.</p>\n<p>Steven Beeber, the vinyl aficionado and author of <a href=\"http://www.jewpunk.com/\"><em>The Heebie-Jeebies at CBGB&apos;s: A Secret History of Jewish Punk,</em></a> summed up the appeal of records this way: &quot;As with so many things, the Luddites were right. The old ways were better. Vinyl has a richness and depth that digital media lacks, a warmth, if you will. And hell, even if it didn&apos;t, it sure looks cool spinning on the table, and you&apos;ve got to treat it with kindness to make it play right, so it&apos;s more human too. As in our love lives, if you want to feel the warmth, you&apos;ve got to show you care.&quot;</p>\n<h2>The ritual</h2>\n<p>Beeber&apos;s last point hits at the crux of vinyl. The cumbersome process of putting on a record is akin to a ritual, an experience that mirrors the care that artists took in creating the work. First you have to find the record&#x2014;a treasure hunt which might take five or 10 minutes depending on the size and organization of your collection. When you find the record, you pull it out. You remove the album from its cover. (Or, if you&apos;re a real stickler, you remove the album from the cover, still inside the inner sleeve. Because at some point you rotated the inner sleeve 90 degrees to prevent the album from accidentally slipping out. So you pull out the album in its sleeve.) Then you place the record gently on the turntable spindle: the hole so accurately punched that you need to push the album firmly down to get it to sit right.</p>\n<p>The album and the turntable needle are both objects that demand your respect. The record must be freed of dust, so you get out your Discwasher D4+ System. You remove the wood-handled brush from the cardboard box. You remove the small red bottle of Hi-Technology Record Cleaning Fluid, along with the tiny red-handled needle brush, both of which are cleverly nestled inside the wooden handle. You gently sweep the needle with the brush, which produces a satisfying whooshing from the speakers.</p>\n<p>Then you apply 3-6 drops of D4 fluid to the cloth-covered face of the wood-handled brush and rub it in with the base of the bottle. Then you place the wood-handled brush on the record, careful to orient the nap in the right direction. Then you lick a finger of the other hand, place it in the center of the record, and gently rotate the platter beneath the brush. When these tasks are complete, then&#x2014;and only then&#x2014;do you set the platter in motion and lower the needle&#x2014;slowly, ever so slowly&#x2014;onto the spinning vinyl disk.</p>\n<p>And the music begins to play.</p>\n<h2>The lesson</h2>\n<p>The record experience suggests a few possible lessons for user-interface designers:</p>\n<p>1) Designing for multiple senses can be more powerful than designing for just one. This is why mobile apps that incorporate sound (button clicks, etc.) and tactile sensations (haptic feedback) in addition to visual cues create greater user delight than those that are purely visual.</p>\n<p>2) Always design in a manner appropriate for the medium.</p>\n<p>3) Always consider the user&apos;s state of mind. Consider every aspect of their psychology and how it might relate to the experience at hand. For instance, a person might find one experience preferable to another, because it reminds them of their childhood, or because that&apos;s how they&apos;ve always done it. (Case in point: my mother always preferred grinding her coffee beans with a hand-cranked grinder, because that&apos;s how she always did it&#x2014;not because she thought that the beans tasted better.) There might also be a touch of rebellion in the act of rejecting today&apos;s technology for a simpler tool that worked just fine, thank you very much.</p>\n<p>Not everything in life is about ease and speed. Believe it or not, sometimes people want to take longer, particularly if an experience evokes a past memory, satisfies a deep-rooted need, or fills a behavioral gap. Make anything too easy and its perceived value declines.</p>\n<p>Some people, some of the time want the process of listening to music to demand respect from them, to offer an embodied ritual that removes us for a time from the daily humdrum of our digital existence. Speed has its place, but time spent can signal value and create a pleasant weight of meaning. There&apos;s a reason our religious services aren&apos;t five minutes long, and we shouldn&apos;t lose sight of that as digital technologies continue to dominate our lives.</p> </div>","url":"https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2019/03/the-ux-of-vinyl-the-medium-is-the-message/","date_published":"2019-03-03T14:00:00+00:00","author":{"name":"Steven Brykman"}},{"id":"1293","title":"Tech Is Splitting the U.S. Work Force in Two","content_html":"<div><article id=\"story\" class=\"css-1vxca1d e1qksbhf0\"><header class=\"css-q7vr1p euiyums1\"><p class=\"css-8ruyil e1wiw3jv0\">A small group of well-educated professionals enjoys rising wages, while most workers toil in low-wage jobs with few chances to advance.</p><div class=\"css-79elbk ehw59r11\"><div class=\"css-1a48zt4 ehw59r111\"><figure class=\"sizeMedium layoutHorizontal css-z723vq toneFeature\"><div class=\"css-bsn42l\"><span class=\"css-1dv1kvn\">Image</span><img alt=\"\" class=\"css-11cwn6f\" src=\"https://static01.nyt.com/images/2019/02/05/business/05productivity-print/merlin_149958825_f18fdb3c-1504-4807-8a9e-f68a56e74763-articleLarge.jpg?quality=75&amp;auto=webp&amp;disable=upscale\" srcset=\"https://static01.nyt.com/images/2019/02/05/business/05productivity-print/merlin_149958825_f18fdb3c-1504-4807-8a9e-f68a56e74763-articleLarge.jpg?quality=90&amp;auto=webp 600w,https://static01.nyt.com/images/2019/02/05/business/05productivity-print/merlin_149958825_f18fdb3c-1504-4807-8a9e-f68a56e74763-jumbo.jpg?quality=90&amp;auto=webp 1024w,https://static01.nyt.com/images/2019/02/05/business/05productivity-print/merlin_149958825_f18fdb3c-1504-4807-8a9e-f68a56e74763-superJumbo.jpg?quality=90&amp;auto=webp 2048w\"></div><figcaption class=\"css-17ai7jg emkp2hg0\"><span class=\"css-8i9d0s e13ogyst0\">Taser assembly at Axon in Scottsdale, Ariz. While some jobs are changing or being eliminated because of automation, many positions at Axon still require the dexterity of human hands.</span><span class=\"emkp2hg2 css-1nwzsjy e1z0qqy90\"><span class=\"css-1ly73wi e1tej78p0\">Credit</span><span><span class=\"css-1dv1kvn\">Credit</span><span>Dominic Valente for The New York Times</span></span></span></figcaption></figure></div></div><div class=\"css-30n6iy euiyums0\"><div class=\"css-acwcvw\"><div class=\"css-17xsp6v epjyd6m0\"><div class=\"css-nzv8co ey68jwv0\"><a href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/by/eduardo-porter\"><img alt=\"Eduardo Porter\" src=\"https://static01.nyt.com/images/2018/02/20/multimedia/author-eduardo-porter/author-eduardo-porter-thumbLarge.jpg\" class=\"css-q08c2r ey68jwv2\"></a></div></div></div></div></header><section class=\"css-1i2y565\"><div class=\"css-1fanzo5 StoryBodyCompanionColumn\"><div class=\"css-4w7y5l\"><p class=\"css-1ygdjhk evys1bk0\">PHOENIX &#x2014; It&#x2019;s hard to miss the dogged technological ambition pervading this sprawling desert metropolis.</p><p class=\"css-1ygdjhk evys1bk0\">There&#x2019;s Intel&#x2019;s $7 billion, seven-nanometer chip plant going up in Chandler. In Scottsdale, Axon, the maker of the Taser, is hungrily snatching talent from Silicon Valley as it embraces automation to keep up with growing demand. Start-ups in fields as varied as autonomous drones and blockchain are flocking to the area, drawn in large part by light regulation and tax incentives. Arizona State University is furiously churning out engineers. </p><p class=\"css-1ygdjhk evys1bk0\">And yet for all its success in drawing and nurturing firms on the technological frontier, Phoenix cannot escape the uncomfortable pattern taking shape across the American economy: Despite all its shiny new high-tech businesses, the vast majority of new jobs are in workaday service industries, like health care, hospitality, retail and building services, where pay is mediocre.</p><p class=\"css-1ygdjhk evys1bk0\">The forecast of an America where robots do all the work while humans live off some yet-to-be-invented welfare program may be a Silicon Valley pipe dream. But automation is changing the nature of work, flushing workers without a college degree out of productive industries, like manufacturing and high-tech services, and into tasks with meager wages and no prospect for advancement.</p></div><aside class=\"css-o6xoe7\"></aside></div><div class=\"css-1fanzo5 StoryBodyCompanionColumn\"><div class=\"css-4w7y5l\"><p class=\"css-1ygdjhk evys1bk0\">Automation is splitting the American labor force into two worlds. There is a small island of highly educated professionals making good wages at corporations like Intel or Boeing, which reap hundreds of thousands of dollars in profit per employee. That island sits in the middle of a sea of less educated workers who are stuck at businesses like hotels, restaurants and nursing homes that generate much smaller profits per employee and stay viable primarily by keeping wages low.</p></div><aside class=\"css-o6xoe7\"></aside></div><div class=\"css-79elbk ehw59r11\"><div class=\"css-1a48zt4 ehw59r111\"><figure class=\"css-1lghxe1 e1g7ppur0\"><div class=\"css-1xdhyk6 erfvjey0\"><span class=\"css-1ly73wi e1tej78p0\">Image</span><img alt=\"\" class=\"css-1m50asq\" src=\"https://static01.nyt.com/images/2019/02/01/business/00productivity02/merlin_149958849_5e0058c9-2b9d-4978-a6f0-cfee3018ce9e-articleLarge.jpg?quality=75&amp;auto=webp&amp;disable=upscale\" srcset=\"https://static01.nyt.com/images/2019/02/01/business/00productivity02/merlin_149958849_5e0058c9-2b9d-4978-a6f0-cfee3018ce9e-articleLarge.jpg?quality=90&amp;auto=webp 600w,https://static01.nyt.com/images/2019/02/01/business/00productivity02/merlin_149958849_5e0058c9-2b9d-4978-a6f0-cfee3018ce9e-jumbo.jpg?quality=90&amp;auto=webp 1024w,https://static01.nyt.com/images/2019/02/01/business/00productivity02/merlin_149958849_5e0058c9-2b9d-4978-a6f0-cfee3018ce9e-superJumbo.jpg?quality=90&amp;auto=webp 2048w\"></div><figcaption class=\"css-1l44abu e1xdpqjp0\"><span class=\"css-8i9d0s e13ogyst0\">A machine assembling a piece for a Taser. Axon hopes to reduce labor costs and improve productivity by increasing its use of machines to replace easy and monotonous actions.</span><span class=\"css-vuqh7u e1z0qqy90\"><span class=\"css-1ly73wi e1tej78p0\">Credit</span><span>Dominic Valente for The New York Times</span></span></figcaption></figure></div></div><div class=\"css-1fanzo5 StoryBodyCompanionColumn\"><div class=\"css-4w7y5l\"><p class=\"css-1ygdjhk evys1bk0\">Even economists are reassessing their belief that technological progress lifts all boats, and are beginning to worry about the new configuration of work. </p><p class=\"css-1ygdjhk evys1bk0\">Recent <a class=\"css-1g7m0tk\" href=\"https://economics.mit.edu/files/16338\">research has concluded</a> that robots are reducing the demand for workers and weighing down wages, which have been rising more slowly than the productivity of workers. Some economists <a class=\"css-1g7m0tk\" href=\"https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/1_autorsalomons.pdf\">have concluded that</a> the use of robots explains the decline in <a class=\"css-1g7m0tk\" href=\"https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/PRS85006173\">the share of national income going into workers&#x2019; paychecks</a> over the last three decades.</p><p class=\"css-1ygdjhk evys1bk0\">Because it pushes workers to the less productive parts of the economy, automation also helps explain one of the economy&#x2019;s thorniest paradoxes: Despite the spread of information technology, robots and artificial intelligence breakthroughs, overall productivity growth remains sluggish.</p><p class=\"css-1ygdjhk evys1bk0\">&#x201C;The view that we should not worry about any of these things and follow technology to wherever it will go is insane,&#x201D; said Daron Acemoglu, an economist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.</p></div><aside class=\"css-o6xoe7\"></aside></div><div class=\"css-1fanzo5 StoryBodyCompanionColumn\"><div class=\"css-4w7y5l\"><p class=\"css-1ygdjhk evys1bk0\">Semiconductor companies like Intel or NXP are among the most successful in the Phoenix area. From 2010 to 2017, the productivity of workers in such firms &#x2014; a measure of the dollar value of their production &#x2014; grew by about 2.1 percent per year, according to an analysis by Mark Muro and Jacob Whiton of the Brookings Institution. Pay is great: $2,790 a week, on average, according to government statistics.</p><p class=\"css-1ygdjhk evys1bk0\">But the industry doesn&#x2019;t generate that many jobs. In 2017, the semiconductor and related devices industry employed 16,600 people in the Phoenix area, about 10,000 fewer than three decades ago. </p><p class=\"css-1ygdjhk evys1bk0\">&#x201C;We automate the pieces that can be automated,&#x201D; said Paul Hart, a senior vice president running the radio-frequency power business at NXP&#x2019;s plant in Chandler. &#x201C;The work force grows but we need A.I. and automation to increase the throughput.&#x201D;</p><p class=\"css-1ygdjhk evys1bk0\">Axon, which makes the Taser as well as body cameras used by police forces, is also automating whatever it can. Today, robots make four times as many Taser cartridges as 80 workers once did less than 10 years ago, said Bill Denzer, Axon&#x2019;s vice president for manufacturing. Workers&#x2019; jobs were saved because the company brought other manufacturing work back from Mexico.</p><p class=\"css-1ygdjhk evys1bk0\">The same is true across the high-tech landscape. Aircraft manufacturing employed 4,234 people in 2017, compared to 4,028 in 2010. Computer systems design services employed 11,000 people in 2017, up from 7,000 in 2010.</p></div><aside class=\"css-o6xoe7\"></aside></div><div class=\"css-13nfagi\"><section id=\"In-Phoenix-Most-Job-Growth-Is-in-Low-Productivity-Fields\" class=\"interactive-embedded interactive-size-scoop custom-graphic-container css-lvpdc9 e13l8dds1\"><header class=\"css-cl76n0 interactive-header\"><p class=\"css-1vs7yia interactive-leadin custom-leadin\">Most of the growth in the Phoenix-area job market since 1990 has come in low-productivity industries, like health care. Productivity is the dollar value of the output per worker in each industry. The job sectors in the charts below represent about two-thirds of all Phoenix-area jobs.</p></header><div class=\"interactive-graphic custom-graphic css-17ih8de e13l8dds0\">\n\n\n\n\n\n\n<div id=\"g-02TK-biz-web-PRODUCTIVITY-box\" class=\"ai2html ai2html-box-v5\">\n\n\t\n\t<div id=\"g-02TK-biz-web-PRODUCTIVITY-Artboard_2\" class=\"g-artboard\">\n\t\t<img id=\"g-02TK-biz-web-PRODUCTIVITY-Artboard_2-img\" class=\"g-aiImg g-aiAbs\" alt=\"\" src=\"https://static01.nyt.com/newsgraphics/2019/01/31/phoenix-productivity/d38866680355f14ebcb1576ae537daed8dce3ee4/02TK-biz-web-PRODUCTIVITY-Artboard_2.png\">\n\t\t<div id=\"g-ai0-1\" class=\"g-Layer_1 g-aiAbs g-aiPointText\">\n\t\t\t<p class=\"g-pstyle0\">Productivity and job growth in the Phoenix metropolitan area</p>\n\t\t</div>\n\t\t<div id=\"g-ai0-2\" class=\"g-Layer_1 g-aiAbs g-aiPointText\">\n\t\t\t<p class=\"g-pstyle1\">SELECTED</p>\n\t\t\t<p class=\"g-pstyle1\">LOW-PRODUCTIVITY</p>\n\t\t\t<p class=\"g-pstyle1\">JOBS</p>\n\t\t</div>\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t<div id=\"g-ai0-7\" class=\"g-Layer_1 g-aiAbs g-aiPointText\">\n\t\t\t<p class=\"g-pstyle4\">CHANGE</p>\n\t\t\t<p class=\"g-pstyle4\">IN WAGES</p>\n\t\t\t<p class=\"g-pstyle4\">1990-2017</p>\n\t\t</div>\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t<div id=\"g-ai0-11\" class=\"g-Layer_1 g-aiAbs g-aiPointText\">\n\t\t\t<p class=\"g-pstyle2\">Accommodation and food services</p>\n\t\t</div>\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t<div id=\"g-ai0-15\" class=\"g-Layer_1 g-aiAbs g-aiPointText\">\n\t\t\t<p class=\"g-pstyle2\">Administrative and waste services</p>\n\t\t</div>\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t<div id=\"g-ai0-24\" class=\"g-Layer_1 g-aiAbs g-aiPointText\">\n\t\t\t<p class=\"g-pstyle2\">Health care and social assistance</p>\n\t\t</div>\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t<div id=\"g-ai0-27\" class=\"g-Layer_1 g-aiAbs g-aiPointText\">\n\t\t\t<p class=\"g-pstyle1\">SELECTED</p>\n\t\t\t<p class=\"g-pstyle1\">HIGH-PRODUCTIVITY</p>\n\t\t\t<p class=\"g-pstyle1\">JOBS</p>\n\t\t</div>\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t<div id=\"g-ai0-44\" class=\"g-Layer_1 g-aiAbs g-aiPointText\">\n\t\t\t<p class=\"g-pstyle2\">Real estate and rental and leasing</p>\n\t\t</div>\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t<div id=\"g-ai0-47\" class=\"g-Layer_1 g-aiAbs g-aiPointText\">\n\t\t\t<p class=\"g-pstyle4\">2017 PRODUCTIVITY</p>\n\t\t\t<p class=\"g-pstyle6\">IN THOUSANDS</p>\n\t\t</div>\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t<div id=\"g-ai0-53\" class=\"g-Layer_1 g-aiAbs g-aiPointText\">\n\t\t\t<p class=\"g-pstyle1\">PCT-POINT</p>\n\t\t\t<p class=\"g-pstyle1\">CHANGE</p>\n\t\t\t<p class=\"g-pstyle1\">IN SHARE</p>\n\t\t\t<p class=\"g-pstyle1\">OF JOBS</p>\n\t\t\t<p class=\"g-pstyle7\">1990 - 2017</p>\n\t\t</div>\n\t\t<div id=\"g-ai0-54\" class=\"g-Layer_1 g-aiAbs g-aiPointText\">\n\t\t\t<p class=\"g-pstyle5\">Health care</p>\n\t\t\t<p class=\"g-pstyle5\">and social</p>\n\t\t\t<p class=\"g-pstyle5\">assistance</p>\n\t\t</div>\n\t\t\n\t\t<div id=\"g-ai0-56\" class=\"g-Layer_1 g-aiAbs g-aiPointText\">\n\t\t\t<p class=\"g-pstyle2\">Administrative</p>\n\t\t\t<p class=\"g-pstyle2\">and waste services</p>\n\t\t</div>\n\t\t<div id=\"g-ai0-57\" class=\"g-Layer_1 g-aiAbs g-aiPointText\">\n\t\t\t<p class=\"g-pstyle3\">Accommodation</p>\n\t\t\t<p class=\"g-pstyle3\">and food</p>\n\t\t\t<p class=\"g-pstyle3\">services</p>\n\t\t</div>\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t<div id=\"g-ai0-63\" class=\"g-Layer_1 g-aiAbs g-aiPointText\">\n\t\t\t<p class=\"g-pstyle5\">Real estate</p>\n\t\t\t<p class=\"g-pstyle5\">and rental</p>\n\t\t\t<p class=\"g-pstyle5\">and leasing</p>\n\t\t</div>\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t</div>\n\n\t\n\t<div id=\"g-02TK-biz-web-PRODUCTIVITY-Artboard_3\" class=\"g-artboard\">\n\t\t<img id=\"g-02TK-biz-web-PRODUCTIVITY-Artboard_3-img\" class=\"g-aiImg g-aiAbs\" alt=\"\" src=\"https://static01.nyt.com/newsgraphics/2019/01/31/phoenix-productivity/d38866680355f14ebcb1576ae537daed8dce3ee4/02TK-biz-web-PRODUCTIVITY-Artboard_3.png\">\n\t\t<div id=\"g-ai1-1\" class=\"g-Layer_1 g-aiAbs g-aiPointText\">\n\t\t\t<p class=\"g-pstyle0\">Productivity and job growth</p>\n\t\t\t<p class=\"g-pstyle0\">in the Phoenix metropolitan area</p>\n\t\t</div>\n\t\t<div id=\"g-ai1-2\" class=\"g-Layer_1 g-aiAbs g-aiPointText\">\n\t\t\t<p class=\"g-pstyle1\">SELECTED</p>\n\t\t\t<p class=\"g-pstyle1\">LOW-</p>\n\t\t\t<p class=\"g-pstyle1\">PRODUCTIVITY</p>\n\t\t\t<p class=\"g-pstyle1\">JOBS</p>\n\t\t</div>\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t<div id=\"g-ai1-8\" class=\"g-Layer_1 g-aiAbs g-aiPointText\">\n\t\t\t<p class=\"g-pstyle5\">Accommodation</p>\n\t\t\t<p class=\"g-pstyle5\">and food services</p>\n\t\t</div>\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t<div id=\"g-ai1-12\" class=\"g-Layer_1 g-aiAbs g-aiPointText\">\n\t\t\t<p class=\"g-pstyle5\">Administrative</p>\n\t\t\t<p class=\"g-pstyle5\">and waste services</p>\n\t\t</div>\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t<div id=\"g-ai1-21\" class=\"g-Layer_1 g-aiAbs g-aiPointText\">\n\t\t\t<p class=\"g-pstyle5\">Health care and</p>\n\t\t\t<p class=\"g-pstyle5\">social assistance</p>\n\t\t</div>\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t<div id=\"g-ai1-27\" class=\"g-Layer_1 g-aiAbs g-aiPointText\">\n\t\t\t<p class=\"g-pstyle1\">SELECTED</p>\n\t\t\t<p class=\"g-pstyle1\">HIGH-</p>\n\t\t\t<p class=\"g-pstyle1\">PRODUCTIVITY</p>\n\t\t\t<p class=\"g-pstyle1\">JOBS</p>\n\t\t</div>\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t<div id=\"g-ai1-46\" class=\"g-Layer_1 g-aiAbs g-aiPointText\">\n\t\t\t<p class=\"g-pstyle5\">Real estate and</p>\n\t\t\t<p class=\"g-pstyle5\">rental and leasing</p>\n\t\t</div>\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t<div id=\"g-ai1-53\" class=\"g-Layer_1 g-aiAbs g-aiPointText\">\n\t\t\t<p class=\"g-pstyle1\">PCT-</p>\n\t\t\t<p class=\"g-pstyle1\">POINT</p>\n\t\t\t<p class=\"g-pstyle1\">CHANGE</p>\n\t\t\t<p class=\"g-pstyle1\">IN SHARE</p>\n\t\t\t<p class=\"g-pstyle1\">OF JOBS</p>\n\t\t\t<p class=\"g-pstyle3\">1990 -</p>\n\t\t\t<p class=\"g-pstyle3\">2017</p>\n\t\t</div>\n\t\t<div id=\"g-ai1-54\" class=\"g-Layer_1 g-aiAbs g-aiPointText\">\n\t\t\t<p class=\"g-pstyle7\">Health care</p>\n\t\t\t<p class=\"g-pstyle7\">and social</p>\n\t\t\t<p class=\"g-pstyle7\">assistance</p>\n\t\t</div>\n\t\t\n\t\t<div id=\"g-ai1-56\" class=\"g-Layer_1 g-aiAbs g-aiPointText\">\n\t\t\t<p class=\"g-pstyle5\">Administrative</p>\n\t\t\t<p class=\"g-pstyle5\">and waste services</p>\n\t\t</div>\n\t\t<div id=\"g-ai1-57\" class=\"g-Layer_1 g-aiAbs g-aiPointText\">\n\t\t\t<p class=\"g-pstyle6\">Accommodation</p>\n\t\t\t<p class=\"g-pstyle6\">and food services</p>\n\t\t</div>\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t<div id=\"g-ai1-63\" class=\"g-Layer_1 g-aiAbs g-aiPointText\">\n\t\t\t<p class=\"g-pstyle7\">Real</p>\n\t\t\t<p class=\"g-pstyle7\">estate</p>\n\t\t\t<p class=\"g-pstyle7\">and rental</p>\n\t\t\t<p class=\"g-pstyle7\">and leasing</p>\n\t\t</div>\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t<div id=\"g-ai1-73\" class=\"g-Layer_1 g-aiAbs g-aiPointText\">\n\t\t\t<p class=\"g-pstyle2\">2017 PRODUCTIVITY</p>\n\t\t\t<p class=\"g-pstyle8\">IN THOUSANDS</p>\n\t\t</div>\n\t</div>\n\n</div>\n\n\n\n\n</div><footer class=\"css-irejme interactive-footer custom-footer\"><p class=\"css-1ct2c9h interactive-credit custom-credit\">By The New York Times | Sources: Bureau of Labor Statistics; Brookings (productivity)</p></footer></section></div><div class=\"css-1fanzo5 StoryBodyCompanionColumn\"><div class=\"css-4w7y5l\"><p class=\"css-1ygdjhk evys1bk0\">To find the bulk of jobs in Phoenix, you have to look on the other side of the economy: where productivity is low. Building services, like janitors and gardeners, employed nearly 35,000 people in the area in 2017, and health care and social services accounted for 254,000 workers. Restaurants and other eateries employed 136,000 workers, 24,000 more than at the trough of the recession in 2010. They made less than $450 a week.</p><p class=\"css-1ygdjhk evys1bk0\">The biggest single employer in town is Banner Health, which has about 50,000 workers throughout a vast network that includes hospitals, outpatient clinics and home health aides. Though it employs high-paid doctors, it relies on an army of lower paid orderlies and technicians. A nursing assistant in Phoenix makes $31,000 a year, on average. A home health aide makes $24,000. While Banner invests heavily in technology, the machines do not generally reduce demand for workers. &#x201C;There are not huge opportunities to increase productivity, but technology has a significant impact on quality,&#x201D; said Banner&#x2019;s chief operating officer, Becky Kuhn.</p></div><aside class=\"css-o6xoe7\"></aside></div><div class=\"css-1fanzo5 StoryBodyCompanionColumn\"><div class=\"css-4w7y5l\"><p class=\"css-1ygdjhk evys1bk0\">The 58 most productive industries in Phoenix &#x2014; where productivity ranges from $210,000 to $30 million per worker, according to Mr. Muro&#x2019;s and Mr. Whiton&#x2019;s analysis &#x2014; employed only 162,000 people in 2017, 14,000 more than in 2010. Employment in the 58 industries with the lowest productivity, where it tops out at $65,000 per worker, grew 10 times as much over the period, to 673,000.</p><p class=\"css-1ygdjhk evys1bk0\">The same is true across the national economy. Jobs grow in health care, social assistance, accommodation, food services, building administration and waste services. Not only are some of the tasks tough to automate, employers have little financial incentive to replace low-wage workers with machines.</p><p class=\"css-1ygdjhk evys1bk0\">On the other end of the spectrum, the employment footprint of highly productive industries, like finance, manufacturing, information services and wholesale trade, has shrunk over the last 30 years.</p><p class=\"css-1ygdjhk evys1bk0\">Economists have a hard time getting their heads around this. Steeped in the belief that technology inevitably leads to better jobs and higher pay, they long resisted the notion that the Luddites of the 19th century, who famously thrashed the weaving machines that were taking their jobs, might have had a point. </p><p class=\"css-1ygdjhk evys1bk0\">&#x201C;In the standard economic canon, the proposition that you can increase productivity and harm labor is bunkum,&#x201D; Mr. Acemoglu said.</p></div><aside class=\"css-o6xoe7\"></aside></div><div class=\"css-79elbk ehw59r11\"><div class=\"css-1a48zt4 ehw59r111\"><figure class=\"css-1lghxe1 e1g7ppur0\"><figcaption class=\"css-1l44abu e1xdpqjp0\"><span class=\"css-8i9d0s e13ogyst0\">Lourdes Sorreles, a registered nurse, with Pablo Lopaz Romero in the progressive care unit of the Banner University Medical Center Phoenix. While many jobs are being automated, there are still holdouts in the economy, especially in the health fields.</span><span class=\"css-vuqh7u e1z0qqy90\"><span class=\"css-1ly73wi e1tej78p0\">Credit</span><span>Dominic Valente for The New York Times</span></span></figcaption></figure></div></div><div class=\"css-1fanzo5 StoryBodyCompanionColumn\"><div class=\"css-4w7y5l\"><p class=\"css-1ygdjhk evys1bk0\">By reducing prices and improving quality, technology was expected to raise demand, which would require more jobs. What&#x2019;s more, economists thought, more productive workers would have higher incomes. This would create demand for new, unheard-of things that somebody would have to make.</p><p class=\"css-1ygdjhk evys1bk0\">To prove their case, economists pointed confidently to one of the greatest technological leaps of the last few hundred years, when the rural economy gave way to the industrial era.</p></div><aside class=\"css-o6xoe7\"></aside></div><div class=\"css-1fanzo5 StoryBodyCompanionColumn\"><div class=\"css-4w7y5l\"><p class=\"css-1ygdjhk evys1bk0\">In 1900, agriculture employed 12 million Americans. By 2014, tractors, combines and other equipment had flushed 10 million people out of the sector. But as farm labor declined, the industrial economy added jobs even faster. What happened? As the new farm machines boosted food production and made produce cheaper, demand for agricultural products grew. And farmers used their higher incomes to purchase newfangled industrial goods.</p><p class=\"css-1ygdjhk evys1bk0\">The new industries were highly productive and also subject to furious technological advancement. Weavers lost their jobs to automated looms; secretaries lost their jobs to Microsoft Windows. But each new spin of the technological wheel, from plastic toys to televisions to computers, yielded higher incomes for workers and more sophisticated products and services for them to buy.</p><p class=\"css-1ygdjhk evys1bk0\">Something different is going on in our current technological revolution. In <a class=\"css-1g7m0tk\" href=\"https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/1_autorsalomons.pdf\">a new study</a>, David Autor of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Anna Salomons of Utrecht University found that over the last 40 years, jobs have fallen in every single industry that introduced technologies to enhance productivity. </p><p class=\"css-1ygdjhk evys1bk0\">The only reason employment didn&#x2019;t fall across the entire economy is that other industries, with less productivity growth, picked up the slack. &#x201C;The challenge is not the quantity of jobs,&#x201D; they wrote. &#x201C;The challenge is the quality of jobs available to low- and medium-skill workers.&#x201D;</p></div><aside class=\"css-o6xoe7\"></aside></div><div class=\"css-1fanzo5 StoryBodyCompanionColumn\"><div class=\"css-4w7y5l\"><p class=\"css-1ygdjhk evys1bk0\">Adair Turner, a senior fellow at the Institute for New Economic Thinking in London, <a class=\"css-1g7m0tk\" href=\"https://www.ineteconomics.org/uploads/papers/Paper-Turner-Capitalism-in-the-Age-of-Robots.pdf\">argues that</a> the economy today resembles what would have happened if farmers had spent their extra income from the use of tractors and combines on domestic servants. Productivity in domestic work doesn&#x2019;t grow quickly. As more and more workers were bumped out of agriculture into servitude, productivity growth across the economy would have stagnated.</p><p class=\"css-1ygdjhk evys1bk0\">&#x201C;Until a few years ago, I didn&#x2019;t think this was a very complicated subject; The Luddites were wrong and the believers in technology and technological progress were right,&#x201D; Lawrence Summers, a former Treasury secretary and presidential economic adviser, said <a class=\"css-1g7m0tk\" href=\"https://www.nber.org/reporter/2013number4/\">in a lecture at the National Bureau of Economic Research</a> five years ago. &#x201C;I&#x2019;m not so completely certain now.&#x201D;</p><p class=\"css-1ygdjhk evys1bk0\">The growing awareness of robots&#x2019; impact on the working class raises anew a very old question: Could automation go too far? <a class=\"css-1g7m0tk\" href=\"https://economics.mit.edu/files/16338\">Mr. Acemoglu and </a><a class=\"css-1g7m0tk\" href=\"https://economics.mit.edu/files/16338\">Pascual Restrepo</a><a class=\"css-1g7m0tk\" href=\"https://economics.mit.edu/files/16338\"> of Boston University argue</a> that businesses are not even reaping large rewards for the money they are spending to replace their workers with machines.</p></div><aside class=\"css-o6xoe7\"></aside></div><div class=\"css-1fanzo5 StoryBodyCompanionColumn\"><div class=\"css-4w7y5l\"><p class=\"css-1ygdjhk evys1bk0\">But the cost of automation to workers and society could be substantial. &#x201C;It may well be that,&#x201D; Mr. Summers said, &#x201C;some categories of labor will not be able to earn a subsistence income.&#x201D; And this could exacerbate social ills, from workers dropping out of jobs and getting hooked on painkillers, to mass incarceration and families falling apart.</p><p class=\"css-1ygdjhk evys1bk0\">Silicon Valley&#x2019;s dream of an economy without workers may be implausible. But an economy where most people toil exclusively in the lowliest of jobs might be little better.</p></div><aside class=\"css-o6xoe7\"></aside></div></section><div class=\"bottom-of-article\"><div class=\"css-ezqtdp e17092zo0\"><div class=\"css-x8f8u9 e1e7j8ap0\"><div><p>Eduardo Porter joined The Times in 2004 from The Wall Street Journal. He has reported about economics and other matters from Mexico City, Tokyo, London and S&#xE3;o Paulo.&#xA0;&#xA0; <span class=\"css-4w91ra\"> <a href=\"https://twitter.com/portereduardo\" class=\"css-1rj8to8\"><span class=\"css-0\">@</span>portereduardo</a> </span></p></div></div></div><div class=\"css-1jhku0n\">A version of this article appears in print on , on Page A17 of the New York edition with the headline: Technology Splits Work Force: High Pay for a Few and Low Pay for the Rest<span>. <a href=\"http://www.nytreprints.com/\">Order Reprints</a> | <a href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/pages/todayspaper/index.html\">Today&#x2019;s Paper</a> | <a href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/subscriptions/Multiproduct/lp8HYKU.html?campaignId=48JQY\">Subscribe</a></span></div></div></article></div>","url":"https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/04/business/economy/productivity-inequality-wages.html","date_published":"2019-02-04T22:36:59+00:00","author":{"name":"Eduardo Porter"}},{"id":"1352","title":"Uber drivers demand their data","content_html":"<div class=\"blog-post__text\"><p>FOR RIDERS, the Uber app is a nifty bit of tech magic that summons a car at the touch of a screen. For drivers, it is a place to find customers&#x2014;but it is also their line manager, determining not just whom they pick up but where they go, the routes they ought to drive and the amount of money they earn. The algorithms making these decisions are fuelled, in part, by data that Uber collects about them.</p><p>Under European law, any &#x201C;data subject&#x201D;, or person about whom data are being collected, has the right to access that information. But do gig workers? Four British Uber drivers think they do, arguing that it will help them to improve their performance, understand how Uber&#x2019;s algorithms assign jobs to them and get a precise measure of the time they spend working for the ride-hailing platform.</p><div class=\"newsletter-form newsletter-form--inline\"><div class=\"newsletter-form__message\"><strong>Get our daily newsletter</strong><p>Upgrade your inbox and get our Daily Dispatch and Editor&apos;s Picks.</p></div></div><p>Uber has declined to provide comprehensive data that the drivers have requested access to over the past two years. The requests, made separately, are now bundled up as one with Ravi Naik, a lawyer who is also handling data-protection cases against Facebook, Cambridge Analytica and online advertising companies. Uber supplied a limited dataset containing the origin and destination points of the drivers&#x2019; trips and some location data. The drivers say that the firm did not offer an explanation for its decision. Uber says it offered a detailed explanation but declined to say what it was.</p><p>On March 20th the drivers sent a letter to Uber, warning the firm that they consider it to be in breach of European data-protection legislation. They say they will appeal Uber&#x2019;s decision, either to the British, Irish or Dutch data-protection authority, or to the British High Court.</p><p>Uber has wrangled with this group of drivers before. The lead claimants, James Farrar and Yaseen Aslam, filed a successful workers&#x2019; rights claim in British courts in 2016, demanding paid holidays and a minimum wage for work through the platform. Uber has appealed the decision to the Supreme Court.</p><p>The full dataset would include the precise times at which the drivers log on and off Uber&#x2019;s app, all the location data gathered about them and all of the individual ratings and reviews they had received. The first two datasets would help the drivers calculate holiday pay and claims for minimum-wage back pay when their earnings dip below that, such as during fallow periods when they have no rides but are logged in to the app and prepared to accept passengers. The ratings and reviews would let drivers appeal unfair dismissal from the app. (They can be booted off if their aggregate rating dips below 4.4 out of five.) Currently, drivers can appeal to Uber and go through an &#x201C;education process&#x201D; to get back on the app, but they have no way of knowing why they were kicked out in the first place.</p><p>The drivers also want access to what is known as the logic of processing&#x2014;the datasets underpinning the dispatch system that assigns specific jobs to drivers&#x2014;and the profiles that Uber builds on its drivers, through which drivers are managed and rewarded. The drivers say they want to understand what impact Uber&#x2019;s profiling system has on the quality, quantity and value of work they get through the app&#x2014;data that are not about the drivers exactly, but which pertain to them.</p><p>These requests put Uber in a bind. The firm insists that its drivers are independent, self-employed sole traders. But the drivers suspect that full datasets would show that Uber uses information it gleans about drivers to manage them through algorithms, highlighting a lack of independence that weakens Uber&#x2019;s argument.</p><p>The case will test whether the data rights that European privacy laws afford to individuals also apply to gig workers. It is hard to see why they should not. The drivers have a legal right to gain access to any data that Uber holds about them as individuals, even if it is information the platform uses to run its business. Where their luck may run out is at the boundary of where their rights conflict with those of other individuals. Uber cannot, for instance, provide drivers with all their reviews in raw form, as that would infringe upon the privacy of riders. And Uber also has rights of its own, for instance to withhold information that pertains to its intellectual property. The precise borders of those limits will now be for regulators, and potentially European courts, to demarcate. </p></div>","url":"https://www.economist.com/britain/2019/03/20/uber-drivers-demand-their-data","date_published":"2019-02-01T00:00:00+00:00","author":{"name":""}},{"id":"1292","title":"If San Francisco is so great, why is everyone I love leaving?","content_html":"<div class=\"c-entry-content\"> <p class=\"p-dropcap has-dropcap p-large-text\" id=\"jo0S6j\">I&#x2019;m driving down the 101 toward San Francisco International Airport. A gray blanket of fog pours over the hills in the distance, smothering what would be a luminous California sunset. Eleanor is sitting next to me in the passenger seat taking deep breaths. She does not like to fly.</p>\n<p id=\"ecd7\">I hesitate, then finally ask what&#x2019;s on her mind, cutting the air between us. &#x201C;I don&#x2019;t want to put any pressure on you, but since this is the last time we&#x2019;ll be hanging out for a while, I feel like we have drifted apart over the last year. Is there something I did wrong? Is there something you want to tell me? You know, before you leave?&#x201D;</p>\n<p id=\"821d\">We are driving to her one-way flight bound for Pittsburgh. She&#x2019;s moving out of the San Francisco Bay Area, where we have both lived since we were kids. Our parents, who were themselves mixed transplants from New England and other parts of California, settled in the Bay in the &#x2019;70s and &#x2019;90s. Eleanor and I met in high school&#x2014;two weirdos who recognized each other&#x2019;s outsider-looking-in approach to the world. Now on the cusp of 30, we have 16 years of friendship between us. We did a podcast together. She went to work with me the day after my father died. We have gotten lost in the desert together, twice (before smartphones). On separate occasions, we have cleaned up each other&#x2019;s vomit. We were once referred to as &#x201C;hetero life mates.&#x201D; And today she is leaving.</p>\n<p id=\"3680\">There are other friends out in Pittsburgh who have made a calm life as artists, cooks, house-cleaners, and creatives: an impossibility in the Bay Area, unless you have family assistance. Eleanor visited them a few months ago, and, charmed by their stability, the brick-paved streets, and the affordable apartments that lined them, it became impossible for her not to see how well she could do there too. Among other talents, she is, first and foremost, an artist.</p>\n<p id=\"e778\">I&#x2019;m not.</p>\n<p id=\"ab2a\">I&#x2019;m telling her &#x201C;I feel like we&#x2019;ve drifted apart.&#x201D; What I really want to say is &#x201C;What could I have done to make you stay?&#x201D;</p>\n<p id=\"7f8c\">&#x201C;There&#x2019;s nothing, really,&#x201D; she says, &#x201C;I mean, the political climate has been hard. But also it&#x2019;s just the Bay. Inviting people out to Stinson is easy; getting people to visit me when I have nowhere to host them is harder.&#x201D;</p>\n<p id=\"d1da\">Several months ago, she had made the difficult decision to move back onto a small corner of her parents beach-town property, after her urban East Bay house became waterlogged during the rainstorms of 2016. We had to move her out over a weekend, after the mold took half the furniture and gave her roommate pneumonia in both lungs. I touched swollen blisters of stagnant rainwater pulsing on her walls. After emailing the landlord about the issues, the housemates abandoned the property. He then successfully sued them in accordance with California tenant laws.</p>\n<p id=\"a10b\">Although moving back to your parents&#x2019; home is never ideal, Eleanor didn&#x2019;t have a lot of other options. But Stinson was not the little village she had left behind for college.</p>\n<p id=\"4b73\">While only accessible by a narrow 10-mile strip of road lined by falling rocks and perilous sea cliffs, Stinson Beach is nevertheless one of the most popular day trips for San Francisco urbanites. Once a salty refuge for dendrophilic introverts and quiet hippies of means, Stinson spent the last few years transforming into a seaside &#x201C;simpler times&#x201D; theme park for San Francisco&#x2019;s stratospherically wealthy. Eleanor had watched her foggy hometown gorge with tourists in $300 jeans on a mission for an idyllic, sand-weathered NorCal experience.</p>\n<p id=\"f053\">But hating rich tourists simply for flooding the place with money is not the reason Eleanor is leaving the Bay.</p>\n<p class=\"c-float-right\"><aside id=\"8jL3bq\"><q>&#x201C;We understand that with our respective shares of the rent, we could be paying mortgages on entire houses in Denver or Austin. But we are here.&#x201D;</q></aside></p>\n<p id=\"4ca2\">She was a manager at an artisanal goods boutique, which directly served this crowd of fast-culture beneficiaries hungry for slow-culture products. She is also the child of interracial parents, who built their own house in Stinson when she was little more than a baby. The town was essentially her cocoon for over 15 years. As an adult, she quickly got hired at the boutique because, to quote Eleanor, &#x201C;the owners know the signs of a townie who has returned with swallowed pride and no prospects.&#x201D; But the tourists did not know these signs. The new deal for living in Stinson&#x2014;her hometown&#x2014;was getting used to hearing &#x201C;Where are you from? Here? No way!&#x201D; repeatedly from rich white people, who didn&#x2019;t know how to fit a brown girl in their vision of an authentic seaside experience.</p>\n<p id=\"12ac\">She would then go home to an in-law unit, while those people retired to one of the many lavish Airbnbs that have popped up over the last decade. &#x201C;Imagine working at Disneyland, then going home to your place in the back of the Pirates of the Caribbean ride while drunk frat grads puke into the water,&#x201D; she told me.</p>\n<p id=\"9141\">To be clear, she loved her town and its bearing in the coastal California fantasy. She wanted to share it, brag about it, celebrate it. But selling bourgeoise yogurt crocks and $100 bottles of wine to people who didn&#x2019;t see her as part of their shabby-chic fantasy was becoming difficult to bear. She was also onboarding other displaced &#x201C;village kids&#x201D; who were doing exactly what she was doing: moving back home, into their parents&#x2019; offices, in-law units, and backyards. Having only kind words and a dead-end service job to offer them was making her grow thorns.</p>\n<p id=\"2506\">She was unhappy. The boutique was becoming a psychological warfare zone. She had tried her hand doing sales at a startup, but the work was soul-fraying. Art made her happy, and she was genuinely talented, but working at a couture costume shop and an internationally acclaimed ceramics studio wasn&#x2019;t enough to pay the bills. She couldn&#x2019;t afford to move.</p>\n<p id=\"4585\">The muse was not only dead&#x2014;it couldn&#x2019;t afford the resuscitation fee.</p>\n<p id=\"ad74\">This is why I never doubted her desire to leave the Bay Area. But my guilt came from somewhere else.</p>\n<p id=\"c2b0\">I had not been facing these problems. I dabble in dance, but I was too cowardly to ever accept the life of an artist. I work in tech.</p>\n<p class=\"c-float-left\"><aside id=\"dmJhIg\"><q>&#x201C;Leaving the Bay Area is the best thing you can do right now, if you have a dream.&#x201D;</q></aside></p>\n<p id=\"rpftdd\">To clarify, I am not a programmer. I say I am a &#x201C;techie&#x201D; in the sense that I have positioned myself, through a combination of hard work, luck, and privilege, to benefit from the startup bomb that exploded in my backyard 10 years ago. I was handed a sales job by a family friend right out of college, and I took it greedily, not looking back until, well, now. Mostly I have worked in sales, marketing, and user research. For my efforts, I live in a gritty but familial part of the sprawling, controversial metropolis of Oakland. I have my own en suite bathroom and a tiny balcony where I can grow useless amounts of herbs and play at &#x201C;connecting to the land.&#x201D; My roommate is a professional journalist with a blue checkmark on Twitter. We&#x2019;re both in our 30s. We understand that with our respective shares of the rent, we could be paying mortgages on entire houses in Denver or Austin. But we are here. Our friends (what&#x2019;s left of them) and family are here; my job network is here. Two fully employed middle-class women in their 30s splitting bills on Venmo and figuring out how to most diplomatically accuse the other of eating more of the peanut butter. This is normal in the Bay Area. Only programmers live alone. Only rich programmers own houses.</p>\n<p id=\"7f92\">Setting aside for a moment Oakland&#x2019;s own gentrification culture war (which would be another 20-minute essay), it is a two-hour drive away from Eleanor&#x2019;s home in Stinson. It should only be an hour, but the traffic on the 580 moved from &#x201C;rush-hour average&#x201D; to &#x201C;perpetual nightmare&#x201D; sometime in 2014. With a regular work week, you don&#x2019;t often have four hours to spare for a round-trip drive to see a friend&#x2014;even the one who wouldn&#x2019;t leave your side when your dad died.</p>\n<p> <figure class=\"e-image\"> <span class=\"e-image__inner\"> <span class=\"e-image__image \"> <picture class=\"c-picture\"> <source srcset=\"https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/qh1n7vHqVtoeeB_2lG9OYr6iCig=/0x0:2292x1528/320x0/filters:focal(0x0:2292x1528):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/13722098/Spot_SF_LeonardPeng.jpg 320w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/HnjnZWF0lyUIZs9v9RZcbt-OKuE=/0x0:2292x1528/520x0/filters:focal(0x0:2292x1528):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/13722098/Spot_SF_LeonardPeng.jpg 520w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/NUOChnM6_5th8prdmEqDrTHubb8=/0x0:2292x1528/720x0/filters:focal(0x0:2292x1528):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/13722098/Spot_SF_LeonardPeng.jpg 720w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/JiSbXtEffSz45n8zn39C_BmfFJ0=/0x0:2292x1528/920x0/filters:focal(0x0:2292x1528):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/13722098/Spot_SF_LeonardPeng.jpg 920w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/d6gGj4kyYsS24wrft093pzTyLr8=/0x0:2292x1528/1120x0/filters:focal(0x0:2292x1528):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/13722098/Spot_SF_LeonardPeng.jpg 1120w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/rSVy_gjvlQrfbgiHb-aDPo0GGc8=/0x0:2292x1528/1320x0/filters:focal(0x0:2292x1528):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/13722098/Spot_SF_LeonardPeng.jpg 1320w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/dmkx8-6j_W0n0YTfmQd3Gk5_prw=/0x0:2292x1528/1520x0/filters:focal(0x0:2292x1528):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/13722098/Spot_SF_LeonardPeng.jpg 1520w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/mX4eS4nN-ejV-moXoOz4jSCYip0=/0x0:2292x1528/1720x0/filters:focal(0x0:2292x1528):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/13722098/Spot_SF_LeonardPeng.jpg 1720w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/ZuS1Ih9Pn3DLwxL7U5SxDio9uDc=/0x0:2292x1528/1920x0/filters:focal(0x0:2292x1528):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/13722098/Spot_SF_LeonardPeng.jpg 1920w\"> <img srcset=\"https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/EOvom972t-3YQ_yr4_Obu0H18QE=/0x0:2292x1528/320x0/filters:focal(0x0:2292x1528):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/13722098/Spot_SF_LeonardPeng.jpg 320w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/Wl1yuy6RFV6cxfGAUoCgciEVOWg=/0x0:2292x1528/520x0/filters:focal(0x0:2292x1528):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/13722098/Spot_SF_LeonardPeng.jpg 520w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/BfasQPtQkJz4Yr4-SJqkz_BSA5U=/0x0:2292x1528/720x0/filters:focal(0x0:2292x1528):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/13722098/Spot_SF_LeonardPeng.jpg 720w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/4wThTCHnKWtNPaqDraCgdPQtqxM=/0x0:2292x1528/920x0/filters:focal(0x0:2292x1528):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/13722098/Spot_SF_LeonardPeng.jpg 920w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/yYA8ZMW38ihaKVFH96bMGaaD79M=/0x0:2292x1528/1120x0/filters:focal(0x0:2292x1528):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/13722098/Spot_SF_LeonardPeng.jpg 1120w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/4HM0XcJLBN22rkG-5xEuclyo6Xw=/0x0:2292x1528/1320x0/filters:focal(0x0:2292x1528):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/13722098/Spot_SF_LeonardPeng.jpg 1320w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/Anb2pYiGDaIue_PzjrGXnrIMu18=/0x0:2292x1528/1520x0/filters:focal(0x0:2292x1528):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/13722098/Spot_SF_LeonardPeng.jpg 1520w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/XeUsawxBiS1z_LbnBWBGwTzo0_g=/0x0:2292x1528/1720x0/filters:focal(0x0:2292x1528):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/13722098/Spot_SF_LeonardPeng.jpg 1720w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/IJo2jlvrEZRqNskAwj4WOJtEwSc=/0x0:2292x1528/1920x0/filters:focal(0x0:2292x1528):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/13722098/Spot_SF_LeonardPeng.jpg 1920w\" alt=\"\" src=\"https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/EOvom972t-3YQ_yr4_Obu0H18QE=/0x0:2292x1528/320x0/filters:focal(0x0:2292x1528):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/13722098/Spot_SF_LeonardPeng.jpg%20320w,%20https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/Wl1yuy6RFV6cxfGAUoCgciEVOWg=/0x0:2292x1528/520x0/filters:focal(0x0:2292x1528):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/13722098/Spot_SF_LeonardPeng.jpg%20520w,%20https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/BfasQPtQkJz4Yr4-SJqkz_BSA5U=/0x0:2292x1528/720x0/filters:focal(0x0:2292x1528):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/13722098/Spot_SF_LeonardPeng.jpg%20720w,%20https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/4wThTCHnKWtNPaqDraCgdPQtqxM=/0x0:2292x1528/920x0/filters:focal(0x0:2292x1528):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/13722098/Spot_SF_LeonardPeng.jpg%20920w,%20https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/yYA8ZMW38ihaKVFH96bMGaaD79M=/0x0:2292x1528/1120x0/filters:focal(0x0:2292x1528):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/13722098/Spot_SF_LeonardPeng.jpg%201120w,%20https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/4HM0XcJLBN22rkG-5xEuclyo6Xw=/0x0:2292x1528/1320x0/filters:focal(0x0:2292x1528):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/13722098/Spot_SF_LeonardPeng.jpg%201320w,%20https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/Anb2pYiGDaIue_PzjrGXnrIMu18=/0x0:2292x1528/1520x0/filters:focal(0x0:2292x1528):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/13722098/Spot_SF_LeonardPeng.jpg%201520w,%20https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/XeUsawxBiS1z_LbnBWBGwTzo0_g=/0x0:2292x1528/1720x0/filters:focal(0x0:2292x1528):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/13722098/Spot_SF_LeonardPeng.jpg%201720w,%20https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/IJo2jlvrEZRqNskAwj4WOJtEwSc=/0x0:2292x1528/1920x0/filters:focal(0x0:2292x1528):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/13722098/Spot_SF_LeonardPeng.jpg%201920w\"> </picture> </span> </span> </figure> </p>\n<p id=\"2f2d\">Had we drifted? Of course we had. But it was more than the traffic and geography that was the source of my guilt. I felt I had played into the system that was financially and culturally kicking her out. And I&#x2019;d realized it for the first time just as she was leaving.</p>\n<p id=\"c565\">&#x201C;I&#x2019;m scared I haven&#x2019;t been a good enough friend to you,&#x201D; I confess to her.</p>\n<p id=\"0030\">&#x201C;I do feel loved and supported,&#x201D; she says.</p>\n<p id=\"8140\">&#x201C;I&#x2019;m glad,&#x201D; I say. And I mean it. I feel greedy for this absolution because I realize beyond the guilt, there&#x2019;s another feeling: paranoia.</p>\n<p id=\"eea8\">For the first time, while sitting in full-stop traffic before the Bay Bridge in the ironically named &#x201C;fastrak&#x201D; lane, I count them in my head: 11 people I care about have left California in the past two years. Eleanor is number 12, and apparently the final straw that&#x2019;s really making me pause and think, &#x201C;What the hell is going on?&#x201D;</p>\n<p id=\"7cdd\">She shifts next to me in the dead-stop traffic. I know her well enough at this point to know she is teeming with anxiety. &#x201C;We&#x2019;ll make the flight. We left early,&#x201D; I say.</p>\n<p id=\"8fdf\">&#x201C;I know,&#x201D; she says.</p>\n<p id=\"9793\">But we both know this is not why she&#x2019;s nervous.</p>\n<p id=\"8c79\">She&#x2019;s nervous about the life shift. The constant cloud of &#x201C;failure&#x201D; that threatens to downpour on you at any minute if you live in the Bay Area is still looming over her head.</p>\n<p id=\"0798\">What she doesn&#x2019;t know yet is that this cloud, for her, is about to dissipate. Leaving the Bay Area is the best thing you can do right now, if you have a dream. She&#x2019;s going to be fine. She just doesn&#x2019;t know it yet.</p>\n<p class=\"c-wide-block\"> <figure class=\"e-image\"> <span class=\"e-image__inner\"> <span class=\"e-image__image \"> <picture class=\"c-picture\"> <source srcset=\"https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/C5P6i9tOm0hORwc8qyn5gYlgakw=/0x0:1800x80/320x0/filters:focal(0x0:1800x80):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/13722170/HR2_SF_LeonardPeng.jpg 320w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/4yvMkp_fYyPW6VeCg7ZUe8VMHcw=/0x0:1800x80/520x0/filters:focal(0x0:1800x80):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/13722170/HR2_SF_LeonardPeng.jpg 520w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/1WvUsgs3YrF-kgIyU_lv6_3RSLs=/0x0:1800x80/720x0/filters:focal(0x0:1800x80):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/13722170/HR2_SF_LeonardPeng.jpg 720w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/-0BXOTzKa-66wRSxBvaVuQwuvR8=/0x0:1800x80/920x0/filters:focal(0x0:1800x80):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/13722170/HR2_SF_LeonardPeng.jpg 920w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/aqKNYJnwuy1aXdeSEWM3nXaohSw=/0x0:1800x80/1120x0/filters:focal(0x0:1800x80):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/13722170/HR2_SF_LeonardPeng.jpg 1120w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/aWDWB7zbLx3hbg0DYCaH99-fJyA=/0x0:1800x80/1320x0/filters:focal(0x0:1800x80):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/13722170/HR2_SF_LeonardPeng.jpg 1320w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/URhEsInzLzasWlFvTyTHSKLFZGU=/0x0:1800x80/1520x0/filters:focal(0x0:1800x80):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/13722170/HR2_SF_LeonardPeng.jpg 1520w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/nnfui8kdrDtz6-oRxqIBf3t8mro=/0x0:1800x80/1720x0/filters:focal(0x0:1800x80):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/13722170/HR2_SF_LeonardPeng.jpg 1720w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/et6FKaI2bmXmdQOfV8yeUuQND2I=/0x0:1800x80/1920x0/filters:focal(0x0:1800x80):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/13722170/HR2_SF_LeonardPeng.jpg 1920w\"> <img srcset=\"https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/GRwrX4WW0eLb5iO_CgdFwIrz7OQ=/0x0:1800x80/320x0/filters:focal(0x0:1800x80):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/13722170/HR2_SF_LeonardPeng.jpg 320w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/Y-6OrowllPoK3Q1HsCz-Ib_r-rY=/0x0:1800x80/520x0/filters:focal(0x0:1800x80):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/13722170/HR2_SF_LeonardPeng.jpg 520w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/60yj5gTEj9xsc1NLKk7KkkLgNhg=/0x0:1800x80/720x0/filters:focal(0x0:1800x80):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/13722170/HR2_SF_LeonardPeng.jpg 720w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/WFW4inTWqiZJTwvPei-07xD0LSk=/0x0:1800x80/920x0/filters:focal(0x0:1800x80):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/13722170/HR2_SF_LeonardPeng.jpg 920w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/i5qQjTFbMdnQ9zSkYSdclLMVrvI=/0x0:1800x80/1120x0/filters:focal(0x0:1800x80):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/13722170/HR2_SF_LeonardPeng.jpg 1120w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/EdQlUXF29m4w0IWQx7pRLeqqcnQ=/0x0:1800x80/1320x0/filters:focal(0x0:1800x80):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/13722170/HR2_SF_LeonardPeng.jpg 1320w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/oz3iMkuafyyy6IenLPri9u0u438=/0x0:1800x80/1520x0/filters:focal(0x0:1800x80):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/13722170/HR2_SF_LeonardPeng.jpg 1520w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/OaiZV5fTpk7QLZkZIevfYaGesk4=/0x0:1800x80/1720x0/filters:focal(0x0:1800x80):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/13722170/HR2_SF_LeonardPeng.jpg 1720w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/efFifpqezWVXkCFw31jtDUwpuSQ=/0x0:1800x80/1920x0/filters:focal(0x0:1800x80):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/13722170/HR2_SF_LeonardPeng.jpg 1920w\" alt=\"\" src=\"https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/GRwrX4WW0eLb5iO_CgdFwIrz7OQ=/0x0:1800x80/320x0/filters:focal(0x0:1800x80):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/13722170/HR2_SF_LeonardPeng.jpg%20320w,%20https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/Y-6OrowllPoK3Q1HsCz-Ib_r-rY=/0x0:1800x80/520x0/filters:focal(0x0:1800x80):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/13722170/HR2_SF_LeonardPeng.jpg%20520w,%20https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/60yj5gTEj9xsc1NLKk7KkkLgNhg=/0x0:1800x80/720x0/filters:focal(0x0:1800x80):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/13722170/HR2_SF_LeonardPeng.jpg%20720w,%20https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/WFW4inTWqiZJTwvPei-07xD0LSk=/0x0:1800x80/920x0/filters:focal(0x0:1800x80):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/13722170/HR2_SF_LeonardPeng.jpg%20920w,%20https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/i5qQjTFbMdnQ9zSkYSdclLMVrvI=/0x0:1800x80/1120x0/filters:focal(0x0:1800x80):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/13722170/HR2_SF_LeonardPeng.jpg%201120w,%20https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/EdQlUXF29m4w0IWQx7pRLeqqcnQ=/0x0:1800x80/1320x0/filters:focal(0x0:1800x80):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/13722170/HR2_SF_LeonardPeng.jpg%201320w,%20https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/oz3iMkuafyyy6IenLPri9u0u438=/0x0:1800x80/1520x0/filters:focal(0x0:1800x80):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/13722170/HR2_SF_LeonardPeng.jpg%201520w,%20https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/OaiZV5fTpk7QLZkZIevfYaGesk4=/0x0:1800x80/1720x0/filters:focal(0x0:1800x80):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/13722170/HR2_SF_LeonardPeng.jpg%201720w,%20https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/efFifpqezWVXkCFw31jtDUwpuSQ=/0x0:1800x80/1920x0/filters:focal(0x0:1800x80):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/13722170/HR2_SF_LeonardPeng.jpg%201920w\"> </picture> </span> </span> </figure> </p>\n<p id=\"0d91\">Moving, especially moving across the country, is an enormous, yet hardly uncommon, life shift. Leaving one&#x2019;s hometown to forge a better future in a new city is one of the most traditional adult rites of passage that we as Americans have. Eleanor and I had a few friends who left the Bay around 2012 and 2013 for career opportunities, to be with a spouse, or to take a rare internship. We wished them well. It was hard, but normal. We were in our early 20s.</p>\n<p id=\"96f3\">There&#x2019;s something not normal, however, about the number of people who have taken flight out of California in the past year or so.</p>\n<p id=\"2269\">If you go to Austin, New Orleans, Kansas City, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, Portland, Seattle, Chicago, and Denver&#x2014;to name just a few&#x2014;you can easily find folks transplanted from other cities and states. You can also easily find a band of locals bemoaning, specifically, the &#x201C;fucking Californians&#x201D; who are flooding their home, driving up rents, installing yoga studios, polluting the local vibe with new technology, and <a href=\"https://www.sfgate.com/local/article/Why-people-love-to-hate-Californians-11101058.php\">generally making everything suck while sipping kale juice</a>. We&#x2019;re threatening Austin&#x2019;s weirdness and erasing Bozeman&#x2019;s cowboys. We seem to be everywhere you look, ruining other cities, apparently by not staying where we ought to&#x2014;back in California.</p>\n<p id=\"5265\">It would appear we are fleeing California like it&#x2019;s on fire (which, actually, it literally is lately); only large quantities of &#x201C;foreign&#x201D; people moving into one area typically disrupt culture and incite hatred like that. Yet San Francisco rent continues to lead the nation based on white-hot demand. This doesn&#x2019;t really make sense.</p>\n<p id=\"2ec3\">Let me offer a snapshot of San Francisco in 2018:</p>\n<p id=\"f2ff\">A friend is having a birthday party at a funky dive bar in the Mission and has invited you. Despite the ostensibly blue-collar aesthetic, you pay $14 for a cocktail containing house-made lavender syrup and organic gin. You lean against a vintage pinball machine, a shrine to the predigital adolescence half the people in the bar never had, and proceed to make small talk with the other guests, asking, &#x201C;Where are you from?&#x201D;</p>\n<p id=\"5534\">They reply: &#x201C;Wisconsin.&#x201D;</p>\n<p id=\"2fc6\">&#x201C;Texas.&#x201D;</p>\n<p id=\"46cf\">&#x201C;Washington.&#x201D;</p>\n<p id=\"5b7e\">&#x201C;Los Angeles.&#x201D;</p>\n<p id=\"540f\">&#x201C;Illinois.&#x201D;</p>\n<p id=\"44b7\">&#x201C;Boston.&#x201D;</p>\n<p id=\"4524\">&#x201C;North Carolina.&#x201D;</p>\n<p id=\"fafb\">And, of course, you encounter several international immigrants from Europe, Latin America, and Asia, who never ever seem to complain about housing costs, traffic, Whole Foods, or you.</p>\n<p id=\"611a\">One person says, &#x201C;I&#x2019;m a Bay Area native.&#x201D;</p>\n<p id=\"8584\">Being a Bay Area native does not mean this person is Miwok or Ohlone (two Native American tribes who originally lived here). It just means they lived in the Bay before tech took off. It&#x2019;s like wearing an invisible bachelorette party sash that says: &#x201C;The startup tsunami basically came to me. I am both riding the wave <em>and</em> I can complain about it.&#x201D; (Or, depending on their shoes, it could mean, &#x201C;My dad founded a venture capital firm and my apartment&#x2019;s lot is worth more than your entire life.&#x201D;) This person will proceed to complain about rent and the general loss of culture they have witnessed over the past 10 years.</p>\n<p id=\"875a\">But what this &#x201C;native&#x201D; Bay Area kid <em>won&#x2019;t</em> do is start blaming the guy from North Carolina or Wisconsin or Boston&#x2014;basically every other person in the bar&#x2014;for propelling the rents into the sky and inadvertently forcing the &#x201C;locals&#x201D; to flee. Someone may disagree with me here, but I just haven&#x2019;t seen it done. If the conversation actually manages to advance far enough into blaming something for the Bay&#x2019;s loss of culture and housing woes, the finger falls on the <em>companies</em> who employ these newcomers: Google, Genentech, Facebook, Twitter, Apple, etc. Even still, this finger of blame rarely gets raised above the hip; we use these companies&#x2019; products or benefit from their research every day.</p>\n<p id=\"b62e\">There is an apocalyptic amount of people moving into California, and no one blames them for the overcrowding and the shifting culture. But when too many Californians leave California and settle in, say, Portland, <a href=\"https://www.mercurynews.com/2017/07/03/go-back-to-california-painted-on-prius-in-portland/\">they are blamed for ruining the place by way of simply being themselves</a>. I visited Seattle for the first time a month ago and was warned someone might throw a bottle at my car for my California plates. In Portland, I saw &#x201C;No Californians&#x201D; signs slapped onto &#x201C;for sale&#x201D; signs in yards. In Denver, I read news articles about friendlier locals advising Californians to tell people they were from literally anywhere else. You can Google virtually any city plus the phrase &#x201C;hate Californians&#x201D; and find pages of forums and articles giving voice to the hatred of Golden State jerks &#x201C;ruining&#x201D; cities. This is not true for other domestic migrants.</p>\n<p id=\"98d7\">It is apparently Californians who are unique in their snobbery and ability to ruin other places.</p>\n<p id=\"14ec\">Yet I am having trouble feeling snobbish and superior when I&#x2019;m losing friend after friend after friend to cities that don&#x2019;t make it impossible to be a teacher, a painter, a bakery owner, or even a damn barista in order to have a full fridge and a fulfilling life.</p>\n<p class=\"c-float-right\"><aside id=\"0QAKGZ\"><q>&#x201C;I don&#x2019;t want California to stop being a hub of brilliant, ambitious people. What I want is for California to be affordable to more than one kind of life.&#x201D;</q></aside></p>\n<p id=\"e218\">Also, above all, I don&#x2019;t want California to stop growing and benefiting from all the international and domestic migrants who flock here for opportunity and/or safety. Despite the fact that my rent makes some people do spit-takes, I am still a beneficiary of an inflated Bay Area salary. On a daily basis, I get to work with freakishly brave, casually brilliant minds, curated and imported not just from across the United States, but from India, China, Canada, Britain, New Zealand, and South America. At a dinner party, I get to sound like a comic book super scientist (&#x201C;we&#x2019;re finding the algorithm for love&#x201D;) or a Bond villain&#x2019;s understudy (&#x201C;we&#x2019;re building a robot army&#x201D;). I am also proud to be part of a liberal community that is trying to be a safe zone for people who would otherwise be persecuted in other parts of the country or the world. And, to frost the cake, I get to experience all of this while being surrounded by majestic redwood forests, nationally conserved seashores, famous wines, temperate weather, and the entire food, music, and art accessory package that comes with being in a world-class city that international business kings and technology icons call &#x201C;home.&#x201D; Holy shit. The Bay Area is fucking awesome, right?</p>\n<p id=\"13cf\">Yeah. Except for the part where everyone I love is leaving.</p>\n<p id=\"01d4\">I don&#x2019;t want California to stop being a hub of brilliant, ambitious people. What I want is for California to be affordable to more than one kind of life. And I want the record set straight about who exactly is moving where and, above all, why.</p>\n<p id=\"6222\">We are witnessing two migrations. One is the continuation of the Californian dream, where young people flock here for gold and glory, ready to hustle and disrupt, hammering to hit the motherlode and laughing at the odds. The other is the migration of young people <em>out</em> of California, which seems to have affected everyone I know, but which I rarely hear examined. These people want to be artists, teachers, blacksmiths, therapists, mechanics, and musicians. They want to have children, open bakeries, own a house. But they can&#x2019;t. There is no room here for those kinds of dreams anymore. They hear about someone&#x2019;s success in New Orleans, Kansas City, or Pittsburgh, and they leave their families and communities behind on the chance they will, ironically, strike gold.</p>\n<p id=\"67cb\">To the angry locals of Portland, Seattle, Denver, New Orleans, Kansas City, Phoenix, Austin, and elsewhere, please hear this defense: The Californians who are coming in and &#x201C;ruining&#x201D; your cities are not snobs. They don&#x2019;t have trust funds. They aren&#x2019;t entitled. They are the opposite. They have been kicked out of their own backyards for not learning Python fast enough or not having a dad who could introduce them to VC firms or not wanting to live in their family&#x2019;s in-law unit at age 30 or not being able to afford a $2,000/month studio on a $20/hour paycheck. They aren&#x2019;t techies; they had the audacity to want something besides tech. They are some of our best, most creative, most hardworking people&#x2014;and you are getting them. We are losing them.</p>\n<p id=\"24a1\">We are kind to your friends who move here to grow, to start things, to feel safe, to dream. So, please, be kind to my friends and their dreams too.</p>\n<p class=\"c-wide-block\"> <figure class=\"e-image\"> <span class=\"e-image__inner\"> <span class=\"e-image__image \"> <picture class=\"c-picture\"> <source srcset=\"https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/1vVuh8G2Zl0QgJOZdGGU0_LigH4=/0x0:1800x80/320x0/filters:focal(0x0:1800x80):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/13722174/HR2_SF_LeonardPeng.jpg 320w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/gGpQ41tX5HmdYv7lu0pFkd_t_v8=/0x0:1800x80/520x0/filters:focal(0x0:1800x80):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/13722174/HR2_SF_LeonardPeng.jpg 520w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/dESiwoM0l5iLigXvw2sRfCxp_Q0=/0x0:1800x80/720x0/filters:focal(0x0:1800x80):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/13722174/HR2_SF_LeonardPeng.jpg 720w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/4rnXvLNSuSlFTy0GVKm2mhE2rCo=/0x0:1800x80/920x0/filters:focal(0x0:1800x80):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/13722174/HR2_SF_LeonardPeng.jpg 920w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/BjzGbqUDEiTWDnYfbs6J78ZWujU=/0x0:1800x80/1120x0/filters:focal(0x0:1800x80):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/13722174/HR2_SF_LeonardPeng.jpg 1120w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/muv7PDRHcV8X_neSsxDYjIGK0rU=/0x0:1800x80/1320x0/filters:focal(0x0:1800x80):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/13722174/HR2_SF_LeonardPeng.jpg 1320w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/ZV3XYDeioLNS48Oblsni-NmmjJA=/0x0:1800x80/1520x0/filters:focal(0x0:1800x80):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/13722174/HR2_SF_LeonardPeng.jpg 1520w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/z_PbmvzVXYcY-CxP-2S1fAWG7Vg=/0x0:1800x80/1720x0/filters:focal(0x0:1800x80):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/13722174/HR2_SF_LeonardPeng.jpg 1720w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/JTJn0NoCqyW5dJlRMsu2DnUugjE=/0x0:1800x80/1920x0/filters:focal(0x0:1800x80):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/13722174/HR2_SF_LeonardPeng.jpg 1920w\"> <img srcset=\"https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/k5y1cGiyvNoIxPXl6CHXQaeYSEw=/0x0:1800x80/320x0/filters:focal(0x0:1800x80):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/13722174/HR2_SF_LeonardPeng.jpg 320w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/UTvq6hNe7XZeMz4O8li-3rimYbo=/0x0:1800x80/520x0/filters:focal(0x0:1800x80):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/13722174/HR2_SF_LeonardPeng.jpg 520w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/cSOEpq9bQfzfrIfsMA_q-d8qcVk=/0x0:1800x80/720x0/filters:focal(0x0:1800x80):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/13722174/HR2_SF_LeonardPeng.jpg 720w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/aqJDkTMtv0QbayqhdCgnwbU1sSs=/0x0:1800x80/920x0/filters:focal(0x0:1800x80):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/13722174/HR2_SF_LeonardPeng.jpg 920w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/2eWn3Unoyls7ydc0Ag6NnecQZhQ=/0x0:1800x80/1120x0/filters:focal(0x0:1800x80):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/13722174/HR2_SF_LeonardPeng.jpg 1120w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/sixdEP7_aX8s6uVT_k00KaFAZc0=/0x0:1800x80/1320x0/filters:focal(0x0:1800x80):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/13722174/HR2_SF_LeonardPeng.jpg 1320w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/mA84bNNag34K0h_Z_VRAVw7R-lw=/0x0:1800x80/1520x0/filters:focal(0x0:1800x80):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/13722174/HR2_SF_LeonardPeng.jpg 1520w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/ng83MNwmjmshqeGOXbJ1lhiolBY=/0x0:1800x80/1720x0/filters:focal(0x0:1800x80):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/13722174/HR2_SF_LeonardPeng.jpg 1720w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/CdMDy-9A1ZlUJW0kZkScF-xbMcc=/0x0:1800x80/1920x0/filters:focal(0x0:1800x80):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/13722174/HR2_SF_LeonardPeng.jpg 1920w\" alt=\"\" src=\"https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/k5y1cGiyvNoIxPXl6CHXQaeYSEw=/0x0:1800x80/320x0/filters:focal(0x0:1800x80):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/13722174/HR2_SF_LeonardPeng.jpg%20320w,%20https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/UTvq6hNe7XZeMz4O8li-3rimYbo=/0x0:1800x80/520x0/filters:focal(0x0:1800x80):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/13722174/HR2_SF_LeonardPeng.jpg%20520w,%20https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/cSOEpq9bQfzfrIfsMA_q-d8qcVk=/0x0:1800x80/720x0/filters:focal(0x0:1800x80):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/13722174/HR2_SF_LeonardPeng.jpg%20720w,%20https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/aqJDkTMtv0QbayqhdCgnwbU1sSs=/0x0:1800x80/920x0/filters:focal(0x0:1800x80):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/13722174/HR2_SF_LeonardPeng.jpg%20920w,%20https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/2eWn3Unoyls7ydc0Ag6NnecQZhQ=/0x0:1800x80/1120x0/filters:focal(0x0:1800x80):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/13722174/HR2_SF_LeonardPeng.jpg%201120w,%20https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/sixdEP7_aX8s6uVT_k00KaFAZc0=/0x0:1800x80/1320x0/filters:focal(0x0:1800x80):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/13722174/HR2_SF_LeonardPeng.jpg%201320w,%20https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/mA84bNNag34K0h_Z_VRAVw7R-lw=/0x0:1800x80/1520x0/filters:focal(0x0:1800x80):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/13722174/HR2_SF_LeonardPeng.jpg%201520w,%20https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/ng83MNwmjmshqeGOXbJ1lhiolBY=/0x0:1800x80/1720x0/filters:focal(0x0:1800x80):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/13722174/HR2_SF_LeonardPeng.jpg%201720w,%20https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/CdMDy-9A1ZlUJW0kZkScF-xbMcc=/0x0:1800x80/1920x0/filters:focal(0x0:1800x80):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/13722174/HR2_SF_LeonardPeng.jpg%201920w\"> </picture> </span> </span> </figure> </p>\n<p id=\"ccef\">At SFO, I watch as Eleanor walks inside the terminal with all her possessions: two trunks and a carry-on full of handmade ceramics. We hug. We tell each other I love you&#x2014;something I rarely say&#x2014;promise to keep in touch, and say all the other sentiments humans use to anesthetize loss. She turns the corner and is gone.</p>\n<p id=\"67c3\">I get back into my car. I take a breath. Instantly I crumple, like an angry teenager, gasping and wiping tears all over my face. I want to slam the steering wheel and have my own private &#x201C;it isn&#x2019;t fair&#x201D; meltdown. But I don&#x2019;t. The meter maids at SFO are fierce and will bear down on you if you idle in passenger loading for more than 30 seconds. The airport is a zoo of emergency lights, Ubers competing for space, attendants blaring whistles. At San Francisco&#x2019;s busy pace, there is no time for examining loss.</p>\n<p id=\"f88c\">I take another breath, remembering that I am happy for her. I&#x2019;m an adult. People move all the time. This is normal. It&#x2019;s not my fault she&#x2019;s gone, that all 12 of them are gone. Normal. People move all the time. Nothing I could have done.</p>\n<p class=\"c-end-para\" id=\"f56e\">I can&#x2019;t change the rent.</p>\n<p id=\"bvfJOT\"><em>This article first appeared on </em><a href=\"https://medium.com/s/story/if-san-francisco-is-so-great-why-is-everyone-i-love-leaving-d2b167471c35\"><em>Medium</em></a><em>.</em></p>\n<p id=\"ddwqMl\"><em>Correction: The article initially stated that Airbnbs outnumbered permanent housing by about 3:1. In fact, as of January 31, the number is 58 Airbnb rentals in a town with approximately 340 housing units. We have updated the article accordingly.</em></p>\n</div>","url":"https://sf.curbed.com/2019/1/30/18196549/san-francisco-everyone-leaving-first-person-migration-california","date_published":"2019-01-30T17:28:20+00:00","author":{"name":""}},{"id":"1295","title":"What Does It Say When A Legal Blockchain eBook Has 1.7M Views?","content_html":"<div class=\"entry-content\">\n<p>&#x201C;<a href=\"https://www.legaler.com/ebook/\">Blockchain For Lawyers</a>,&#x201D; a recently-released eBook by Australian legal tech company <a href=\"https://www.lawsitesblog.com/2018/08/legaler-raises-1-5m-build-blockchain-help-bridge-justice-gap.html\">Legaler</a>, drew 1.7M views in two weeks. What does that staggering number say about blockchain, legal technology, and the legal industry? Clearly, blockchain is a hot legal topic, along with artificial intelligence (AI), and legal tech generally. It&#x2019;s also a hot investment; last year a record <a href=\"https://blog.lawgeex.com/legaltech-hits-1-billion-investment-as-lawyers-embrace-automation/\">$1B</a>&#xA0;was pumped into legal tech. The global enthusiasm for tech is manifest in the throngs that attended the Legal Geek Conference, the Global Legal Hackathon, and a slew of events held by legal tech organizations around the world. Tech is the mortar of a <a href=\"https://www.forbes.com/sites/markcohen1/2017/12/18/laws-emerging-global-community-and-what-it-mean/#7d448fcd175a\">global legal community</a>&#xA0;that is transforming law from territorial profession to borderless industry.</p>\n<p>But why, with so many blockchain and legal tech books and articles, is Legaler&#x2019;s eBook capturing so many eyeballs? &#xA0;One explanation is its plain-speak effort to demystify blockchain and analyze its current and future adaptations to law. The book also provides a framework for&#xA0;understanding how AI, software, the cloud, and other technological advances enable new delivery models to better respond to consumer demand for more transparent, efficient, scalable, cost-effective, and predictable outcomes.&#xA0; There is a hunger&#x2014;especially among those in the early and mid-stages of their careers&#x2013; to understand these tools and new delivery models and, more importantly, how it will impact their careers.</p>\n<p>The immense interest in new delivery models, legal tech, and transformation underscores that law today is as much about the new models, tools, and skill sets that drive it as it is about practice expertise. Law is no longer solely the province of lawyers; it is also comprised of non-licensed legal professionals and others involved in its delivery, funding, and innovation. The profession is being subsumed by a rapidly-evolving industry. Lawyers once controlled the profession <em>and </em>the industry. Clients control the industry now, and that is impacting how the profession operates, the models from which its expertise is most effectively delivered, the skillsets and resources required to augment it, and changing economics.</p>\n<p>Legal practice and delivery are each changing. New practice areas like cryptocurrency, cybersecurity, and Internet law are emerging as law struggles to keep pace with the <a href=\"https://www.forbes.com/sites/markcohen1/2018/06/25/legal-delivery-at-the-speed-of-business-and-why-it-matters/#3c907cb15e53\">speed of business</a>&#xA0;change in the digital age. Concurrently, several staples of traditional practice&#x2013;research, document review, etc.&#x2013; are becoming automated and/or no longer performed by law firm associates. There is more &#x201C;turnover&#x201D; of practice tasks, more reliance on machines and non-licensed attorneys to mine data and provide domain expertise used by lawyers, and more collaboration than ever before. The emergence of new industries demands that lawyers not only provide legal expertise in support of new areas but also that they possess intellectual agility to master them quickly. Many practice areas law students will encounter have yet to be created. That means that all lawyers will be required to be more agile than their predecessors and engage in ongoing training.</p>\n<p>Legal delivery, once the &#x201C;back office&#x201D; of practice, is now an integral part of the legal delivery process. Technology, process, the inexorable shift to multidisciplinary, collaborative delivery required to solve complex business challenges are now as critical as practice expertise to deliver effective, efficient, predictable, cost-effective, and data-based solutions to complex business challenges. The integration of practice and delivery has become the new paradigm for legal services and is seldom derived from a sole source. Law has become a team game.</p>\n<p>It is against this backdrop&#x2014;and perhaps because of it&#x2014;that many in the legal industry have growing anxiety about their future. Law, like so many segments of the society it serves, is changing rapidly and&#xA0;requires ongoing (re)training and dedication to lifelong learning. Today&#x2019;s fast-paced, dynamic, fluid legal industry bears little resemblance to the one most law schools are <a href=\"https://www.forbes.com/sites/markcohen1/2018/11/19/what-are-law-schools-training-students-for/#60117bf64f22\">preparing</a>&#xA0;graduates for. This is another reason why cogent explanations of forces propelling that change&#x2014;like Legaler&#x2019;s eBook&#x2014;are appealing and helpful.</p>\n<p><strong>&#x201C;Blockchain For Lawyers&#x201D;</strong></p>\n<p>Stevie Ghiassi, Legaler&#x2019;s CEO and &#x201C;Blockchain For Lawyers&#x201D; author, endeavors to &#x201C;offer an easy-to-digest, holistic take on how blockchain applies to the legal industry. &#x201C; Ghiassi&#x2019;s book dispenses with unnecessary jargon, explains the basics of blockchain technology, and examines&#x2014;in his words&#x2013; &#x201C;the profound innovation of creating digital trust in a digital age, and how that impacts every aspect of our lives.&#x201D;</p>\n<p>Ghiassi contends that blockchain represents a new evolutionary stage of trust, arguably the most central concept for organizing human organization. Societies initially relied on tribalism, a personalized, localized trust. As society scaled, institutional trust in governments, corporations, came to replace personal trust as society&#x2019;s glue. Blockchain technology represents a new transparent, &#x2018;distributed&#x2019; trust phase facilitated by decentralized networks like Bitcoin and Ethereum.</p>\n<p>Why should the legal industry be paying attention? Ghiassi argues the degree to which people trust each other and how they manage those trusted relationships is often intermediated by lawyers. With such a profound shift in the nature of trust, the role of lawyers is likely to change. The confluence of blockchain, cryptocurrency, smart contracts, and zero-knowledge proofs facilitates new businesses processes that remove intermediaries and reduce transactions costs, making legal services more accessible. This disintermediation process is already underway in law and is accelerating rapidly with the concurrent adoption of AI, platforms, metrics, and other tools and resources enabling new providers to build client-centric delivery models. They are transforming legal delivery from a labor-intensive, lawyer-centric model to a tech and process-enabled, customer-centric one.</p>\n<p>Ghiassi is a poster child for the contemporary legal professional. He does not hold a law license and facetiously notes in his Linkedin profile that &#x201C;&#x201C;All legal knowledge acquired from Suits seasons 1 to 7.&#x201D; He does have a keen grasp of the legal industry and a clear-eyed objective for his technological prowess: &#x201C; Pursuing a better world through technology to advance the delivery of legal services and expand access to justice by leveraging distributed ledger technologies like blockchain and decentralization.&#x201D; Perhaps it is because Ghiassi is not a lawyer&#x2014;yet understands the profession and its new tools-of-the-trade&#x2014;that he is able to explain and contextualize blockchain so effectively. Ghiassi views legal delivery from an outcome perspective&#x2014;what it should accomplish&#x2014;rather than a practice one&#x2014;what it has historically meant to be a lawyer.</p>\n<p><strong>Conclusion </strong></p>\n<p>This is an exciting time to be in the legal industry. It was long a <a href=\"https://www.forbes.com/sites/markcohen1/2017/07/03/goodbye-guild-laws-changing-culture/#3cb9e65c70e8\">guild</a>; now it is an emerging global community. It was homogeneous, and it is slowly morphing into a more diverse culture. It was parochial by design and now it is becoming borderless&#x2014;at least with respect to the <a href=\"https://www.forbes.com/sites/markcohen1/2018/11/08/new-business-models-not-technology-will-transform-the-legal-industry/#361b3ec318cc\">new business models</a>, tools, and resources available to provide legal services. It was lawyer-centric, and it is increasingly becoming multi-disciplinary. Law was once exclusively about lawyers; now it is about legal professionals and other disciplines, technology, and new providers expanding access to and improving the delivery of legal services.</p>\n<p>Many in the profession rue these changes, and some remain steadfast in opposing them. The socio-economic forces driving change across multiple industries are far too powerful for the remnants of the legal guild to repel. Law should look more closely at other industries for ideas that can be leveraged. A good place to start is customer-centric companies. The profession will not be compromised by this process; its ability to better serve legal buyers and society will be enhanced.</p>\n<p>Stevie Ghiassi &#x2019;s thoughtful book that encourages lawyers to embrace technology as a tool to better serve legal consumers and society is deserving of even more views. Hopefully, it will encourage others to do the same.</p>\n<p><em>Editor&#x2019;s Note: This Article appeared on Forbes.com and is featured here with Author permission.</em></p>\n</div>","url":"https://www.bizcatalyst360.com/what-does-it-say-when-a-legal-blockchain-ebook-has-1-7m-views/","date_published":"2019-01-30T07:02:57+00:00","author":{"name":"Mark A. Cohen"}},{"id":"1187","title":"Dana Blankenhorn","content_html":"<div><div class=\"entry-body\"> <p><a class=\"asset-img-link\" href=\"https://200billionscandal.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83451da3169e2022ad3a508fc200d-pi\"><img alt=\"Recession seatbelt\" class=\"asset asset-image at-xid-6a00d83451da3169e2022ad3a508fc200d img-responsive\" src=\"https://200billionscandal.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83451da3169e2022ad3a508fc200d-250wi\"></a>The U.S. economy is heading into a recession.</p> <p>This should be obvious. Trump threw a party for his friends a year ago, but the $1.5 trillion bill must be paid.</p> <p>That means interest rates are going up. Housing and autos are already tanking. Companies that want to borrow money are going to find it more expensive. The lucky ones might get the equivalent of adjustable rates, but those will adjust higher.</p> <p>Meanwhile, private debts must also be paid. There&#x2019;s a mountain of private equity debt out there, along with a mountain of student loan debt. There&#x2019;s a global market of debt, much of which will be unpayable. Bad debts will have to be written off. Thanks to Obama, our banks will survive. I can&#x2019;t say the same for Europe&#x2019;s.</p> </div><div class=\"entry-more\"> <a class=\"asset-img-link\" href=\"https://200billionscandal.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83451da3169e2022ad37f092e200c-pi\"><img alt=\"Productivity\" class=\"asset asset-image at-xid-6a00d83451da3169e2022ad37f092e200c img-responsive\" src=\"https://200billionscandal.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83451da3169e2022ad37f092e200c-250wi\"></a>But the whole effect of writing off loans is to reduce economic activity. America&#x2019;s debt contagion is going to hit the rest of the world. The Euro and Yuan will look stronger, but only relatively. When things start to roll over, they keep rolling until you get to the bottom of the hill. Remember how you felt about the economy 10 years ago, when it was falling at a 9% annual rate? You&#x2019;re going to get that feeling again. <p>But there is good news. It&#x2019;s the same good news as in the last two recessions. Productivity is about to leap ahead.</p> <p>While a lot of people are going to lose their jobs, and some industries are going to virtually disappear, there&#x2019;s a huge opportunity for those who take advantage of everything tech can do to lower costs, to eliminate labor, to make computers do more. The cloud czars fell hard, but they will come out of this stronger than ever.</p> <p><a class=\"asset-img-link\" href=\"https://200billionscandal.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83451da3169e2022ad3a5095a200d-pi\"><img alt=\"Paperwork\" class=\"asset asset-image at-xid-6a00d83451da3169e2022ad3a5095a200d img-responsive\" src=\"https://200billionscandal.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83451da3169e2022ad3a5095a200d-250wi\"></a>A lot of middle managers who felt secure in 1999 were out in the street by 2002, and not just in tech. In order to survive, employers were forced to not just upgrade computing, but to make full use of what they had, so layers of management disappeared.</p> <p>The same thing happened during the Great Recession, only this time the victims included big box retailers that benefitted from the recession of the early 1990s. More important, insurance brokers, mortgage bankers, and loan officers who considered themselves the gatekeepers to the middle class, in suburbs and exurbs, were also blown out. It was this economic transformation, as much as anything else, which fueled the rebellion that led to Trump.</p> <p><a class=\"asset-img-link\" href=\"https://200billionscandal.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83451da3169e2022ad3a50971200d-pi\"><img alt=\"Waymo self-driving taxi\" class=\"asset asset-image at-xid-6a00d83451da3169e2022ad3a50971200d img-responsive\" src=\"https://200billionscandal.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83451da3169e2022ad3a50971200d-250wi\"></a>Now, look at all the ways technology can replace people today. Ambulance drivers and ambulance chasers, bus drivers and health care administrators, car repairmen and order entry people, millions of people will find their jobs done by machines over the next few years. The companies and institutions that replace people with machines most effectively will survive. Those which don&#x2019;t, won&#x2019;t.</p> <p>This is what productivity looks like. You get machines to do the work of people, and you need fewer people to do the same work. In the early years of the PC revolution, this efficiency meant managers could just do more. Now it means we don&#x2019;t need the managers.</p> <p><a class=\"asset-img-link\" href=\"https://200billionscandal.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83451da3169e2022ad37f0980200c-pi\"><img alt=\"Monopoly man\" class=\"asset asset-image at-xid-6a00d83451da3169e2022ad37f0980200c img-responsive\" src=\"https://200billionscandal.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83451da3169e2022ad37f0980200c-200wi\"></a>Who gets the gains of productivity is a political question. We have chosen in this century to give those gains entirely to corporate owners. We told those who were laid waste by change to pound sand. But in a technological era, human capital is the gating factor. Wasting people, failing to educate them, or tending to their needs, that&#x2019;s the real pollution of the 21<sup>st</sup> century. This waste is what determines which economies win, and which lose. It now makes economic sense to make different choices.</p> <p>The process of change, expanding productivity and reducing headcount, goes on during periods of growth as well as decline, but it gets urgent during recessions. Companies are trying to survive, so they cut costs as much as they dare. Consumers are trying to survive, so they&#x2019;re more willing to engage the market in different ways.</p> <p><a class=\"asset-img-link\" href=\"https://200billionscandal.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83451da3169e2022ad37f0987200c-pi\"><img alt=\"Costco logo\" class=\"asset asset-image at-xid-6a00d83451da3169e2022ad37f0987200c img-responsive\" src=\"https://200billionscandal.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83451da3169e2022ad37f0987200c-250wi\"></a>When I got out of college, I made weekly pilgrimages to local grocery stores. These consolidated during the 1990s so that there are a smaller number of corporate choices, just variations on a theme. Kroger owns everything from specialty &#x201C;gourmet&#x201D; markets like Mariano&#x2019;s, emphasizing fresh and pre-prepared food, to traditional middle-class stores like Ralph&#x2019;s and King Soopers, even Walmart-like department stores like Fred Meyer. But it&#x2019;s all Kroger, and despite the company&#x2019;s best efforts it&#x2019;s all suffering. The perception is there&#x2019;s less consumer value there than at Walmart, Costco or Amazon.</p> <p>Customers go to where they perceive value. This is true for business customers as well as consumers.</p> <p><a class=\"asset-img-link\" href=\"https://200billionscandal.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83451da3169e2022ad37f0afa200c-pi\"><img alt=\"Big box store closed\" class=\"asset asset-image at-xid-6a00d83451da3169e2022ad37f0afa200c img-responsive\" src=\"https://200billionscandal.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83451da3169e2022ad37f0afa200c-250wi\"></a>General retail moved to big boxes in the 1990s, and now those big boxes are disappearing. We buy both products and services online, and those who once did the selling, or managed the salesmen, are disappearing.</p> <p>Some of the biggest changes in the next recession will come in health care. A lot of people who think they have monopolies are going to find out they don&#x2019;t. Insurers are buying or building their own facilities. Consumers are being pushed into these &#x201C;managed care&#x201D; plans, where care decisions might be between a patient and their doctor, but the doctor is a corporate employee who isn&#x2019;t allowed to draw outside the lines.</p> <p>In the late stage of a recovery, like the last two years, a lot of people have excuses for why certain actions are unthinkable. We distrust people with our data, and during good times we find all sorts of ways to keep it from people or to handle it inefficiently. The companies that use that data best are going to grow in the next few years, and those that either don&#x2019;t collect it, or collect it and don&#x2019;t use it, are going out of business.</p> <p><a class=\"asset-img-link\" href=\"https://200billionscandal.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83451da3169e2022ad3c4c3e6200b-pi\"><img alt=\"Medical biller\" class=\"asset asset-image at-xid-6a00d83451da3169e2022ad3c4c3e6200b img-responsive\" src=\"https://200billionscandal.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83451da3169e2022ad3c4c3e6200b-250wi\"></a>There are always social costs to recessions. People who lose their jobs, temporarily or permanently, are burdens on those who still have work. But as baby boomers retire, and the percentage of those who aren&#x2019;t working (for one reason or another) comes to exceed the number who are, there&#x2019;s going to be a shift. You may call this a political shift to the left if you want. It&#x2019;s really an economic shift. Human beings are increasingly valued as more work gets done by machines.</p> <p>Few people knew middle management would die after the 2000 recession, or that financial professions would die after 2008. There are no guarantees in any forecast. All I do know is that, based on history, productivity is going to rise, a lot of jobs and even industries are going to disappear, and the America which comes out of the coming recession will be much changed from the one you&#x2019;re living in now.</p> </div></div>","url":"https://www.danablankenhorn.com/2018/12/good-news-in-the-next-recession-.html","date_published":"2018-12-07T00:00:00+00:00","author":{"name":""}},{"id":"1182","title":"Uber Stapped For Cash Is Heading for a Crash","content_html":"<div class=\"post hentry uncustomized-post-template\">\n<meta>\n<meta>\n<meta>\n<a></a> <div class=\"post-body entry-content\" id=\"post-body-2089421318410097788\">\n<div class=\"separator\">&#xA0; &#xA0; &#xA0; &#xA0;&#xA0;<a href=\"https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-PjpS9VRzYF4/XAdGWjE6kDI/AAAAAAAA-aU/3-RXbPujCbsTR6z-kYCuLy04wnG6zwczACHMYCw/s640/blogger-image--1521501506.jpg\"><img src=\"https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-PjpS9VRzYF4/XAdGWjE6kDI/AAAAAAAA-aU/3-RXbPujCbsTR6z-kYCuLy04wnG6zwczACHMYCw/s640/blogger-image--1521501506.jpg\"></a></div><br><p>By steamrolling local taxi operations in cities all over the world and cultivating cheerleaders in the business press and among Silicon Valley libertarians, Uber has managed to create an image of inevitability and invincibility. But the company just posted another quarter of jaw-dropping losses -- this time over $1 billion, after $4.5 billion of losses in 2017. How much is hype and how much is real?</p><p>The notion that Uber, the most highly valued private company in the world, is a textbook &quot;bezzle&quot; -- John Kenneth Galbraith&#x2019;s coinage for an investment swindle where the losses have yet to be recognized -- is likely to come as a surprise to its many satisfied customers. But as we&#x2019;ll explain, relying on the extensive work of transportation expert Hubert Horan, Uber&#x2019;s investors have been buying your satisfaction in the form of massive subsidies of services. What has made Uber a good deal for users makes it a lousy investment proposition. Uber has kept that recognition at bay via minimal and inconsistent financial disclosures combined with a relentless and so far effective public-relations campaign depicting Uber as following the pattern of digitally based start-ups whose large initial losses transformed into strong profits in a few years.</p><p>Comparisons of Uber to other storied tech wunderkinder show Uber is not on the same trajectory. No ultimately successful major technology company has been as deeply unprofitable for anywhere remotely as long as Uber has been. After nine years, Uber isn&#x2019;t within hailing distance of making money and continues to bleed more red ink than any start-up in history. By contrast, Facebook and Amazon were solidly cash-flow positive by their fifth year.</p><p>The fact that this glorified local transportation company continues to be a financial failure should come as no surprise. What should be surprising is that the business press still parrots the fond hope of Uber&#x2019;s management that the company will go public in 2019 at a target valuation of $120 billion. That&#x2019;s well above its highest private share sale, at a valuation of $68 billion. And Uber&#x2019;s management and underwriters will no doubt hope that the great unwashed public looks past the fact that more recently, SoftBank bought out insiders at a valuation of $48 billion, and its offer was oversubscribed. Why should new money come in at a price more than double where executives and employees were eager to get out?</p><p>Uber has never presented a case as to why it will ever be profitable, let alone earn an adequate return on capital. Investors are pinning their hopes on a successful IPO, which means finding greater fools in sufficient numbers.</p><p>Uber is a taxi company with an app attached. It bears almost no resemblance to internet superstars it claims to emulate. The app is not technically daunting and and does not create a competitive barrier, as witnessed by the fact that many other players have copied it. Apps have been introduced for airlines, pizza delivery, and hundreds of other consumer services but have never generated market-share gains, much less tens of billions in corporate value. They do not create network effects. Unlike Facebook or eBay, having more Uber users does not improve the service.</p><p>Nor, after a certain point, does adding more drivers. Uber does regularly claim that its app creates economies of scale for drivers -- but for that to be the case, adding more drivers would have to benefit drivers. It doesn&#x2019;t. More drivers means more competition for available jobs, which means less utilization per driver. There is a trade-off between capacity and utilization in a transportation system, which you do not see in digital networks. The classic use of &quot;network effects&quot; referred to the design of an integrated transport network -- an airline hub and spoke network which create utility for passengers (or packages) by having more opportunities to connect to more destinations versus linear point-to-point routes. Uber is obviously not a fixed network with integrated routes -- taxi passengers do not connect between different vehicles.</p><p>Nor does being bigger make Uber a better business. As Hubert Horan explained in his series on Naked Capitalism, Uber has no competitive advantage compared to traditional taxi operators. Unlike digital businesses, the cab industry does not have significant scale economies; that&#x2019;s why there have never been city-level cab monopolies, consolidation plays, or even significant regional operators. Size does not improve the economics of delivery of the taxi service, 85 percent of which are driver, vehicle, and fuel costs; the remaining 15 percent is typically overheads and profit. And Uber&#x2019;s own results are proof. Uber has kept bulking up, yet it has failed to show the rapid margin improvements you&#x2019;d see if costs fell as operations grew.</p><p>Size also reduces flexibility. As professor Amar Bhide, author of the classic The Origin and Evolution of New Businesses, stated:</p><p>Many giga-businesses have no clue, when they start, about how they will become behemoths -- think Microsoft developing Basic for the Altair in 1975, Sam Walton starting a country store, and Hewlett and Packard selling audio-oscillators. But being small, they can experiment to figure out what is profitably scaleable and make radical changes if necessary. Which is why not having deep pockets to start with is a blessing not a curse. Sure there are some fledgling companies, like Google and Amazon that happen to start in the right direction and being darlings of venture capitalists or Wall Street propels them ahead faster. But these are the exceptions. Otherwise money just bloats them and makes them hard to change direction.</p><p>But, but, but -- you may say -- Uber has established a large business in cities over the world. Yes, it&#x2019;s easy to get a lot of traffic by selling at a discount. Uber is subsidizing ride costs. Across all its businesses, Uber was providing services at only roughly 74 percent of their cost in its last quarter. Uber was selling its services at only roughly 64 percent of their cost in 2017, with a GAAP profit margin of negative 57 percent. As a reference point, in its worst four quarters, Amazon lost $1.4 billion on $2.8 billion in sales, for a negative margin of 50 percent. Amazon reacted by firing over 15 percent of its workers.</p><p>Uber defenders might argue that that&#x2019;s a big improvement from 2015, when revenues only covered 43 percent of costs, and the GAAP margin was negative 132 percent. But as we&#x2019;ll discuss in more detail, this reduction in how much Uber spends to get each average dollar of revenue didn&#x2019;t come from improved efficiency, but was due to almost entirely to cutting driver pay. The transportation company appears to have hit the limit of how much it can squeeze drivers, since churn has increased.</p><p>Uber has raised an unprecedented $20 billion in investor funding -- 2,600 times more than Amazon&#x2019;s pre-IPO funding. This has allowed Uber to undercut traditional local cab companies, whose fares have to cover all costs, as well as have more cars chasing rides than unsubsidized operators can. Recall that for any transportation service, there is a trade-off between frequency of service and utilization. Having Uber induce more drivers to be on the road to create fast pickups means drivers on average will get fewer fares.</p><p>If Uber were to drive all competitors out of business in a local market and then jack up prices, customers would cut back on use. But more important, since barriers to entry in the taxi business are low, and Uber lowered them further by breaking local regulations, new players would come in under Uber&#x2019;s new price umbrella. So Uber would have to drop its prices to meet those of these entrants or lose business.</p><p>Moreover, Uber is a high-cost provider. A fleet manager at a medium-scale Yellow Cab company can buy, maintain, and insure vehicles more efficiently than individual Uber drivers. In addition, transportation companies maintain tight central control of both total available capacity (vehicles and labor) and how that capacity is scheduled. Uber takes the polar opposite approach. It has no assets, and while it can offer incentives, it cannot control or schedule capacity.</p><p>The only advantage Uber might have achieved is taking advantage of its drivers&#x2019; lack of financial acumen -- that they don&#x2019;t understand the full cost of using their cars and thus are giving Uber a bargain. There&#x2019;s some evidence to support that notion. Ridester recently published the results of the first study to use actual Uber driver earnings, validated by screenshots. Using conservative estimates for vehicle costs, they found that that UberX drivers, which represent the bulk of its workforce, earn less than $10 an hour. They would do better at McDonald&#x2019;s. But even this offset to the generally higher costs of fleet operation hasn&#x2019;t had an meaningful impact on Uber&#x2019;s economics.</p><p>But, you may argue, Uber has all that data about rides! Certainly that allows it to be more efficient than traditional cabs. Um, no. Local ride services have backhaul problems that no amount of cleverness can remedy, like taking customers to the airport and either waiting hours for a return fare or coming back empty, or daily urban commutes, where workers go overwhelmingly in one direction in the morning rush and the other way in the evening. Similarly, Uber&#x2019;s surge pricing hasn&#x2019;t led customers to change their habits and shift their trips to lower-cost times, which could have led to more efficient utilization. If Uber had any secret sauce, it would have already shown up in Uber revenues and average driver earnings. Nine years in, and there&#x2019;s no evidence of that.</p><p>Uber also has much higher overhead costs: vastly better-paid employees, in prime office space, engaged in activities that a local cab company either rarely or never has to handle, like driver recruitment (Uber has recruitment centers), public relations and advertising, litigation, airfare, and other costs of running a global operation.</p><p>And Uber ought to have a higher cost of capital than a mature business that has (or at least had) pretty stable revenues and operations.</p><p>Uber has gone to some length to avoid publishing financial information on a consistent basis over time, a big reg flag. One telling example: In late 2016, Uber targeted a share offering to high-end retail investors, which were presumably even dumber money than the Saudis that had invested in its previous round. Nevertheless, both JP Morgan and Deutsche Bank turned down the &quot;opportunity&quot; to market Uber shares to their clients, even though this could jeopardize their position in a future Uber IPO. Why? The &quot;ride sharing&quot; company supplied 290 pages of verbiage, but not its net income or even annual revenues.</p><p>In keeping, while Uber presented a full profit-and-loss statement for the first and second quarters of 2018, it gave only three line-items for the last quarter, when its margins worsened.</p><p>While Uber has reduced its negative gross margin over time, those improvements have come mainly from squeezing driver compensation, so that they now net less per hour on average than taxi operators.</p><p>Through 2015, 80 percent of fares went to drivers. In its early years, Uber gave drivers high payouts to attract good drivers and also offered drivers incentives to buy cars. Uber cut that to as low as 68 percent, then partially reversed it as driver turnover became acute to its current, roughly 70 percent level. In 2017, Uber&#x2019;s margin as reported using GAAP was a negative 57 percent. It would have stayed at the negative triple-digit level absent the driver pay-throttling.</p><p>The pay cuts have led to more driver turnover, which leads to higher managerial costs. And it is degrading service quality. A comment on an article about Uber&#x2019;s third-quarter earnings:</p><p>I needed a ride from Burbank to LAX on a Thursday morning around 5:45 AM. I requested a car the night before. At pickup time there wasn&#x2019;t a Lyft or Uber within 20 miles. When I did get one the driver said that at the rate they are being paid it wasn&#x2019;t worth getting out of bed early anymore.</p><p>Uber&#x2019;s other way of making its margins less terrible has been ditching its worst operations. But even then, Uber&#x2019;s new CEO Dara Khosrowshahi effectively admitted that Uber isn&#x2019;t profitable in any market when you factor in corporate overheads. Uber has been frantically adding new business like Uber Eats and scooter rentals to keep its growth story alive. Uber not only tacitly admits that they aren&#x2019;t covering their costs, it refuses to give any detail about these operations beyond their revenues and does not discuss what it would take for them to turn the corner.</p><p>But what about driverless cars? Let&#x2019;s put aside that some enthusiasts like Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak now believe that fully autonomous cars are &quot;not going to happen.&quot; Fully autonomous cars would mean Uber would have to own the cars. The capital costs would be staggering and would burst the illusion that Uber is a technology company rather that a taxi company that buys and operates someone else&#x2019;s robot cars.</p><p>Uber has succeeded in getting the business press to treat its popularity as the same as commercial success. A few tech reporters, like Eric Newcomer of Bloomberg, have politely pointed out that Uber&#x2019;s results fall well short of other tech illuminati prior to going public. The pitch that dominance would produce profits is demonstrably false and Uber seems unable to come up with a new story. There&#x2019;s every reason to think that investors, not local cab companies, will wind up being Uber&#x2019;s biggest roadkill.</p><p>Source NYMAG.com</p> </div> </div>","url":"https://taxileaks.blogspot.com/2018/12/uber-stapped-fir-cash-is-heading-for.html","date_published":"2018-12-05T03:14:00+00:00","author":{"name":"Editorial"}},{"id":"1145","title":"Apparent Apple Failure","content_html":"<p>In reply to:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n  <p>so unless apple delivers something as successful as a product that repeats the success of a prior product that pretty much all in the industry agrees is unparalleled in terms of success than any other product ever produced … they are stalled?</p>\n\n  <p>(Did that make sense?)</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n<p>– <a href=\"https://micro.blog/JohnPhilpin/1172255\">John Philpin</a></p>\n\n<p>I’m not talking about the best they’ve ever done… I’m talking about the <em>bottom standard</em>:</p>\n\n<ul>\n  <li>The relative lack of movement with regard to hardware updates.</li>\n  <li>Further dumbing down their own software for no discernible reason…</li>\n  <li>… <em>whilst</em> making clumsy changes that affect third-party developers badly.</li>\n  <li>Ramping up prices overall.\n    <ul>\n      <li>Not just premium but an actual <em>fuck you</em> to all but the wealthy few who care.</li>\n    </ul>\n  </li>\n  <li>The utter failure in managing optics for their messes – the “PRIVACY TECH COMPANY THAT CARES” <em>cannot</em> be forgiven for <em>failures in optics</em>.</li>\n  <li>… and the stupid book, the ridiculous fuck ups with leaks, the iPhone battery bullshit.</li>\n</ul>\n\n<p>I mean, <em>come on</em>. Of course they have always fucked up, that’s to be expected since <em>people run these companies</em> but Jobs set a platform and Tim Cook has missed a great chance to create a <em>cavernous</em> difference in quality and stability between them and the competition, a <strong>true and undeniable justification for the premium label</strong>.</p>\n\n<p>Now of course, I am an outsider (I have an iPad and AirPods – both of which are brilliant) who has listened to a bunch of Apple tech podcasts and read Apple punditry for the past few years. If over the next year, as I get more Apple hardware and immerse myself further into their ecosystem, things aren’t as bad as they seem (see: the list above) then great, turns out perception does not match reality. At that point, despite the failings of the people in my position I will <em>still</em> lay some of the blame at Apple’s feet; too many times when they engage in any sort of PR action it is either neutral to the point of irrelevant or so clumsy you’d think they were a bunch of young idiots running their first company, and <em>that</em> is unacceptable.</p>","url":"https://blog.simonwoods.online/2018/11/27/apparent-apple-failure.html","date_published":"2018-11-27T23:15:34+00:00","author":{"name":""}},{"id":"1134","title":"Histomap: Visualizing the 4,000 Year History of Global Power","content_html":"<article class=\"post-article js-post-gallery grid__item main float--left three-quarters\"> <div class=\"article__title__meta\"> <time class=\"article__time\"> on December 2, 2017 at 11:55 am</time> </div> <p>Imagine creating a timeline of your country&#x2019;s whole history stretching back to its inception. </p>\n<p>It would be no small task, and simply weighing the relative importance of so many great people, technological achievements, and pivotal events would be a tiny miracle in itself.</p>\n<p>While that seems like a challenge, imagine going a few steps further. Instead of a timeline for just one country, what about creating a graphical timeline showing the history of the <em>entire world</em> over a 4,000 year time period, all while having no access to computers or the internet?</p>\n<h2>An All-Encompassing Timeline?</h2>\n<p>Today&#x2019;s infographic, created all the way back in 1931 by a man named John B. Sparks, maps the ebb and flow of global power going all the way back to 2,000 B.C. on one coherent timeline. </p>\n<p><em>View a <a href=\"http://www.visualcapitalist.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/histomap-big.html\">high resolution version</a> of this graphic</em><br>\n<a href=\"http://www.visualcapitalist.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/histomap-big.html\"><img src=\"http://2oqz471sa19h3vbwa53m33yj.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/histomap-796.jpeg\" alt=\"histomap timeline\"></a></p>\n<p><a href=\"https://www.davidrumsey.com/luna/servlet/detail/RUMSEY~8~1~200375~3001080:The-Histomap-\">Histomap</a>, published by Rand McNally in 1931, is an ambitious attempt at fitting a mountain of historical information onto a five-foot-long poster. Although the distribution of power is not quantitively defined on the x-axis, it does provide a rare example of looking at historic civilizations in relative terms. While the Roman Empire takes up a lot of real estate during its Golden Age, for example, we still get a decent look at what was happening in other parts of the world during that period.</p>\n<p>The visualization is also effective at showing the ascent and decline of various states, nations, and empires.</p>\n<h2>Timeline Caveats</h2>\n<p>Since this chart was created at the beginning of the Great Depression, one does have to consider to what extent Sparks saw history as a zero-sum exercise; a collection of nations battling one another for control over scarce territory and resources.</p>\n<p>Crowning a world leader at certain points in history is relatively easy, but divvying up influence or power to everyone across 4,000 years requires some creativity, and likely some guesswork, as well. Some would argue that the lack of hard data makes it impossible to draw these types of conclusions (though there have been <a href=\"http://www.visualcapitalist.com/2000-years-economic-history-one-chart/\">other</a> more quantitative approaches.)</p>\n<p>Another obvious criticism is that the measures of influence are skewed in favor of Western powers. China&#x2019;s &#x201C;seam&#x201D;, for example, is suspiciously thin throughout the length of the timeline.</p>\n<p>Lastly, the histomap refers to various cultural and racial groups using terms that may seem rather dated to today&#x2019;s viewers.</p>\n<h2>The Legacy of Histomap</h2>\n<p>John Spark&#x2019;s creation is an admirable attempt at making history more approachable and entertaining. Today, we have seemingly limitless access to information, but in the 1930s an all encompassing timeline of history would have been incredibly useful and groundbreaking.</p>\n<p>Critiques aside, work like this paved the way for the production of modern data visualizations and charts that help people better understand the world around them today.</p>\n<p><a href=\"http://www.visualcapitalist.com/subscribe\"><img class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-1216\" src=\"http://2oqz471sa19h3vbwa53m33yj.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/footer-email.gif\" alt=\"Subscribe to Visual Capitalist\"></a></p>\n<div id=\"mc4wp-form-34\" class=\"form mc4wp-form mc4wp-form-6652 mc4wp-ajax\"><p class=\"mc4wp-alert\">Thank you! <span class=\"mc4wp-mailchimp-error\"></span></p><p class=\"mc4wp-alert\">Given email address is already subscribed, thank you! <span class=\"mc4wp-mailchimp-error\"></span></p><p class=\"mc4wp-alert\">Please provide a valid email address. <span class=\"mc4wp-mailchimp-error\"></span></p><p class=\"mc4wp-alert\">Please complete the CAPTCHA. <span class=\"mc4wp-mailchimp-error\"></span></p><p class=\"mc4wp-alert\">Oops. Something went wrong. Please try again later. <span class=\"mc4wp-mailchimp-error\"></span></p></div>\n<center>\n<div><a href=\"http://www.twitter.com/VisualCap\"><img src=\"http://2oqz471sa19h3vbwa53m33yj.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/vc_twitter.png\" alt=\"Follow Visual Capitalist on Twitter\"></a></div>\n<div><a href=\"https://www.facebook.com/visualcapitalist\"><img src=\"http://2oqz471sa19h3vbwa53m33yj.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/vc_facebook.png\" alt=\"Like Visual Capitalist on Facebook\"></a></div>\n<div><a href=\"http://www.linkedin.com/company/visual-capitalist\"><img src=\"http://2oqz471sa19h3vbwa53m33yj.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/vc_linkedin.png\" alt=\"Follow Visual Capitalist on LinkedIn\"></a></div>\n</center> <h3 class=\"jp-relatedposts-headline\"><em>Related</em></h3> <div class=\"article__meta article--single__meta\"> <div class=\"btn-list\"> <p class=\"btn\">Categories</p> <a class=\"btn btn--small btn--tertiary\" href=\"http://www.visualcapitalist.com/category/data-visualization/\">Data Visualization</a><a class=\"btn btn--small btn--tertiary\" href=\"http://www.visualcapitalist.com/category/maps/\">Maps</a><a class=\"btn btn--small btn--tertiary\" href=\"http://www.visualcapitalist.com/category/misc/\">Misc</a> </div> <div class=\"btn-list\"> <p class=\"btn\">Tagged</p> <a class=\"btn btn--small btn--tertiary\" href=\"http://www.visualcapitalist.com/tag/history/\">history</a><a class=\"btn btn--small btn--tertiary\" href=\"http://www.visualcapitalist.com/tag/major-powers/\">major powers</a><a class=\"btn btn--small btn--tertiary\" href=\"http://www.visualcapitalist.com/tag/map/\">map</a><a class=\"btn btn--small btn--tertiary\" href=\"http://www.visualcapitalist.com/tag/timeline/\">timeline</a> </div> </div> <aside class=\"author\"> <div class=\"author__text\"> <p class=\"author__bio\">Nick Routley is a creative director and writer at Visual Capitalist, a media website that creates and curates visual content on investing and business.</p> </div>\n</aside> </article>","url":"http://www.visualcapitalist.com/histomap/","date_published":"2018-11-25T19:27:46+00:00","author":{"name":"Author Nick Routley Nick "}},{"id":"1133","title":"An Endless Black Friday of the Soul","content_html":"<li class=\"post group\"> <section class=\"group caption_and_post_info \"> <section class=\"caption group\"> <div class=\"cont group\"><p><a href=\"https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F2018%2F11%2F24%2Fopinion%2Fsunday%2Fgig-economy-self-promotion-anxiety.html&amp;t=ZDY3NmM4N2E2ZGRkYjRmYzM0YTQxNjlhN2YzYWU4NTQwOTcxYzMzYyxBd1RUU3VHbQ%3D%3D&amp;b=t%3AGs6I4BFv-h1LegvV1iFKiA&amp;p=http%3A%2F%2Fstoweboyd.com%2Fpost%2F180483624472%2Fan-endless-black-friday-of-the-soul&amp;m=0\">Everything Is for Sale Now. Even Us.</a> | <strong>Ruth Whippman</strong> chillingly profiles where the gig economy has taken us:</p><blockquote><p>As a writer, I am part of the <a href=\"https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.upwork.com%2Fpress%2F2018%2F10%2F31%2Ffreelancing-in-america-2018%2F&amp;t=ODA2Zjg0OTg5OWNiZTY0ZjE1MWE1OTNmOTliOTg3NGJkNjVmOTdiYSxBd1RUU3VHbQ%3D%3D&amp;b=t%3AGs6I4BFv-h1LegvV1iFKiA&amp;p=http%3A%2F%2Fstoweboyd.com%2Fpost%2F180483624472%2Fan-endless-black-friday-of-the-soul&amp;m=0\">35 percent of the American work force</a> that now works freelance in some capacity, either as a main source of income or as some kind of side hustle. This number is growing constantly &#x2014; <a href=\"https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.npr.org%2F2018%2F01%2F22%2F578825135%2Frise-of-the-contract-workers-work-is-different-now&amp;t=ZThiMTc5ZjkxMzcyNzU2MDFhNzYzZTU5Yjk4MmI0NzcxOGMxNTU2ZSxBd1RUU3VHbQ%3D%3D&amp;b=t%3AGs6I4BFv-h1LegvV1iFKiA&amp;p=http%3A%2F%2Fstoweboyd.com%2Fpost%2F180483624472%2Fan-endless-black-friday-of-the-soul&amp;m=0\">94 percent of the new jobs</a> created in the last decade or so were freelance or contract-based.</p><p>When we think &#x201C;gig economy,&#x201D; we tend to picture an Uber driver or a TaskRabbit tasker rather than a lawyer or a doctor, but in reality, this scrappy economic model &#x2014; grubbing around for work, all big dreams and bad health insurance &#x2014; will soon catch up with the bulk of America&#x2019;s middle class.</p><p>Major companies now outsource many of even their most skilled jobs, ditching their in-house lawyers and I.T. support teams in favor of on-demand contractors, paid by the hour. <a href=\"https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.dsa.org%2Fdocs%2Fdefault-source%2Fresearch%2Fdsa_2017_factsanddata_2018.pdf&amp;t=NjZjZDliNzhlY2UyOGYwYjUzYjM4NzE2NWE2ZjQ1NjM5NGQ3MDY5YSxBd1RUU3VHbQ%3D%3D&amp;b=t%3AGs6I4BFv-h1LegvV1iFKiA&amp;p=http%3A%2F%2Fstoweboyd.com%2Fpost%2F180483624472%2Fan-endless-black-friday-of-the-soul&amp;m=0\">More than 18 million Americans</a> are now involved in some kind of direct sales or multilevel marketing scheme, shelling out hundreds of dollars on vitamins or juicers or leggings, then frantically attempting to recoup the money by flogging them to friends and neighbors. <a href=\"https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.upwork.com%2Fpress%2F2017%2F10%2F17%2Ffreelancing-in-america-2017%2F&amp;t=ZjgyMjk1MmRjMmI5ZjA0ZTQ4ZDVhMTg0ZjA2NWExYTI3YWM2ZTI1YSxBd1RUU3VHbQ%3D%3D&amp;b=t%3AGs6I4BFv-h1LegvV1iFKiA&amp;p=http%3A%2F%2Fstoweboyd.com%2Fpost%2F180483624472%2Fan-endless-black-friday-of-the-soul&amp;m=0\">Economists predict</a> that by 2027, gig workers of varying descriptions will make up more than half of the work force. An estimated 47 percent of millennials already work in this way.</p><p>It certainly feels familiar. Almost everyone I know now has some kind of hustle, whether job, hobby, or side or vanity project. Share my blog post, buy my book, click on my link, follow me on Instagram, visit my Etsy shop, donate to my Kickstarter, crowdfund my heart surgery. It&#x2019;s as though we are all working in Walmart on an endless Black Friday of the soul.</p></blockquote><p>The social contract of work has been erased by an endless series of precarious work hook-ups, where jobs are increasingly just one-night stands, and the opportunity for work security and commitment recedes into a rapidly attenuating past. An endless Black Friday of the soul.</p></div> </section> <ul class=\" post_info \"> <li> </li> <li><a href=\"http://stoweboyd.com/post/180483624472/an-endless-black-friday-of-the-soul\" class=\" timestamp has_caption with_title \">2018.11.25</a></li> <li><a class=\"notecount\" href=\"http://stoweboyd.com/post/180483624472/an-endless-black-friday-of-the-soul#notes\">9 notes</a></li> <li><a class=\"tag\" href=\"http://stoweboyd.com/tagged/ruth-whippman\">ruth whippman</a></li> <li><a class=\"tag\" href=\"http://stoweboyd.com/tagged/gig-economy\">gig economy</a></li> <li><a class=\"tag\" href=\"http://stoweboyd.com/tagged/precarity\">precarity</a></li> </ul> <section class=\"post_notes\"> <a> </a> </section> </section> </li>","url":"http://stoweboyd.com/post/180483624472/an-endless-black-friday-of-the-soul","date_published":"2018-11-25T19:09:44+00:00","author":{"name":""}},{"id":"1143","title":"Crossing the (Other) Chasm: To Bridge the Gap Between Sales and Marketing, Customer Understanding is Key","content_html":"<div class=\"field-item even\"><p>Sales and marketing. Cats and dogs. Chalk and cheese. Oil and water.</p> <p>For as long as there have been sales teams and marketing departments, there&#x2019;s been friction. And yet, there&#x2019;s magic in a simple vinaigrette, Vouvray and an aged chevre, even a cross-species best friendship. The same kind of synergy can and should exist between sales and marketing.</p> <p>So why do they seem further apart than ever before?</p> <p>Two words: technology distraction. The hundreds, even thousands of technology tools that are supposed to make the work of selling and marketing easier are driving a wedge between the two, not bringing them together.</p> <p>Do any of these conversations sound familiar?</p> <p><strong>Sales:</strong> Why are these random names appearing in my pipeline?<br><strong>Marketing:</strong> They&#x2019;re marketing qualified leads.<br><strong>Sales:</strong> What exactly makes them &#x201C;qualified&#x201D;?<br><strong>Marketing:</strong> Well, they opened eight emails, clicked on three of them, downloaded a whitepaper, and joined a webinar in our six-week campaign.<br><strong>Sales:</strong> So how do we know they&#x2019;re actually ready to buy?<br><strong>Marketing:</strong> That&#x2019;s your job. --<p><strong>Marketing:</strong> Hey, you didn&#x2019;t give us any attribution for that big deal you just closed. We gave you leads on that one. What&#x2019;s up?</p><br><strong>Sales: </strong>We knew everybody who had a role in making that decision and none of them were the names you gave us.<br><strong>Marketing:</strong> Yeah, but we still had an influence on the outcome.<br><strong>Sales: </strong>(silence) --<p><strong>Sales:</strong> Hey, I&#x2019;ve got this deal I&#x2019;d really like to accelerate and close. What can you tell me about key messages and conversations that will help?</p><br><strong>Marketing:</strong> Well, we can tell you what pages on our website people from that company domain have visited in the last month.<br><strong>Sales: </strong>Guess that&#x2019;s better than nothing. --<p><strong>Marketing:</strong> Hi, can you put me in touch with a senior contact in your customer organization? We want to put together a case study on their use of our new offering.</p><br><strong>Sales:</strong> Uh&#x2026;now&#x2019;s not really a good time. The relationship is a little sensitive at the moment. Come back to me in a few weeks.<br><em>(Three weeks later)</em><br><strong>Marketing:</strong> Hi again! So, I can see in the system that all of the trouble tickets seem to have been cleared in your customer account. Can you put me in touch?<br><strong>Sales:</strong> Yeah, sure. Let me get back to you on that. I&#x2019;ve got a bunch of meetings today.<br><strong>Marketing:</strong> (to voicemail) Me again&#x2026;I&#x2019;ve left you a bunch of messages and sent emails, but haven&#x2019;t heard anything back. Can you please, please, please give me a contact in your customer account for a case study?? --<p> The problem here isn&#x2019;t (necessarily) the technology. It&#x2019;s the fact that we&#x2019;ve lost sight of what really matters. We&#x2019;ve been way too distracted by gaming the system and creating new metrics. Marketing is off doing one thing while sales is focused on another. Meanwhile, customer service is busy dealing with the everyday realities of customer issues.</p></p> <p>Where do we go from here? The key is to focus on the most important fundamental of all: understanding customers.</p> <p>The relationships and handoffs between marketing, sales, and customer service can be much smoother and more effective if everyone shares a clear, coherent understanding of customers. Truly understanding them means knowing who they are (organizations and individuals), their priorities, their competitors, their motivations and obstacles, where they are, how they think, and how they make decisions. Whether they&#x2019;re current customers, dormant customers, or potential ones. It means knowing them well enough to anticipate their needs, sometimes even before they do themselves.</p> <h2>Customer Understanding</h2> <p>So what exactly is Customer Understanding?</p> <p>As a concept, it is the construct behind an integrated, cohesive, holistic, and shared view of customers. This shared view of customers supports marketing, sales, and customer service, as well as strategy and product/offering development. Ultimately, it feeds into almost every aspect of a business.</p> <p>Why do we need this concept? Because to really engage customers, we need to more clearly recognize that there are multiple elements to the customer relationship, and that they change over time. While this is equally true for both consumer and enterprise customers, the relationship elements and how they change can differ significantly.</p> <p>In principle, Customer Understanding encompasses all of aspects of customer interaction. It also incorporates insights&#x2014;both quantitative and qualitative&#x2014;that build a clearer picture of customer priorities, needs, and preferences.</p> <p>Building that understanding requires input from across all customer interactions. Using that understanding to best effect means creating feedback loops that inform how marketing, sales, and customer service operate. That includes inputting to strategy and product or offering development.</p> <p>If Customer Experience describes the relationship from the customer&#x2019;s perspective, Customer Understanding describes the flip side of the coin&#x2014;the cross-enterprise experience of the same relationship.</p> <p>CRM, customer engagement, sales effectiveness, customer service, and field service are critical elements of generating Customer Understanding and delivering Customer Experience. So is the ability to aggregate and analyze data from all of these different sources, as well as from customers themselves. Customer Understanding informs each of these areas and more. It is the unifying concept that determines the appropriate responsibilities and activities across the enterprise. It defines the criteria to design effective processes and make effective technology investments.</p> <p>Done well, a shared Customer Understanding ensures offerings that meet customer needs, compelling messages delivered when customers are receptive to hearing them, and little or no friction in the sales process. It translates into happier, more loyal customers. It goes a long way toward bridging the gap between sales and marketing, too.</p> <p><em>With thanks, and apologies, to Geoffrey Moore</em></p>\n</div>","url":"https://www.constellationr.com/blog-news/crossing-other-chasm-bridge-gap-between-sales-and-marketing-customer-understanding-key","date_published":"2018-11-20T02:55:24+00:00","author":{"name":"Nicole France"}},{"id":"1027","title":"Tech at work: The employee’s take","content_html":"<td class=\"inner contents\"><p class=\"h4\">They are ready for some tasks to go digital.</p> <p>People want performance reviews, problem-solving, teamwork, and asking questions of HR to be face-to-face. However people recognize the value of digitizing certain tasks, especially if it can free them up to focus on more important work.</p> <p><a href=\"http://app.info.pwc.com/e/er?elq_mid=14113&amp;elq_cid=1629283&amp;s=714248197&amp;lid=37023&amp;elqTrackId=ab115d8590b84ff4a78aa19946c08886&amp;elq=51d5339e67eb410f8de515c64d5328ab&amp;elqaid=14113&amp;elqat=1\">Which tasks do they want automated?</a></p> </td>","url":"http://app.info.pwc.com/e/es?s=714248197&e=215787&elqTrackId=e81dae056ec749c58bf06fe6fc2f5f47&elq=51d5339e67eb410f8de515c64d5328ab&elqaid=14113&elqat=1","date_published":"2018-11-11T18:23:27+00:00","author":{"name":""}},{"id":"1015","title":"Dana Blankenhorn","content_html":"<div><div class=\"entry-body\"> <p><a class=\"asset-img-link\" href=\"https://200billionscandal.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83451da3169e2022ad39eaeec200d-pi\"><img alt=\"Trump happy\" class=\"asset asset-image at-xid-6a00d83451da3169e2022ad39eaeec200d img-responsive\" src=\"https://200billionscandal.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83451da3169e2022ad39eaeec200d-250wi\"></a><strong>When you win the popular vote by 9.5% but still lose ground, as Democrats did November 6, your problems are systemic.</strong></p> <p>The result underlies tech&#x2019;s obligation to come out of its shell and fight for the political system that birthed it.</p> <p>Tech moguls have done some things. Jeff Bezos bought <em>The Washington Post</em>, Marc Benioff bought <em>Time Magazine</em>, Laurene Powell Jobs bought <em>The Atlantic</em>. The key to gaining more power will be in creating journalism business models beholden to tech interests.</p> <p>Tech must do to <a href=\"https://www.danablankenhorn.com/2016/11/bizarro-carter.html\">Bizarro Carter</a>&#xA0;what oil did to Jimmy Carter, and for the same reason -- to protect its self-interest.</p> </div><div class=\"entry-more\"> <a class=\"asset-img-link\" href=\"https://200billionscandal.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83451da3169e2022ad3788df7200c-pi\"><img alt=\"Benioff-Onstage-with-Cloud-Shoes-Dreamforce-131\" class=\"asset asset-image at-xid-6a00d83451da3169e2022ad3788df7200c img-responsive\" src=\"https://200billionscandal.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83451da3169e2022ad3788df7200c-250wi\"></a>Until then Trump will go merrily on, bending courts to his will and defying the will of both the people and the economy&#x2019;s growth engine. The 2018 result most resembled that of 1978, when the rising economic tide of oil made gains against a President who disdained it but failed to make a real breakthrough. Technology is the rising economic tide today. <p>The natural reaction of liberals is to urge a boycott of Trumpist states, like my own state of Georgia, by liberal business interests. The solution is the opposite, namely to flood small states with investment, and new employment, so they turn around naturally. That&#x2019;s going to happen. Costs are driving tech companies out of Silicon Valley, Seattle, and the northeast corridor, into other parts of the country. The &#x201C;Rise of the Rest&#x201D; is real.</p> <p><strong>We&#x2019;re about to play the 1979 game.</strong></p> <p>You may remember 1979 as a year when the pressure of oil finally blew the lid off the economy, in the Iranian revolution, in a second oil shock, and a crisis that could only be won through military pressure, which Republicans proceeded to apply even before Ronald Reagan took power.</p> <p>Prosperity then meant controlling resources.</p> <p>Prosperity today means deploying trained minds. Minds are the gating factor to growth. America is the Saudi Arabia of trained minds.</p> <p>During 2019 prices will rise because Trump&#x2019;s tax cut party must be paid for. An annual deficit of over $1 trillion and rising, placed alongside previous deficits, means the government must go to the market and borrow with both hands. This raises the price of money. Interest rates go up, squeezing out borrowers like homebuilders and retailers which need capital, causing layoffs. The stock market falls as well. I expect a crash in many sectors that have been rising very soon. This will take even more capital out of the market.</p> <p><a class=\"asset-img-link\" href=\"https://200billionscandal.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83451da3169e2022ad39eaf28200d-pi\"><img alt=\"Layoff\" class=\"asset asset-image at-xid-6a00d83451da3169e2022ad39eaf28200d img-responsive\" src=\"https://200billionscandal.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83451da3169e2022ad39eaf28200d-250wi\"></a>At the same time, the deflationary pressure of Moore&#x2019;s Law will continue to grow. That means unemployment. This is what happened in the last two recessions. Jobs disappeared. They didn&#x2019;t come back.</p> <p>This is going to hurt those exurban and rural areas where Trump&#x2019;s political power lies. Retailers, farmers, and manufacturers are going to be squeezed by inflation and only those that are ruthless in cutting costs, using technology, will stay in business.</p> <p>This will even be true in energy. Fracking is more expensive than conventional drilling, and crushing bitumen, then combining it with natural gas liquids, as is done in the &#x201C;oil sands&#x201D; of Canada, is even more expensive. Why do that when a fully-capitalized solar panel delivers its energy free? Why do that when the wind blows, the Sun shines, and we still live on a molten rock?</p> <p>Renewable energy is now the cheap energy. Trumpistan is going to be crushed between the twin grinding stones of Wall Street, demanding profits, and technology, cutting costs.</p> <p>At the same time technology companies, for their own protection, are going to have to step up their fight for political power. For oil, in the late 70s, this took the form of a host of intellectual and social pressure groups, funded by oil money, devoted to a host of right-wing causes guaranteed to support the oil and defense industries.</p> <p><a class=\"asset-img-link\" href=\"https://200billionscandal.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83451da3169e2022ad3788e26200c-pi\"><img alt=\"Journalist\" class=\"asset asset-image at-xid-6a00d83451da3169e2022ad3788e26200c img-responsive\" src=\"https://200billionscandal.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83451da3169e2022ad3788e26200c-250wi\"></a>Technologists now must do the same. They need to invest in journalists, especially local journalists, who will tell the story I&#x2019;m telling you now. Even the Cloud Czars can&#x2019;t thrive in a world where they can&#x2019;t import skilled labor, where Washington treats them as a political scapegoat.</p> <p>What technology needs to thrive are open markets, so it can chase global opportunities. But the rise of nationalistic dictators like Trump represent a War of All Against All. Nations are walling themselves in, making war on critics, blaming one another for their problems. This is even leading to a balkanization of the Internet, making it harder to move goods and labor to cut costs and do more business. Trade wars are unhealthy for economies and other growing things.</p> <p>The biggest beneficiary in all this will be China.</p> <p><a class=\"asset-img-link\" href=\"https://200billionscandal.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83451da3169e2022ad3788ebf200c-pi\"><img alt=\"Winnie the pooh xi jinping\" class=\"asset asset-image at-xid-6a00d83451da3169e2022ad3788ebf200c img-responsive\" src=\"https://200billionscandal.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83451da3169e2022ad3788ebf200c-120wi\"></a>China continues to invest in renewable energy. China&#x2019;s internal system is big enough to deliver all the trained minds its tech companies want. Chinese politicians ration freedom strictly, but its tech leaders still have access to the global Internet. China&#x2019;s population remains hungry enough to tolerate these limits in the name of order, because order has made them rich. China has the tools to fight inflation, even to fight global warming, and to keep investing in technology and the infrastructure that grows its wealth and power.</p> <p>China also keeps out the American Cloud Czars. U.S. hardware, software, and service companies won&#x2019;t find comfort in the Chinese market.</p> <p>The real threat to America is economic and can&#x2019;t be met with guns. It can only be met with the tools of freedom, of ordered liberty, with trained minds. That is why technology will fight for power within the American system.</p> <p>A lot of liberals are going to call the situation hopeless in the next few weeks and months. They&#x2019;re going to say that democracy is broken, that the will of the people is stifled, that the world is going to hell in a handbasket. They&#x2019;re right.</p> <p>But pressure is building against dictators in every country. Democrats won the 2018 elections, by a lot. Most Englishmen oppose Brexit. Most Chinese want freedom. Agitation isn&#x2019;t going to stop just because governments stand against the agitators.</p> <p>I can&#x2019;t tell you where the next crisis will occur. I&#x2019;m guessing England. But I do know this. What technology needs to grow is freedom, trained minds that can build wealth with the tools which technology has brought them.</p> <p><a class=\"asset-img-link\" href=\"https://200billionscandal.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83451da3169e2022ad3be503e200b-pi\"><img alt=\"Chaplin the great dictator speech\" class=\"asset asset-image at-xid-6a00d83451da3169e2022ad3be503e200b img-responsive\" src=\"https://200billionscandal.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83451da3169e2022ad3be503e200b-300wi\"></a>Tech doesn&#x2019;t care about the containers its raw material comes in. It doesn&#x2019;t care about your sex, your color, about your age, or about who you love. It doesn&#x2019;t care about your politics, so long as you&#x2019;re willing to work collaboratively. If you can&#x2019;t move at all, you can be the next Stephen Hawking. This is both an economic and political demand. It won&#x2019;t be silenced by guns, because those economies which heed the call are going to grow, and those which ignore it are going to fail.</p> <p>The American system may be bruised, but it is not yet broken. It is the best business environment for obeying the dictates of modern growth. Technologists aren&#x2019;t going to sit idly by and watch their companies be destroyed by today&#x2019;s machine men.</p> <p>As Charlie Chaplin said, in his own voice, at the end of <em>The Great Dictator</em>, two generations ago, &#x201C;In the name of democracy, let us all unite!&#x201D;</p> </div></div>","url":"https://www.danablankenhorn.com/2018/11/the-1979-game.html","date_published":"2018-11-07T00:00:00+00:00","author":{"name":""}},{"id":"1012","title":"I Debated Steve Bannon. It Didn't Turn Out the Way I Expected.","content_html":"<section class=\"s-cms-content\"> <p class=\"dropcap\">Tickets sold out within 15 minutes after Toronto&#x2019;s Munk Debates announced I would debate Steve Bannon on their platform. The negative reaction arrived slower, but it was just as emphatic. A few days before the debate, a member of Parliament for Canada&#x2019;s left-wing New Democratic Party called for its cancelation. The rest of the party&#x2014;the third largest in Parliament&#x2014;later <a href=\"https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/steve-bannon-munk-debate-1.4883327\">signaled</a> agreement with the no-platform demand.</p><p>The Munk debates hold a special place in Canadian public life. For more than a decade, they have brought the learned, the preeminent, and the notorious to Toronto&#x2019;s 2,800-seat symphony hall to test controversial ideas before a highly informed audience. Never before, though, had they ignited the fierce controversy that exploded around the scheduled debate between Bannon and me.</p><p>Over the next hours, I took calls from television and radio bookers: Would I come on their air to defend the debate?</p><p>I declined, again and again. I&#x2019;d written an answer, and I wanted to deliver it once&#x2014;at the debate itself. Some did not want to hear that answer or any other. They decided to shut down the debate by force and threat. They tried to block the entrance to the debate venue, then harassed attendees as they sought to enter. One police officer was punched in the face. Fear that protesters would slip into the event obliged the organizers to search every bag and wand every entrant&#x2014;delaying the start time by 45 minutes. Even with that delay, many ticket-holders were unable to take their seats. One protester nevertheless managed noisily to disrupt Bannon&#x2019;s opening statement, before being drowned out by audience applause and removed by police.</p><p>Forceful interruption of public events is almost always wrong. If I see you reading a book I dislike, I have no right to grab it from you. In a free society, there can be no equivalent of the Saudi religious police, monitoring public behavior and discourse and interrupting things of which they disapprove.</p><section class=\"c-recirc-content\"></section><p>Yet the illegitimacy of violent interruptions of debate in general does not of itself justify any particular debate in specific. In 1860, Oxford University invited the biologist Thomas Huxley and Bishop Samuel Wilberforce to debate Darwin&#x2019;s theory of evolution versus God&#x2019;s design of the universe. No secular university would or should do such a thing today.</p><p>So, no, I personally would not accept an invitation to debate &#x201C;Resolved, husbands should be allowed to beat their wives,&#x201D; or &#x201C;Resolved, the white race is the best race,&#x201D; I would strenuously object if any organization in which I had a role proposed to mount such a debate. If your group undertook to do it, I&#x2019;d of course pay the taxes for your police protection, but I would not be happy about it, and I would not think you were contributing anything except mischief to our public life.</p> <amp-analytics></amp-analytics> <p>Obviously, I did not think I was doing anything like that in debating Steve Bannon. Bannon is not a marginal figure. He is a central personality in the history of our times, who helped to elect a president of the United States and is now advising competitive political parties across Europe. If you think his&#x2014;and their&#x2014;influence is pernicious, well, that influence does not become any less pernicious if you refuse to argue why it is wrong.</p><p>The debate in Toronto focused on a prediction: whether the future belonged to <em>populist </em>politics (the polite term for the politics of Donald Trump and the many Little Trumps in power or competing for power across our Earth) or to <em>liberal </em>politics, in the broadest sense of the word <em>liberal</em>. As I told the audience, I&#x2019;ve spent my life as a conservative, but what I&#x2019;ve sought to conserve is not the Spanish Inquisition or the powers of kings and barons. I&#x2019;ve sought to conserve the free societies that began to be built in the 18th century and that have gradually developed and strengthened&#x2014;with many imperfections and hypocrisies and backsliding&#x2014;in the 250 years since. When I was young, the most important challenges to those free societies seemed to come from Communists and Marxists. When I was not so young, the most important of those challenges seemed to come from Islamists. Today, they seem to come from&#x2014;again, speaking politely&#x2014;populists. The vector of the challenge changes, but the thing to be cherished and protected remains the same.</p><p class=\"dropcap\">Why share a platform, then, with Bannon, one of the most adept and successful of the challengers to all I hold dear?</p><p>I told the audience in Toronto that I hoped to speak to three groups of people:</p><p>I hoped to speak, first, to the small numbers of the genuinely undecided, to those who might imagine that <em>populism </em>offers them something. This is not true. The new populist politics is a scam and a lie that exploits anger and fear to gain power. It has no care for the people it supposedly champions and no respect for them. It will deliver nothing&#x2014;not only because its leaders are almost invariably crooks (although they are), but because they have no plans and no plans to make plans.</p><p>I hoped to speak, next, to the many people who see <em>populism </em>for what it is&#x2014;and who resist it. Since the economic crisis of 2008 and 2009 and the Euro currency crisis that began in 2010, the so-called populists have won election after election in this country and in Europe. <strong>Even </strong>when the anti-populists have won, as they won in France in 2017, they have won by dwindling margins. <strong> Countries </strong>that formerly seemed secure against populism, like Germany, have been trending in ominous directions. But hope is not lost. On Tuesday, the American electorate has the opportunity to set the limit: <em>This far have you gone, you will go no further. The tide turns here. </em>What&#x2019;s most urgently needed now is courage and confidence, and I hoped from the platform to do a little part to inspire <strong>even </strong>just a little more of each.</p><p>I hoped to speak, finally, to those who see <em>populism </em>for what it is&#x2014;and support it. I hoped to look in the face of their most self-conscious and articulate champion, Steve Bannon, and tell them: <em>You will lose</em>. <em>You will discover what so many thugs, and bullies, and plunderers, and people who elevate themselves by subordinating and humiliating others have discovered before you: Liberal democracy is tougher than it looks.</em>The cruel always believe the kind are weak. But human decency and goodness can also move human affairs. They will be felt. And today&#x2019;s &#x201C;populists&quot; will follow their predecessors into what President George W. Bush so aptly called, &#x201C;history&#x2019;s graveyard of discarded lies.&#x201D;</p><p>Yes, the populists spoke to authentic concerns: about the after-shock of the Great Recession and the Euro crisis, about the dislocations of mass immigration, about failed wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, about the frustrations of the middle class, about the selfishness and irresponsibility of financial and political elites across the developed world. Demagogues succeed by talking about things that people authentically care about, not things they don&#x2019;t.</p><p class=\"dropcap\">Bannon and I had met once before, a decade ago. He interviewed me for one of his films back in 2009. We shared then a perception that something had gone terribly wrong with both the American system and conservative politics. To me, that perception called for a constructive program of reform and renewal. It equally seemed to me that Bannon had seen an opportunity to be seized to bring dangerous people and ideas to a power they could never use for good.</p><p>As a debater, Bannon proved engaging and entertaining. When one of his lines gained lonely applause from a single audience member, Bannon quipped, &#x201C;Thanks, Mom.&#x201D; That lit up the room.</p><p>But the longer Bannon spoke, the more clear it became how empty the populist program is. It could observe and exploit the failures of the past 15 years. Trump in 2016 promised that he would provide better health insurance to all Americans at lower cost both to individuals and to the government. That promise has been dishonored. When asked to explain why, Bannon could only point to Paul Ryan and say, &quot;His fault.&quot; Ditto for Trump&apos;s failure to keep his promise to cut taxes for middle-income people by raising them on the financial industry. Ditto for the broken promises to build infrastructure and save lives from opioid addiction. Ditto for the fact that illegal immigration and trade deficits are rising under Trump, despite his emphatic promises to lower both.</p><p>The populists identified real concerns&#x2014;but their answers amount to a fraud and a scam. The failures of a basically good system do not justify overthrowing it and replacing it with something evil.</p><p class=\"dropcap\">So I argued, and as I argued, I believed I carried the room with me. But the room had a trick up its sleeve.</p><p>Like many public debate series, the Munk Debate measures results by tallying support and opposition for the motion at the beginning of the evening and then again at the end. The winner is the side that most moves the room. I once took part in a debate at the IQ Squared series in London. At the start of the evening, 80 percent thought my side was wrong. At the end, 60 percent thought my side was wrong. My side won the evening even though, of course, the room still decisively rejected our point of view.</p><p>At the November 2 debate, the Munk Series introduced for the first time electronic voting in place of paper ballots. The new devices offered the promise of a faster and more certain tally.</p><p>At the start of the evening, the 2,800-capacity hall voted against the resolution&#x2014;that is, for the liberal rather than the populist side&#x2014;by a margin of 72 percent to 28 percent. The numbers flashed on large screens above the stage.</p><p>Taking advantage of the rapid-fire capability of the new technology, the moderators then asked a follow-up question: Are you open to changing your mind? The audience said it was, 57 to 43 percent. The numbers again flashed on the screen.</p><p>Ninety minutes later, after the final exchanges, the room voted again. And the result was stunning: Bannon had triumphed, crushing my side of the argument, 57-43.</p><p>The hall gasped. As an attendee told me later, people looked at their neighbors with surprise and fear. Bannon grinned in triumph. We shook hands, I congratulated him on his upset victory: &#x201C;Just like 2016,&#x201D; I said. Inwardly, though, I felt dismay. The room had not applauded or laughed any more approvingly at the end of Bannon&#x2019;s presentation than at the start. He had not carried his hearers. Through some horrible fault of my own, I must have lost them.</p><p>But that loss, although my fault, was not my problem alone. I had by my apparent failure confirmed every criticism of the debate critics. I had helped to provide a platform in an inhospitable city and country to Bannonism&#x2014;and instead of offering hope, I had contributed to despair. I had lent my name and my energy to powerfully disseminating and legitimating exactly what I had hoped to expose and refute. I had undertaken a great responsibility and had somehow bungled it.</p><p>Worse, I could not even diagnose <em>how </em>I had bungled it. Speak from platforms often enough, and you develop&#x2014;or believe you develop&#x2014;a sense of a room as acute as your sense of sight or smell. Through the evening, I had felt the room was with me, and in growing numbers, too. Yet obviously, I had gotten that wrong. I had not only failed, I had been blind to my own failure.</p><p>You&#x2019;ve probably already guessed what happened, but in the tumult and upset it took the event organizers somewhat longer to recognize the truth. They had <a href=\"https://www.facebook.com/munkdebates/posts/2156941024318389?comment_id=2157610870918071&amp;comment_tracking=%7B%22tn%22%3A%22R0%22%7D\">reposted the second vote as if it were the third</a>.</p><p>As for the actual third vote, it&#x2019;s not clear whether it had been counted at all. The organizers <a href=\"https://www.facebook.com/munkdebates/posts/2156941024318389?comment_id=2157610870918071&amp;comment_tracking=%7B%22tn%22%3A%22R0%22%7D\">announced</a> that the final tally was again 72-28, exactly the same as the first. No change: A draw!</p><p>Or was it? Because of the delay caused by the protests, many people who had been admitted before the exterior doors were closed took their seats only after the first vote had already happened. It&#x2019;s theoretically possible that the larger audience at the end of the debate voted in exactly the same proportion as the smaller audience at the beginning. But the precise replication of the first tally is not confidence-inspiring.</p><p>Of course, as so often happens in our age of fake news, the false report traveled faster&#x2014;and will travel further&#x2014;than the correction. I have remained in Toronto on other business for a few days after the debate, and continue to encounter people who watched some or all of it, and had heard the first wrong result, not the later amended one. And of course, many people who have heard both the false report and the correction will choose to believe the false report, because for one motive or another, it suits them better to believe the false report.</p><p>Scrolling through the online and social-media discussion of the debate, I&#x2019;ve had to accept that the false report will never be entirely overtaken. Even if through no fault of my own, I&#x2019;ve still been party to spreading discouragement rather than&#x2014;as I believed&#x2014;sparking faith and hope.</p><p class=\"dropcap\">The story ends, then, in a great irony. Integral to the liberal project, again in the broad sense of the word <em>liberal</em>, is confidence in the power of reason. Words and arguments can overbear ignorance and prejudice. Over the long term, words and arguments can even overcome oppression and violence. That&#x2019;s why liberals in the broad sense are so uniquely horrified by official lying: How can reason prevail unless words connect to reality? How can we argue against people who will spread fictions, if serviceable to them, without a qualm?</p><p>Illiberals and anti-liberals, on the other hand, appreciate the dark energy of human irrationality&#x2014;not merely as a fact of our nature to be negotiated, but as a potent political resource. People do not think; they feel. They do not believe what is true; they regard as true that which they wish to believe. A lie that affirms us will gain more credence than a truth that challenges us. That&#x2019;s the foundational insight on which Trump built his business career. It&#x2019;s the insight on which Trump&#x2019;s supporters built first their campaign for president and now their presidency itself.</p><p>It&#x2019;s the foundation that I had hoped to expose in Toronto. By a cunning plot twist, I did expose it&#x2014;but in a way that may have strengthened that foundation rather than attacked it.</p><p>The formal portion of the debate between Bannon and me was brought to an end by a stroke of the clock. But the strange result ensured that the actual debate continues. Can we reason our way out of the political nightmare into which unreason has led us? That question remains open still.</p> </section>","url":"https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2018/11/bannon-frum-munk-debate-what-really-happened/574867/","date_published":"2018-11-04T23:00:16+00:00","author":{"name":""}},{"id":"1002","title":"UNPACKING INDUSTRY 4.0 | Platform Strategy – by Sangeet Paul Choudary","content_html":"<div class=\"single_page_con\"> <p class=\"m_5033095370757220841gmail-p2\"><span class=\"m_5033095370757220841gmail-s1\">The platform economy today is poised at an interesting point. We have seen the rise of massive consumer platforms, built on information discovery, communication, commerce, and work exchange. But much of the industrial economy, and most business-to-business interactions, continue to work on the traditional industrial model, and haven&#x2019;t really seen widespread impact of platforms.</span></p>\n<p class=\"m_5033095370757220841gmail-p2\"><span class=\"m_5033095370757220841gmail-s1\">All that is about to change.</span></p>\n<p class=\"m_5033095370757220841gmail-p2\"><span class=\"m_5033095370757220841gmail-s1\">Over the last four years, several technologies have come together to move business-to-business interactions and asset-intensive industries towards the platform economy. This has primarily been driven by the digitization of two things in particular: the digitization of machine performance and the digitization of business workflows.</span></p>\n<p class=\"m_5033095370757220841gmail-p2\"><span class=\"m_5033095370757220841gmail-s1\">First, the promise of improved efficiency management and predictive maintenance have driven the digitization of machine performance, is more than one machines get sensor-enabled, allowing the creation of a digital twin mirroring the machine performance.<span class=\"m_5033095370757220841gmail-Apple-converted-space\">&#xA0;</span></span></p>\n<p class=\"m_5033095370757220841gmail-p2\"><span class=\"m_5033095370757220841gmail-s1\">Second, business workflows are increasingly getting digitized a small of enterprise communication and coordination functions move from in-house systems to cloud-hosted applications. As these workflows move to the cloud, they are increasingly digitized and can interact with other such digitized workflows.</span></p>\n<p class=\"m_5033095370757220841gmail-p2\"><span class=\"m_5033095370757220841gmail-s1\">In addition to these two forces of digitization, improvements in technologies like additive manufacturing are creating entirely new manufacturing models.</span></p>\n<p class=\"m_5033095370757220841gmail-p2\"><span class=\"m_5033095370757220841gmail-s1\"><b>Going beyond machine performance to process performance:</b>&#xA0;The initial driver for the digitization of heavy industry was machine performance. This is interesting in itself because it allows constant monitoring and predictive maintenance of machines. But the larger opportunity is to connect these digitized machines across a manufacturing process, to digitize the overall process performance. As more machines get digitized, digitizing machine performance will get increasingly commoditized, and the value will move towards digitizing and managing process performance by connecting the data output of all machines to create one single view of the process.</span></p>\n<p class=\"m_5033095370757220841gmail-p2\"><span class=\"m_5033095370757220841gmail-s1\"><b>Moving from marketplaces to interacting ecosystems:&#xA0;</b>Many parts of the industrial economy already apply the marketplace model. For example, different parts of the logistics chain, ranging from trucking fleets to container ships have built platforms to match speed capacity with demand, in an Uber-like system for heavy industry logistics. However, these systems are only partially effective because they still need to plug into a traditional supply chain. With increasing digitization, a digitized manufacturing process could started with a digitized logistics system, lending itself to greater coordination across the end-to-end supply chain. This is when large-scale network effects can be unlocked on B2B platforms.</span></p>\n<p class=\"m_5033095370757220841gmail-p2\"><span class=\"m_5033095370757220841gmail-s1\"><b>The myth of the maker revolution:&#xA0;</b>One of the most common misconceptions around the rise of additive manufacturing and 3D printing is that these technologies will democratize manufacturing, much as desktop publishing tools democratize 2D printing. What these predictions often miss, is that much of industrial manufacturing still benefits from standardization. In particular, products and materials that require testing to alleviate risk lend themselves poorly to mass customization. As a result, the biggest benefactors of additive manufacturing are ironically likely to be the large industrial firms that own the testing capabilities, not the independent makers. Additive manufacturing will change what gets produced where but the manufacturing function will still largely be controlled by companies that can best manage the assembly and testing capabilities required to take products to market.</span></p>\n<p class=\"m_5033095370757220841gmail-p2\"><span class=\"m_5033095370757220841gmail-s1\"><b>Rearchitecture of the supply chain</b>: The larger opportunity, as a result, lies not in democratisation of making, but in the rearchitecture of supply chains. I have written about this extensively while talking about the platform economy&#x2019;s impact on <a href=\"http://platformed.info/how-the-platform-economy-is-reshaping-global-trade/\">global trade</a>. The rearchitecture of supply chains will also require new systems for managing B2B workflows and coordination. This will lead to a range of opportunities for companies to provide cloud hosted components for managing these workflows. Think of how the rise of consumer marketplaces and platforms required companies like Twilio to provide the components for managing communication. Similar component providers will need to come up to enable B2B workflows and coordination as well.<span class=\"m_5033095370757220841gmail-Apple-converted-space\">&#xA0;</span></span></p>\n<p class=\"m_5033095370757220841gmail-p2\"><span class=\"m_5033095370757220841gmail-s1\"><b>Opportunities for the digital laggards:</b>&#xA0;Finally, while much of the progress on platforms so far has been spearheaded by a few companies out of Silicon Valley and a few more out of China, the opportunity for building industrial platforms can just as likely be captured by relative platform laggards like the EU and countries like Japan. This is a common theme in most of my work advising governments and planning boards. While much of the consumer platform dominance of the US has emerged outside government involvement, governments are likely to play a much more active role in the industrial platform economy.<span class=\"m_5033095370757220841gmail-Apple-converted-space\">&#xA0;</span></span></p>\n<p class=\"m_5033095370757220841gmail-p1\">We are still early in this move towards B2B platforms. But the companies that really capitalise on these opportunities will be the ones that think beyond applying simple point technologies that digitize specific parts of the existing system and move to rethinking the very architecture of these industrial systems.</p> <h2>TWEETABLE TAKEAWAYS</h2>\n<p>Industry 4.0: The maker revolution is a myth, more power will move to large industrials.<a href=\"https://ctt.ac/A4UVd\"> Share this</a></p>\n<p>Digitization of machine performance and business workflows will drive the Industry 4.0. <a href=\"https://ctt.ac/3sD9K\">Share this</a></p>\n<p>Industry 4.0 is less about sensors and predictive maintenance and more about the rearchitecting of supply chains.<a href=\"https://ctt.ac/_bBxN\"> Share this</a></p> </div>","url":"http://platformed.info/unpacking-industry-4-0/","date_published":"2018-11-02T07:50:40+00:00","author":{"name":""}},{"id":"1010","title":"WATCH: Ahead of Midterms, 'Rigged' Exposes GOP's 10-Year Effort To Sabotage Democracy by Undermining Voting Rights","content_html":"<div id=\"page\"> <p id=\"main-wrapper\"><main id=\"main\" class=\"amp-main clearfix\"> <div id=\"content\" class=\"amp-main__content column\"><div class=\"section\"> <a id=\"main-content\"></a> <div class=\"region region-content\"> <div id=\"block-system-main\" class=\"block block-system\"> <div class=\"content\"> <article id=\"node-122854\" class=\"node node-headline node-sticky clearfix\"> <div class=\"grid-size-12\"> <div class=\"field field-name-field-main-caption field-type-text-long field-label-hidden\"><div class=\"field-items\"><div class=\"field-item even\"><p>The documentary<em> Rigged: The Voter Suppression Playbook</em> can be streamed online for free through Nov. 13, 2018. (Photo: <em>Rigged</em>)</p></div></div></div><div class=\"field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden amp-img pullquote\"><div class=\"field-items\"><div class=\"field-item even\"><p>As the GOP&apos;s attacks on voting rights continue across the United States&#x2014;from <a href=\"https://www.commondreams.org/news/2018/10/24/important-victory-voting-rights-judge-rules-georgia-must-stop-tossing-out-absentee\">Georgia</a> to <a href=\"https://www.commondreams.org/news/2018/11/01/judge-voices-great-concern-over-north-dakota-voter-id-law-rejects-tribes-lawsuit\">North Dakota</a> and <a href=\"https://www.commondreams.org/news/2018/11/02/gop-attacks-voting-rights-federal-court-rulings-enable-suppression-days-ahead\">Kansas</a>&#x2014;and <a href=\"https://www.commondreams.org/news/2018/10/30/our-democracy-sick-progressive-groups-join-forces-ensure-voting-rights-and-end\">a massive coalition</a> of progressive groups has formed to break the hold that powerful corporate and wealthy interests have on American democratic institutions, the recently released documentary <a href=\"https://www.riggedthefilm.com/home\"><em>Rigged: The Voter Suppression Playbook </em></a>aims to reveal, &quot;in chilling detail, the dark genius behind the ten-year Republican strategy to reverse the rising demographic tide of minority voters.&quot;</p>\n<p class=\"pullquote\">&quot;I hope <em>Rigged</em> sounds an alarm that wakes America up to what we, as a nation, are losing&#x2014;government by and for the people.&quot;<br>&#x2014;Jeffrey Wright, narrator</p>\n<p>Filmed during the 2016 election, <em>Rigged </em>was released just ahead of 2018&apos;s highly anticipated midterm elections. The documentary sheds light on strategic efforts by members of the Republican Party at all levels of government, in the wake of former President Barack Obama&apos;s historic 2008 win, to make it more difficult for Americans&#x2014;particularly the young and non-white citizens who helped drive Obama&apos;s initial presidential victory&#x2014;to access their constitutional right to vote.</p>\n<p>The full documentary can be screened online for free <a href=\"https://www.riggedthefilm.com/\">here</a>. Watch the trailer:</p> <p>Despite the ongoing voter suppression efforts detailed in the new film, reports of &quot;<a href=\"https://www.commondreams.org/news/2018/10/31/weve-never-seen-anything-unprecedented-early-voting-gives-progressives-hope\">unprecedented</a>&quot; turnout for early voting are generating cautious hope among progressives that this election could lead to victories that enable Democrats to reverse measures such as voter ID laws enacted by Republicans over the past decade. While record numbers of black, Latino, and youth voters already have headed to the polls, voting rights advocates continue to emphasize the importance of getting to the ballot box Tuesday.</p>\n<p>&quot;Now more than ever, we have to vote as if our rights depend on it,&quot; <a href=\"https://www.aclu.org/news/aclu-tn-celebrate-first-day-early-voting-celebration-and-premiere-film-screening\">declared</a> Hedy Weinberg, executive director of the ACLU of Tennessee, which hosted a public screening of the film last month &quot;to help people fully understand not only the effort to suppress votes nationwide, but&#x2014;more importantly&#x2014;to encourage people to fight back by exercising their right to vote.&quot;</p>\n<p class=\"pullquote\">&quot;Now more than ever, we have to vote as if our rights depend on it.&quot;<br>&#x2014; Hedy Weinberg, ACLU of Tennessee</p>\n<p>Some Americans, however, won&apos;t be able to participate in the upcoming midterms&#x2014;because they have been convicted of a felony, lack the identification their state requires, can&apos;t register on the same day as an election, or simply can&apos;t get to their assigned polling center.</p>\n<p>&quot;Millions will be excluded on Tuesday&#x2014;the voting system is shamefully rigged against ethnic minorities and the poor,&quot; Gary Younge <a href=\"https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/nov/02/democracy-loser-us-midterms-poor-ethnic-minorities\">wrote</a> in a column for the <em>Guardian </em>published Friday. &quot;Whoever wins on Tuesday, democracy will have already lost.&quot;</p>\n<p>Despite what Younge aptly describes as &quot;a profoundly unfair and broken process,&quot; some advocacy groups and candidates campaigning for public office remain optimistic that next week&apos;s election results could provide pathways to repairing the American electoral system by enabling challenges to gerrymandering and measures that strip Americans of their constitutional rights.</p>\n<p>&quot;I hope <em>Rigged</em> sounds an alarm that wakes America up to what we, as a nation, are losing&#x2014;government by and for the people,&quot; <a href=\"https://www.riggedthefilm.com/home\">said</a> Jeffrey Wright, award-winning actor and narrator of the new film. &quot;The suppression of American voters is something we thought our country had moved past, and yet here we are in the 21st century still engaged in this battle over fundamental rights&#x2014;a battle that began centuries ago and that Americans gave their lives fighting. This is a story that needs to be told&#x2014;and heard.&quot;</p>\n</div></div></div> <div class=\"field-wrapper content-container clearfix\" id=\"field-wrapper-sign-up-prompt\"><div class=\"content-prompt clearfix\"><div class=\"cta-content-block-one\"> <div class=\"card card-pink\"> <div class=\"card-block\"> <p><span class=\"big\">Because of people like you, another world is possible. There are many battles to be won, but we will battle them together&#x2014;all of us. <strong>Common Dreams is not your normal news site. We don&apos;t survive on clicks. We don&apos;t want advertising dollars. We want the world to be a better place.</strong> But we can&apos;t do it alone. It doesn&apos;t work that way. We need you. If you can help today&#x2014;because every gift of every size matters&#x2014;please do. </span></p>\n<p><span class=\"big\">Over one thousand Common Dreams readers have donated to this Fall Campaign. Each donation brings us closer. But we are still over $4,000 short, and we will be unable to continue if we don&apos;t reach our goal. We are running out of time. Can you pitch in today?<strong><a href=\"https://secure.actblue.com/donate/we-are-with-you?refcode=commondreams_fall_betterplace\"> Without Your Support We Simply Won&apos;t Exist.</a></strong></span></p> </div> </div>\n</div> </div></div> </div> </article> </div>\n</div> </div> </div></div> </main></p> </div>","url":"https://www.commondreams.org/news/2018/11/02/watch-ahead-midterms-rigged-exposes-gops-10-year-effort-sabotage-democracy","date_published":"2018-11-02T00:00:00+00:00","author":{"name":""}},{"id":"1003","title":"Day 651","content_html":"<div class=\"post-content\">\n<p>1/ <strong>Roger Stone was in communication with Steve Bannon about upcoming WikiLeaks disclosures during the 2016 presidential race</strong>. After WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange publicly claimed to have hacked emails from Hillary Clinton&apos;s campaign chairman, Bannon emailed Stone on Oct. 4: &quot;What was that this morning???&quot; Stone responded that Assange feared for his personal safety, but would be releasing &quot;a load every week going forward.&quot; Last week, Robert Mueller&apos;s team interviewed Bannon for a third time, including about his communications with Stone. (<a href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/01/us/politics/roger-stone-trump-campaign-mueller-wikileaks.html\" class=\"external\">New York Times</a> / <a href=\"https://www.cnn.com/2018/11/01/politics/roger-stone-steve-bannon-emails-wikileaks/index.html\" class=\"external\">CNN</a> / <a href=\"https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/in-email-to-trumps-campaign-strategist-roger-stone-implied-he-knew-of-wikileakss-plans/2018/11/01/2d5d1938-de01-11e8-b732-3c72cbf131f2_story.html\" class=\"external\">Washington Post</a>)</p>\n<ul>\n<li>\n<p><strong>Earlier this week Stone claimed he never discussed WikiLeaks with anybody from the Trump campaign</strong>. &quot;There are no such communications,&quot; Stone said, &quot;and if Bannon says there are, he would be dissembling.&quot; (<a href=\"https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2018/11/01/roger-stones-story-just-changed-russia-again/\" class=\"external\">Washington Post</a>)</p>\n</li>\n<li>\n<p>&#x1F4D6;<strong>Read the emails between the Trump campaign and Roger Stone</strong>. (<a href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/01/us/politics/wikileaks-roger-stone-trump.html\" class=\"external\">New York Times</a>)</p>\n</li>\n<li>\n<p><strong>Jerome Corsi met with Mueller&apos;s investigators</strong> and is scheduled to appear before the federal grand jury probing Russia interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election on Friday. Corsi is one of at least 11 individuals associated with Stone who have been contacted by the special counsel. (<a href=\"https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/conspiracy-theorist-key-figure-mueller-builds-case/story?id=58886291\" class=\"external\">ABC News</a>)</p>\n</li>\n</ul>\n<p>2/ <strong>Trump tweeted a racist video falsely accusing Democrats of allowing a man who murdered two police officers into the country</strong>. The ad shows Luis Bracamontes, a Mexican man who had previously been deported but returned to the U.S. and killed two California sheriff&apos;s deputies, in court with text overlays that say he &quot;killed our people!&quot; and that &quot;Democrats let him into our country&quot; and &quot;Democrats let him stay.&quot; It&apos;s followed by footage of people who appear to be part of a migrant caravan pushing down gates with text then asks: &quot;Who else would Democrats let in?&quot; The ad offers no evidence for claims that Democrats let Bracamontes, who was deported twice, into the country. (<a href=\"https://abcnews.go.com/US/trump-ad-mexican-cop-killer-blatant-racist-fear/story?id=58897185\" class=\"external\">ABC News</a> / <a href=\"https://www.cnn.com/2018/10/31/politics/donald-trump-immigration-paul-ryan-midterms/index.html\" class=\"external\">CNN</a> / <a href=\"https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/live/2018/nov/01/donald-trump-latest-election-video-racist-midterms?page=with:block-5bdaf7bfe4b02dafd12eee99#block-5bdaf7bfe4b02dafd12eee99\" class=\"external\">The Guardian</a>)</p>\n<p>3/ <strong>Before Saudi Arabia acknowledged that Jamal Khashoggi&apos;s death was a &quot;terrible mistake&quot; and a &quot;terrible tragedy,&quot; the crown prince claimed that Khashoggi was a dangerous Islamist</strong>. In a phone call with both Jared Kushner and national security adviser John Bolton, Prince Mohammed bin Salman argued that Khashoggi was a member of the Muslim Brotherhood. Mohammed is expected to retain power despite an international consensus that he&apos;s responsible for the killing. (<a href=\"https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/saudi-crown-prince-described-slain-journalist-as-a-dangerous-islamist-in-call-with-white-house/2018/11/01/b4513e05-2d8e-4533-9cc8-2cabf8bb2d0a_story.html\" class=\"external\">Washington Post</a> / <a href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/01/world/middleeast/with-saudi-prince-holding-on-to-power-us-seen-standing-by-him.html\" class=\"external\">New York Times</a>)</p>\n<p>4/ <strong>Trump&apos;s deployment of an additional 5,200 troops to the southern border could cost as much as a million dollars per day</strong>. Troops are expected to be stationed at the border for 45 days. (<a href=\"https://www.newsweek.com/trump-administration-migrant-caravan-border-troops-1194215\" class=\"external\">Newsweek</a>)</p>\n<p>5/ <strong>Without evidence, Trump claimed that he &quot;wouldn&apos;t be surprised&quot; if George Soros is funding the caravan of Central American migrants</strong> moving toward the U.S. Republican congressmen, cable-news personalities, and Trump Jr. have been pushing the idea that Soros, a wealthy, liberal Jewish donor, was funding the caravan. (<a href=\"https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/414171-trump-i-wouldnt-be-surprised-if-soros-were-paying-for-migrant-caravan\" class=\"external\">The Hill</a> / <a href=\"https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2018/10/29/how-trumps-conservative-media-helped-mainstream-conspiracy-theory-now-tied-tragedy/?utm_term=.4287b199a748\" class=\"external\">Washington Post</a>)</p>\n<ul>\n<li>\n<strong>&#x1F389; Base motivations: Trump claimed that he will take executive action next week to end what he calls an &quot;abuse&quot; of the asylum system</strong>, saying that &quot;massive tent cities&quot; could be erected at the southern border to hold people who cross into the country illegally in detention indefinitely. Trump also said that soldiers at the border may shoot at migrants who commit violence. (<a href=\"https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-11-01/trump-is-said-to-plan-immigration-remarks-in-campaign-final-days\" class=\"external\">Bloomberg</a> / <a href=\"https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-says-he-is-finalizing-plan-to-end-abuse-of-us-asylum-system-vowing-massive-tent-cities-to-hold-migrants/2018/11/01/90fb6252-ddec-11e8-b732-3c72cbf131f2_story.html\" class=\"external\">Washington Post</a>)</li>\n</ul>\n<p>6/ <strong>Trump: &quot;I always want to tell the truth. When I can, I tell the truth.&quot;</strong> Trump has made more than 5,000 false or misleading statements during his nearly two years in office. During the same interview, Trump claimed he is &quot;pretty good at estimating crowd sizes,&quot; which is how he knows the group of migrants traveling north through Central America is &quot;a lot bigger than people would think.&quot; (<a href=\"https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wall-people-trump-defends-military-presence-border/story?id=58878290\" class=\"external\">ABC News</a>)</p>\n<ul>\n<li>\n<strong>Trump suggested that he might invoke a state of national emergency in order to justify using the military to arrest and detain migrants and refugees at the southern border.</strong> When asked what role active duty military personnel would play, since U.S. law prohibits the U.S. Army from being used to enforce domestic law, Trump said &quot;Well it depends, it depends.&quot; He continued: &quot;National emergency covers a lot of territory. They can&apos;t invade our country. You look at that it almost looks like an invasion. It&apos;s almost does look like an invasion.&quot; (<a href=\"https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/transcript-president-trumps-interview-abc-news-correspondent-jonathan/story?id=58894593\" class=\"external\">ABC News</a>)</li>\n</ul>\n<p>7/ <strong>Trump claimed that calling the press the &quot;enemy of the people&quot; is his only way to fight back &quot;when people write stories about me that are so wrong.&quot;</strong> He said he thinks he&apos;s &quot;doing a service&quot; by attacking the press, and that he wouldn&apos;t have been elected if he hadn&apos;t done it during the 2016 campaign. &quot;If they would write accurately about me,&quot; he continued, &quot;I would be the nicest president you&apos;ve ever seen. It would be much easier.&quot; (<a href=\"https://www.axios.com/trump-axios-hbo-media-enemy-of-the-people-441ae349-3670-4f7d-b5d5-04d339a15f68.html\" class=\"external\">Axios</a>)</p>\n<p>poll/ <strong>56% of voters said Trump has done more to divide the country than unite it</strong>. 64% said the media have done more to divide the country. (<a href=\"https://www.politico.com/story/2018/11/01/poll-more-voters-say-media-divide-country-than-trump-952209\" class=\"external\">Politico</a>)</p>\n<p>poll/ <strong>47% of American believe that Russia will try to influence the midterm elections</strong>. 48% believe Russians would try to help Republicans, while 15% say Russia would try to help Democrats. (<a href=\"https://www.politico.com/story/2018/11/01/poll-russia-midterms-2018-hack-907038\" class=\"external\">Politico</a>)</p> <h2 id=\"notables\">Notables.</h2>\n<ol>\n<li>\n<p><strong>Federal judges ordered Ohio to allow voters who had been purged for not voting over a six-year period to participate in the midterm elections</strong>. The state sent confirmation notices to voters that they&apos;d be removed from county voter rolls after not voting in three federal elections. The 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals panel said the state &quot;did not adequately advise registrants of the consequences of failure to respond.&quot; (<a href=\"https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/federal-judges-order-ohio-allow-purged-voters-back-n929526\" class=\"external\">NBC News</a>)</p>\n</li>\n<li>\n<p><strong>National Security Adviser John Bolton called Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua a &quot;Troika of Tyranny,&quot;</strong> declaring Jair Bolsonaro&apos;s recent election in Brazil a &quot;positive sign&quot; for Latin America. Bolsonaro has made numerous homophobic and sexist remarks, and supports military rule. (<a href=\"https://www.axios.com/john-bolton-latin-america-speech-bolsonaro-troika-c7d41d0c-f0c7-4bb9-b19a-9ac0b693ca0e.html\" class=\"external\">Axios</a>)</p>\n</li>\n<li>\n<p><strong>Trump&apos;s top economic adviser opposes the federal minimum wage, arguing that it&apos;s a &quot;terrible idea&quot; and that raising it would &quot;damage&quot; small businesses</strong> by forcing their payroll to increase. Larry Kudlow also said that he would oppose any attempt to work with Democrats in Congress to raise the federal minimum wage should they take back the House or Senate in the 2018 midterm elections. (<a href=\"https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2018/11/01/president-trumps-top-economic-adviser-calls-federal-minimum-wage-terrible-idea/\" class=\"external\">Washington Post</a>)</p>\n</li>\n<li>\n<p><strong>The EPA approved the use of a weedkiller prone to drifting and damaging nearby crops and wild vegetation</strong>. Farmers started using dicamba because glyphosate, their previous favorite weedkiller, isn&apos;t working as well anymore. (<a href=\"https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2018/11/01/662918255/the-epa-says-farmers-can-keep-using-weedkiller-blamed-for-vast-crop-damage\" class=\"external\">NPR</a>)</p>\n</li>\n<li>\n<p><strong>Trump said he had a &quot;long and very good conversation&quot; with Chinese President Xi Jinping</strong>, claiming trade &quot;discussions are moving along nicely.&quot; (<a href=\"https://www.wsj.com/articles/trump-signals-progress-on-trade-after-phone-call-with-chinese-president-xi-1541083811\" class=\"external\">Wall Street Journal</a> / <a href=\"https://www.politico.com/story/2018/11/01/trump-china-trade-955069\" class=\"external\">Politico</a>)</p>\n</li>\n<li>\n<p><strong>Trump wants to offer a former Fox News anchor the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations job</strong>. Heather Nauert, currently the State Department spokeswoman, would take over from Nikki Haley, who announced last month that she would step down at the end of the year. (<a href=\"https://www.cnn.com/2018/11/01/politics/nauert-trump-un-ambassador/index.html\" class=\"external\">CNN</a> / <a href=\"https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/trump-offers-heather-nauert-role-us-ambassador-united/story?id=58903903\" class=\"external\">ABC News</a>)</p>\n</li>\n</ol>\n<span id=\"todaylastyear\"></span>\n</div>","url":"https://whatthefuckjusthappenedtoday.com/2018/11/01/day-651/","date_published":"2018-11-01T21:02:00+00:00","author":{"name":"Matt Kiser"}},{"id":"998","title":"12 Young People on Why They Probably Won’t Vote","content_html":"<div><div class=\"article-content inline\">\n      <div class=\"lede-image-wrapper inline horizontal\">\n          <picture> <source srcset=\"https://pixel.nymag.com/imgs/daily/intelligencer/2018/10/25/magazine/29-young-voters-lede-new.w700.h467.2x.jpg 2x\"> <source srcset=\"https://pixel.nymag.com/imgs/daily/intelligencer/2018/10/25/magazine/29-young-voters-lede-new.w700.h467.jpg\"> <source srcset=\"https://pixel.nymag.com/imgs/daily/intelligencer/2018/10/25/magazine/29-young-voters-lede-new.w700.h467.2x.jpg 2x\"> <source srcset=\"https://pixel.nymag.com/imgs/daily/intelligencer/2018/10/25/magazine/29-young-voters-lede-new.w700.h467.jpg\"> <source srcset=\"https://pixel.nymag.com/imgs/daily/intelligencer/2018/10/25/magazine/29-young-voters-lede-new.w700.h700.2x.jpg\"> <img src=\"https://pixel.nymag.com/imgs/daily/intelligencer/2018/10/25/magazine/29-young-voters-lede-new.w700.h700.jpg\" class=\"lede-image\" alt=\"\"> </picture>\n            <div class=\"lede-image-data\">\n              <div class=\"attribution\">\n                  From left: Laura, Nathan, and Jocelyn.\n                <span class=\"credit\">Photo: Courtesy of the subjects</span>\n              </div>\n            </div>\n      </div>\n          <p class=\"clay-paragraph\">More than half of American adults plan to cast ballots in November, but only a third of people ages 18 to 29 say they will. Here, 12 young adults on why they probably won&#x2019;t vote. (See also: <a href=\"http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2018/10/disaffected-young-americans-vote-in-the-2018-midterms.html\">Many reasons why you really, really should.</a>)</p>\n        \n          \n        \n          \n        \n          <p class=\"clay-paragraph\"><strong>2016 was such a disillusioning experience.</strong> Going into the election, I was so proud to be in this country at this moment, so proud to be voting for Hillary Clinton. I had my Clinton sweatshirt on all day. I was on Twitter telling people that if they didn&#x2019;t vote they were dead to me &#x2014; like the whole thing. Watching the results come in, it was just disheartening. My faith in the whole system was crushed pretty quickly. That was the first general election I could vote in, too.</p>\n        \n          \n        \n          \n        \n          \n        \n          <p class=\"clay-paragraph\">Those actual full-progressive candidates make me optimistic. But there&#x2019;s still a lot of powerful people, especially in the Democratic Party, that are centrists, and that&#x2019;s just a little frustrating when it comes time to stand up to this president and the policies he&#x2019;s trying to pass. Like the Kavanaugh thing &#x2014; I get that they&#x2019;re the minority and that was an uphill battle, but I just feel like there wasn&#x2019;t a big enough fight put up to that, and I think there continues to not be a big enough fight.</p>\n        \n          <p class=\"clay-paragraph\"><strong>Full disclosure: I have a ballot sitting at home.</strong> In 2016, I voted absentee and I just marked off &#x201C;Send me a mail-in ballot for every election.&#x201D; I don&#x2019;t really get that argument that it&#x2019;s really hard. Like, it&#x2019;s not that hard.</p>\n        \n          \n        \n          \n        \n          <p class=\"clay-paragraph\">I think there&#x2019;s a way to be an informed nonvoter. <strong>I&#x2019;d rather have an informed nonvoter than an uninformed voter going in and making a choice they don&#x2019;t understand.</strong> You&#x2019;re voting for a politician going into office, and I&#x2019;m seeing less change there than I am through grassroots organizing. Since Trump&#x2019;s been elected, those grassroots groups have really been doing great, great work. So I guess it&#x2019;s that: where you&#x2019;re seeing the impact.</p>\n        \n          \n        \n          \n        \n          <p class=\"clay-paragraph\"><strong>In my senior year in high school, I was probably borderline socialist. </strong>Though I don&#x2019;t really think I understood what a socialist was. I was blatantly liberal and didn&#x2019;t bother to check myself. My friend gave me <em>The Prince,</em> by Machiavelli. I read that, and it provided a certain nuance that I didn&#x2019;t have. From there, I read more, and I realized that a lot of things I&#x2019;d thought before were wrong. I got into Hellenism. I read Cicero, Livy. Later on, I got into Voltaire. Then, in college, my field is American politics and political science. I prefer constitutional law and Alexander Hamilton.</p>\n        \n          \n        \n          \n        \n          \n        \n          <p class=\"clay-paragraph\">There are things that I&#x2019;m aware of where I&#x2019;m certain I&#x2019;m right. But for most things, although I feel strongly, it&#x2019;s very probable that there&#x2019;s some aspect of this that I don&#x2019;t understand. Somebody provides a new avenue of thought, and it changes the way I think about something. I never felt certain enough to vote. But I&#x2019;m a political-science student, and the talk of voting is really big in my circle of friends. In 2016, I almost did. Of course, I&#x2019;m not a big fan of Trump, but I didn&#x2019;t know if Trump was going to be a flash in the pan or &#x2014; I just didn&#x2019;t know what to do. I didn&#x2019;t want to help something that might end up being wrong.</p>\n        \n          \n        \n          \n        \n          <p class=\"clay-paragraph\"><strong>I tried to register for the 2016 election, but it was beyond the deadline by the time I tried to do it. I hate mailing stuff; it gives me anxiety.</strong> I don&#x2019;t remember seeing voter-registration drives, no. I&#x2019;ve seen a lot more the past two years. I&#x2019;m sure there must have been stuff. I just don&#x2019;t remember it.</p>\n        \n          \n        \n          \n        \n          <p class=\"clay-paragraph\">I guess I still thought, <em>Okay, my vote is largely symbolic in this election because I&#x2019;m in Texas.</em> Even if Texas went blue, I&#x2019;m pretty sure my vote wouldn&#x2019;t matter anyway. Austin is very liberal, but it&#x2019;s very gerrymandered.<br>The House district I&#x2019;m in goes GOP every election, which is ridiculous. I was particularly interested in voting in 2016 because Donald Trump is so stupid. It drove me up a wall &#x2014; he knew way less about the government than I do.</p>\n        \n          \n        \n          <p class=\"clay-paragraph\">I have ADHD, and it makes it hard for me to do certain tasks where the payoff is far off in the future or abstract. I don&#x2019;t find it intrinsically motivational. The amount of work logically isn&#x2019;t that much: Fill out a form, mail it, go to a specific place on a specific day. But <strong>those kind of tasks can be hard for me to do if I&#x2019;m not enthusiastic about it.</strong> That&#x2019;s kind of a problem with social attitudes around, you know, &#x201C;It&#x2019;s your civic duty to vote.&#x201D; I once told a co-worker I didn&#x2019;t vote, and she said, <strong>&#x201C;That&#x2019;s really irresponsible,&#x201D; in this judgmental voice.</strong> You can&#x2019;t build a policy around calling people irresponsible. You need to make people enthusiastic and engaged.</p>\n        \n          <p class=\"clay-paragraph\">After 2016, a couple friends became a lot more politically active, and they helped me register and mail the form. <strong>So I actually am registered now. I&#x2019;m leaning toward probably voting in the midterms.</strong> It feels like the reason to vote is symbolic. The motivation isn&#x2019;t about the actual value my vote has; it&#x2019;s more like a theoretical signaling value. If that&#x2019;s the case, I would rather signal that Democrats should have more progressive candidates, rather than assuming that everyone on the left will automatically vote for the candidates they run. In the end, whether I vote probably depends on how close the candidates are.</p>\n        \n          \n        \n          \n        \n          \n        \n          \n        \n          <p class=\"clay-paragraph\">I rent and move around quite a bit, and when I try to get absentee ballots, they need me to print out a form and mail it to them no more than 30 days before the election but also no less than seven days before the election. Typically, I check way before that time, then forget to check again, or just<br> say &#x201C;Fuck it&#x201D; because I don&#x2019;t own a printer or stamps anyway. It&#x2019;s incredibly difficult for hourly workers or young people who are in rotational programs or travel frequently for their careers to vote. I wish every state&#x2019;s rules were the same so there was not so much confusion and it was easy to find straightforward information on how exactly to get absentee ballots.</p>\n        \n          \n        \n          \n        \n          \n        \n          <p class=\"clay-paragraph\">I feel like the Democratic Party doesn&#x2019;t really stand for the things I believe in anymore. Why should I vote for a party that doesn&#x2019;t really do anything for me as a voter? Millennials don&#x2019;t vote because a lot of politicians are appealing to older voters. We deserve politicians that are willing to do stuff for our future instead of catering to people who will not be here for our future. I&#x2019;m a poli-sci major, so talking about politics is a daily thing for me. Half of the people I talk to seem very into voting. The other half are people who, like me, don&#x2019;t really feel represented. The only thing they choose to vote in is local elections.</p>\n        \n          \n        \n          \n        \n          \n        \n          \n        \n          <p class=\"clay-paragraph\"><strong>In high school, I didn&#x2019;t even know our vice-president&#x2019;s name was Joe Biden. All my high-school classmates were Republicans.</strong> They were very vocal about it, especially during the whole Romney-and-Obama election. <strong>I realized I didn&#x2019;t believe everything they were saying. </strong>Then I Googled &#x201C;Republican versus Democrat,&#x201D; and I like kinda both, kinda not. That&#x2019;s why I&#x2019;m an Independent. It wasn&#x2019;t till the Trump-versus-Hillary election that I realized how important it is to vote. Maybe it had to do with, like, society and all. Everyone I was following was like, &#x201C;Go out to vote.&#x201D; I was in college in Massachusetts. I decided that I wasn&#x2019;t gonna go through that long process for an out-of-state student to register to vote. I had a hectic schedule. <strong>I just didn&#x2019;t have the time and energy. </strong>Also I didn&#x2019;t know how my parents would feel about that whole thing, &#x2019;cause my brother does not vote either. So it wasn&#x2019;t asked if they could help us out with the registration and mailing all the forms to us. My mom is a Republican, my dad is a Democrat, and I did not learn that until the 2016 election, after begging them to tell me at least what their party was.</p>\n        \n          \n        \n          <p class=\"clay-paragraph\">I realized that I should&#x2019;ve voted afterward. Ever since that election, <br> I started turning on not just CNN but also Fox News on the iPhone news app. I plan to vote in 2020. I have a goal set to know more about politics by that time.</p>\n        \n          \n        \n          \n        \n          \n        \n          \n        \n          <p class=\"clay-paragraph\"><strong>I volunteered for Bernie Sanders. </strong>I went to many rallies, I was at the first presidential debate in Las Vegas. But when he folded, then immediately went and defended Hillary, a person who he&#x2019;s been campaigning against for 18 months, that just really killed it for me. I just have no respect for that. <strong>It&#x2019;s the same thing on the other side.</strong> Look at Ted Cruz, who&#x2019;s spent his last two years being made fun of by Donald Trump, and then we see Trump saying Cruz is the right guy in Texas to go against Beto O&#x2019;Rourke. <strong>It&#x2019;s just so much political theater,</strong> and it really just turned me off entirely.</p>\n        \n          <p class=\"clay-paragraph\"><strong>I wasn&#x2019;t planning to vote in 2016.</strong> I was with my mom, we were at Albertsons grocery store around the corner from my house, and they were in there voting. My mom voted, and it took her literally ten seconds. She said, &#x201C;You should do it,&#x201D; and I said, &#x201C;I don&#x2019;t know, I don&#x2019;t really think I want to.&#x201D; And she was like, &#x201C;Aaron, it just took a minute.&#x201D; So I said, &#x201C;Okay, fine.&#x201D; <strong>I just voted for Hillary. I felt bad about it for two years.</strong></p>\n        \n          \n        \n          \n        \n          \n        \n          <p class=\"clay-paragraph\">I look at it this way: That report just came out the other day about global warming, talking about how we have 12 years, until 2030, for this radical change unlike the world has ever seen. And The Hill newspaper just put out that article about how the DNC does not plan on making climate change a big part of their platform, even still. I just do not understand why I would vote for a party that doesn&#x2019;t care about me in any way. They can say, &#x201C;Sure, we&#x2019;ll lower student interest rates.&#x201D; Well, I don&#x2019;t give a shit about student interest rates if I&#x2019;m not going to live past 13 more years on this planet. Everyone on Twitter can be like, &#x201C;Oh, we need the Democratic Senate to pack the courts.&#x201D; But have they watched the Democratic Party at any time during my lifetime? They have not done anything. Like, they don&#x2019;t stand for anything. And I just don&#x2019;t see the point anymore.</p>\n        \n          <p class=\"clay-paragraph\">There are people that are exciting. Bernie was exciting, Cynthia [Nixon] was exciting, and Alexandria [Ocasio-Cortez] is exciting. <strong>So would I vote in the future? I don&#x2019;t know. </strong>If somebody came along that was exciting like that? Yeah. Probably.</p>\n        \n          \n        \n          \n        \n          <p class=\"clay-paragraph\"><strong>I&#x2019;m trying to register in my hometown of Austin, Texas.</strong> It&#x2019;s such a tedious process to even get registered in Texas, let alone vote as an absentee. There&#x2019;s no notification service about the status of my voter registration. There&#x2019;s a small, outdated website where you can enter your information and check. When I was at the post office to register, this poor girl, clearly also a college student like me, didn&#x2019;t know what &#x201C;postmarked&#x201D; meant and had no idea how to send an important document by mail. Most people my age have zero need to go to the post office and may have never stepped into one before. Honestly, if someone had the forms printed for me and was willing to deal with the post office, I&#x2019;d be much more inclined to vote.</p>\n        \n          \n        \n          \n        \n          \n        \n          \n        \n          \n        \n          <p class=\"clay-paragraph\"><strong>I vote when I feel like I have to.</strong> But I mostly consider it something that sucks a lot of people&#x2019;s time and energy away from actually building power with the people around them.</p>\n        \n          <p class=\"clay-paragraph\">New York especially has a pretty vibrant tenant-organizing scene. You see organizing around community gardens, around people protesting new development going in, people working against rezoning. Regardless of the outcome of those things, I think people leave with a sense of empowerment. You might have failed this fight, but now you know your neighbor. Now you have a whole network you can call up the next time this happens. But if you lose an election, or the candidate you&#x2019;re pushing loses, then what do you have after that? You have this kind of despair for the next two or four or whatever years.</p>\n        \n          \n        \n          \n        \n          <p class=\"clay-paragraph\">If we get to a blue wave in the midterms and then things just continue on, people will feel deflated and check out. Which is why <strong>I think you&#x2019;ve got to have something besides just strategic voting,</strong> or people resigning themselves to a candidate they don&#x2019;t love but who is at least a Democrat.</p>\n        \n          \n        \n          <p class=\"clay-paragraph\">In 2008, I was extremely enthusiastic to vote for Barack Obama. But over the years, I started to understand the electoral system as exactly how I&#x2019;ve characterized it. <strong>For a while, I thought it was an immoral act to vote.</strong> It means that we&#x2019;re giving our approval to a system that I totally do not want to validate. Over the years, I&#x2019;ve started to think maybe we don&#x2019;t have to frame this so much as an individual act with these moral consequences and that I need to stop being so dramatic about it. So, for instance, I voted for Cynthia Nixon in the primary recently. I teach at CUNY. Insofar as she was in a position where she could have been elected and made a difference in this, yes, <strong>I&#x2019;ll take the five minutes out of my day to go vote.</strong> But it&#x2019;s not something that we should, as a society, be making the horizon of our political organizing.</p>\n        \n          <p class=\"clay-paragraph\">My polling place is at the end of my block. It takes no time at all; it&#x2019;s an extremely easy process. But I think that&#x2019;s also what makes it seem sort of alienating and anticlimactic. You go in and you&#x2019;re like, &#x201C;This is the climax of democracy,&#x201D; like, the sticker on my chest is the climax of democracy.</p>\n        \n          \n        \n          \n        \n          \n        \n          \n        \n          <p class=\"clay-paragraph\"><strong>It was easier to get my medical-marijuana card &#x2014; not a right, or even federally legal &#x2014; than it was to register to vote.</strong> Massachusetts had online registration but only if you have a DMV-issued ID. I don&#x2019;t drive, so I was like, okay, <strong>I can register in person, but I&#x2019;m also dealing with a chronic illness.</strong> Every day is a guessing game: Am I going to feel up to doing anything today? I put it off. <strong>The week before the deadline, I ended up being really sick and I wasn&#x2019;t able to leave home.</strong> You can send in your registration by mail, but I didn&#x2019;t have stamps. I kept thinking that I shouldn&#x2019;t have to jump through this many hoops to register. Back in July, I&#x2019;d gotten a medical-marijuana card to treat my chronic illness. The entire thing is done online &#x2014; it&#x2019;s the same requirements as registering to vote.</p>\n        \n          \n        \n          \n        \n          \n        \n          <p class=\"clay-paragraph\"><strong>Growing up, going to Catholic school, everything we learned had a skew on it. </strong>Whenever we were taught about voting or political issues, it was not about learning the issues and matching what you feel personally, it was, &#x201C;This is what the Catholic Church teaches, and this is how you should vote or you&#x2019;re wrong.&#x201D; <strong>I think that shaped me to hate politics and not want to be involved.</strong></p>\n        \n          \n        \n          \n        \n          <p class=\"clay-paragraph\">The idea of leaving work, forwarding all of my calls to my phone, to go stand in line for four hours, to probably get called back to work before I even get halfway through the line, sounds terrible. I would have to tell work, &#x201C;Hey, I&#x2019;m not coming in until noon today,&#x201D; and <strong>in the end, if it&#x2019;s not something I&#x2019;m extremely passionate about,</strong> do I want to spend four hours of vacation doing something I don&#x2019;t quite want to do?</p>\n        \n          <p class=\"clay-paragraph\">There are issues I care about: immigration, access to health care. Women&#x2019;s reproductive rights is a big one &#x2014; because I could never imagine taking away anyone else&#x2019;s choice.</p>\n        \n          \n        \n          \n        \n          \n        \n          <p class=\"clay-paragraph\"><strong>You&#x2019;re not prepared for all the candidates.</strong> You&#x2019;re sent things in the mail, but as a 28-year-old, I read everything online. I love that literally everyone is promoting actually registering to vote, but it&#x2019;s never how to vote or the steps to voting or what you do next after you&#x2019;ve registered to vote. After that, it kind of just drops off and you&#x2019;re left in the dark, like, I don&#x2019;t know what to do next, you know?</p>\n        \n          \n        \n          \n        \n          <p class=\"clay-paragraph\">My parents are of the generation where they actually watch the news, and they know about candidates via the news. Where my generation, the millennial generation, is getting all their news from social media like Twitter or Instagram or Facebook, and that is not always the best. Reading things through social media is snippets, and it&#x2019;s not the whole details on everything, you know?</p>\n        \n          <p class=\"clay-paragraph\">It&#x2019;s a wild theory, but setting voting up so that it&#x2019;s all on social media, putting all that information in just an Instagram Story, in a Snapchat filter or whatever &#x2014; bulleted-out, easy-to-read, digestible content &#x2014; would encourage me to vote. Just maybe it&#x2019;s a social-media page or an Instagram page where it gives daily facts about how to do things or DIYs on how to vote for yourself, something like that. Just to make it easily digestible to a younger audience that&#x2019;s on social media, &#x2019;cause that&#x2019;s how they digest their information.</p>\n        \n          \n        \n          <p class=\"clay-paragraph\"><em>*A version of this article appears in the October 29, 2018, issue of&#xA0;</em>New York&#xA0;<em>Magazine.&#xA0;</em><a href=\"https://subs.nymag.com/magazine/subscribe/nym-article-aa.html\"><strong>Subscribe Now!</strong></a></p>\n        \n          <aside class=\"related related-count-1\">\n          \n            \n        \n          \n        </aside>\n        \n    </div></div>","url":"http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2018/10/12-young-people-on-why-they-probably-wont-vote.html","date_published":"2018-10-30T10:00:02+00:00","author":{"name":""}},{"id":"982","title":"What If Only Men Voted? Only Women? Only Nonwhite Voters?","content_html":"<p class=\"byline secondary\">Graphics by <a href=\"/contributors/rachael-dottle/\">Rachael Dottle</a></p>\n<p>Imagine if only one group of Americans cast their ballots this November. What would happen to the electoral map? We’ve <a href=\"https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/election-update-women-are-defeating-donald-trump/\">conducted this kind of thought experiment before</a>; it can help shed light on why the parties are hoping that certain groups — such as <a href=\"https://www.cbsnews.com/news/these-are-the-women-who-will-decide-the-midterm-elections/\">suburban women</a> for Democrats, <a href=\"https://www.cnbc.com/2018/10/23/trump-and-gop-unleash-anti-immigrant-onslaught-to-sway-midterm-voters.html\">white working class voters</a> for Republicans — will help them win seats in 2018.</p>\n<p>The groups we’re focused on are women, men, nonwhite voters and white voters by education level. To estimate just how Republican or Democratic those groups are, we looked at generic ballot polls from October that have crosstabs<a class=\"espn-footnote-link\" data-footnote-content=\"&lt;p&gt;We took the most recent generic ballot polls from 10 pollsters &amp;#8212; collectively the surveys were in the field from Oct. 4 to Oct. 20 &amp;#8212; and used the crosstab data for party vote preference by gender and race, along with education among white voters. If a group was not mentioned in a poll’s crosstabs, I contacted the pollster to get the data. The generic ballot poll averages include data from all 10 pollsters except for education among whites, which came from eight of the pollsters.&lt;/p&gt;\n\" data-footnote-id=\"1\" href=\"#fn-1\"><sup id=\"ss-1\">1</sup></a> and calculated how much a group leaned toward one party, on average. From there, we compared a group’s average margin to the margin from our national <a href=\"https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/congress-generic-ballot-polls/\">generic ballot tracker</a> to figure out how many points to handicap a House district’s current polls-only margin<a class=\"espn-footnote-link\" data-footnote-content=\"&lt;p&gt;In other words, I subtracted the forecast Democratic vote share from the forecast Republican vote share in each district.&lt;/p&gt;\n\" data-footnote-id=\"2\" href=\"#fn-2\"><sup id=\"ss-2\">2</sup></a> using the Lite version of our <a href=\"https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2018-midterm-election-forecast/house/#lite\">House forecast</a>.<a class=\"espn-footnote-link\" data-footnote-content=\"&lt;p&gt;Data is as of 7 p.m. Eastern on Oct. 24. We use the Lite version of our forecast because it relies only on polling data.&lt;/p&gt;\n\" data-footnote-id=\"3\" href=\"#fn-3\"><sup id=\"ss-3\">3</sup></a></p>\n<p>So let’s take a look at our first scenario to help explain what I mean. On average, women leaned 17 points more Democratic in October polls, but the generic ballot average leaned D+9, so women overall were 8 points<i> to the left</i> of the nation. So, say a district had a forecast vote share favoring the Republican candidate by 7 points. Under these conditions, an all-women electorate would elect the Democrat by 1 point. Now, shifts like this would not happen uniformly across the country — women in Wyoming are likely more conservative than women in Hawaii, and we’re not taking into account the specific demographics of any given district. But despite that, the results do help underscore just how far apart different parts of the electorate still are.</p>\n\t\t<figure class=\"wp-caption aligncenter \" id=\"attachment_194005\" style=\"max-width: 575px\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<img alt=\"\" class=\"size-full wp-image-194005\" height=\"546\" src=\"https://fivethirtyeight.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/skelley-HOUSE-MAPS-4.png\" srcset=\"https://fivethirtyeight.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/skelley-HOUSE-MAPS-4.png?w=575 1x, https://fivethirtyeight.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/skelley-HOUSE-MAPS-4.png?w=1150 2x\" width=\"575\"/>\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t</figure>\n\t\t\n<p>A women-only electorate would give Democrats a huge House majority: The adjusted vote share estimates suggest that women would elect 275 Democrats to just 160 Republicans, which is 44 more Democratic seats than the 231 projected Wednesday in the Lite version of our forecast. To put that in perspective, the last time either party won more than 270 seats was in 1978, <a href=\"https://web.archive.org/web/20181003101920/https://history.house.gov/Institution/Party-Divisions/Party-Divisions/\">when the Democrats won 278</a>. But that was a <a href=\"https://legacy.voteview.com/images/png/house_party_means_1879-2015.png\">less polarized era</a>, and <a href=\"https://kb.osu.edu/dspace/bitstream/handle/1811/29316/1/CHEAP_SEATS.pdf\">Democrats held a number of institutional and partisan advantages in the House</a>. Since 1994 — <a href=\"http://www.people-press.org/2014/06/12/section-1-growing-ideological-consistency/\">sometimes seen</a> as the starting point of our current political era — the Democrats’ 257-seat result in 2008 stands as the best mark for either party.</p>\n\t\t<figure class=\"wp-caption aligncenter \" id=\"attachment_194004\" style=\"max-width: 575px\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<img alt=\"\" class=\"size-full wp-image-194004\" height=\"564\" src=\"https://fivethirtyeight.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/skelley-HOUSE-MAPS-3-2.png\" srcset=\"https://fivethirtyeight.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/skelley-HOUSE-MAPS-3-2.png?w=575 1x, https://fivethirtyeight.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/skelley-HOUSE-MAPS-3-2.png?w=1150 2x\" width=\"575\"/>\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t</figure>\n\t\t\n<p>Men, on the other hand, were about 11 points more Republican than the country, and as such, they would elect a 249-to-186 Republican majority. But notice that the GOP seat total that men would secure is lower than the 275-seat Democratic majority that women would elect. This isn’t because men have shifted to the left but because the overall national environment is Democratic-leaning. <a href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/elections/2010/results/house/exit-polls.html\">If it were a Republican-leaning environment like in 2010</a>, women might elect a more closely divided House, but men would likely elect an even larger GOP majority.</p>\n\t\t<figure class=\"wp-caption aligncenter \" id=\"attachment_194006\" style=\"max-width: 575px\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<img alt=\"\" class=\"size-full wp-image-194006\" height=\"559\" src=\"https://fivethirtyeight.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/skelley-HOUSE-MAPS-5-2.png\" srcset=\"https://fivethirtyeight.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/skelley-HOUSE-MAPS-5-2.png?w=575 1x, https://fivethirtyeight.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/skelley-HOUSE-MAPS-5-2.png?w=1150 2x\" width=\"575\"/>\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t</figure>\n\t\t\n<p>The 2016 presidential election saw <a href=\"http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/11/09/behind-trumps-victory-divisions-by-race-gender-education/ft_16-11-09_exitpolls_education/\">a more pronounced cleavage among white voters</a> based on their education levels. College-educated whites shifted toward the Democrats, and whites without a college degree moved further into the GOP camp. The generic ballot data found that college-educated whites were about 2 points to the left of the country. That might not sound like much of a Democratic advantage, but remember that the national environment was D+9 at the time of this analysis.</p>\n<p>Under these conditions, white college voters would elect a 233-to-202 Democratic majority, which isn’t all that different from where the Lite forecast sat on Wednesday: a 231-to-204 Democratic majority. But remember, we’re just looking at a group’s estimated vote share; the model looks at much more to calculate its probabilities. If we were to look at just the difference in the estimated vote share in the Lite forecast, it would show a 219-to-216 Democratic edge, or 14 fewer Democratic seats than if only college-educated whites were to vote. This shows that there is a Democratic lean among college-educated whites, albeit a <i>slight</i> one.</p>\n\t\t<figure class=\"wp-caption aligncenter \" id=\"attachment_194003\" style=\"max-width: 575px\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<img alt=\"\" class=\"size-full wp-image-194003\" height=\"564\" src=\"https://fivethirtyeight.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/skelley-HOUSE-MAPS-2-2.png\" srcset=\"https://fivethirtyeight.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/skelley-HOUSE-MAPS-2-2.png?w=575 1x, https://fivethirtyeight.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/skelley-HOUSE-MAPS-2-2.png?w=1150 2x\" width=\"575\"/>\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t</figure>\n\t\t\n<p>If we look at white voters without a college degree, their party preference was even more pronounced than college-educated whites. They were 27 points more Republican than the nation as a whole. And as you can see in the map above, if only they were to vote, the country would be almost entirely red outside of big cities. Non-college whites would elect a 268-to-167 Republican majority, but the GOP majority might be even larger than that. Some heavily Democratic districts, particularly in the South, would probably elect Republicans even though those districts are blue on our map, and that’s because of a long legacy of racially polarized voting.<a class=\"espn-footnote-link\" data-footnote-content=\"&lt;p&gt;This would also be the case for college-educated white voters in some districts.&lt;/p&gt;\n\" data-footnote-id=\"4\" href=\"#fn-4\"><sup id=\"ss-4\">4</sup></a> Whites without a college degree in a place like <a href=\"https://www.census.gov/mycd/?st=45&amp;cd=06\">South Carolina’s 6th District</a>, which is 57 percent African-American, would probably elect a Republican instead of Democratic Rep. Jim Clyburn. After all, Trump <a href=\"https://www.cnn.com/election/2016/results/exit-polls/south-carolina/president\">won 70 percent</a> of the white vote in South Carolina.</p>\n\t\t<figure class=\"wp-caption aligncenter \" id=\"attachment_194002\" style=\"max-width: 575px\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<img alt=\"\" class=\"size-full wp-image-194002\" height=\"567\" src=\"https://fivethirtyeight.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/skelley-HOUSE-MAPS-1-2.png\" srcset=\"https://fivethirtyeight.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/skelley-HOUSE-MAPS-1-2.png?w=575 1x, https://fivethirtyeight.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/skelley-HOUSE-MAPS-1-2.png?w=1150 2x\" width=\"575\"/>\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t</figure>\n\t\t\n<p>If only nonwhite Americans could cast ballots, they would elect a gigantic Democratic majority (the largest projected majority out of any group we looked at). While white voters on the whole are Republican-leaning (Trump <a href=\"http://www.centerforpolitics.org/crystalball/articles/another-look-back-at-2016/\">won them</a> by about 15 to 20 percentage points in 2016), nonwhite voters are strongly Democratic (Hillary Clinton won them by more than 50 points). <a href=\"https://mic.com/articles/159402/here-s-a-break-down-of-how-african-americans-voted-in-the-2016-election#.9GoPhRoYb\">African-Americans</a>, <a href=\"https://www.npr.org/2017/04/18/524371847/trump-lost-more-of-the-asian-american-vote-than-the-national-exit-polls-showed\">Asian-Americans</a> and <a href=\"https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/trump-probably-did-better-with-latino-voters-than-romney-did/\">Latinos</a> all overwhelmingly vote Democratic, although there are exceptions.<a class=\"espn-footnote-link\" data-footnote-content='&lt;p&gt;For example, Cuban-Americans &lt;a href=\"http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/11/15/unlike-other-latinos-about-half-of-cuban-voters-in-florida-backed-trump/\"&gt;are Republican-leaning&lt;/a&gt; compared with Latinos as a whole.&lt;/p&gt;\n' data-footnote-id=\"5\" href=\"#fn-5\"><sup id=\"ss-5\">5</sup></a></p>\n<p>We found that nonwhites leaned 33 points more Democratic than the national environment and their adjusted vote share would net a 388-to-47 Democratic majority. However, similar to what we saw in the scenario of whites without a college degree, the Democratic total is likely underestimated. The map suggests that some Southern districts would vote Republican, but again, because voting is <a href=\"https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/its-much-harder-to-protect-southern-black-voters-influence-than-it-was-10-years-ago/\">so racially polarized in the South</a>, it’s unlikely that these seats would elect a Republican if only nonwhites voted. For example, the Alabama 6th District — held by Republican Rep. Gary Palmer and still controlled by the GOP in this scenario — <a href=\"https://www.census.gov/mycd/?st=01&amp;cd=06\">is 16 percent African-American</a>, which is the largest minority group there. Given that about 90 percent of blacks in Alabama <a href=\"http://elections.nbcnews.com/ns/politics/2012/alabama/president/#exitPoll\">vote</a> <a href=\"https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2017/politics/alabama-exit-polls/?utm_term=.6e95935b8177\">Democratic</a>, it would probably be very hard for a Republican to actually win. Nonetheless, the overwhelming Democratic House majority in this scenario makes sense if we look at nonwhite voters as a whole and don’t drill into specific districts. But for all the talk of <a href=\"https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/2018-could-be-the-year-of-the-angry-white-college-graduate/\">college-educated white voters boosting Democrats</a> in 2018, nonwhite voters will also be vital to their chances — especially in <a href=\"https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10511482.2012.756822\">diverse suburban districts</a>, <a href=\"https://www.cnn.com/2018/10/15/politics/democrats-latino-voters-midterms/index.html\">particularly in the Sun Belt</a>.</p>\n<p>If you’re wondering why many Democrats <a href=\"https://www.forbes.com/sites/brucejapsen/2018/10/15/half-of-democratic-ad-spending-targets-healthcare-as-midterms-loom/#2db642e365a0\">are talking about health care</a> and many Republicans <a href=\"https://www.cnbc.com/2018/10/23/trump-and-gop-unleash-anti-immigrant-onslaught-to-sway-midterm-voters.html\">are doubling down on immigration</a>, it’s with an eye toward the types of voters most likely to support them in November — in this case, <a href=\"https://www.kff.org/womens-health-policy/poll-finding/data-note-how-women-voters-influence-2018-elections-and-beyond/\">women for Democrats</a> and <a href=\"https://www.brookings.edu/blog/fixgov/2016/06/24/on-immigration-the-white-working-class-is-fearful/\">whites without a college degree for the GOP</a>.</p>","url":"https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/what-if-only-men-voted-only-women-only-nonwhite-voters/","date_published":"2018-10-26T20:00:44+00:00","author":{"name":""}},{"id":"981","title":"Apple: the second-best tech company in the world","content_html":"<div class=\"post__body\">\n<p>Apple is no longer the king of the smartphone camera, but that&#x2019;s just a small component of a company in (highly profitable) stagnation.</p><p>It wasn&#x2019;t that long ago that anyone who cared about taking great photos on their phone was destined to buy an iPhone (whether they wanted it or not) just by sheer brilliance of its miniaturized camera tech. But something happened over the last 18 months that&#x2019;s changed the dynamic for consumers in the market: Samsung and <em>especially</em> Google have started producing handsets that equal or surpass Apple&#x2019;s devices with their picture-taking quality. <strong>In the age of Instagram, this cannot be ignored.</strong> Google in particular has surprised pretty much everyone by not only making the best smartphone camera on the market, but by using software, not to mention the <a href=\"https://www.wired.com/story/google-pixel-3-camera-features/\">vast amounts of data</a> it collects from its users to do things Apple told us you need hardware for (portrait mode, for instance). The company has also been out-innovating the competition with wild features like its new Night Sight mode on the Pixel 3, which uses smarter processing to produce absolutely stunning results. Like these (<a href=\"https://www.xda-developers.com/google-pixel-night-sight-google-camera-review/\">from</a>&#xA0;<em>XDA</em> writer Mishaal Rahman):</p><p><a href=\"https://www.flickr.com/photos/142977595@N02/albums/72157672628677437\"><img src=\"https://farm2.staticflickr.com/1980/30567229067_688f443ff4_z.jpg\" width=\"640\" alt=\"Night Sight test using modded Google Camera app\"></a></p><p>It&#x2019;s now <a href=\"https://www.theverge.com/2018/10/15/17973484/google-pixel-3-xl-review-camera-features-screen-battery-price-photos\">widely understood</a> that Apple isn&#x2019;t owning this space any longer (just <a href=\"https://www.businessinsider.com/review-google-pixel-3-better-than-iphone-xs-2018-10\">look</a> at a <a href=\"https://www.tomsguide.com/us/pixel-3-iphone-xs-camera-faceoff,review-5850.html\">few</a> of these <a href=\"https://www.popsci.com/google-pixel-3-smartphone-best-camera-review\">headlines</a>) &#x2014; and coupled with several other missteps, a spate of underwhelming releases, and software that feels like it&#x2019;s lagging behind the competition, that&#x2019;s not an insignificant detail. Speaking of details, look at how much better the Pixel 3 XL is at showing the beautiful curls of Zelda&#x2018;s hair (a decent shot in low light with a moving kid, no small photography feat!).</p><div class=\"photo-grid-embed\"><div class=\"photo-grid-embed__wrapper\"><div class=\"photo-grid-embed__photos\"><div class=\"photo-grid-embed__photos_wrapper\"><div class=\"photo-grid-embed__item\"><div class=\"photo-embed\"><div class=\"photo-embed__image\"><div class=\"photo-embed__image__wrapper\"><img alt=\"Detail of Zelda June, shot on the Pixel 3 XL.\" src=\"https://outline-prod.imgix.net/20181025-xXf8JkwhYEFPmv0vJvlR?auto=format&amp;q=60&amp;w=1280&amp;s=ce77b4e1e0d4c4f43efa2a90922a66a4\" srcset=\"https://im-dev-proxy.imgix.net/https%3A%2F%2Foutline-prod.imgix.net%2F20181025-xXf8JkwhYEFPmv0vJvlR%3Fauto%3Dformat%26q%3D60%26w%3D1280%26s%3Dce77b4e1e0d4c4f43efa2a90922a66a4?auto=format&amp;q=60&amp;w=750&amp;s=bb1f0f3f90f8c3d293f6a7f529d3e21e 750w, https://im-dev-proxy.imgix.net/https%3A%2F%2Foutline-prod.imgix.net%2F20181025-xXf8JkwhYEFPmv0vJvlR%3Fauto%3Dformat%26q%3D60%26w%3D1280%26s%3Dce77b4e1e0d4c4f43efa2a90922a66a4?auto=format&amp;q=60&amp;w=2000&amp;s=824eec245dfec071149c7d69b80369d3 2000w\"></div></div><p class=\"photo-embed__caption\">\nDetail of Zelda June, shot on the Pixel 3 XL. <span class=\"photo-embed__caption__byline\">Joshua Topolsky</span></p></div></div><div class=\"photo-grid-embed__item\"><div class=\"photo-embed\"><div class=\"photo-embed__image\"><div class=\"photo-embed__image__wrapper\"><img alt=\"Detail of Zelda June, shot on the iPhone XS Max.\" src=\"https://outline-prod.imgix.net/20181025-nKhmyupHJOKdsQXXI00f?auto=format&amp;q=60&amp;w=1280&amp;s=fd13bc0ca215174882d31c18a8f5ac25\" srcset=\"https://im-dev-proxy.imgix.net/https%3A%2F%2Foutline-prod.imgix.net%2F20181025-nKhmyupHJOKdsQXXI00f%3Fauto%3Dformat%26q%3D60%26w%3D1280%26s%3Dfd13bc0ca215174882d31c18a8f5ac25?auto=format&amp;q=60&amp;w=750&amp;s=43205400d5dc15dec68307e8062340d6 750w, https://im-dev-proxy.imgix.net/https%3A%2F%2Foutline-prod.imgix.net%2F20181025-nKhmyupHJOKdsQXXI00f%3Fauto%3Dformat%26q%3D60%26w%3D1280%26s%3Dfd13bc0ca215174882d31c18a8f5ac25?auto=format&amp;q=60&amp;w=2000&amp;s=14f2ccec49fad740d545cabcc151cd9b 2000w\"></div></div><p class=\"photo-embed__caption\">\nDetail of Zelda June, shot on the iPhone XS Max. <span class=\"photo-embed__caption__byline\">Joshua Topolsky</span></p></div></div></div></div></div><div class=\"photo-grid-embed__captions\"><p class=\"photo-embed__caption\">\nDetail of Zelda June, shot on the Pixel 3 XL. <span class=\"photo-embed__caption__byline\">Joshua Topolsky</span></p><p class=\"photo-embed__caption\">\nDetail of Zelda June, shot on the iPhone XS Max. <span class=\"photo-embed__caption__byline\">Joshua Topolsky</span></p></div></div><p>Apple&#x2019;s CEO Tim Cook recently took to the stage in Belgium at the International Conference of Data Protection and Privacy Commissioners (phew) and served up a <a href=\"https://www.theverge.com/2018/10/24/18017842/tim-cook-data-privacy-laws-us-speech-brussels\">righteous sermon</a> on the necessity of privacy around user data. You&#x2019;d be hard pressed to argue with many of his points &#x2014; most aimed squarely at Facebook &#x2014; but Apple&#x2019;s lack of data (and its inability or unwillingness to blend large swaths of data) actually seems to be one of the issues driving its slippage in software innovation. While Google is using its deep pool of user data to do astounding things like <a href=\"https://www.theverge.com/2018/10/9/17955274/google-pixel-3-spam-calls-assistant-screen-filter\">screen calls</a> or <a href=\"https://www.travelandleisure.com/travel-news/google-duplex-ai-phone-calls\">make reservations</a> for users with AI, map the world in more detail, identify objects and describe them in real-time, and yes &#x2014; make its cameras smarter, faster, and better looking &#x2014; Apple devices seem increasingly disconnected from the world they exist in (and sometimes even their own platforms). As both Amazon and Google have proven in the digital assistant and voice computing space, the more things you know about your users, the better you can actually serve them. Apple, on the other hand, wants to keep you inside its tools, safe from the potential dangers of data misuse or abuse certainly, but also marooned on a narrow island, sanitized and distanced from the riches that data can provide when used appropriately.</p><p>Laying aside the fact that it&#x2019;s somewhat meaningless for Apple, a company whose <a href=\"http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2018/10/apple-ceo-tim-cook-pushes-for-privacy-regulations.html\">success is not rooted</a> in leveraging enormous amounts of personal information collected from its users, to call for regulation, it&#x2019;s only repeating what countless privacy advocates and tech policy experts have been saying now for decades: letting companies like Facebook, Google, and Amazon run absolutely wild in this space is <a href=\"https://theoutline.com/post/5761/the-nefarious-tedium-of-privacy-policies?zd=1&amp;zi=xp2t3ken\">not a positive</a>. Better personal information protection does not necessarily mean we can&#x2019;t also have good products, and it would be buying a cheap line from some of the wealthiest people and corporations in the world to believe otherwise.</p><p>But Google is not Facebook, and while I give up some of my data to the company, what I get in return has sizable value &#x2014; apps I use for hours every day, predictive services that actually work, photo processing that means I&apos;m less likely to miss an important moment. To be clear: the stuff Google and Amazon are doing right now isn&#x2019;t just cool and doesn&#x2019;t solely serve their corporate interests &#x2014; it matters in very real ways to consumers, with touchpoints they encounter every day where Apple can&#x2019;t even get a word in edgewise.</p><p>Coming in second in the camera space alone might not be that big of an issue, but Apple has also had <a href=\"https://theoutline.com/post/2402/the-new-macbook-keyboard-is-ruining-my-life?zd=1&amp;zi=l7choutm\">significant</a> problems with its hardware recently &#x2014; not just with quality control, but in pure design terms as well (who could have predicted that in 2018 people would be <a href=\"https://qz.com/1411866/microsoft-is-beating-apple-at-its-own-design-game/\">touting Microsoft</a> as the industry leader in design?). Siri continues to be a running joke among most people I know &#x2014; tech enthusiasts and average users alike. Apple&#x2019;s iCloud efforts have amounted to little more than a &#x201C;hard disk in the sky&#x201D; (a famous Jobsian turn of phrase). And is it the best experience for consumers to be forced into Apple Mail, Apple Maps, iTunes, Apple Music, and Apple Photos at every turn? Can you honestly say they&apos;re the best at what they do? No one is questioning if Apple is making money &#x2014; <a href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/02/technology/apple-stock-1-trillion-market-cap.html\">it is</a>. But all of this second-best positioning makes me wonder: Is Apple still the company that leads the way, or is it just getting better at locking in users to its own increasingly subpar experiences?</p><div class=\"photo-embed\"><div class=\"photo-embed__image\"><div class=\"photo-embed__image__wrapper\"><img alt=\"iPhone XS Max, shot on a Pixel 3 XL.\" src=\"https://outline-prod.imgix.net/20181026-ukPf3aAuUmBfs1XMihjl?auto=format&amp;q=60&amp;w=1280&amp;s=c1f4b25943bc007132fba42fb879b9a9\" srcset=\"https://im-dev-proxy.imgix.net/https%3A%2F%2Foutline-prod.imgix.net%2F20181026-ukPf3aAuUmBfs1XMihjl%3Fauto%3Dformat%26q%3D60%26w%3D1280%26s%3Dc1f4b25943bc007132fba42fb879b9a9?auto=format&amp;q=60&amp;w=750&amp;s=693da7fefe478819486a1e6edd7c8758 750w, https://im-dev-proxy.imgix.net/https%3A%2F%2Foutline-prod.imgix.net%2F20181026-ukPf3aAuUmBfs1XMihjl%3Fauto%3Dformat%26q%3D60%26w%3D1280%26s%3Dc1f4b25943bc007132fba42fb879b9a9?auto=format&amp;q=60&amp;w=2000&amp;s=6a8716e78036d8f49d7f35f488bb2852 2000w\"></div></div><p class=\"photo-embed__caption\">\niPhone XS Max, shot on a Pixel 3 XL. <span class=\"photo-embed__caption__byline\">Joshua Topolsky</span></p></div><p>Being the best intermediary for things as simple as turning on your lights with your voice, getting the right driving directions, ambiently listening to music, organizing your photos and videos without thinking about it, learning new things frictionlessly, screening your calls, or scheduling your time may seem minor, but those activities add up to something much more meaningful for many people. Amazon and Google are getting much smarter about defining <strong>how we live with technology</strong>. In the long run, innovation can&#x2019;t be constrained to cleaner lines on a handset or improved processor speeds. In a very ironic way, the kind of &#x201C;<a href=\"https://www.businessinsider.com/apple-leaned-on-speeds-and-feeds-yesterday-and-as-jobs-predicted-hearts-did-not-sing-2011-10\">feeds and speeds</a>&#x201D; innovation Steve Jobs mocked on stage in 2011 has become the way Apple defines its biggest improvements in technology.</p><p>So yes, Apple&#x2019;s camera may be very good. It may be the best camera Apple&#x2019;s ever put in a phone. But it&#x2019;s not the absolute best anymore &#x2014; and that can&apos;t be a comfortable place for the company to be.</p> <div class=\"post__surveylink\"> Hey you! We want to know what you think about The Outline (and you can win some cool swag too). We know you love to answer questions, so <a href=\"https://theoutline.typeform.com/to/t0ykjM?source=post-footer-6446\">take our 5 minute survey</a>. </div> </div>","url":"https://theoutline.com/post/6446/apple-iphone-xs-second-best-camera-google-pixel-3-data","date_published":"2018-10-26T19:59:07+00:00","author":{"name":""}},{"id":"980","title":"Real Estate Startups Turn to More Debt","content_html":"<p id=\"ti-content\"> <section class=\"pageContent\"> <div class=\"main-banner white\"> <div class=\"container\"> <div class=\"row mt2\"> <div class=\"col-md-6\"> <p class=\"type font-8 quiet mt2 mb0\"> Already a subscriber? <a class=\"track-click quiet-link\" href=\"https://www.theinformation.com/sessions/new\">Log in here</a>\n</p> </div> </div> </div>\n</div> <article class=\"single\" id=\"3149\"> <div class=\"container has-fadeout down-up\"> <div class=\"row\"> <div class=\"col-sm-8 article-content\"> <div class=\"free-section\"> <p class=\"first\">Opendoor, which buys and sells homes online, has seemed poised for rapid growth after raising more than $700 million from SoftBank and other venture capital investors this year. A more fickle group of investors to appease might be its growing cadre of lenders, who have now loaned the company about $2 billion so it can buy more homes, often sight unseen. </p><p>The group of lenders has grown this year to include more major banks as Opendoor looks to improve its deal terms including paying lower rates on the debt, which is still one of the company&#x2019;s major costs, people close to the company said. </p> </div> </div> </div> </div> <div class=\"container mb3\"> <div class=\"card p3 bordered read-this-article banner\"> <div class=\"row\"> <div class=\"col-md-7\"> <p class=\"type font-8 mb2 test-tagline\"> This article is part of our archive of over 2,400 stories and is only available to subscribers. To give you a preview of the work we do, you can <strong>enter your email to access the full article</strong>. </p> <p class=\"type font-8 quiet mt2 mb0\"> Already a subscriber? <a class=\"track-click quiet-link\" href=\"https://www.theinformation.com/sessions/new\">Log in here</a>\n</p> </div> </div>\n</div> </div> <div> <div class=\"container\"> <div class=\"row value-prop-group\"> <div class=\"col-sm-3\"> <div class=\"value-prop\"> <div class=\"illustration-container\"> <img src=\"https://www.theinformation.com/assets/illustrations/notebook-b5103017ee163370a1667c9ce59ab0ef023875a17888105d26c185cadf31bb69.svg\" alt=\"Notebook b5103017ee163370a1667c9ce59ab0ef023875a17888105d26c185cadf31bb69\"> </div> <p class=\"type font-8\">Every weeknight, we&apos;ll send you our reporters&#x2019; views on the day&#x2019;s top tech news&#x2014;distilled into one email. </p>\n</div> </div> <div class=\"col-sm-3\"> <div class=\"value-prop\"> <div class=\"illustration-container\"> <img src=\"https://www.theinformation.com/assets/illustrations/notes-bb3aa5069205d702dda37fc71dc6f1c59df2310c4379304e9f1199f052af4884.svg\" alt=\"Notes bb3aa5069205d702dda37fc71dc6f1c59df2310c4379304e9f1199f052af4884\"> </div> <p class=\"type font-8\">We broke it first. Receive original reporting, stories, and exclusives you won&apos;t read anywhere else from the largest newsroom in tech.</p>\n</div> </div> <div class=\"col-sm-3\"> <div class=\"value-prop\"> <div class=\"illustration-container\"> <img src=\"https://www.theinformation.com/assets/illustrations/conference-calls-c9e664e8b96ee347d3e92b8309938f268422b9db98cfabca5c826fbb75054b23.svg\" alt=\"Conference calls c9e664e8b96ee347d3e92b8309938f268422b9db98cfabca5c826fbb75054b23\"> </div> <p class=\"type font-8\">Go deep into areas like crypto and VC diversity&#x2014;or get real-time analysis of breaking news&#x2014;via conference calls with our reporters and other experts.</p>\n</div> </div> <div class=\"col-sm-3\"> <div class=\"value-prop\"> <div class=\"illustration-container\"> <img src=\"https://www.theinformation.com/assets/illustrations/events-499acedd16cffc41445edd76bfd302b2836c2a27419890f17130a6b10e2aa3df.svg\" alt=\"Events 499acedd16cffc41445edd76bfd302b2836c2a27419890f17130a6b10e2aa3df\"> </div> <p class=\"type font-8\">For no extra fee, subscribers get access to more than a dozen events yearly, from intimate dinners to larger gatherings with marquee speakers.</p>\n</div> </div> </div> <div class=\"row collapse\"> <div class=\"col-sm-6\"> <div class=\"row value-prop-group\"> <div class=\"col-sm-6 mb2\"> <div class=\"value-prop\"> <p class=\"type font-8\">Share your views and find other subscribers by completing your profile. You&#x2019;ll be listed in our contributor directory.</p>\n</div> </div> <div class=\"col-sm-6 mb2\"> <div class=\"value-prop\"> <p class=\"type font-8\">Access the only collection of tech company org charts. Our expanding database includes companies like Amazon, Snap, and Uber.</p>\n</div> </div> <div class=\"col-sm-6 mb2\"> <div class=\"value-prop\"> <p class=\"type font-8\">Discuss topics and current events with our subscriber-only Slack group and share news about your company with other subscribers.</p>\n</div> </div> <div class=\"col-sm-6 mb2\"> <div class=\"value-prop\"> <p class=\"type font-8\">Subscribers can unlock any article and share it with friends and co-workers through a special share link.</p>\n</div> </div>\n</div> </div> <div class=\"col-sm-6\"> <div class=\"card p3 bordered\"> <p class=\"type font-7 mb3\" id=\"lead-cap-text\">Sign up for Jessica Lessin&#x2019;s (The Information&#x2019;s CEO &amp; Founder) free Saturday newsletter and also receive a complimentary week of our daily afternoon tech commentary email.</p> <p class=\"type font-8 quiet mt2 mb0\"> Already a subscriber? <a class=\"track-click quiet-link\" href=\"https://www.theinformation.com/sessions/new\">Log in here</a>\n</p> </div> </div> </div> </div>\n</div> </article> <div class=\"hide\"> <blockquote class=\"pull-quote\"> &#x2018;For years and years, startups used to think VCs were the sole form of funding...[Today], we couldn&#x2019;t do what we&#x2019;re doing without credit facilities.&#x2019; </blockquote>\n</div> </section> </p>","url":"https://www.theinformation.com/articles/real-estate-startups-turn-to-more-debt","date_published":"2018-10-26T19:46:22+00:00","author":{"name":"Cory Weinbergcory@theinfo"}},{"id":"978","title":"The Stakes are Dire","content_html":"<div><div id=\"article-content\" class=\"js_article-content\"><p>I have mentioned several times in recent days my anxiety about the election less than two weeks from now, one that is caused less by my sense of the likely outcome than the gravity of the stakes involved. This morning, as authorities are still finding new bombs sent to a growing list of Trump targets, President Trump went on Twitter not only to blame the media for the climate of anger and violence but to issue what can, in the climate of the bomb scares, only be deemed a threat. &#x201C;It has gotten so bad and hateful that it is beyond description. Mainstream Media must clean up its act, FAST!&#x201D;<span id=\"more-1169854\"></span></p><p>As a friend pointed out yesterday, 2016 can be seen as a fluke. A series of perfect storm factors coming together to make Donald Trump President with a minority of the popular vote and razor thin margins in three critical states. 2018, if it&#x2019;s a winning election for the Republicans, will be a choice. A ratification of everything we&#x2019;ve seen over the last two years. That will be a reality we&#x2019;ll all have to contend with for what it says about the state of the country. It will send a signal abroad that this is now the American political reality and unquestionably accelerate all the geo-political processes Trump has spurred or which drove him to the White House in the first place.</p><p>Domestically the impact will be worse. The political message will be simple: you can do all this stuff and suffer no political consequences. It goes without saying that the climate of violent incitement against the press will accelerate. The President&#x2019;s ability and willingness to protect himself and his loyalists from the law will grow and be treated as normal. It is difficult to imagine he won&#x2019;t find a way to end the Mueller probe. At the end of the day, the only real restraint on officeholders isn&#x2019;t norms or even laws. It&#x2019;s elections.</p></div></div>","url":"https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/the-stakes-are-dire","date_published":"2018-10-25T19:44:32+00:00","author":{"name":"Josh Marshall"}},{"id":"977","title":"An Alternative History of Silicon Valley Disruption","content_html":"<div><p><span class=\"lede\">A few years </span>after the Great Recession, you couldn&#x2019;t scroll through Google Reader without seeing the word &#x201C;disrupt.&#x201D; TechCrunch named a conference after it, the <em>New York Times</em> named a column after it, investor <a href=\"https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424053111903480904576512250915629460\">Marc Andreessen</a> warned that &#x201C;software disruption&#x201D; would eat the world; not long after, <a href=\"https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2011/11/28/no-death-no-taxes\">Peter Thiel</a>, his fellow Facebook board member, called &#x201C;disrupt&#x201D; one of his favorite words. (One of the future Trump adviser&#x2019;s <em>least</em> favorite words? &#x201C;Politics.&#x201D;)</p><p>The term &#x201C;disruptive innovation&#x201D; was coined by Harvard Business School professor <a href=\"http://www.claytonchristensen.com/\">Clayton Christensen</a> in the mid-90&#x2019;s to describe a particular business phenomenon, whereby established companies focus on high-priced products for their existing customers, while disruptors develop simpler, cheaper innovations, introduce the products to a new audience, and eventually displace incumbents. PCs disrupted mainframes, discount stores disrupted department stores, cellphones disrupted landlines, you get the idea.</p><p class=\"paywall\">In Silicon Valley&#x2019;s telling, however, &#x201C;disruption&#x201D; became shorthand for something closer to techno-darwinism. By imposing the rules of nature on man-made markets, the theory justified almost any act of upheaval. The companies still standing post-disruption must have survived <em>because</em> they were the fittest.</p><p class=\"paywall\">&#x201C;Over the next 10 years, I expect many more industries to be disrupted by software, with new world-beating Silicon Valley companies doing the disruption in more cases than not,&#x201D; Andreessen wrote in his seminal 2011 essay on software in the <em>Wall Street Journal</em>. &#x201C;This problem is even worse than it looks because many workers in existing industries will be stranded on the wrong side of software-based disruption and may never be able to work in their fields again.&#x201D;</p><p class=\"paywall\">Even after the word lost its meaning from overuse, it still suffused our understanding of why the ground beneath our feet felt so shaky. They tried to freak us out and we believed them. Why wouldn&#x2019;t we? Their products were dazzling, sci-fi magic come to life. They transformed our days, our hours, our interior life. Fear of being stranded on &#x201C;the wrong side,&#x201D; in turn, primed us to look to these world-beating companies to understand what comes next.</p><p class=\"paywall\">It is only now, a decade after the financial crisis, that the American public seems to appreciate that what we thought was disruption worked more like extraction&#x2014;of our data, our attention, our time, our creativity, our content, our DNA, our homes, our cities, our relationships. The tech visionaries&#x2019; predictions did not usher us into <em>the</em> future, but rather <em>a</em> future where they are kings.</p><p class=\"paywall\">They promised the open web, we got walled gardens. They promised individual liberty, then broke democracy&#x2014;and now they&#x2019;ve appointed themselves the right men to fix it.</p><p class=\"paywall\">But did the digital revolution have to end in an oligopoly? In our fog of resentment, three recent books argue that the current state of rising inequality was not a technological inevitability. Rather the narrative of disruption duped us into thinking this was a new kind of capitalism. The authors argue that tech companies conquered the world not with software, but via the usual route to power: ducking regulation, squeezing workers, strangling competitors, consolidating power, raising rents, and riding the wave of an economic shift already well underway.</p><h3 class=\"paywall\">Job Insecurity</h3><p class=\"paywall\">Louis Hyman&#x2019;s new book, <a href=\"https://www.amazon.com/dp/B077RHV4V6/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&amp;btkr=1&amp;tag=w050b-20\"><em>Temp: How American Work, American Business, and the American Dream Became Temporary</em></a>, argues that many of the dystopian business practices we associate with fast-growing tech platforms&#x2014;operating with a small group of well-paid engineers, surrounded by contractors&#x2014;began in the 1970&#x2019;s when McKinsey consultants and business gurus pushed for flexible labor over job security as a way to maximize profits. But from its earliest days, Silicon Valley said automation was the reason high-tech companies were more profitable and productive.</p><p class=\"paywall\">For instance, in 1984, along with the Macintosh computer, Apple also introduced a $20 million &#x201C;Robot Factory&#x201D; in Fremont, California, that the company called &#x201C;the most automated factory in the Western world,&#x201D; even though it was 140 human beings, &#x201C;mostly women, mostly immigrants&#x2013;who actually put the Macintosh together,&#x201D; Hyman says. In that, it was like the rest of the fast-growing electronics industry, which relied on undocumented workers and immigrants for its factories and temps for its offices to create a &#x201C;buffer zone&#x201D; to keep layoffs off the front page.</p><div class=\"inset-left-component paywall inset-left-component--pullquote\"><blockquote class=\"inset-left-component__el\"><p>&apos;While technical knowledge, and venture capital, was lauded for the valley&#x2019;s achievements, that success was made possible by a hidden underworld of flexible, poorly paid labor.&apos;</p></blockquote><p class=\"inset-left-component__el\">Louis Hyman</p></div><p class=\"paywall\">Apple&#x2019;s use of the word &#x201C;robot&#x201D; turned out to be a &#x201C;a very important cultural sleight of hand,&#x201D; Hyman says. &#x201C;This rhetorical distinction helped Silicon Valley employ workers in ways that never would have happened in postwar Detroit,&#x201D; because unofficial and subcontracted workers were not protected by the same wage and safety rights.</p><p class=\"paywall\">To Hyman, an economic historian at Cornell, this explains the absence of labor unions in tech. &#x201C;Managers wanted obedient employees&#x2014;preferably immigrants. While technical knowledge, and venture capital, was lauded for the valley&#x2019;s achievements, that success was made possible by a hidden underworld of flexible, poorly paid labor,&#x201D; he writes.</p><p class=\"paywall\">Decades later, Uber could stay flexible because workers had few options. But observers often conflated cause and effect, blaming the gig economy, its use of non-employee contractors, and the unfeeling efficiency of smartphone apps. &#x201C;Uber did not cause this precarious economy. It is the waste product of the service economy,&#x201D; Hyman counters. &#x201C;Uber is possible because shift work, even with a W-2 is so bad.&#x201D;</p><p class=\"paywall\">The social disruption came first, and technology was built to exploit it. Nonetheless, Uber&#x2019;s association with our ruthless app-driven future served the company well. Regulators were reluctant to enforce the law not only because consumers loved the convenience, but also because we were told that technology made this business model&#x2014;which shifted risk to cities, workers, and citizens&#x2014;inevitable.</p><p class=\"paywall\">It may seem self-evident that Silicon Valley is not the alpha and omega of economic change. In fact, the critiques in these books resonate not because they expose the industry&#x2019;s villainous core or reveal some nefarious intent, but because the authors provide context missing from the tech industry&#x2019;s often ahistoric version of events. The ruminations on technology are tucked between chapters on Wall Street, big pharma, robber barons, the Sackler family, and McKinsey, gently eroding the idea that the tech industry operates (and should be treated) differently.</p><h3 class=\"paywall\">The Risk and Reward of Innovation</h3><p class=\"paywall\">In <a href=\"https://www.amazon.com/Value-Everything-Making-Taking-Economy-ebook/dp/B01FTGII80?tag=w050b-20\"><em>The Value of Everything: Making and Taking in the Global Economy</em></a>, economist Mariana Mazzucato chips away at another myth of Silicon Valley exceptionalism: the idea that big tech and its investors deserve massive profits because they are risk-taking innovators who create value, rather than extract it. &#x201C;In the case of venture capitalists,&#x201D; Mazzucato writes, &#x201C;their real genius appears to lie in their timing: their ability to enter a sector late, after the highest development risks had already been taken, but at an optimum moment to make a killing.&#x201D;</p><p class=\"paywall\">Much of the hard work of innovation, she argues, has been funded by the government, which sees little direct return. Contrary to tech industry sneering, public funds are responsible for a lot of the technology we attribute to Silicon Valley. Mazzucato points out that GPS was funded by the US Navy, touchscreen display was backed by the CIA, both the internet and SIRI were funded by the Pentagon&#x2019;s DARPA, and Google&#x2019;s search algorithm was funded by a National Science Foundation grant.</p><p class=\"paywall\">Yet the government reaps few of the rewards. For instance, the same year the government loaned $535 million to solar-power company Solyndra, it also loaned Tesla $465 million. &#x201C;Taxpayers footed the bill for Solyndra&#x2019;s losses&#x2014;yet got hardly any of Tesla&#x2019;s&#x201D; gains, she says. Solyndra has become &#x201C;a byword for the government&#x2019;s sorry track record when it came to picking winners,&#x201D; a story that has helped keep regulators at bay, she says.</p><p class=\"paywall\">In theory, Mazzucato says, the public sector gets paid back through indirect means, like higher tax receipts, or public good. Instead, the &#x201C;persuasive narrative&#x201D; that technological progress would not be possible without Silicon Valley has enabled it to privatize the profits from big data, while offloading all the risks.</p><h3 class=\"paywall\">Advocacy as Prophecy</h3><p class=\"paywall\">In <a href=\"https://www.amazon.com/dp/B077WZRBV2/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&amp;btkr=1&amp;tag=w050b-20\"><em>Winners Take All: The Elite Charade of Changing the World</em></a>, journalist Anand Giridharadas unpacks the same penchant for prediction when it&#x2019;s applied to philanthropy instead of the free market.</p><p class=\"paywall\">Giridharadas takes readers aboard Summit at Sea, a startup conference on a cruise ship, where world-changers have gathered for a panel on storytelling from investor Shervin Pishevar, who urges the crowd to keep their bodies alive because genetic research that prolongs the human life span will soon arrive. &#x201C;The idea of retiring at 70 is gonna seem like people telling you at 30 to retire,&#x201D; Pishevar said.</p><p class=\"paywall\">Giridharadas argues that this is a reflection not of where science is headed, but rather the type of causes <a href=\"https://www.philanthropyroundtable.org/philanthropy-magazine/article/the-calculating-philanthropy-of-silicon-valley?utm_source=Lincoln+Network+Newsletters&amp;utm_campaign=06ca4ee8ad-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2018_06_22_06_41_COPY_01&amp;utm_medium=email&amp;utm_term=0_b77115f0ae-06ca4ee8ad-107542761&amp;mc_cid=06ca4ee8ad&amp;mc_eid=9425943766\">favored by tech donors</a>. &#x201C;Longer lives for rich people were just something that happened to be coming down the pipe. Not so much better healthcare system for all,&#x201D; he writes.</p><div class=\"inset-left-component paywall inset-left-component--pullquote\"><blockquote class=\"inset-left-component__el\"><p>&apos;VCs and entrepreneurs are considered by many to be thinkers these days, their commercial utterances treated like ideas, and these ideas are often in the future tense.&apos;</p></blockquote><p class=\"inset-left-component__el\">Anand Giridharadas</p></div><p class=\"paywall\">&#x201C;Here Pishevar was engaging in advocacy that disguised itself as prophecy,&#x201D; Giridharadas writes. &#x201C;VCs and entrepreneurs are considered by many to be thinkers these days, their commercial utterances treated like ideas, and these ideas are often in the future tense: claims about the next world, forged by adding up the theses of their portfolio companies to extrapolating rom their own startup mission statement&#x201D;</p><p class=\"paywall\">The weather has turned on tech since Giridharadas stepped off that cruise. The arguments in these books would&#x2019;ve been shrugged off a few years ago, now the authors are invited to give talks at <a href=\"https://twitter.com/AnandWrites/status/1053670769056600065\">tech events</a>. On Capitol Hill, regulators have finally found their voice; in Silicon Valley, companies are acting contrite. But look a little closer and it&#x2019;s clear they are still pitching a future where disruptors know best. AI can fix hate speech and misinformation. China is better off with Google&#x2019;s censored search. Basic income will set us free.</p><p class=\"paywall\">In a winners-take-all economy, it&#x2019;s hard to prove the rulers wrong. But if the tech backlash wants to become more than just the next chapter in their myth, we have to question the fitness of the companies that survived.</p><h3 class=\"paywall\">More Great WIRED Stories</h3></div>","url":"https://www.wired.com/story/alternative-history-of-silicon-valley-disruption/","date_published":"2018-10-25T15:56:05+00:00","author":{"name":""}},{"id":"975","title":"Trump’s Quick Return on His Supreme Court Investment","content_html":"<h2 style=\"text-align: center;\"><i>Kavanaugh and Gorsuch Come Through for the Boss</i></h2>\n<p><span class=\"byline\" style=\"font-variant: small-caps; font-weight: bold;\">By Terry H. Schwadron, <a href=\"https://www.dcreport.org/\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">DCReport</a> New York Editor</span></p>\n<p>For those keeping score, the Trump administration’s Supreme Court justice choices already are paying off.</p>\n<p>Justice Brett Kavanaugh got his first (unsigned) chance <a data-saferedirecturl=\"https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.politico.com/story/2018/10/22/supreme-court-wilbur-ross-929497&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1540464866240000&amp;usg=AFQjCNHgbPTYx0j3wBW0cb_rS8kkzvelpA\" href=\"https://www.politico.com/story/2018/10/22/supreme-court-wilbur-ross-929497\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">to protect executive privilege from challenge,</a> and Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote that a decision dissolving a requirement for Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross to answer questions about adding a census question about immigration status didn’t go far enough.</p>\n<p>During his confirmation hearings, Kavanaugh’s made clear that he supports expanded powers for the administration to resist legal challenges. A new Supreme Court order on Monday was a chance for a solidified majority on the court to start doing exactly that.</p>\n<p>The <a href=\"https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/18pdf/18a375_k536.pdf\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">decision</a> on Monday was unsigned but reflected a majority on the Court. It shielded Ross, part of the executive branch, from answering lawyers’ questions in a <a data-saferedirecturl=\"https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/courts_law/supreme-court-shields-commerce-secretary-wilbur-ross-from-answering-questions-on-census/2018/10/22/33dfa890-ce5f-11e8-a3e6-44daa3d35ede_story.html?utm_term%3D.70453c0771f3&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1540464866240000&amp;usg=AFQjCNFR634166Pz0Ak4bXWmGW_eGuZREQ\" href=\"https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/courts_law/supreme-court-shields-commerce-secretary-wilbur-ross-from-answering-questions-on-census/2018/10/22/33dfa890-ce5f-11e8-a3e6-44daa3d35ede_story.html?utm_term=.70453c0771f3\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">lawsuit challenging his decision to add a citizenship question to the 2020 census form.</a> But the court did allow questions for another official, from the Justice Department, spawning a dissent by Gorsuch and Justice Clarence Thomas that said this differentiation made no sense.</p>\n<p>Meanwhile, The Washington Post reported that the Trump administration has sought to <a data-saferedirecturl=\"https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/courts_law/trump-officials-aggressively-bypass-appeals-process-to-get-issues-before-conservative-supreme-court/2018/10/23/ce38b9da-d612-11e8-83a2-d1c3da28d6b6_story.html?utm_term%3D.28ec7cd1d25d&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1540464866240000&amp;usg=AFQjCNH8NaDOHVdknnoDKoxUEn3comqjWw\" href=\"https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/courts_law/trump-officials-aggressively-bypass-appeals-process-to-get-issues-before-conservative-supreme-court/2018/10/23/ce38b9da-d612-11e8-83a2-d1c3da28d6b6_story.html?utm_term=.28ec7cd1d25d\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">bypass adverse lower-court rulings</a> on some of its signature issues by seeking extraordinary relief from a refortified conservative Supreme Court. Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Solicitor General Noel J. Francisco have repeatedly gone outside the usual appellate process to get issues such as the travel ban, immigration and greater authority for top officials before the justices.</p>\n<blockquote>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">The new court majority is off and running on what inevitably will turn into a long run of decisions that favor the administration.</p>\n</blockquote>\n<p>The government had asked the court to block questioning of Ross as part of a lawsuit filed by several states, including New York, and civil rights groups. The groups are seeking to stop the administration from adding a citizenship question to the U.S. Census. In all, there are six legal challenges to the question, which Ross announced in March would be added to the survey to help enforce the Voting Rights Act. The states and groups say it will intimidate some from participating and result in an inaccurate census.</p>\n<p>News reports suggested that the court’s action makes it unlikely that Ross will have to give a deposition in the case but will allow the suit to go forward, at least for now. The court said it would entertain other objections from the government before the trial, which is scheduled to start Nov. 5 in New York.</p>\n<p>The Washington Post added that the order “seemed like an attempt by the court to avoid a 5-to-4 split in its first politically significant action since the addition of new Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh.”</p>\n<p>The decision did allow the states to depose acting Assistant Attorney General John Gore, which drew a dissent from Gorsuch and Thomas, who said the distinction the court drew did not make sense. “Respectfully, I would take the next logical step and simply stay all extra-record discovery pending our review,” Gorsuch wrote. “When it comes to the likelihood of success, there’s no reason to distinguish between Secretary Ross’s deposition and those of other officials.”</p>\n<p>The states and the groups said Ross should be deposed. He has “offered shifting and inaccurate explanations in his decisional memo and in testimony before Congress” as well as in new documents filed in the case, said a brief filed by the New York Immigration Coalition, the ACLU and others. Democratic lawmakers and immigrant rights groups have blasted the idea of adding the citizenship question. They contend it will make immigrants and their families less likely to fill out the form, leading to a more costly and less accurate census.</p>\n<p>Six former census directors and a Census Bureau internal analyst also have said that the question would harm the count. That, in turn, could cost states with large immigrant populations representation in Congress and federal funds distributed on the basis of population.</p>\n<p>Ross first said he added the citizenship question at the behest of the Justice Department, which said it was needed to help enforce voting rights. But emails showed that he had been pushing for the inclusion of the citizenship question earlier than that, and the groups and states contend the Justice Department request was a pretext.</p>\n<p>In a document filed in response to questions sent by outgoing New York Attorney General Barbara Underwood, Ross acknowledged that he had discussed the issue with former White House adviser Stephen K. Bannon and a Republican secretary of state who has been a leader in anti-immigration efforts. In the document, Ross said he recalled Bannon calling him in Spring 2017 to ask whether Ross would speak to Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach about ideas for a possible citizenship question on the Census.</p>\n<p>That appears to contradict Ross’s testimony to Congress this year. When asked at a hearing on March 20 whether the president or anyone in the White House had discussed the citizenship question with him, Ross said, “I am not aware of any such.”</p>\n<p>We shouldn’t be surprised that the new court majority is off and running on what inevitably will turn into a long run of decisions that favor the administration.</p>\n<p>Hey, with a businessman president, we look for a good return on investment.</p>\n<div class=\"post-views post-11814 entry-meta\">\n\t\t\t<span class=\"post-views-icon dashicons dashicons-chart-bar\"></span>\n\t\t\t<span class=\"post-views-label\">Post Views: </span>\n\t\t\t<span class=\"post-views-count\">337</span>\n\t\t\t</div>\t\t    \n\t\t                   <div class=\"taglist\">\n                  <i class=\"fa fa-tag\"></i> <a href=\"https://www.dcreport.org/tag/gorsuch/\" rel=\"tag\">Gorsuch</a> <a href=\"https://www.dcreport.org/tag/kavanaugh/\" rel=\"tag\">Kavanaugh</a> <a href=\"https://www.dcreport.org/tag/supreme-court/\" rel=\"tag\">Supreme Court</a>               </div>  \n                        <div class=\"clear\"></div>","url":"https://www.dcreport.org/2018/10/24/trumps-supreme-court-investment/","date_published":"2018-10-24T19:29:37+00:00","author":{"name":""}},{"id":"971","title":"The quotable Ursula Le Guin","content_html":"<div class=\"post\"> <p><a href=\"https://www.brainpickings.org/\">Brain Pickings</a> is surfacing some gems from their archives in honor of what would have been Ursula Le Guin&#x2019;s 89th birthday. The novelist, poet, and essayist died in January. <br><img src=\"https://kottke.org/plus/misc/images/ursula-leguin-by-benjamin-reed.jpg\" width=\"800\" alt=\"ursula-leguin-by-benjamin-reed.jpg\"><br><a href=\"https://www.brainpickings.org/2015/10/21/telling-is-listening-ursula-k-le-guin-communication/\">Le Guin on conversation</a>:</p> <blockquote><p>&#x201C;Words are events, they do things, change things. They transform both speaker and hearer; they feed energy back and forth and amplify it. They feed understanding or emotion back and forth and amplify it.&#x201D;</p></blockquote> <p><a href=\"https://www.brainpickings.org/2015/11/06/ursula-k-le-guin-libraries/\">Le Guin on libraries</a>:</p> <blockquote><p>&#x201C;Knowledge sets us free, art sets us free. A great library is freedom.&#x201D;</p></blockquote> <p><a href=\"https://www.brainpickings.org/2018/04/23/ursula-k-le-guin-hymn-to-time-janna-levin/\">Le Guin on time</a> (hear astrophysicist Janna Levin read the full poem):</p> <blockquote><p>Time is being and being\ntime, it is all one thing,\nthe shining, the seeing,\nthe dark abounding.</p></blockquote> <p><a href=\"https://www.brainpickings.org/2018/10/10/ursula-k-le-guin-the-dispossessed-time/\">Le Guin on loyalty</a>:</p> <blockquote><p>To break a promise is to deny the reality of the past; therefore it is to deny the hope of a real future. If time and reason are functions of each other, if we are creatures of time, then we had better know it, and try to make the best of it. To act responsibly.</p></blockquote> <p><a href=\"https://www.brainpickings.org/2018/04/10/ursula-k-le-guin-late-in-the-day-science-poetry/\">Le Guin on the environment</a>:</p> <blockquote><p>&#x201C;To use the world well, to be able to stop wasting it and our time in it, we need to relearn our being in it.&#x201D;</p></blockquote> <p class=\"entry-tags-title\">More about...</p> </div>","url":"https://kottke.org/18/10/the-quotable-ursula-le-guin","date_published":"2018-10-24T00:20:35+00:00","author":{"name":""}},{"id":"970","title":"What do we consent to when we consent to sex? – Joseph J Fischel","content_html":"<div class=\"has-dropcap\">\n<p>Two men regularly meet at a sex club, so that one (&#x2018;the top&#x2019;) can fist the other (&#x2018;the bottom&#x2019;). One night, the fisting duo stay until the club closes. The lights click on in their sobering glory, &#xA0;exposing the prosthetic hand that the top has been inserting into the anus of the bottom.&#xA0;</p><p>&#x2018;I&#x2019;m an amputee,&#x2019; the top explains. &#x2018;It feels just like the real thing, right?&#x2019;</p><p>Did the fisting top rape the fisted bottom by failing to disclose that his hand was prosthetic? Surely the conventional expectation of the bottom was that the top&#x2019;s hand was the same hand that the top was born with, albeit adult-sized. But I see no reason why law, criminal law especially, should weigh in on the side of the bottom&#x2019;s arguably ableist presumption.&#xA0;</p><p>I draw on this admittedly absurd hypothetical example in my <a href=\"https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520295414/screw-consent\">book</a> <em>Screw Consent: A Better Politics of Sexual Justice</em> (2019) to recast various cases of so-called &#x2018;gender deception&#x2019; that have arisen in the United Kingdom, the United States and Israel over the past 25 years. These cases, <a href=\"https://www.routledge.com/Sexual-Intimacy-and-Gender-Identity-Fraud-Reframing-the-Legal-and-Ethical/Sharpe/p/book/9781138502550\">carefully</a> <a href=\"https://heinonline.org/HOL/LandingPage?handle=hein.journals/lsex24&amp;div=4&amp;id=&amp;page=\">considered</a> previously by legal scholars Alex Sharpe at Keele University in the UK and Aeyal Gross at Tel Aviv University, typically involve transgender men or gender-nonconforming (masculine-presenting) women who are <a href=\"https://www.researchgate.net/publication/321739798_Queering_Judgment_The_Case_of_Gender_Identity_Fraud\">convicted</a> of some form of sexual assault for failing to disclose to their girlfriends that they were sex-assigned female at birth and do not have a penis.</p><p>If the presumption of the hypothetical fistee is ableist, the presumption of the complainants, juries and judges that masculine-presenting intimate partners have a penis is heteronormative (and the convictions are transphobic). One might reasonably expect her masculine-presenting partner to be penis-bearing. But if that expectation is unmet, the state should not thereby prosecute that partner for rape. Consider a partner with an unforgivingly large, disappointingly small or stubbornly flaccid penis. Here too expectations have been unmet, but no crime is committed.</p><p>Nevertheless, these cases of alleged deception raise a surprisingly hard-to-answer question: <em>what do we consent to when we consent to sex?</em> Turned around, the question becomes: what kinds of deception or nondisclosure ought to be legally impermissible for procuring sex? If consent separates rape from sex, as the US legal commentator Jed Rubenfeld <a href=\"https://digitalcommons.law.yale.edu/ylj/vol122/iss6/1/\">put it </a>in 2013, then we should be seriously concerned about all kinds of deception, nondisclosure, false advertising and so forth. If Debbie consents to sex with David because David lies that he is an atheist, rich, a Bernie bro, a Harvard alumnus, her husband, whatever &#x2013; is not Debbie&#x2019;s consent vitiated? Is the sex rape?</p><p>Scholars such as Corey Rayburn Yung <a href=\"https://digitalcommons.law.yale.edu/yjlf/vol27/iss1/1/\">counter</a> that these problems appear only in mythical doctrinal theoryland and not in the real world of sexual coercion. Yet the conviction of trans and gender-nonconforming defendants belies that claim, and shows that the problem is a real one. There is a solution, in two parts.</p><p><span class=\"ld-dropcap\">F</span>irst, we should render as a legal wrong, although not a crime, the deliberate contravention of an explicit conditional for the procurement of sex. The civil rights attorney Alexandra Brodsky makes a parallel <a href=\"https://cjgl.cdrs.columbia.edu/article/rape-adjacent-imagining-legal-responses-to-nonconsensual-condom-removal/\">argument</a> about &#x2018;stealthing&#x2019;, the nasty practice of removing a condom unbeknown to one&#x2019;s partner. So if Debbie says to David: &#x2018;I will sleep with you if, and only if, you are Republican,&#x2019; and David lies about his political-party affiliation, the subsequent sex becomes legally wrongful. Yet rather than sentence David to prison (a typical penalty for a crime), we might obligate David to pay Debbie money or compensate her in some other way (a typical penalty for a tort violation).</p><p>Of course, sex rarely happens under such if-and-only-if conditions; yet tailoring the law like this means that we can keep consent as our metric of sexual assault rather than reverting to an archaic standard of force.</p><p>Second, it is important to understand that some questions are or should be unanswerable as legal truth claims. When it comes to sex, there should be no legally actionable way to answer the question: &#x2018;Are you a man?&#x2019; Is gender a matter of genitals, hormones, chromosomes, secondary sex characteristics, social inequality or self-identification? The law cannot bring any clear answer to this question. One should not be convicted of sexual assault for failing to live up to a phallocentric standard of manhood.</p><p>Yet rendering as a legal wrong, but not a crime, the deliberate contravention of an explicit conditional in order to procure sex intimates how crappy consent is as a metric for sexual ethics. It bears reminding that legal responsibility is not the same thing as moral responsibility. One could lie to a prospective partner that he is an unmarried and wealthy libertarian, when in fact he is a married and poor socialist. It does not mean that one should do so, even if the subsequent sex is legally consensual (lest the partner explicitly premised her consent on any or all of these marital, financial or political party statuses). Despite recent declarations of consent&#x2019;s sexiness and goodness, <a href=\"https://aeon.co/ideas/how-do-we-understand-sexual-pleasure-in-this-age-of-consent\">consent</a> offers us little direction when it comes to sexual communication, misrepresentation or nondisclosure of facts about ourselves to our partners. Moreover, consent offers minimal guidance as to how we ought to behave at the bar, dance club or frat party. So don&#x2019;t grab Ben&#x2019;s or Jen&#x2019;s genitals without an indication of willingness from Ben or Jen. But what kinds of embellishments, flirtations, pressures or even lies can you peddle to Ben or Jen to pursue your ambition to sleep with them?</p><p>Consent has limits not just in terms of scope but also in terms of sufficiency and applicability.</p><p>As for sufficiency: if Peter requests that Adam remove his legs or cut off his face as part of their sexual encounter, are we prepared to say Adam&#x2019;s consent (affirmative consent!) absolves Peter of any legal or moral responsibility? If we are not, can our reservations simply be sourced to erotophobia (fear of sex)? I don&#x2019;t think so.</p><p>As for applicability: many people suppose that sex with nonhuman animals is wrong because animals cannot consent. But are animals really the kinds of creatures capable of consenting? Can Fido &#x2018;consent&#x2019; or not to fetch? If you do believe animals such as cows can proffer consent, I would wager they are less likely to consent to becoming a cheeseburger than to sex.</p><p>Finally, maybe consent is more often the <a href=\"https://heinonline.org/HOL/LandingPage?handle=hein.journals/wiswo3&amp;div=8&amp;id=&amp;page=\">problem</a> than the solution to bad sex. Why do people, too often girls and women, consent to sex that is immiserating, painful, unwanted and unpleasant? What social, cultural and economic forces make consenting to awful sex less costly than saying no? Far from being solved by consent, <em>that</em> problem is constituted by it. Consent does not solve all our social problems or intimate injustices. Just like we consent to deadening jobs, we often consent to injurious sex. Right-wing talkshow hosts decry that some in the #MeToo movement have confused rape with bad sex, but it&#x2019;s critical that we make bad sex, and not just rape, a primary target of our sexual politics. I don&#x2019;t mean bad sex as in mediocre sex, say, when nobody comes. I mean sex that is persistently unwanted, or painful or begrudgingly acquiesced to, or requires illicit substances to endure.</p><p>Let&#x2019;s collaborate to create opportunities for intimacy and sexual satisfaction, particularly for people historically tasked with satisfying others rather than being satisfied themselves. Let&#x2019;s imagine a progressive sexual politics in which the sex that too many of us consent to is the problem, rather than the antidote.</p> </div>","url":"https://aeon.co/ideas/what-do-we-consent-to-when-we-consent-to-sex","date_published":"2018-10-24T00:16:07+00:00","author":{"name":""}},{"id":"968","title":"Barbara Kruger asks","content_html":"<div class=\"post\"> <p>Barbara Kruger, Untitled (Questions)\n(1990/2018)<p><img src=\"https://kottke.org/plus/misc/images/barbara-kruger-moca.jpg\" width=\"1000\" alt=\"barbara-kruger-moca.jpg\"></p><br>\nNine big questions by Barbara Kruger are now on display at <a href=\"https://www.moca.org/exhibition/barbara-kruger-untitled-questions-2\">MOCA</a> in Los Angeles until November 2020. The museum will also host voter registration events in conjunction with the installation, made possible by an anonymous donor. </p> <p>It&#x2019;s worth noting that MOCA is just blocks away from LA&#x2019;s Skid Row, where about 2,500 people live on the street. It&#x2019;ll be interesting to see who shows up for their events and how they&#x2019;ll do outreach.</p> <p class=\"entry-tags-title\">More about...</p> </div>","url":"https://kottke.org/18/10/barbara-kruger-asks","date_published":"2018-10-24T00:12:36+00:00","author":{"name":""}},{"id":"967","title":"How Technology is Shaping the Future of Consumer Credit","content_html":"<article class=\"post-article js-post-gallery grid__item main float--left three-quarters\"> <div class=\"article__title__meta\"> <time class=\"article__time\"> on October 23, 2018 at 10:45 am</time> </div> <p>Consumer credit has been constantly evolving for <a href=\"http://www.visualcapitalist.com/history-consumer-credit-one-infographic/\">more than 5,000 years</a>, but the reality is that the most drastic changes to the industry came fairly recently.</p>\n<p>Modern credit systems are now powered by sophisticated algorithmic credit scoring, the use of trended and alternative data, and innovative fintech applications. While these developments are all interesting in their own right, together they serve as a technological foundation for a much more profound shift in consumer credit in the coming years.</p>\n<h2>The Future of Consumer Credit</h2>\n<p>In today&#x2019;s infographic from <a href=\"https://insight.equifax.com/\">Equifax</a>, we look at the cutting edge of consumer credit, including the new technologies and global trends that are shaping the future of how consumers around the world will access credit.</p>\n<p>It&#x2019;s the final piece of our three-part series covering the past, present, and future of credit.</p>\n<p><center><a href=\"http://www.visualcapitalist.com/history-consumer-credit-one-infographic/\"><img src=\"http://2oqz471sa19h3vbwa53m33yj.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/nav1.jpg\" alt=\"Part 1: The History of Consumer Credit\"></a><a href=\"http://www.visualcapitalist.com/tech-changing-modern-credit-landscape/\"><img src=\"http://2oqz471sa19h3vbwa53m33yj.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/nav2.jpg\" alt=\"Part 2: Modern Credit\"></a><a href=\"http://www.visualcapitalist.com/tech-future-of-consumer-credit/\"><img src=\"http://2oqz471sa19h3vbwa53m33yj.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/nav3.jpg\" alt=\"Part 3: Future\"></a></center><img src=\"http://2oqz471sa19h3vbwa53m33yj.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/the-future-consumer-credit.jpg\" alt=\"How Technology is Shaping the Future of Consumer Credit\"><br>\n<center><a href=\"http://www.visualcapitalist.com/history-consumer-credit-one-infographic/\"><img src=\"http://2oqz471sa19h3vbwa53m33yj.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/nav1.jpg\" alt=\"Part 1: The History of Consumer Credit\"></a><a href=\"http://www.visualcapitalist.com/tech-changing-modern-credit-landscape/\"><img src=\"http://2oqz471sa19h3vbwa53m33yj.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/nav2.jpg\" alt=\"Part 2: Modern Credit\"></a><a href=\"http://www.visualcapitalist.com/tech-future-of-consumer-credit/\"><img src=\"http://2oqz471sa19h3vbwa53m33yj.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/nav3.jpg\" alt=\"Part 3: Future\"></a></center></p>\n<p>The biggest problem that creditors have always faced is well-documented. There is more to a borrower than just their credit score. Yet creditors do not always have a 360 degree view of a consumer&#x2019;s creditworthiness in order to better assess their overall score.</p>\n<p>Called &#x201C;information asymmetry&#x201D;, this gap has gotten smaller over the years thanks to advancements in technology and business practices. However, it still persists in particular situations, like when a college student has no credit history, or when a rural farmer in India wants to take out a loan to buy seeds for crops.</p>\n<p>But thanks to growing amounts of data &#x2013; as well as the technology to make use of that data &#x2013; high levels of information asymmetry may soon be a thing of the past.</p>\n<h2>Forces Shaping Credit&#x2019;s Future</h2>\n<p>Here are some of the major forces that will drive the future of consumer credit, addressing the information asymmetry problem and making a wide variety of credit products available to the public:</p>\n<p><strong>1. Growing Data</strong><br>\n90% of the data in all of human history has been created in just the last two years.</p>\n<p><strong>2. Changing Regulatory Landscape</strong><br>\nNew international regulations are putting personal data back in the hands of consumers, who can control the personal data they authorize access to.</p>\n<p><strong>3. Game-changing Technologies</strong><br>\nMachine learning, deep learning, and neural networks are giving companies a way to garner insights from data.</p>\n<p><strong>4. Focus on Identity</strong><br>\nAuthenticating the identity of consumers will become crucial as credit becomes increasingly digital. Blockchain and biometrics could play a role.</p>\n<p><strong>5. The Fintech Boom</strong><br>\nThe democratization of data and tech is allowing small and niche players to come in and offer new, innovative products to consumers.</p>\n<h2>The Credit Revolution</h2>\n<p>No one can predict the future, but the above forces are shaping the credit industry to be a very different experience for consumers and businesses. Here are how things could change.</p>\n<h3>More Data, New Models</h3>\n<p>Current credit scoring algorithms use logistical regressions to compute scores, but these really max out at using 30-50 variables. In addition, these models can&#x2019;t &#x201C;learn&#x201D; new things like AI can.</p>\n<p>However, with new technologies and an unprecedented explosion in data taking place, it means that this noise can be converted into insights that could help increase trust in the credit marketplace. New algorithms will be multivariate, and they will be able to mine, structure, weight, and use this treasure trove of data.</p> <table id=\"tablepress-310-no-6\" class=\"tablepress tablepress-id-310\">\n<thead>\n<tr class=\"row-1 odd\"> <th class=\"column-1\">Technology</th><th class=\"column-2\">Description</th>\n</tr>\n</thead>\n<tbody class=\"row-hover\">\n<tr class=\"row-2 even\"> <td class=\"column-1\">Artificial intelligence</td><td class=\"column-2\">Machine learning can &#x201C;learn&#x201D; from massive data sets, and apply these lessons for better scoring.</td>\n</tr>\n<tr class=\"row-3 odd\"> <td class=\"column-1\">Bayesian</td><td class=\"column-2\">Models can update probabilities as more information is available, helping to better predict creditworthiness.</td>\n</tr>\n<tr class=\"row-4 even\"> <td class=\"column-1\">APIs</td><td class=\"column-2\">Application programming interfaces (APIs) make it easier for developers to use technologies, data, and to build new applications.</td>\n</tr>\n<tr class=\"row-5 odd\"> <td class=\"column-1\">Neural networks</td><td class=\"column-2\">Brain-inspired AI systems designed to replicate the way that humans learn are used for deep learning. This enables the processing of raw, unstructured, and often abstract data for new insights.</td>\n</tr>\n</tbody>\n</table> <p>Neural networks will be able to look at a billions of data points to find and make sense of extremely rare patterns. They will also be able to explain why a particular decision was made &#x2013; and at a time where transparency is crucial, this will be key.</p>\n<h3>Data Will be in the Hands of Consumers</h3>\n<p>Today, much of consumers&#x2019; financial data &#x2013; such as loan repayment histories &#x2013; is held almost exclusively by banks and credit agencies.</p>\n<p>However, tomorrow points to a very different paradigm: much of the data will be directly in the hands of consumers. In other words, consumers will be able to decide how their data gets used, and for what. In Europe, changes have already been made to transfer control of personal data to the consumer, such as the PSD2, GDPR, and Open Banking (U.K.) initiatives.</p>\n<p>Experts see the trend towards open data growing globally, and eventually reaching the United States. Open data will allow consumers to:</p>\n<ul>\n<li>Regain control of checking, mortgage, loan, and credit card data</li>\n<li>Give up more information voluntarily to unlock better deals from creditors</li>\n<li>Grant access to third parties (fintech, apps, etc.) to use this data in new applications and products</li>\n<li>Gain access to better rates, new lending models, and more</li>\n</ul>\n<h3>Identity Will Be Just as Important</h3>\n<p>As transactions become more digital and remote, how lenders verify the identity of borrowers will be just as important as the lending data itself.</p>\n<p>Why? Credit is based around trust &#x2013; and fraud is the biggest risk for lenders. </p>\n<p>But fraud an be prevented by new technologies that help detect anomalies and prove a borrower&#x2019;s identity:</p>\n<p><strong>Blockchain</strong><br>\nDistributed, tamper-resistant databases can help secure people&#x2019;s identities from fraudulent activity</p>\n<p><strong>Biometrics</strong><br>\nFingerprints, facial recognition, and other biometric identification schemes could help secure identities as well</p>\n<h3>New Game, New Players</h3>\n<p>With the vast expansion in types and volume credit data, new technologies, and standardized data in the hands of consumers, there will be a new era of third-party companies and apps that can provide useful and relevant services for consumers.</p>\n<p>Here are just some emerging fields in lending:</p> <table id=\"tablepress-311-no-6\" class=\"tablepress tablepress-id-311\">\n<thead>\n<tr class=\"row-1 odd\"> <th class=\"column-1\">Emerging fields</th><th class=\"column-2\">Description</th>\n</tr>\n</thead>\n<tbody class=\"row-hover\">\n<tr class=\"row-2 even\"> <td class=\"column-1\">P2P Loans</td><td class=\"column-2\">Does a bank need to be an intermediary? <br>\nWith peer-to-peer loans, you are matched to an appropriate lender/borrower.</td>\n</tr>\n<tr class=\"row-3 odd\"> <td class=\"column-1\">Microlending</td><td class=\"column-2\">Lending doesn&#x2019;t always need to be in big amounts, like for a mortgage or auto loan.</td>\n</tr>\n<tr class=\"row-4 even\"> <td class=\"column-1\">Alternative credit scoring</td><td class=\"column-2\">Psychometric testing or the use of other data streams can be used to power this less traditional form of lending.</td>\n</tr>\n<tr class=\"row-5 odd\"> <td class=\"column-1\">Niche services</td><td class=\"column-2\">With an open playing field, companies will fill every gap imaginable.</td>\n</tr>\n</tbody>\n</table> <p>In the future, consumers may not have to even request credit &#x2013; it may be automatically allocated to them based on behavior, age, assets, and needs.</p>\n<p>Consumers will have more control, and more options than ever before.</p>\n<p><a href=\"http://www.visualcapitalist.com/subscribe\"><img class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-1216\" src=\"http://2oqz471sa19h3vbwa53m33yj.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/footer-email.gif\" alt=\"Subscribe to Visual Capitalist\"></a></p>\n<div id=\"mc4wp-form-34\" class=\"form mc4wp-form mc4wp-form-6652 mc4wp-ajax\"><p class=\"mc4wp-alert\">Thank you! <span class=\"mc4wp-mailchimp-error\"></span></p><p class=\"mc4wp-alert\">Given email address is already subscribed, thank you! <span class=\"mc4wp-mailchimp-error\"></span></p><p class=\"mc4wp-alert\">Please provide a valid email address. <span class=\"mc4wp-mailchimp-error\"></span></p><p class=\"mc4wp-alert\">Please complete the CAPTCHA. <span class=\"mc4wp-mailchimp-error\"></span></p><p class=\"mc4wp-alert\">Oops. Something went wrong. Please try again later. <span class=\"mc4wp-mailchimp-error\"></span></p></div>\n<center>\n<div><a href=\"http://www.twitter.com/VisualCap\"><img src=\"http://2oqz471sa19h3vbwa53m33yj.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/vc_twitter.png\" alt=\"Follow Visual Capitalist on Twitter\"></a></div>\n<div><a href=\"https://www.facebook.com/visualcapitalist\"><img src=\"http://2oqz471sa19h3vbwa53m33yj.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/vc_facebook.png\" alt=\"Like Visual Capitalist on Facebook\"></a></div>\n<div><a href=\"http://www.linkedin.com/company/visual-capitalist\"><img src=\"http://2oqz471sa19h3vbwa53m33yj.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/vc_linkedin.png\" alt=\"Follow Visual Capitalist on LinkedIn\"></a></div>\n</center> <h3 class=\"jp-relatedposts-headline\"><em>Related</em></h3> <aside class=\"author\"> <div class=\"author__text\"> <p class=\"author__bio\">Jeff is the Editor-in-Chief of Visual Capitalist, a media site that creates and curates visuals on business and investing. He has been quoted or featured on Business Insider, Forbes, CNBC, MarketWatch, The Huffington Post, The World Economic Forum, and Fast Company.</p> </div>\n</aside> </article>","url":"http://www.visualcapitalist.com/tech-future-of-consumer-credit/","date_published":"2018-10-24T00:11:32+00:00","author":{"name":""}},{"id":"965","title":"RossKimes","content_html":"<div class=\"content-container content-body\"> <p class=\"wrapper\"> <main id=\"main\" class=\"site-main\">\n<article id=\"post-1690\" class=\"post\"> <header id=\"article-header\"> </header> <div class=\"post-content\"> <p>Since watchOS 1, the default honeycomb app picker has been derided as one of weakest parts of Apple Watch. A lot its criticism stemmed from the fact that watch apps were pretty useless before watchOS 3, but it is still considered a bad interaction model for launching apps now.</p>\n<p>Basically, it looked cool but was horrible to use.</p>\n<p>watchOS 3 introduced the Dock, which let users put their favorite apps in a short list for easy access (with the added bonus that apps in the Dock were kept in memory and did not need to be relaunched every time the user opened them). watchOS 4 added an option to replace the honeycomb with a simple alphabetical list of all the apps on the watch. Once that option was available, I switched to it and promptly forgot about the honeycomb.</p>\n<p>Until this summer.</p>\n<p>As apps on the watch became more useful, I find myself using them more than I used to. I now regularly use more apps than I can keep one my dock, so I end up having to go back to the full list of apps more often that I would like. While finding an app by name in an alphabetical list is easier than scrolling around the honeycomb finding the right icon, it is still too slow for the watch (where total interaction time should be under five or ten seconds).</p>\n<p>The solution to this problem ended up being the honeycomb.</p>\n<p>I made a list of apps that I used regularly and put them into three categories:\n&#x2013; Apps that I primarily interacted with via complications &#x2013; Apps that had useful display info</p><p> &#x2013; Apps that were only useful when using</p></div></article></main></p>\n<h2>Complications</h2>\n<p>For the first group, I just set them up as Complications. Notable apps here include the Activity app, <a href=\"https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/carrot-weather/id961390574?mt=8\">CARROT Weather</a>, and <a href=\"https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/streaks/id963034692?mt=8\">Streaks</a>. These apps just live on my watch face, so they are <em>not</em> included in the Dock or near the center of the honeycomb.</p>\n<p><img class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-1688 jetpack-lazy-image\" src=\"https://i0.wp.com/rosskimes.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/Image-10-21-18-9-43-PM.png?resize=512%2C890&amp;is-pending-load=1#038;ssl=1\" width=\"512\" srcset=\"data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7\"></p>\n<h2>The Dock</h2>\n<p>For apps that I use often that have valuable information to display even when I am not using them, I use the Dock. I use the setting to show my Favorite apps instead of Recents (for consistency and muscle memory). My dock consists of Now Playing, Reminders, <a href=\"https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/fantastical-2-for-iphone/id718043190?mt=8\">Fantastical</a>, <a href=\"https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/radarscope/id288419283?mt=8\">RadarScope</a>, and <a href=\"https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/healthface/id1176374647?mt=8\">HealthFace</a>.</p>\n<p>This option was a bit more useful with my old Series 3 Watch than it is on the Series 4. The Dock has been slightly redesigned on the Series 4 to only show about half of the apps at a time. This makes using them for quickly glancing information much less convenient. So I could see myself switching the dock to the Recent setting and spreading these apps among the honeycomb (more or this in a minute) and my watch faces. Adding these apps to watch faces is much easier with the new Infograph face (but I would prefer that Apple just fixed the dock to be more useful on the Series 4)<sup id=\"fnref-1690-1\"><a href=\"https://rosskimes.net/2018/10/in-defense-of-the-apple-watch-honeycomb-app-picker/#fn-1690-1\" class=\"jetpack-footnote\">1</a></sup>.</p>\n<p><img class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-1689 jetpack-lazy-image\" src=\"https://i1.wp.com/rosskimes.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/DraggedImage.png?resize=512%2C890&amp;is-pending-load=1#038;ssl=1\" width=\"512\" srcset=\"data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7\"></p>\n<h2>The Honeycomb</h2>\n<p>The last step to my organizational strategy is the home screen. I switched it back from the list to the honeycomb and organized how the default view looks (before you scroll anything around). I broke my other apps that I routinely used into categories and organized them around the center by those categories. I have audio apps (Music, Podcasts, and Radio) on the bottom right. I have communication app (Messages, Phone, and Radio) on the bottom left. I have health apps (Workout, <a href=\"https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/streaks-workout/id1044950341?mt=8\">Streaks Workout</a>, Heart Rate, and Breathe) on the top. And I have other miscellaneous apps (Maps, Wallet, Alarms, <a href=\"https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/1password-password-manager/id568903335?mt=8\">1Password</a>, and <a href=\"https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/pcalc/id284666222?mt=8\">PCalc</a>) filling in the missing spaces.</p>\n<p><img class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-1687 jetpack-lazy-image\" src=\"https://i2.wp.com/rosskimes.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/DraggedImage-1.png?resize=512%2C890&amp;is-pending-load=1#038;ssl=1\" width=\"512\" srcset=\"data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7\"></p>\n<p>The rest of the honeycomb is not organized at all, because I <em>never</em> have to use an app that is not already covered above.</p>\n<p>Unlike the apps launched from Complications or the Dock, apps on the honeycomb are <em>not</em> kept in memory and must be launched from scratch when tapped on. Before when launching took 5 seconds or more, this was enough to make me never use them. While using the Series 3 over the summer, I realized that I was able to launch apps in under a second. Now on my Series 4, it is instant.</p> <p>With this organizational system, I have build up muscle memory for launching apps. I no longer have to navigation an alphabetical list of apps to find the one I am looking for, because any app I am looking for is either release showing on my watch face or is quickly accessible through either one tap of the crown or one tap of the side button. Four years into using the Apple Watch every day, I finally enjoy using the honeycomb.</p> <footer> </footer> </div>","url":"https://rosskimes.net/2018/10/in-defense-of-the-apple-watch-honeycomb-app-picker/","date_published":"2018-10-23T13:35:15+00:00","author":{"name":""}},{"id":"979","title":"The Supreme Court is about to decide if the children’s climate lawsuit can proceed","content_html":"<div><div><figure class=\"e-image e-image--hero\">\n  <span class=\"e-image__inner\">\n    <span class=\"e-image__image \">\n      \n        <picture class=\"c-picture\">\n  \n\n\n  <source srcset=\"https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/lqo5Q-6F9Bfev_hcBWG_k6NybFA=/0x0:750x507/320x213/filters:focal(363x247:483x367):format(webp)/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/61871397/download.0.jpeg 320w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/rBmVCcOnuoC2RuWLfK_ip-tKvkg=/0x0:750x507/620x413/filters:focal(363x247:483x367):format(webp)/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/61871397/download.0.jpeg 620w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/hZbVN_H1WFvJ7B3wgsKhHzw2Aio=/0x0:750x507/920x613/filters:focal(363x247:483x367):format(webp)/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/61871397/download.0.jpeg 920w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/jXIJwq4Pl4T5lM4UUoQ2Jmem4zg=/0x0:750x507/1220x813/filters:focal(363x247:483x367):format(webp)/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/61871397/download.0.jpeg 1220w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/IOGqqvc7BIQqNUNmLIn2t6Z3I2I=/0x0:750x507/1520x1013/filters:focal(363x247:483x367):format(webp)/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/61871397/download.0.jpeg 1520w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/kL7wOfIcCeqmd8ciZYYlR8rWSlc=/0x0:750x507/1820x1213/filters:focal(363x247:483x367):format(webp)/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/61871397/download.0.jpeg 1820w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/U9WNJnz2mp-pd4v6RBWUbpMUPQo=/0x0:750x507/2120x1413/filters:focal(363x247:483x367):format(webp)/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/61871397/download.0.jpeg 2120w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/MH7BGCq5IiV9UUCIRRqdQ6rR-bY=/0x0:750x507/2420x1613/filters:focal(363x247:483x367):format(webp)/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/61871397/download.0.jpeg 2420w\">\n\n\n<img srcset=\"https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/5mG7HJpUDo1hmjjopsz7JngzbmE=/0x0:750x507/320x213/filters:focal(363x247:483x367)/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/61871397/download.0.jpeg 320w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/j8VqsB32s4pE-dt2CjzZ8FhN8O4=/0x0:750x507/620x413/filters:focal(363x247:483x367)/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/61871397/download.0.jpeg 620w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/bIxXx6RMMsxuIbvXpxpRgiz3TSQ=/0x0:750x507/920x613/filters:focal(363x247:483x367)/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/61871397/download.0.jpeg 920w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/grzQhW8GX3yQJKtPxKm50MlCbjc=/0x0:750x507/1220x813/filters:focal(363x247:483x367)/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/61871397/download.0.jpeg 1220w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/_sURxuYDfaZy6X1UQH_RaAKDH-4=/0x0:750x507/1520x1013/filters:focal(363x247:483x367)/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/61871397/download.0.jpeg 1520w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/VCj3DRxjCwmovw2rRxfm6bBL0ik=/0x0:750x507/1820x1213/filters:focal(363x247:483x367)/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/61871397/download.0.jpeg 1820w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/wyC5QzIVLUJRhtnsx4N3TylFLz0=/0x0:750x507/2120x1413/filters:focal(363x247:483x367)/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/61871397/download.0.jpeg 2120w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/lwNFIEUrPV7qowEKMwXNxKkKSNQ=/0x0:750x507/2420x1613/filters:focal(363x247:483x367)/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/61871397/download.0.jpeg 2420w\" alt=\"\" src=\"https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/5mG7HJpUDo1hmjjopsz7JngzbmE=/0x0:750x507/320x213/filters:focal(363x247:483x367)/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/61871397/download.0.jpeg%20320w,%20https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/j8VqsB32s4pE-dt2CjzZ8FhN8O4=/0x0:750x507/620x413/filters:focal(363x247:483x367)/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/61871397/download.0.jpeg%20620w,%20https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/bIxXx6RMMsxuIbvXpxpRgiz3TSQ=/0x0:750x507/920x613/filters:focal(363x247:483x367)/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/61871397/download.0.jpeg%20920w,%20https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/grzQhW8GX3yQJKtPxKm50MlCbjc=/0x0:750x507/1220x813/filters:focal(363x247:483x367)/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/61871397/download.0.jpeg%201220w,%20https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/_sURxuYDfaZy6X1UQH_RaAKDH-4=/0x0:750x507/1520x1013/filters:focal(363x247:483x367)/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/61871397/download.0.jpeg%201520w,%20https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/VCj3DRxjCwmovw2rRxfm6bBL0ik=/0x0:750x507/1820x1213/filters:focal(363x247:483x367)/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/61871397/download.0.jpeg%201820w,%20https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/wyC5QzIVLUJRhtnsx4N3TylFLz0=/0x0:750x507/2120x1413/filters:focal(363x247:483x367)/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/61871397/download.0.jpeg%202120w,%20https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/lwNFIEUrPV7qowEKMwXNxKkKSNQ=/0x0:750x507/2420x1613/filters:focal(363x247:483x367)/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/61871397/download.0.jpeg%202420w\">\n\n</picture>\n\n      \n    </span>\n    \n  </span>\n  \n    <figcaption class=\"e-image__meta\">\n      \n        <figcaption>Earth Guardians youth director&#xA0;Xiuhtezcatl&#xA0;Martinez, one of the plaintiffs in the<em> Juliana v. US</em> climate lawsuit, speaks outside the US Supreme Court in 2017.</figcaption>\n      \n      \n        <cite>Robin Loznak/Our Children&#x2019;s Trust</cite>\n      \n    </figcaption>\n  \n</figure><div class=\"c-entry-content\">\n  <p id=\"BrPPei\">One of the biggest legal battles over climate change is now in limbo pending a decision from the Supreme Court&#x2019;s chief justice, who last week took the odd step of halting the lawsuit to consider a stay. The court is expected to rule Friday on whether the case, which was expected to go to trial Monday, can proceed. </p>\n<p id=\"EOhPoZ\">The suit, <a href=\"http://blogs2.law.columbia.edu/climate-change-litigation/wp-content/uploads/sites/16/case-documents/2017/20170609_docket-17-71692_petition.pdf\"><em>Juliana v. US</em></a>, also known as the children&#x2019;s climate lawsuit, was first filed in 2015 and now includes 21 plaintiffs between the ages of 11 and 22, including <a href=\"https://www.ourchildrenstrust.org/sophie/\">Sophie Kivlehan</a>, 20, the granddaughter of the famed climate scientist James Hansen. The case argues that the US government undertook policies that contributed to climate change, thereby causing irreparable harm to young people and denying them a safe climate. As relief, they want the government to pursue policies to keep warming in check. </p>\n<p id=\"PEXMjp\">The trial was supposed to begin at the United States District Court in Oregon on October 29. But last week, the defendant, the US government, asked for a stay of the case, arguing the costs of litigation would put an undue burden on it. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts granted a temporary stay and halted discovery until Wednesday to allow the plaintiffs to respond. The district court then vacated the case pending a decision from the high court. </p>\n<div id=\"SE2iMc\">\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p>NEWS: Trial date of Juliana v. US -- better known as the &quot;kids&apos; climate case&quot; -- has been vacated, meaning there is no official start date. <br><br>Trial was supposed to start Monday in Oregon. Plaintiffs, witnesses, friends, family bought plane tix, booked rooms already.<a href=\"https://twitter.com/hashtag/youthvgov?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#youthvgov</a></p>&#x2014; Benjamin J. Hulac (@benhulac) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/benhulac/status/1055228279345561605?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">October 24, 2018</a>\n</blockquote>\n\n</div>\n<p id=\"THbzt4\">Working over the weekend, the children and their lawyers filed a <a href=\"https://static1.squarespace.com/static/571d109b04426270152febe0/t/5bcdfe9615fcc0899891cfb7/1540226716312/2018.10.22.SCOTUS+Brief+FINAL+for+filing.pdf\">103-page brief</a> on Monday, &#x201C;in hopes of receiving a decision from the Chief Justice before the week&#x2019;s end.&#x201D;</p>\n<p id=\"HH1sIO\">Now the case is back at the Supreme Court, and what happens next is unclear, including whether the other justices on the bench will weigh in. </p>\n<p id=\"n12c4r\">Several legal analysts told Vox it is extremely unusual for the Supreme Court to step in to block a legal proceeding in a lower court. Appeals from the District Court in Oregon are almost always handled by the 9th Circuit, which has already declined to block the lawsuit. </p>\n<p id=\"unoEj0\">And one of the only other times Supreme Court has done something like this was also related to climate change. In 2016, the court stayed the Obama administration&#x2019;s <a href=\"http://www.scotusblog.com/2016/02/carbon-pollution-controls-put-on-hold/\">Clean Power Plan</a> to limit greenhouse gases from power plants, pending ongoing lawsuits from states suing to block the rule from going into effect.  </p>\n<p id=\"YPV6v7\">But then the children&#x2019;s lawsuit is an unusual case. </p>\n<p id=\"Pyf6vX\">The plaintiffs essentially are arguing that a safe climate is a civil right, so the implications for climate change policy are huge. Though the case is in uncharted legal territory, it has survived several legal challenges and motions to dismiss, and lower federal courts have allowed it to proceed. </p>\n<p id=\"K58agt\">Ann Carlson, a professor of environmental law at the University of California Los Angeles, said that the Supreme Court stepping in on a case like this strongly suggests there&#x2019;s something there that piques the court&#x2019;s interest.</p>\n<p id=\"HvGuYQ\">&#x201C;It&#x2019;s certainly a signal that the court is uncomfortable with the underlying legal theory of the Juliana case,&#x201D; Carlson said.  </p>\n<p id=\"REGmQB\">The federal government, under Presidents Barack Obama and Donald Trump, has argued the case has no merit and repeatedly sought to have it dismissed. Asked for comment, the Department of Justice pointed to comments made by <a href=\"https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/acting-assistant-attorney-general-jeffrey-h-wood-delivers-keynote-speech-26th-fall-conference\">Jeffrey Wood</a>, a political appointee at the DOJ handling environmental cases, who spoke about the Juliana case at a law conference last week. He said that &#x201C;the purported constitutional right that they assert simply does not exist&#x201D; and that the Juliana lawsuit &#x201C;<a href=\"https://www.eenews.net/eenewspm/stories/1060103871/\">has no legal basis</a>.&#x201D;</p>\n<p id=\"ohNFpH\">&#x201C;In our view, the Oregon lawsuit is an unconstitutional attempt to use a single court to control the entire nation&#x2019;s energy and climate policy,&#x201D; Wood said, adding &#x201C;the plaintiffs in Oregon are ignoring the fact that clean and responsible production and use of fossil fuels remains vital to the health and well-being of the American people.&#x201D;</p>\n<p id=\"JWslBG\">For climate activists old and young, the courts have become a last resort for pushing governments and businesses to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, especially with an executive branch that&#x2019;s still <a href=\"https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2018/10/22/18007922/republicans-still-denying-climate-change\">denying climate change</a> exists and a gridlocked Congress. </p>\n<p id=\"I1x6yp\">There are also several ongoing <a href=\"https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2018/3/20/17129354/climate-change-lawsuit-tutorial-alsup\">climate change lawsuits</a> filed by cities, counties, and a state against oil companies, though the pivot points are different. The local governments are citing nuisance statutes and seeking money from oil companies to pay for damages caused by climate change, whereas the children&#x2019;s case is trying to force the government to enact policies to curb greenhouse gas emissions. </p>\n<p id=\"8kwh7Y\">But the prospects for the children&#x2019;s climate lawsuit to succeed<strong> </strong>appear dim, first because the courts tend to give wide latitude to the executive branch in these cases, and second because the Supreme Court&#x2019;s newest Justice <a href=\"https://www.vox.com/2018/7/9/17548782/brett-kavanaugh-trump-supreme-court-anthony-kennedy\">Brett Kavanaugh</a> is much more <a href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/10/climate/kavanaugh-environment-supreme-court.html\">skeptical of environmental regulations</a> than his predecessor. </p>\n<p id=\"je2p2B\">&#x201C;This is just the beginning of what we&#x2019;re likely to see from a Court that doesn&#x2019;t have Justice Kennedy on it anymore,&#x201D; Carlson said. </p>\n</div></div></div>","url":"https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2018/10/23/18010582/childrens-climate-lawsuit-supreme-court","date_published":"2018-10-23T12:30:02+00:00","author":{"name":"Umair Irfan"}},{"id":"972","title":"News Quality Requires an Industrial Approach","content_html":"<div><div><div class=\"section-content\"><div class=\"section-inner sectionLayout--outsetColumn\"><figure id=\"30fb\" class=\"graf graf--figure graf--layoutOutsetCenter graf-after--p\"><img class=\"progressiveMedia-noscript js-progressiveMedia-inner\" src=\"https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/2000/1*X3cUnTlsq12KL3Ds_xvq6w.png\"></figure></div><div class=\"section-inner sectionLayout--insetColumn\"><p id=\"fb6b\" class=\"graf graf--p graf-after--h4\">The most frequent question I&#x2019;m asked about our <a href=\"https://mondaynote.com/deepnews-ai-progress-report-2-it-works-29bdeb9648a1\" class=\"markup--anchor markup--p-anchor\">Deepnews.ai</a> project is: How do you define quality in journalism? How do you intend to measure it?</p><p id=\"474e\" class=\"graf graf--p graf-after--p\">It is a legitimate interrogation. I get it over and over from journalists, who tend to be suspicious (&#x201C;it&#x2019;s an art, you can&#x2019;t measure or quantify art&#x201D;); potential investors (&#x201C;where is the money?&#x201D;); news entrepreneurs like the ones I met last weekend at Newsgeist in Phoenix who are genuinely curious about it; the engineers I&#x2019;m working with. And my journalism students.</p><p id=\"64bc\" class=\"graf graf--p graf-after--p\">This year, I am teaching a long-form class at <a href=\"http://www.journalisme.sciences-po.fr/index.php?option=com_content&amp;task=blogsection&amp;id=34&amp;Itemid=174\" class=\"markup--anchor markup--p-anchor\">Sciences Po journalism school</a> in Paris. We spend hours dissecting stories from long-form publishers: The New Yorker, Esquire, The Guardian, NYT Magazine, Vanity Fair, etc. (the class is taught in English to an international group of students). We look at the best practices and sometimes the quirks of people, like Bryan Burrough, Michael Lewis, Gay Talese&#x2026; We look at how they pick their subject, research and report it, and how they deal with tons of material, notes, handle their sources, etc. We go explore notions like narrative arc, how structure can retain readers&#x2019; attention, how to convey emotion, atmosphere&#x2026; We also deconstruct great video segments like the ones produced by The <a href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/video/op-docs\" class=\"markup--anchor markup--p-anchor\">New York Times Op-Doc</a> or <a href=\"https://mediastorm.com/\" class=\"markup--anchor markup--p-anchor\">Mediastorm</a>. American journalism is largely based on rules and discipline. That makes it great to teach&#x200A;&#x2014;&#x200A;and quite interesting from my French perspective.</p><p id=\"dc65\" class=\"graf graf--p graf-after--p\">I keep hammering my journalism students that they should dive into long-form writing right away. It will be the big differentiator in their career. It will make them noticed&#x200A;&#x2014;&#x200A;and it is a rewarding genre.</p><p id=\"e334\" class=\"graf graf--p graf-after--h4\">Our trade will probably recede to a small percentage of what it was thirty years ago. The gap will widen between commodity and value-added news (the former has shown no ability to make money&#x200A;&#x2014;&#x200A;cf. Buzzfeed and its lookalikes&#x200A;&#x2014;&#x200A;then let&#x2019;s go back to the basics). Newsrooms will shrink further but so will the overall competency of those who have access to a computer as people are losing their ability to write decently.</p><p id=\"5af6\" class=\"graf graf--p graf-after--p\">Already, only about 10~20 percent of a newsroom output could be labeled as value-added or made from thorough journalistic legwork. That doesn&#x2019;t mean the rest is crap, but it is vastly redundant and not much of a differentiator. But overall, I&#x2019;m certain that media companies that produce unique editorial and be good at promoting it will do well.</p><p id=\"d966\" class=\"graf graf--p graf-after--p\">Great editorial, as long as it is supported by a sophisticated commercial apparatus, should monetize. It means developing top of the line reader acquisition and retention programs, stopping treating subscribers like the captive commuters of the New York subway. That will require a change in mentality; for instance, hiring people with Netflix-grade qualifications, and investing a lot. Last week, as I was chatting with a European publisher, reminding him that Netflix&#x2019; biggest differentiator relies on two assets:</p><p id=\"a155\" class=\"graf graf--p graf-after--p\">&#x2014; A recommendation engine that drives 80 percent of what the streaming service&#x2019;s 130 million subscribers watch in 190 countries. This Netflix department equals the size of a large newspaper in terms of budget and workforce.</p><p id=\"2814\" class=\"graf graf--p graf-after--p\">&#x2014; The second is its flair for engaging content, and a unique ability to concoct global products ranging from a TV show produced in English to an Israeli series that will appeal to a nearly universal audience. That creates a virtuous loop, in which Netflix will invest $7m for each episode of <em class=\"markup--em markup--p-em\">The Crown</em>, raising the quality of a product that will draw a worldwide audience.</p><p id=\"8c9b\" class=\"graf graf--p graf-after--p\">Of course, we can&#x2019;t expect to see the ultra-fragmented news industry come even close to what Netflix, Amazon, Disney, or Apple are investing in creation. But the sector can focus on the quality of its content and ways to monetize it.</p><p id=\"b7dc\" class=\"graf graf--p graf-after--p\">At Deepnews.ai, our goal is to detect and skim what is unique to editorial production&#x200A;&#x2014;&#x200A;a tiny percentage of the 100 million links injected every day on the web&#x200A;&#x2014;&#x200A;ranging from the best of the <a href=\"https://eu.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/2018/04/16/pulitzer-prize-des-moines-register-andie-dominick-editorial-writing/521710002/\" class=\"markup--anchor markup--p-anchor\">Des Moines Register</a> to the tech blog <a href=\"https://stratechery.com/\" class=\"markup--anchor markup--p-anchor\">Stratchery</a>. These two, along with tens of thousands of solid new sources, should be part of a dataset of articles, adequately labeled to be used in AI models.</p><p id=\"1ee6\" class=\"graf graf--p graf-after--p\">But what then should we try to surface? What are the components of a good piece of journalism that can be highlighted and measured?</p><p id=\"0b1e\" class=\"graf graf--p graf-after--p\">This weekend, I read an excellent story in the New Yorker about the fight between Waymo (the Google division for autonomous cars) and Uber (which desperately wants to get rid of &#x201C;the guy behind the wheel,&#x201D; Dixit its founder Travis Kalanick). The article is titled <a href=\"https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/10/22/did-uber-steal-googles-intellectual-property\" class=\"markup--anchor markup--p-anchor\"><em class=\"markup--em markup--p-em\">Did Uber Steal Google&#x2019;s Intellectual Property?</em></a></p><p id=\"23bd\" class=\"graf graf--p graf-after--p\">Viewed through a human lens, the piece has all the ingredients of a well-crafted article: a compelling storyline, a controversial character (Anthony Levandowski, a brilliant and greedy jerk suspected of stealing a trove of technical stuff from Google before joining Uber), and near-perfect construction, with insightful background on Silicon Valley&#x2019;s shenanigans.</p><p id=\"1317\" class=\"graf graf--p graf-after--p\">From a dry statistical perspective, it&#x2019;s a long piece: 9800 words, carefully arranged in 102 paragraphs. It is profusely sourced thanks to about 250 quotes (or fragments) from 17 persons. It is fairly easy to read (10.1 on the Gunning-Fox Index that goes from 6-easy to 20-hard, same assessment from the Fleisch Reading Index). Sentences are relatively short, around 18 words, depending on the measure, and the pace is rather intense thanks to more than 600 commas. Our Deepnews.ai model gives the piece a score 3.47/5, which I personally deem as too low (I think it has to do with a scraping issue).</p><p id=\"3614\" class=\"graf graf--p graf-after--p\">Hence the question: How to reconcile these quantified metrics with human appreciation? We are running all sorts of analysis to understand what factors impact the scoring process. We look at the components the model over/underweights, for instance, the influence of the ease-of-read, punctuation, number, and length of paragraphs, sentence word count, density of concepts (331 in this piece), or the lexical sophistication. Still, this is only the tip of the iceberg. We know the model has created its own grid of countless parameters that are connected through millions of artificial axons.</p><p id=\"c0e1\" class=\"graf graf--p graf-after--p\">When I talk about Deepnews, I&#x2019;m often asked what we need the most to succeed. In short, we need a more extensive and deeper editorial dataset precisely in the same way that scientists who work on image recognition have access to millions of images. Over the years, the data science community has built all sorts of datasets, by drafting legions of &#x201C;Mechanical Turks&#x201D; to label millions of pictures. The same must be done for news articles. At least in principle. Ideally, we need hundreds of thousands of articles from 10~20,000 sources, thoroughly analyzed and annotated multiple times to prevent any biases and submitted to various scoring models. This would be a perfect endeavor for a university. It should be done through partnerships between people like us and nonprofit entities. We are working on it.</p><p id=\"e41e\" class=\"graf graf--p graf-after--p\"><a href=\"mailto:frederic.filloux@mondaynote.com\" class=\"markup--anchor markup--p-anchor\"><em class=\"markup--em markup--p-em\">frederic.filloux@mondaynote.com</em></a></p></div><div class=\"section-inner sectionLayout--outsetColumn\"><figure id=\"577f\" class=\"graf graf--figure graf--layoutOutsetCenter graf-after--p graf--trailing\"><img class=\"progressiveMedia-noscript js-progressiveMedia-inner\" src=\"https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/2000/1*F5-g9E74CuKJM15WnI7U6w.png\"></figure></div></div></div></div>","url":"https://mondaynote.com/news-quality-requires-an-industrial-approach-34c35e20ddea","date_published":"2018-10-22T08:27:47+00:00","author":{"name":"Frederic Filloux"}},{"id":"973","title":"Why I can't stop blogging","content_html":"<div class=\"the-content\"> <p><a href=\"http://juliansummerhayes.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/peter-lewicki-412082.jpg\"><img class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-8698\" src=\"http://juliansummerhayes.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/peter-lewicki-412082.jpg%205633w,%20http://juliansummerhayes.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/peter-lewicki-412082-300x190.jpg%20300w,%20http://juliansummerhayes.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/peter-lewicki-412082-768x486.jpg%20768w,%20http://juliansummerhayes.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/peter-lewicki-412082-1024x648.jpg%201024w\" alt=\"\" width=\"5633\" srcset=\"http://juliansummerhayes.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/peter-lewicki-412082.jpg 5633w, http://juliansummerhayes.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/peter-lewicki-412082-300x190.jpg 300w, http://juliansummerhayes.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/peter-lewicki-412082-768x486.jpg 768w, http://juliansummerhayes.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/peter-lewicki-412082-1024x648.jpg 1024w\"></a></p> <p><em>&#x201C;Find out the reason that commands you to write; see whether it has spread its roots into the very depth of your heart; confess to yourself you would have to die if you were forbidden to write.&#x201D;</em><br>\n&#x2015;&#xA0;<strong>Rainer Maria Rilke</strong></p>\n<p>It would be easy to stop blogging.</p>\n<p>Hell, in many ways, it would be a relief.</p>\n<p>But I can&#x2019;t.</p>\n<p>Don&#x2019;t ask me why, but I feel the draw of writing (blogging) every day; and that&#x2019;s saying something given my work involves and revolves around words, writing and the interpretation thereof.</p>\n<p>In truth, it goes much deeper than the emotional connection. It&#x2019;s positively spiritual; and if that sounds OTT then I&#x2019;m sorry but I don&#x2019;t know how else to express the desire to <strong><span>write</span></strong> my truth.</p>\n<p>Right now, I&#x2019;m conscious that I need to write on a few more issues than those I&#x2019;ve been apt to describe over the last 18 months. In particular, even though I don&#x2019;t think I&#x2019;ve got much to say in redefining a more beautiful link between our work &#x2013; i.e. the paid variety &#x2013; and our lives, nevertheless, from my vantage point of having, inter alia, mixed things up (and some), I still feel the need to share my experience of what every leader/manager should aim for if they want to get the <em>very best</em> out of their people. And then there&#x2019;s the money, and simplicity and parenting. Actually, there are probably very few things I couldn&#x2019;t write about &#x2013; such is my interest in life &#x2013; but I know that I need to stay focused on those things that speak loudest to my heart.</p>\n<p>As a slight segue, it still amazes me why so few people blog, particularly those who appear to have a deep, well-founded interest in a topic that, if more widely shared and discussed, might change the world (even in a small way) for the better. I suppose the point I&#x2019;m making is that we shouldn&#x2019;t be put off by (a) the technology, (b) the time commitment or (c) the risk of upsetting a few people who may not get our (or any!) point of view. If you&#x2019;re tempted to start a blog, never be afraid to reach out to a blogger you admire. If my experience is anything to go by, they&#x2019;ll be only too pleased to help you.</p>\n<p>At the moment I don&#x2019;t have as much time as before to blog or share newsworthy material on social media. For a start, I&#x2019;ve got a full-time job but I&#x2019;m also conscious that if I spend too much time online, then I&#x2019;m apt to miss what&#x2019;s really going on, in life. I know I&#x2019;ve made various proclamations about how frequently I should blog and the best or most appropriate platform to share my writing, but to date I&#x2019;ve not stuck to the script. The idea, in case you need reminding, was to blog once a week (most likely on a Monday), to write a poem on Tumblr on a Saturday and to write and share to Patreon as often as time permitted. That&#x2019;s not quite how it&#x2019;s worked out but, thankfully, I&#x2019;m still sharing when able. I do though need to go much deeper with my blogging, particularly as regards my reading and research around a particular issue.</p>\n<p>One thing I&#x2019;m still not great at is spending enough time proofreading my material. I do reread it but I&#x2019;ve noticed of late that I&#x2019;ve allowed too many typos to creep in. Going forward, I can&#x2019;t guarantee I&#x2019;ll eliminate all of them but I will make it my business to craft as much as I can in draft and give myself the space to re-re-read what I&#x2019;ve written. I must also remember to consider the seminal question that I keep front of mind when blogging:</p>\n<p><em>&#x201C;What is this about?&#x201D;</em></p>\n<p>I first read this in &#x201C;Do The Work&#x201D; by Steven Pressfield and it&#x2019;s a wonderful aide memoir particularly when I&#x2019;m trying to juggle a number of themes.</p>\n<p>One final thing. I&#x2019;ve considered publishing another book of my posts and poems but the truth is I don&#x2019;t have the time either to curate the material or publish it. Perhaps one day I might get the chance to put things in one place but, for now, I&#x2019;m going to have to make do with links and shares where appropriate.</p>\n<p>Anyhow, have a fantastic week.</p>\n<p>Take care.</p>\n<p>Blessings and big love.</p>\n<p>Julian</p>\n<p>&#x1F64F;</p> </div>","url":"http://juliansummerhayes.com/why-i-cant-stop-blogging/","date_published":"2018-10-22T05:13:21+00:00","author":{"name":""}},{"id":"969","title":"With the iPhone XR, Apple broadens its 'best'","content_html":"<div class=\"article-body\">\n<p>&quot;If we&apos;re going to push the upper boundaries with XS and XS Max to make something the best, how do we make something that&apos;s more affordable for a larger audience? To make the overall iPhone audience even larger? What choices can we make and still make it a phone that people can hold and say, &apos;I have the best too&apos;?&quot;</p><p>Those were the questions Apple grappled with while developing the XR, according to Schiller. The company&apos;s answers came in many parts, some more straightforward than others.</p><p>The XR was meant to provide the best performance possible, so the company packed one of its new A12 Bionic chipsets inside. This is the same sliver of silicon that powers the iPhone XS and XS Max, and when I reviewed those earlier this year, I said the level of power the chipset provided made those phones all but future proof. To offer the same kind of performance for significantly less money than its flagship phones is a new -- and surprising -- move for Apple, but one that makes the XR a tantalizing option for upgraders and newcomers alike.</p> <p>iPhones are among the most widely used cameras in the world, so Apple transplanted the iPhone XS&apos; excellent 12-megapixel wide-angle camera into the XR&apos;s body and augmented it with a dose of machine learning for better dynamic range and portrait shots. Since there&apos;s no room for a fingerprint sensor up front anymore, there&apos;s a Face ID sensor array at the top of the device. And you guessed it: That&apos;s the same Face ID setup as on the XS and XS Max, another way the lines among all of these phones gets a bit fuzzy. In fact, it might be easier to run through some of the notable features the XR <em>doesn&apos;t</em> share with its siblings: There&apos;s no second telephoto camera and no pressure-sensitive 3D Touch technology in the screen.</p><p>Before any of that, though, you&apos;ll notice the iPhone XR&apos;s new body. It&apos;s a little bigger in dimension than the iPhone XS, and you won&apos;t find any stainless steel here -- just glass, aerospace-grade aluminum and a lot of color. The colors on offer -- black, white, blue, yellow, coral and red -- are beautiful, but the XR&apos;s physical dimensions themselves are a little unusual. Plenty of people have told me the 5.8-inch screen on the XS can feel a little small, and the XS Max&apos;s 6.5-inch whopper of a display is overkill for people with smaller hands. With the XR, though, Schiller said the team hit the sweet spot and made &quot;the one size of iPhone XR that can appeal to the widest number of people.&quot; It seems a little odd, then, that Apple wouldn&apos;t try to produce a premium smartphone this size; alas, maybe next year.</p><section></section></div>","url":"https://www.engadget.com/2018/10/22/iphone-xr-phil-schiller-interview/","date_published":"2018-10-22T00:00:00+00:00","author":{"name":"Chris Velazco, 10.22.18"}},{"id":"1294","title":"Is Leadership History?","content_html":"<div class=\"td-post-content\"> <p><strong><img class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-83545\" src=\"https://cdn.bizcatalyst360.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/29105152/Integrity-Matters-by-Andre-van-Heerden.jpg%20700w,%20https://cdn.bizcatalyst360.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/29105152/Integrity-Matters-by-Andre-van-Heerden-125x64.jpg%20125w,%20https://cdn.bizcatalyst360.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/29105152/Integrity-Matters-by-Andre-van-Heerden-500x256.jpg%20500w,%20https://cdn.bizcatalyst360.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/29105152/Integrity-Matters-by-Andre-van-Heerden-696x357.jpg%20696w,%20https://cdn.bizcatalyst360.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/29105152/Integrity-Matters-by-Andre-van-Heerden-600x308.jpg%20600w\" alt=\"\" width=\"1000\" srcset=\"https://cdn.bizcatalyst360.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/29105152/Integrity-Matters-by-Andre-van-Heerden.jpg 700w, https://cdn.bizcatalyst360.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/29105152/Integrity-Matters-by-Andre-van-Heerden-125x64.jpg 125w, https://cdn.bizcatalyst360.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/29105152/Integrity-Matters-by-Andre-van-Heerden-500x256.jpg 500w, https://cdn.bizcatalyst360.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/29105152/Integrity-Matters-by-Andre-van-Heerden-696x357.jpg 696w, https://cdn.bizcatalyst360.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/29105152/Integrity-Matters-by-Andre-van-Heerden-600x308.jpg 600w\"></strong></p> <h6>~Alexis de Tocqueville in <em>The Old Regime and the French Revolution</em></h6>\n<p><strong><span class=\"dropcap dropcap3\">N</span>early 200 years ago</strong>, the French historian, Alexis de Tocqueville, underlined an aspect of the French Revolution that helps explain why a host of brilliant minds and strong personalities &#x2013; one thinks of Mirabeau, Sieyes, Marat, Danton, Robespierre, and even Napoleon &#x2013; all failed to provide the leadership that might have averted the tragedies that followed.&#xA0; Tocqueville saw the folly of the radicals who drove events in trying to fulfil a central idea of the Enlightenment by shutting themselves off from history.</p>\n<p>Tragically, the modern West is repeating their error, striving for the past half-century at least to bury history, not only by excluding it from schools and universities, but also by inundating an information overloaded society with wave after wave of historical fiction and fictional history.&#xA0; As a consequence, the knowledge of history in society at large is abysmal. Coincidentally, or perhaps not, the past half-century has also seen the emergence of the global leadership crisis in homes, schools, communities, workplaces, and nations.</p>\n<p>Leadership is hard to find today.&#xA0; In international affairs, no one knows what to do about North Korea, Afghanistan, Iran, Syria, Ukraine, Venezuela, Zimbabwe, Sudan, Myanmar, the decline of Europe, the Disunited States, terrorism, drug trafficking, refugees and illegal immigrants, global financial instability, and any number of other crises.</p>\n<p>As far as domestic affairs go, what politician anywhere has real solutions for ever-increasing national debt, the cost, and quality of healthcare, the crisis in education, drug and alcohol abuse and the proliferation of social dysfunction, environmental mismanagement, transport woes, and more? And for all the statistical bravado they may conjure up, how many head honchos in the corporate world have any idea about how to fix the startling rates of disengagement, the hugely expensive and disruptive reality of churn, and the alarming socio-economic implications of the looming automation revolution?</p>\n<p>Then consider for a moment the inability of millions of people throughout the West, in the spiteful bedlam of relationship breakdown, to manage their own lives without the mostly questionable advice of so-called &#x2018;experts&#x2019;. Leadership today is marked only by its absence.&#xA0; Of course, there is no shortage of misleadership &#x2013; bosses, bureaucrats, and bullies, tyrants, tricksters, and tormentors &#x2013; but to find people who understand the human condition and inspire human flourishing, one has to go to the pages of history.&#xA0; To be sure, given human nature, there are plenty of misleaders there too, but you will also encounter Socrates, Alfred the Great, Hildegard of Bingen, Joan of Arc, Washington, Lincoln, Churchill, Gandhi, Mother Theresa, and many more.</p>\n<blockquote class=\"td_quote_box td_box_center\">\n<p><span>Leadership is indeed history, not in the modern pejorative sense of being obsolete, but in the true sense of being inseparable from the only source of wisdom that might lift us out of the abyss.&#xA0; The relationship between the global leadership crisis and the loss of a sense of history is more than merely coincidental; the reality is that leadership is impossible without a sound knowledge of history.</span></p>\n</blockquote>\n<p>The French Revolution illustrates the point.&#xA0; It was the great historical watershed that gave rise to a century of political, social, and economic upheaval, an era of global expansion and conquest, the great age of capitalism and the emergence of liberal democracy, as well as the socialist, communist, and anarchist experiments that demanded a very different kind of world order.&#xA0; And, though science and technology accelerated their seemingly endless progress, human suffering on a large scale persisted in Europe and America, and the rest of the world. The barbarous global conflicts of the 20<sup>th</sup> century and the specter of nuclear holocaust seemed to signal the end of an era, but the legacy of the French Revolution and the unanswered questions it raised still impact the world of the third millennium.&#xA0; We have no option but to study it if we really want to make sense of our troubled world of today.&#xA0; A few fragments illustrate the point.</p>\n<p>The causes of the French Revolution give our troubled world much pause for thought.&#xA0; Government gridlock, reckless deficit spending, and runaway national debt culminated in the bankruptcy of the State.&#xA0; At the same time, bad harvests and soaring food prices, plus the threat of growing unemployment provoked violent disorder in a population increasingly influenced by bright but reckless intellectuals, and by the success of the American Revolution.&#xA0; Threatened by a rebellious aristocracy bent on sabotaging all attempts at reform, Louis XVI was forced to convene the States General, the representative council that had not met since 1614.&#xA0; When the delegates of the Third Estate, representing business and the professions as well as the working class broke away and formed the National Assembly, the revolution was beyond stopping.&#xA0; And its operating principle quickly became the rule of raw power.</p>\n<p>Sound familiar?&#xA0; In our world of the third millennium, we have people in positions of authority in politics, finance, economic affairs, business, education, healthcare, transport, the community, and everywhere else whose lack of empathy, understanding, and judgment is a direct consequence of their ignorance of history.&#xA0; Statesmen who know nothing about the Republic of Venice&#x2019;s long dance of survival with the Ottoman Empire; financial wizards who know nothing about the Great Depression; economists who know nothing about how oligarchic greed destroyed the Roman Republic; educationists who know nothing about the Trivium; psychiatrists ignorant about their patients&#x2019; worldviews; and so on.</p>\n<p>There are, of course, countless episodes in history with a similar power to expand our understanding of the human condition: The Peloponnesian War; the rise and fall of the Roman Republic; the reign of Alfred the Great; the American Civil War; the rise and fall of the Third Reich; and the life and times of Martin Luther King, are just a few.&#xA0; Reading a good book on any of those episodes will give a leader expanded knowledge, fresh insights, and more astute discernment in promoting human flourishing. But, of course, history is much more than isolated episodes.&#xA0; As Thucydides told us: &#x201C;History is philosophy teaching by examples&#x201D;, revealing what happens when powerful ideas, the drivers of culture, are translated into practice.&#xA0; History is, in fact, a vast panorama, providing the essential element of context to any particular era we might read about.&#xA0; The wider context inevitably enriches one&#x2019;s grasp of each individual episode.</p>\n<blockquote class=\"td_quote_box td_box_right\">\n<p>As Jacques Barzun explained in his book, <em>Begin Here</em>: &#x201C;The essence of history is continuity, and its main characteristic is combination (often confusion) of acts, hopes, plans, moves, efforts, failures, triumphs, tragedies &#x2013; all these arising from the behaviour of persons living at a certain time and place.&#x201D;</p>\n</blockquote>\n<p>Barzun understood the importance of people having a feel for the &#x201C;logic of events&#x201D; that only the study of history can provide.&#xA0; But he noted that logic and rationality do not necessarily imply reasonable behaviour, since human actions are frequently driven by erratic, unpredictable impulses.&#xA0; However, the student of history is nonetheless enabled to discern how &#x201C;ambition, revenge, greed, ignorance, hope, habit, idealism, practicality and impracticality interact to produce the results&#x201D; that we know eventuated.</p>\n<p>This logic of events develops a sense of history, a way of understanding that helps one see in all human activity the consequences of human responses to familiar challenges.&#xA0; History is shaped by human motivation and reveals the often unsettling resemblance between the motives of people in different times and places to our own states of mind. The accumulated experience of humankind that facilitates informed reflection and astute judgment is indispensable for effective leadership.&#xA0; History does not provide easy answers to our problems or simple templates for human conduct, but it does equip us to think with increasing insight about the trials that confront us.&#xA0; As Barzun made clear, &#x201C;&#x2026;in a civilisation like ours, built on records and continuity, we are willy-nilly the past embodied.&#xA0; Since this is so, no one can understand himself or the institutions at his disposal without historical information&#x201D;.</p>\n<p>Moreover, it is only through a properly informed sense of history that one is able to empathise with colleagues, clients, and competitors, neighbours, and fellow citizens, and comprehend the complex, captious, and capricious inclinations that beset all human beings.&#xA0; It is a tragically ignored fact that reading classic literature is essential in developing an insightful understanding of other people, and the empathy that flows from it, but classic literature itself is properly appreciated only when one has the requisite historical background. A sense of history also inoculates one against despair in the face of incipient calamity, and the folly of utopian fantasies, two common intellectual maladies that have reached epidemic proportions in the postmodern West.&#xA0; Doom and gloom and wishful thinking are barriers to human endeavour, and we always need the antidote of a well-nourished sense of history.</p>\n<h6><span><strong><em>CONTINUE TO NEXT PAGE BELOW</em></strong></span></h6> </div><hr><h4>Page 2</h4><div class=\"td-post-content\"> <p>Sadly, a well-nourished sense of history is precisely what is missing in the western world today.&#xA0; The obscurantism of the Enlightenment thinkers and the architects of the modern bureaucratic state who sought to implement their utopian schemes gradually impoverished the teaching of history, and the intensified war against the humanities in recent decades by technocratic elites intoxicated by the allure of STEM has deepened the crisis in education.</p>\n<p>Outstanding scholarship by 20<sup>th</sup> century historians like Christopher Dawson, Veronica Wedgewood, Paul Johnson, Gertrude Himmelfarb, Barbara Tuchman, Robin Lane Fox, Peter Brown, Niall Ferguson, and many more, have enriched the study of history, but Enlightenment and technocratic prejudices persist, and good scholarship is often submerged by specious ideological tracts and sensationalist pap.</p>\n<p>And so the task of educating oneself has many pitfalls in an age of information overload and revisionist scholarship.&#xA0; People seeking to sharpen their understanding of history are easily tempted by readily available fixes of historical fiction and fictional history, as well as the more insidious pseudo-intellectual narcotic of so-called academic history that smuggles in unhistorical claims under the cover of professional technique, with the clear intention of promoting some ideological agenda or other.</p>\n<p>The work of all historians, like that of scientists, lawyers, and literary scholars, is influenced by their understanding of the meaning of life.&#xA0; That interpretive scheme, the author&#x2019;s worldview, can determine whether what one is reading is history, that is, a genuine quest for the truth, or merely the promotion of some socio-political program that will either exclude or distort any facts that run counter to its claims.</p>\n<p>An indication as to whether the agenda of the author is Marxist, Neo-Liberal, Libertarian, Positivist, or anything else, is usually revealed by what is known as the Whig approach to history.&#xA0; This is the belief that everything in the past has been merely a preparation for our unique moment in history when utopia is on the verge of being achieved.&#xA0; Marxist history is not history, but propaganda; Neo-Liberal history is not history, but propaganda and the same applies to all other ideological treatises.</p>\n<p>Which is, of course, not to say that no Marxist can write history, nor any Neo-Liberal, Libertarian, or Positivist.&#xA0; It simply means that they only write history when they seek the truth, embracing all facts, regardless of their implications, and interpreting them objectively.</p>\n<p>This reality raises awkward questions for many best-sellers that have misleadingly been promoted under the title of history: <em>Guns, Germs, and Steel</em> by Jared Diamond, <em>Sapiens</em> by Yuval Harari, and <em>Enlightenment Now</em> by Steven Pinker spring to mind. &#xA0;Their agendas are plain to see, as are the metaphysical stances of their authors, who are not historians, but propagandists who go to history to cherry-pick facts that support their ideological claims.</p>\n<p>Ideology, by definition, must suppress history, and that is the reality we now confront in the dumbed down world of fake news and Internet memes.&#xA0; A prediction of our situation is found in Orwell&#x2019;s <em>1984</em>, when Winston explains to Julia, &#x201C;<em>&#x2026;the past, starting from yesterday, has been actually abolished&#x2026;</em><em>Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street building has been renamed, every date has been altered&#x2026;History has stopped.&#xA0; Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Party is always right</em>.&#x201D;</p>\n<p>Leadership is history.&#xA0; And in abandoning history, we have forgotten how to lead.&#xA0; Obviously, there is no easy way back.&#xA0; Our uneducated oligarchic masters are hardly likely to revive the subject in state schools and academia, especially with all the ideological fault lines crisscrossing our increasingly unstable multicultural civilization.&#xA0; However, far from being pessimistic, I am in fact quite confident that a change, barely perceptible as yet, has already begun as the human hunger for truth resurges against the barricades of obscurantism.</p>\n<p>Reading history is the only remedy, and a single good book will lead you to many other good books, and alert you to the bad ones.&#xA0; The astonishing achievements of 19<sup>th</sup> century British working class autodidacts in helping to transform their world remind us how quickly truth and virtue can overcome seemingly impossible odds, and thwart ideological excesses.</p>\n<p>So, name one good book, I hear the cynics say.&#xA0; There are many that cry out to be selected, but I&#x2019;ll constrain myself to a modest ten.&#xA0; They are not necessarily personal favourites; I have simply selected engaging texts that will help to build the historical sense essential to leadership.</p> </div>","url":"https://www.bizcatalyst360.com/is-leadership-history/","date_published":"2018-10-19T06:56:18+00:00","author":{"name":"Andre van Heerden"}},{"id":"958","title":"Apple's Jony Ive on the Unpredictable Consequences of Innovation","content_html":"<div><p><span class=\"lede\">Twenty-five years ago, </span>WIRED <a href=\"https://www.wired.com/tag/wired25/\">was founded</a> with the mission of chronicling the ways technology was transforming society. Around the same time, a young designer named Jony Ive moved from Britain to San Francisco to take a job at Apple developing, he hoped, society-transforming products. But as Ive acknowledged Monday at the WIRED25 Summit, change is rarely foreseeable&#x2014;and seldom unambiguously good. &quot;The nature of innovation is that you cannot predict all the consequences,&quot; said Ive, who now serves as Apple&apos;s chief design officer. &quot;In my experience, there have been surprising consequences. Some fabulous, and some less so.&quot;</p><p class=\"paywall\">Ive, who was interviewed at the summit by Anna Wintour, the artistic director of Cond&#xE9; Nast and longtime editor of <em>Vogue</em>, talked about everything from Apple&apos;s penchant for secrecy to the social and civic responsibilities of tech giants, which today possess not only powerful sway over the media landscape but a strong grip on the attentions of billions of people. In fact, Wintour&apos;s opening question directly confronted Apple&apos;s contribution to digital dependence. &quot;First there were iPhones, and now there&apos;s iPhone addiction,&quot; said Wintour. &quot;How do you feel about that? Is the world too connected?&quot;</p><p class=\"paywall\">Ive&#x2014;who, while known for being shy, is also notoriously loquacious&#x2014;responded succinctly: &quot;I think it&apos;s good to be connected. I think the real question is what you do with that connection.&quot; Like many tech giants, Apple recently unveiled a suite of tools meant to <a href=\"https://www.wired.com/tag/screen-time/\">help keep your obsession in check</a>. &quot;We&apos;ve been doing a lot of work in terms of not only understanding how long you use a device, but how you&apos;re using it,&quot; Ive said.</p><figure class=\"image-embed-component\"><figcaption class=\"caption-component\"><p class=\"caption-component__credit-container\"><i class=\" ui-camera icon icon--16\"></i><cite class=\"caption-component__credit\">Amy Lombard</cite></p></figcaption></figure><p class=\"paywall\">But to hear Ive tell it, helping users manage their time is a small part of the challenge Apple and other technology companies face. &quot;What I&apos;m more concerned about,&quot; said Ive, is preserving the interpersonal benefits of person-to-person interaction. &quot;The more you remove people, the more technology can become transactional,&quot; he said. Ive says the work Apple has been doing on emoji and messaging are meant to &quot;restore some humanity to the way we connect.&quot;</p><p class=\"paywall\">In his remarks, Ive turned again and again to the theme of human connection. It&apos;s important to Ive not just professionally (it&#x2019;s central, for example, to his team&apos;s vision for the future of Apple&apos;s retail experience), but personally. &quot;I moved to the US in 1992 for two reasons: I loved Apple and I loved the US.&quot; At the time, he said, &quot;optimism was tangible and material&quot;&#x2014;particularly in Silicon Valley.</p><p class=\"paywall\">The connection appears to also be what will keep him at Apple. Asked whether he plans to continue designing for the foreseeable future, Ive answered in the affirmative by pointing to the collaborative environment at the company, which he characterized as more diverse than ever.</p><p class=\"paywall\">&quot;We have font designers sat next to haptic experts sat next to colorists&#x2014;and it goes on and on,&quot; Ive said. &quot;The energy, vitality, and the sense of opportunity is extraordinary.&quot;</p><p class=\"paywall\">And yet, Ive worries about the state of affairs in the US. Wintour asked him about what he loses sleep over. &quot;It&apos;s a rather long list at the moment,&quot; Ive replied. &quot;I think divisiveness is really what I find really very sad.&quot;</p><p class=\"paywall\">And it&apos;s undeniable that tech has played a significant role in sowing that discord. Just today, <a href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/15/technology/myanmar-facebook-genocide.html\">the <em>New York Times</em> reported</a> that the Myanmar military used Facebook to disseminate disinformation that led to genocide.</p><p class=\"paywall\">The past 25 years have seen the digital revolution transform society in ways both positive and perverse. Technology today is often as alienating as it is unifying, and the story of the next quarter century will hinge in large part on how optimists like Ive confront the disagreement and hostility that keep him up at night.</p><h3 class=\"paywall\">More Great WIRED Stories</h3></div>","url":"https://www.wired.com/story/wired-25-apple-jony-ive-on-the-unpredictable-consequences-of-innovation/","date_published":"2018-10-17T15:50:57+00:00","author":{"name":""}},{"id":"959","title":"The Divorce","content_html":"<div id=\"content\" class=\"site-content\"> <p id=\"primary\" class=\"content-area\"> <main id=\"main\" class=\"site-main\"> <article id=\"post-52032\" class=\"post-52032 post type-post status-publish format-standard hentry category-literature category-society\"> <div class=\"entry-content-container\"> <div class=\"entry-content\"> <blockquote><p>\nA man once married a charming young person who agreed with him on every question. At first they were very happy, for the man thought his wife the most interesting companion he had ever met, and they spent their days telling each other what wonderful people they were. But by and by the man began to find his wife rather tiresome. Wherever he went she insisted upon going; whatever he did, she was sure to tell him that it would have been better to do the opposite; and moreover, it gradually dawned upon him that his friends had never thought so highly of her as he did. Having made this discovery, he naturally felt justified in regarding himself as the aggrieved party; she took the same view of her situation, and their life was one of incessant recrimination.</p>\n<p>Finally, after years spent in violent quarrels and short-lived reconciliations, the man grew weary, and decided to divorce his wife.</p>\n<p>He engaged an able lawyer, who assured him that he would have no difficulty in obtaining a divorce; but to his surprise, the judge refused to grant it.</p>\n<p>&#x2018;But &#x2013;&#x2018; said the man, and he began to recapitulate his injuries.</p>\n<p>&#x2018;That&#x2019;s all very true,&#x2019; said the judge, &#x2018;and nothing would be easier than for you to obtain a divorce if you had only married another person.&#x2019;</p>\n<p>&#x2018;What do you mean by another person?&#x2019; asked the man in astonishment.</p>\n<p>&#x2018;Well,&#x2019; replied the judge, &#x2018;it appears that you inadvertently married yourself; that is a union no court has the power to dissolve.&#x2019;</p>\n<p>&#x2018;Oh,&#x2019; said the man; and he was secretly glad, for in his heart he was already longing to make it up again with his wife.\n</p></blockquote>\n<p>&#x2014; Edith Wharton, <em>The Valley of Childish Things, and Other Emblems</em>, 1896</p> </div> </div>\n</article> </main> </p> <p id=\"secondary\" class=\"widget-area\"> <aside id=\"text-11\" class=\"widget widget_text\"> </aside><aside id=\"archives-4\" class=\"widget widget_archive\"> <label class=\"screen-reader-text\">Archives</label> <select id=\"archives-dropdown-4\"> <option>Select Month</option> <option> October 2018 </option> <option> September 2018 </option> <option> August 2018 </option> <option> July 2018 </option> <option> June 2018 </option> <option> May 2018 </option> <option> April 2018 </option> <option> March 2018 </option> <option> February 2018 </option> <option> January 2018 </option> <option> December 2017 </option> <option> November 2017 </option> <option> October 2017 </option> <option> September 2017 </option> <option> August 2017 </option> <option> July 2017 </option> <option> June 2017 </option> <option> May 2017 </option> <option> April 2017 </option> <option> March 2017 </option> <option> February 2017 </option> <option> January 2017 </option> <option> December 2016 </option> <option> November 2016 </option> <option> October 2016 </option> <option> September 2016 </option> <option> August 2016 </option> <option> July 2016 </option> <option> June 2016 </option> <option> May 2016 </option> <option> April 2016 </option> <option> March 2016 </option> <option> February 2016 </option> <option> January 2016 </option> <option> December 2015 </option> <option> November 2015 </option> <option> October 2015 </option> <option> September 2015 </option> <option> August 2015 </option> <option> July 2015 </option> <option> June 2015 </option> <option> May 2015 </option> <option> April 2015 </option> <option> March 2015 </option> <option> February 2015 </option> <option> January 2015 </option> <option> December 2014 </option> <option> November 2014 </option> <option> October 2014 </option> <option> September 2014 </option> <option> August 2014 </option> <option> July 2014 </option> <option> June 2014 </option> <option> May 2014 </option> <option> April 2014 </option> <option> March 2014 </option> <option> February 2014 </option> <option> January 2014 </option> <option> December 2013 </option> <option> November 2013 </option> <option> October 2013 </option> <option> September 2013 </option> <option> August 2013 </option> <option> July 2013 </option> <option> June 2013 </option> <option> May 2013 </option> <option> April 2013 </option> <option> March 2013 </option> <option> February 2013 </option> <option> January 2013 </option> <option> December 2012 </option> <option> November 2012 </option> <option> October 2012 </option> <option> September 2012 </option> <option> August 2012 </option> <option> July 2012 </option> <option> June 2012 </option> <option> May 2012 </option> <option> April 2012 </option> <option> March 2012 </option> <option> February 2012 </option> <option> January 2012 </option> <option> December 2011 </option> <option> November 2011 </option> <option> October 2011 </option> <option> September 2011 </option> <option> August 2011 </option> <option> July 2011 </option> <option> June 2011 </option> <option> May 2011 </option> <option> April 2011 </option> <option> March 2011 </option> <option> February 2011 </option> <option> January 2011 </option> <option> December 2010 </option> <option> November 2010 </option> <option> October 2010 </option> <option> September 2010 </option> <option> August 2010 </option> <option> July 2010 </option> <option> June 2010 </option> <option> May 2010 </option> <option> April 2010 </option> <option> March 2010 </option> <option> February 2010 </option> <option> January 2010 </option> <option> December 2009 </option> <option> November 2009 </option> <option> October 2009 </option> <option> September 2009 </option> <option> August 2009 </option> <option> July 2009 </option> <option> June 2009 </option> <option> May 2009 </option> <option> April 2009 </option> <option> March 2009 </option> <option> February 2009 </option> <option> January 2009 </option> <option> December 2008 </option> <option> November 2008 </option> <option> October 2008 </option> <option> September 2008 </option> <option> August 2008 </option> <option> July 2008 </option> <option> June 2008 </option> <option> May 2008 </option> <option> April 2008 </option> <option> March 2008 </option> <option> February 2008 </option> <option> January 2008 </option> <option> December 2007 </option> <option> November 2007 </option> <option> October 2007 </option> <option> September 2007 </option> <option> August 2007 </option> <option> July 2007 </option> <option> June 2007 </option> <option> May 2007 </option> <option> April 2007 </option> <option> March 2007 </option> <option> February 2007 </option> <option> January 2007 </option> <option> December 2006 </option> <option> November 2006 </option> <option> October 2006 </option> <option> September 2006 </option> <option> August 2006 </option> <option> July 2006 </option> <option> June 2006 </option> <option> May 2006 </option> <option> April 2006 </option> <option> March 2006 </option> <option> February 2006 </option> <option> January 2006 </option> <option> December 2005 </option> <option> November 2005 </option> <option> October 2005 </option> <option> September 2005 </option> <option> August 2005 </option> <option> July 2005 </option> <option> June 2005 </option> <option> May 2005 </option> <option> April 2005 </option> <option> March 2005 </option> <option> February 2005 </option> <option> January 2005 </option> </select> </aside><aside id=\"categories-3\" class=\"widget widget_categories\"> </aside><aside id=\"text-16\" class=\"widget widget_text\"> <div class=\"textwidget\"><p><a href=\"https://www.futilitycloset.com/support-us/\"><img class=\"alignnone wp-image-43696 size-full\" src=\"https://www.futilitycloset.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/kraken-ad-246-px.jpg\" alt=\"kraken ad 246 px\" width=\"246\"></a></p>\n</div> </aside><aside id=\"text-14\" class=\"widget widget_text\"> <div class=\"textwidget\"><ul> <li><a href=\"http://www.futilitycloset.com/website-supporters/\">Website Supporters</a></li> <li><a href=\"http://www.futilitycloset.com/podcast-supporters/\">Podcast Supporters</a></li> </ul></div> </aside><aside id=\"text-15\" class=\"widget widget_text\"> </aside><aside id=\"blog_subscription-3\" class=\"widget jetpack_subscription_widget\"> </aside><aside id=\"text-13\" class=\"widget widget_text\"> </aside></p> </div>","url":"https://www.futilitycloset.com/2018/10/15/the-divorce/","date_published":"2018-10-15T16:40:25+00:00","author":{"name":""}},{"id":"946","title":"Jobs lost, jobs gained: What the future of work will mean for jobs, skills, and wages","content_html":"<div class=\"main-inner\"> <p class=\"mck-logo-icon\"> <span class=\"visually-hidden\">McKinsey&amp;Company</span> </p> </div>","url":"https://www.mckinsey.com/featured-insights/future-of-work/jobs-lost-jobs-gained-what-the-future-of-work-will-mean-for-jobs-skills-and-wages","date_published":"2018-10-11T17:04:03+00:00","author":{"name":""}},{"id":"934","title":"California’s Almond Harvest Has Created a Golden Opportunity for Bee Thieves","content_html":"<div class=\"container item-body\"> <div> <p><em>This story was originally published by </em><a href=\"https://www.revealnews.org/article/californias-almond-harvest-has-created-a-golden-opportunity-for-bee-thieves/\">Reveal</a> <em>and appears here as part of the </em><a href=\"http://www.climatedesk.org/\">Climate Desk</a><em> collaboration</em>.</p> </div> <p>The crime scene was a mess of boxes, some half-assembled, others scattered across patches of dried grass and partially gouged to raw wood. The victims scrambled about looking for food and water. There were thousands of them. Maybe millions.</p> <p>Detective Isaac Torres watched the action from the air-conditioned safety of his unmarked truck. In five years investigating rural farm crime, he&#x2019;s seen a lot: stolen construction equipment and copper wire, hay thieves, cargo heists.</p> <p>&#x201C;You name it, we pretty much cover it, if there&#x2019;s any type of ag nexus to it,&#x201D; he said.</p> <p>But what he was looking at now, in this scrubby field 10 miles southeast of downtown Fresno, California, was something else entirely.</p> <p>&#x201C;What we had here was a chop shop, but of beehives,&#x201D; Torres said. &#x201C;You had some beehives that were alive, and you had some hives that were dead. You had hives that were basically cut up: Tops of boxes were over here on this side of the field, and the other parts of the box are on the other side.&#x201D;</p> <figure class=\"article-image-full-width contains-caption \"><amp-img src=\"https://assets.atlasobscura.com/article_images/lg/59801/image.jpg\" alt=\"article-image\" width=\"600.0\" height=\"400.1953125\"></amp-img></figure> <p>As a member of the Agricultural Crimes Task Force for the Fresno County Sheriff&#x2019;s Office, Torres knew that bees have become big business in <a class=\"destination-link article-destination-link\" href=\"https://www.atlasobscura.com/things-to-do/california\">California</a>&#x2014;that they are an essential ingredient in the state&#x2019;s yearly almond harvest; that <a href=\"https://www.beeculture.com/2018-almond-pollination-market-outlook-demand-supply-contracts/\">three-quarters</a> of America&#x2019;s domesticated supply is trucked into the state each winter and rented out. He knew how valuable the insects have become&#x2014;to farmers, yes, but especially to thieves, who in recent years have grown bolder, greedier.</p> <p>On this hot afternoon in April 2017, he also knew to keep his distance. It&#x2019;s one thing to inspect stolen property; it&#x2019;s quite another to get mobbed by it and pumped with venom. And this property was zipping chaotically through the cloudless sky, unhealthy and irate. Even cracking a window surely would have spelled disaster, he said&#x2014;&#x201C;like trying to put toothpaste back in the tube.&#x201D;</p> <p>Torres had been summoned here by Alexa Pavlov, a <a class=\"destination-link article-destination-link\" href=\"https://www.atlasobscura.com/things-to-do/missouri\">Missouri</a>-based beekeeper who sat in her own rental car nearby. Two days earlier, she&#x2019;d learned that a $50,000 cluster of her hives, recently stolen from a neighboring county, might well be sitting in this very field. She&#x2019;d dropped everything, boarded a red-eye to California and driven straight from the airport into the state&#x2019;s agricultural epicenter. She couldn&#x2019;t afford not to.</p> <p>Groggy and impatient, she stepped out of her car and set off toward the boxes. Torres watched in horror as she marched into a haze of bees, poking through hives and snapping photos. Before long, she returned with shots of her initials etched onto the bottom of a pallet&#x2014;proof that her property was here.</p> <figure class=\"article-pullquote-container\"> <aside class=\"article-pullquote\"> <blockquote class=\"article-pullquote-content\"> <p>It was the largest bee heist any of them had ever heard of. Perhaps the largest in U.S. history.</p> </blockquote> </aside> </figure> <p>Nearby, Pavel Tveretinov, a thin 51-year-old <a class=\"destination-link article-destination-link\" href=\"https://www.atlasobscura.com/things-to-do/sacramento-california\">Sacramento</a> man, was moving through the field, tending to hives in a protective suit. Pavlov confronted him, she later said, and he denied stealing anything. Before long, deputies from Madera County, where Pavlov&#x2019;s bees had first gone missing, arrived on the scene. They doubted Tveretinov&#x2019;s account and put him in jail that evening.</p> <p>Word of the discovery, and the arrest, spread quickly through America&#x2019;s small commercial beekeeping community. In the days that followed, Torres&#x2019;s department received dozens of calls from across the country. Beekeepers wanted to know whether their hives were among those recovered&#x2014;at this chop shop or at three others authorities found later, connected to Tveretinov and alleged accomplice Vitaliy Yeroshenko.</p> <p>&#x201C;Some of them were like, &#x2018;Well, I had beehives that were stolen three years ago,&#x2019;&#x201D; Torres said. &#x201C;Some five years ago.&#x201D;</p> <p>By the time Torres and his team got a handle on the totals, they were dealing with 2,500 hives, worth nearly one million dollars, some stolen from orchards hundreds of miles apart. This was much more than an impulsive theft: It was the largest bee heist any of them had ever heard of. Perhaps the largest in U.S. history.</p> <figure class=\"article-image-full-width contains-caption \"><amp-img src=\"https://assets.atlasobscura.com/article_images/lg/59821/image.jpg\" alt=\"article-image\" width=\"600.0\" height=\"397.6\"></amp-img></figure> <p>Leave any city in the Central Valley, heading in essentially any direction, and it won&#x2019;t be long before you hit the almond orchards. They stretch for miles, in neat rows of alien emerald, butting up against dust-beaten truck stops and boxy McMansions. Some host campaign signs for local politicians; others are cross-hatched by roads whose names are simply letters because no one, evidently, had the time to get fancy.</p> <p>California&#x2019;s total almond acreage has nearly tripled in the past 20 years, a spike due in large part to <a href=\"https://www.bls.gov/opub/btn/volume-6/the-rise-and-fall-of-almond-prices-asia-drought-and-consumer-preference.htm\">foreign demand</a>. At the moment, there are about <a href=\"https://www.nass.usda.gov/Statistics_by_State/California/Publications/Specialty_and_Other_Releases/Almond/Acreage/201804almac.pdf\">one million acres</a> of nut-bearing trees in the state, with an additional 330,000 on track to start producing over the next four years. The trees produce well over two billion pounds of nuts per year, and they&#x2019;re sucking down the valley&#x2019;s aquifers at a rapid pace.</p> <p>Such growth has driven a near-manic demand for honeybees, which are crucial for what has become the largest managed annual pollination event in the world.</p> <p>Hives have never been more valuable. Every almond farmer needs two healthy colonies per acre of trees at an average seasonal rental price of around $185 per colony, and that number is<a href=\"https://www.beeculture.com/2018-almond-pollination-market-outlook-demand-supply-contracts/\"> expected to climb</a> in the coming years. When everything goes right for a beekeeper, especially one with thousands of well-maintained hives, winter in California presents an enormous money-making opportunity.</p> <figure class=\"article-image-full-width contains-caption \"><amp-img src=\"https://assets.atlasobscura.com/article_images/lg/59798/image.jpg\" alt=\"article-image\" width=\"600.0\" height=\"400.1953125\"></amp-img></figure> <p>The rental process works like this: Toward the end of January, millions of hives arrive in California from all over the country. The bees live in boxes, which themselves are stored in stacks and covered with finely woven mesh during transit. By the time they reach a staging area&#x2014;sometimes a large field not far from where the bees will be put to work&#x2014;they&#x2019;ve been bumping around on the back of a flatbed for several days. Almond farmers inspect the hives, which are then moved into orchards by beekeepers and &#x201C;brokers&#x201D; who help manage the transaction.</p> <p>There are inherent perils to hanging a business on the collective health of a fragile and disease-prone insect. Bee populations are notoriously unstable, and the animals&#x2019; health and population strength are constantly under threat. Even though the total population of domesticated honeybees has increased around 45 percent worldwide since 1961, the proportion of agricultural <a href=\"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19427214\">crops that depend on pollinators</a> is growing at a rate closer to 300 percent, stoking fears in certain scientific circles of a global pollination crisis. <a href=\"http://www.pnas.org/content/pnas/113/1/140.full.pdf\">Wild bee populations</a>, too, are facing steep declines.</p> <p>In California, &#x201C;we&#x2019;ve had a sufficient supply&#x201D; of bees thus far for each almond harvest, said Bob Curtis, the Almond Board of California&#x2019;s associate director of agricultural affairs. &#x201C;But every year before the bloom, I am personally concerned. Are we walking a fine line here?&#x201D;</p> <p>Beekeepers certainly do. On top of larger environmental concerns, the price of maintaining healthy hives can fluctuate wildly, depending on a host of risks, including pesticide exposure, mites, drought, and <a href=\"https://www.epa.gov/pollinator-protection/colony-collapse-disorder\">colony collapse disorder</a>, a mysterious epidemic in which worker bees suddenly abandon their queen, leaving her to die. Dealing with these issues means incurring unexpected, sometimes astronomical costs. During a drought year, when pollen and nectar are in short supply and must be artificially supplemented, it&#x2019;s possible to spend $200,000 more than anticipated just to keep the bees alive.</p> <figure class=\"article-image-full-width contains-caption \"><amp-img src=\"https://assets.atlasobscura.com/article_images/lg/59820/image.jpg\" alt=\"article-image\" width=\"600.0\" height=\"400.1953125\"></amp-img></figure> <p>&#x201C;It&#x2019;s death by a thousand cuts,&#x201D; said David Bradshaw, a lifelong beekeeper in the San Joaquin Valley. His base of operations, in a lot behind his home in Visalia, is typical for a commercial apiarist: There&#x2019;s a small fleet of trucks, tankers of man-made sugar mixtures, and dozens of bee boxes stacked under a patch of sparse shade. Hundreds more, he said, are deposited across the state.</p> <p>&#x201C;My wife comes from a background of a CFO of a school district,&#x201D; he said. &#x201C;They have budgets, and they have things that tell where you&#x2019;re supposed to end up at the end of the year. She asked me, &#x2018;So what&#x2019;s your budget?&#x2019; Like I have one!&#x201D;</p> <p>Many of the beekeepers who bring hives to California from <a class=\"destination-link article-destination-link\" href=\"https://www.atlasobscura.com/things-to-do/louisiana\">Louisiana</a>, <a class=\"destination-link article-destination-link\" href=\"https://www.atlasobscura.com/things-to-do/florida\">Florida</a>, and elsewhere live nomadic lives. Their entire year is spent preparing hundreds of thousands of delicate insects for a nonstop, cross-country trek, followed by a monthlong bonanza of hard labor in an unfamiliar environment. The trips are difficult on the animals, which are especially susceptible to heat and sickness during transit. An unexpected fire or <a href=\"https://www.theawl.com/2017/01/why-are-so-many-bee-trucks-tipping-over/\">truck tipover</a> (of which there are surprisingly many) can wipe out millions of them&#x2014;along with a beekeeper&#x2019;s entire livelihood.</p> <figure class=\"article-pullquote-container\"> <aside class=\"article-pullquote\"> <blockquote class=\"article-pullquote-content\">Many of California&#x2019;s most lurid and notorious bee heists have been perpetrated by apiarists gone rogue.</blockquote> </aside> </figure> <p>The one certainty: &#x201C;You can&#x2019;t just leave your bees in one place anymore,&#x201D; said Denise Qualls, a bee broker who connects apiarists and almond farmers. &#x201C;The bees come to California for the almonds. They stay for a month or two, then they go to <a class=\"destination-link article-destination-link\" href=\"https://www.atlasobscura.com/things-to-do/oregon\">Oregon</a> and <a class=\"destination-link article-destination-link\" href=\"https://www.atlasobscura.com/things-to-do/washington\">Washington</a> for apples. They&#x2019;ll go to <a class=\"destination-link article-destination-link\" href=\"https://www.atlasobscura.com/things-to-do/texas\">Texas</a> for whatever honey flow is there. They&#x2019;ll go to Louisiana. They&#x2019;ll go up to <a class=\"destination-link article-destination-link\" href=\"https://www.atlasobscura.com/things-to-do/maine\">Maine</a>. They&#x2019;ll end up in North or <a class=\"destination-link article-destination-link\" href=\"https://www.atlasobscura.com/things-to-do/south-dakota\">South Dakota</a>.&#x201D;</p> <p>The whole process can be exhausting, repetitive, and expensive.</p> <p>&#x201C;You get out of almond pollination, then your major goal for the next 11 and a half months is making sure your bees are healthy enough to go into almond pollination again,&#x201D; said Charley Nye, manager of U.C. Davis&#x2019; Harry H. Laidlaw Jr. Honey Bee Research Facility.</p> <p>The almond harvest, he added, is &#x201C;a weird driver&#x201D; of market forces&#x2014;one &#x201C;that&#x2019;s kind of pushing everything in one direction. We&#x2019;re trying to bend the honeybees around it.&#x201D;</p> <figure class=\"article-image-full-width contains-caption \"><amp-img src=\"https://assets.atlasobscura.com/article_images/lg/59797/image.jpg\" alt=\"article-image\" width=\"600.0\" height=\"400.1953125\"></amp-img></figure> <p>The economics of stealing beehives is a lot like the economics of stealing any high-value item, such as jewelry or electronics, with the main difference being accessibility. During the almond harvest, hives in California&#x2019;s orchards rarely are protected by alarms or even fences, and equipping individual boxes with GPS trackers is prohibitively expensive for most. To ensure the best pollination results, beekeepers usually place their boxes just off remote roads, hidden by trees, miles from so much as a streetlight. It&#x2019;s perfectly common for thousands of dollars&#x2019; worth of bees to sit largely unattended for weeks at a time.</p> <p>The theft itself requires a peculiar combination of nihilism and finicky care. You must be the sort of person who&#x2019;s willing to disregard a generations-old edict, invoked ceaselessly by lifelong apiarists, that &#x201C;you don&#x2019;t steal another man&#x2019;s bees.&#x201D; Yet pulling it off perfectly is also a dainty affair. You work quietly, gently, usually at night. You cannot jostle the hives too much, lest you damage the queen, which can cause the bees to lose interest in pollination. And it&#x2019;s not enough to place the bees in a warehouse somewhere; they need access to a water source and all the typical treatments and feedings (sugar water, pollen patties) a doting keeper would provide.</p> <p>Their value, after all, lies in their apparent health at the point of delivery to a farmer. Sick bees don&#x2019;t sell.</p> <p>It&#x2019;s for these reasons that many of California&#x2019;s most lurid and notorious bee heists have been perpetrated by apiarists gone rogue. In 1977, the beekeeper David Allred was sentenced to a minimum of three years in prison for lifting $10,000 worth of hives from another keeper in Tracy, California&#x2014;and using stolen trucks to move them. A deputy district attorney told the presiding judge that Allred &#x201C;wanted to be known as the Jesse James of the beehive industry,&#x201D; according to <em><a href=\"https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/1181075-bee-lawsuit-exhibit-a.html#page9\">The Press-Enterprise</a></em><a href=\"https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/1181075-bee-lawsuit-exhibit-a.html#page9\"> in Riverside</a>.</p> <p>It wasn&#x2019;t Allred&#x2019;s first brush with the law. The year before, he&#x2019;d gone to jail for helping another beekeeper, David Graves, <a href=\"https://people.com/archive/when-david-graves-lost-his-honey-did-he-murder-a-neighbors-15-million-bees-vol-6-no-12/\">poison 15 million bees</a> that belonged to a man who&#x2019;d recently married Graves&#x2019;s ex-wife and subsequently kicked Graves&#x2019;s ass after an escalating series of vandalisms. And a few years ago, Allred was<a href=\"https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2014/06/david-allred-california-bee-theft/\"> sued for taking $30,000 worth of bees</a> that weren&#x2019;t his&#x2014;and tricking local sheriff&#x2019;s deputies into helping him pull off the score.</p> <figure class=\"article-image-full-width contains-caption \"><amp-img src=\"https://assets.atlasobscura.com/article_images/lg/59822/image.jpg\" alt=\"article-image\" width=\"600.0\" height=\"450.0\"></amp-img></figure> <p>In 2012, the owner of Tauzer Apiaries, not far from Sacramento, noticed that about 80 of his hives were missing. He pulled together a search party, which soon found parts of the bee boxes scattered along a nearby highway; they also found a bucket of green paint. The clues eventually led them to the beekeeper <a href=\"https://www.sacbee.com/news/local/crime/article2591671.html\">Viktor Zhdamirov</a>, who had mixed the stolen bees in with his own&#x2014;and painted the boxes the same shade of green that had stained the bucket. He got three years in prison and was forced to pay more than $60,000.</p> <p>And in early 2014, the Bakersfield-area beekeeper Joe Romance hatched a plan to<a href=\"https://modernfarmer.com/2014/10/crime-fighting-beekeepers-catch-rustlers-educate-law-enforcement/\"> recover nearly 200 hives</a> that recently had been taken from him. Shortly after his property went missing, an unknown beekeeper arrived in town and began <a href=\"http://stories.weather.com/stolenbees\">conducting business from Starbucks</a>, a location most locals agreed was profoundly weird and suspicious. Romance asked a friend to pose as an almond farmer interested in leasing bees. Sure enough, his property was found sitting in a chop shop surrounded by razor wire.</p> <p>This sort of theft has been an intermittent phenomenon across California for years. But recently, the numbers have started to climb. More than 2,700 hives were reported stolen from 2016 to 2017, according to an analysis of police records by Rowdy Jay Freeman, a sheriff&#x2019;s deputy in Butte County and a beekeeper himself. In the three years before that, the average number of annual reported thefts was closer to 100.</p> <figure class=\" \"><amp-img src=\"https://assets.atlasobscura.com/article_images/59799/image.jpg\" alt=\"article-image\" width=\"600.0\" height=\"702.974828375286\"></amp-img></figure> <p>&#x201C;It&#x2019;s very lucrative business,&#x201D; said Isaac Torres, the agriculture detective. Yet at the same time, &#x201C;it&#x2019;s not just some guys who are breaking into cars, or deciding, &#x2018;I&#x2019;m going to go steal some bees!&#x2019; &#x201D;</p> <p>The thieves were cautious and methodical. They likely skipped from orchard to orchard, stacking boxes quickly onto a truck at night. They were familiar with the ins and outs of transporting bees&#x2014;and keeping them healthy enough to rent out later.</p> <p>Little else is known about how the thefts were conducted. The 2017 Fresno County case is still working its way through the court system, and officials are limited in how much they can discuss it. Alexa Pavlov, the beekeeper who confronted Pavel Tveretinov last year, has stopped answering calls.</p> <p>But some have expressed doubt that Tveretinov and alleged accomplice Vitaliy Yeroshenko will face penalties commensurate to the volume of bees stolen. Without an abundance of eyewitness accounts or physical evidence, the two are being <a href=\"http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-central-valley-beehive-theft-charges-20170623-story.html\">charged</a> with 10 counts of receiving stolen property exceeding $950<strong>.</strong> In July, the Fresno County District Attorney&#x2019;s Office added two grand theft charges.</p> <p>&#x201C;They always say in law enforcement, &#x2018;What you know is one thing; what you can prove is another,&#x2019;&#x201D; said Andres Solis, a Fresno County sheriff&#x2019;s deputy who has worked on the case. The evening he first saw the field where Tveretinov was arrested, he&#x2019;d been on the job roughly a month. Today, he has a deep understanding of what bees, and bee theft, mean to California.</p> <p>&#x201C;It&#x2019;s not just the property itself that they&#x2019;re out,&#x201D; Solis said. &#x201C;It&#x2019;s also the man hours spent bringing these bees up and making the hive healthy. &#x2026; You get your bees back and they&#x2019;re nothing like they were before.&#x201D;</p> <figure class=\"article-image-full-width contains-caption \"><amp-img src=\"https://assets.atlasobscura.com/article_images/lg/59800/image.jpg\" alt=\"article-image\" width=\"600.0\" height=\"400.1953125\"></amp-img></figure> <p>One morning before leaving Fresno, I drove an hour east, to one of the sites where authorities discovered hundreds of boxes of stolen hives. I wanted to see firsthand what an illicit bee operation looks like and, a year after the arrest of Tveretinov and Yeroshenko, what had become of the insects they&#x2019;re accused of stealing.</p> <p>The field was so remote that it didn&#x2019;t have a proper address. To point me there, Torres dropped a pin on Google Maps, then recited from memory a short soliloquy of landmarks. I left early in the morning, hoping to evade the heat. But by the time I arrived, it was close to 100 degrees.</p> <p>The spot was perfect for keeping bees: an overgrown field, about an acre long, nestled between an orchard and a man-made canal. It was close to a main road, but completely hidden if you&#x2019;re speeding by at 60 mph.</p> <p>Inside a perimeter of rusty barbed wire, hundreds of bee boxes sat in squat stacks. Just like the ones Torres described, these were painted a variety of colors. I stood near the perimeter, watching as thousands of bees launched from their hives, cutting through the scorching air.</p> <p>Near the boxes was an abandoned van, a couple of bicycles, a flatbed, and an old Coachmen RV. A year after Tveretinov&#x2019;s arrest, some beekeepers still had not retrieved their hives. It is, after all, quite costly to ship bees across the country with no guarantee they&#x2019;ll arrive in the condition you&#x2019;d delivered them. For some, getting their property back wasn&#x2019;t worth the gamble.</p> <p>Up an embankment just yards away, cars roared past on a two-lane highway. A curious driver could easily have pulled over and peered into the field, spotted the makings of an alleged criminal enterprise whose size and peculiarity would be virtually unprecedented in California. One deputy said he&#x2019;d sped past this field dozens of times on his way to headquarters. He&#x2019;d never stopped.</p> <p>&#x201C;There&#x2019;s bees there,&#x201D; he said. &#x201C;But you don&#x2019;t think nothing of it. It&#x2019;s bees. It&#x2019;s pretty common to see beehives.&#x201D;</p> <p>I got as close as any bee novice probably should. Watched the stolen property zip through the air, folding in and out of kaleidoscopic clouds. Then I headed back to my rental car and began the long drive home, through miles and miles of almond trees.</p> <p><em>This story was published in collaboration with </em>The Journal of Alta California<em>. Read more at <a href=\"https://altaonline.com/\">altaonline.com.</a></em></p> <figure class=\" contains-caption \"><a href=\"https://www.climatedesk.org/\"><amp-img src=\"https://assets.atlasobscura.com/article_images/59795/image.jpg\" alt=\"article-image\" width=\"600.0\" height=\"85.5\"></amp-img></a></figure> </div>","url":"https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/bee-theft-in-california-almonds","date_published":"2018-10-10T15:45:01+00:00","author":{"name":""}},{"id":"933","title":"You Get What You Give: Why the New Radicals Broke Up","content_html":"<section class=\"post-content\"> <div class=\"md-whitebox\"> <p><div class=\"md-big\"><strong>Today in Tedium:</strong> Two decades ago this month, a couple of things happened in the world of music that forever shaped the way I thought about it. One, the Barenaked Ladies scored a number-one hit on the Billboard 200 with &#x201C;One Week,&#x201D; and a band called The New Radicals released their first and only album, <em>Maybe You&#x2019;ve Been Brainwashed Too</em>&#x2014;whose lead single, &#x201C;<a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DL7-CKirWZE\">You Get What You Give</a>,&#x201D; would turn the band into the perfect one-hit wonder. The band was gone as soon as the single was fading off the charts, by choice, a choice many of its contemporaries didn&#x2019;t get to make for themselves. (Barenaked Ladies, with just a single personnel change since 1998&#x2014;<a href=\"https://www.syracuse.com/news/index.ssf/2009/02/steven_page_why_i_left_the_bar.html\">albeit a big one</a>&#x2014;are still with us.) But the story of the New Radicals is fascinating in terms of what it says about the music industry and the savvy needed for survival. Today&apos;s Tedium ponders &#x2018;90s one-hit wonders, the alt-rock oldies circuit, and the guy who transcended all that. <em>&#x2014; Ernie @ Tedium</em></div></p> <p><em><strong>Editor&apos;s note:</strong> $10 patron Kevin Savetz <a href=\"http://monsterfeet.com/grue/\">recommends his podcast Eaten By a Grue</a>, which focuses on Infocom games, text adventures, and interactive fiction. (Wanna share your own link on a future Tedium post? <a href=\"https://www.patreon.com/tedium\">Sign up for Patreon on the $10 tier or above</a>.)</em></p> </div> <div class=\"md-graybox\"> <p><em>Everclear, a band fully embracing of its status as a band playing the hits. (<a href=\"https://www.flickr.com/photos/photo-grafitti/27975497567/\">Harmony Gruber/Flickr</a>)</em></p> <h3 id=\"thetragicallyunhipstatusofa90saltrockerin2018\">The tragically unhip status of a &#x2019;90s alt-rocker in 2018</h3> <p>The second life of a late-&#x2018;90s alternative rock musician, especially a lead singer, is usually not a particularly glamorous path. While some radio staples of the era (Pearl Jam, Beck, Bjork, Gwen Stefani, Dave Matthews, Rob Thomas, Weezer, Ben Folds, Dave Grohl) have transcended this status to become elder statesmen and stateswomen of popular music, many rock-radio hitmakers of the era have become straight-up defined by their period of momentary glory. Decades out from their last hit and predating the nurturing nature of social media to keep fanbases hooked, many have been relegated to oldies tours.</p> <p>The band Everclear, one of the better bands of this specific era, is a key example of this. While the act hasn&#x2019;t had a sizable hit in about 15 years and Art Alexakis has been the only constant over the past decade, it has maintained a touring presence during most of that time, and has leaned hard into the idea of alt-rock being an oldies game. In 2012, Alexakis launched the <a href=\"http://www.summerlandtour.net/\">Summerland Tour</a>, a festival giving still-active rock acts from the late &#x2018;90s access to rock venues around the country. Among Summerland&#x2019;s alums are a number of bands known primarily for one song: <a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-KT-r2vHeMM\">Marcy Playground</a>, <a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TDkhl-CgETg\">Spacehog</a>, <a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JSxNqSAvkDE\">Sponge</a> (OK, I&#x2019;ll give &#x2018;em <a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-NVO3cxTbxg\">two</a>), <a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T8Xb_7YDroQ\">Eve 6</a> (<a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X5DOGsoiW6c\">ditto</a>), and <a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E2Oe5YKhzCE\">Local H</a>.</p> <p>Part of the reason so many of these bands largely became known for a single song, as I&#x2019;ve noted in the past, is because the music industry (at least on the rock side) <a href=\"https://tedium.co/2018/01/30/legal-music-streaming-history/\">was not structured in a healthy way in the late &#x2018;90s</a>, making it difficult for radio-driven major label bands to maintain a long-term career unless they hit a certain threshold of critical acclaim or musical success. Bands that built a less-showy cult following were often, ironically, better off over the long haul than overnight success stories.</p> <p>And often, one-hit wonders that managed to stick it out into the present day, such as Nada Surf and former Refreshments lead singer <a href=\"https://rogerclyneandthepeacemakers.com/\">Roger Clyne</a>, survived because they got off their major labels and went independent, where the odds of a steady career of working in music were just a bit better.</p> <p><em>Sometimes, you have to embrace your status as a band that plays oldies tours. (<a href=\"https://www.flickr.com/photos/photo-grafitti/27975758467/\">Harmony Gruber/Flickr</a>)</em></p> <p>Even bands that had a number of hits in the late &#x2018;90s, like two-time Summerland alums Sugar Ray, have found their second acts somewhat wanting. That band&#x2019;s singer, Mark McGrath, has parlayed his TRL-era fame into a lengthy career as a media personality, complete with a <em>Celebrity Big Brother</em> appearance; he has also become the lead singer of Royal Machines, an all-star cover band built from the roots of a prior all-star cover band, Camp Freddy. (<a href=\"https://noisey.vice.com/en_us/article/6wnmbr/i-made-the-smash-mouth-guy-eat-a-shit-ton-of-eggs\">Hey, things could be worse</a>.)</p> <p>Really, the best gig one can have as an late-career alternative rocker, outside of a robust touring business, is taking a role behind the scenes. Semisonic lead singer Dan Wilson didn&#x2019;t win his well-deserved Grammy for &#x201C;Closing Time,&#x201D; <a href=\"https://tedium.co/2015/03/26/hidden-meanings-pop-music/\">the greatest song ever written about childbirth</a>, but his mantle has gained plenty of hardware nonetheless, thanks to his significant songwriting and production skills. Among other awards, Wilson has earned Grammys for working with the Dixie Chicks&#x2014;he cowrote &#x201C;Not Ready to Make Nice&#x201D;&#x2014;and Adele. Wilson produced &#x201C;Someone Like You,&#x201D; the closing track on <em>21</em>, the best-selling album of the past decade, as well as one of Adele&#x2019;s biggest hits; that&#x2019;s no small feat.</p> <p>(Semisonic&#x2019;s drummer, Jacob Slichter, wrote <a href=\"https://amzn.to/2QGJ5S2\">a great book about being in the music industry</a> that feels relevant to this conversation.)</p> <p>And Better Than Ezra lead singer Kevin Griffin, whose band should have been more famous than it actually was (&#x201C;<a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LTdFl8H_TJA\">At the Stars</a>&#x201D; is a good song, fight me), has become an active songwriter himself; remember the Howie Day song &#x201C;Collide&#x201D;? He co-wrote that, along with a number of songs on the last two Barenaked Ladies albums.</p> <p>Call it the Rob Thomas template: While Matchbox Twenty was a band that had a lot of staying power, a big reason for that staying power was the fact that Thomas dabbled in writing songs for other artists. Most famously, of course, he co-wrote and sang &#x201C;Smooth&#x201D; with Santana, ensuring that every bar in every city, at some point during the the day, would have someone saying, &#x201C;Man, it&#x2019;s a hot one &#x2026;&#x201D; on the loudspeaker. Score the right hit, and you&#x2019;re set for life.</p> <p>I say all of this to preface the fact that Gregg Alexander was a genius for breaking up The New Radicals when he did. What seemed like a very rock-star thing to do, quit a band before it had a chance to even shine, was actually quite brilliant.</p> <p>Here&#x2019;s why.</p> </div>\n<div class=\"md-redbox\"> <blockquote class=\"md-quote\"> </blockquote> <p><strong>&#x2014; Sean Nelson,</strong> the lead singer of Harvey Danger, discussing the odd status of <a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wYsMjEeEg4g\">his band&#x2019;s biggest hit</a> in his life <a href=\"https://www.thestranger.com/lineout/archives/2013/06/19/ex-stranger-danger-outtakes-from-the-sean-nelson-interview\">during a 2013 interview</a>. Nelson has spent more than two decades as an editor at the Seattle alt-weekly <em>The Stranger</em>, while periodically performing and touring with various well-known Northwest bands such as The Decemberists, The Long Winters, and Death Cab For Cutie. (Harvey Danger broke up in 2009, and Nelson&#x2019;s 2013 interview was celebrating the release of a solo album.) Nelson&#x2019;s long-term gig as a journalist with one foot in the music industry has at times led to unusual situations, such as in 2015 <a href=\"https://www.thestranger.com/blogs/slog/2015/09/02/22795816/i-already-didnt-know-how-to-feel-about-critical-mass-then-i-heard-my-song-in-that-video-of-them-attacking-a-zipcar\">when he wrote a news story</a> about Critical Mass activists going after a Zipcar driver while &#x201C;Flagpole Sitta&#x201D; was playing on a speaker attached to one of the cyclists&#x2019; bikes. &#x201C;It&apos;s enough to make you take public transportation,&#x201D; he wrote.</p> </div><div class=\"md-whitebox\"> <p><em>Wake up kids, we&apos;ve got the dreamer&apos;s disease.</em></p> <h3 id=\"whythenewradicalsbreakupwasthebestthingthatcouldhaveeverhappenedtogreggalexander\">Why The New Radicals&#x2019; breakup was the best thing that could have ever happened to Gregg Alexander</h3> <p>The New Radicals may be the only band that has been broken up by press release.</p> <p>It was a damn good press release, too, <a href=\"http://www.prnewswire.co.uk/news-releases/new-radicals-dissolves-156295355.html\">courtesy of Gregg Alexander himself</a>. He wrote of his desire to move back into production work, to focus on being in the studio and songwriting. He even knew the perfect person to work with out of the gate: Danielle Brisebois, the former child star who added a late-season dynamic to <em>All In the Family</em> and had resurfaced in his band. (The album was never released, but Brisebois remains a close collaborator with Alexander.)</p> <p>He also wrote about being tired of the hustle that came with a band on the brink of long-term success. While he had a hit single, the odds of scoring a second one weren&#x2019;t great. He knew what was coming. He got ahead of it before it defined his career and life.</p> <p>From the press release, here&#x2019;s what Alexander had to say:</p> <blockquote> <p>It was an experience playing the artist, but I accomplished all of my goals with this record, and I&apos;m ready to move on and make the next step in my career. I&apos;ve been writing songs for and working with artists as varied as R&amp;B acts to Belinda Carlisle intermittently for the last nine years, and I&apos;m looking forward to starting the day-to-day creative process of building a successful production company. I view myself much the same as a just getting started Babyface or Matthew Wilder (No Doubt producer), who dabbled in performing, but whose real calling was being a producer.</p>\n</blockquote> <p>The band&#x2019;s album was well-reviewed and their single well-regarded, but Alexander was probably aware that there was likely more potential for him to have a decent career if he moved behind the scenes, while someone better suited to the &#x201C;hanging and schmoozing&#x201D; of being a pop star, as he described it, could do all that. </p> <p>As he noted, he had already found success as a composer; after his first two albums as a solo artist, <a href=\"https://amzn.to/2y8ZfN2\"><em>Michigan Rain</em></a> and <a href=\"https://amzn.to/2QI8F9d\"><em>Intoxifornication</em></a>, tanked, that was how he made his money before forming the New Radicals.</p> <p>(In case you were wondering, Gregg Alexander&#x2019;s first attempt at stardom didn&#x2019;t receive a lot of critical acclaim. A Chicago Tribune review of <em>Intoxifornication</em> <a href=\"https://www.newspapers.com/clip/24410274/gregg_alexander_intoxifornication/\">said this of his appeal</a>: &#x201C;The &#x2018;Beverly Hills, 90210&#x2019; version of Prince is here, complete with gorgeous face, guitar, and songs filled wish sexual play-by-plays.&#x201D;)</p> <p>But the experience of creating the two albums, which had a more melancholy sound than his later band, was nonetheless important. The producer on those two albums, a guy named Rick Nowels, became key to Alexander&#x2019;s later success as a songwriter. You may not know Nowels by name, but you&#x2019;ve heard his resume on the radio. Among the songs he&#x2019;s helped to write and/or produce in the past 30 years: Belinda Carlisle&#x2019;s &#x201C;Heaven Is a Place on Earth,&#x201D; Dido&#x2019;s &#x201C;White Flag,&#x201D; John Legend&#x2019;s &#x201C;Green Light,&#x201D; and Lana Del Rey&#x2019;s &#x201C;Summertime Sadness.&#x201D; He cowrote the title track on Celine Dion&#x2019;s breakthrough <em>Falling Into You</em>, three tracks on Madonna&#x2019;s <em>Ray of Light</em>, and worked on solo albums for most of the Spice Girls. In recent years, he&#x2019;s worked closely with Del Rey in particular. Another frequent collaborator? Gregg Alexander.</p> <p>Nowels cowrote &#x201C;You Get What You Give&#x201D; with Alexander, and after the New Radical went behind the scenes, the songwriters kept up the partnership, most famously on &#x201C;The Game of Love,&#x201D; a Santana collaboration with Michelle Branch that became the &#x201C;Smooth&#x201D; of 2002. That song won a Grammy.</p> <p>Here&#x2019;s a fun fact about the tune: The song was originally demoed with Alexander performing the vocals, but producer Clive Davis decided a female vocalist would be a better choice. <a href=\"http://hlrecord.org/2007/10/the-mogul-speaks-clive-davis-returns-to-hls/\">It took them a few tries to find the right one</a>: First, Tina Turner was brought on board, but the semi-retired soul icon didn&#x2019;t want to do the video; then Macy Gray was brought in, but the vocals weren&#x2019;t to Davis&#x2019; liking. Finally, Michelle Branch was pulled in, resulting in one of the biggest hits of the early 2000s.</p> <p>(Santana was partial to <a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MaShRGq0cLo\">Turner&#x2019;s version</a>, which was eventually released on a compilation disc.)</p> <p>The result of all this is that there&#x2019;s a version of the song with Alexander&#x2019;s vocals on it. In case you were wondering what that would sound like, <a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7bJrHl4TeN0\">here you go</a>.</p> <p>Most of the songs that he&#x2019;s worked on, however, haven&#x2019;t gotten quite that degree of notice&#x2014;something that was largely by design, as Alexander used pseudonyms such as &#x201C;Alex Ander&#x201D; (as he did on &#x201C;The Game of Love&#x201D;) and also collaborated with artists with relatively small American profiles, such as Boyzone&#x2019;s Ronan Keating, for whom he&#x2019;s co-produced at least four albums.</p> <p>Alexander has at times dropped out of doing music entirely in favor of pursuits like activism. He&#x2019;s largely avoided doing interviews, <a href=\"https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/race/found-star-new-radicals-gregg-739434\">but surfaced in an interview with <em>The Hollywood Reporter</em> in 2014</a>. The occasion? He was roped in by John Carney, the musician-turned-director best known for <em>Once</em>, and worked closely with the director on <a href=\"https://amzn.to/2A27JXO\"><em>Begin Again</em></a>, a film about the music industry that stared Keira Knightley, Mark Ruffalo, and Maroon 5&#x2019;s Adam Levine. (Levine, side note, knows a thing or two about the music industry circa 1998; ask him about <a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DefUa6gd5Qg\">Kara&#x2019;s Flowers</a> sometime.)</p> <p>Alexander noted that the film&#x2019;s story reminded him of his own time in the music industry, and signed onto the project, writing most of its songs with many of his frequent collaborators, including Brisebois.</p> <p>One of the songs he wrote, intended as something of a centerpiece of the film, <a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cL4uhaQ58Rk\">was &#x201C;Lost Stars,&#x201D;</a> which was nominated for an Oscar for Best Song&#x2014;hence why Alexander started appearing out in public again.</p> <p>&#x201C;&#x2018;Lost Stars,&#x2019; more than any other song in the film, was the one where you wanted to get out a philosophy that Keira&apos;s character would sing but Adam would relate to and something that would also touch a contemporary audience,&#x201D; <a href=\"https://www.billboard.com/articles/events/billboardthr-conference/6304402/ex-new-radicals-frontman-gregg-alexander-on-return\">Alexander told <em>Billboard</em></a> as he made the awards-season rounds. &#x201C;At the end of the film, it&#x2019;s a young audience watching this song that really has a lot of pathos and pain in it, but yet people are doing this.&#x201D; </p> <p><a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-pSi3qekU5Y\">Watching a live recording</a> of Alexander performing this song with as much passion as Levine throws at it in the film (albeit with a scratchier voice), one wonders what might have happened had Alexander had his brush with fame just a few years later, in a music industry that was a bit more artist-friendly, where he could have faded in rather than burning out. Would Alexander have written a song like this for the New Radicals? Would his profile be similar to that of Levine&#x2019;s? Maybe, maybe not. The music industry, even today, is still built on sheer chance, not just talent.</p> <p>But two decades on from the fateful release of a song that was so destined for the mainstream that its music video was literally shot in a mall, one thing is clear from Alexander&#x2019;s take on the song that nearly won him an Oscar: He&#x2019;s still got the goods.</p> </div><div class=\"md-graybox\"> <p><strong>On its merits, &#x201C;You Get What You Give&#x201D;</strong> was one of the best pop songs of its era, classically soulful, evoking the best of both &#x2018;60s soul and the best parts of a John Hughes film soundtrack.</p> <p>But at the time of its release, it became a target for controversy due to a ticking time bomb that Alexander laid at the end of the song. The lyrics did two things: They casually dropped a whole lot of incongruent political issues, calling health insurance a rip-off and big bankers a threat, hinting at the overblown status of the looming Y2K bug, and questioning the ethics of cloning animals. They then slammed a bunch of pop stars. You know the lyrics, but let me publish them here for posterity:</p> <blockquote> <p>Fashion shoots with Beck and Hanson</p> <p>Courtney Love and Marilyn Manson</p> <p>You&apos;re all fakes, run to your mansions</p> <p>Come around, we&apos;ll kick your ass in</p>\n</blockquote> <p>It was a test. Alexander wanted to see if the major label push he knew the record would get would lead the media to pay attention to his willingness to talk about serious political issues&#x2014;or his willingness to fight a trio of generally wholesome teenage brothers from Tulsa, Oklahoma. We all know what happened, and it likely drove the success of the song because it gave people something to talk about.</p> <p>Speaking to <em>The Hollywood Reporter</em> in 2014, though, it was clear that Alexander was still bummed at the results of that test.</p> <p>&#x201C;But to put them next to each other, and then to notice that everybody focused on the so-called &#x2018;celebrity-bashing&#x2019; lyric instead of this lyric that was talking about the powers-that-be that are holding everybody down &#x2026; That was something that I was kind of disillusioned by,&#x201D; he told the magazine&#x2019;s Scott Feinberg.</p> <p>Love or hate the song, or the controversy, it simply highlighted Alexander&#x2019;s savvy as a creator. </p> <p>The status of the music industry at the tail end of 1998 was quite strange. It was mere moments from getting disrupted in a way where the power of your following mattered more than the power of your label, where the old calculus of aggressively promoting a song and then ditching a band after their big hit had been used up was finally looking like bad business.</p> <p>The New Radicals caught on at a time where they could play that game, but Gregg Alexander was smart enough to know that it was better to jump off before the industry ate him alive, and instead focus on his creative output.</p> <p>It sure beats the oldies circuit.</p> </div> </section>","url":"http://tedium.co/2018/10/09/new-radicals-gregg-alexander-history/","date_published":"2018-10-10T03:58:00+00:00","author":{"name":"Ernie Smith • 2018-10-09"}},{"id":"923","title":"California's Missions - Google Arts & Culture","content_html":"<div class=\"xu46lf\"></div>","url":"https://artsandculture.google.com/exhibit/mwJyzm7X2wwbLA","date_published":"2018-10-09T16:19:38+00:00","author":{"name":""}},{"id":"930","title":"Nikki Haley to resign as Trump's U.N. ambassador","content_html":"<div><article class=\"story-main-content \">\n                <div class=\"content layout-story sticky-wrapper\">\n                <section class=\"content-groupset pos-alpha\">\n                    <div class=\"content-group story-tools\">\n                        \n                    </div>\n                </section>\n                <section class=\"content-groupset pos-beta\">\n                    <div class=\"content-group story-core\">\n                        <div class=\"story-text  \">\n                            \n                            <div class=\" story-intro format-s\">\n        <span>\n                    <meta>\n                    <meta>\n                    <meta>\n                </span>\n            <figure class=\"art \">\n    <div class=\"fig-graphic\">\n        <picture>\n                    <source srcset=\"https://static.politico.com/dims4/default/9e8bef7/2147483647/resize/1160x/quality/90/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fstatic.politico.com%2F8c%2Fd0%2F4c7b247040948304fc8926ad334f%2F181009-nikki-haley-gty-773.jpg\">\n                    <source srcset=\"https://static.politico.com/dims4/default/acec99e/2147483647/resize/971x/quality/90/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fstatic.politico.com%2F8c%2Fd0%2F4c7b247040948304fc8926ad334f%2F181009-nikki-haley-gty-773.jpg\">\n                    <source srcset=\"https://static.politico.com/dims4/default/31fd328/2147483647/resize/646x/quality/90/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fstatic.politico.com%2F8c%2Fd0%2F4c7b247040948304fc8926ad334f%2F181009-nikki-haley-gty-773.jpg\">\n                    <source srcset=\"https://static.politico.com/dims4/default/104c3cd/2147483647/resize/463x/quality/90/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fstatic.politico.com%2F8c%2Fd0%2F4c7b247040948304fc8926ad334f%2F181009-nikki-haley-gty-773.jpg\">\n                    <img src=\"https://static.politico.com/dims4/default/0525d89/2147483647/resize/1160x%3E/quality/90/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fstatic.politico.com%2F8c%2Fd0%2F4c7b247040948304fc8926ad334f%2F181009-nikki-haley-gty-773.jpg\" alt=\"Nikki Haley\"></picture>\n            </div>\n    \n    </figure>\n\n        </div><div class=\"story-share conditional\">\n        \n    </div>\n<p>Nikki Haley is resigning as the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, jolting the foreign policy world and President Donald Trump&apos;s team just weeks before the midterm elections.</p>\n<p>Haley, one of the most respected members of Trump&#x2019;s Cabinet on the international front, said Tuesday that she will stay in the role until the end of the year. She also said she did not plan to run for president against Trump in 2020, downplaying the intense buzz about her political future. </p><p class=\"story-continued\">Story Continued Below</p>\n\n <p>Her plans to quit were closely held and a genuine shock to the U.N. community as well as other Republicans, although some have said in recent months that she appeared to have less room to maneuver in the role since John Bolton took over as Trump&#x2019;s national security adviser. </p>\n<p>Trump said he may name a new U.N. envoy in less than three weeks; speculation quickly swirled around who that might be, with some predicting &#x2014; with little evidence &#x2014; that Trump may pick his daughter, Ivanka, or son-in-law, Jared Kushner, both of whom advise him in the White House. </p>\n<p>During a news conference alongside Haley in the Oval Office on Tuesday morning, Trump heavily praised her, saying she&apos;s &quot;done an incredible job&quot; and is &quot;a fantastic person.&quot;</p>\n<p>&quot;We&apos;re all happy for you in one way, but we hate to lose you,&quot; Trump told Haley. &quot;Hopefully you&apos;ll be coming back at some point, but maybe in a different capacity. You can have your pick.&quot; </p><aside class=\"story-related cl-l db \">\n        <aside class=\"content-group inline-module-playbook\">\n        <section class=\"speedbump layout-bi\">\n        <div class=\"speedbump-item pos-alpha\">\n            <div class=\"spotlight spotlight--flex\">\n                \n            </div>\n        </div>\n        <div class=\"speedbump-item pos-beta\">\n            <div class=\"js-tealium-newsletter\">\n                <div class=\"dari-frame dari-frame-loaded\">\n                            <p class=\"legal-disclaimer\">By signing up you agree to receive email newsletters or alerts from POLITICO. You can unsubscribe at any time.</p>\n                            </div></div>\n        </div>\n    </section>\n    </aside>\n</aside>\n<p>Trump said that Haley informed him about six months ago that she would want to &quot;take a break&quot; at the end of her first two years. Haley, the former governor of South Carolina, was an early critic of then-candidate Trump before joining his administration. She <a href=\"https://www.politico.com/story/2017/04/nikki-haley-rex-tillerson-foreign-236806\">turned down</a> his offer to be secretary of state, on grounds that she lacked enough foreign policy experience. Instead she became the U.N. envoy, which Trump included in his Cabinet. </p>\n<p>As to why she&#x2019;s leaving now, Haley said that she wants Trump to have &quot;the strongest person to fight&quot; and that she believes &quot;it&apos;s good to rotate in other people who can put that same energy and power into it.&quot; </p>\n<p>&quot;It has been an honor of a lifetime,&quot; she said. &quot;You know, I said I am such a lucky girl to have been able to lead the state that raised me and to serve a country I love so very much. It has really been a blessing and I want to thank you for that.&quot; </p>\n<p>In her <a href=\"https://www.politico.com/f/?id=00000166-59fd-d42f-a56e-7bfd50e20000\">resignation letter</a>, Haley told Trump she &#x201C;will surely not be a candidate for any office in 2020.&#x201D; She also hinted strongly that she&#x2019;ll join the private sector. &#x201C;As a businessman,&#x201D; she wrote to Trump, &#x201C;I expect you will appreciate my sense that returning from government to the private sector is not a step down but a step up.&#x201D;</p>\n<p>Haley has been a forceful presence at the United Nations, maintaining the respect of fellow delegates to the world body even as she took steps that were deeply unpopular on the international stage. </p>\n<p>She oversaw the U.S. decision to quit the U.N. Human Rights Council, saying it was too biased against Israel and too loaded with members with spotty human rights records. She has also pushed through policies that have been highly unfavorable to Palestinians, including stopping U.S. funding of the main U.N. agency that deals with Palestinian refugees. </p><aside class=\"story-related cl-l db no-border\">\n        \n\n\n    </aside>\n<aside class=\"story-related cl-l db \">\n        \n        </aside>\n<p>Many of her moves &#x2014; including her vocal support for Israel &#x2014; have been seen among U.N. officials as possible efforts to burnish her Republican credentials. Haley, who is of Indian descent, is considered a strong potential future GOP presidential candidate. </p>\n<p>Still, from the start, other nations have looked to Haley as a clear voice articulating U.S. foreign policy. In particular, Haley drew a lot of attention during Trump&#x2019;s first year in office because then-Secretary of State Rex Tillerson &#x2014; who did not get along with her &#x2014; avoided the spotlight. </p>\n<p>Haley also has been a steady voice as opposed to Trump, who can be mercurial in his views on foreign policy. And at times Haley has placed daylight between herself and Trump. She&#x2019;s been much more forceful in her criticism of Russia, for instance. </p>\n<p>At one point, when a Trump adviser chided her for message &#x201C;confusion&#x201D; when she announced sanctions on Russia before the president made his final decision, Haley shot back: &#x201C;With all due respect, I don&#x2019;t get confused.&#x201D; </p>\n<p>Haley also was a critical player in laying the groundwork for Trump&#x2019;s decision to quit the Iran nuclear deal, defending that choice at every turn despite intense international criticism. </p>\n<p>Overall, Haley has stayed in Trump&#x2019;s good graces even as others have fallen out, which was why so many people were surprised to hear she&#x2019;s leaving. Being based hours away in New York may have helped. Haley said in April that her relationship with Trump was &quot;perfect.&quot; Last month, she wrote a <a href=\"https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/when-i-challenge-the-president-i-do-it-directly-my-anonymous-colleague-should-have-too/2018/09/07/d453eaf6-b2ae-11e8-9a6a-565d92a3585d_story.html?noredirect=on&amp;utm_term=.d4792a9b75d7\">column</a> slamming an anonymous senior Trump administration official who&apos;d written an op-ed for The New York Times that criticized Trump.</p>\n<p>Also last month, Haley carefully prepared the scene for Trump&#x2019;s second visit to the annual gathering of the U.N. General Assembly. The event did not go smoothly &#x2014; Trump drew rebukes for his Iran policy and laughs for his boastful claims of success during his speech to the General Assembly. But there were no complaints aimed at Haley in the aftermath.</p>\n<p>In recent months, as others have joined Trump&#x2019;s team, U.N. diplomats have wondered about how much sway Haley continues to hold in the administration. </p>\n<p>Mike Pompeo succeeded Tillerson as secretary of state in late April. While he is believed to get along well with Haley, he&#x2019;s also less willing to cede the spotlight to her than Tillerson. The arrival that same month of Bolton as Trump&#x2019;s national security adviser also appears to have affected the dynamic. </p>\n<p>Bolton is a former ambassador to the United Nations with a well-known disdain for such international institutions. In September, Bolton announced that the United States would no longer engage in any way with the International Criminal Court. </p>\n<p>&#x201C;Her public role seems more limited&#x201D; since Bolton and Pompeo took on their foreign policy portfolios, a longtime U.N. diplomat told POLITICO in recent weeks.</p><aside class=\"story-related\">\n    <article class=\"story-frag format-sm\">\n        <figure class=\"thumb\">\n            <div class=\"fig-graphic\">\n                <a href=\"https://www.politico.com/story/2018/10/06/kavanaugh-midterms-impact-877372\" class=\"js-tealium-tracking\"><img width=\"90\" src=\"https://static.politico.com/dims4/default/5fa73eb/2147483647/legacy_thumbnail/90x49%3E/quality/90/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fstatic.politico.com%2F9f%2F24%2F34b6ff874885a2a2ef289a9801c9%2F181006-protesters-ap-773.jpg\" alt=\"Protesters.\"></a></div>\n        </figure>\n        \n    </article>\n    </aside>\n<p>But a State Department official said Haley had offered no hints that she didn&apos;t get along with either Bolton or Pompeo. </p>\n<p>In brief remarks outside the White House on Tuesday afternoon, Pompeo thanked Haley for her service. &quot;She&apos;s been a great partner of mine for now five months that she and I have been working together,&#x201D; he said.</p>\n<p>The State Department official also said Haley had earned widespread respect among career U.S. staffers, and that many were angling to land a spot at the U.S. Mission to the United Nations. </p>\n<p>&quot;Everyone was totally blindsided&quot; by her decision to quit, the official said. &quot;People were dying to work for her.&quot;</p>\n<p>&quot;People are sad,&quot; added a staffer at the U.S. mission in New York.</p>\n<p>Now a major question is who will fill Haley&apos;s shoes. Speculation that it could be either Kushner or his wife, Ivanka Trump, grew when Haley praised both of them in her remarks Tuesday.</p>\n<p>&quot;I can&apos;t say enough good things about Jared and Ivanka,&quot; Haley said during Tuesday&apos;s news conference. &quot;Jared is such a hidden genius that no one understands. ... And Ivanka has been just a great friend, and they do a lot of things behind the scenes that I wish more people knew about, because we&apos;re a better country because they&apos;re in this administration.&quot;</p>\n<p>Others floated Dina Powell, a former deputy national security adviser during Trump&apos;s first year as a potential successor to Haley. Powell is currently a top official at Goldman Sachs.</p>\n<p>In an appearance Tuesday afternoon, Trump said his daughter would be &quot;wonderful&quot; in the role but that he doesn&apos;t want to be accused of nepotism by appointing her. Powell is a &quot;person I would consider,&quot; he said.</p>\n<p>Other potential Haley successors include: Richard Grenell, the U.S. ambassador to Germany, who previously served as a spokesman for the U.S. Mission to the U.N.; and Kelly Craft, the U.S. ambassador to Canada.</p>\n<p>Alongside Trump, Haley also said<b> </b>that in the two years she has served as ambassador, the U.S. is now &quot;respected&quot; even if some &quot;countries may not like what we do.&quot; She also said the &quot;U.S. is strong again.&quot; </p>\n<p>&quot;I&apos;m not running for 2020,&quot; she added, quelling rumblings that she might try to defeat Trump for the GOP presidential nomination. In fact, she gestured to Trump and said: &quot;I can promise you what I&apos;ll be doing is campaigning for this one. So I look forward to supporting the president in the next election.&quot;</p>\n<p>Analysts said even if Haley doesn&apos;t run for any office in 2020, leaving now still makes sense politically.</p>\n<p>&quot;The U.N. ambassador job is a fantastic political springboard &#x2014; it offers a lot of opportunity to call out U.S. enemies and no requirement to speak with distasteful people, and in her case, it gave her foreign policy credentials that she didn&#x2019;t have,&quot; said Jon Alterman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies. He added: &quot;What would she have gotten for serving two more years? Diminishing returns had set in.&quot;</p>\n<p>Haley is also <a href=\"https://www.postandcourier.com/news/nikki-haley-has-up-to-million-in-debt-as-she/article_0d2b82ec-cbd9-11e8-ba5e-ef6dfe973fd3.html\">reported</a> to be in significant debt, so she may use the next few years to earn some money in the private sector. The announcement of Haley&apos;s departure also came a day after a watchdog group called on the State Department to <a href=\"https://www.citizensforethics.org/press-release/crew-requests-investigation-of-nikki-haley-for-accepting-private-plane-flights/\">investigate</a> Haley&apos;s decision to accept seven free flights for herself and her husband on private planes owned by three South Carolina businessmen. The group raised questions about Haley&apos;s use of the flights and the manner in which she described them in her public disclosure forms.</p>\n<p>Several U.S. lawmakers<b> </b>from both parties<b> </b>commended Haley&apos;s tenure as U.N. ambassador. </p>\n<p>&quot;Ambassador @nikkihaley has done an outstanding job as United States Ambassador to the United Nations and showed a level of effectiveness rarely seen by someone in this position,&quot; Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) tweeted. </p> \n<p>Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan of Wisconsin said Haley &quot;has been a clear, consistent, and powerful voice for America&#x2019;s interests and democratic principles on the world stage. She challenged friend and foe to be better.&quot; </p>\n<p>And Sen. Bob Menendez of New Jersey, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, thanked Haley for &quot;her willingness to express moral clarity to the world and to President Trump, and promote American values and leadership on the global stage.&quot; </p>\n<p><i>Adam Behsudi contributed to this report. </i></p><div class=\"story-share \">\n        \n    </div>\n\n<div class=\"\"><aside class=\"content-group\">\r\n    <div class=\"story-supplement\">\r\n        <div class=\"spotlight\"> \r\n            \r\n        </div>\r\n    </div>\r\n</aside></div>\n        \n                            <div class=\"shifty-wrapper empty-at-large empty-at-extra\">\n                                <div class=\"story-interrupt format-s pos-beta predetermined shifty-content is-masoned\">\n                                    \n            <aside class=\"content-group global-popular\">\n    \n</aside>\n<aside class=\"content-group global-magazine-recent\">\n    \n</aside>\n\n            </div>\n                            </div>\n                        </div>\n                    </div>\n                </section>\n                </div>\n\n                \n                <a class=\"continue-to-content\">Jump to sidebar section</a>  \n            </article></div>","url":"https://www.politico.com/story/2018/10/09/nikki-haley-resigns-884156","date_published":"2018-10-09T10:28:35+00:00","author":{"name":"Edward-Isaac Dovere"}},{"id":"924","title":"Benioff comes out strong for homeless initiative, although Salesforce would pay big","content_html":"<section class=\"body\"> <p>Billionaire Salesforce chief Marc Benioff is going all in on supporting Proposition C, the November ballot measure that would tax the biggest businesses in San Francisco to raise as much as $300 million for homeless programs, pledging what amounts to at least $2 million to help pass the measure.</p> <p>The entrance of the cloud software mogul into the campaign &#x2014; his strongest purely political action to date, and one that could cost his company millions of dollars in new taxes &#x2014; forcefully highlights the split between the two philosophies surrounding the measure.</p> <p><typographytag class=\"character\">One side, led by the city Chamber of Commerce, says suddenly infusing hundreds of millions of dollars into indigence programs would be fiscally irresponsible and would mostly just attract more homeless people to the city. And the other, led by the San Francisco Coalition on Homelessness and community-based organizations, says a surge of funding toward compassionate programs would dramatically clear the streets.</typographytag></p> <p>Benioff, who in recent years has donated millions of dollars to house homeless families and vigorously advocated for more street programs, said the only way to significantly <a href=\"https://projects.sfchronicle.com/sf-homeless/\">reduce the crisis </a>of 7,500 individuals and 1,200 families languishing in the streets, and to get ahead of the inflow, is to scale up government spending. In the case of Prop. C, that means an amount of funding that essentially doubles what San Francisco already spends to assist homeless people and keep them housed.</p> <p>Given that homelessness has for years been commonly listed as the city&#x2019;s No. 1 problem, &#x201C;We need to be super aggressive about this,&#x201D; he said.</p> <p>There is risk involved in taking such a huge leap, he admitted. But the economy is booming and the public&#x2019;s frustration with the street problem is as high as its desire to have the crisis solved. So it&#x2019;s a risk well worth taking, Benioff said.</p> <p>&#x201C;I&#x2019;m excited about Prop. C,&#x201D; he said. &#x201C;It&#x2019;s exciting because it&#x2019;s a program we can get going now.&#x201D;</p> <p>Benioff told The Chronicle Monday that he and his company will give a collective $1 million &#x2014; $500,000 from himself, $500,000 from Salesforce &#x2014; to the Prop. C campaign and then spend about $1 million or more on his own advertising campaign supporting the proposition. The ads are expected to go out over radio, television, print and digital media sometime next week, and include at least one pitch by a celebrity as well as pictures humanizing homeless people and their needs.</p> <p>Prop. C would impose an average of about 0.5 percent in gross receipts tax on corporate revenue above $50 million. <a href=\"https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/City-analysis-concludes-SF-Prop-C-would-have-13264206.php\">A report by </a>the city&#x2019;s Office of Economic Analysis last month concluded the economic impact would be &#x201C;small,&#x201D; and that the funding would probably reduce the homeless population. The money would, among other things, provide housing for 5,000 people, pump as much as $75 million into mental health programs and create 1,000 new shelter beds.</p> <p>Opposition to Prop. C picked up momentum last week when Mayor London Breed and two state legislators all said in statements that there wasn&#x2019;t enough accountability in the measure to ensure funding would be properly spent. But Benioff, whose Salesforce is one of the biggest businesses in town with $13 billion in expected revenue this year, says he thinks he can turn the tide and pull other big business leaders out of the shadows.</p> <p>Salesforce would have to pony up about $10 million more a year in taxes if Prop. C passes, Benioff said &#x2014; &#x201C;but it would be well worth it.&#x201D; He said recent federal tax cuts saved the company more than that.</p> <p>Reps. Nancy Pelosi, D-San Francisco, and Jackie Speier, D-San Mateo, and some city supervisors, including Hilary Ronen, are other high-profile proponents of Prop. C.</p> <p>Breed said she appreciated Benioff&#x2019;s sentiments, but they did not change her mind about the proposition.</p> <p>&#x201C;Marc and I have talked a lot about homelessness, and I respect and appreciate his passion and what he does with his company,&#x201D; she said in a statement to The Chronicle on Monday. &#x201C;But with respect to Prop C, as the leader of the city, who is responsible for our budget and our economy and addressing all of our City&#x2019;s challenges, I have to make decisions with my head, not just my heart.</p> <p><typographytag class=\"character\">&#x201C;I do not believe doubling what we spend on homelessness without new accountability, when we don&#x2019;t even spend what we have now efficiently, is good government. I have to think about how this will affect our entire economy, including retail businesses, like grocery stores, auto dealers, and department stores, and manufacturing jobs.&#x201D;</typographytag></p> <p>&#x201C;I absolutely do agree business can pay more to address our homeless crisis, which is why I will lead the effort to do this the right way as mayor, and I look forward to continuing to work in partnership with Marc and others to do that,&#x201D; she said.</p> <p>Benioff said he, in turn, respected Breed&#x2019;s position, but believes that he has more freedom to back the measure since he is not an elected official.</p> <p>&#x201C;I can understand this is not a risk that she can take,&#x201D; he said. &#x201C;But as a private businessman, as a private entrepreneur, and as a fourth-generation San Franciscan, this is a risk that I can take.&#x201D;</p> <p>Benioff and other backers of the measure are aiming for a two-thirds vote in favor of Prop. C, saying the margin of passage would help avoid legal challenges from those who say just over 50 percent would not be enough under state law.</p> <p>Jess Montejano, a spokesman for those opposed to Prop. C, said he doubts the tech leader&#x2019;s entrance into the political debate will change the tide. Businesses do want the street problem solved humanely, he said, but Prop. C raises the fear that higher taxes will drive firms out of the city, while at the same time attracting homeless people for programs paid for by Prop. C that may or may not work.</p> <p>&#x201C;Voters citywide understand that the homeless budget has tripled over the past decade but homelessness has still increased,&#x201D; he said. &#x201C;They understand that more money with no plan is not a serious approach to addressing our city&#x2019;s most pressing issue.&#x201D;</p> <p>The anti-Prop. C campaign has so far raised about $100,000, but Montejano said he is confident hundreds of thousands of additional dollars will come in, and &#x201C;we will have enough resources to effectively communicate our message to voters citywide. There&#x2019;s no doubt about that.&#x201D;</p> <p>Before Benioff&#x2019;s pledge, the pro-Prop. C campaign had raised about $400,000, and its main spokesperson said she was thrilled with the new backing.</p> <p>&#x201C;We have seen the real-life impact of Benioff&#x2019;s contributions in housing homeless families,&#x201D; said Jennifer Friedenbach, head of the Coalition on Homelessness. &#x201C;He is leading with the values San Franciscans share. We look forward to winning this campaign and tackling homelessness together.&#x201D;</p> <p>Benioff said simple math is one reason he supports the measure. The $37 million, two-year-old Heading Home Initiative he helped start with the city for housing homeless families &#x2014; he donated $11.5 million &#x2014; has housed nearly 400 families through rent subsidies. He said the success of that leads him to believe that spending not much more than $35,000 apiece on stabilizing every homeless person could practically clear the streets.</p> <p>That comes to a bit more than $250 million for all 7,500 individuals in the street &#x2014; about what would be raised by Proposition C.</p> <p>&#x201C;At the end of the day, it&#x2019;s going to be &#x2014; are you for the homeless or not for the homeless? For me, it&#x2019;s binary,&#x201D; he said. &#x201C;I&#x2019;m for the homeless.&#x201D;</p> <em><p>Kevin Fagan is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: <a href=\"mailto:kfagan@sfchronicle.com\">kfagan@sfchronicle.com</a></p>\n<p>Twitter: <a href=\"https://twitter.com/KevinChron\">@KevinChron</a></p></em> </section>","url":"https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/Benioff-comes-out-strong-for-homeless-initiative-13291392.php","date_published":"2018-10-09T04:13:34+00:00","author":{"name":""}},{"id":"928","title":"Why We Don’t Chat Chit About Flop Flips","content_html":"<div class=\"wrapper clearfix\"> <p class=\"content\"><article class=\"post-10785 post type-post status-publish format-standard has-post-thumbnail hentry category-uncategorized\"> <div class=\"entry clearfix\"> <p>In English, adjectives typically come before the nouns they modify &#x2014; e.g. &#x201C;large cat,&#x201D; not &#x201C;cat large.&#x201D; That rule is generally well known and easily articulated and is even likely taught in school. But what&#x2019;s less well known &#x2014; and typically not explicitly taught &#x2014; is that adjectives typically follow an order among themselves. That is, native English speakers tend to intuitively order adjectives the same way despite not having been formally taught any rules on how to do so. In the book <a href=\"https://s.nowiknow.com/2OglDOH\">The Elements of Eloquence</a>, author Mark Forsyth explains:</p>\n<blockquote><p>[A]djectives in English absolutely have to be in this order: opinion-size-age-shape-colour-origin-material-purpose Noun. So you can have a lovely little old rectangular green French silver whittling knife. But if you mess with that word order in the slightest you&#x2019;ll sound like a maniac. It&#x2019;s an odd thing that every English speaker uses that list, but almost none of us could write it out. And as size comes before color, green great dragons can&#x2019;t exist.</p></blockquote>\n<p>It really is something we take for granted. For example, take the children&#x2019;s tale &#x201C;Little Red Riding Hood&#x201D; &#x2014; she not &#x201C;Red Little Riding Hood, as &#x201C;size&#x201D; has to come before &#x201C;color.&#x201D; And similarly, it&#x2019;s the story of a good little girl going to her grandmother&#x2019;s house, not of a little good girl doing the same &#x2014; &#x201C;opinion&#x201D; has to come before &#x201C;size&#x201D;. The rule works &#x2014; and all the time.</p>\n<p>Well, <em>almost</em> all the time.</p>\n<p>Forsyth&#x2019;s book came out in 2013 but it went viral three years later when a New York Times writer named Matthew Anderson <a href=\"https://twitter.com/mattandersonnyt/status/772002757222002688?lang=en\">tweeted</a> the paragraph above. Bemused social media mavens shared the tweet more than 50,000 times because it&#x2019;s almost always true, and because they almost never realized it beforehand. But some of those 50,000 noticed a problem. Take another look at the second Little Red Riding Hood example. She&#x2019;s a &#x201C;good little girl,&#x201D; right? So, what about the Big Bad Wolf? Given the rules above, the antagonist of that same story should be the &#x201C;bad big wolf&#x201D; &#x2014; but he isn&#x2019;t. Why does the &#x201C;opinion-size&#x201D; part of the rule work for Riding Hood but fail for the Wolf?</p>\n<p>The short answer, as Forsyth explains, is another rule &#x2014; one which takes priority over the one Anderson quoted.</p>\n<p>That rule pairs with something called &#x201C;ablaut reduplication.&#x201D; Reduplication means, simply, that we take one sound and repeat it. You can probably think of a few examples, but if not: trains go &#x201C;choo choo,&#x201D; kids go &#x201C;pee-pee,&#x201D; and at times, we depart with a &#x201C;bye-bye.&#x201D;&#xA0;Reduplication doesn&#x2019;t require that all the sounds in the root word be repeated, though; while those three terms are examples of &#x201C;exact reduplication,&#x201D; there are other versions as well. &#x201C;Ablaut&#x201D; refers to a change in vowels and therefore, &#x201C;ablaut reduplication&#x201D; is when most of the word is the same but the vowel changes. Here&#x2019;s a short list of some examples:</p>\n<blockquote><p>pitter patter\nhip hop\nknickknack\nding dong\nzigzag\njibber jabber</p><p>\nbadda-bing, badda-bang, badda-boom</p></blockquote></div></article></p>\n<p>By and large, those are nonsense words which, reduplicated with a vowel change, become something meaningful. Flip the order of the reduplicated words, though, and they&#x2019;re nonsense yet again. You don&#x2019;t zagzig through a crowd. Frere Jacques&#x2019; morning bells don&#x2019;t go dong dang ding. And Mr. T really ain&#x2019;t got time for no jabber jibber. It all makes sense in our heads, for some reason.</p>\n<p>And if you look carefully, you&#x2019;ll see a ruleset within those terms. The word with &#x201C;i&#x201D; comes first, followed by the one with &#x201C;a&#x201D; and then with &#x201C;o&#x201D; in the rear &#x2014; this happens 100% of the time. Take a totally nonsense word &#x2014; let&#x2019;s say &#x201C;glank,&#x201D; to literally make up a word &#x2014; and apply ablaut reduplication. &#x201C;Glink glank&#x201D; sounds right, &#x201C;glank glink&#x201D; sounds off. This rule, unlike the adjective-ordering one, is immutable &#x2014; and therefore, it applies to proper nouns, too. As a result, we have tic tacs, King Kong, and yes, the Big Bad Wolf.</p>\n<p>We we do this? We don&#x2019;t know. Forsyth, <a href=\"http://www.bbc.com/culture/story/20160908-the-language-rules-we-know-but-dont-know-we-know\">writing for the BBC</a>, noted that this is the &#x201C;subject of endless debate among linguists&#x201D; with no satisfying explanation to date. But, he points out, maybe the &#x201C;why&#x201D; doesn&#x2019;t matter: &#x201C;English is largely made up of the rules we don&#x2019;t know that we know,&#x201D; and yet, that hasn&#x2019;t stopped us from chit-chatting with one another.</p>\n<p><span><strong><u> <p> <span><u>Bonus fact</u></span></p></u></strong></span>: If you like the game ping pong (not pong ping, by the way), then hopefully you weren&#x2019;t a student at Georgetown University in 2008. In an effort to curtail drinking, the school decided to ban&#xA0;beer pong. (If you&#x2019;re not familiar with the game, <a href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beer_pong\">here&#x2019;s the Wikipedia entry</a>, but the important part is that it uses ping pong balls.) But they didn&#x2019;t stop at just banning the game &#x2014; <a href=\"http://content.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1828085,00.html\">per Time magazine</a>, the school also banned having &#x201C;inordinate numbers of Ping-Pong balls [ . . . ] in its on-campus dorms.&#x201D;</p>\n<p><span><strong><u>From the Archives</u></strong></span>: <a href=\"http://nowiknow.com/oneteen-and-twoteen/\">Oneteen</a><a href=\"http://nowiknow.com/oneteen-and-twoteen/\"> and Twoteen</a>: Where do &#x201C;eleven&#x201D; and &#x201C;twelve&#x201D; come from?</p> </div>","url":"http://nowiknow.com/why-we-dont-chat-chit-about-flop-flips/","date_published":"2018-10-09T00:00:00+00:00","author":{"name":""}},{"id":"925","title":"Editorial: Gavin Newsom clear winner in debate with John Cox","content_html":"<div><section class=\"body\"> <p>The most telling line of Monday&#x2019;s gubernatorial debate came near the end, when Republican John Cox accused Democrat Gavin Newsom of trying to &#x201C;paint me as ... different on so many issues.&#x201D;</p> <p>Newsom certainly did, which was clearly his goal going into the debate on KQED-FM, and why he was the undisputed winner. Newsom&#x2019;s comfort with his own positions &#x2014; and Cox&#x2019;s discomfort with his &#x2014; was evident throughout the 60-minute session.</p> <p>Time and again, Cox found himself on the defensive when Newsom challenged the GOP candidate about past statements. Cox exhibited a particular bit of frustration when Newsom brought up the Republican&#x2019;s positions on concealed weapons and other gun control issues.</p> <p>&#x201C;I&#x2019;m not running to change one iota. I&#x2019;m not,&#x201D; Cox said.</p> <p>Here is a good rule of thumb in American politics: If your best answer to a controversial issue is that you&#x2019;re not going to do anything about it, you&#x2019;ve lost the point in a debate.</p> <p>Newsom was decidedly more sure-footed on the issue, pointing to his role in extending background checks to ammunition sales and reminding listeners that Cox regarded gun laws as &#x201C;a waste of time.&#x201D;</p> <p>When the subject turned to climate change, Cox was again awkward in calling the newly passed legislation to move California toward 100 percent renewable energy sources a &#x201C;wonderful goal&#x201D; &#x2014; but one he opposed because it would drive up electricity prices. He claimed he was &#x201C;not an ideologue&#x201D; on the subject and acknowledged that the planet was warming and that human activity might be a factor.</p> <p>Newsom did not hesitate to point out the caveats and contradictions, noting that Cox supported President Trump&#x2019;s move to withdraw the U.S. from the Paris climate accord.</p> <p>Cox tried to score points by highlighting their differences on immigration, but that only put Newsom on the offensive. &#x201C;The wall is a monument to stupidity,&#x201D; said Newsom, because many of the people here illegally arrived here by air and overstayed their visas. He called it a &#x201C;sixth century solution of a 21st century problem.&#x201D;</p> <p>On housing, Cox was asked for specifics on reforms that could promote new construction. &#x201C;We&#x2019;ll talk about that after I get elected,&#x201D; he said.</p> <p>His dismal performance on Monday should reduce the chances that will happen.</p> <p><em>This commentary is from The Chronicle&#x2019;s editorial board. We invite you to express your views in a letter to the editor. Please submit your letter via our online form: <a href=\"http://sfchronicle.com/letters\">SFChronicle.com/letters</a>.</em></p> </section></div>","url":"https://www.sfchronicle.com/opinion/editorials/article/Editorial-Gavin-Newsom-clear-winner-in-debate-13290999.php","date_published":"2018-10-08T23:06:54+00:00","author":{"name":""}},{"id":"921","title":"Visualizing 40 Years of Music Industry Sales","content_html":"<div><div class=\"grid__item eight-twelfths palm-one-whole \"> <p>The record industry has seen a lot of change over the years.</p>\n<p>Vinyl gave way to 8-tracks, and cassettes faded away as compact discs took the world by storm, and through it all, the music industry saw its revenue continue to climb. That is, until it was digitally disrupted.</p>\n<p>Looking back at four decades of music industry <a href=\"https://www.riaa.com/u-s-sales-database/\">sales data</a> is a fascinating exercise as it charts not only the rise and fall the record company profits, but seismic shifts in technology and consumer behavior as well.</p>\n<h2>The Long Fade Out</h2>\n<p>For people of a certain age group, early memories of acquiring new music are inexorably linked to piracy. Going to the store and purchasing a $20 disc wasn&#x2019;t even a part of the thought process. Napster, the first widely used P2P service, figuratively skipped the needle off the record and ended years of impressive profitability in the recording industry.</p>\n<p><img src=\"http://2oqz471sa19h3vbwa53m33yj.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/physical-vs-digital.png\" alt=\"Physical vs. Digital sales\" width=\"705\"></p>\n<p>Napster was shut down in 2002, but the genie was already out of the bottle. Piracy&#x2019;s effect on the industry was immediate and stark. Music industry sales, which had been experiencing impressive year-over-year growth, began a decline that would continue for 15 years.</p>\n<h2>The Ringtone Era</h2>\n<p>While acquiring music was as easy opening Limewire on your desktop computer, transferring that new T-Pain track to a flip-phone wasn&#x2019;t a seamless experience.</p>\n<p>This brief gap in technology &#x2013; before smartphones hit mass adoption &#x2013; brought us the ringtone era. Distribution was controlled by mobile carriers, so ringtones were a comfortable gateway for the record industry to get a taste for digital-based revenue. In 2008 alone, they injected over a billion dollars of revenue into an industry that was getting used to gloomy forecasts.</p>\n<h2>Paddling Upstream</h2>\n<p>Though services like <a href=\"http://www.visualcapitalist.com/chart-spotify-ipo-unusual-intriguing/\">Spotify</a> and Pandora haven&#x2019;t replaced the money pipeline that CD sales provided, they have reversed the industry&#x2019;s tailspin. For the first time this millennium, record industry posted an increase in revenue for two consecutive years (and likely a third in 2018).</p>\n<p>It took a while for consumers to warm up to paying for a premium music subscription, but today, there&#x2019;s a solid basis for optimism. Music streaming is now the most common format for music in the United States, and the <a href=\"http://www.riaa.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/RIAA-Year-End-2017-News-and-Notes.pdf\">RIAA</a> reports that streaming now makes up nearly half of the market.</p>\n<p><img src=\"http://2oqz471sa19h3vbwa53m33yj.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/streaming-subcriptions.png\" alt=\"Music Streaming Subscriptions\"></p>\n<h2>The End of Physical Format?</h2>\n<p>Gone are the days when people would line up at the music shop for a hot new release. In fact, CD sales are down 80% in the past decade. Today, physical format sales only account for 17% of the industry&#x2019;s revenue.</p>\n<p>There is, however, one bright spot in physical format segment: vinyl. In 2017, vinyl sales hit 25-year high after making a slow and steady comeback.</p>\n<blockquote><p>Vinyl is written in stone. I think if it&#x2019;s made it for 120 years now, it&#x2019;s here forever.</p></blockquote>\n<p><em>&#x2013; Jack White</em></p>\n<p><a href=\"http://www.visualcapitalist.com/subscribe\"><img class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-1216\" src=\"http://2oqz471sa19h3vbwa53m33yj.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/footer-email.gif\" alt=\"Subscribe to Visual Capitalist\"></a></p>\n<div id=\"mc4wp-form-34\" class=\"form mc4wp-form mc4wp-form-6652 mc4wp-ajax\"><p class=\"mc4wp-alert\">Thank you! <span class=\"mc4wp-mailchimp-error\"></span></p><p class=\"mc4wp-alert\">Given email address is already subscribed, thank you! <span class=\"mc4wp-mailchimp-error\"></span></p><p class=\"mc4wp-alert\">Please provide a valid email address. <span class=\"mc4wp-mailchimp-error\"></span></p><p class=\"mc4wp-alert\">Please complete the CAPTCHA. <span class=\"mc4wp-mailchimp-error\"></span></p><p class=\"mc4wp-alert\">Oops. Something went wrong. Please try again later. <span class=\"mc4wp-mailchimp-error\"></span></p></div>\n<center>\n<div><a href=\"http://www.twitter.com/VisualCap\"><img src=\"http://2oqz471sa19h3vbwa53m33yj.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/vc_twitter.png\" alt=\"Follow Visual Capitalist on Twitter\"></a></div>\n<div><a href=\"https://www.facebook.com/visualcapitalist\"><img src=\"http://2oqz471sa19h3vbwa53m33yj.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/vc_facebook.png\" alt=\"Like Visual Capitalist on Facebook\"></a></div>\n<div><a href=\"http://www.linkedin.com/company/visual-capitalist\"><img src=\"http://2oqz471sa19h3vbwa53m33yj.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/vc_linkedin.png\" alt=\"Follow Visual Capitalist on LinkedIn\"></a></div>\n</center> </div><div class=\"grid__item four-twelfths palm-one-whole \"> <a href=\"http://www.visualcapitalist.com/visualizing-change\"><img src=\"http://2oqz471sa19h3vbwa53m33yj.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/viz-change.gif\" alt=\"The Visual Capitalist Book is now available on Amazon\"></a>\n<h2>The Money Project</h2>\n<p><a href=\"http://www.visualcapitalist.com/worlds-money-markets-one-visualization-2017/\"><img src=\"http://2oqz471sa19h3vbwa53m33yj.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/money-2017-prev.jpg\" alt=\"All the World&apos;s Money and Markets in One Visualization\"></a><br>\n<a href=\"http://money.visualcapitalist.com/global-war-on-cash/\"><img class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-1776\" src=\"http://2oqz471sa19h3vbwa53m33yj.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/war-on-cash-featured.jpg\" width=\"100%\" alt=\"The War on Cash\"></a><br>\n<a href=\"http://money.visualcapitalist.com/donald-trumps-financial-history-video/\"><img class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-1776\" src=\"http://2oqz471sa19h3vbwa53m33yj.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/trump-featured.jpg\" width=\"100%\" alt=\"Trump&apos;s Entire Financial History Video\"></a><br>\n<a href=\"http://money.visualcapitalist.com/currency-and-the-collapse-of-the-roman-empire/\"><img class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-1776\" src=\"http://money.visualcapitalist.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/collapse-rome-preview.jpg\" alt=\"Currency and the Collapse of the Roman Empire\" width=\"100%\"></a><br>\n<a href=\"http://money.visualcapitalist.com/buying-power-us-dollar-century/\"><img class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-1776\" src=\"http://2oqz471sa19h3vbwa53m33yj.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/buying-power-preview.jpg\" alt=\"Buying Power of the U.S. Dollar Over the Last Century\"></a><br> </p></div></div>","url":"http://www.visualcapitalist.com/music-industry-sales/","date_published":"2018-10-08T21:52:32+00:00","author":{"name":"Author Nick Routley Nick "}},{"id":"918","title":"What can working with horses teach us about power and communication?","content_html":"<div class=\"faq__content\">\n<a class=\"faq__close-icon\" href=\"\">&#xD7;</a> <p>Aeon email newsletters are issued by the not-for-profit, registered charity Aeon Media Group Ltd (Australian Business Number 80 612 076 614). This Email Newsletter Privacy Statement pertains to the personally identifying information you voluntarily submit in the form of your email address to receive our email newsletters</p><p>More generally, when visiting the Aeon site you should refer to our site Privacy Policy <a href=\"https://aeon.co/privacy\">here</a>.</p><p>This Email Newsletter Privacy Statement may change from time to time and was last revised 5 June, 2018.</p><p>By clicking &#x2018;Subscribe&#x2019; you agree to the following:</p><ul><li>We will use the email address you provide to send you daily and/or weekly email (depending on your selection). We also send occasional donation requests and, no more than once a year, reader surveys.</li><li>The email address/es you provide will be transferred to our external marketing automation service &#x2018;MailChimp&#x2019; for processing in accordance with their <a href=\"https://mailchimp.com/legal/privacy/?_ga=2.37985569.369556906.1526884532-1949438781.1481075689\">Privacy Policy</a> and <a href=\"https://mailchimp.com/legal/terms/?_ga=2.51018027.369556906.1526884532-1949438781.1481075689\">Terms</a>. We use MailChimp to issue our newsletters, donation requests and reader surveys. We have no control over, and assume no responsibility for, the conduct, practices or privacy policies of MailChimp.</li></ul><p><strong>Unsubscribing</strong></p><p>You can change your mind at any time by clicking the &#x2018;unsubscribe link&#x2019; in the footer of emails you receive from us, or by contacting us at <a href=\"mailto:support@aeon.co\">support@aeon.co</a>&#xA0;</p><p>If you want to review and correct the personal information we have about you, you can click on &#x2018;update preferences&#x2019; in the footer of emails you receive from us, or by contacting us at <a href=\"mailto:support@aeon.co\">support@aeon.co</a></p><p><strong>Security of your personal information</strong></p><p>We are committed to ensuring that your information is secure. We have taken reasonable measures to protect information about you from loss, theft, misuse or unauthorised access, disclosure, alteration and destruction. No physical or electronic security system is impenetrable however and you should take your own precautions to protect the security of any personally identifiable information you transmit. We cannot guarantee that the personal information you supply will not be intercepted while transmitted to us or our marketing automation service Mailchimp.</p><p><strong>Sharing your personal information&#xA0;</strong></p><p>We will not disclose your personal information except: (1) as described by this <a href=\"https://aeon.co/privacy\">Privacy Policy </a>(2) after obtaining your permission to a specific use or disclosure or (3) if we are required to do so by a valid legal process or government request (such as a court order, a search warrant, a subpoena, a civil discovery request, or a statutory requirement). We will retain your information for as long as needed in light of the purposes for which is was obtained or to comply with our legal obligations and enforce our agreements.</p><p><strong>Access to your personal information</strong></p><p>You may request a copy of the personal information we hold about you by submitting a written request to <a href=\"mailto:support@aeon.co\">support@aeon.co</a> We may only implement requests with respect to the personal information associated with the particular email address you use to send us the request. We will try and respond to your request as soon as reasonably practical. When you receive the information, if you think any of it is wrong or out of date, you can ask us to change or delete it for you.</p>\n</div>","url":"https://aeon.co/videos/what-can-working-with-horses-teach-us-about-power-and-communication","date_published":"2018-10-08T12:40:41+00:00","author":{"name":""}},{"id":"926","title":"Project Strobe: Protecting your data, improving our third-party APIs, and sunsetting consumer Google+","content_html":"<div class=\"rich-text\"><p>Many third-party apps, services and websites build on top of our various services to improve everyone&#x2019;s phones, working life, and online experience. We strongly support this active ecosystem. But increasingly, its success depends on users knowing that their data is secure, and on developers having clear rules of the road.</p><p>Over the years we&#x2019;ve continually <a href=\"https://developers.googleblog.com/2017/05/updating-developer-identity-guidelines.html\">strengthened</a> <a href=\"https://android-developers.googleblog.com/2017/12/improving-app-security-and-performance.html\">our</a> <a href=\"https://myaccount.google.com/security-checkup\">controls and policies</a> in response to regular internal reviews, user feedback and evolving expectations about data privacy and security.</p><p>At the beginning of this year, we started an effort called Project Strobe&#x2014;a root-and-branch review of third-party developer access to Google account and Android device data and of our philosophy around apps&#x2019; data access. This project looked at the operation of our privacy controls, platforms where users were not engaging with our APIs because of concerns around data privacy, areas where developers may have been granted overly broad access, and other areas in which our policies should be tightened.&#xA0;&#xA0;</p><p>We&#x2019;re announcing the first four findings and actions from this review today.</p><p><b>Finding 1: There are significant challenges in creating and maintaining a successful Google+ product that meets consumers&#x2019; expectations. <br></b></p><p><b>Action 1: We are shutting down Google+ for consumers.</b><br></p><p>Over the years we&#x2019;ve received feedback that people want to better understand how to control the data they choose to share with apps on Google+. So as part of Project Strobe, one of our first priorities was to closely review all the APIs associated with Google+.&#xA0;&#xA0;</p><p>This review crystallized what we&#x2019;ve known for a while: that while our engineering teams have put a lot of effort and dedication into building Google+ over the years, it has not achieved broad consumer or developer adoption, and has seen limited user interaction with apps. The consumer version of Google+ currently has low usage and engagement: 90 percent of Google+ user sessions are less than five seconds.</p><p>Our review showed that our Google+ APIs, and the associated controls for consumers, are challenging to develop and maintain. Underlining this, as part of our Project Strobe audit, we discovered a bug in one of the Google+ People APIs:</p><ul><li><p>Users can grant access to their Profile data, and the public Profile information of their friends, to Google+ apps, via the API.</p></li><li><p>The bug meant that apps also had access to Profile fields that were shared with the user, but not marked as public. &#xA0;</p></li><li><p>This data is limited to static, optional Google+ Profile fields including name, email address, occupation, gender and age. (See the full list <a href=\"https://developers.google.com/+/web/api/rest/latest/people\">on our developer site</a>.) It <b>does not</b> include <b>any other data</b> you may have posted or connected to Google+ or any other service, like Google+ posts, messages, Google account data, phone numbers or G Suite content. </p></li><li><p>We discovered and immediately patched this bug in March 2018. We believe it occurred after launch as a result of the API&#x2019;s interaction with a subsequent Google+ code change.</p></li><li><p>We made Google+ with privacy in mind and therefore keep this API&#x2019;s log data for only two weeks. That means we cannot confirm which users were impacted by this bug. However, we ran a detailed analysis over the two weeks prior to patching the bug, and from that analysis, the Profiles of up to 500,000 Google+ accounts were potentially affected. Our analysis showed that up to 438 applications may have used this API. </p></li><li><p>We found <b>no evidence</b> that any developer was aware of this bug, or abusing the API, and we found <b>no evidence</b> that any Profile data was misused.</p></li></ul><p>Every year, we send millions of notifications to users about privacy and security bugs and issues. Whenever user data may have been affected, we go beyond our legal requirements and apply several criteria focused on our users in determining whether to provide notice.</p><p>Our Privacy &amp; Data Protection Office reviewed this issue, looking at the type of data involved, whether we could accurately identify the users to inform, whether there was any evidence of misuse, and whether there were any actions a developer or user could take in response. None of these thresholds were met in this instance.</p><p>The review did highlight the significant challenges in creating and maintaining a successful Google+ that meets consumers&#x2019; expectations. Given these challenges and the very low usage of the consumer version of Google+, we decided to sunset the consumer version of Google+.</p><p>To give people a full opportunity to transition, we will implement this wind-down over a 10-month period, slated for completion by the end of next August. Over the coming months, we will provide consumers with additional information, including ways they can download and migrate their data.</p><p>At the same time, we have many enterprise customers who are finding great value in using Google+ within their companies. Our review showed that Google+ is better suited as an enterprise product where co-workers can engage in internal discussions on a secure corporate social network. Enterprise customers can set common access rules, and use central controls, for their entire organization. We&#x2019;ve decided to focus on our enterprise efforts and will be launching new features purpose-built for businesses. We will share more information in the coming days.&#xA0;&#xA0;</p><p><b>Finding 2: People want fine-grained controls over the data they share with apps. <br></b></p><p><b>Action 2: We are launching more granular Google Account permissions that will show in individual dialog boxes.</b></p><p>When an app prompts you for access to your Google account data, we always require that you see what data it has asked for, and you must grant it explicit permission.</p><p>Going forward, consumers will get more fine-grained control over what account data they choose to share with each app. Instead of seeing all requested permissions in a single screen, apps will have to show you each requested permission, one at a time, within its own dialog box. &#xA0;For example, if a developer requests access to both calendar entries and Drive documents, you will be able to choose to share one but not the other. Developers can read more on the <a href=\"https://developers.googleblog.com/2018/10/more-granular-google-account.html\">Google Developer Blog</a>.</p><p>This is what the process looks like today when an app requests access to any data in your consumer Google account (you&apos;ve always been able to choose whether to grant that permission request):</p></div>","url":"https://www.blog.google/technology/safety-security/project-strobe/","date_published":"2018-10-08T00:00:00+00:00","author":{"name":""}},{"id":"919","title":"Opinion | Liberals, This is War","content_html":"<div><article id=\"story\" class=\"Story-story--2QyGh css-1qk5cfn\"><header class=\"css-dm8bmq e345g291\"><p class=\"css-1u56eiq ewc5vgb0\">What&#x2019;s at stake is much more than a single Supreme Court seat. </p><div class=\"css-30n6iy e345g290\"><div class=\"css-acwcvw\"><div class=\"css-pqwbx7 e1hs04dy0\"><div class=\"css-1p10dcb e1cixq2e0\"><a href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/by/charles-m-blow\"><img alt=\"Charles M. Blow\" src=\"https://static01.nyt.com/images/2018/04/02/opinion/charles-m-blow/charles-m-blow-thumbLarge.png\" class=\"css-1m2sy69 e1cixq2e2\"></a></div><div class=\"css-1baulvz\"><p class=\"css-1bsd9ka e1x1pwtg1\">By <a href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/by/charles-m-blow\" class=\"css-luz7vr e1x1pwtg0\"><span class=\"css-1baulvz\">Charles M. Blow</span></a></p></div></div></div></div></header><figure class=\"css-95yf32 e1a8i6eb0\"><div class=\"css-1xdhyk6 e1vv25i80\"><span class=\"css-1ly73wi e1afaoz0\">Image</span><img alt=\"\" class=\"css-1m50asq\" src=\"https://static01.nyt.com/images/2018/10/07/opinion/07blow/merlin_144957354_21a14ac2-10c1-4468-86d2-ebabf2896b53-articleLarge.jpg?quality=75&amp;auto=webp&amp;disable=upscale\" srcset=\"https://static01.nyt.com/images/2018/10/07/opinion/07blow/merlin_144957354_21a14ac2-10c1-4468-86d2-ebabf2896b53-articleLarge.jpg?quality=90&amp;auto=webp 600w,https://static01.nyt.com/images/2018/10/07/opinion/07blow/merlin_144957354_21a14ac2-10c1-4468-86d2-ebabf2896b53-jumbo.jpg?quality=90&amp;auto=webp 1024w,https://static01.nyt.com/images/2018/10/07/opinion/07blow/merlin_144957354_21a14ac2-10c1-4468-86d2-ebabf2896b53-superJumbo.jpg?quality=90&amp;auto=webp 2048w\"></div><figcaption class=\"css-1wtlzrm e3zkro30\"><span class=\"css-1szf6bk e1olku6u0\">Demonstrators protesting at the steps of the Supreme Court on Saturday against the  Brett Kavanaugh nomination. </span><span class=\"css-18oazr6 e18m0s9i0\"><span class=\"css-1ly73wi e1afaoz0\">Credit</span><span>Jose Luis Magana/Agence France-Presse &#x2014; Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><div class=\"css-18sbwfn StoryBodyCompanionColumn\"><div class=\"css-4w7y5l\"><p class=\"css-xhhu0i e2kc3sl0\">Yes, Brett Kavanaugh is on the Supreme Court. Rue the day. Rend your garments.</p><p class=\"css-xhhu0i e2kc3sl0\">Then, step back, view the entirety of the battle in which you are engaged, and understand that Kavanaugh is just one part of a much larger plan by conservatives to fundamentally change the American political structure so that it enshrines and protects white male power even after America&#x2019;s changing demographics and mores move away from that power.</p><p class=\"css-xhhu0i e2kc3sl0\">This, for them, is not simply a game about political passion and political principles. This is a game of power, pure and simple, and it&#x2019;s about whether the people who have long held that power will be able to retain it.</p><p class=\"css-xhhu0i e2kc3sl0\">For them, Trump is just a useful idiot, a temporary anomaly.</p><p class=\"css-xhhu0i e2kc3sl0\">They are thinking generationally, not in terms of the next election cycle but in terms of the next epoch.</p><p class=\"css-xhhu0i e2kc3sl0\">Liberals can get so high-minded that they lose sight of the ground war. Yes, next month it is important to prove to the rest of Americans, and indeed the world, that Trump and the Republicans who promote and protect him are at odds with American values and with the American majority.</p></div><aside class=\"css-14jsv4e\"><span></span></aside></div><div class=\"css-18sbwfn StoryBodyCompanionColumn\"><div class=\"css-4w7y5l\"><p class=\"css-xhhu0i e2kc3sl0\">On one level this would provide relief and release for a pent-up demand by most Americans to be heard and to calm some of the chaos. But, catharsis is an emotional response and an emotional remedy.</p><p class=\"css-xhhu0i e2kc3sl0\">Liberals have to look beyond emotions, beyond reactionary electoral enthusiasm, beyond needing to fall in love with candidates in order to vote for them, beyond the coming election and toward the coming showdown.</p><p class=\"css-xhhu0i e2kc3sl0\">For instance, the constant pining about justices who will interpret the &#x201C;original intent&#x201D; of the Constitution feels far bigger than single issues like gun control.</p></div><aside class=\"css-14jsv4e\"><span></span></aside></div><div class=\"css-18sbwfn StoryBodyCompanionColumn\"><div class=\"css-4w7y5l\"><p class=\"css-xhhu0i e2kc3sl0\">In July, Leonard Leo, executive vice president of the &#x201C;constitutional originalist Federalist Society,&#x201D; as <a class=\"css-1g7m0tk\" href=\"https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2018/07/02/leonard_leo_i_think_president_trump_will_continue_trend_towards_more_originalist_and_textualist_justices.html\">RealClearPolitics phrased it</a>, told <a class=\"css-1g7m0tk\" href=\"https://video.foxnews.com/v/5804057577001/?#sp=show-clips\">Fox News</a>:</p><p class=\"css-xhhu0i e2kc3sl0\">&#x201C;Any Supreme Court confirmation is transformative. This is a court that is often equally divided. At the end of the day, I think what&#x2019;s really important to remember is that there&#x2019;s been a movement on the court toward being more originalist and textualist. In other words, the idea that law means something, it has determinate meaning. And that&#x2019;s the trend that I think this president wants to continue.&#x201D;</p></div><aside class=\"css-14jsv4e\"><span></span></aside></div><div class=\"css-18sbwfn StoryBodyCompanionColumn\"><div class=\"css-4w7y5l\"><p class=\"css-xhhu0i e2kc3sl0\">But, when I think of originalism, I think this: Many of the founders owned slaves; in the Constitution they viewed black people as less than fully human; they didn&#x2019;t want women or poor white men to vote. The founders, a bunch of rich, powerful white men, didn&#x2019;t want true democracy in this country, and in fact were dreadfully afraid of it.</p><p class=\"css-xhhu0i e2kc3sl0\">Now, a bunch of rich, powerful white men want to return us to this sensibility, wrapped in a populist &#x201C;follow the Constitution&#x201D; rallying cry and disguised as the ultimate form of patriotism.</p><p class=\"css-xhhu0i e2kc3sl0\">We have to learn to see everything around us, all that is happening on the political front, through that lens. This is what the extreme measures on illegal immigration and even the efforts to dramatically slash legal immigration are all about.</p><p class=\"css-xhhu0i e2kc3sl0\">This is also what the demonizing of the visa lottery program is all about. As the <a class=\"css-1g7m0tk\" href=\"http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/08/23/applications-for-u-s-visa-lottery-more-than-doubled-since-2007/\">Pew Research Center</a> pointed out in August: &#x201C;In fiscal 2017, which ended Sept. 30, the largest number of visas went to citizens of African countries&#x201D; while applicants from European countries and from Asia received fewer visas than before.</p><p class=\"css-xhhu0i e2kc3sl0\">The effort to demonize the lottery program is an effort to preserve America&#x2019;s white majority, against the statistical eventuality, for as long as possible.</p><p class=\"css-xhhu0i e2kc3sl0\">And that is also what voter disenfranchisement and Citizens United are about. That is why conservatives cheer the moves by young liberals to densely populated cities. The move weakens conservative votes in the places they move to and strengthens it in places they move from.</p><p class=\"css-xhhu0i e2kc3sl0\">As The <a class=\"css-1g7m0tk\" href=\"https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2016/11/17/the-electoral-college-badly-distorts-the-vote-and-its-going-to-get-worse/?utm_term=.52c450aad0fd\">Washington Post</a> pointed out in 2016, &#x201C;In the Electoral College, each individual Wyoming vote weighs 3.6 times more than an individual Californian&#x2019;s vote.&#x201D; The Post continued, &#x201C;That&#x2019;s the most extreme example, but if you average the 10 most populous states and compare the power of their residents&#x2019; votes to those of the 10 least populous states, you get a ratio of 1 to 2.5.&#x201D;</p></div><aside class=\"css-14jsv4e\"><span></span></aside></div><div class=\"css-18sbwfn StoryBodyCompanionColumn\"><div class=\"css-4w7y5l\"><p class=\"css-xhhu0i e2kc3sl0\">But probably the biggest, gutsiest move is the call for a constitutional convention.</p><p class=\"css-xhhu0i e2kc3sl0\">There are two ways that amendments to the Constitution can be proposed: One is by a two-thirds majority in both the House and Senate, and the other is by a constitutional convention called for by two-thirds of the states. The second method has never been used, but is now gathering steam among Republicans.</p><p class=\"css-xhhu0i e2kc3sl0\">As Charles Pierce <a class=\"css-1g7m0tk\" href=\"https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a14841457/convention-of-states-campaign-secession/\">wrote in January in Esquire</a>, the people pushing for a convention &#x201C;have commitments from 28 state legislatures. They need 34 to trigger the Constitution&#x2019;s provision for a &#x2018;convention of the states.&#x2019;&#x201D;</p><p class=\"css-xhhu0i e2kc3sl0\">Pierce continued: &#x201C;If the convention is called, the disunion that has become a faith in some conservative quarters will run amok. Economic oligarchy will be established in law, and any political check on the powers of business likely will be eviscerated.&#x201D;</p><p class=\"css-xhhu0i e2kc3sl0\">Folks, Kavanaugh is only one soldier, albeit an important one, in a larger battle. Stop thinking you&#x2019;re in a skirmish, when you&#x2019;re at war.</p><p class=\"css-fdlzs e1kwarht0\"><em class=\"css-2fg4z9 ehxkw330\">Follow The New York Times Opinion section on </em><a class=\"css-1g7m0tk\" href=\"https://www.facebook.com/nytopinion\"><em class=\"css-2fg4z9 ehxkw330\">Facebook</em></a><em class=\"css-2fg4z9 ehxkw330\"> and </em><a class=\"css-1g7m0tk\" href=\"http://twitter.com/NYTOpinion\"><em class=\"css-2fg4z9 ehxkw330\">Twitter (@NYTopinion)</em></a><em class=\"css-2fg4z9 ehxkw330\">, and sign up for the </em><a class=\"css-1g7m0tk\" href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/newsletters/opiniontoday/\"><em class=\"css-2fg4z9 ehxkw330\">Opinion Today newsletter</em></a><em class=\"css-2fg4z9 ehxkw330\">. </em></p></div><aside class=\"css-14jsv4e\"><span></span></aside></div><div class=\"bottom-of-article\"><div class=\"css-ezqtdp e17092zo0\"><div class=\"css-x8f8u9 e1jq7jgg0\"><div><p>Charles Blow joined The Times in 1994 and became an Opinion columnist in 2008. He is also a television commentator and writes often about politics, social justice and vulnerable communities. <span class=\"css-4w91ra\"> <a href=\"https://twitter.com/CharlesMBlow\" class=\"css-1rj8to8\"><span class=\"css-0\">@</span>CharlesMBlow</a> <span class=\"css-19ln2d8\">&#x2022;</span> <a href=\"https://www.facebook.com/CharlesMBlow\" class=\"css-1rj8to8\">Facebook</a> </span></p></div></div></div></div></article></div>","url":"https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/07/opinion/brett-kavanaugh-supreme-court.html","date_published":"2018-10-07T22:55:03+00:00","author":{"name":"Charles M. Blow"}},{"id":"917","title":"Rage Politics on the Left | R. R. Reno","content_html":"<div><p><span class=\"drop-cap\">W</span>hat are we to make of the political knife-fight over the Brett Kavanaugh nomination?</p>\n<p>One thing to note is the centrality of sex in the uproar. This does not surprise me. Of the utopian dreams of the 1960s, only the sexual revolution has attained cultural dominance. To a great degree, we as a society believe in the promises of that revolution: that sex can be safe; that men and women can enjoy sexual freedom to the same degree and in the same way; that sex need have nothing to do with children; that sex is purely private. These promises are backstopped by abortion, the constitutional status of which fuels the urgency surrounding the Kavanaugh appointment.</p>\n<p>Christine Blasey Ford&#x2019;s testimony before the Senate on Thursday had little evidentiary weight, but it carried a powerful cultural charge. It accords with the #MeToo movement and with women&#x2019;s anger about sex, which is flowing into politics.</p>\n<p>At one level, the rage is directed at men. We have betrayed the sexual revolution by making sex dangerous rather than safe. We have failed to ensure that men and women enjoy sexual freedom to the same degree and in the same way. We have exploited the promise that sex will be kept private, using it to our advantage. Countless women have implied, or said outright, that it does not matter whether Ford&#x2019;s story is accurate. She is speaking a larger truth, which society must reckon with.</p>\n<p>But the rage has a larger dimension, gathering up a range of grievances. Over the last two generations, social status has come to be defined more and more narrowly in terms of elite education, professional status, and wealth. These are zones of intense competition. Something similar has happened in the once heavily regulated arena of male-female relations. These days, the male-female dance is riven by fears of exploitation, betrayal&#x2014;and, now, retribution. In this context, Ford speaks for the many, for those who feel they&#x2019;ve been cheated, sidelined, used, ignored, insulted, excluded, and otherwise mistreated by the few who, like Kavanaugh, seem to sail through life unscathed.</p>\n<p>The Democratic senators on the Judiciary Committee and in the liberal commentariat sense the power of this rage. Their hope has been to use it to kill Kavanaugh&#x2019;s appointment to the Supreme Court, or at least to raise the stakes for the midterm elections.</p>\n<p>This is an understandable tactic. The rage over sex is perhaps the most powerful in our body politic today. An older rage revolves around race&#x2014;a rage among blacks over their exclusion, and a corresponding rage among some whites over black empowerment at the expense of their old privileges. But over the decades, our political system has domesticated that rage by slotting it into reliable partisan camps. The powerful were never swept up into the rage over race. They managed it, limiting its destructive power to urban riots in black neighborhoods and punishing its expressions among poorer, less powerful whites. All of this is why Ta-Nehisi Coates, for all his radical posturing, sounds like an establishment figure. He plays a well-established role in our economy of racial rage.</p>\n<p>The new rage is different. I&#x2019;m willing to bet that hostility toward Kavanaugh increases proportionally with socio-economic status. It is an elite rage of law professors and management consultants. It&#x2019;s the rage of the powerful, which is always more dangerous than the rage of the downtrodden. It finds articulate, well-placed leaders who can draw upon fully theorized narratives of oppression. They position themselves to speak for all who resent exclusion or exploitation, actual or perceived. They draw upon an intersectionality of rage.</p>\n<p>For this reason, the decision by the Democrats to turn the Kavanaugh hearings into a theater of rage was a dangerous ploy. Perhaps I am even over-stating the element of calculation in the decision. Because this rage affects the powerful, Dianne Feinstein, Kamala Harris, and the others may themselves be animated by it&#x2014;rage&#x2019;s instruments, rather than its masters. If so, the situation for the Democrats is more perilous still.</p>\n<p>Donald Trump raises the emotional stakes of political debate. This has been the key to his political success. But his success has come at a cost. Trump&#x2019;s politics of rage unsettles establishment Republicans. Staid suburban voters who are moderate conservatives see Trump as a destabilizing figure in our body politic, putting a hard ceiling on his support.</p>\n<p>In this context, Democrats have much to gain by presenting themselves as the responsible adults, the ego to Trump&#x2019;s id. Dianne Feinstein and most other Democratic leaders are ultra-establishment figures with no interest in upheaval. Soon they will pivot back to playing the &#x201C;responsible party&#x201D; against Trump and Republican &#x201C;extremism.&#x201D; But the rage on display during the Kavanaugh hearings will not be easy to contain. It is fueling Leftist populism, which is on the rise. It highlights the Left&#x2019;s own destabilizing politics of rage and destruction.</p>\n<p>Ever since Trump&#x2019;s ascent, the strongest arguments against him have focused on his temperamental unfitness for the presidency and his polarizing effect on our society. These are arguments for establishment competence and sobriety. In the aftermath of the rage-driven strategy to derail Kavanaugh&#x2019;s appointment (quite different from the quiet, procedural tactics of Mitch McConnell, which derailed Merrick Garland&#x2019;s appointment), these arguments are harder to make.</p>\n<p>The Democrats may imagine that they, like Trump, will benefit from the politics of rage. But the Democrats&#x2019; power flows from their monopoly on the &#x201C;responsible center.&#x201D; The last season of leftwing rage came as the 1960s crashed to a close, and it did great harm to the Democratic Party. This time is different, in that both sides are drawing upon reservoirs of rage. But in my estimation, the Democrats will suffer more than the Republicans, because the Democrats have long been the establishment party. The politics of rage are far more likely to undermine than to renew the Ivy League&#x2013;Goldman Sachs&#x2013;Silicon Valley liberalism that has stood astride our politics since 1945, for rage always upsets the calculations by which establishments maintain their grip.</p>\n<p><em>R. R. Reno is editor of&#xA0;<span class=\"small-caps\">First Things</span>.</em></p>\n<p><em>Photo by <a href=\"https://www.flickr.com/photos/number7cloud/\">Lorie Shaull</a> via <a href=\"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/\">Creative Commons</a>. Image cropped.&#xA0;</em><br></p>\n<p><em>Become a fan of&#xA0;</em><em><span class=\"small-caps\">First Things</span></em>&#xA0;<em>on&#xA0;<a href=\"http://www.facebook.com/FirstThings\">Facebook</a></em>,&#xA0;<em>subscribe to</em>&#xA0;<em><span class=\"small-caps\">First Things</span></em>&#xA0;<em>via&#xA0;<a href=\"http://www.firstthings.com/rss/onthesquare.php\">RSS</a>, and follow&#xA0;</em><em><span class=\"small-caps\">First Things</span></em>&#xA0;<em>on&#xA0;<a href=\"http://twitter.com/firstthingsmag\">Twitter</a>.</em>&#xA0;<br></p></div>","url":"https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2018/10/rage-politics-on-the-left","date_published":"2018-10-07T22:51:11+00:00","author":{"name":""}},{"id":"916","title":"Rifts Break Open at Facebook Over Kavanaugh Hearing","content_html":"<div><article id=\"story\" class=\"Story-story--2QyGh css-1qk5cfn\"><header class=\"css-sb57iz e345g291\"><figure class=\"sizeMedium layoutHorizontal css-z723vq toneNews\"><div class=\"css-bsn42l\"><span class=\"css-1dv1kvn\">Image</span><img alt=\"\" class=\"css-11cwn6f\" src=\"https://static01.nyt.com/images/2018/10/05/business/05facebook-print/merlin_144448560_5a8fbf54-5fc1-4bca-afdc-0e37375a6bcf-articleLarge.jpg?quality=75&amp;auto=webp&amp;disable=upscale\" srcset=\"https://static01.nyt.com/images/2018/10/05/business/05facebook-print/merlin_144448560_5a8fbf54-5fc1-4bca-afdc-0e37375a6bcf-articleLarge.jpg?quality=90&amp;auto=webp 600w,https://static01.nyt.com/images/2018/10/05/business/05facebook-print/merlin_144448560_5a8fbf54-5fc1-4bca-afdc-0e37375a6bcf-jumbo.jpg?quality=90&amp;auto=webp 1024w,https://static01.nyt.com/images/2018/10/05/business/05facebook-print/merlin_144448560_5a8fbf54-5fc1-4bca-afdc-0e37375a6bcf-superJumbo.jpg?quality=90&amp;auto=webp 2048w\"></div><figcaption class=\"css-109u0hy emkp2hg0\"><span class=\"css-1szf6bk e1olku6u0\">Joel Kaplan, Facebook&#x2019;s vice president for global public policy, left, sat two rows behind Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh at his testimony in Congress last week. They are longtime friends.</span><span class=\"emkp2hg1 css-znas8p e18m0s9i0\"><span class=\"css-1ly73wi e1afaoz0\">Credit</span><span><span class=\"css-1dv1kvn\">Credit</span><span>Pool photo by Jim Bourg</span></span></span></figcaption></figure><div class=\"css-30n6iy e345g290\"><div class=\"css-acwcvw\"></div></div></header><div class=\"css-18sbwfn StoryBodyCompanionColumn\"><div class=\"css-4w7y5l\"><p class=\"css-xhhu0i e2kc3sl0\">SAN FRANCISCO &#x2014; &#x201C;I want to apologize,&#x201D; the Facebook executive wrote last Friday in a note to staff. &#x201C;I recognize this moment is a deeply painful one &#x2014; internally and externally.&#x201D;</p><p class=\"css-xhhu0i e2kc3sl0\">The apology came from Joel Kaplan, Facebook&#x2019;s vice president for global public policy. A day earlier, Mr. Kaplan had sat behind his friend, Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh, President Trump&#x2019;s nominee for the Supreme Court, when the <a class=\"css-1g7m0tk\" href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/27/us/politics/brett-kavanaugh-confirmation-hearings.html?module=inline\">judge testified</a> in Congress about allegations he had sexually assaulted Christine Blasey Ford in high school. Mr. Kaplan&#x2019;s surprise appearance prompted anger and shock among many Facebook employees, some of whom said they took his action as a tacit show of support for Judge Kavanaugh &#x2014; as if it were an endorsement from Facebook itself.</p><p class=\"css-xhhu0i e2kc3sl0\">The unrest quickly spilled over onto Facebook&#x2019;s internal message boards, where hundreds of workers have since posted about their concerns, according to current and former employees. To quell the hubbub, Facebook&#x2019;s chief executive, Mark Zuckerberg, last Friday explained in a widely attended staff meeting that Mr. Kaplan was a close friend of Judge Kavanaugh&#x2019;s and had broken no company rules, these people said.</p><p class=\"css-xhhu0i e2kc3sl0\">Yet the disquiet within the company has not subsided. This week, Facebook employees kept flooding internal forums with comments about Mr. Kaplan&#x2019;s appearance at the hearing. In a post on Wednesday, Andrew Bosworth, a Facebook executive, appeared to dismiss the concerns when he wrote to employees that &#x201C;it is your responsibility to choose a path, not that of the company you work for.&#x201D; Facebook plans to hold another staff meeting on Friday to contain the damage, said the current and former employees.</p></div><aside class=\"css-14jsv4e\"><span></span></aside></div><div class=\"css-18sbwfn StoryBodyCompanionColumn\"><div class=\"css-4w7y5l\"><p class=\"css-xhhu0i e2kc3sl0\">The internal turmoil at Facebook &#x2014; described by six current and former employees and a review of internal posts &#x2014; illustrates how divisions over Judge Kavanaugh&#x2019;s nomination to the Supreme Court have cascaded into unexpected places and split one of the world&#x2019;s biggest tech companies.</p><p class=\"css-xhhu0i e2kc3sl0\">Mr. Kaplan&#x2019;s show of support for Judge Kavanaugh hits a particularly sensitive spot for Facebook. It has been weathering claims from conservatives and Mr. Trump that <a class=\"css-1g7m0tk\" href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/28/business/media/google-trump-news-results.html?module=inline\">Facebook is biased</a> against right-wing websites and opinions. The company has denied this, saying it is a neutral platform that welcomes all perspectives. By showing up at Judge Kavanaugh&#x2019;s side, Mr. Kaplan essentially appeared to choose a political side that goes against the views of Facebook&#x2019;s largely liberal work force.</p><p class=\"css-xhhu0i e2kc3sl0\">Many employees also viewed it as a statement: Mr. Kaplan believed Mr. Kavanaugh&#x2019;s side of the story rather than Dr. Blasey&#x2019;s testimony. That felt especially hurtful to Facebook employees who were also sexual assault survivors, many of whom began sharing their own #MeToo stories internally.</p><p class=\"css-xhhu0i e2kc3sl0\">The tensions add to a litany of other issues that have sapped employee morale. In the past few weeks alone, the company, based in Silicon Valley, has grappled with the <a class=\"css-1g7m0tk\" href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/24/technology/instagram-cofounders-resign.html?module=inline\">departures of the co-founders of Instagram</a>, the photo-sharing app owned by Facebook, plus the disclosure of its <a class=\"css-1g7m0tk\" href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/28/technology/facebook-hack-data-breach.html?action=click&amp;module=inline&amp;pgtype=Homepage\">largest-ever data breach</a> and continued scrutiny of disinformation across its network before <a class=\"css-1g7m0tk\" href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/19/technology/facebook-election-war-room.html?module=inline\">the midterm elections</a>.</p><p class=\"css-xhhu0i e2kc3sl0\">&#x201C;Our leadership team recognizes that they&#x2019;ve made mistakes handling the events of the last week and we&#x2019;re grateful for all the feedback from our employees,&#x201D; Roberta Thomson, a Facebook spokeswoman, said in a statement on Thursday.</p></div><aside class=\"css-14jsv4e\"><span></span></aside></div><div class=\"css-18sbwfn StoryBodyCompanionColumn\"><div class=\"css-4w7y5l\"><p class=\"css-xhhu0i e2kc3sl0\">The latest trouble began a week ago, with the testimony of Dr. Blasey and Judge Kavanaugh in Congress. As Judge Kavanaugh testified, one face stood out to Facebook employees: Sitting two rows behind the judge was Mr. Kaplan, a former senior adviser to George W. Bush who had <a class=\"css-1g7m0tk\" href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/18/technology/facebook-moves-to-repair-its-fractured-relationship-with-the-right.html?module=inline\">joined the company in a policy role in 2011</a> and heads up the social network&#x2019;s Washington office. He had been hired to help <a class=\"css-1g7m0tk\" href=\"http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2011/05/26/facebook-taps-joel-kaplan-to-head-washington-office/?module=inline\">counterbalance Facebook&#x2019;s perception</a> as left-leaning.</p><p class=\"css-xhhu0i e2kc3sl0\">Tweets about Mr. Kaplan at the hearing immediately began circulating among Facebook message boards such as &#x201C;Women @ Facebook,&#x201D; a communications chat room called &#x201C;Just Flagging,&#x201D; and a group called &#x201C;Wait, what?&#x201D; where employees can ask public relations questions. Many employees had one query: Why was Mr. Kaplan there, front and center?</p><p class=\"css-xhhu0i e2kc3sl0\">&#x201C;Let&#x2019;s assume for a minute that our VP of Policy understands how senate hearings work,&#x201D; one program manager said in a post about Mr. Kaplan that was reviewed by The Times. &#x201C;His seat choice was intentional, knowing full well that journalists would identify every public figure appearing behind Kavanaugh. He knew that this would cause outrage internally, but he knew that he couldn&#x2019;t get fired for it. This was a protest against our culture, and a slap in the face to his fellow employees.&#x201D;</p><p class=\"css-xhhu0i e2kc3sl0\">&#x201C;Yes, Joel, we see you,&#x201D; the employee added.</p><p class=\"css-xhhu0i e2kc3sl0\">Facebook executives knew they had a serious problem on their hands, said the current and former employees. That led to last Friday&#x2019;s apology from Mr. Kaplan, a former Marine who once clerked for two conservative justices.</p></div><aside class=\"css-14jsv4e\"><span></span></aside></div><figure class=\"css-12t3uda e1a8i6eb0\"><div class=\"css-1xdhyk6 e1vv25i80\"><span class=\"css-1ly73wi e1afaoz0\">Image</span><img alt=\"\" class=\"css-1m50asq\" src=\"https://static01.nyt.com/images/2018/10/05/business/05facebook-02/05facebook-02-articleLarge.jpg?quality=75&amp;auto=webp&amp;disable=upscale\" srcset=\"https://static01.nyt.com/images/2018/10/05/business/05facebook-02/05facebook-02-articleLarge.jpg?quality=90&amp;auto=webp 600w,https://static01.nyt.com/images/2018/10/05/business/05facebook-02/05facebook-02-jumbo.jpg?quality=90&amp;auto=webp 1024w,https://static01.nyt.com/images/2018/10/05/business/05facebook-02/05facebook-02-superJumbo.jpg?quality=90&amp;auto=webp 2048w\"></div><figcaption class=\"css-1wtlzrm e3zkro30\"><span class=\"css-1szf6bk e1olku6u0\">Judge Kavanaugh as he was sworn in to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee last week.</span><span class=\"css-18oazr6 e18m0s9i0\"><span class=\"css-1ly73wi e1afaoz0\">Credit</span><span>Pool photo by Jim Bourg</span></span></figcaption></figure><div class=\"css-18sbwfn StoryBodyCompanionColumn\"><div class=\"css-4w7y5l\"><p class=\"css-xhhu0i e2kc3sl0\">In the note addressed to his policy group, Mr. Kaplan wrote, &#x201C;I have known Brett and Ashley Kavanaugh for 20 years. They are my and my wife Laura&#x2019;s closest friends in D.C. I was in their wedding; he was in ours. Our kids have grown up together.&#x201D;</p><p class=\"css-xhhu0i e2kc3sl0\">&#x201C;I believe in standing by your friends, especially when times are tough for them,&#x201D; Mr. Kaplan added in a later post.</p></div><aside class=\"css-14jsv4e\"><span></span></aside></div><div class=\"css-18sbwfn StoryBodyCompanionColumn\"><div class=\"css-4w7y5l\"><p class=\"css-xhhu0i e2kc3sl0\">He also said, &#x201C;Laura and I felt it was important to be with them at the hearing to express our love and support for our friends during a very difficult time for all involved. I took a personal day to be there.&#x201D;</p><p class=\"css-xhhu0i e2kc3sl0\">Some Facebook employees noted that according to the company&#x2019;s internal human resources software, Mr. Kaplan had not taken a personal day to attend the hearing. Only later last Thursday did someone at Facebook update the system to say Mr. Kaplan had taken a personal day, said the current and former employees.</p><p class=\"css-xhhu0i e2kc3sl0\">At last Friday&#x2019;s staff meeting, Mr. Zuckerberg defended Mr. Kaplan&#x2019;s appearance as a personal decision that did not violate company rules. Mr. Zuckerberg also said he trusted Mr. Kaplan&#x2019;s judgment, even though he himself would most likely not have chosen to attend the hearing, said two people who were at the meeting.</p><p class=\"css-xhhu0i e2kc3sl0\">The messaging backfired. Some employees &#x2014; particularly women &#x2014; said it came across as if Mr. Zuckerberg was shrugging off Dr. Blasey&#x2019;s comments about sexual assault, saying that the chief executive&#x2019;s remarks had caused &#x201C;stress and trauma&#x201D; and were &#x201C;painful to hear.&#x201D;</p><p class=\"css-xhhu0i e2kc3sl0\">Many female employees were also upset that Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook&#x2019;s chief operating officer, who has made women&#x2019;s issues a personal platform and project, did not publicly say something about Dr. Blasey and sexual assault. Mr. Kaplan is known as a friend of Ms. Sandberg&#x2019;s, with the two having gotten acquainted at Harvard, which both attended.</p><p class=\"css-xhhu0i e2kc3sl0\">Ms. Sandberg posted internally last Friday, writing, &#x201C;As a woman and someone who cares so deeply about how women are treated, the Kavanaugh issue is deeply upsetting to me.&#x201D; She added, &#x201C;I&#x2019;ve talked to Joel about why I think it was a mistake for him to attend given his role in the company.&#x201D;</p><p class=\"css-xhhu0i e2kc3sl0\">In one internal Facebook group that is aimed at supporting female employees, dozens of women this week posted accounts of their own struggles with sexual assault. Mr. Kaplan&#x2019;s attendance at the hearing made them uncomfortable, they wrote, according to posts reviewed by The Times. Several said they would not feel comfortable working in the Washington office under Mr. Kaplan.</p></div><aside class=\"css-14jsv4e\"><span></span></aside></div><div class=\"css-18sbwfn StoryBodyCompanionColumn\"><div class=\"css-4w7y5l\"><p class=\"css-xhhu0i e2kc3sl0\">Other employees began criticizing Mr. Zuckerberg directly in recent days.</p><p class=\"css-xhhu0i e2kc3sl0\">&#x201C;I appreciate your desire to avoid taking sides, but please don&#x2019;t insult our intelligence by declaring that this act did not violate our policies, or that it was only an honest lapse in judgement,&#x201D; one engineer wrote in a post addressed to the chief executive. &#x201C;Please don&#x2019;t tell us that you know how hard it is for us when it is very clear from your words, your actions and your tone that you don&#x2019;t.&#x201D;</p><p class=\"css-xhhu0i e2kc3sl0\">On Wednesday, Mr. Bosworth, a 13-year veteran of Facebook and close friend of Mr. Zuckerberg&#x2019;s, weighed in in an internal post.</p><p class=\"css-xhhu0i e2kc3sl0\">&#x201C;If you need to change teams, companies or careers to make sure your day-to-day life matches your passions, we will be sad to see you go, but we will understand,&#x201D; Mr. Bosworth wrote. &#x201C;We will support you with any path you choose. But it is your responsibility to choose a path, not that of the company you work for.&#x201D;</p><p class=\"css-xhhu0i e2kc3sl0\">Mr. Bosworth backpedaled after facing opposition &#x2014; including from Lori Goler, Facebook&#x2019;s head of human resources &#x2014; who said he was dismissing legitimate employee concerns, said the current and former employees. On Thursday afternoon, he posted, &#x201C;I spoke at a time when I should be listening and that was a big mistake. I&#x2019;m grateful to employees who shared feedback and very sorry that my actions caused employees pain and frustration when what they needed was better support and understanding from leadership.&#x201D;</p><p class=\"css-xhhu0i e2kc3sl0\">By that point, it was clear the tensions were not fading. Mike Schroepfer, Facebook&#x2019;s chief technology officer and the sponsor of the group &#x201C;Women @ Facebook,&#x201D; scheduled a meeting on Friday to deal with staff concerns. Mr. Zuckerberg, Ms. Sandberg and Mr. Kaplan are all expected to attend to field questions, said the current and former employees.</p></div><aside class=\"css-14jsv4e\"><span></span></aside></div><div class=\"bottom-of-article\"><div class=\"css-1gybuqn\"><p><em>Follow Mike Isaac on Twitter: <a href=\"https://twitter.com/MikeIsaac\">@MikeIsaac.</a></em></p><p>Kate Conger and Sheera Frenkel contributed reporting.</p> <p><strong>Interested in All Things Tech? </strong><a href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/newsletters/signup/TU\">Get the Bits newsletter</a> delivered to your inbox weekly for the latest from Silicon Valley and the technology industry.</p></div><div class=\"css-1jhku0n\">A version of this article appears in print on , on Page A19 of the New York edition with the headline: One Face, Among Many at Hearing, Causes a Rift at Facebook<span>. <a href=\"http://www.nytreprints.com/\">Order Reprints</a> | <a href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/pages/todayspaper/index.html\">Today&#x2019;s Paper</a> | <a href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/subscriptions/Multiproduct/lp8HYKU.html?campaignId=48JQY\">Subscribe</a></span></div></div></article></div>","url":"https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/04/technology/facebook-kavanaugh-nomination-kaplan.html","date_published":"2018-10-04T21:02:23+00:00","author":{"name":"Mike Isaac"}},{"id":"922","title":"If Kavanaugh is confirmed, every single GOP justice on the SCOTUS will have been appointed illegitimately","content_html":"<div class=\"admania_entrycontent\"> <p><a href=\"http://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2018/10/kavanaugh-confirmed-every-single-gop-justice-scotus-will-appointed-illegitimately/download-73\"><img class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-100493\" src=\"http://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/download-73.jpeg%20220w,%20http://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/download-73-150x150.jpeg%20150w\" alt=\"\" width=\"220\" srcset=\"http://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/download-73.jpeg 220w, http://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/download-73-150x150.jpeg 150w\"></a>\n</p><p>Let&#x2019;s review:\n</p><p>Clarence Thomas: <a href=\"https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07CSJBJLH/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&amp;btkr=1\">Perjured himself</a> to the Senate regarding his interactions with Anita Hill.&#xA0; Incredibly enough, Thomas is now the Republican appointee with the <em>least</em> problematic claim to his seat on the Court.\n</p><p>John Roberts:&#xA0; On the Court only because the 2000 presidential election was hijacked in favor of the Republican candidate, who lost both the popular and electoral vote, by five justices put on the Court by Republican presidents. <a href=\"https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2018/08/does-brett-kavanaugh-agree-with-bush-v-gore/568420/\">Personally helped steal</a> that election.\n</p><p>Samuel Alito: Ditto, minus the personal participation in Bush v. Gore.\n</p><p>Neil Gorsuch: Sits in SCOTUS seat stolen by Mitch McConnell. Appointed by a president who lost the popular vote by three million ballots, despite conspiring with a foreign power to steal the election.\n</p><p>Brett Kavanaugh: F<a href=\"https://www.currentaffairs.org/2018/09/how-we-know-kavanaugh-is-lying\">lagrant perjurer</a> (his testimony made Clarence Thomas&#x2019;s lies seem modest by comparison). Appointed originally to the federal bench via the same stolen election that put Roberts and Alito on the Court.&#xA0; <a href=\"https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2018/08/does-brett-kavanaugh-agree-with-bush-v-gore/568420/\">Like John Roberts, participated directly</a> in the theft of that election.\n</p><p>Jack Balkin <a href=\"https://digitalcommons.law.yale.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1250&amp;context=fss_papers\">18 years ago</a>:\n<blockquote><p>Indeed, the appearance, if not the reality, of this kind of partisanship in Bush v. Gore casts an unsavory light on the constitutional revolution of the last decade. It was widely speculated before and after the election that several of the Justices might retire within the next few years. By intervening in the election, the five conservatives installed a President who would appoint their colleagues and successors and would stock the federal judiciary with like-minded conservatives. Bush v. Gore was troubling because the five conservatives appeared to use the power of judicial review to secure control of another branch of government that would, in turn, help keep their constitutional revolution going. It is one thing to entrench one&#x2019;s constitutional principles through a series of precedents. It is quite another to entrench one&#x2019;s ideological allies by directing the outcome of a presidential election.</p></blockquote>\n</p><p>Our patience&#x2019;s long, but soon we won&#x2019;t have any.\n</p><p>A few more points:\n</p><p>(1) If you have an extensive history of drug abuse, it will be assumed that you are no longer abusing that drug, if that drug is alcohol, and if you are a high status white man.&#xA0; Brett Kavanaugh has an extensive history of abusing alcohol.&#xA0; The almost <a href=\"https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/whats-wrong-with-judging-a-man-by-his-lifes-record/2018/10/02/3fee5e5a-c67c-11e8-9b1c-a90f1daae309_story.html?utm_term=.40e28da04aae\">universal assumption</a> in the political and pundit classes that he is no longer abusing alcohol on a regular basis appears to be based on exactly nothing.\n</p><p>Indeed the assumption that an active alcoholic could not appear to be a competent federal appeals court judge is simply laughable if stated explicitly.&#xA0; Being a federal appeals court judge can be readily transformed into one of the easiest jobs in the world.&#xA0; You can offload almost all your work to your clerks and colleagues, <a href=\"http://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2017/12/alex-kozinski\">a system of omerta</a> keeps your indiscretions out of public view, and you almost literally can&#x2019;t be fired.&#xA0; In other words, it&#x2019;s the perfect job for someone with a serious substance abuse problem.&#xA0; &#xA0;Does Brett Kavanaugh still get wasted on the regular? I don&#x2019;t know, and neither apparently does anybody else, because as far as I can tell he hasn&#x2019;t even been asked that question.\n</p><p>(2) There&#x2019;s a very simple solution to the problem of putting prep school super-predators on the Supreme Court, which is to stop nominating them.&#xA0; For instance, Amy Coney Barrett is every bit as reactionary as Brett Kavanaugh, but the odds that she has sexually assaulted various people while drunk can be safely calculated as zero.\n</p><p>(3) I think Trump&#x2019;s remarks last night about Christine Blasey Ford could quite possibly cost Kavanaugh the nomination.&#xA0; It may be that Flake, Murkowski, and Collins are just posturing about this, but there is some point beyond which people can&#x2019;t be pushed (Witness John McCain&#x2019;s health care vote).&#xA0; Of course this would be something like truly cosmic justice at work, so it&#x2019;s probably too much to hope for, but Kavanaugh is a lot worse off now than he was 24 hours ago.\n</p><p>&#xA0;\n<div class=\"addtoany_share_save_container addtoany_content_bottom\"><div class=\"a2a_kit addtoany_list a2a_target\" id=\"wpa2a_1\"><a class=\"a2a_button_facebook\" href=\"http://www.addtoany.com/add_to/facebook?linkurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com%2F2018%2F10%2Fkavanaugh-confirmed-every-single-gop-justice-scotus-will-appointed-illegitimately&amp;linkname=If%20Kavanaugh%20is%20confirmed%2C%20every%20single%20GOP%20justice%20on%20the%20SCOTUS%20will%20have%20been%20appointed%20illegitimately\"><img src=\"http://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/wp-content/plugins/add-to-any/icons/facebook.png\" width=\"16\" alt=\"Facebook\"></a><a class=\"a2a_button_twitter\" href=\"http://www.addtoany.com/add_to/twitter?linkurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com%2F2018%2F10%2Fkavanaugh-confirmed-every-single-gop-justice-scotus-will-appointed-illegitimately&amp;linkname=If%20Kavanaugh%20is%20confirmed%2C%20every%20single%20GOP%20justice%20on%20the%20SCOTUS%20will%20have%20been%20appointed%20illegitimately\"><img src=\"http://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/wp-content/plugins/add-to-any/icons/twitter.png\" width=\"16\" alt=\"Twitter\"></a><a class=\"a2a_button_google_plus\" href=\"http://www.addtoany.com/add_to/google_plus?linkurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com%2F2018%2F10%2Fkavanaugh-confirmed-every-single-gop-justice-scotus-will-appointed-illegitimately&amp;linkname=If%20Kavanaugh%20is%20confirmed%2C%20every%20single%20GOP%20justice%20on%20the%20SCOTUS%20will%20have%20been%20appointed%20illegitimately\"><img src=\"http://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/wp-content/plugins/add-to-any/icons/google_plus.png\" width=\"16\" alt=\"Google+\"></a><a class=\"a2a_dd addtoany_share_save\" href=\"https://www.addtoany.com/share_save\"><span>Share</span></a> </div></div> </p></div>","url":"http://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2018/10/kavanaugh-confirmed-every-single-gop-justice-scotus-will-appointed-illegitimately","date_published":"2018-10-03T19:28:11+00:00","author":{"name":"Paul Campos"}},{"id":"920","title":"ByteDance Rises as Facebook Falls, Takes Over Most Valuable Startup from Uber","content_html":"<div><div><div class=\"section-content\"><div class=\"section-inner sectionLayout--fullWidth\"><figure id=\"3ebd\" class=\"graf graf--figure graf--layoutFillWidth graf--leading\"><img class=\"progressiveMedia-noscript js-progressiveMedia-inner\" src=\"https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/2000/1*sYWDuKlsxt8lyQ45w__Jpw.jpeg\"><figcaption class=\"imageCaption\">Consumers visit a booth for Bytedance Technology, which owns news aggregation app Jinri Toutiao and short video app Tik Tok, at the China International Software Expo in Beijing in June. PHOTO: CHINA STRINGER NETWORK/REUTERS</figcaption></figure></div><div class=\"section-inner sectionLayout--insetColumn\"><p id=\"0e06\" class=\"graf graf--p graf-after--h3\">ByteDance will be a pretty epic IPO to watch in 2019. Certainly bigger than Uber. A few years ago that might have been surprising. How quickly things do change.</p><p id=\"8890\" class=\"graf graf--p graf-after--p\">With Softbank dipping their toes into ByteDance, it&#x2019;s now the world&#x2019;s most valuable startup ahead of Uber. ByteDance isn&#x2019;t just a news aggregation app company, it&#x2019;s the leading AI company at the intersection of viral apps creating an empire with <a href=\"https://www.scmp.com/tech/start-ups/article/2166424/meet-35-year-old-chinese-software-engineer-behind-bytedance-worlds\" class=\"markup--anchor markup--p-anchor\">a CEO smarter</a> than Mark Zuckerberg.</p><p id=\"f2c4\" class=\"graf graf--p graf-after--p\">Sure Jinri Toutiao mobile news app and TikTok are impressive&#x200A;&#x2014;&#x200A;but these are just the beginning. This is not like Facebook that has had to acquire apps to innovate and scale. ByteDance creates new apps and scales at a far faster speed without relying just on advertising.</p><p id=\"8140\" class=\"graf graf--p graf-after--p\">In a year that has seen trade wars and weird transitions for BAT (Baidu, Alibaba, Tencent), taking off $130 Billion in their stocks, ByteDance has really come of age with Tik Tok&#x2019;s explosive growth. Of course you barely hear about this in the West, because California&#x2019;s tech news pub machine is obsessed with, oh&#x200A;&#x2014;&#x200A;itself&#x200A;&#x2014;&#x200A;no kidding.</p><p id=\"aaf0\" class=\"graf graf--p graf-after--p\">CBInsights slowly has given the edge to ByteDance over Uber in terms of market cap, but we&#x2019;ve seen this a long time coming. This is not news for those who follow the Chinese Tech scene, a far more interesting ecosystem these days than the U.S. scene.</p><p id=\"d337\" class=\"graf graf--p graf-after--p\">LinkedIn Editors state software engineer Zhang Yiming founded Bytedance six years ago as a news aggregation app powered by artificial intelligence. The company&#x2019;s optimistic valuation stems from its unique creation of an internet experience &#x201C;<a href=\"https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-09-28/35-year-old-unknown-creates-the-world-s-most-valuable-startup\" class=\"markup--anchor markup--p-anchor\">that&#x2019;s a cross between Google and Facebook</a>.&#x201D; Tencent and Facebook have a lot to learn from these guys since they are the world&#x2019;s best at personalizing the user experiences in app via AI.</p><p id=\"e030\" class=\"graf graf--p graf-after--p\">It&#x2019;s not just BAT that&#x2019;s showing the emergence of a Chinese tech dynasty, it&#x2019;s all the rest. ByteDance is like a titan of AI meets content. It&#x2019;s not a copy of the West, it&#x2019;s an improvement from anything we&#x2019;ve seen come out of Silicon Valley, and that&#x2019;s the point that California VC has to realize. With Softbank and Tencent they are being out-innovated and it&#x2019;s now extending to blockchain and crypto spaces as well.</p><p id=\"63bc\" class=\"graf graf--p graf-after--p\">Google never understood how to relate to consumers or build hardware products and it&#x2019;s seeing Amazon run over it. As Amazon scales in to advertising more it will be tough. Facebook exploited its most valuable product, its own users. ByteDance is redefining micro video and news content&#x200A;&#x2014;&#x200A;in a way that Facebook and Google could only dream of doing. It&#x2019;s actually good competition for Tencent at home. China&#x2019;s internet might be a bifurcation of the internet, but it&#x2019;s increasingly looking like it&#x2019;s the more innovative web.</p><p id=\"d413\" class=\"graf graf--p graf-after--p\">We know what&#x2019;s coming, the trinity of <a href=\"http://www.didichuxing.com/en/\" class=\"markup--anchor markup--p-anchor\">Didi Chuxing</a>; <a href=\"https://www.reuters.com/article/us-meituan-usa-ipo-exclusive/exclusive-chinas-meituan-dianping-mulls-u-s-ipo-of-at-least-3-billion-in-2018-sources-idUSKBN1D70F6\" class=\"markup--anchor markup--p-anchor\">Meituan-Dianping</a> and ByteDance. The future of Chinese tech giants isn&#x2019;t just BAT, it&#x2019;s DMB. It&#x2019;s BAT-DMB.</p><p id=\"1e7e\" class=\"graf graf--p graf-after--p graf--trailing\">Today ByteDance is on its way to a more than US$75 billion valuation&#x200A;&#x2014;&#x200A;a price tag that surpasses Uber Technologies to top the world, according to CB Insights. I don&#x2019;t have to say I told you so, but today I am.</p></div></div></div></div>","url":"https://medium.com/futuresin/bytedance-rises-as-facebook-falls-takes-over-most-valuable-startup-from-uber-85d68253e514","date_published":"2018-10-02T17:45:28+00:00","author":{"name":"Michael K. Spencer"}},{"id":"908","title":"Travellers refusing to hand over phone password at airport now face $5000 Customs fine","content_html":"<div class=\"col-lg-9\"> <div class=\"storyPage\"> <p>Travellers who refuse to hand over their phone or laptop passwords to Customs officials can now be slapped with a $5000 fine.</p></div> <div class=\"storyPage\"> <p>The Customs and Excise Act 2018 - which comes into effect today - sets guidelines around how Customs can carry out &quot;digital strip-searches&quot;.</p></div> <div class=\"storyPage\"> <p>Previously, Customs could stop anyone at the border and demand to see their electronic devices. However, the law did not specify that people had to also provide a password.</p></div> <div class=\"storyPage\"> <p>The updated law makes clear that travellers must provide access - whether that be a password, pin-code or fingerprint - but officials would need to have a reasonable suspicion of wrongdoing.</p></div> <div class=\"storyPage\"> <p>&quot;It is a file-by-file [search] on your phone. We&apos;re not going into &apos;the cloud&apos;. We&apos;ll examine your phone while it&apos;s on flight mode,&quot; Customs spokesperson Terry Brown said.</p></div> <div class=\"storyPage\"> <p>If people refused to comply, they could be fined up to $5000 and their device would be seized and forensically searched.</p></div> <div class=\"storyPage\"> <p>Mr Brown said the law struck the &quot;delicate balance&quot; between a person&apos;s right to privacy and Customs&apos; law enforcement responsibilities.</p></div> <div class=\"storyPage\"> <p>&quot;I personally have an e-device and it maintains all my records - banking data, et cetera, et cetera - so we understand the importance and significance of it.&quot;</p></div> <div class=\"storyPage\"> <p>Council for Civil Liberties spokesperson Thomas Beagle said the law was an unjustified invasion of privacy.</p></div> <div class=\"storyPage\"> <p>&quot;Nowadays we&apos;ve got everything on our phones; we&apos;ve got all our personal life, all our doctors&apos; records, our emails, absolutely everything on it, and customs can take that and keep it.&quot;</p></div> <div class=\"storyPage\"> <p>The new requirement for reasonable suspicion did not rein in the law at all, Mr Beagle said.</p></div> <div class=\"storyPage\"> <p>&quot;They don&apos;t have to tell you what the cause of that suspicion is, there&apos;s no way to challenge it.&quot;</p></div> <div class=\"storyPage\"> <p>Customs Minister Kris Faafoi said the power to search electronic devices was necessary.</p></div> <div class=\"storyPage\"> <p>&quot;A lot of the organised crime groups are becoming a lot more sophisticated in the ways they&apos;re trying to get things across the border.</p></div> <div class=\"storyPage\"> <p>&quot;And if we do think they&apos;re up to that kind of business, then getting intelligence from smartphones and computers can be useful for a prosecution.&quot;</p></div> <div class=\"storyPage\"> <p>But Mr Beagle said &quot;serious criminals&quot; would simply store incriminating material online.</p></div> <div class=\"storyPage\"> <p>&quot;You&apos;d be mad to carry stuff over on your phone.</p></div> <div class=\"storyPage\"> <p>Privacy Commissioner John Edwards had some influence over the drafting of the legislation and said he was &quot;pretty comfortable&quot; with where the law stood.</p></div> <div class=\"storyPage\"> <p>&quot;There&apos;s a good balance between ensuring that our borders are protected ... and [that people] are not subject to unreasonable search of their devices.&quot;</p></div> <div class=\"storyPage\"> <p>&quot;You know when you come into the country that you can be asked to open your suitcase and that a Customs officer can look at everything in there.&quot;</p></div> <div class=\"storyPage\"> <p>Border officials searched roughly 540 electronic devices at New Zealand airports in 2017.</p></div> <div class=\"storyPage\"> <p>Customs will be required to keep Parliament updated on the number of devices searched every year. The agency said it did not expect the number to increase.</p></div> </div>","url":"https://www.tvnz.co.nz/one-news/new-zealand/travellers-refusing-hand-over-phone-password-airport-now-face-5000-customs-fine","date_published":"2018-10-02T16:46:25+00:00","author":{"name":""}},{"id":"910","title":"Bloomberg","content_html":"<section class=\"box main\"> <p class=\"continue\">To continue, please click the box below to let us know you&apos;re not a robot.</p> </section>","url":"https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-10-02/new-york-s-tax-department-probes-trump-taxes-from-decades-ago?utm_source=nextdraft","date_published":"2018-10-02T00:00:00+00:00","author":{"name":""}},{"id":"903","title":"Day One Alternatives and Similar Software - AlternativeTo.net","content_html":"<div class=\"dropdown-content-box extra-visible\"> <p>Create your own list to share your favorite apps with friends</p>\n<a class=\"btn btn-primary\" href=\"https://alternativeto.net/account/signup\">Sign up to create a list</a>\n<a class=\"btn\" href=\"https://alternativeto.net/lists/\">Browse all</a>\n</div>","url":"https://alternativeto.net/software/day-one/","date_published":"2018-10-01T22:30:02+00:00","author":{"name":""}},{"id":"902","title":"Apple brings 'Everyone Can Create' curriculum to everybody in the Apple Books store","content_html":"<div><span class=\"article-leader\">Apple has widened availability of the Everyone Can Create curriculum, and has now posted the materials on the Apple Books marketplace not just for teachers, but for those wanting to learn from the materials as well.<br></span><br><div><div class=\"article-img\"><img src=\"https://photos5.appleinsider.com/gallery/27878-42372-Everyone-Can-Create-on-Apple-Books-kid-on-iPad-l.jpg\" alt=\"Children using Everyone Can Create on the iPad\" class=\"lazy\"></div><br><span class=\"minor2 small gray\"></span></div><p>\nEveryone Can Create includes four new project guides for drawing, music, video and photos now available for <a href=\"http://appleinsider.com/l/?link=https://itunes.apple.com/us/book-series/everyone-can-create/id1364129830?mt=11\">free in Apple Books</a>. Each guide provides a series of projects that build skills progressively, helping students gain not just basic skills, but advanced vocabulary and techniques in each medium. A new teacher guide provides 300 lesson ideas across media, projects, and subjects.</p><p><a href=\"https://www.apple.com/education/everyone-can-create/\">The program</a> includes various resources and guides, with the aim of helping teachers integrate elements like music, drawing, photography, and filmmaking. These cover a range of subjects &#x2014;such as math, history, and science &#x2014;with the idea of getting students to use an iPad in creative ways to learn about topics like fractals.</p>\nDeveloped in collaboration with educators and creative professionals, Everyone Can Create includes teacher and student guides, lessons, ideas and examples to help teachers bring creativity and new communication skills into their existing subjects like English, math, science and history. For example, students can use the built-in camera in iPad to learn about fractals or they can use Apple Pencil and apps like Tayasui Sketches to learn about symmetry.\nThe curriculum is similar in concept to Everyone Can Code, Apple&apos;s effort to spread Swift programming in schools worldwide. Apple Stores are using Everyone Can Create in Today at Apple Teacher Tuesday sessions. Apple&apos;s 504 stores in 24 countries have already taught over 5,000 hands-on Teacher Tuesday sessions on topics including coding and app design, video and music creation, and creative visual presentations.<div><div class=\"article-img\"><img src=\"https://photos5.appleinsider.com/gallery/25442-34609-everyonecancreate-l.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"lazy\"></div><br><span class=\"minor2 small gray\"></span></div>\n&quot;Creativity sparks a deeper level of engagement in students, and we&apos;re excited to help teachers bring out that creativity in the classroom,&quot; said Apple&apos;s senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing Philip Schiller when the program was announced. &quot;When you combine the power of iPad, the creativity of Apple Pencil, over a million iPad apps in the App Store, the rich curriculum in Everyone Can Code and Everyone Can Create, and unique Classroom and Schoolwork apps that support students and help schools manage technology in the classroom, we believe we can amplify learning and creativity in a way that only Apple can.&quot;<p>\nThe Everyone Can Create program was launched at Apple&apos;s education-focused even that saw the debut of the <a href=\"https://appleinsider.com/articles/18/03/27/new-ipad-includes-support-for-the-apple-pencil-a10-fusion-processor\">sixth-generation iPad</a>, <a href=\"https://appleinsider.com/articles/18/03/27/apple-introduces-schoolwork-ios-app-classkit-api-classroom-for-macos\">new software for schools</a>, such as a planned <a href=\"https://appleinsider.com/articles/18/03/27/apple-prepping-updated-iwork-for-ipad-with-apple-pencil-annotations-more\">iWork update for iOS</a> with Apple Pencil support and the ability to <a href=\"https://appleinsider.com/articles/18/03/27/apple-unveils-digital-books-tool-for-creating-media-on-the-ipad-at-field-trip-event\">build digital books in Pages</a>.</p><p><iframe width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https://www.youtube.com/embed/d8p3X24AEg0\" class=\"\"></iframe></p></div>","url":"https://appleinsider.com/articles/18/10/01/apple-brings-everyone-can-create-curriculum-to-everybody-in-the-apple-books-store","date_published":"2018-10-01T17:52:30+00:00","author":{"name":"Mike Wuerthele Monday, Oc"}},{"id":"901","title":"Press coverage of Kavanaugh is imperfect. But imagine if we didn’t have it.","content_html":"<div><div id=\"article-body\" class=\"article-body content-format-ans \"> <figure class=\"inline-content\"> <a></a> <img src=\"https://arc-anglerfish-washpost-prod-washpost.s3.amazonaws.com/public/T2WGXDGE4UI6RGY4VEHR3KXDBE.jpg\" class=\"unprocessed \"><br> <figcaption class=\"pb-caption\">Supreme court nominee Brett Kavanaugh testifies before the Senate Judiciary Committee Thursday. (Andrew Harnik/AP)</figcaption> </figure> <article class=\"paywall\">  <p>As the Brett Kavanaugh nomination turmoil rages on, the mainstream press is under fire. And not just from the predictable right.</p> <p>Jeff Greenfield, the former CBS correspondent, <a href=\"https://www.cnn.com/videos/cnnmoney/2018/09/30/one-hearing-two-realities-for-viewers-rs.cnn/video/playlists/reliable-sources-highlights/\">described</a> some of the news media Sunday as slanted against President Trump and Kavanaugh &#x2014; &#x201C;a kind of resistance.&#x201D;</p> <p>Two Columbia Journalism Review writers deplored the <a href=\"https://www.cjr.org/criticism/blasey-ford-media.php\">&#x201C;media bullying&#x201D;</a> of Christine Blasey Ford, who has accused the Supreme Court nominee of sexual assault.</p> <p>And the social-media world went on the attack when the New York Times opinion section published (and then deleted) an insensitive <a href=\"https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/erik-wemple/wp/2018/09/27/the-new-york-times-bails-on-insta-credibility-poll-for-christine-blasey-ford/?utm_term=.99a97df18ba3\">Twitter poll </a>on whether Ford was credible.</p> <p>Some of this criticism is valid and deserves airing.</p> <p>But to focus on it exclusively is to miss a larger point: Recent journalistic digging into Kavanaugh&#x2019;s life in high school and college has been impressive, and, overall, the press is performing its crucial watchdog role in a way that citizens should appreciate.</p> <p>&#x201C;The last few days of news coverage about Kavanaugh&#x2019;s past have shown how important and valuable the media can be when it practices old-fashioned gumshoe reporting,&#x201D; Tim O&#x2019;Brien, executive editor of Bloomberg Opinion, told me.</p> <p>The press criticism, from all sides, reminds me of the oft-quoted quip about democracy: &#x201C;the worst form of government except for all the others.&#x201D;</p> <p>So, too, American journalism in 2018.</p> <p>Let&#x2019;s pause for a minute to consider where we would be without the mainstream media &#x2014; the reality-based press, as I prefer to call it &#x2014; in the matter of Brett Kavanaugh.</p> <p>The short form is that Kavanaugh already would be confirmed to a lifetime appointment on the nation&#x2019;s highest court. That, of course, is exactly what some would have liked, their idea of justice well-served.</p> <p>The longer form is that a great deal about Trump&#x2019;s nominee would never have come out.</p> <p>And not just about his alleged sexual misconduct or the misstatements &#x2014; lies, if you will &#x2014; that he has made under oath.</p> <p>Christine Blasey Ford&#x2019;s complaint would have been swept under the rug, with swift rightward strokes.</p> <p>Without her reluctant decision to go public in an interview with The Washington Post&#x2019;s Emma Brown, we would never have heard from other accusers. Not from Deborah Ramirez, who spoke to Jane Mayer and Ronan Farrow of the New Yorker; and very likely not from Julie Swetnick, the client of Stormy Daniels&#x2019;s lawyer, Michael Avenatti.</p> <p>Each of these cases has built on what Ford, during Thursday&#x2019;s hearing, described as the relationship of trust she had built up with Emma Brown, after initially making an anonymous call to The Post&#x2019;s tip line in July.</p> <p>What The Post and the New Yorker did is the very basis of good journalism. So is the important reporting from the Times and elsewhere on the extreme limits of the new FBI investigation, as dictated by the White House.</p> <p>Post Executive Editor Martin Baron&#x2019;s celebrated description of his paper&#x2019;s approach to journalism in the Trump era &#x2014; &#x201C;We&#x2019;re not at war, we&#x2019;re at work&#x201D; &#x2014; addresses this point.</p> <p>I&#x2019;ll dare to add: It&#x2019;s not resistance, it&#x2019;s reporting.</p> <p>The best work in recent weeks has been the determined and skilled digging about Kavanaugh&#x2019;s past, unearthing classmates, finding his old pal Mark Judge, and comparing his sworn statement to credible reports from elsewhere. <br> &#x201C;The fact pattern emerging from that work has raised pivotal questions about Kavanaugh&#x2019;s character and honesty, which are crucial to forming a view about how well suited he is to sit on the Supreme Court,&#x201D; O&#x2019;Brien said.</p> <p>&#x201C;You can call it the resistance, but it&#x2019;s not &#x2014; I reject that label,&#x201D; said Susan Glasser of the New Yorker, pushing back against Greenfield&#x2019;s assertion on CNN&#x2019;s &#x201C;Reliable Sources&#x201D; program Sunday and making the case that the press is doing its job of trying to get at the truth. (Greenfield significantly softened his critique by allowing that the political situation may justify what he perceives as an anti-Trump slant on CNN and elsewhere, not only in covering Kavanaugh but over Trump&#x2019;s past two years: &#x201C;It may be that the facts justify it.&#x201D;)</p> <p>So here&#x2019;s where we stand.</p> <p>If Kavanaugh is confirmed, press scrutiny will at least have let us know what we&#x2019;re getting: A conservative jurist with all the right credentials who is willing to <a href=\"https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2018/09/28/heres-where-kavanaughs-sworn-testimony-was-misleading-or-wrong/?utm_term=.952f5020c88d\">mislead</a> while under oath, who vents his anger in blatantly partisan terms, and who apparently lacks the judicial temperament required for the job.</p> <p>If he withdraws, or is voted down, the press no doubt will be blamed for ruining a life and a career. That will be not only unfair but ungrateful.</p> <p>Legitimate journalists and respectable news organizations get things wrong, no doubt.</p> <p>They make factual errors (and almost always correct them).</p> <p>They damage their own credibility by blurring the line between opinion and news.</p> <p>They&#x2019;re highly distractible.</p> <p>They&#x2019;re guilty of tunnel vision, arrogance and groupthink.</p> <p>Even so, they might be American democracy&#x2019;s best hope at the moment.</p> <p class=\"trailer \"> For more by Margaret Sullivan visit <a class=\"showlink\" href=\"https://www.washingtonpost.com/people/margaret-sullivan\">wapo.st/sullivan</a> </p> </article>  </div></div>","url":"https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/press-coverage-of-kavanaugh-is-imperfect-but-imagine-if-we-didnt-have-it/2018/10/01/41409d5a-c577-11e8-b1ed-1d2d65b86d0c_story.html","date_published":"2018-10-01T00:00:00+00:00","author":{"name":""}},{"id":"896","title":"How a string of tweets cost Elon Musk his Tesla chairmanship and $20 million — CNN Money","content_html":"<div class=\"content\"> <div class=\"inner-content has-icon\"> <img class=\"app-icon\" src=\"https://apple.news/images/Appicon_v4.png\" alt=\"Apple News\" srcset=\"/images/Appicon_v4.png 1x, /images/Appicon_v4@2x.png 2x, /images/Appicon_v4@3x.png 3x\"> <p><a href=\"http://money.cnn.com/2018/09/29/technology/business/elon-musk-tesla-sec-settlement/index.html\">Click here</a> if the story doesn&#x2019;t open after a few seconds.</p> <p><a class=\"more\" href=\"https://www.apple.com/news\">Learn more about Apple News</a></p></div> </div>","url":"https://apple.news/AOJvi5bpXQrmJJSTnCwoV4g","date_published":"2018-09-30T16:47:48+00:00","author":{"name":""}},{"id":"904","title":"Devin Nunes's Family Farm Moved to Iowa, Employs Undocumented Workers","content_html":"<div class=\"article-body longform-body\"> <div class=\"content-info longform-info\"> <div class=\"content-info-inner\"> <div class=\"content-info-metadata\"> <div class=\"byline-with-image content-info-byline-with-image\"> <div class=\"content-info-byline-image\"> <img class=\"lazyload lazyimage\" alt=\"image\" src=\"data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7\"> </div> </div> <time class=\"content-info-date js-date\"> Sep 30, 2018 </time> </div> </div>\n</div> <p class=\"body-dropcap\">Devin Nunes has a secret. Nunes is the California Republican and chairman of the House Intelligence Committee who has become famous in the Trump era for using his position as a battering ram to discredit the Russia investigation and protect Donald Trump at all costs, even if it means shredding his own reputation and the independence of the historically nonpartisan committee in the process.</p><div class=\"embed embed-image embed-image-center embed-image-medium\"> <div class=\"embed-inner crop-original\"> <p class=\"embed-image-wrap\"> <picture class=\"zoomable lazyload lazyimage\"> <source> <source> <source> <img alt=\"image\" class=\"lazyimage lazyload\" src=\"https://hips.hearstapps.com/hmg-prod.s3.amazonaws.com/images/esq110118politics001-1538071089.jpg?crop=1xw:1xh;center,top&amp;resize=480:*\"> </picture> </p> </div> <p class=\"image-credit\"> <span class=\"image-photo-credit\">Ed Steed</span> </p> </div>\n<p class=\"body-text\">First elected to Congress in 2002, Nunes wasn&#x2019;t always like this. At one time he was known for his independent streak. When a new class of radical House Republicans pushed its leadership to shut down the government in 2013, Nunes attacked them as &#x201C;lemmings with suicide vests.&#x201D; In 2015, during another tumultuous period of House GOP infighting, I interviewed a broad cross section of the chamber&#x2019;s Republican leadership, and Nunes stood out for comments he made about how his colleagues and constituents were siloed in right-wing echo chambers and increasingly reliant on this or that &#x201C;conspiracy theory&#x201D; rather than &#x201C;something that is mostly true.&#x201D; In hindsight, he was prescient about the direction of his party: A few years later, a bona fide conspiracy theorist, one who credited Alex Jones with his victory, was elected president. </p><div class=\"breaker-ad article-breaker-ad longform-article-breaker-ad\"> <p class=\"breaker-ad-text\">Advertisement - Continue Reading Below</p> </div>\n<p class=\"body-text\">Instead of continuing the fight, Nunes served on the president&#x2019;s transition team and became Trump&#x2019;s most important defender in Congress. He has used the Intelligence Committee to spin a baroque theory about alleged surveillance of the Trump campaign that began with a made-up Trump tweet about how &#x201C;Obama had my &#x2018;wires tapped&#x2019; in Trump Tower.&#x201D; Indeed, Nunes has worked closely with the White House to investigate the FBI rather than the FSB (the KGB&#x2019;s successor), most famously by attempting to undermine the Russia investigation by releasing a partisan report&#x2014;the so-called &#x201C;Nunes memo&#x201D;&#x2014;that cherry-picked evidence to accuse the FBI of bias in its effort to obtain a warrant to monitor the communications of Carter Page, a Trump foreign-policy advisor.</p><div class=\"embed embed-image embed-image-right embed-image-small\"> <div class=\"embed-inner crop-original\"> <p class=\"embed-image-wrap\"> <picture class=\"zoomable lazyload lazyimage\"> <img alt=\"image\" class=\"lazyimage lazyload\" src=\"https://hips.hearstapps.com/hmg-prod.s3.amazonaws.com/images/screen-shot-2018-10-01-at-9-23-55-am-1538400251.png?crop=1xw:1xh;center,top&amp;resize=320:*\"> </picture> </p> </div> <p class=\"image-credit\"> <span class=\"image-photo-credit\">.</span> </p> </div>\n<h3 class=\"body-h3\"><em>For more bombshell political stories, breaking news, and daily commentary sign up for the Esquire Newsletter. </em></h3><h3 class=\"body-h3\"><a href=\"https://preferences.hearstmags.com/brands/ESQ/subscribe2.aspx?authId=579C4F1D-8F2C-4898-9F2E-044CF1071AA9&amp;maj=WNL&amp;min=UNDEF\" class=\"body-btn-link\">SUBSCRIBE</a></h3><p class=\"body-text\">Nunes has always been reliably conservative, but on some issues, he has broken with his party. He has long supported moderate immigration reform, for instance, including amnesty for many undocumented people living and working in the U.&#x2009;S. But as Trump has instituted a draconian policy of zero tolerance for all undocumented people and argued that every undocumented individual should be deported, Nunes has been silent. More recently, as Trump and the House Republicans have celebrated Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the agency&#x2019;s aggressive tactics, Nunes has followed suit. On CaRepublican.com&#x2014;a Nunes-created news site, which mimics the Drudge Report&#x2014;he now regularly highlights articles attacking Democrats for being insufficiently supportive of ICE&#x2019;s raids and deportations. </p><div class=\"embed embed-image embed-image-right embed-image-large\"> <div class=\"embed-inner crop-original\"> <p class=\"embed-image-wrap\"> <picture class=\"zoomable lazyload lazyimage\"> <source> <source> <img alt=\"image\" class=\"lazyimage lazyload\" src=\"https://hips.hearstapps.com/hmg-prod.s3.amazonaws.com/images/gettyimages-653548746-1538079341.jpg?crop=1xw:1xh;center,top&amp;resize=480:*\"> </picture> </p> </div> </div>\n<p class=\"body-text\">Which brings us back to Nunes&#x2019;s secret.</p><p class=\"body-text\">Nunes grew up in a family of dairy farmers in Tulare, California, and as long as he has been in politics, his family dairy has been central to his identity and a feature of every major political profile written about him. A March story in <em>National Review</em> is emblematic. It describes how Nunes&#x2019;s family emigrated from the Azores in Portugal to California&#x2019;s Central Valley, &#x201C;a fertile, sunny Eden,&#x201D; and how the family &#x201C;worked and saved enough money to buy a 640-acre farm outside Tulare.&#x201D; The soil of the Central Valley is depicted as almost sacred in these articles. <em>National Review </em>quotes a 1912 Portuguese immigrant farmer who wrote that when he grabs a clump of dirt, &#x201C;I feel as if I had just shaken hands with all my ancestors.&#x201D; As recently as July 27, the lead of a <em>Wall Street Journal</em> editorial-page piece about Nunes, which featured a Tulare dateline, emphasized the dairy: &#x201C;It&#x2019;s 105 degrees as I stand with Rep. Devin Nunes on his family&#x2019;s dairy farm.&#x201D; Last year, Nunes noted in an interview with the <em>Daily Beast</em>&#x2014;headline: &#x201C;The Dairy Farmer Overseeing U.&#x2009;S. Spies and the Russia Hack Investigation&#x201D;&#x2014;&#x201C;I&#x2019;m pretty simple. I like agriculture.&#x201D; The Daily Beast noted, &#x201C;The cows are not far from his mind. He keeps in regular contact with his brother and father about their dairy farm.&#x201D;</p><div class=\"embed embed-pullquote embed-pullquote-align-center\"> <div class=\"embed-inner\"> <blockquote class=\"pullquote\"> <span class=\"icon icon-quote\"></span> <p>What is strange is that the family has apparently tried to conceal the move from the public&#x2014;for more than a decade.</p>\n</blockquote> </div>\n</div>\n<p class=\"body-text\">So here&#x2019;s the secret: The Nunes family dairy of political lore&#x2014;the one where his brother and parents work&#x2014;isn&#x2019;t in California. It&#x2019;s in Iowa. Devin; his brother, Anthony III; and his parents, Anthony Jr. and Toni Dian, sold their California farmland in 2006. Anthony Jr. and Toni Dian, who has also been the treasurer of every one of Devin&#x2019;s campaigns since 2001, used their cash from the sale to buy a dairy eighteen hundred miles away in Sibley, a small town in northwest Iowa where they&#x2014;as well as Anthony III, Devin&#x2019;s only sibling, and his wife, Lori&#x2014;have lived since 2007. Devin&#x2019;s uncle Gerald still owns a dairy back in Tulare, which is presumably where <em>The</em> <em>Wall Street Journal</em>&#x2019;s reporter talked to Devin, and Devin is an investor in a Napa Valley winery, Alpha Omega, but his immediate family&#x2019;s farm&#x2014;as well as his family&#x2014;is long gone.<br></p><p class=\"body-text\">There&#x2019;s nothing particularly strange about a congressman&#x2019;s family moving. But what is strange is that the family has apparently tried to conceal the move from the public&#x2014;for more than a decade. As far as I could tell, until late August, neither Nunes nor the local California press that covers him had ever publicly mentioned that his family dairy is no longer in Tulare. <br></p><div class=\"breaker-ad article-breaker-ad longform-article-breaker-ad\"> <p class=\"breaker-ad-text\">Advertisement - Continue Reading Below</p> </div>\n<div class=\"embed embed-image embed-image-left embed-image-large\"> <div class=\"embed-inner crop-original\"> <p class=\"embed-image-wrap\"> <picture class=\"zoomable lazyload lazyimage\"> <source> <source> <img alt=\"image\" class=\"lazyimage lazyload\" src=\"https://hips.hearstapps.com/hmg-prod.s3.amazonaws.com/images/gettyimages-108136713-1538084619.jpg?crop=1xw:1xh;center,top&amp;resize=480:*\"> </picture> </p> </div> </div>\n<p class=\"body-text\">For example, in 2010 Nunes traveled to northwest Iowa to campaign for Steve King, the most anti-immigrant member of Congress, who now represents Nunes&#x2019;s parents, brother, and sister-in-law in Sibley. It was an unusual place to find Devin Nunes, given that at the time he wasn&#x2019;t known to be hostile to immigrants in the way that has made King, who has called illegal immigration a &#x201C;slow-motion terrorist attack,&#x201D; so infamous.</p><p class=\"body-text\">King&#x2019;s office posted a press release online announcing that the town-hall event would be in Le Mars, a town fifty miles southwest of Sibley, and included some biographical information about Nunes, including this fact: &#x201C;Congressman Nunes&#x2019; family has operated a dairy farm in Tulare County, California for three generations.&#x201D; There was no mention that the Nunes family actually lived up the road in Sibley, where they operated a dairy. Strange.</p><p class=\"body-text\">In June 2009, an obscure dairy trade publication, <em>Dairy Star,</em> ran a profile of the Nunes family dairy in Sibley. The article documents how the Nunes family, &#x201C;recent transplants to the Midwest,&#x201D; emigrated from Portugal to California to Iowa and started NuStar Farms, which Anthony Jr. manages with his son and wife. </p><p class=\"body-text\">The article mentions numerous Nunes family members, including Uncle Gerald, who was still back in California, and baby Maci, &#x201C;the first Nunes to be born outside of California or Portugal,&#x201D; but there is one person missing from the article: Devin Nunes.</p><p class=\"body-text\">Why would the Nuneses, Steve King, and an obscure dairy publication all conspire to hide the fact that the congressman&#x2019;s family sold its farm and moved to Iowa? I went to Sibley to find out. Things got a little strange.</p><p class=\"body-dropcap\">The first thing I did when I landed in Iowa, on August 27, was call Jerry Nelson, the author of the <em>Dairy Star </em>article. I&#x2019;d read through Nelson&#x2019;s other online articles. He&#x2019;s funny and smart and could easily be a columnist at a major newspaper. When he was thirty, he almost died in a bizarre manure-pit accident, and he told me that since then he&#x2019;s lived every day like it&#x2019;s a blessing.</p><p class=\"body-text\">He was upfront and clear about why Representative Nunes wasn&#x2019;t included in the <em>Dairy Star</em> profile of the Nunes family and the move to Iowa: The family asked him not to mention Devin. &#x201C;They said, &#x2018;Our brother&#x2019;s involved in politics and we&#x2019;re not going to talk about it and that&#x2019;s that,&#x2019;&#x2009;&#x201D; Nelson told me. &#x201C;And I said, &#x2018;Okay, we&#x2019;re here to talk about dairy farms.&#x2019;&#x2009;&#x201D;</p><p class=\"body-text\">Sibley, Iowa, is in the far north of the state, twenty minutes from the Minnesota border. It has twenty-six hundred people and feels smaller. The biggest attractions in town are a well-groomed golf course and a high-end coffee shop, the Lantern, which was named the best in Iowa by the Food Network. I stopped in at the Lantern, a big exposed-brick space with fancy espresso equipment, to meet with Joshua Harms, a web developer and local troublemaker who became a First Amendment cause c&#xE9;l&#xE8;bre this year after the town threatened to sue him if he didn&#x2019;t take down his website, shouldyoumovetosibleyia.com, which documented a foul smell emanating from one of Sibley&#x2019;s major businesses, a pig-blood processing plant. The ACLU championed Harms&#x2019;s case and sued Sibley. The town quickly folded, wrote Harms an apology, and agreed to train its staff and lawyers in First Amendment law. The case made international headlines and embarrassed Sibley.</p><div class=\"embed embed-image embed-image-center embed-image-medium\"> <div class=\"embed-inner crop-original\"> <p class=\"embed-image-wrap\"> <picture class=\"zoomable lazyload lazyimage\"> <source> <source> <source> <img alt=\"image\" class=\"lazyimage lazyload\" src=\"https://hips.hearstapps.com/hmg-prod.s3.amazonaws.com/images/esq110118lizza-pdf-to-bb-4-02-1538085270.jpg?crop=1xw:1xh;center,top&amp;resize=480:*\"> </picture> </p> </div> <p class=\"image-credit\"> <span class=\"image-photo-credit\">.</span> </p> </div>\n<p class=\"body-text\">Harms is a Bernie Sanders supporter, which makes him an outlier in the town. Sibley is the seat of Osceola County, which voted 79 percent to 17 percent for Trump over Clinton, making it one of the most pro-Trump bastions in America. Steve King won the county in 2016 with a similar margin. The locals &#x201C;tend to be very conservative, and of course they all are Trump backers,&#x201D; said Nelson. Art Cullen, a Pulitzer prize&#x2013;winning journalist at the nearby <em>Storm Lake Times,</em> told me that much of the population is &#x201C;Dutch Reformed and very religious.&#x201D; So I was only a little surprised when the owner of the coffee shop, Brenda Hoyer, asked, &#x201C;Are you a believer?&#x201D; as she came over to take my order. I muttered something about growing up Catholic and ordered an iced tea.</p><div class=\"breaker-ad article-breaker-ad longform-article-breaker-ad\"> <p class=\"breaker-ad-text\">Advertisement - Continue Reading Below</p> </div>\n<p class=\"body-text\">Hoyer&#x2019;s extended family, including grandkids, were milling around the shop. The place had a welcoming family vibe and more diversity than you might expect. I noticed several Hispanic women eating pastries and speaking Spanish at a nearby table. Sibley is actually 8 percent Hispanic, and that growing population largely provides the labor for the area&#x2019;s meatpacking, poultry, and dairy industries. Immigrants are essential to Iowa, which has an estimated forty thousand undocumented residents, mostly Hispanics, according to a 2014 report from the Pew Research Center. I was visiting the state just days after police found the body of Mollie Tibbetts, who was allegedly killed by an undocumented worker from a dairy farm, and everyone was talking about immigration. In a speech, Trump had used Tibbetts&#x2019;s murder as a cudgel to bash &#x201C;Democrat immigration policies&#x201D; that he said were &#x201C;spilling very innocent blood.&#x201D;</p><p class=\"body-text\">Hoyer and I talked about Trump. She admitted she wasn&#x2019;t crazy about the tweets and his messy personal life. She liked Mike Pence and noted &#x201C;it would be a good deal&#x201D; if Trump were impeached and replaced by Pence. When I told her I was working on a story about dairy farms, her ears perked up. She and her husband, Gene, were dairy farmers and had recently sold their business. &#x201C;You should talk to Gene,&#x201D; she said. When I mentioned Trump&#x2019;s immigration policy, she was quick to add, &#x201C;Well, we don&#x2019;t agree with him on that!&#x201D;</p><p class=\"body-text\">Then she told me something that knocked the wind out of me: &#x201C;My son recently took his life.&#x201D; It came out of nowhere, and I barely knew how to respond. His name was Bailey. He was seventeen and he had died thirteen days ago. This was the first day the coffee shop had been open since his death. I noticed a Bible verse in chalk behind the counter: &#x201C;Do not fear for I have redeemed you. I have summoned you by name. You are mine.&#x201D; The Lantern, I later learned, was actually a ministry that, according to its website, provides &#x201C;a safe place where everyone is welcome.&#x201D; I liked it there and decided to make it my office while I was in Sibley. </p><p class=\"body-text\">Jerry Johnson, Sibley&#x2019;s mayor, walked in. He was wearing golf attire, and whatever ill will existed between him and Harms over what Harms called &#x201C;the blood plant&#x201D; seemed to have faded. Perhaps because of the town&#x2019;s troubles with First Amendment law, Johnson was especially gracious to me. I explained why I was in Sibley, and he immediately suggested that I stop by Anthony Nunes Jr.&#x2019;s house to interview him. When the subject turned to Trump&#x2019;s zero-<br>tolerance policy on immigration, the mayor replied with what was already becoming a familiar refrain: &#x201C;I don&#x2019;t agree with him on that!&#x201D;</p><div class=\"embed embed-image embed-image-center embed-image-medium\"> <div class=\"embed-inner crop-16x9\"> <p class=\"embed-image-wrap\"> <picture class=\"zoomable lazyload lazyimage\"> <source> <source> <source> <img alt=\"image\" class=\"lazyimage lazyload\" src=\"https://hips.hearstapps.com/hmg-prod.s3.amazonaws.com/images/gettyimages-657311996-1538088905.jpg?crop=1.00xw:0.847xh;0,0.0777xh&amp;resize=480:*\"> </picture> </p> </div> <p class=\"image-credit\"> <span class=\"image-copyright\">Getty Images</span> </p> </div>\n<p class=\"body-dropcap\">The Nunes family dairy, NuStar Farms LLC, sits on forty-three acres surrounded by corn on the southern outskirts of Sibley, off Highway 60, a main route between Sioux City and Minneapolis. According to <em>Dairy Star, </em>they have about two thousand Jersey cows. A source told me that NuStar sells almost all of its milk to Wells, an ice cream company in Le Mars, which makes the Blue Bunny brand. The NuStar cows are housed in two seven-hundred-foot, white aluminum barns that are the most prominent feature of the farm. The western sides of the barns are outfitted with dozens of steel ventilation fans that look like rocket engines from a distance, almost as if a pair of space-shuttle boosters had dropped in the middle of a cornfield. I visited during silage season, when dairymen are out cutting corn to make winter feed for their cows. It had just rained, and the smell of fresh silage, like an intense version of freshly cut grass, filled my car as it rumbled down a dirt road to Nu&#xAD;Star. As I approached the dairy, a white Yukon SUV exited from NuStar&#x2019;s muddy parking lot and passed me. I saw Anthony Nunes Jr. in the cab of a tanker truck. Instead of bothering him at work, I decided to take the mayor&#x2019;s advice and visit him at home the next day.</p><div class=\"breaker-ad article-breaker-ad longform-article-breaker-ad\"> <p class=\"breaker-ad-text\">Advertisement - Continue Reading Below</p> </div>\n<p class=\"body-text\">It didn&#x2019;t go well. </p><p class=\"body-text\">I found the Nunes home on the far north edge of town, where the leafy neighborhood bumps up against the surrounding farmland. In the driveway was another white Yukon&#x2014;the fancier Denali version. Anthony Jr. was pulling out of the driveway in a farm truck. I waved at him, and he abruptly stopped the truck in the street and walked over to my car. He was wearing jeans and a work shirt. I told him my name and asked him if I could talk to him for an article about his dairy. &#x201C;I&#x2019;m taking your license plate down and reporting you to the sheriff,&#x201D; he said. &#x201C;I don&#x2019;t want to be bothered.&#x201D; I asked him again if I could interview him and he repeated himself, but this time a lot louder. &#x201C;I don&#x2019;t want to be bothered anymore.&#x201D; As he walked to his truck, he looked back and warned me: &#x201C;If I see you again, I&#x2019;m gonna get upset.&#x201D; Apparently Sibley&#x2019;s First Amendment training hadn&#x2019;t filtered down to all its residents.</p><p class=\"body-dropcap\">Other dairy farmers in the area helped me understand why the Nunes family might be so secretive about the farm: Midwestern dairies tend to run on undocumented labor. The northwest-Iowa dairy community is small. Most of the farmers know one another, and most belong to a regional trade group called the Western Iowa Dairy Alliance (though WIDA told me NuStar is not a member). One dairy farmer said that the threat of raids from ICE is so acute that WIDA members have discussed forming a NATO-like pact that would treat a raid on one dairy as a raid on all of them. The other pact members would provide labor to the raided dairy until it got back on its feet.</p><div class=\"embed embed-image embed-image-right embed-image-large\"> <div class=\"embed-inner crop-original\"> <p class=\"embed-image-wrap\"> <picture class=\"zoomable lazyload lazyimage\"> <source> <source> <img alt=\"image\" class=\"lazyimage lazyload\" src=\"https://hips.hearstapps.com/hmg-prod.s3.amazonaws.com/images/screen-shot-2018-09-27-at-7-10-08-pm-1538089822.png?crop=1xw:1xh;center,top&amp;resize=480:*\"> </picture> </p> </div> <p class=\"image-credit\"> <span class=\"image-copyright\">Getty Images</span> </p> </div>\n<p class=\"body-text\">In every conversation I had with dairy farmers and industry insiders in northwest Iowa, it was taken as a fact that the local dairies are wholly dependent on undocumented labor. The low unemployment rate (it&#x2019;s 2 percent in Osceola County), the low profit margins in the dairy business, and the global glut of milk that keeps prices low make hiring outside of the readily available pool of immigrants from Mexico and Guatemala unthinkable.</p><p class=\"body-text\">&#x201C;Eighty percent of the Latino population out here in northwest Iowa is undocumented,&#x201D; estimated one dairy farmer in the area who knows the Nunes family and often sees them while buying hay in nearby Rock Valley. &#x201C;It would be great if we had enough unemployed Americans in northwest Iowa to milk the cows. But there&#x2019;s just not. We have a very tight labor pool around here.&#x201D; This person said the system was broken, leaving dairy farmers no choice. &#x201C;I would love it if all my guys could be legal.&#x201D;</p><p class=\"body-text\">The farmer explained that all the dairies require their workers to provide evidence of their legal status and pay the required state and federal taxes. But it&#x2019;s an open secret that the system is built on easily obtained fraudulent documents. &#x201C;I just look at the document&#x2014;Hey, this looks like a good driver&#x2019;s license, permanent resident card, whatever the case is&#x2014;and that&#x2019;s what you go with,&#x201D; the farmer said. A second northwest-Iowa dairy farmer who knows the Nunes family told me, &#x201C;They show you a Social Security card, we take out Social Security taxes. Where&#x2019;d they get the card? I have no idea.&#x201D; I asked what the chances are that a farm the size of NuStar uses only fully legal dairy workers. &#x201C;It&#x2019;s next to impossible,&#x201D; the first dairy farmer said. &#x201C;There&#x2019;s no dang way.&#x201D; This was speculation, but here is the logic that informed it: Most workers start at fourteen or fifteen dollars an hour, the first farmer said. If dairies had to use legal labor, they would likely have to raise that to eighteen or twenty dollars, and many dairies wouldn&#x2019;t survive. &#x201C;People are going to go broke,&#x201D; the farmer said. The story was similar in the poultry, meatpacking, and other agricultural industries in the area.</p><p class=\"body-text\">What this person was describing was hard to wrap my head around. In the heart of Steve King&#x2019;s district, a place that is more pro-Trump than almost any other patch of America, the economy is powered by workers that King and Trump have threatened to arrest and deport. I checked Anthony Nunes Jr.&#x2019;s campaign-&#xAD;donor history. The only federal candidate he has ever donated to, besides his son, is Steve King ($250 in 2012). He also gives to the local Republican party of Osceola County, which, records show, transfers money into King&#x2019;s congressional campaigns.</p><div class=\"embed embed-pullquote embed-pullquote-align-left\"> <div class=\"embed-inner\"> <blockquote class=\"pullquote\"> <span class=\"icon icon-quote\"></span> <p>&#x201C;I&#x2019;ve talked to Steve King face-to-face, and that guy doesn&#x2019;t care one iota about us. He does not care.&quot;</p>\n</blockquote> </div>\n</div>\n<p class=\"body-text\">The absurdity of this situation&#x2014;funding and voting for politicians whose core promise is to implement immigration policies that would destroy their livelihoods&#x2014;has led some of the Republican-&#xAD;supporting dairymen to rethink their political priorities. &#x201C;Everyone&#x2019;s got this feeling that in agriculture, we, the employers, are going to be criminalized,&#x201D; the first area dairy farmer I had spoken to said. &#x201C;I&#x2019;ve talked to Steve King face-to-face, and that guy doesn&#x2019;t care one iota about us. He does not care. He believes that if you have one undocumented worker on your place, you should probably go to prison and we need to get as many undocumented people out of here as possible.&#x201D; (A spokesman for King did not respond to multiple interview requests.) The second dairy farmer, speaking of Trump&#x2019;s and King&#x2019;s views on undocumented immigrants, added, &#x201C;They want to send &#x2019;em all back to Mexico and have them start over. What a crock of malarkey. Who&#x2019;s gonna milk the cows?&#x201D;</p><div class=\"breaker-ad article-breaker-ad longform-article-breaker-ad\"> <p class=\"breaker-ad-text\">Advertisement - Continue Reading Below</p> </div>\n<p class=\"body-dropcap\">After my encounter with Anthony Jr., I met Jerry Nelson, the <em>Dairy Star</em> reporter, down at the Lantern. He wasn&#x2019;t surprised by the hostil&#xAD;ity. Think about the story from the family&#x2019;s perspective, he told me: &#x201C;They are immigrants and Devin is a very strong supporter of Mr. Trump, and Mr. Trump wants to shut down all of the immigration, and here is his family benefiting from immigrant labor,&#x201D; documented or not. </p><p class=\"body-text\">Brenda Hoyer came by and said hello. I told her that I hoped it was okay to use her coffee shop for interviews. &#x201C;Sure,&#x201D; she said, &#x201C;if you&#x2019;re kind and truthful and honest.&#x201D; </p><p class=\"body-text\">I asked Nelson what would happen, hypothetically, if ICE raided every dairy farm in the area tomorrow. &#x201C;It would be a disaster for the dairies,&#x201D; he said. &#x201C;They would suddenly have nobody to milk or feed the cows. I don&#x2019;t know what they would do.&#x201D; The bell on the Lantern&#x2019;s front door rang, and Hoyer huddled in the corner with a chubby man with dark, curly hair. After a few minutes, she came back over.</p><div class=\"embed embed-image embed-image-center embed-image-medium\"> <div class=\"embed-inner crop-16x9\"> <p class=\"embed-image-wrap\"> <picture class=\"zoomable lazyload lazyimage\"> <source> <source> <source> <img alt=\"image\" class=\"lazyimage lazyload\" src=\"https://hips.hearstapps.com/hmg-prod.s3.amazonaws.com/images/gettyimages-635148734-1538091861.jpg?crop=1.00xw:0.847xh;0,0.101xh&amp;resize=480:*\"> </picture> </p> </div> <p class=\"image-credit\"> <span class=\"image-copyright\">Getty Images</span> </p> </div>\n<p class=\"body-text\">&#x201C;You have a phone call,&#x201D; she told Nelson.</p><p class=\"body-text\">&#x201C;A phone call?&#x201D; he asked. It made no sense. Anybody who knew where he was would call his cell. She asked him to come with her. A few minutes later, he returned in a panic and gathered his belongings. &#x201C;We gotta go!&#x201D; he told me.</p><p class=\"body-text\">On the way out I talked to Hoyer. Her demeanor had changed. I asked if I could still talk to Gene, her husband. She said it was no longer possible. I had to leave the coffee shop, she told me. &#x201C;This article,&#x201D; she said, &#x201C;is going to destroy families.&#x201D; As I walked out, I noticed the mysterious chubby man eyeing me. </p><p class=\"body-text\">Nelson was freaked out. There was no phone call, of course. The mysterious chubby man had asked Hoyer to have us ejected. According to Nelson, she had told him that an article about dairies and immigration would &#x201C;destroy our lives out here.&#x201D; It was an incredibly sensitive subject. &#x201C;It&#x2019;s kind of a third rail among dairy farmers,&#x201D; Nelson said. &#x201C;Whenever I go to a dairy farm, I never ask about the immigrant-labor thing unless they bring it up themselves.&#x201D;</p><p class=\"body-text\">Later Nelson left me a voice mail in which he tried to explain the reaction. &#x201C;Dairy farmers are very deeply patriotic and American, and yet here they are hiring these people who are not American,&#x201D; he said. &#x201C;And maybe they feel a little shame over that or feel like they are exploiting [people] and they don&#x2019;t want that to come to light.&#x201D;</p><p class=\"body-dropcap\">Mayor Johnson was concerned about the run-in with Anthony Jr. He had suggested that I knock on the man&#x2019;s door, and now he felt like the awkward encounter was his fault. He said he&#x2019;d once had his own strange experience. A few years ago, the mayor reported one of Anthony Jr.&#x2019;s workers, who was Hispanic, to the sheriff&#x2019;s office because Johnson believed the worker&#x2019;s yard was so messy it constituted a violation of the city property code. According to Johnson, Anthony Jr. called the sheriff on the worker&#x2019;s behalf and insisted that the only reason anyone had complained was that they were prejudiced. (Several people I talked to in Sibley assumed Anthony Jr. himself is Mexican, not Portuguese, and he has no doubt experienced discrimination himself.)</p><p class=\"body-text\">The mayor, though, was impressively enlightened when it came to Sibley&#x2019;s immigrant population. Perhaps because of the Nunes debacle, he invited me to his office to talk to him and the city administrator, Glenn Anderson. &#x201C;I told him to go see Nunes, and that didn&#x2019;t go very good,&#x201D; he told Anderson as we sat down.</p><div class=\"breaker-ad article-breaker-ad longform-article-breaker-ad\"> <p class=\"breaker-ad-text\">Advertisement - Continue Reading Below</p> </div>\n<p class=\"body-text\">Anderson voted for Trump, but he exploded every Trump myth about immigration. The rise in Sibley&#x2019;s Hispanic population hasn&#x2019;t been accompanied by a rise in crime. Most of the crime in Sibley is connected to drug-related traffic stops on Highway 60, he said. Kevin Wollmuth, a deputy in the county sheriff&#x2019;s office, told me that the rise in immigration &#x201C;doesn&#x2019;t have any bearing on our crime rate at all.&#x201D; Worried that the community is underrepresented in city government, Anderson has tried to get the Hispanic population to run for city council, though without much success yet. He had no interest in knowing what anyone&#x2019;s immigration status was. &#x201C;If I see something, I&#x2019;m not going to report it to ICE,&#x201D; he said. &#x201C;It&#x2019;s not my job.&#x201D; He added, &#x201C;That&#x2019;s not to say that everybody in town that lives here is legal. We don&#x2019;t go knocking door-to-door to say, &#x2018;Are you, are you not?&#x2019;&#x2009;&#x201D; He had much the same view of the local immigrant population as Rob Tibbetts, Mollie&#x2019;s father, who two days before had said at a memorial service for his daughter, &#x201C;The Hispanic community are Iowans. They have the same values as Iowans. As far as I&#x2019;m concerned, they&#x2019;re Iowans with better food.&#x201D;</p><p class=\"body-text\">Sibley is emblematic of a lot of small towns in Iowa that are dependent on an agricultural economy: They know they cannot survive without immigrants, and they have worked hard to integrate the foreign-born population, despite the legal limbo faced by employers and employees alike. When I asked what would happen if ICE turned its attention to Sibley, the mayor shuddered. Anderson noted that he has never seen an ICE agent in the four years he&#x2019;s been at his job. He didn&#x2019;t seem eager to get to know any. &#x201C;If they come in town, then we have to talk about it, find out what&#x2019;s going on, why, whether to participate, and make sure our town&#x2019;s not disrupted,&#x201D; he said. I asked him what he thought of King&#x2019;s view that all undocumented immigrants should be deported. He paused and said, diplomatically, &#x201C;He has a right to his opinion.&#x201D;</p><div class=\"embed embed-image embed-image-right embed-image-large\"> <div class=\"embed-inner crop-8x10\"> <p class=\"embed-image-wrap\"> <picture class=\"zoomable lazyload lazyimage\"> <source> <source> <img alt=\"image\" class=\"lazyimage lazyload\" src=\"https://hips.hearstapps.com/hmg-prod.s3.amazonaws.com/images/gettyimages-77949876-1538093750.jpg?crop=0.535xw:1.00xh;0.235xw,0&amp;resize=480:*\"> </picture> </p> </div> <p class=\"image-credit\"> <span class=\"image-copyright\">Getty Images</span> </p> </div>\n<p class=\"body-text\">When I walked in the front door of the mayor&#x2019;s office, I had noticed a mud-spattered white Yukon parked outside. As I was driving to my next interview, I looked in the rearview mirror and noticed the white Yukon again. I drove aimlessly, crisscrossing streets from one end of town to the other. Everywhere I turned, the white Yukon appeared. I was being followed. When I turned the tables and followed the car back, it raced off. We played cat and mouse like that for more than an hour until I finally got a good glimpse of the driver: It was a middle-aged woman with curly, red hair who had a cell phone stuck to her left ear. The cat-and-mouse game started to feel a little dangerous, so I left town for a couple hours. On my way back into Sibley, the same car passed me on the highway. This time, the chubby man from the Lantern was driving. He smiled and waved.</p><p class=\"body-text\">Or maybe I&#x2019;d made a mistake. White SUVs are common. Could I really be sure that was the same guy and the same Yukon? A woman was driving the car earlier; now it was a man. It didn&#x2019;t make sense. Maybe I was just being paranoid.</p><p class=\"body-text\">I had a particularly sensitive interview that afternoon with a source who I knew would be taking a risk by talking to me about immigration and labor at NuStar. When I arrived, we talked for a few minutes before the source&#x2019;s cell phone suddenly rang. The conversation seemed strained. &#x201C;<em>S&#xED;, aqu&#xED; est&#xE1;,</em>&#x201D; the source said. I learned that on the other end of the phone was a man named Flavio, who worked at NuStar. Somehow Flavio knew exactly where I was and whom I was talking to. He warned my source to end the conversation. Not only was I being followed, but I was also being watched, and my sources were being contacted by NuStar. </p><p class=\"body-text\">I left and drove to the local grocery store, where I parked in the open, hoping to draw out whoever was tailing me. I suddenly noticed a man in jeans, a work shirt, and a baseball cap pulled down low. He was talking on his cell phone and walking suspiciously. Was he watching me? I held up a camera to take pictures and he darted away. I followed. His car was parked haphazardly on the side of the road half a block away. He got in and took off while I followed. It was a dark Chevrolet Colorado pickup truck&#x2014;with California license plates. I ran the license-plate number through a database. The car was registered in Tulare, California.</p><div class=\"breaker-ad article-breaker-ad longform-article-breaker-ad\"> <p class=\"breaker-ad-text\">Advertisement - Continue Reading Below</p> </div>\n<p class=\"body-text\">On December 13, 2011, ICE agents raided the home, business, and farms belonging to Mike Millenkamp, a dairy farmer in eastern Iowa. It was the beginning of a seven-year ordeal that would upend Millenkamp&#x2019;s life. At the time of the raid, he had just four employees. Three of them were undocumented. ICE hauled away his business records, arrested his employees, and launched an aggressive investigation. After sifting through his files, the government said that about three quarters of the thirty-eight workers he had employed over a four-year period were undocumented. Millenkamp pleaded guilty to &#x201C;illegal alien harboring&#x201D; and agreed to pay $250,000 in fines and penalties. Despite a relatively clean record, he was sentenced to three months in federal prison and three years of supervised probation, which just ended this past summer.</p><p class=\"body-text\">Prosecutors used Millenkamp to send a warning to other Iowa dairy farmers. As part of his plea deal, they forced him to submit an op-ed to major Iowa newspapers describing his experience. His article, which was preapproved by the local U.&#x2009;S. attorney&#x2019;s office, appeared in <em>The Des Moines Register</em> on June 29, 2016. &#x201C;If you employ someone you know is not legal, you are committing a federal crime,&#x201D; he wrote.</p><p class=\"body-text\">The Millenkamp prosecution seemed unjust&#x2014;capricious. And it helped explain the reaction I received in Sibley. &#x201C;That&#x2019;s why they are so concerned,&#x201D; Nelson told me when I mentioned that I was being followed and that my sources were being harassed. &#x201C;They think you are going to mess with their lifestyle or take it away, interfere with it.&#x201D;</p><div class=\"embed embed-image embed-image-center embed-image-medium\"> <div class=\"embed-inner crop-1x1\"> <p class=\"embed-image-wrap\"> <picture class=\"zoomable lazyload lazyimage\"> <source> <source> <source> <img alt=\"image\" class=\"lazyimage lazyload\" src=\"https://hips.hearstapps.com/hmg-prod.s3.amazonaws.com/images/gettyimages-997228424-1538094368.jpg?crop=0.637xw:0.956xh;0.363xw,0.0440xh&amp;resize=480:*\"> </picture> </p> </div> <p class=\"image-credit\"> <span class=\"image-copyright\">Getty Images</span> </p> </div>\n<p class=\"body-text\">He and I discussed the ethics of reporting on immigration and politics. What if an article triggered an ICE raid? Was there even a story here, anyway? Devin Nunes was the public figure at the heart of this, and he had no financial interest in his parents&#x2019; Iowa dairy operation. On the other hand, he and his parents seemed to have concealed basic facts about the family&#x2019;s move to Iowa. It was suspicious. And his mom, who co-owns the Sibley dairy, is also the treasurer of his campaign. In 2007, Devin and his wife, Elizabeth, used the NuStar dairy&#x2019;s Iowa post-office-box address on a filing with the SEC regarding a financial holding company the family co-owns, even though Devin and Elizabeth live in California.</p><p class=\"body-text\">And even without the connection to Devin, who is one of Trump&#x2019;s most important allies, there was a bigger story. The American dairy industry is at the center of an international trade war. Trump frequently attacks Canada for protecting its dairy farmers. &#x201C;We love Canada,&#x201D; Trump said on September 18. &#x201C;They cannot continue to charge us 300 percent for dairy products.&#x201D; At a hearing on the issue in March, Nunes attacked Canada for &#x201C;getting away with murder in their dairy industry.&#x201D; Canadian officials have responded by noting that the American dairy industry is artificially protected by both federal subsidies&#x2014;NuStar, according to figures based on USDA numbers, has received $140,938 since it started&#x2014;and its reliance on low-wage, undocumented labor. &#x201C;The industry itself in the United States has admitted they wouldn&#x2019;t be viable if they couldn&#x2019;t use undocumented workers,&#x201D; a former Canadian trade minister, Ed Fast, recently complained to the country&#x2019;s <em>Financial Post.</em> The same could be said for much of the broader American agricultural industry&#x2014;from poultry to meatpacking to grape-picking to cotton&#x2014;which represents 6 percent of the U.&#x2009;S. economy.</p><div class=\"breaker-ad article-breaker-ad longform-article-breaker-ad\"> <p class=\"breaker-ad-text\">Advertisement - Continue Reading Below</p> </div>\n<p class=\"body-text\">There is massive political hypocrisy at the center of this: Trump&#x2019;s and King&#x2019;s rural-farm supporters embrace anti-immigrant politicians while employing undocumented immigrants. The greatest threat to Iowa dairy farmers, of course, is not the press. It&#x2019;s Donald Trump.</p><p class=\"body-text\">But that&#x2019;s not how the Nunes family apparently saw it. On my third day in Sibley, I became used to the cars tailing me. In the morning, I was followed by the redhead in the muddy white Yukon. In the afternoon, there was a shift change and I was followed by a different, later-model white Yukon. I stuck a GoPro on my dashboard and left it running whenever I parked my car. When I reviewed the videos, one of the two Yukons could always be seen slowly circling as I ate lunch or interviewed someone.</p><p class=\"body-text\">There was no doubt about why I was being followed. According to two sources with firsthand knowledge, NuStar did indeed rely, at least in part, on undocumented labor. One source, who was deeply connected in the local Hispanic community, had personally sent undocumented workers to Anthony Nunes Jr.&#x2019;s farm for jobs. &#x201C;I&#x2019;ve been there and bring illegal people,&#x201D; the source said, asserting that the farm was aware of their status. &#x201C;People come here and ask for work, so I send them over there.&#x201D; When I asked how many people working at dairies in the area are documented citizens, the source laughed. &#x201C;To be honest? None. One percent, maybe.&#x201D;<br></p><p class=\"body-text\">The source added, &#x201C;Who is going to go work in the dairy? Who? Tell me who? If people have papers, they are going to go to a good company where you can get benefits, you can get Social Security, you can get all the stuff. Who is going to go [work in the dairy] to make fourteen dollars an hour doing that thing without vacation time, without 401(k), without everything?&#x201D;</p><div class=\"embed embed-pullquote embed-pullquote-align-left\"> <div class=\"embed-inner\"> <blockquote class=\"pullquote\"> <span class=\"icon icon-quote\"></span> <p>&#x201C;In the heart of Steve King&#x2019;s district, a place that is more pro-Trump than almost any other patch of America, the economy is powered by workers that King and Trump have threatened to arrest and deport.&#x201D;</p>\n</blockquote> </div>\n</div>\n<p class=\"body-text\">A second source, who claimed to be an undocumented immigrant, also claimed to have worked at NuStar for several years, only recently leaving the dairy, which this source estimated employed about fifteen people. (As a rule of thumb, dairies need one employee for every eighty to one hundred cows, so fifteen workers would be a lean operation given the dairy&#x2019;s two-thousand-head herd.) The former NuStar employee, who is middle-aged, claimed to have arrived in the United States from Guatemala in 2011. This source was nervous to talk to me and did not want to speculate about the immigration status of fellow employees. &#x201C;I worked for Anthony for four years,&#x201D; the source said, speaking in Spanish through a translator. &#x201C;First milking cows and after that feeding the baby calves.&#x201D; It was &#x201C;very hard work,&#x201D; but the employee and others were &#x201C;treated well.&#x201D;</p><p class=\"body-text\">A third source, who claimed to work at a nearby dairy, not NuStar, explained what the local dairy jobs are like. This source claimed to be eighteen years old and to have come from Guatemala two years ago, after paying smugglers $10,000, raised by extended family, to provide transit through Mexico and across the U.&#x2009;S. border. The source said the pay at the dairy was fourteen dollars an hour for milking cows twelve hours a day, six days a week, which, after taxes&#x2014;the source had provided the dairy with a fake Social Security number&#x2014;worked out to about $1,600 every two weeks. When I asked how many dairy workers in the area are undocumented, the source replied, &#x201C;<em>Todos</em>&#x201D;&#x2014;everybody.</p><p class=\"body-text\">When I left the interview with the third source, I got in my car and reviewed the GoPro footage. The car had been circled by the newer white Yukon the entire time I was gone. I decided I needed to get out of Sibley for a while and get some advice about how to tell this story ethically. So I drove to Worthington, Minnesota, to meet a priest.</p><p class=\"body-text\">Worthington is just over the border, less than thirty minutes away. I found Father Jim Callahan at his kitchen table, wearing a Hawaiian shirt and chain-smoking Winstons. Worthington, which is five times the size of Sibley, is a hub for Hispanic immigrants in the Midwest. The influence is unmistakable as you drive down the main street, which is dominated by stores and restaurants that cater to the Hispanic population. More than 70 percent of the students in the local elementary school speak Spanish as their first language. Callahan, whose church, St. Mary&#x2019;s, conducts Mass in both English and Spanish, estimates that 90 percent of the Hispanic population in the city is undocumented.</p><div class=\"breaker-ad article-breaker-ad longform-article-breaker-ad\"> <p class=\"breaker-ad-text\">Advertisement - Continue Reading Below</p> </div>\n<p class=\"body-text\">Trump&#x2019;s election was a seismic event here. &#x201C;Absolute fear&#x201D; is how Callahan described the postelection atmosphere. &#x201C;Some people were saying they&#x2019;re going back. Then we saw spikes in domestic abuse, alcoholism, drug addiction.&#x201D; In December 2016, he declared St. Mary&#x2019;s a sanctuary church, which means it shelters undocumented immigrants and protects them from arrest and deportation. &#x201C;ICE has been active,&#x201D; he said. &#x201C;They&#x2019;re in town two or three times a week.&#x201D; He added, &#x201C;But they haven&#x2019;t targeted farms as such yet.&#x201D;</p><p class=\"body-text\">I laid out the facts I had uncovered in Sibley, including the intimidation of sources and the Devin Nunes angle, and asked him for advice. &#x201C;I&#x2019;d tell that story,&#x201D; he said. He paused and added, &#x201C;We&#x2019;re a sanctuary church, if you need a place to stay. You&#x2019;re safe here!&#x201D;</p><div class=\"embed embed-image embed-image-right embed-image-large\"> <div class=\"embed-inner crop-8x10\"> <p class=\"embed-image-wrap\"> <picture class=\"zoomable lazyload lazyimage\"> <source> <source> <img alt=\"image\" class=\"lazyimage lazyload\" src=\"https://hips.hearstapps.com/hmg-prod.s3.amazonaws.com/images/gettyimages-987106496-1-1538095267.jpg?crop=0.535xw:1.00xh;0.0501xw,0&amp;resize=480:*\"> </picture> </p> </div> <p class=\"image-credit\"> <span class=\"image-copyright\">Getty Images</span> </p> </div>\n<p class=\"body-text\">On the way back to Sibley, I stopped at Hawkeye Point, the highest elevation (1,670 feet) in Iowa, and flipped through my GoPro videos and pictures, zooming in on the drivers and cars. I clicked over to Facebook and searched for any Nuneses in Sibley, Iowa. I saw some familiar faces. It all started to click. There was the redheaded woman from the muddy white Yukon; she was Devin&#x2019;s sister-in-law, Lori Nunes. There was the chubby guy with curly hair from the Lantern who had also waved at me from the same Yukon; he was Devin&#x2019;s brother and Lori&#x2019;s husband, Anthony Nunes III. There was the woman from the newer Yukon. I zoomed in on a picture of the car&#x2019;s license plate: nustar. Not very subtle. The driver was Devin&#x2019;s mother and campaign treasurer, Toni Dian Nunes. The guy in the pickup truck with California plates was, of course, Devin&#x2019;s dad, Anthony Jr.</p><p class=\"body-text\">I learned that Anthony Jr. was seemingly starting to panic. The next day, the 2009 <em>Dairy Star</em> article about NuStar, the one that made me think the Nuneses were hiding something and that had led me to Sibley in the first place, was removed from the <em>Dairy Star</em>&#x2019;s website. Anthony Jr., I was told, had called the newspaper and demanded that the editors take the nine-year-old story down. They relented. The article wasn&#x2019;t captured by the Internet Archive, which provides cached versions of billions of web pages, and it can no longer be found anywhere online. According to someone who talked to him that day, Anthony Jr. allegedly said that he was hiring a lawyer and that he was convinced that his dairy would soon be raided by ICE. (Is it possible the Nuneses have nothing to be seriously concerned about? Of course, but I never got the chance to ask because Anthony Jr. and Representative Nunes did not respond to numerous requests for interviews.)</p><div class=\"embed embed-pullquote embed-pullquote-align-center\"> <div class=\"embed-inner\"> <blockquote class=\"pullquote\"> <span class=\"icon icon-quote\"></span> <p>&#x201C;I drove aimlessly, crisscrossing streets from one end of town to the other. Everywhere I turned, the white Yukon appeared. I was being followed.&#x201D;</p>\n</blockquote> </div>\n</div>\n<p class=\"body-text\">I hope ICE stays the hell away from Sibley. The immigration system that powers Iowa&#x2019;s dairies is undoubtedly broken. The dairy owners live with the ever-present fear of becoming the next Mike Millenkamp. The undocumented workers live in the shadows and, especially in the era of Trump and zero tolerance, constantly fear arrest and deportation. Meanwhile, Republicans in Congress, including Devin Nunes (per his CaRepublican website), have decided that unwavering support for ICE is crucial to their efforts to attack Democrats and help the GOP keep control of the House of Representatives after the midterm elections. Naturally, the prospect of passing legislation that would create a guest-worker program for dairy workers who are undocumented&#x2014;an idea overwhelmingly supported by the industry&#x2014;is a fantasy in the current environment; Trump, King, and their allies describe such policies as &#x201C;amnesty.&#x201D; The Washington debate is completely detached from what is actually going on in places like Sibley. </p><p class=\"body-text\">The relationship between the Iowa dairy farmers and their undocumented employees is indeed fraught. I cringed at the way some of the dairy farmers talked about their &#x201C;help.&#x201D; When I asked one dairy farmer, who admitted many of the farm&#x2019;s workers are undocumented but who also inexplicably claimed to be &#x201C;very supportive of Trump&#x201D; and &#x201C;kind of in favor of his immigration laws,&#x201D; what a solution would be, this farmer suggested a guest-worker program but compared the workers to farm animals. &#x201C;It&#x2019;s kind of like when you bought cattle out of South Dakota, or anyplace, you always had to have the brand inspected and you had to have the brand sheet when you hauled them across the state line,&#x201D; the farmer said. &#x201C;Well, what&#x2019;s the difference? Why don&#x2019;t they have to report to the city hall or county office and say we&#x2019;re here working and everybody knows where they&#x2019;re at?&#x201D;</p><p class=\"body-text\">As bad as this paternalistic and exploitative system can be, Nelson and the dairy farmers insisted that most dairies are family-owned and -operated and that the workers, documented or not, often become part of the family. This somewhat clich&#xE9;d view can be overblown and sometimes used to defend an unfair system, but the sentiment helped me understand Brenda Hoyer&#x2019;s chilling warning to me at the Lantern. During her son&#x2019;s wake, four Hispanic employees from their former dairy came to express their condolences. They had worked there so long that their children refer to her husband, Gene, as Grandpa.</p><div class=\"breaker-ad article-breaker-ad longform-article-breaker-ad\"> <p class=\"breaker-ad-text\">Advertisement - Continue Reading Below</p> </div>\n<p class=\"body-text\">According to someone he told the story to, Gene received them and thanked them. &#x201C;I&#x2019;ve lost a son,&#x201D; he said to the four men, &#x201C;but I still have four others.&#x201D;</p><h3 class=\"body-h3\"><em>This article appears in the November &apos;18 issue of Esquire. <a href=\"https://subscribe.hearstmags.com/subscribe/splits/esquire/esq_sub_nav_link\" class=\"body-btn-link\">Subscribe</a></em> </h3> </div>","url":"https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/a23471864/devin-nunes-family-farm-iowa-california/","date_published":"2018-09-30T11:30:00+00:00","author":{"name":"Ryan Lizza"}},{"id":"942","title":"Inside Wayback Machine, the internet’s time capsule","content_html":"<article id=\"post-10327\" class=\"blog-post-single post-10327 post type-post status-publish format-standard has-post-thumbnail hentry category-stories category-sunday\"> <p><span>At 300 Funston Street in San Francisco&#x2019;s Richmond District, there&#x2019;s an old Christian Science church. Walk up it&#x2019;s palatial steps, past Corinthian columns and urns, into the bowels of a vaulted sanctuary &#x2014; and you&#x2019;ll find a copy of the internet.</span></p>\n<p><span>In a backroom where pastors once congregated stand rows of computer servers, flickering en masse with blue light, humming the hymnal of technological grace.</span></p>\n<p><span>This is the home of the </span><a href=\"https://archive.org/\"><span>Internet Archive</span></a><span>, a non-profit that has, for 22 years, been preserving our online history: Billions of web pages, tweets, news articles, videos, and memes.</span></p>\n<p><span>It is not a task for the weary. The internet is an enormous, ethereal place in a constant state of rot. It houses 1.8B web pages (644m of which are active), and </span><a href=\"https://web.archive.org/web/20161111053936/http://www.labnol.org/internet/internet-size-to-double-every-5-years/6569/\"><span>doubles in size</span></a><span> every 2-5 years &#x2014; yet the average web page lasts just </span><a href=\"https://web.archive.org/web/20180121070058/https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2015/09/how-many-websites-are-there/408151/\"><span>100 days</span></a><span>, and most articles are forgotten </span><a href=\"https://web.archive.org/web/20180215012552/https://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/09/07/the-lifespan-of-a-link/\"><span>5 minutes</span></a><span> after publication.</span></p>\n<p><span>Without backup, these items are lost to time. But archiving it all comes with sizeable responsibilities: What do you choose to preserve? How do you preserve it? And ultimately, why does it all matter?</span></p>\n<h2><b>Alexandria 2.0</b></h2> <p><span>By the mid-&#x2019;90s, Brewster Kahle had cemented himself as a successful entrepreneur.</span></p>\n<p><span>After studying artificial intelligence at MIT, he launched a supercomputer company, bootstrapped the world&#x2019;s first online publishing platform, </span><a href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wide_area_information_server\"><span>WAIS</span></a><span> (sold to AOL for $15m), and launched Alexa Internet, a company that &#x201C;</span><a href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_crawler\"><span>crawled</span></a><span>&#x201D; the web and compiled information (later sold to Amazon for $250m).</span></p>\n<div id=\"attachment_10340\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img class=\"size-full wp-image-10340\" src=\"https://thehustle.co/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/brewster-kahle.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2500\"><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Brewster Kahle, founder of the Internet Archive, with a few of his servers. Each tower houses 6 petabytes of data. (via The Long Now Foundation)</p></div>\n<p><span>In 1996, he began using his software to &#x201C;back up&#x201D; the internet in his attic. &#xA0;</span></p>\n<p><span>His project, dubbed the Internet Archive, sought to grant the public &#x201C;universal access to all knowledge,&#x201D; and to &#x201C;one up&#x201D; the </span><a href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Library_of_Alexandria\"><span>Library of Alexandria</span></a><span>, once the largest and most significant library in the ancient world.</span></p>\n<p><span>Over 6 years, he privately archived more than 10B web pages &#x2014; everything from GeoCities hubs to film reviews of </span><i><span>Titanic</span></i><span>. Then, in 2001, he debuted the </span><a href=\"https://archive.org/web/\"><span>Wayback Machine</span></a><span>, a tool that allowed the public to sift through it all.</span></p>\n<h2><b>Wayyyyy back</b></h2> <p><span>Today, the Wayback Machine houses some 388B web pages, and its parent, the Internet Archive, is the world&#x2019;s largest library.</span></p>\n<p><span>The Internet Archive&#x2019;s collection, which spans not just the web, but </span><a href=\"https://openlibrary.org/\"><span>books</span></a><span>, </span><a href=\"https://archive.org/details/audio\"><span>audio</span></a> <a href=\"https://great78.archive.org/\"><span>78rpm records</span></a><span>, </span><a href=\"https://archive.org/details/movies\"><span>videos</span></a><span>, </span><a href=\"https://blog.archive.org/2014/08/29/millions-of-historic-images-posted-to-flickr/\"><span>images</span></a><span>, and </span><a href=\"https://archive.org/details/software\"><span>software</span></a><span>, amounts to more than 40 petabytes, or </span><i><span>40</span></i> <i><span>million</span></i> <i><span>gigabytes</span></i><span>, of data. The Wayback Machine makes up about 63% of that.</span></p>\n<p><span>How much is this? Imagine 80 million 4-drawer filing cabinets full of paper. Or, slightly less than the entire written works of mankind (in all languages) from the beginning of recorded history to the present day.</span></p>\n<p><span>By comparison, the US Library of Congress contains roughly </span><i><span>28 terabytes</span></i><span> of text &#x2014; less than 0.1% of the Internet Archive&#x2019;s storage.</span></p>\n<div id=\"attachment_10342\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img class=\"size-full wp-image-10342\" src=\"https://thehustle.co/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/stats2.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"2500\"><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">The Internet Archive boasts an impressive collection of media of all variety (Zachary Crockett / The Hustle)</p></div>\n<p><span>In any given week, the Internet Archive has 7k bots crawling the internet, making copies of millions of web pages. These copies, called &#x201C;snapshots,&#x201D; are saved at varying frequencies (sometimes, multiple times per day; other times, once every few months) and preserve a website at a specific moment in time.</span></p>\n<p><span>Take, for instance, the news outlet CNN. You can enter the site&#x2019;s URL (</span><a href=\"https://www.cnn.com/\"><span>www.cnn.com</span></a><span>) in the Wayback Machine, and view more than 207k snapshots going back 18 years. Click on the snapshot for </span><a href=\"https://web.archive.org/web/20000930065046/http://www.cnn.com:80/\"><span>June 21, 2000</span></a><span>, and you&#x2019;ll see exactly what the homepage looked like &#x2014; including a story about President Bill Clinton, and a review of the new Palm Pilot.</span></p>\n<p><span>Every week, 500m new pages are added to the archive, including 20m wikipedia URLs, 20m tweets (and all URLs referenced in those tweets), 20m WordPress links, and well over 100m news articles.</span></p>\n<p><span>Running this operation requires a tremendous pool of technical resources, software development, machines, bandwidth, hard drives, operational infrastructure &#x2014; and money (which it culls together from grants and donations, as well as its subscription archival service, </span><a href=\"https://archive-it.org/\"><span>Archive-It</span></a><span>).</span></p>\n<p><span>It also requires some deep thinking about epistemology, and the ethics of how we record history.</span></p>\n<h2><b>The politics of preservation</b></h2> <p><span>One of the biggest questions in archiving any medium is what the curator chooses to include.</span></p>\n<p><span>The internet boasts a utopian vision of inclusivity &#x2014; a wide range of viewpoints from a diverse range of voices. But curation often cuts this vision short. For instance, 80% of contributors to Wikipedia (the internet&#x2019;s &#x201C;encyclopedia of choice&#x201D;) are men, and minorities are underrepresented.</span></p>\n<p><span>Much like the world of traditional textbooks, this influences the information we consume.</span></p>\n<div id=\"attachment_10343\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img class=\"size-full wp-image-10343\" src=\"https://thehustle.co/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/graham.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2500\"><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">TOP: Mark Graham with some Internet Archive servers; BOTTOM: More servers (Zachary Crockett / The Hustle)</p></div>\n<p><span>&#x201C;We back up a lot of the web, but not all of it,&#x201D; Mark Graham, Director of the Wayback Machine, told me during a recent visit to the Internet Archive&#x2019;s San Francisco office. &#x201C;Trying to prioritize which of it we back up is an ongoing effort &#x2014; both in terms of identifying what the internet is, and which parts of it are the most useful.&#x201D;</span></p>\n<p><span>The internet is simply too vast to fully capture in full: It grows at a rate of </span><a href=\"http://www.live-counter.com/how-big-is-the-internet/\"><span>70 terabytes</span></a><span> &#x2014; &#xA0;or about 9 of the Internet Archives&#x2019; hard drives &#x2014; per second. It&#x2019;s format changes constantly (Flash, for instance, is on its way out). A large portion of it, including email and the cloud, is also private. So, the Wayback Machine must prioritize.</span></p>\n<p><span>Though the Wayback Machine allows the public to archive its own URLs using the site&#x2019;s &#x201C;Save Page Now&#x201D; feature, the majority of the site&#x2019;s archive comes from a platoon of bots, programmed by engineers to crawl specific sites. </span></p>\n<p><span>&#x201C;Some of these crawls run for months and involve billions of URLs,&#x201D; &#xA0;says Graham. &#x201C;Some run for 5 minutes.&#x201D;</span></p>\n<div id=\"attachment_10344\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img class=\"size-full wp-image-10344\" src=\"https://thehustle.co/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/search.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2500\"><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">A Wayback Machine search (Zachary Crockett / The Hustle)</p></div>\n<p><span>When the Wayback Machine runs a crawl, the human behind the bot must decide where it starts, and how deep it goes. The team refers to depth as &#x201C;hops:&#x201D; One hop archives just one URL and all of the links on it; two hops collects the URL, its links, and all of the links in those links, and so on.</span></p>\n<p><span>How, exactly, these sites are selected is &#x201C;complicated.&#x201D; Certain bots are dedicated solely to the 700 most highly-trafficked sites (YouTube, WIkipedia, Reddit, Twitter, etc.); others are more specialized.</span></p>\n<p><span>&#x201C;The most interesting things from an archival perspective are all of the public pages of all of governments in world, NGOs in world, and news organizations in the world,&#x201D; says Graham. Getting access to these lists is difficult, but his team works with more than 600 &#x201C;domain experts&#x201D; and partners around the world who </span><a href=\"https://www.forbes.com/sites/kalevleetaru/2016/01/18/the-internet-archive-turns-20-a-behind-the-scenes-look-at-archiving-the-web/#5552150e82e0\"><span>run their own crawls</span></a><span>.</span></p>\n<h2><b>Archiving in the post-fact era</b></h2> <p><span>From its inception, the Wayback Machine has given website owners the ability to opt-out of being archived by including &#x201C;</span><a href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robots_exclusion_standard\"><span>robots.txt</span></a><span>&#x201D; in their code. It has also granted written requests to remove websites from the archive.</span></p>\n<p><span>But this ethos has changed in recent years &#x2014; and it&#x2019;s indicative of a larger ideological shift in the site&#x2019;s mission.</span></p>\n<p><span>Shortly after Trump&#x2019;s election in November of 2016, Brewster Kahle, the site&#x2019;s founder, announced intentions to </span><a href=\"https://newrepublic.com/minutes/139055/internet-archive-building-back-up-defend-trump-canada\"><span>create a copy</span></a><span> of the archive in Canada, away from the US government&#x2019;s grasp.</span></p>\n<div id=\"attachment_10345\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img class=\"size-full wp-image-10345\" src=\"https://thehustle.co/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/doodads.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2500\"><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Old equipment used for indexing at the Internet Archive (Zachary Crockett / The Hustle)</p></div>\n<p><span>&#x201C;On November 9th in America, we woke up to a new administration promising radical change,&#x201D; he </span><a href=\"https://www.businessinsider.com/internet-archive-of-canada-fundraising-because-of-trump-administration-2016-11\"><span>wrote</span></a><span>. &#x201C;It was a firm reminder that institutions like ours&#x2026; need to design for change. For us, it means keeping our cultural materials safe, private and perpetually accessible.&#x201D;</span></p>\n<p><span>According to anonymous sources, the Wayback Machine has since become more selective about accepting omission requests.</span></p>\n<p><span>In a &#x201C;post-fact&#x201D; era, where </span><a href=\"https://www.axios.com/fake-news-propaganda-facebook-2018-midterm-elections-6221ada7-43f0-4187-8f3f-f16090268d67.html\"><span>fake news</span></a><span> is rampant and </span><a href=\"https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2018/04/18/on-trade-trump-either-doesnt-understand-the-basics-facts-or-he-doesnt-care/\"><span>basic truths</span></a><span> are openly and brazenly disputed, the Wayback Machine is working to preserve a verifiable, unedited record of history &#x2014; without obstruction. </span></p>\n<p><span>&#x201C;If we allow those who control the present to control the past then they control the future,&#x201D; Kahle </span><a href=\"https://www.recode.net/2017/3/8/14843408/transcript-internet-archive-founder-brewster-kahle-wayback-machine-recode-decode\"><span>told</span></a> <i><span>Recode</span></i><span>. &#x201C;Whole newspapers go away. Countries blink on and off. If we want to know what happened 10 years ago, 20 years ago, [the internet] is often the only record.&#x201D;</span></p> <p><span>At the Internet Archive&#x2019;s sanctuary, the pews are lined with statues of long-time &#xA0;employees &#x2014; techno-saints who&#x2019;ve crusaded for free, open access to knowledge.</span></p>\n<p><span>Above them, housed in a pair of gothic arches, 6 computer servers stand guard.</span></p>\n<div id=\"attachment_10346\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img class=\"size-full wp-image-10346\" src=\"https://thehustle.co/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/statues.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2500\"><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">At the three-year mark, Internet Archive employees are immortalized with their own statue, placed in the office pews (Zachary Crockett / The Hustle)</p></div>\n<p><span>The $60k machines are made up of 10 computers a piece, with 36 8-terabyte drives. Each piece of hardware contains a universe of treasures: 20-year-old blog posts, old TED talks, tomes forgotten by time.</span></p>\n<p><span>When someone, somewhere in the world is reading a piece of information, or looking at an archived webpage, a little blue light pings on the server.</span></p>\n<p><span>Standing there, watching the galactic blips illuminate the racks, you can&#x2019;t help but feel you&#x2019;re seeing an apparition: The web is ephemeral. It rots, dies, and 404s. But it is alive even in death &#x2014; and it will remain long after we&#x2019;re gone.</span></p>\n<h3>Share and discuss</h3> <br> <div> <div><a href=\"https://thehustle.co/\">Sign up here</a> for our daily news email to get all the non-political news you never knew you needed. All it takes is 5 minutes and BOOM, you&apos;re smarter.</div>\n<br>\n</div>\n</article>","url":"https://thehustle.co/inside-wayback-machine-internet-archive","date_published":"2018-09-28T23:21:34+00:00","author":{"name":""}},{"id":"886","title":"Republicans are already planning to vote on Kavanaugh next week, even before hearing with his accuser — BuzzFeed News","content_html":"<div class=\"content\"> <div class=\"inner-content has-icon\"> <img class=\"app-icon\" src=\"https://apple.news/images/Appicon_v4.png\" alt=\"Apple News\" srcset=\"/images/Appicon_v4.png 1x, /images/Appicon_v4@2x.png 2x, /images/Appicon_v4@3x.png 3x\"> <p><a href=\"https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/paulmcleod/republicans-plan-kavanaugh-vote-ford-hearing-allegations\">Click here</a> if the story doesn&#x2019;t open after a few seconds.</p> <p><a class=\"more\" href=\"https://www.apple.com/news\">Learn more about Apple News</a></p></div> </div>","url":"https://apple.news/A5Zun0SL2RKGaSj6uFIpQ3w","date_published":"2018-09-25T23:34:48+00:00","author":{"name":""}},{"id":"884","title":"How Adobe’s $4.75 Billion Acquisition Of Marketo Was A Huge Win For Vista Equity","content_html":"<div class=\"post-div\" id=\"post-118013\"> <p>This past week, Adobe announced a $4.75 billion acquisition of marketing automation company Marketo. This was a huge win for Vista Equity Partners, which took Marketo private for $1.8 billion in cash in May 2016. This means that&#xA0;Vista Equity Partners &#x2014; which is&#xA0;headed up by&#xA0;Robert Smith (founder, chairman, and CEO), Brian Sheth (Co-founder and President), and David Breach (COO and chief legal officer),&#xA0;Vista Equity Partners &#x2014; saw a $2.95 billion profit in about two years from Adobe&#x2019;s acquisition of Marketo.</p>\n<p>Smith had founded Vista Equity Partners in 2000 after a career at Goldman Sachs in investment banking. And due to the success of Vista Equity Partners, Smith became the wealthiest African-American.</p>\n<p>But buying Marketo was a major gamble because the company struggled to grow its revenues and the stock price dropped around 50% in the first few months of 2016. And when Vista acquired Marketo for $1.8 billion, it was at a 64% premium on the stock price at the time. Clearly, that gamble really paid off.</p>\n<p>Vista Equity replaced Marketo CEO Phil Fernandez shortly after the acquisition and replaced him with Steve Lucas, who is a former SAP executive. Lucas was able to turn Marketo around by pursuing larger deals in the enterprise space, which made it easier to upsell&#xA0;<a href=\"https://www.forbes.com/sites/nathanvardi/2018/09/21/billionaire-robert-smiths-vista-equity-makes-3-billion-selling-marketo/#4709d06f1d33\">according to Forbes senior editor Nathan Vardi</a>. Marketo&#x2019;s revenue increased to $321 million in 2017 from $209 million in 2015.</p>\n<p>&#x201C;Adobe and Marketo both share an unwavering belief in the power of content and data to drive business results,&#x201D; said Lucas. &#x201C;Marketo delivers the leading B2B marketing engagement platform for the modern marketer, and there is no better home for Marketo to continue to rapidly innovate than Adobe.&#x201D;</p>\n<p>Marketo has nearly 5,000 customers who use the service for planning, engagement, and measurement capabilities. And its feature-rich and cloud-native platform will have &#x201C;significant opportunities for integration across Adobe Experience Cloud.&#x201D;</p>\n<p>And Marketo was not Adobe&#x2019;s only big acquisition this year. In May, Adobe acquired e-commerce company Magento for $1.6 billion. These two deals give Adobe a tremendous advantage over rivals like Microsoft, SAP, Oracle, and Salesforce.</p>\n<p>Salesforce is one of the most noteworthy competitors listed because that company recently acquired a Marketo rival called Exact Target in 2013. And Salesforce acquired Magento rival Demandware for $2.8 billion a couple of years ago.</p>\n<p>Even though technically Microsoft and Adobe are rivals, the two are partners as well. Microsoft and Adobe have a partner ecosystem where they offer custom solutions and services for their combined enterprise products.</p>\n<p>A couple of weeks ago, Adobe hit record third-quarter earnings at $2.29 billion &#x2014; which is a 24% increase year-over-year. Most of Adobe&#x2019;s net income comes from the Creative Cloud products such as Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign.</p>\n<p>Lucas is going to join Adobe&#x2019;s executive team and he will report to Adobe&#x2019;s executive vice president and general manager of Digital Experience Brad Rencher. &#x201C;The imperative for marketers across all industries is a laser focus on providing relevant, personalized and engaging experiences,&#x201D; Rencher added. &#x201C;The acquisition of Marketo widens Adobe&#x2019;s lead in customer experience across B2C and B2B and puts Adobe Experience Cloud at the heart of all marketing.&#x201D;</p> </div>","url":"https://pulse2.com/vista-equity-adobe-marketo/","date_published":"2018-09-23T20:33:12+00:00","author":{"name":""}},{"id":"873","title":"Rudy Giuliani Claims U.S. Will Overthrow Iran","content_html":"<div class=\"content\"> <p>Rudy Giuliani told the <em><a href=\"https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-iran-opposition/trump-lawyer-giuliani-says-irans-government-will-be-overthrown-idUSKCN1M3005\">Iran Uprising Summit</a></em> in New York on Saturday that it&apos;s just a matter of time until America overthrows Iran, &#x201C;It could be in a few days, months, a couple of years. But it&#x2019;s going to happen.&#x201D;</p>\n<p>Since Trump hired Rudy as a personal attorney to help smear Robert Mueller&apos;s special counsel on TV, <a href=\"https://crooksandliars.com/2018/05/trump-throws-rudy-giuliani-under-bus\">he&apos;s been a </a>mistake <a href=\"https://crooksandliars.com/2018/07/rudy-giulianis-batsht-cnn-interview-cohen\">prone buffoon</a>; often <a href=\"https://crooksandliars.com/2018/08/rudy-giuliani-cites-non-existent-law-0\">making wild claims</a> and then <a href=\"https://crooksandliars.com/cltv/2018/07/watch-rudy-giuliani-goes-michael\">reversing himself soon after.</a></p>\n<p>But as a representative of Trump, even if he&apos;s not part of the federal government, he can&apos;t publicly call for the overthrow of a foreign government.</p>\n<p><a href=\"https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-iran-opposition/trump-lawyer-giuliani-says-irans-government-will-be-overthrown-idUSKCN1M3005\">Reuters reports</a>, &quot;I don&#x2019;t know when we&#x2019;re going to overthrow them,&#x201D; said Giuliani - &#x201C;It could be in a few days, months, a couple of years. But it&#x2019;s going to happen,&#x201D; Giuliani told a crowd at a hotel in Times Square.</p>\n<p>As Reuters pointed out, <em>&quot;The U.S. State Department has said Giuliani does not speak for the administration on Iran.&quot;</em></p>\n<p>He must be speaking for Donald Trump then, right?</p>\n<p>This prompted U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley to distance the U.S. from his comments<a href=\"https://www.cnn.com/2018/09/23/politics/nikki-haley-iran-cnntv/index.html\"> on CNN Sunday morning.<br>\n</a></p>\n<blockquote><p>&quot;We&#x2019;re not looking to do regime change anywhere. What we are looking to do is protect Americans, protect our allies.&quot;</p></blockquote> <p>(h/t <a href=\"https://www.cnn.com/2018/09/23/politics/nikki-haley-iran-cnntv/index.html\">CNN</a>)</p><br> </div>","url":"https://crooksandliars.com/2018/09/rudy-giuliani-claims-us-will-overthrow","date_published":"2018-09-23T18:11:54+00:00","author":{"name":""}},{"id":"871","title":"Labour prepared to vote down May's final Brexit deal, says Corbyn","content_html":"<div><div class=\"content__article-body from-content-api js-article__body\">\n<p><a href=\"https://www.theguardian.com/politics/jeremy-corbyn\" class=\"u-underline\">Jeremy Corbyn</a> has said Labour would be prepared to vote down Theresa May&#x2019;s final Brexit deal this autumn in an attempt to force the government back to the negotiating table with Brussels because the party has been concerned about a dilution in workers&#x2019; rights and environmental standards.</p>\n<p>The <a href=\"https://www.theguardian.com/politics/labour\" class=\"u-underline\">Labour</a> leader also repeated that he was open to the idea of a second referendum if the party agreed to that policy later this week, although he added he would wait and see what wording would be put in front of the delegates after a meeting on Sunday evening.</p>\n<p>In an interview with Andrew Marr, Corbyn said of May&#x2019;s final <a href=\"https://www.theguardian.com/politics/eu-referendum\" class=\"u-underline\">Brexit</a> deal: &#x201C;We would vote it down if it didn&#x2019;t meet out tests, in order to send the government &#x2013; if it is still in office &#x2013; straight back to the negotiating table.&#x201D;</p>\n<aside class=\"element element-rich-link element--thumbnail element-rich-link--not-upgraded\">\n\n</aside>\n<p>&#x201C;We want to protect jobs and industry in the country,&#x201D; he added.</p>\n<p>In November the UK parliament is expected to vote on whether to approve whatever Brexit deal May brings back from her negotiations with the <a href=\"https://www.theguardian.com/world/eu\" class=\"u-underline\">European Union</a>.</p>\n<p>Conservatives backing hard Brexit have already threatened to vote against the deal if May continues with her Chequers plan to keep the UK in the single market for food and goods, meaning that if Labour were to vote against it as well, its passage through the Commons would be far from certain.</p>\n<p>A debate on a second referendum has been called for by over 100 constituencies, who have sent in motions asking the party to support it, following a debate on the conference floor. The motions will be consolidated on Sunday evening in a process known as compositing, which will determine the final wording of the resolutions to be put to a vote of delegates on Tuesday.</p>\n<p>The exact wording chosen may end in a fudge, probably keeping a new poll on the table but stressing preference for a general election. A further leadership statement on Brexit could still be submitted on the day of the debate, which could trump the composite motion.</p>\n<figure class=\"element element-atom\">\n<details class=\"atom atom--snippet atom--snippet--qanda\">\n<summary class=\"atom--snippet__header\"> <span class=\"atom--snippet__label\">Q&amp;A</span>   </summary>\n<div class=\"atom--snippet__body\">\n<p>In the run-up to the <a href=\"https://www.theguardian.com/politics/labourconference\" class=\"u-underline\">Labour conference</a>, local parties can submit motions on any contemporary topic for debate. After a concerted push by grassroots activists, more than 150 constituency parties (CLPs) have submitted motions on Brexit, an unprecedented number. For comparison, the topic with the second highest number of motions submitted &#x2013; the NHS &#x2013; has been put forward by 10 CLPs.</p>\n<p>However, the motions are not identical. The majority call for a second referendum directly, some express preference for an election, others call for an EEA-style Brexit. When different motions are submitted on one topic, delegates from the local parties who submitted motions, as well as trade union representatives, meet the shadow cabinet member responsible, in this case Keir Starmer, to agree a &quot;composite motion&quot; to be put to the conference floor for a vote. This is usually a compromise taking in all the elements of the different motions.&#xA0;</p>\n<p>Usually this is a straightforward process, because there are only a handful of delegates and union reps in the room. This time, there are likely to be more than 100 people in the room from all the local parties who submitted motions, so things could get complicated.</p>\n<p>The final version is likely to be a compromise which expresses preference for an election but keeps the option of a referendum on the table. And Labour&apos;s governing body, the national executive committee, could offer a replacement statement of its own for the vote instead.</p>\n</div>\n<footer class=\"atom--snippet__footer\">\n\n<div class=\"atom--snippet__ack\">\nThank you for your feedback.\n</div>\n</footer>\n</details>\n</figure>\n<p>Corbyn said &#x201C;there will be a clear vote in conference&#x201D; on Brexit although he declined to specify whether there would be a clear vote on a second referendum.</p>\n<p>&#x201C;I don&#x2019;t know what will come out of the compositing meeting,&#x201D; he said, adding: &#x201C;Let&#x2019;s see what comes out of conference. I&#x2019;m bound by the democracy of our party.&#x201D;</p>\n<p>Separately, a Corbyn ally, the Unite general secretary, Len McCluskey, said if there was a second referendum, <a href=\"https://www.theguardian.com/politics/blog/live/2018/sep/23/labour-conference-liverpool-jeremy-corbyn-say-he-will-accept-any-labour-conference-decision-on-second-brexit-referendum-politics-live\" class=\"u-underline\">remain should not be on the ballot paper</a>, and that the public should choose between whether to endorse May&#x2019;s final deal or opt for no deal at all.</p>\n<p>&#x201C;The referendum shouldn&#x2019;t be on do we want to go back into the European Union?&#x201D; McCluskey told the BBC&#x2019;s Pienaar&#x2019;s politics.</p>\n\n\n</div></div>","url":"https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/sep/23/corbyn-would-back-labour-membership-call-for-second-referendum","date_published":"2018-09-23T12:10:40+00:00","author":{"name":"Dan Sabbagh and Jessica E"}},{"id":"872","title":"Meet the woman who gives nerdy tech execs a makeover","content_html":"<article id=\"post-10277\" class=\"blog-post-single post-10277 post type-post status-publish format-standard has-post-thumbnail hentry category-stories category-sunday\">\n<p>q&#xA0;</p>\n<p><span>Hoodie, early-stage startup tee, bright-colored sneakers, jeans: This is the uniform of an aspiring millionaire in Silicon Valley.</span></p>\n<p><span>Tech workers have long been </span><a href=\"https://www.esquire.com/uk/style/a19732618/start-up-culture-style/\"><span>derided</span></a><span> for their terrible fashion sense &#x2014; even if their signature &#x201C;I don&#x2019;t care&#x201D; look is by design. In an industry obsessed with frugality, utilitarianism, and efficiency, dressing down is a badge of pride.</span></p>\n<p><span>But things are starting to change: Thrust into the public eye, tech execs are increasingly turning to personal stylists to overhaul their image &#x2014; and sometimes, their entire personal brand.</span></p>\n<h2><b>Where fashion came to die</b></h2>\n<p><span>During the 1980s tech boom, cultural norms of all variety were thrown out the Window(s)</span><span>&#x2122;.</span></p>\n<p><span>At companies like Apple, Atari, and Sun Microsystems, employees </span><span>came into work at noon and left at 2AM. They brought their dogs to work. They wore their hair in greasy ponytails. And they shunned traditional dress codes: Suits were abandoned for business casual; business casual gave way to t-shirts and &#x201C;econo-brand sneakers.&#x201D;</span></p>\n<p><span>This carefully-manicured &#x201C;efficiency over appearance&#x201D; ethos has carried on through the years, fueled by some of tech&#x2019;s most prominent leaders.</span></p>\n<div id=\"attachment_10278\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img class=\"size-full wp-image-10278\" src=\"https://thehustle.co/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/zuckoutfits2.jpg\" alt=\"zuckerberg closet\" width=\"2500\"><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Mark Zuckerberg is known for wearing the same thing every day &#x2014; and his closet testifies to this (via Mark Zuckerberg&#x2019;s Facebook page)</p></div>\n<p><span>In the vein of Steve Jobs, Mark Zuckerberg wears the same thing every day: A gray t-shirt and jeans. &#x201C;I really want to clear my life to make it so that I have to make as few decisions as possible,&#x201D; he </span><a href=\"https://www.newyorker.com/culture/annals-of-appearances/the-suit-wears-mark-zuckerberg\"><span>said</span></a><span> of his closet, in 2014.</span></p>\n<p><span>Zuck&#x2019;s minimalist look isn&#x2019;t merely an act of efficiency &#x2014; it&#x2019;s a call to the world that he&#x2019;s a man of the people, a man of the coders, true to his roots. It&#x2019;s also, at least in part, a carefully crafted act: His t-shirts are custom-made in Italy and run $295 a pop.</span></p>\n<p><span>&#x201C;It&#x2019;s a clich&#xE9; that tech workers don&#x2019;t care about what they wear,&#x201D; wrote venture capitalist Peter Thiel in </span><a href=\"https://archive.org/details/ZeroToOneByPeterThiel\"><i><span>Zero To One</span></i></a><span>. &#x201C;Everybody from slackers to yuppies carefully &#x2018;curates&#x2019; their outward appearance.&#x201D;</span></p>\n<h2><b>But this &#x201C;I don&#x2019;t care&#x201D; trend is fading</b></h2>\n<p><span>In recent years, tech execs have been unwittingly thrust into the public spotlight.</span></p>\n<p><span>They&#x2019;re no longer behind the scenes refactoring lines of code: They&#x2019;re testifying in Washington, giving speeches at international banquets, and gracing the covers of magazines. The public scrutinizes their every move.</span></p>\n<p><span>As Paul Kedrosky, of SK Ventures, told </span><a href=\"https://www.marketplace.org/2018/05/25/tech/whats-risk-when-company-identified-its-ceo\"><span>Marketplace</span></a><span>, we&#x2019;re in the age of the &#x201C;celebrity tech CEO.&#x201D; Suddenly, execs &#x2014; many of whom are ex-coders with no prior background in business (and often, no fashion sense) &#x2014; are in a position where they have to be taken seriously by the broader general public. They start with their wardrobe.</span></p>\n<p><span>Look no further than Jeff Bezos, who, between 1998 and 2017, managed to pivot from a slouching sweater enthusiast to a Vin Diesel body double in a power vest. Or Elon Musk, who went from a balding coder in a purple button-up to a perfectly-coifed, leather-jacket-wearing alpha male.</span></p>\n<div id=\"attachment_10279\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img class=\"size-full wp-image-10279\" src=\"https://thehustle.co/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/transformation.jpg\" alt=\"bezos then and now\" width=\"2500\"><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Jeff Bezos (top) and Elon Musk (bottom) have both undergone dramatic aesthetic transformations (The Hustle)</p></div>\n<p><span>When Zuckerberg testified before Congress earlier this year, many on the Hill seemed more concerned about his wardrobe than the Cambridge Analytica data breach itself.</span></p>\n<p><span>&#x201C;Is he going to wear a suit and clean white shirt?&#x201D; President Trump&#x2019;s chief economic advisor, Larry Kudlow, </span><a href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/10/fashion/mark-zuckerberg-suit-congress.html\"><span>asked the press</span></a><span> the day before the hearing. &#x201C;That&#x2019;s my biggest question: Is he going to behave like an adult, as a major corporate leader, or give me this phony-baloney &#x2014; what is it? &#x2014; hoodies and dungarees?&#x201D;</span></p>\n<p><span>The suit, posited the </span><i><span>The New York Times</span></i><span>, signified Zuck&#x2019;s metamorphosis. &#x201C;[It] was a growing up moment,&#x201D; wrote the paper. &#x201C;The suit is the costume of the grown-up, while the T-shirt is the costume of the teenager, the off-duty, the breaker of rules.&#x201D;</span></p>\n<p><span>Tech execs are begrudgingly accepting this &#x2014; and they&#x2019;re shedding their hoodies for a brave new world of style.</span></p>\n<h2><b>The hoodie exterminator</b></h2>\n<p><span>As a personal stylist rooted in Silicon Valley for 25 years, Victoria Hitchcock has witnessed the shifting tides of &#x201C;tech fashion&#x201D; firsthand.</span></p>\n<p><span>After stints as a runway model and a tech marketer, she decided to pursue a career as a style consultant. With a $5k loan from her sisters, she launched </span><a href=\"http://victoriahitchcock.style/\"><span>Victoria Hitchcock Style</span></a><span> in the late &#x2018;90s, at the height of the Dot-Com boom.</span></p>\n<p><span>Today, her clients include tech execs at Apple, Google, Uber, Microsoft, and IBM. As she told </span><a href=\"https://www.vox.com/the-goods/2018/9/14/17792298/silicon-valley-stylist-fashion-tech\"><i><span>Vox</span></i></a><span>, her role is to help them &#x201C;go from boys to men.&#x201D;</span></p>\n<p><span>The process is kind of like the (now discontinued) television show </span><a href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What_Not_to_Wear_(U.S._TV_series)\"><i><span>What Not to Wear</span></i></a><span>. It begins with a Skype consultation, in which Hitchcock gets to know her client (his lifestyle, his schedule, what he does for fun, why he&#x2019;s looking to for a change, etc.). Then, there is a &#xA0;&#x201C;wardrobe edit.&#x201D;</span></p>\n<p><span>&#x201C;I&#x2019;ll go through his closet and basically filter out the bad stuff,&#x201D; she says. &#x201C;And we&#x2019;ll start from the ground up.&#x201D;</span></p>\n<p><span>Some of the more common &#x201C;mistakes&#x201D; she sees in tech workers&#x2019; closets: old, over-stretched jeans, moccasin slippers (worn as everyday shoes), Crocs, and khakis (which she says &#x201C;nobody should ever wear&#x201D;).</span></p>\n<div id=\"attachment_10280\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img class=\"size-full wp-image-10280\" src=\"https://thehustle.co/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/closet.jpg\" alt=\"tech fashion\" width=\"2500\"><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Time to get rid of those Crocs (the Hustle)</p></div>\n<p><span>&#x201C;Denim is one of the most blatant offenses,&#x201D; says Hitchcock. &#x201C;Some of these guys think it&#x2019;s okay to keep a pair of jeans for 4 or 5 years. It loses its shape over time, and it&#x2019;s a completely different fit by then.&#x201D; </span></p>\n<p><span>Techies are also extremely particular about their socks. &#x201C;Seriously,&#x201D; she laughs, &#x201C;I hear so much about socks: Too thick, too thin, too high, too low&#x2026; They struggle with socks.&#x201D;</span></p>\n<p><span>Once the offending items are filtered out, Hitchcock accompanies her client on shopping trips, pointing out things to look for based on the client&#x2019;s tastes and lifestyle. For her services, she charges an initial consult fee of ~$2k; after that, it&#x2019;s $275 per hour. </span></p>\n<p><span>Higher-end clients often opt to keep her on retainer, at a rate of $10k per year.</span></p>\n<h2><b>A whole new person</b></h2>\n<p><span>In the age-obsessed Valley, where the median worker is a mere </span><a href=\"https://qz.com/390835/google-age-discrimination/\"><span>29 years old</span></a><span>, Hitchcock attracts aging tech execs who are having aesthetic identity crises.</span></p>\n<p><span>&#x201C;Tech workers in their 40s are caught between two worlds,&#x201D; she says: &#x201C;They want respect from the 20-something coders they manage, but also need to be taken seriously in meetings with VCs and foreign backers.&#x201D; (Turns out, Chinese investors in $5k suits are not impressed with the ol&#x2019; t-shirt and jeans ensemble.)</span></p>\n<p><span>Henry*, a 37-year-old CTO at a mid-sized tech startup, recently found himself in this position. He was &#x201C;one of those [old] dudes in a bright blue hoodie and flip-flops,&#x201D; and didn&#x2019;t really care since he was hanging around a bunch of coder subordinates all day.</span></p>\n<p><span>During a burst of press, Henry decided to consult with a stylist: In short order, his hoodie was swapped for a cashmere sweater, his faded jeans were upgraded to commuter chinos, and he bought his first pair of oxfords, a welcome replacement for his 6-year-old New Balance 574s.</span></p>\n<div id=\"attachment_10281\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img class=\"size-full wp-image-10281\" src=\"https://thehustle.co/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/sv-hitchcock.jpg\" alt=\"silicon valley\" width=\"2500\"><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Left: Victoria Hitchcock; Right: Some dudes who could use some help (via Victoria Hitchcock, HBO)</p></div>\n<p><span>For execs like Henry, Hitchcock suggests &#x201C;camera-ready&#x201D; clothing that allows for easy transitions during 16-hour days.</span></p>\n<p><span>&#x201C;I&#x2019;ve been with clients through the entire journey from starting their company, to selling, to entering the public eye,&#x201D; she says. &#x201C;My role isn&#x2019;t to give them a business uniform; it&#x2019;s to help them optimize performance.&#x201D;</span></p>\n<p><span>Tech execs often want to overhaul not just their style, but their entire personal brand. </span></p>\n<p><span>Hitchcock goes beyond the role of a traditional stylist and into the realm of life coach, doling out advice on everything from buying yachts to finding love. She works with plastic surgeons, dentists, skin care professionals, hair stylists, and fitness trainers to bring Prince Charmings out from underneath their hoodies.</span></p>\n<p><span>&#x201C;Sometimes,&#x201D; she says, &#x201C;it really is like looking at a whole new person.&#x201D;</span></p>\n<h2><b>Fashion tips for the tech lifestyle</b></h2>\n<p><span>Hitchcock offers several tips for tech execs (and office workers in general), who want to maintain a nonchalant look in a more put-together way.</span></p>\n<p><span>For men:</span></p>\n<ul>\n<li><b>Shoes</b><span>: Low top Converse, slip-on Vans, black lace-up shoes, Chelsea boots </span></li>\n<li><b>Tops</b><span>: Lightweight sweaters, shirts in checkered patterns, shearling coats, long leather jackets</span></li>\n<li><b>Bottoms</b><span>: Tailored pants, one pair of &#x201C;go to hell&#x201D; pants (bright, audacious color)</span></li>\n<li><b>Accessories</b><span>: A sleek backpack (Tumi Arriv&#xE9;)</span></li>\n<li><b>General tip: </b><span>Avoid matching more than one article of clothing</span></li>\n</ul>\n<p><span>For women:</span></p>\n<ul>\n<li><b>Shoes</b><span>: Kitten heel pumps, short booties on pointier side (in neutrals)</span></li>\n<li><b>Tops</b><span>: A knee-length overcoat</span></li>\n<li><b>Bottoms</b><span>: Long pencil skirts</span></li>\n<li><b>Dresses:</b><span> Go flowy, with long sleeves (prints in peacock greens and blues)</span></li>\n<li><b>Accessories</b><span>: Crossbody bags with golden metallic chain</span></li>\n<li><b>General tips: </b><span>Choose perfumes that are &#x201C;less sweet and more mysterious;&#x201D; use a hydrating gel for night</span></li>\n</ul>\n<p><span>There is, of course, an exception to these rules: If your name is Jeff Bezos, you can wear whatever the f*ck you want.</span></p>\n<h3>Share and discuss</h3> <br> <div> <div><a href=\"https://thehustle.co/\">Sign up here</a> for our daily news email to get all the non-political news you never knew you needed. All it takes is 5 minutes and BOOM, you&apos;re smarter.</div>\n<br>\n</div>\n</article>","url":"https://thehustle.co/silicon-valley-tech-stylist","date_published":"2018-09-23T01:13:13+00:00","author":{"name":""}},{"id":"855","title":"Write to Organize","content_html":"<article class=\"text\"> <p><img src=\"https://ia.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/iA-Writer-5.1-With-Tags-aka-the-kraken-release.png\" alt=\"iA Writer 5.1 now with tags. Write to organize.\"></p>\n<p><strong>&#xA0;<br>Creating the latest update to iA Writer was a slow burn. Beginning with some basic maintenance and then improvements for the new iOS 12 and macOS Mojave, the Kraken was released in the final weeks of preparation. The all new Tags and x-callback-urls are so hip they&#x2019;ll take you to funky town.</strong></p>\n<p>Here is how tags started. We decided to add smart folders to iA Writer for Mac. Just before wrapping that task up, someone on the iA Writer design chat said:</p>\n<blockquote><p>\n&#x201C;Great, now I&#x2019;m going to use tags with smart folders and get organized.&#x201D;\n</p></blockquote>\n<p>As a grey-haired information architect, I have encountered 666 flavors of tags and tag clouds. Every time someone suggests tags as &#x201C;a great way to organize a CMS&#x201D; or solve global warming, I don&#x2019;t have much to say. I just lift a Spock eyebrow.</p>\n<h2>The Problem with Tags</h2>\n<p>Tags suck. On paper, they look like a great solution to everything. But in practice, they just add an additional burden to any content management system. With tags, content managers do not only have to organize the content and the hierarchy but also the category systems. <em>Writing</em> good content is already hard enough.</p>\n<p>After typing the first couple of tags in our beta and adding them to Smart Folders I got softly hooked though. A day later my hands typed:</p>\n<blockquote><p>\n&#x201C;Tags should be formatted differently. Using the system font. They belong to the system, sort of.&#x201D;\n</p></blockquote>\n<p>What had my hands just typed? Me, not just supporting tags, but championing a second font in iA Writer? What&#x2019;s next, free font choice, Comic Sans? I started to feel that typing tags in the document was not the same as adding metadata from outside, I didn&#x2019;t know why. And before I knew what was happening, I wrote:</p>\n<blockquote><p>\n&#x201C;&#x2026;and then they should be added automatically to the library!&#x201D;\n</p></blockquote>\n<p>That needed an exclamation mark because it was the coolest idea ever. Team members quickly pointed out that this idea was as old as tags. And that this indeed is how tags should work everywhere. Not as added-on metadata, post-its, and stickers, but from within the content.</p>\n<h2>Write to organize!</h2>\n<p>I started tagging my 300+ notes. It was easy because I could write to organize instead of pointing and clicking and adding stickers. I didn&#x2019;t first have to think about a good set of categories and then ask myself which notes belong where. I just wrote in the article to organize. And, man, did those dusty notes suddenly shine. I was a bit worried though because that list grew fast. My hands typed:</p>\n<blockquote><p>\n&#x201C;Shouldn&#x2019;t they be used in tag clouds instead of a list? Lists can get long&#x2026;&#x201D;\n</p></blockquote>\n<p>Instead of an alphabetical list, maybe we should add a tag cloud because that saves space. Who knows what I would have suggested next! Different typographic sizes depending on how often one tag was used? Luckily, the cloud was not easy to do. Luckily, because that simple and growing alphabetical list may be what makes tag list so good and tag clouds so bad. Tag lists act as a table of contents. They make you feel that you own a bag of gems instead of just a salad of abstract notions.</p>\n<h2>A treasure trove</h2>\n<p>As you can tell, now, I can&#x2019;t get enough of my tag list. It&#x2019;s so nice that sometimes I just open iA Writer to look at my tags. Everything I like is in there. #Aesthetics, #Plato, #Design, #floating, #Japan, my precious!</p>\n<p>Tagging opened a treasure trove of notes I had taken over the years with ideas and quotes and notes I had long forgotten&#x2026; And tagging cleaned up all these notes at the same time. Enough! Just look at how smoothly text morphs into a tag&#x2026; and now look how it is added to the library&#x2026;</p>\n<p>&#xA0;<br>\n<video width=\"100%\" height=\"100%\"><source src=\"https://player.vimeo.com/external/290704339.sd.mp4?s=905835209d110fbf7fa6684460f48558109ba74d&amp;profile_id=165\">Your browser does not support the video tag.</video><br>\n&#xA0;</p>\n<p>Aaah, right? After a couple of weeks with tags, I don&#x2019;t know what-what I&#x2019;d do without them. More folders? Nah. Suddenly I need much fewer folders to keep things in order. Especially on small touch devices tags are a blessing. Just tag it. If you feel like it, you can order it on a point and click device later. Being able to write tags from within the documents completely changes the game.</p>\n<ul>\n<li>It&#x2019;s fast and organic. </li>\n<li>If there is a tag in there that is outdated or spelled wrong, you can easily spot it and correct the issue. </li>\n<li>If you use tags actively to find a document, you automatically take care of them. </li>\n<li>They are easier to curate than folder structures and require less hierarchy and less logic in the hierarchy. Of course, it&#x2019;s best to use both tags and folders!</li>\n<li>Typing tags is very iA Writer: Keep your hands on the keyboard. You type to organize.</li>\n<li>If you&#x2019;re writing an article about a hashtag and want it to look like text, just put a backslash before the hash sign \\#TalkLikeAPirateDay. </li>\n</ul>\n<p>So yes, we now have tags. Not little flags patiently glued onto your files one by one, but essential words you write as you go. What could be better for iA Writer than that? Okay, gotta move on.</p>\n<h2>The ultimate nerd pitch</h2>\n<p>I tried my best to make tags as juicy as they feel to me. They may still sound nerdy. I understand you. But before you go, let me give you the ultimate nerd pitch: x-callback-url support.</p>\n<p>I knew we had to add it at some point. But honestly, x-callback-url support is something I would have never dreamed of being excited about. But, damn it, I am. I am not going to make a long story about how that happened. Just this much: Spend a few minutes on how Shortcuts works, and in a breath, you can send clippings and entire articles to iA Writer, with title, copied text, and tags. You simply select a text, tap the share button, and you can&#x2026; Okay, just look:</p>\n<p>&#xA0;<br>\n<video width=\"100%\" height=\"100%\"><source src=\"https://player.vimeo.com/external/290726496.hd.mp4?s=58ec24a910bb632544b1c8935562da3bcf8aca20&amp;profile_id=174\">Your browser does not support the video tag.</video><br>\n&#xA0;</p>\n<p>Aaah, right? No? Here are two shortcuts we made for you. One <a href=\"https://www.icloud.com/shortcuts/49d8c381eb1c40a78fb306508d3a7462\">adds text clippings</a> from everywhere, the other <a href=\"https://www.icloud.com/shortcuts/ad494048e25b447e8ed357babda64876\">clones entire articles</a> from the Web to iA Writer. Magic.</p>\n<p>Still here? Welcome to funky town. Gotta move on.</p>\n</article>","url":"https://ia.net/writer/blog/write-to-organize","date_published":"2018-09-21T15:48:19+00:00","author":{"name":""}},{"id":"854","title":"Write to Organize","content_html":"<article class=\"text\"> <p><img src=\"https://ia.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/iA-Writer-5.1-With-Tags-aka-the-kraken-release.png\" alt=\"iA Writer 5.1 now with tags. Write to organize.\"></p>\n<p><strong>&#xA0;<br>Creating the latest update to iA Writer was a slow burn. Beginning with some basic maintenance and then improvements for the new iOS 12 and macOS Mojave, the Kraken was released in the final weeks of preparation. The all new Tags and x-callback-urls are so hip they&#x2019;ll take you to funky town.</strong></p>\n<p>Here is how tags started. We decided to add smart folders to iA Writer for Mac. Just before wrapping that task up, someone on the iA Writer design chat said:</p>\n<blockquote><p>\n&#x201C;Great, now I&#x2019;m going to use tags with smart folders and get organized.&#x201D;\n</p></blockquote>\n<p>As a grey-haired information architect, I have encountered 666 flavors of tags and tag clouds. Every time someone suggests tags as &#x201C;a great way to organize a CMS&#x201D; or solve global warming, I don&#x2019;t have much to say. I just lift a Spock eyebrow.</p>\n<h2>The Problem with Tags</h2>\n<p>Tags suck. On paper, they look like a great solution to everything. But in practice, they just add an additional burden to any content management system. With tags, content managers do not only have to organize the content and the hierarchy but also the category systems. <em>Writing</em> good content is already hard enough.</p>\n<p>After typing the first couple of tags in our beta and adding them to Smart Folders I got softly hooked though. A day later my hands typed:</p>\n<blockquote><p>\n&#x201C;Tags should be formatted differently. Using the system font. They belong to the system, sort of.&#x201D;\n</p></blockquote>\n<p>What had my hands just typed? Me, not just supporting tags, but championing a second font in iA Writer? What&#x2019;s next, free font choice, Comic Sans? I started to feel that typing tags in the document was not the same as adding metadata from outside, I didn&#x2019;t know why. And before I knew what was happening, I wrote:</p>\n<blockquote><p>\n&#x201C;&#x2026;and then they should be added automatically to the library!&#x201D;\n</p></blockquote>\n<p>That needed an exclamation mark because it was the coolest idea ever. Team members quickly pointed out that this idea was as old as tags. And that this indeed is how tags should work everywhere. Not as added-on metadata, post-its, and stickers, but from within the content.</p>\n<h2>Write to organize!</h2>\n<p>I started tagging my 300+ notes. It was easy because I could write to organize instead of pointing and clicking and adding stickers. I didn&#x2019;t first have to think about a good set of categories and then ask myself which notes belong where. I just wrote in the article to organize. And, man, did those dusty notes suddenly shine. I was a bit worried though because that list grew fast. My hands typed:</p>\n<blockquote><p>\n&#x201C;Shouldn&#x2019;t they be used in tag clouds instead of a list? Lists can get long&#x2026;&#x201D;\n</p></blockquote>\n<p>Instead of an alphabetical list, maybe we should add a tag cloud because that saves space. Who knows what I would have suggested next! Different typographic sizes depending on how often one tag was used? Luckily, the cloud was not easy to do. Luckily, because that simple and growing alphabetical list may be what makes tag list so good and tag clouds so bad. Tag lists act as a table of contents. They make you feel that you own a bag of gems instead of just a salad of abstract notions.</p>\n<h2>A treasure trove</h2>\n<p>As you can tell, now, I can&#x2019;t get enough of my tag list. It&#x2019;s so nice that sometimes I just open iA Writer to look at my tags. Everything I like is in there. #Aesthetics, #Plato, #Design, #floating, #Japan, my precious!</p>\n<p>Tagging opened a treasure trove of notes I had taken over the years with ideas and quotes and notes I had long forgotten&#x2026; And tagging cleaned up all these notes at the same time. Enough! Just look at how smoothly text morphs into a tag&#x2026; and now look how it is added to the library&#x2026;</p>\n<p>&#xA0;<br>\n<video width=\"100%\" height=\"100%\"><source src=\"https://player.vimeo.com/external/290704339.sd.mp4?s=905835209d110fbf7fa6684460f48558109ba74d&amp;profile_id=165\">Your browser does not support the video tag.</video><br>\n&#xA0;</p>\n<p>Aaah, right? After a couple of weeks with tags, I don&#x2019;t know what-what I&#x2019;d do without them. More folders? Nah. Suddenly I need much fewer folders to keep things in order. Especially on small touch devices tags are a blessing. Just tag it. If you feel like it, you can order it on a point and click device later. Being able to write tags from within the documents completely changes the game.</p>\n<ul>\n<li>It&#x2019;s fast and organic. </li>\n<li>If there is a tag in there that is outdated or spelled wrong, you can easily spot it and correct the issue. </li>\n<li>If you use tags actively to find a document, you automatically take care of them. </li>\n<li>They are easier to curate than folder structures and require less hierarchy and less logic in the hierarchy. Of course, it&#x2019;s best to use both tags and folders!</li>\n<li>Typing tags is very iA Writer: Keep your hands on the keyboard. You type to organize.</li>\n<li>If you&#x2019;re writing an article about a hashtag and want it to look like text, just put a backslash before the hash sign \\#TalkLikeAPirateDay. </li>\n</ul>\n<p>So yes, we now have tags. Not little flags patiently glued onto your files one by one, but essential words you write as you go. What could be better for iA Writer than that? Okay, gotta move on.</p>\n<h2>The ultimate nerd pitch</h2>\n<p>I tried my best to make tags as juicy as they feel to me. They may still sound nerdy. I understand you. But before you go, let me give you the ultimate nerd pitch: x-callback-url support.</p>\n<p>I knew we had to add it at some point. But honestly, x-callback-url support is something I would have never dreamed of being excited about. But, damn it, I am. I am not going to make a long story about how that happened. Just this much: Spend a few minutes on how Shortcuts works, and in a breath, you can send clippings and entire articles to iA Writer, with title, copied text, and tags. You simply select a text, tap the share button, and you can&#x2026; Okay, just look:</p>\n<p>&#xA0;<br>\n<video width=\"100%\" height=\"100%\"><source src=\"https://player.vimeo.com/external/290726496.hd.mp4?s=58ec24a910bb632544b1c8935562da3bcf8aca20&amp;profile_id=174\">Your browser does not support the video tag.</video><br>\n&#xA0;</p>\n<p>Aaah, right? No? Here are two shortcuts we made for you. One <a href=\"https://www.icloud.com/shortcuts/49d8c381eb1c40a78fb306508d3a7462\">adds text clippings</a> from everywhere, the other <a href=\"https://www.icloud.com/shortcuts/ad494048e25b447e8ed357babda64876\">clones entire articles</a> from the Web to iA Writer. Magic.</p>\n<p>Still here? Welcome to funky town. Gotta move on.</p>\n</article>","url":"https://ia.net/writer/blog/write-to-organize","date_published":"2018-09-21T15:46:22+00:00","author":{"name":""}},{"id":"851","title":"Stop reading success books","content_html":"<div class=\"the-content\"> <p><a href=\"http://juliansummerhayes.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/susan-yin-647448-unsplash.jpg\"><img class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-8666\" src=\"http://juliansummerhayes.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/susan-yin-647448-unsplash.jpg%204395w,%20http://juliansummerhayes.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/susan-yin-647448-unsplash-300x200.jpg%20300w,%20http://juliansummerhayes.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/susan-yin-647448-unsplash-768x513.jpg%20768w,%20http://juliansummerhayes.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/susan-yin-647448-unsplash-1024x683.jpg%201024w\" alt=\"\" width=\"4395\" srcset=\"http://juliansummerhayes.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/susan-yin-647448-unsplash.jpg 4395w, http://juliansummerhayes.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/susan-yin-647448-unsplash-300x200.jpg 300w, http://juliansummerhayes.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/susan-yin-647448-unsplash-768x513.jpg 768w, http://juliansummerhayes.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/susan-yin-647448-unsplash-1024x683.jpg 1024w\"></a></p>\n<p><em>&#x201C;Listen to your being. It is continuously giving you hints; it is a still, small voice. It does not shout at you, that is true. And if you are a little silent you will start feeling your way. Be the person you are. Never try to be another, and you will become mature. Maturity is accepting the responsibility of being oneself, whatsoever the cost. Risking all to be oneself, that&#x2019;s what maturity is all about.&#x201D; </em><br>\n&#x2015; Osho</p>\n<p>Chances are, you already know how to live.</p>\n<p>Actually, it happens quite naturally.</p>\n<p>Reading is wonderful &#x2014; I&#x2019;m a big fan &#x2014; but when you believe that your life needs to be lived out through someone else&#x2019;s experience, there&#x2019;s a problem.</p>\n<p>You are you.</p>\n<p>You are not them.</p>\n<p>Their experience is their experience.</p>\n<p>Yours, likewise.</p>\n<p>If you need to learn anything &#x2014; deeply &#x2014; you best guide is (your) life.</p>\n<p>In fact, chances are you need to unlearn everything you&#x2019;ve been told and see life anew.</p>\n<p>But then again, what do I really know?</p>\n<p>Note: Having just returned from a networking event (the first in almost a year), I was struck by how many people were able to quote well-known authors at me but when I asked them what they thought, they seemed stumped to offer anything more than a few glib replies. Perhaps that&#x2019;s where we&#x2019;ve got to: we&#x2019;re too afraid to ask what&#x2019;s really going on, and prefer to follow someone else&#x2019;s script.</p>\n<p>Photo by&#xA0;<a href=\"https://unsplash.com/photos/2JIvboGLeho?utm_source=unsplash&amp;utm_medium=referral&amp;utm_content=creditCopyText\">Susan Yin</a>&#xA0;on&#xA0;<a href=\"https://unsplash.com/search/photos/books?utm_source=unsplash&amp;utm_medium=referral&amp;utm_content=creditCopyText\">Unsplash</a></p> </div>","url":"http://juliansummerhayes.com/stop-reading-success-books/","date_published":"2018-09-20T09:23:08+00:00","author":{"name":""}},{"id":"846","title":"The Washington Post Tried to Penalize a Writer for Criticizing Jeff Bezos. He Fought Back—And Won.","content_html":"<div class=\"content-body\"> <span class=\"author\">BY <a href=\"http://inthesetimes.com/community/profile/322113\">David Dayen</a></span> <div class=\"blogimageleft\"><img src=\"http://inthesetimes.com/images/made/images/working/bezos_wapo_850_567.jpg\" width=\"850\" alt=\"\"> <p class=\"photo-caption\">Amazon.com founder and CEO Jeff Bezos pictured on June 18, 2014 in Seattle, Washington. (Photo by David Ryder/Getty Images) &#xA0; <span></span></p></div>\n<p>Fredrick Kunkle was upset. A staff writer for the <em>Washington Post</em>&#x2019;s Metro desk, he noticed Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, the owner of his newspaper,&#xA0;<a href=\"https://twitter.com/JeffBezos/status/875418348598603776\">musing</a> on Twitter&#xA0;about what to do with his money, which happens to be&#xA0;<a href=\"https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-07-16/happy-prime-day-jeff-amazon-ceo-s-net-worth-tops-150-billion\">more</a> than any human being has ever accumulated&#xA0;in modern history. Kunkle had an idea for the funds: reversing the hits Bezos had forced upon&#xA0;<em>Post&#xA0;</em>workers in successive contract negotiations.</p>\n<p>The co-chair of the Washington-Baltimore News Guild&#x2019;s collective bargaining unit at the paper, Kunkle witnessed in 2014 Bezos&#x2019; management team&#xA0;<a href=\"https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/washington-post-announces-cuts-to-employees-retirement-benefits/2014/09/23/f485981a-436d-11e4-b437-1a7368204804_story.html\">freeze</a>&#xA0;defined-benefit pensions for non-union employees, replacing them with a lump sum or annuity for older workers, and a 401(k) plan for newer ones. Management also tried to eliminate health insurance from part-time employees, which the union managed to salvage by giving back wages. When the next contract came up in 2017, management sought to slash severance in half, while also conditioning the payments on a legal waiver from any lawsuit against the&#xA0;<em>Post</em>, a company that had recently settled a case of&#xA0;<a href=\"https://observer.com/2017/08/washington-post-race-age-discrimination-wrongful-termination-lawsuit-david-dejesus/\">alleged racial discrimination</a>.</p>\n<p>In other words, while Bezos had made significant investments to revive the&#xA0;<em>Post</em>, he was stripping benefits from its workers and treating them as easily expendable, matching his storied mistreatment of workers at Amazon.</p>\n<p>Kunkle had never shied away from media attention and speaking out against Bezos&#x2019; hardline tactics. So he used his talents to&#xA0;<a href=\"https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/jeff-bezos-workers_us_59a7220fe4b07e81d354e6e3\">pen an op-ed</a>, contrasting Bezos&#x2019; attempts to focus on philanthropy with the experience of those working beneath him.</p>\n<p>&#x201C;It should go without saying that charitable giving for medical research and other worthy causes is important and necessary,&#x201D; Kunkle wrote. &#x201C;But as with other multi-billionaires, Bezos should remember that his vast wealth came in part from labor, and he should do more to share that wealth with workers. Instead, Bezos has shown that he views his employees as parts in a high-tech machine, that income inequality is someone else&#x2019;s problem, and that modern corporations owe little more to their employees than a paycheck.&#x201D;</p>\n<p>Kunkle first offered the article to the&#xA0;<em>Post</em>, but they declined; eventually Kunkle&#xA0;<a href=\"https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/jeff-bezos-workers_us_59a7220fe4b07e81d354e6e3\">published it for free</a>&#xA0;in the <em>Huffington Post</em> in September 2017. But shortly afterwards, Kunkle was given a written warning by the paper for &#x201C;freelancing for a competing publication without permission.&#x201D;</p>\n<p>This disciplining was illegal, according to a memo from the Office of General Counsel of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB)&#xA0;<a href=\"https://www.law360.com/articles/1082988/wapo-wrong-to-warn-reporter-for-critical-piece-nlrb-memo\">released</a> last Friday. While the memo stated that it was legal for the&#xA0;<em>Post&#xA0;</em>to restrict its staff writers from publishing in other outlets, because Kunkle wasn&#x2019;t paid for the HuffPost op-ed, he was engaging in protected labor activity by highlighting Bezos&#x2019; actions against&#xA0;<em>Post&#xA0;</em>workers.</p>\n<p>&#x201C;Since the reporter was not paid for the article and did not violate the no-freelancing rule, conduct was no different from that of any employee speaking out about working conditions in a letter to the editor of a newspaper or other communication with the public,&#x201D; wrote Jayme Sophir, head of the NLRB&apos;s Division of Advice, in the memo.&#xA0;</p>\n<p>The fact that Kunkle requested that the&#xA0;<em>Post&#xA0;</em>run the op-ed first, as per the newspaper&#x2019;s standards, also played into the decision. Sophir concluded that nothing in the op-ed was untrue or disparaging, and it could not be kept from the public or subject the author to a reprimand.</p>\n<p>While the memo didn&#x2019;t explicitly identify Kunkle, it&#xA0;did note the title of the op-ed in question: &#x201C;Jeff Bezos Wants To Give More Money To Charity. He Should Pay His Workers First.&#x201D; That was Kunkle&#x2019;s article. The memo was written in July; its existence was only revealed last week.</p>\n<p>This is an important victory for free speech rights at work, beyond the very unique circumstances of Kunkle&#x2019;s situation. Everyone should have the ability to criticize their employer, not just the co-chair of a union bargaining unit. Far too many workers are intimidated against doing so, and few have access to op-ed pages to broadcast their message. The clerk at the local supermarket or the telephone lineman fixing a utility pole can express their opinions about their jobs, and we all benefit from their perspective and how it might apply to where we work.</p>\n<p>But Kunkle in some ways had a greater task, because his criticism was levied at Jeff Bezos, someone with more money and as much power as anyone in America. Bezos is using charity as a shield, to overshadow and deflect criticism of his workplace practices. His recent establishment of a&#xA0;<a href=\"http://fortune.com/2018/09/13/bezos-day-one-fund/\">$2 billion charity</a>&#xA0;called the Day One Fund, focused on low-income preschools and fighting homelessness, generated positive headlines, while the&#xA0;<a href=\"https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-delivery-drivers-reveal-claims-of-disturbing-work-conditions-2018-8\">experience</a> of Amazon delivery drivers, denied overtime and forced to urinate into bottles rather than take breaks, remains more obscure.&#xA0;</p>\n<p>The&#xA0;<em>Post</em>&#x2019;s journalists may be unionized, unlike Amazon workers. But Bezos is systemically chipping away at their benefits with each successive contract, in what appears to be an ideological crusade against workers sharing in the fruits of a successful business. Key to this tactic is the cone of silence Bezos wants to build around his workplaces, so nobody can speak out. The NLRB, at least in Kunkle&#x2019;s case, put a stop to that.</p>\n<p>Kunkle told&#xA0;<em>In These Times&#xA0;</em>that he was &quot;delighted to read the memo and especially happy that the NLRB&#x2019;s general counsel published it as guidance for others,&quot; affirming that all employees have the right to speak out publicly about working conditions. He hasn&apos;t gotten an apology from the&#xA0;<em>Post</em>, but said that was beside the point. &quot;What I hope for more is a sign that Jeff Bezos might wake up to the idea one of these days that he owes more to society and his employees than the minimum he can get away with.&quot;</p>\n<p><em>Disclosure: In These Times workers are&#xA0;unionized with The&#xA0;Washington-Baltimore Newspaper&#xA0;Guild, CWA Local 32035.</em></p>\n</div>","url":"http://inthesetimes.com/working/entry/21450/jeff-bezos-amazon-washington-post-worker-political-speech/","date_published":"2018-09-19T16:39:48+00:00","author":{"name":"David Dayen"}},{"id":"847","title":"We can do better than selling our data","content_html":"<div class=\"content clearfix\"> <p><img class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"http://blogs.harvard.edu/doc/files/2018/09/fruit-thought.png\" alt=\"fruit thought\" width=\"60%\" height=\"image\"></p>\n<p>If personal data is actually a commodity, can you buy some from another person, as if that person were a fruit stand? Would you want to?</p>\n<p>Well, no.</p>\n<p>Yet there is lately a widespread urge to <a href=\"https://www.google.com/search?q=personal+data+as+property&amp;source=lnt&amp;tbs=qdr:m\">claim personal data as personal property</a>, and to create commodity markets for personal data, so people can start making money by <a href=\"https://www.google.com/search&amp;q=selling+your+personal+data\">selling</a>&#xA0;or otherwise&#xA0;<a href=\"https://www.google.com/search?q=monitize+your+personal+data&amp;oq=monitize+your+personal+data\">monetizing</a>&#xA0;their own.</p>\n<p>While I salute these efforts&#x2019; respect for individuals, there are many problems with this approach.</p>\n<p>First is that,&#xA0;economically speaking, data is a&#xA0;<a href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_good\">public</a> <a href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goods\">good</a>, meaning non-<a href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rivalry_(economics)\">rivalrous</a> and non-<a href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Excludable\">excludable</a>. Here&#x2019;s a table that may help (borrowed from <a href=\"https://www.linuxjournal.com/article/9344\">this <em>Linux Journal</em> column</a>):</p>\n<div class=\"table\">\n<table>\n<colgroup>\n<col>\n<col>\n<col>\n<col></colgroup>\n<thead>\n<tr>\n<th></th>\n<th></th>\n<th>Excludability</th>\n<th>Excludability</th>\n</tr>\n<tr>\n<th></th>\n<th></th>\n<th>YES</th>\n<th>NO</th>\n</tr>\n</thead>\n<tbody>\n<tr>\n<td><strong>Rivalness</strong></td>\n<td><strong>YES</strong></td>\n<td>Private good: good: e.g., food, clothing, toys, cars, products subject to value-adds between first sources and final customers</td>\n<td>Common pool resource: e.g., sea, rivers, forests, their edible inhabitants and other useful contents</td>\n</tr>\n<tr>\n<td><strong>Rivalness</strong></td>\n<td><strong>NO</strong></td>\n<td>Club good: e.g., bridges, cable TV, private golf courses, controlled access to copyrighted works</td>\n<td>public good: e.g., data, information, law enforcement, national defense, fire fighting, public roads, street lighting</td>\n</tr>\n</tbody>\n</table>\n</div> <p>The nature of data as a public good also inconveniences claims that it ought to be property. Thomas Jefferson explained this in his 1813 <a href=\"http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/a1_8_8s12.html\">letter to Isaac MacPherson</a>:</p>\n<blockquote><p>If nature has made any one thing less susceptible than all others of exclusive property, it is the action of the thinking power called an idea, which an individual may exclusively possess as long as he keeps it to himself; but the moment it is divulged, it forces itself into the possession of every one, and the receiver cannot dispossess himself of it. Its peculiar character, too, is that no one possesses the less, because every other possesses the whole of it. He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me. That ideas should freely spread from one to another over the globe, for the moral and mutual instruction of man, and improvement of his condition, seems to have been peculiarly and benevolently designed by nature, when she made them, like fire, expansible over all space, without lessening their density in any point, and like the air in which we breathe, move, and have our physical being, incapable of confinement or exclusive appropriation</p></blockquote>\n<p>Of course Jefferson never heard of data. But what he says about &#x201C;the thinking power called an idea,&#x201D; and the likeness of ideas to fire, is especially appropriate if we want to talk about data as a commodity someone might sell.</p>\n<p>That&#x2019;s because treating data as if it were a rivalrous and excludable commodity&#x2014;such as corn, oil or fruit&#x2014;reduces away what makes it fully combustible: that it might be <em>expansible over all space</em>, <em>without lessening density</em>. Ideas can do that. Oil can&#x2019;t, even though it&#x2019;s combustible.</p>\n<p>Put another way, why make almost nothing (the likely price) selling personal data on a commodity basis when you can make a lot more by selling your work where markets for work exist?</p>\n<p>What makes us fully powerful as human beings is our ability to generate and share ideas and other combustible public goods, and not just to generate <a href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labour_economics\">labor</a>, as if our greatest value is to serve as parts of industrial machines?</p>\n<p>Important note: I&#x2019;m not knocking labor here. Most of us have to work for wages as parts of industrial machines, or as independent actors. I do too. There is full honor in that. Yet our nature as distinctive and valuable human beings is also to be more and other than a source of labor alone, and there are ways to make money from that fact too.</p>\n<p>Many years ago JP Rangaswami (<a href=\"https://twitter.com/jobsworth\">@jobsworth</a>) and I made a distinction between making money&#xA0;<em>with</em> something and&#xA0;<em>because of</em> something. It&#x2019;s a helpful one.</p>\n<p>Example: I don&#x2019;t make money <em>with</em> this blog. But I do make money <em>because of</em> it&#x2014;and probably a lot more money than I would if this blog carried advertising or if I did it for a wage.</p>\n<p>Which gets us to the idea behind declaring personal data as personal property, and creating marketplaces where people can sell their data.</p>\n<p>The idea goes like this: <em>there is a $trillion or more in business activity that trades or relies on personal data in many ways. Individual sources of that data should be able to get in on the action</em>.</p>\n<p>Alas, most of that $trillion is in what&#xA0;<a href=\"http://shoshanazuboff.com/\">Shoshana Zuboff</a> calls&#xA0;<em><a href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surveillance_capitalism\">surveillance capitalism</a></em>: a giant snake-ball of B2B activity wherein there is little interest in buying what can be had for free.</p>\n<p>Worse, surveillance capitalism&#x2019;s business is making guesses about you so it can sell you shit. On a per-message basis, this works about 0% of the time, even though massive amounts of money flow through that B2B snakeball (visualized as abstract rectangles&#xA0;<a href=\"https://chiefmartec.com/2018/04/marketing-technology-landscape-supergraphic-2018/\">here</a> and <a href=\"https://lumapartners.com/content/lumascapes/display-ad-tech-lumascape/\">here</a>). Many reasons for that. Here are a few:</p>\n<ol>\n<li>Most of the time, such as right here and now, you&#x2019;re not buying a damn thing, and not in a mood to be bothered by someone telling you what to buy.</li>\n<li>Companies paying other companies to push shit at you do not have your interests at heart&#x2014;not even if their messages to you are, as they like to put it, &#x201C;relevant&#x201D; or &#x201C;interest based.&#x201D; (Which they almost always are not.)</li>\n<li>The entrails of surveillance capitalism are fully <a href=\"https://techcrunch.com/2016/01/06/the-8-2-billion-adtech-fraud-problem-that-everyone-is-ignoring/\">infected with fraud and malware</a>.</li>\n<li>Surveillance capitalism is also quite satisfied to <a href=\"http://adcontrarian.blogspot.com/2017/01/display-ads-my-3-worth.html\">soak up to 97% of an advertising spend before an ad&#x2019;s publisher gets its 3%</a> for pushing an ad at you.</li>\n</ol>\n<p>Trying to get in on that business is just an awful proposition.</p>\n<p>Yes, I know it isn&#x2019;t just surveillance capitalists who hunger for personal data. The health care business, for example, can benefit enormously from it, and is less of a snakeball, on the whole. But what will it pay you? And&#xA0;<em>why</em> should it pay you?</p>\n<p>Won&#x2019;t large quantities of anonymized personal data from iOS and Android devices, handed over freely, be more valuable to medicine and pharma than the few bits of data individuals might sell? (<a href=\"https://www.parkinsons.org.uk/news/apple-watch-help-parkinsons-treatment-and-trials\">Apple has already ventured in that direction</a>, very carefully, also while not paying for any personal data.)</p>\n<p>And isn&#x2019;t there something kinda suspect about personal data for sale? Such as motivating the unscrupulous to alter some of their data so it&#x2019;s worth more?</p>\n<p><a href=\"https://medium.com/@dsearls/why-personal-agency-matters-more-than-personal-data-a1cd520b9b5b\">What fully matters for people in the digital world is <em>agency</em>, not data</a>. Agency is the power to act with full effect in the world. It&#x2019;s what you have when you put your pants on, when you walk, or drive, or tell somebody something useful while they listen respectfully. It&#x2019;s what you get when you make a deal with an equal.</p>\n<p>It&#x2019;s not what any of us get when we&#x2019;re just &#x201C;users&#x201D; on a platform. Or when we click &#x201C;agree&#x201D; to one-sided terms the other party can change and we can&#x2019;t. Both of those are norms in Web 2.0 and desperately need to be killed.</p>\n<p>It&#x2019;s still early. Web 2.0 is an archaic stage in the formation of the digital world. surveillance capitalism has also been&#xA0;<a href=\"https://artplusmarketing.com/after-peak-marketing-2da5a4e07cfb\">a bubble ready to pop</a> for years. The matter is when, not if. It&#x2019;s too absurd, corrupt, complex and annoying to keep living forever.</p>\n<p>So let&#x2019;s give people ways to increase their agency,<a href=\"https://medium.com/@dsearls/giving-customers-scale-a5f8a29efcdd\"> at scale</a>, in the digital world.&#xA0;There&#x2019;s no scale in selling one&#x2019;s personal data. But there&#x2019;s plenty in putting our most human of powers to work.</p>\n<p>The most basic form of agency in the digital world is <em>control over how our personal data might be used by others</em>. There are lots of developers at work on this already. <a href=\"https://cyber.harvard.edu/projectvrm/VRM_Development_Work\">Here&#x2019;s one list at ProjectVRM</a>.</p> </div>","url":"http://blogs.harvard.edu/doc/2018/09/18/data/","date_published":"2018-09-19T02:22:14+00:00","author":{"name":""}},{"id":"845","title":"Give new life to old extensions in Safari 12","content_html":"<div class=\"column2\"> <p>Among yesterday&#x2019;s barrage of updates was a seemingly minor one: Safari 12. While the most notable news of Apple&#x2019;s latest browser might have been the long-awaited ability to display favicons in tabs, there were a handful of other changes, including a few to extensions that may be unpopular. </p> <p>Firstly, Safari no longer supports extensions cryptographically signed by developers themselves. The browser also implements a new Safari App Extensions API, which doesn&#x2019;t have all the features of the previous, now deprecated extension API, <a href=\"http://safarikeywordsearch.aurlien.net/\">causing some developers to cease work on extensions</a>.&#xA0;<a href=\"https://sixcolors.com/post/2018/09/give-new-life-to-old-extensions-in-safari-12/#fn:safarikeywordsearch\" id=\"fnref:safarikeywordsearch\" class=\"footnote\">1</a></p> <p><figure><img src=\"https://sixcolors.com/images/content/2018/oldsafariextensions-6c.jpg\" alt=\"\">\n<figcaption></figcaption>\n</figure></p> <p>The good news is that there is still a way to run these extensions for the time being. (My thanks to my friend John Siracusa for letting me in on the secret.) But this approach does come with a few caveats: </p> <ul>\n<li><p>Developer-signed certificates can potentially be unsafe, which is one reason why Apple is not allowing them anymore. If you&#x2019;re going to use this feature, I&#x2019;d recommend limiting it to older extensions that you already trust, not necessarily as a way to bypass security restrictions for new extensions.</p></li>\n<li><p>Sooner or later, this trick will probably stop working, and/or older extensions will no longer function correctly with new versions of Safari. It&#x2019;s unclear when this might happen&#x2014;you may get a couple years out of them yet, and perhaps by the time they do, sanctioned alternatives will become available. </p></li>\n<li><p>One downside to this approach, based on my testing with the Mojave public beta, is that every system update re-enforced the new rules, meaning that you might potentially have to perform this procedure again in the future. </p></li>\n</ul> <p>Those warnings out of the way, here&#x2019;s how to actually run those old extensions on your Mac. </p> <h2 id=\"terminal\">Terminal</h2> <p>Extensions are stored in <code>~/Library/Safari/Extensions</code>. Fortunately, Safari 12 doesn&#x2019;t remove the extension files for deprecated or inactive extensions. Drag any extensions you want to save from here onto your desktop; I recommend putting them into a folder. </p> <p>The next part of this requires a little command-line trickery, so fire up Terminal, navigate to that directory you just created on the desktop (or just type <code>cd</code> followed by a space in the Terminal window and drag the folder you just made on your desktop into the Terminal window). </p> <p>Type <code>xar -xf</code> followed by a space and the name of the extension file, and hit enter. (Tip: If you type the first few characters and hit the Tab key, it&#x2019;ll autocomplete the rest.) Repeat for each extension file. You&#x2019;ll now have a folder of source files for each extension. </p> <h2 id=\"safari\">Safari</h2> <p>Now open Safari. If you don&#x2019;t already have the Develop menu in the menu bar, go to Safari &gt; Preferences, click on the Advanced tab, and check the &#x201C;Show Develop menu in menu bar&#x201D; option. </p> <p><figure><img src=\"https://sixcolors.com/images/content/2018/safari-extensions-1-6c.jpg\" alt=\"\">\n<figcaption></figcaption>\n</figure></p> <p>There should now be a Develop menu between the Bookmarks and Window menus; from it, select Show Extension Builder. </p> <p><figure><img src=\"https://sixcolors.com/images/content/2018/safari-extensions-2-6c.jpg\" alt=\"\">\n<figcaption></figcaption>\n</figure></p> <p>The first time you open the Extension Builder, you&#x2019;ll be asked whether you really want to use it instead of Xcode: you do. Click Continue. </p> <p>At the bottom of the Extension Builder window click the Plus (+) button and choose Add Extension. You&#x2019;ll get a standard Open dialog box; navigate to that folder on your desktop where you put your extension files and choose the folder with the extension name; it&#x2019;ll have the extension <code>.safari extension</code>. (You can select multiple extensions by Command-clicking the folders, otherwise you&#x2019;ll have to perform the Add Extension command multiple times for each different extension.) Click Select. </p> <p><figure><img src=\"https://sixcolors.com/images/content/2018/safari-extensions-3-6c.jpg\" alt=\"\">\n<figcaption></figcaption>\n</figure></p> <p>You&#x2019;ll now see your old extensions in the left hand column, with information about them in the pane on the right side. Click the Run button in the top right-hand corner; you&#x2019;ll be prompted for your password. Repeat this step for each extension you want to run. </p> <p><figure><img src=\"https://sixcolors.com/images/content/2018/safari-extensions-4-6c.jpg\" alt=\"\">\n<figcaption></figcaption>\n</figure></p> <p>And voil&#xE0;: you&#x2019;re done. Your extensions should now be running and should appear in the Extensions pane of Safari&#x2019;s preferences. As I said above, it&#x2019;s not a permanent solution, but if you&#x2019;re looking to eke a little more life out of much-loved extensions, this will hopefully tide you over for now. </p> <a></a> <p>[<em>If you appreciate articles like this one, help us continue doing Six Colors (and get some fun benefits) by <a href=\"https://sixcolors.com/subscribe/\">becoming a Six Colors subscriber</a>.</em>]</p> <p>[<strong><a href=\"http://twitter.com/dmoren\">Dan Moren</a></strong> <em>is a tech writer, novelist, podcaster, and the Official Dan of Six Colors. You can email him at <a href=\"mailto:dan@sixcolors.com\">dan@sixcolors.com</a> or find him on Twitter at <a href=\"http://twitter.com/dmoren\">@dmoren</a>.</em>]</p> </div>","url":"https://sixcolors.com/post/2018/09/give-new-life-to-old-extensions-in-safari-12/","date_published":"2018-09-18T12:00:00+00:00","author":{"name":""}},{"id":"839","title":"The Constant Consumer — Real Life","content_html":"<div class=\"article-body\"><p>Every day, the imperative to perceive oneself as a customer grows across a range of experiences and institutions: in the shopping centers and business improvement districts that have replaced public squares and parks; in the schools and hospitals, where offerings are tailored not to general social welfare but to individual consumer choice and what each can afford; and in the gym, where exercise, nutrition, and other forms of wellness have been redefined as personal lifestyle choices.</p>\n<p>If the customer is always right, then you&#x2019;re never wrong when you&#x2019;re consuming. No contemporary company has offered that Faustian bargain more broadly and aggressively than Amazon. In a previous era, being at home meant you probably weren&#x2019;t shopping. The mall was, as Ian Bogost noted in an <u><a href=\"https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2018/02/when-malls-saved-cities-from-capitalism/553610/\">essay</a></u> for the <em>Atlantic, </em>where &#x201C;consumerism roared and swelled but, inevitably, remained contained.&#x201D; Freeing consumerism from that containment was one of the internet&#x2019;s earliest applications, streamlining the process of shopping at home, and later, on phones.</p> <p>Recent technologies have enabled the role of <em>customer </em>to be fused with the newer role of <em>user, </em>who inhabits an entire system rather than a specific transaction. Exploring that transition, writer Kevin Slavin <u><a href=\"https://jods.mitpress.mit.edu/pub/design-as-participation\">describes</a></u> how the experience of app-based food delivery narrows one&#x2019;s perspective: &#x201C;For users, this is what it means to be at the center: to be unaware of anything outside it.&#x201D; Those apps&#x2019; minimal interfaces, requiring little more than the push of a button to order food, conceal the labor and logistical sophistication that make it possible. Users don&#x2019;t need to understand the messy complexity that supports their simplified solipsism. In Slavin&#x2019;s example, that insight wouldn&#x2019;t help them order more food, so the user experience excludes it.<strong>&#xA0;</strong></p>\n<p>Amazon similarly merges the customer and the user within its own optimized environments, letting these subjects exist at the center of an ever-expanding system. Imagine an avid Amazon customer&#x2019;s typical day living with a near future iteration of the platform: He wakes up and speaks his first words of the morning to his Amazon Echo in the kitchen, asking Alexa to order toothpaste after noticing he was running low. Upon checking his email, he gives Alexa a few more instructions, adding social engagements and reminders to his calendar, checking the weather, and finally opening the garage door once he&#x2019;s ready to leave for work. At the office throughout the day, idle shopping fills his distracted moments. He browses books, clothing, and even furniture, placing orders within seconds, many of which automatically appear in his shopping cart based on patterns from his activity history (he even knows that some of what he buys will be waiting at home tonight). During the evening commute another Alexa-enabled device in his car prompts him to send his sister a birthday card, an action he asks Alexa to do for him. He stops by Whole Foods to pick up groceries &#x2014;&#xA0;as an Amazon Prime member, it&#x2019;s always the most cost-effective option in his neighborhood. He arrives home to find a variety of Amazon packages stacked neatly on the living room coffee table, delivered throughout the day by part-time contractors who let themselves into the house via the smart lock on the front door.&#xA0;The soundtrack to his entire day is provided by Amazon Music, in which his Prime membership has automatically enrolled him for a small monthly fee. Few parts of this hypothetical day, which is already within the realm of possibility, remain untouched by Amazon&#x2019;s user experience.</p>\n<p>Amazon, as much as any single company, is transforming the environments in which we live and embedding itself within the fabric of daily existence. Beyond individual experience, those changes also manifest themselves in the physical environment. Many physical retail stores have been rendered obsolete as Amazon and other online retailers started undercutting them on price and offering a wider selection. (Bookstores experienced this first but it eventually spread to almost every form of retail.) Sidewalks and building lobbies have become staging areas for packages, with delivery vehicles <u><a href=\"https://www.citylab.com/transportation/2017/04/cities-seek-deliverance-from-the-e-commerce-boom/523671/\">exacerbating traffic</a></u> and obstructing bike lanes as piles of brown Amazon boxes increasingly take up space. As Amazon and food delivery apps eliminate some of the most common reasons to leave one&#x2019;s house one wonders what sort of neighborhood life will be sustainable in affluent urban areas.<strong>&#xA0;</strong></p>\n<p>In light of Amazon&#x2019;s all-encompassing ambitions, the strategy behind several of the company&#x2019;s most important product initiatives &#x2014; Alexa, Amazon Prime, physical retail stores (including Amazon Go and Whole Foods), and <u><a href=\"https://www.amazon.com/b?ie=UTF8&amp;node=17861200011\">Amazon Key</a></u> &#x2014;&#xA0;becomes clearer. These products seek to redefine what being a customer means by immersing us more completely within the Amazon universe. Formerly, being a customer was a role one assumed upon physically entering a store or ordering something from a company. Amazon promises to create a newer type of environment, a hybrid of the digital and the physical, that lets us permanently inhabit that role: the world as Everything Store, which we&#x2019;re always inside.</p> <p>Amazon represents its efforts to erase the remaining bulwarks against consumerism as its &#x201C;customer obsession.&#x201D; Throughout Amazon&#x2019;s existence, the company has claimed that traditional corporate priorities, from high-profile retail partnerships to short-term profitability to the company&#x2019;s stock price, have always ranked below customer satisfaction. Early in the company&#x2019;s history, CEO Jeff Bezos sometimes insisted on keeping one seat open at the conference room table during meetings &#x201C;for the customer,&#x201D; and he still scans customer feedback himself, escalating problems to relevant departments with emails that consist of a single question mark.</p> <p>Bezos&#x2019;s <u><a href=\"https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1018724/000119312518121161/d456916dex991.htm\">letter to Amazon&#x2019;s shareholders</a></u> on April 18, 2018, praised the company&#x2019;s customers for being &#x201C;divinely discontent,&#x201D; unfailingly raising their expectations beyond whatever standard a company sets for them. In the letter, Bezos likens this force to nothing less than evolution &#x2014; &#x201C;We didn&#x2019;t ascend from our hunter-gatherer days by being satisfied&#x201D; &#x2014; and goes on to describe the &#x201C;customer empowerment phenomenon&#x201D; that informs Amazon&#x2019;s approach: Consumers&#x2019; access to product reviews, price comparisons, and shipping timelines has created a space where they and not retailers call the shots. To succeed in this landscape, Bezos suggests, companies must respond to their customers&#x2019; ever-increasing power by treating them like the linchpins that they are; whoever does this best will rightfully dominate its market.</p>\n<p>Amazon&#x2019;s obsession with customers appears to have endeared them, again and again, to a public that should know better: Earlier this year, Amazon announced that Prime memberships had surpassed 100 million globally, with more new members joining in 2017 than in any previous year. The company&#x2019;s second-quarter sales in 2018 <u><a href=\"https://www.cnbc.com/2018/07/27/amazon-sales-grew-by-15-billion-year-over-year-blowing-away-peers.html\">grew 39 percent versus the previous year</a></u>. Many have started welcoming Amazon&#x2019;s physical presence into their homes, with Alexa-enabled devices ranking among the company&#x2019;s best-selling items. &#x201C;Customer obsession&#x201D; is a happier narrative for this dominance than one of aggressive market capture, anti-competitive tactics, and ruthless labor exploitation. Like &#x201C;support the troops,&#x201D; or &#x201C;what about the children,&#x201D; caring about the customer seems like an impregnable position to take. It&#x2019;s a more specific iteration of Google&#x2019;s &#x201C;Don&#x2019;t Be Evil&#x201D;: How could a consumer-focused company be evil, when we are all consumers? What could be wrong with the company being focused on <em>our</em> needs?</p>\n<p>But that is the fundamental problem: Amazon&#x2019;s constant praise of the customer implies we are all already customers and nothing more &#x2014; that we should understand &#x201C;consumer&#x201D; as our core identity. The company&#x2019;s endless praise for the consumer role is part of its intent to disarm us, to invite us to enter its universe of deals and recommendations and to internalize the status of permanent customer &#x2014; and specifically, Amazon&#x2019;s customer. Overall, Amazon&#x2019;s most important product is how it creates and refines a world in which the Everything Store converges with just plain everything and, being ubiquitous, becomes invisible.</p> <p>We dream of being creators, friends, neighbors, or citizens, but rarely of being customers. The customer role used to be temporary and specific &#x2014; buying something from a seller &#x2014; and not an aspirational identity. What happened?</p>\n<p>In the 19th century, industrialization and mass production yielded an unprecedented flood of goods. Commerce was suddenly no longer constrained by supply but demand. Stimulating consumption became crucial; making <em>customer</em> a primary and perpetual identity was a key solution. To achieve this, retailers worked to make feelings of agency and significance available to people, but only on condition of being a customer. This approach is articulated by a slogan often attributed to department store magnate Henry Gordon Selfridge in 1909: &#x201C;The customer is always right.&#x201D;</p> <p>Part of being &#x201C;right&#x201D; was being offered choices to be right about. Whereas Henry Ford once famously joked that customers could buy a car in any color they wanted, as long as it was black, such narrow standardization proved a less viable course as mass markets became saturated. Rather then sell products on their basic utility, advertising began to orient itself toward identity, selling the idea that individuals could reveal their unique selves through purchases. Edward Bernays, a nephew of Sigmund Freud, pioneered this approach in the 1920s, purporting to link goods to individuals&#x2019; inner desires. By the logic of identity-driven advertising, wanting more things corresponded to greater personal depth. Being a customer gave one access to not only a cornucopia of goods but also the rich recesses of one&#x2019;s psyche.</p>\n<p>These processes have only become more sophisticated over the decades. At the individual level, unrestrained identification with the customer role has foreclosed other identities we might imagine for ourselves, such as political activism, resource stewardship, and community participation. David Harvey, in <em>A Brief History of Neoliberalism </em>(2005), diagnoses a late 20th century shift toward &#x201C;a market-based populist culture of differentiated consumerism and individual libertarianism.&#x201D; In this culture, at the structural level, businesses must cater to the customer identity to survive. In lieu of tolerating moderate inconvenience, higher prices, and some potentially awkward human interactions in order to support local businesses, the logic of efficient and limitless customer service offers fast food chains and big-box stores, which offer cheaper goods and routinized retail interactions. These, in turn, are now in the process of being supplanted by Amazon.</p>\n<p>Consumerist approaches aren&#x2019;t the best solutions to many problems, but at present they&#x2019;re often the easiest to imagine and most realistic to implement, if only because they have the support of the corporate powers that benefit from them. The transition toward consumerism across so many domains exemplifies a phenomenon that writer Sarah Perry <u><a href=\"https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2015/03/04/gardens-need-walls-on-boundaries-ritual-and-beauty/\">calls</a></u> a tiling structure, a system that &#x201C;tiles the world with copies of itself.&#x201D; Tiling structures flourish because they solve certain problems well enough that they become more or less mandatory, and block alternate solutions. Perry cites billboards, strip malls, and big-box retail stores as particularly visible examples of tiling structures. By minimizing their costs relative to the revenue they generate while externalizing negative impacts such as poor pedestrian access and unpleasant aesthetics, they spread throughout suburbia in the 20th century, entrenching sprawl as the default format of American retail. Even identity-oriented marketing itself is a tiling structure: It has worked well enough for those with something to sell that it has gradually pervaded the commercial landscape, leaving its detrimental social and personal effects for someone else to fix.</p>\n<p>Tiling structures have introduced customer-service logic to cultural spaces that were once sheltered from markets. Communities based on common interests, shared identity, or physical proximity, from neighborhoods to political groups to religious institutions, must now respond to their constituents&#x2019; increased mobility and access to information by treating them like the empowered customers that Bezos described to his shareholders &#x2014; customers who will leave if they find something better elsewhere. Individualized, personal-identity-based appeals replace collective orientations. As a tiling structure, this shift occurs because it works for the group implementing it, not because it&#x2019;s best for everyone.</p>\n<p>The best example of this transition may be the neighborhood itself. Living in a city, for many, resembles a pure customer experience, in which buying or renting an apartment or home determines one&#x2019;s relationship with a place more than membership in any kind of community. Residents commonly don&#x2019;t know their neighbors and oppose local developments that serve a greater good at their own expense. Real estate agents even appeal to individual identity to brand various locations and increase their appeal. Higher education, similarly, has recategorized students as customers, emphasizing efficiency and consumer choice over education&#x2019;s role as a socially useful endeavor to participate in.</p>\n<p>Our lives are increasingly oriented toward a global system of consumerism mediated by massive, scale-seeking platforms rather than smaller, more localized groupings. Robert Putnam&#x2019;s <em>Bowling Alone</em>, published in 2000, documented declining participation in labor unions, fraternal organizations, and religious groups, partially attributing that decline to socially atomizing technologies like television and the internet (which was relatively young at the time) &#x2014; both key facilitators of consumer culture. Many of the fading forms of social engagement Putnam describes have their own shortcomings, like restrictiveness and discrimination, but their benefits are undeniable, ranging from personal happiness to civic involvement.</p>\n<p>As globalized platform consumerism erases more of what preceded it, replacing intricate social arrangements with individual links to large impersonal systems, it&#x2019;s harder to remember what we&#x2019;ve lost. Less and less equipped to imagine ourselves as anything but customers or users within those systems, we adopt the desires that companies like Amazon can best satisfy: convenience, choice, and frictionless consumption. These developments may be replacing another consumer system that wasn&#x2019;t necessarily worth preserving itself, but beyond those visible changes, we face a new risk: becoming users offline, in the physical world. The more Amazon can control our experience of that environment, the less we&#x2019;ll care what&#x2019;s outside the system it creates.</p>\n<p>Amazon&#x2019;s true objective, it seems, is a full infiltration of the world rather than ongoing refinement of a walled garden confined to the internet. Instead of scaring its customers with its totalizing ambition, the company has successfully marketed this arrangement as&#xA0; desirable. To permanent customers, further gains in convenience, choice, price, and delivery speed are pure benefits. If life is meant to be a series of consumer experiences, they might as well happen as seamlessly as possible.</p>\n<p>Years ago, Amazon&#x2019;s &#x201C;1-click&#x201D; purchasing option seemed to remove all remaining friction from online shopping, but there was still a long way to go. The company&#x2019;s more recent initiatives respond to deeper psychological friction that might prevent us from purchasing a product using Amazon&#x2019;s platform. In a reprise of what happened a century ago, manufacturing and distribution have again progressed to a point where the customer is the greatest constraint on commerce. A single-click purchase still requires opening Amazon&#x2019;s website or app, but people spend plenty of time away from their device screens. The Amazon Echo and other Alexa-enabled devices, placed throughout our homes like furniture, connect more directly to our supposedly subconscious impulses by letting us simply speak our desires and translating those words into Amazon orders. We might change our minds by the time we get around to opening an app, after all.</p>\n<p>Amazon Prime complements this arrangement, letting us become formal members of the Amazon ecosystem and feel like we&#x2019;re always already inside the Everything Store. The company&#x2019;s physical retail stores &#x2014; Amazon Go, Amazon Books, and now Whole Foods &#x2014; extend that territory to the urban space that Amazon had previously bypassed. And home technologies like Amazon Key reopen the home at the conclusion of the order, inviting the company&#x2019;s delivery workers to let themselves in and drop off our merchandise.</p>\n<p>Writer Matthew Stewart, <u><a href=\"https://failedarchitecture.com/amazon-urbanism-patents-and-the-totalizing-world-of-big-tech-futures/\">describing</a></u> the urbanist vision revealed through Amazon&#x2019;s patent filings, characterized its strategy as &#x201C;a colonization of everyday experience; a concerted effort to control an all encompassing infrastructure of home, office and retail automation, one in which the city becomes a giant fulfillment center, and humans mere inventory pickers.&#x201D; More than removing friction from its user experience, Amazon wants to <em>be</em> our environment.</p>\n<p>In realizing such a totalizing vision, Amazon faces an obstacle: If being a customer feels so great, as the past century has trained us, what happens when the consumer experience encompasses us so completely that we forget we&#x2019;re customers at all? The minor friction of 1-click ordering pleasantly reminds us how easy it is to be one of Amazon&#x2019;s empowered customers, the object of the company&#x2019;s obsession. Will we remember that feeling if &#x201C;smart&#x201D; devices can effectively read our minds and our desires subtly manifest themselves in our homes?</p>\n<p>This quandary returns us to the definition of user. A user isn&#x2019;t just an evolved customer but a qualitative transformation of that role: one who occupies a system and creates value for the system&#x2019;s owner by merely being there, just as Google and Facebook&#x2019;s users generate valuable data by partaking of their services. Those platforms, for all their seeming omnipresence, haven&#x2019;t figured out how to expand beyond their digital containers. This is Amazon&#x2019;s ambitious vision: The world is its platform, and instead of being customers, we will just become users whether we are looking at screens or not.</p>\n</div>","url":"http://reallifemag.com/the-constant-consumer/","date_published":"2018-09-17T19:32:46+00:00","author":{"name":""}},{"id":"849","title":"Should We Stop Listening to Podcasts?","content_html":"<div class=\"sqs-layout sqs-grid-12 columns-12\" data-layout-label=\"Post Body\" data-type=\"item\" data-updated-on=\"1537197310372\" id=\"item-5b9fc495758d46cdbe814747\"><div class=\"row sqs-row\"><div class=\"col sqs-col-12 span-12\"><div class=\"sqs-block markdown-block sqs-block-markdown\" data-block-type=\"44\" id=\"block-yui_3_17_2_1_1537197186625_19334\"><div class=\"sqs-block-content\"><p>When you mention time and attention theft, most creators think of Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram (which I call Facebook II). They usually don’t think about Youtube or podcasts, which have the same issues: the ad model and all its abuses to the listener, and the lack of quality in favor of burn-out-inducing “consistency” and quantity (something that is also tied to the ad model).</p>\n<p>I didn’t give too much thought about it until recently. I quit Facebook and Instagram years ago. I became the lightest of Twitter users.</p>\n<p>I hadn’t cared that podcasts were robbing just as much of my attention. Then, while wondering why I was using two apps to manage them (each does something better than the other and both block ads in their own way), I saw this post from <a href=\"https://brooksreview.net/2018/05/castro-podcasts/\">Ben Brooks</a>:</p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>“Isn’t the entire point of a podcast that the entire podcast is relevant and entertaining? Why are people paying to get these “features” instead of demanding better content?”</p>\n</blockquote>\n<p>Then this from <a href=\"https://twitter.com/mattthomas/status/1000014190818545664\">Matt Thomas</a>:</p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>“The podcast is free but your time isn’t.”</p>\n</blockquote>\n<p>Both were painful to read, because they were totally true. We’re just numb to the Buzzfeed-ification of podcasts, even (especially?) in outlets like NPR.</p>\n<p>Then came popular YouTuber CGPGrey (one my favorite podcasters) and his <a href=\"https://overcast.fm/+B1qzR7TJI/1:08:29\">Project Cyclops</a>. In short, this is a well-known, well-liked podcaster who is now advising people to stop listening to podcasts. He has promised to stop listening himself as well — he will only create.</p>\n<p>He followed up his announcement of Project Cyclops with <a href=\"https://overcast.fm/+B1qw00QSY/1:11:02\">an episode</a> questioning why we’re letting attention seekers (arguably the last people we should encourage) have access to so much of our time. He refers to them as the kids from Drama club (nice people, but with a dire need for our constant attention).</p>\n<p>To cap it off, Grey posted <a href=\"http://www.cgpgrey.com/blog/cyclops\">this excellent video</a> to begin Project Cyclops. If you’d like to dive into the science and philosophy behind such projects, check out Nicholas Carr’s <a href=\"https://amzn.to/2xopcaj\">The Shallows</a> and Cal Newport’s <a href=\"https://amzn.to/2xlMmxU\">Deep Work</a>.</p>\n<p>Funny that I haven’t heard much about this on the podcasts I listen to...or on Twitter. These people usually adore Grey and his projects. It’s almost as if they’re chained to a business model that won’t them be open and honest.</p>\n</div></div><div class=\"sqs-block html-block sqs-block-html\" data-block-type=\"2\" id=\"block-97ca83dda3f87568fdbb\"><div class=\"sqs-block-content\"><p data-rte-preserve-empty=\"true\" style=\"white-space: pre-wrap;\"></p></div></div></div></div></div>","url":"https://www.cjchilvers.com/blog/should-we-stop-listening-to-podcasts","date_published":"2018-09-17T00:00:00+00:00","author":{"name":""}},{"id":"832","title":"An Oral History of Apple's Infinite Loop","content_html":"<div><section class=\"section-break-component\"><p>Last month, <a href=\"https://www.wired.com/tag/apple/\">Apple</a> became the first company valued at a trillion dollars. With its new <a href=\"https://www.wired.com/2017/05/apple-park-new-silicon-valley-campus/\">ring-shaped campus</a>, all glass and curvy lines, it looks the part of a company bestriding an industry. But its dominance wasn&#x2019;t always assured.</p><p>Twenty-five years ago, the computer revolution&#x2019;s marquee company was in decline. Back then, it was just settling into shiny new headquarters, a campus of six buildings that formed a different kind of ring. Called Infinite Loop, the name is a reference to a well-known programming error&#x2014;code that gets stuck in an endless repetition&#x2014;though no one seems to know who applied it. Infinite Loop was the place where Apple&#x2019;s leaders and engineers pulled off a historic turnaround, and it will always be the source of stories and legends&#x2014;many of them untold. Until now.</p><div class=\"inset-left-component\"><p class=\"inset-left-component__el\">Editor at large Steven Levy has covered Apple for more than 30 years.</p></div><p>Though Apple is keeping the complex, the move this year to the grounded UFO known as Apple Park seems to mark an end to the era when <a href=\"https://www.wired.com/2011/09/st-essayjobs-ceo/\">Steve Jobs</a>, every inch the hero in a Joseph Campbell narrative, rescued a company that no one wanted to die. In 1997, a young WIRED magazine, founded in the same year that Infinite Loop opened, <a href=\"https://www.wired.com/1997/06/apple-3/\">ran a cover</a> with the Apple logo and a <a href=\"https://www.wired.com/2008/03/bz-apple-ourbad/\">one-word caption: Pray</a>. Our prayers were answered&#x2014;and it happened at Infinite Loop.</p><p>For more than a year I&#x2019;ve been interviewing Apple employees, past and present, about their recollections of Infinite Loop. In their own words, edited for clarity and concision, here is the story of a plot of land in Cupertino, California, that brought us the Mac revival, the iPod, iTunes, the <a href=\"https://www.wired.com/2017/01/apple-iphone-10th-anniversary/\">iPhone</a>, and the Steve Jobs <a href=\"https://www.wired.com/2015/03/the-war-over-who-steve-jobs-was/\">legacy</a>.</p></section><section class=\"section-break-component\"><p><em>In the early 1990s, Apple decided to expand its Cupertino headquarters by building a new, grander campus. Steve Jobs, who was forced out of the company in the mid-&#x2019;80s, had come up with the idea.</em></p><p><strong>John Sculley (Apple CEO, 1983&#x2013;93)</strong>:<strong><sup>*</sup></strong> When I first started working with Steve Jobs, he had this idea of building an Apple campus. Steve called it SuperSite. He wanted something like the experience of going to Disney World, with monorails going around, where everyone was in different-colored uniforms. When Steve told the Mac group that he wanted to have uniforms, they all looked at him like he was crazy.</p><div class=\"js-skip-wide-content large-component large-component--image\"><figure class=\"image-embed-component\"><figcaption class=\"caption-component\"><div class=\"caption-component__caption\"><p>John Sculley poses with employees at Apple&apos;s headquarters in 1993.</p>\n</div></figcaption></figure></div><p><strong>Chris Espinosa (Apple employee #8, 1977&#x2013;present)</strong>: Then Steve left, but he&#x2019;d planted in Sculley the idea that we needed a central campus on property we owned.</p><p><strong>Sculley</strong>: We had taken a contract on a former Motorola site, Four Square.</p><p><strong>Shaan Pruden (senior director, partnership management, 1989&#x2013;present)</strong>: I visited there in 1993. I think the windows might have been in, but the insides weren&#x2019;t done. I&#x2019;m struck by the image of those giant windows and seeing the Caterpillars pushing around those mounds of dirt.</p><p><strong>Espinosa</strong>: It opened very late &#x2019;92, early &#x2019;93. We occupied the buildings mostly in numerical order. One, two, three, four, five, six.</p><p><strong>Greg &#x201C;Joz&#x201D; Joswiak (VP of product marketing, 1986&#x2013;present)</strong>: They built this campus fast, and it was obviously a bright shiny object. Everybody wanted to move in. It was a gigantic shift in the way we worked, because we went from being in cubes to, all of a sudden, literally every person had an office.</p><p><strong>Espinosa</strong>: Building 1 was occupied first by the exec staff and software group. Building 2 was all the Mac web. Three then was the development tools, technical support, and product marketing. Building four was the cafeteria and the Apple library, a great, great resource. Buildings 5 and 6 were hardware. The notion was that all of R&amp;D would fit in it, but by the time we finished it we&#x2019;d grown too much. And then, of course, after we occupied it, the company collapsed so that we all fit in again. By &#x2019;96 we all fit into the Loop.</p><p><strong>Tony Fadell (product design engineer VP, 2001&#x2013;10)</strong>: Infinite Loop 7 was the Pepper Mill, a restaurant on North DeAnza Boulevard. It turned into BJ&#x2019;s, which continued to be called IL7. People would say, &#x201C;I&#x2019;ll meet you in IL7,&#x201D; which was the code for &#x201C;Let&#x2019;s go drinking.&#x201D;</p><p><strong>Joswiak</strong>: The original inhabitants of all the floors got to name their own conference rooms. It&#x2019;s a very weird set of names. We have rooms like Here and There. I still have the hardest time keeping it straight. Which one&#x2019;s Here, which one&#x2019;s There?</p><p><strong>Scott Forstall (SVP of software, 1997&#x2013;2012)</strong>: Those buildings were mazes. Every time I would bring someone on campus, they would get lost. There&#x2019;s only one time I remember someone not getting lost, and it was when we were working on a screen reader for sight-challenged people. I brought someone in who needed a seeing-eye dog. He asked to use the restroom. Every other time this happened, I would wait because they would get lost trying to find their way back. Left, right, left, right, right. Five minutes later his dog brings him right back into the room. That seeing-eye dog was the only one who knew his way around the very first time.</p><p><em>When the campus opened, Apple was struggling and CEOs came and went. Scully left in 1992, succeeded by Mike Spindler, nicknamed the Diesel. He was gone soon after Infinite Loop was built, replaced by Gil Amelio in 1996. Steve Jobs, meanwhile, was building the computer company NeXT.</em></p><div class=\"js-skip-wide-content large-component large-component--image\"><figure class=\"image-embed-component\"><figcaption class=\"caption-component\"><div class=\"caption-component__caption\"><p>Steve Jobs in 1988, when he was building NeXT Computer.</p>\n</div></figcaption></figure></div><p><strong>Pruden</strong>: I moved in IL3 in March &#x2019;95. It was a tough time for Apple. Every day somebody else would be leaving or they&#x2019;d be having another reorg.</p><p><strong>Eddy Cue (SVP of internet software and services, 1989&#x2013;present)</strong>: In the early days of this campus, Apple wasn&#x2019;t a highly successful company&#x2014;the question was whether we would continue to exist, as opposed to whether we would be successful.</p><p><strong>Gil Amelio (CEO, 1996&#x2013;97)</strong>: I got handed a bucket of garbage and was working as hard as I could to get it cleaned up.</p><p><strong>Heidi Roizen (head of developer relations, 1996&#x2013;97)</strong>: I was hired by Mike Spindler, but I started the same day as Gil Amelio. That was the quarter we lost $700 million. There were 350 people in developer relations. But within the first week they said, &#x201C;You&#x2019;re going to have to cut 20 percent of your team.&#x201D; That was not what I would call a fun year.</p><p><strong>Fred Anderson (CFO, 1996&#x2013;2004)</strong>: I started at Apple on April Fool&#x2019;s Day, 1996. We were in the middle of a liquidity crisis, and I had to work with my finance team on a major restructuring plan and a debt offering. I called a staff meeting. The controller and treasurer didn&#x2019;t show up, and I found out later that they had tendered their resignation effective when I joined. I ended up making battlefield promotions to a treasurer and controller.</p><p><strong>Pruden</strong>: It was Friday night before the 1996 Christmas holiday, and a friend of mine called me and said, &#x201C;Don&#x2019;t go home today without talking to me.&#x201D; Four-thirty comes around, and he says, &#x201C;Oh, you might as well go. Nothing&#x2019;s going to happen.&#x201D; Half an hour later, he told me to get back in here. Outside of Town Hall [the auditorium in IL4], I could recognize all the guys from the <em>San Jose Mercury News</em>&#x2014;this event was meant for the press and not many Apple people were there. Our chief legal counsel goes to the podium and says, &#x201C;Ladies and gentlemen, we&#x2019;re here to announce that Apple Computer has acquired NeXT and I&#x2019;d like to introduce Gil Amelio and Steve Jobs.&#x201D; They came down the far aisle and I thought two things, &#x201C;I am watching history right now&#x201D; and &#x201C;Oh my God! We&#x2019;re saved!&#x201D;</p><p><strong>Avie Tevanian (SVP software engineering, 1997&#x2013;2006)</strong>: The meeting was in the evening&#x2014;by the time the lawyers had drafted everything and signed everything it had gotten late, and for some reason we needed to get the announcement done.</p><p><strong>Amelio</strong>: I knew Steve would never allow a partnership, and that my days were numbered. But I did what I thought was right for the company.</p><p><strong>Jon Rubinstein (SVP hardware engineering, 1997-2006)</strong>: When the NeXT deal closed, we walked into this insane asylum with Gil Amelio and his staff. Fortunately, Fred Anderson was there. But the rest of them were nuts. It was really crazy. We started downsizing dramatically. Steve would be around occasionally in an advisory role, but he didn&#x2019;t really spend much time there. Gil was not really sort of in tune with the company.</p><p><strong>Roizen</strong>: When I first arrived Gil was still up in City Center [Apple&#x2019;s headquarters before Infinite Loop]. Gil&#x2019;s floor there was like going into the inner sanctum of corporate America. Steve said the place needed an exorcist.</p><p><strong>Amelio</strong>: I didn&#x2019;t like being over there when all the action was at Infinite Loop. So I started to develop this executive suite [on the fourth floor of IL1].</p><p><strong>Anderson</strong>: Gil had his lunch brought in every day on china rather than going over to our cafeteria to mix with the rank and file. He didn&#x2019;t fit the culture.</p><div class=\"inset-left-component inset-left-component--image\"><figure class=\"image-embed-component\"><figcaption class=\"caption-component\"><div class=\"caption-component__caption\"><p>Gil Amelio at an Apple event on May 13, 1996</p>\n</div></figcaption></figure></div><p><strong>Amelio</strong>: I was absolutely not a culture fit. I ran the company in a very professional, disciplined manner. I did it for one reason: It works. The fact of the matter is that we did solve the fundamental problems. We did create a new platform. We did fix the quality problems.</p><p><strong>Anderson</strong>: There were three board calls that I was involved in and Gil wasn&#x2019;t invited to. Ed Woolard, the board member who headed DuPont, asked, &#x201C;Fred, do you agree with the strategy?&#x201D; I felt I had a fiduciary responsibility [to be truthful] so I said, &#x201C;Ed, no. I don&#x2019;t, really.&#x201D; He said, &#x201C;You think we&#x2019;re going to make the plan this year?&#x201D; I said, &#x201C;I don&#x2019;t think so, Ed.&#x201D; He said, &#x201C;How&#x2019;s morale?&#x201D; I said, &#x201C;It&#x2019;s not very good, Ed.&#x201D;</p><p><strong>Rubinstein</strong>: On July 4th weekend, I get a call from Fred saying, &#x201C;Hey, get your ass up here right now.&#x201D; Gil had been fired and Fred stepped in to the interim CEO roll. Fred was interim CEO for July, August, and part of September. And then Steve stepped into the interim CEO roll to help hire a CEO for Apple. We interviewed a whole bunch of people, and Steve didn&#x2019;t like any of them. And so he continued to do the job himself.</p><p><em>After moving into Infinite Loop&#x2014;building IL1&#x2014;Jobs began transforming Apple, as a company and a culture. With its huge atrium featuring a coffee bar to host serendipitous meetings, IL1 was the gateway to Apple. Jobs&#x2019; presence loomed on the fourth floor.</em></p><p><strong>Espinosa</strong>: When Steve returned, I drove down to the local Flag and Banner store, bought a pirate flag, stuck an Apple sticker on it and cable-tied it to the bridge across the atrium. It was there for about four hours before security took it down.</p><p><strong>Dan Whisenhunt (VP, real estate, 2007&#x2013;18)</strong>: Steve didn&#x2019;t like the campus. He wasn&#x2019;t here during the time it was built, and he didn&#x2019;t have ownership of the design. But the actual bones of the buildings were really good.</p><p><strong>Rubinstein</strong>: They were not great buildings. We&#x2019;d kind of look out at it, and Steve would shake his head.</p><p><strong>Whisenhunt</strong>: One thing he did like was the interior courtyard. It served Apple really well. It was private. It was beautiful. It had this collegiate campus feel.</p><p><strong>Mike Slade (special assistant to the CEO, 1999&#x2013;2004)</strong>: Steve didn&#x2019;t use Gil&#x2019;s office but had a small one. It was very, very, very cluttered with random shit people sent him. There were probably a hundred products in his office at any given time. The couches and the coffee table were littered with crap. And then his desk was also very busy.</p><p><strong>Espinosa</strong>: One of the first things Steve did was to put giant &#x201C;Think Different&#x201D; banners in the huge atrium in IL1, which seemed a little propaganda-ish, but they were a hit with everybody. Then he started putting the products on the banner. If you&#x2019;re a product manager or an engineer on a team, there&#x2019;s nothing more motivating than seeing your product 40 feet high on a billboard.</p><div class=\"js-skip-wide-content large-component large-component--image\"><figure class=\"image-embed-component\"><figcaption class=\"caption-component\"><div class=\"caption-component__caption\"><p>&quot;Think Different&quot; banners emblazoned Infinite Loop in April of 2000.</p>\n</div></figcaption></figure></div><p><strong>Cheryl Thomas (VP software operations, 1989&#x2013;present)</strong>: The &#x201C;Think Different&#x201D; campaign was a huge, huge deal for us because it was this redefinition of who we were and how we thought. We had a big Friday beer bash, there were stacks of posters that employees could grab. People had them framed. Those same posters are in people&#x2019;s offices today.</p><p><strong>Phil Schiller (SVP worldwide marketing, 1987&#x2013;present)</strong>: Things were so different then&#x2014;there were no cell phones, not even Wi-Fi. We didn&#x2019;t get all our news on the internet yet, so the drop of magazines was a big deal to everybody. Somebody would go around with the mail cart of everybody&#x2019;s magazines, and we&#x2019;d get our <em>Macworlds</em> and <em>MacWEEKs</em> and look at the rumor column on the back page and say, &#x201C;Uh, oh, what leaked?&#x201D;</p><p><em>The epicenter of Apple was IL1&#x2014;and, in particular, Jobs&#x2019; fourth-floor boardroom.</em></p><p><strong>Cue</strong>: This was the central hub. People spent a tremendous amount of time in this area because of Steve&#x2019;s involvement with the products.</p><p><strong>Slade</strong>: Most meetings with Steve, no matter who was meeting or what the topic, he did 75 percent of the talking. It didn&#x2019;t matter who it was, he&#x2019;d just talk.</p><p><strong>Rubinstein</strong>: We&#x2019;d meet every Monday. Steve would sit in the middle of the table in front of the white board&#x2014;and he would spend a lot of his time up at the white board. All the major decisions were made in that meeting. One big one was moving the iPod to work on Windows. Phil and I pushed really hard on it, until Steve finally got pissed off and told us to do whatever we wanted to do, and we would be responsible.</p><p><strong>Schiller</strong>: In 1997 we made the tough decision to kill Newton. I remember Newton customers picketing outside of Apple.</p><p><strong>Tim Cook (Apple CEO, 1998&#x2013;present)</strong>: My first day at work I had to cross a picket line to get in the building&#x2014;they are out with signs and yelling and I&#x2019;m asking myself, &#x201C;What have I done?&#x201D; I learned that it was because Steve decided to kill the Newton. I told him there&#x2019;s protesters outside, and he says, &#x201C;Oh yeah, don&#x2019;t worry about that.&#x201D;</p><figure class=\"image-embed-component\"><figcaption class=\"caption-component\"><div class=\"caption-component__caption\"><p>The Newton, an early tablet computer shown here in 1993, accrued a small but passionate fan base.</p>\n</div></figcaption></figure><p><strong>Schiller</strong>: We&#x2019;re like, &#x201C;Steve! Newton customers are picketing! What do you want to do? They&#x2019;re angry.&#x201D; And Steve said, &#x201C;They have every right to be angry. They love Newton. It&#x2019;s a great product, and we have to kill it, and that&#x2019;s not fun, so we have to get them coffee and doughnuts and send it down to them and tell them we love them and we&#x2019;re sorry and we support them.&#x201D;</p><p><strong>Cook</strong>: At IBM and Compaq, where I had been working, I had been involved in helping with thousands of product introductions and withdrawals&#x2014;and, I have to say, very few people cared about the withdrawals&#x2014;and not very many people cared about the intro, either. I had never seen this passion that close up.</p><p><strong>Slade</strong>: One day in Steve&#x2019;s office we were talking about some gadget, it was like in &#x2019;98 or early &#x2019;99, and he just went and bought it on Amazon. He was in awe about how cool it was to buy things with one click. So he called up Amazon and said, &#x201C;Hey, this is Steve Jobs,&#x201D; and licensed that one-click patent for a million bucks.</p><p><strong>Cue</strong>: My first memory of sitting in a meeting in IL1 was with Steve. It was just the two of us up on the fourth floor in the boardroom. We started at 10. I was working on the online store and we were trying to come up with all the things associated with it. By 1, he says, &#x201C;Hey, are you hungry, because I am.&#x201D; Six pizzas came in. I&#x2019;m like, &#x201C;OK, they must have not known which kind we wanted so they provided a bunch.&#x201D; I took the first one and it was pizza dough with tomato sauce and onions, no cheese or anything else. The next one, same thing. So I&#x2019;m like, &#x201C;All right, now I get it&#x2014;the first three are his.&#x201D; I open the fourth one&#x2014;same thing. Six pizzas, all dough and tomatoes and onions. That&#x2019;s how I discovered that his idea of pizza and my idea of pizza were definitely something different.</p><p><strong>Slade</strong>: In 1999 we were going to ship iMovie. Steve gave all of us on the executive team iMacs, a brand new Sony digital video camera, and a week to make a movie. The next Monday we came back and showed our movies. Most of us had kids, and showed movies about our kids. Steve did a movie about his kids. But the movies that weren&#x2019;t about kids were the funny ones. Tim made a movie making fun of how expensive housing prices were in Palo Alto.</p><p><strong>Cook</strong>: I was looking for a home to buy, and moving from Texas I was so shocked at the prices here.</p><p><strong>Slade</strong>: What was interesting about it in retrospect was it told us almost nothing about Tim. Nobody really knew Tim, he&#x2019;s kind of inscrutable.</p><p><em>One of Jobs&#x2019; most popular moves was revamping the cafeteria, dubbed Caff&#xE8; Macs.</em></p><p><strong>Francesco Longoni, head of food services (1998&#x2013;present)</strong>: Steve and I were friends because he lived close to a restaurant that I used to run, Il Fornaio, very close to his house. Steve wanted me to come over and run the caf&#xE9;, which was operated by a third party.</p><p><strong>Schiller</strong>: He said to Francesco, &#x201C;How would you like to run the biggest restaurant in Northern California?&#x201D;</p><p><strong>Longoni</strong>: I said, &#x201C;If I can become an Apple employee and all the chefs can be Apple employees as well, instead of having this third-party nonsense.&#x201D; In early 1998, I got the offer. All my friends told me that I was crazy, Apple was dead. And I said, &#x201C;No, Steve is back and I know Steve very well, and he&#x2019;s going to turn this place around.&#x201D;</p><p><strong>Pruden</strong>: Couple times a year in the caf&#xE9;, we&apos;d get a new toy, I think to keep Francesco happy. So we&apos;d have coffee roasting when it was a new thing, and then they made gelato, and then we got this fabulous woman who made udon noodles.</p><p><strong>Longoni</strong>: We introduced a wood burning, outdoor pizza oven about 12 years ago that I designed. We took it out on a Tuesday morning and all the employees said, &#x201C;Oh my God, what a cool thing it is.&#x201D; And I go, &#x201C;Oh no, if everyone likes this, Steve is going to hate it!&#x201D; So I took a picture of the oven to his office and I said, &#x201C;Pizza is good today.&#x201D; And a minute later he comes down and he goes around the pizza oven and he checks everything, and he goes, &#x201C;Good job!&#x201D;</p><p><strong>Forstall</strong>: Whenever I ate with Steve, he insisted on paying for me, which I thought was a little odd. Even if we went in together and he selected something quick like premade sushi, and I ordered a pizza in the wood-burning pizza oven, he would wait for me at the cash register for 10, 15 minutes. I felt so awkward. Finally, I told him. &#x201C;Seriously, I can pay for myself, so please don&apos;t stand there and wait for me.&#x201D; He said, &#x201C;Scott, you don&apos;t understand. You know how we pay by swiping your badge and then it&#x2019;s deducted from your salary? I only get paid a dollar year! Every time I swipe we get a free meal!&#x201D; Here was this multibillionaire putting one over on the company he founded, a few dollars at a time.</p><p><em>By 2001, Apple was on the upswing, but it was still in financial peril.</em></p><p><strong>Fadell</strong>: When I arrived in 2001 [to lead the iPod project], it still felt like a campus that wasn&#x2019;t filled. There were all these empty offices everywhere in every building. All of the furnishings and everything had not been updated since it opened.</p><p><strong>Cook</strong>: It was an awful time. The stock crashed, it goes down by 60 to 70 percent. We get a call from Ted Waitt, founder of Gateway. He wants to talk about acquiring Apple. Steve and I went to a meeting with Waitt and their CEO, and it&#x2019;s a different Steve. Very calm, listening to the comments they made, how they&#x2019;d <em>probably</em> keep the Apple brand. I was sitting there feeling like my organs were being cut out. Then they said maybe they could come up with a role for Steve, and I&#x2019;m thinking&#x2014;he&#x2019;s going to blow! He&#x2019;s going to blow any minute! Then they start talking about price. And Steve looks at them&#x2014;he could look at you with eyes that just penetrated your soul&#x2014;and says, &#x201C;Who do you think is worth more, Apple or Gateway?&#x201D; The meeting lasted only two or three minutes more. And in a few weeks they had some accounting scandal, and their stock crashed.</p><p><strong>Slade</strong>: I go into work on September 11, 2001, and it&#x2019;s kind of like we&#x2019;re out of business. Meetings are canceled. Steve&#x2019;s just kind of sitting around the board room with the TV on and he says, &#x201C;I don&#x2019;t really know if we&#x2019;re going to be in business. There may be no business.&#x201D;</p><p><em>That year, Apple staffers had been working away on the iPod.</em></p><p><strong>Schiller</strong>: One day I went into Steve&#x2019;s office and said, &#x201C;Hey, all these other competitive devices make you click on buttons and go <em>Next song, next song, next song</em>.&#x201D; If you&#x2019;ve got a thousand songs, you don&#x2019;t want to press it a thousand times. We had been talking about how great the device should be if you go running, which meant you had to be able to do it one-handed. The idea came to me that we could apply the idea of a wheel to a music player. If you could rotate around continuously on a wheel, and you could have acceleration, that would be really great.</p><p><strong>Fadell</strong>: The iPod event was at 10 in the morning, it lasted for an hour, then we had a demo and some lunch. That afternoon about 2 or 3, we were kind of winding down and Steve goes, &#x201C;Tony, Jony, Joz, Phil, let&#x2019;s go over to the ID room,&#x201D; the industrial design studio. And he says, &#x201C;So, on the next generation we need to do this, this, this, this, this, this...&#x201D; Literally, we had celebrated for a nanosecond and then we were on to the next thing. But a week later, we had a nice team lunch and Steve came and said some nice things.</p><p><strong>Thomas</strong>: The first time I ever saw someone outside a lab carrying an iPod was Steve, right after the announcement. He was walking, iPod in hand, be-bopping across the quad. He had the hugest smile on his face.</p><p><em>As Apple regained its cultural momentum, Infinite Loop became a magnet for celebrities, musicians, political figures, and icons like Muhammed Ali.</em></p><p><strong>Thomas</strong>: Before Steve returned, there weren&#x2019;t all kinds of interesting people walking around this campus. Over the years, what we were doing really resonated with artists and athletes and all kinds of different people. Someone would say, &#x201C;Oh, Muhammad Ali&#x2019;s here.&#x201D; OK, cool. &#x201C;Oh, Sheryl Crow&#x2019;s here.&#x201D; Oh, wow. Cool. Stevie Wonder was here pretty recently. Tom Jones, that was a pretty funny one&#x2014;up front there were a bunch of women, screaming. I don&#x2019;t know if they were just channeling history or they were really into it.</p><p><strong>Schiller</strong>: One visitor was an ambassador from a country not to be named, and part of their requirements was that they put sharpshooters up on the roofs of the buildings at Apple. Guys with scoped high-power rifles up there on the roof! I was like, &#x201C;Oh my God, that is so scary.&#x201D;</p><p><strong>Cue</strong>: Lady Gaga once came in to visit Steve. I don&#x2019;t know exactly what she was wearing, but it looked like it was made out of, like, a Glad trash bag, and she had these huge heels and these gigantic glasses. I&#x2019;m thinking, &#x201C;This is going to be a disaster.&#x201D; But she sat down and started talking with Steve and she had all these great ideas.</p><p><em>In February 2001, Apple moved the industrial design studio from across the street to Infinite Loop 2.</em></p><p><strong>Rubinstein</strong>: I didn&#x2019;t like the idea&#x2014;I thought they should be further away from Steve, so it&#x2019;s a little more difficult for him to drop in any time he wanted. But Steve was the CEO and so they moved it.</p><p><strong>Andy Grignon (senior manager, iPhone, 1995&#x2013;2007)</strong>: The original OG lockdown was Jony Ive&#x2019;s lab. The stainless steel door with a camera and the buzzing in, all this stuff.</p><p><strong>Fadell</strong>: Everything else on the campus was utterly, utterly corporate standard, and then you went in this ID room and it was like a whole different world. It was like you had entered a spaceship.</p><p><strong>Tevanian</strong>: They had these really fancy machines that could custom-make things. They could go into their CAD program and design something and get this very fancy, expensive machine to produce a prototype. They had the famous wood tables that you see in the Apple Store. Every nine months there was something new.</p><p><em>As the Jobs regime solidified, he became the center of the daily routine at Infinite Loop.</em></p><p><strong>Schiller</strong>: Steve would say, &#x201C;Let&#x2019;s not have a meeting sitting in a chair, let&#x2019;s get up and walk.&#x201D; The campus is Infinite Loop&#x2014;it&#x2019;s a circle&#x2014;and Steve would take you for a walk around it rather than be cooped up in an office. We&#x2019;d do laps. When people talk about walking to close your rings on the Apple Watch, I always think back to that.</p><p><strong>Whisenhunt</strong>: He had very predictable paths. The first was from the parking lot through the lobby up to his office. The second path was over to Jony&#x2019;s studio. That was an indoor route that was known very well. There was one place along the path where I would put things where I knew he&#x2019;d see them&#x2014;I would mock up various carpets or floor coverings so he could get a sense of them. Then I could talk to him later and say, &#x201C;Well, hey, did you like that? Did you like what was down there or not?&#x201D;</p><p><strong>Espinosa</strong>: All of the big launch and intro activities were rehearsed in IL3. In the two weeks before a product was intro&#x2019;d, it would be just crazy with Steve coming in and sitting and watching the keynote demos over and over and over again and refining them. I remember one group was going to introduce this feature of Mac OS10. Steve basically tore it apart&#x2014;it didn&#x2019;t make sense, he didn&#x2019;t understand why anybody would use it, the demo was terrible. Right there, a week before introduction, he killed the product and it never surfaced again.</p><p><strong>Schiller</strong>: My team would create and develop all the keynote demos. When we were working on the demo for the first iBook with AirPort WiFi, the original idea was we would have an iBook with an accelerometer strapped to a giant doll. So we took a four-foot doll, and had someone up on the roof with this doll on a bungee cord. Steve said, &quot;That&apos;s great&#x2014;but it can&apos;t be a doll, it has to be a person&#x2014;and Phil, it has to be you. If you do it, you&#x2019;ll go down in the demo hall of fame!&quot; I said, &quot;One condition, I won&apos;t sign any waiver. If I get maimed or killed my family can sue Apple for everything you&apos;re worth.&quot;</p><div class=\"js-skip-wide-content large-component large-component--image\"><figure class=\"image-embed-component\"><figcaption class=\"caption-component\"><div class=\"caption-component__caption\"><p>Steve Jobs tosses an iBook notebook computer in the air during a press event in Cupertino on May 1, 2001.</p>\n</div></figcaption></figure></div><p><em>Of course, Apple employees had their own adventures and rituals.</em></p><p><strong>Schiller</strong>: In the first couple of years, Jon Rubinstein had this fun tradition where we would get together on a Friday evening. He&#x2019;d have a bottle of Scotch in his drawer, and we&#x2019;d do shots&#x2014; not a lot of them, just one or two. He had those little Dixie cups, each one with your name on the bottom. Having a plastic Dixie cup in there with your name on it in Jon&#x2019;s drawer in the hardware group was important. You&#x2019;d made it.</p><p><strong>Espinosa</strong>: The atrium was the crossroads of the company. If you sit in the black couches for long enough you&#x2019;ll see half the people that you need to talk to in a day, even though most of them work in other buildings.</p><p><strong>Schiller</strong>: Eddie Cue and I are both into cars, and once we had John Hennessey visit. He&#x2019;s a car maker who makes custom, super high-class stuff in Texas, and he made this custom car called the Hennessey Venom. It&#x2019;s based on the foundation of the Lotus but souped up to like a thousand horsepower. He was out in the parking lot at our building, IL3, and he took each of us on a ride in this thing. I swear, the g-forces were too strong to look over at the speedometer, but I&#x2019;m pretty sure we broke 100 within two blocks of the parking lot.</p><p><strong>Fadell</strong>: My now-wife and I both worked at Apple but hadn&#x2019;t met. Once we locked eyes at Caff&#xE8; Macs and I wondered, &#x201C;Who is that?&#x201D; Then in 2002, someone in HR told me about her boss and said, &#x201C;Tony, you have to meet this woman. Go sit in the lobby of IL1.&#x201D; Dani came down the elevator and sat down with me on the old chairs outside the security zone. Now no Apple employee sits down in the reception area. You just don&#x2019;t do that, you&#x2019;re always running around. Because we&#x2019;re going so long, Steve comes down the elevator, comes out of the secured area, locks eyes on me, sees Dani. I could see it in his eyes&#x2014;&#x201C;What the hell are these two doing talking to each other?&#x201D; So he beelines over and says, &#x201C;Whatever you&#x2019;re doing, you guys better not be doing this.&#x201D; So Steve Jobs shows up on my first date with my soon-to-be wife. We got engaged 11 weeks later.</p><p><em>During the mid-2000s, Infinite Loop&#x2019;s greatest secret was the iPhone development.</em></p><p><strong>Tevanian</strong>: In the mid-2000s we had built prototype tablets that never saw the light of day. We&#x2019;d developed multitouch, we&#x2019;d developed the soft keyboard, we had examples of pinching and zooming of maps and stuff. We wanted to see what we could do.</p><p><strong>Forstall</strong>: One day Steve and I were having lunch outside at Caff&#xE8; Macs and we both flipped open our phones to check something. We looked around and saw that almost everyone around us was carrying a phone, and they were all horrible. Steve looked at me and said, &#x201C;Do you think the technology we&#x2019;re building for the tablet could be used to build something that could fit in your pocket?&#x201D; We prototyped something and that was the beginning of the iPhone.</p><p><strong>Grignon</strong>: This is when Steve started to kind of go off his rocker on secrecy. Forstall locked down that second half of IL2. The atrium previously was open for two stories. That common area was walled up.</p><p><strong>Joswiak</strong>: Everything was locked. You felt like you were going to Fort Knox. It was our equivalent of building the A-Bomb.</p><p><strong>Grignon</strong>: When I first joined Apple in the 1990s, you could walk around pretty much all of Infinite Loop, One through Six, and except for industrial design, go pretty much anywhere you wanted. Now fast forward to Apple today and pretty much everything is locked down. But that&#x2019;s where it started.</p><p><strong>Forstall</strong>: We were testing out prototypes behind locked doors on locked floors of a locked building and they were connected to cell towers I had installed in the closet down the hallway. But I worried what would happen when we brought it out into the real world, so I made the decision that I needed to take one off-campus and use it. But I was worried what would happen if someone robbed me and took the prototype. I even talked to a friend of mine who worked at the CIA about how to avoid being followed.</p><p><strong>Grignon</strong>: Here&#x2019;s the kind of pressure we were under just before the iPhone launch. Somewhere before Christmas, we were in the lockdown, and a program manager got on this guy about fixing bugs. It started out with stern talking and then escalated to yelling at each other about who had spent less time with their kids. The argument ended and she was just livid, ran to her office, and slammed the door so hard that the lock broke and she couldn&#x2019;t get out. We called the Apple locksmith, and he was going to be an hour and a half to get there. Forstall comes by, he&#x2019;s got an aluminum bat and we took turns swinging, and ultimately forced it open. It was really cathartic.</p><p><em>Leaving Infinite Loop could be traumatic&#x2014;and bitter.</em></p><p><strong>Grignon</strong>: I give my notice, and I get a call from Steve&#x2019;s admin to meet, and we just have this fucked up chat. It gets personal, it gets all sorts of weird. This is a keep-me chat, right? And the first words out of his mouth were, &#x201C;You fucked up Bluetooth on the phone.&#x201D;</p><p><strong>Lynn Fox (director of PR, 2006-2008)</strong>: I took a job heading communications at Palm, which Steve had a thing about. I had been prepped by other ex-Apple people there about what to expect when I quit. So I cleaned out my office because I knew I was going to be walked out. Sure enough, when I told my boss Katie Cotton, she said, &#x201C;You&#x2019;re betraying us.&#x201D; And she walked me out. Fifteen minutes later, my phone was disconnected.</p><p><strong>Rubinstein</strong>: I left in 2006. A year later, Palm asked me to be executive chairman, and I agreed. And I gave Steve a head&#x2019;s up. You know Steve, he was either &#x201C;You&#x2019;re on my side or you&#x2019;re the enemy.&#x201D; I was voted off the island. I have never been back since.</p><p><strong>Fadell</strong>: I quit three times. I remember packing my office after the first time, three or four months after the iPod shipped. I had set up a party in my house and was driving home when I get a call to come back. Steve and Jon worked out with me the terms I needed. I got back in the car with all my stuff in it, drove home and said, &#x201C;Guys! This is just a party!&#x201D; They&#x2019;re like, you&#x2019;re not leaving? No, not anymore. [When I did leave] Steve announced that I was going to be leaving, and I got real nice claps and high fives from the senior executives. And I&#x2019;ve never been back.</p><p><em>In 2003, Jobs got sick.</em></p><p><strong>Slade</strong>: I can probably count on my fingers the number of times Steve came in my office. One time he came in my office and he shut the door, and said, &#x201C;I need to talk to you about something really important.&#x201D; I said, &#x201C;What?&#x201D; And he tells me how he and Laurene were having a big argument about cheese&#x2014;he didn&#x2019;t think his kids should eat it but Laurene thought it&#x2019;s a source of protein. I said, &#x201C;Steve, you might be right, but I think this is an argument that if you win, you lose. Don&#x2019;t you just let her make the call?&#x201D; The next time he comes in my office is the fall of 2003. He says, &#x201C;I need to tell you something&#x2014;I have pancreatic cancer, I&#x2019;m dying.&#x201D; And he&#x2019;s crying, and I&#x2019;m crying, and it&#x2019;s awful. So, that was Monday.</p><p><strong>Tevanian</strong>: Instead of having our normal meeting, he told everybody to come over to the side of the room, instead of by the whiteboard where he would always sit. So it wasn&#x2019;t just everyone sitting around the board room and him saying &#x201C;I&#x2019;m sick.&#x201D;</p><p><strong>Slade</strong>: On Tuesday, he comes in my office again and he says, &#x201C;No, [he&#x2019;s going to be all right].&#x201D; My future father-in-law was a general surgeon and he did tons and tons of pancreas surgeries. He did this thing called a Whipple. But Steve told me he wasn&#x2019;t doing that. He had reasons why. I explained it to my father-in-law and he said, &#x201C;That makes no sense, I&#x2019;ve never heard of that.&#x201D;</p><p><em>A year later, Jobs took a brief leave for surgery. For a while, he seemed to recover but then went into a slide, took another leave for a liver transplant, and then continued working during a painful decline.</em></p><p><strong>Fadell</strong>: There were times you could definitely see it, I don&#x2019;t want to get into what happened, it&#x2019;s just too personal. And he would walk out of the room when something happened. We would all just sit there, and we didn&#x2019;t know what to say. We just looked at each and we were just, <em>fuck!</em> No matter what he said, or no matter what happened, it didn&#x2019;t feel right.</p><p><strong>Dag Kittlaus (director of Siri, 2008-11)</strong>: We were going in that boardroom and meeting with him every three, every two weeks, seeing him progressively weakened. And I remember walking in, I met him in the hallway. He could barely walk. This was like June or July 2011. And I said, Steve, &#x201C;How are you doing? He looked at me and he said, &#x201C;Dag, I just need a new body.&#x201D;</p><p><em>Steve Jobs died on October 5, 2011.</em></p><p><strong>Cook</strong>: I felt I was filling in for a period of time and Steve would come back. I was always good with that, and that&#x2019;s how I wanted it to be. I thought that until literally 48 hours before he passed away.</p><p><strong>Shan</strong>: It was the only day in probably my 20 years at the campus that I wasn&#x2019;t there, because that day a shooting happened up at the rock quarry in Cupertino. There were police helicopters everywhere and the guy was still at large, so I was home in the morning. The news started circulating. I go to Apple.com and there was the tribute picture on the front page, and I just lost it. I just had to go back to the office. It sounds morbid, but I wanted to be there with people who knew him. But by the time I got there, everyone had gone home. it was a ghost town, which was even more bizarre.</p><p><strong>Thomas</strong>: That day, as I walked out the main front doors there was this amazing sky, but in the foreground were flags set at half-staff. That image of those flags lowered is something I&#x2019;ll never forget. And over the next few days, thousands of people were coming, and there was this makeshift memorial to him on the lawn right outside of IL6.</p><div class=\"js-skip-wide-content large-component large-component--image\"><figure class=\"image-embed-component\"><figcaption class=\"caption-component\"><div class=\"caption-component__caption\"><p>Flags fly at half-mast outside Apple headquarters following the death of Steve Jobs on October 5, 2011.</p>\n</div></figcaption></figure></div><p><em>On October 19, 2011, Apple hosted a vast Infinite Loop memorial event for its employees.</em></p><p><strong>Whisinant</strong>: We had three or four days to set up. We&#x2019;re good at doing stages, but the unique part was creating the landscape and the atmosphere for the event. We brought in sod to create more areas for people to stand and sit in. We brought in lots of beautiful trees and plants to give more serenity and greenery to the space. It was almost like a church for that morning.</p><p><strong>Schiller</strong>: The Steve Memorial Service was probably the most emotional thing I&#x2019;ve ever worked on. We all wanted to make sure it was the greatest thing we ever worked on, from the entertainment to the giant images of Steve that we selected. We wanted Coldplay to come, but at first it didn&#x2019;t fit their schedule. They were supposed be on a late-night show on the East Coast, but finally the band said, &#x201C;Wait a minute. When friends call to ask for help with something, you drop everything, and you just do it, and Apple&#x2019;s our friend.&#x201D;</p><p><strong>Pruden</strong>: I couldn&#x2019;t sleep the night before so I thought I&#x2019;d just come and get in line&#x2014;at about 3:20 am. I was at the front, and when I entered I saw the whole thing in all of its glory with nobody in the Quad. They had those beautiful pictures up on the buildings, and they had a lovely buffet breakfast set out for us. There were white orchids everywhere and his favorite playlist was on the sound system. Very touching tributes from Bill Campbell and Al Gore and of course Tim and Jony. They played Steve&#x2019;s voiceover for the Think Different advertisements and there wasn&#x2019;t a dry eye in the house.</p><p><em>Late last year people started moving out of Infinite Loop for the new Apple Park campus.</em></p><p><strong>Joswiak</strong>: This has been the epicenter of Apple for the last couple of decades and it&#x2019;s gone pretty well. At the same time, there was excitement over creating something new. One of the things that Steve wanted or taught us is to not be nostalgic.</p><p><strong>Whisenhunt</strong>: For a set of 25-year-old buildings, I think they still look pretty good.</p><p><strong>Schiller</strong>: The basic bones of the buildings and structures are the same, but there were big changes over the years. We added more, more, more, more people. The parking has gotten so much more challenging. The offices have two or three people to them. But the biggest change has been the diversity of the people. You see more young people than we ever had. You walk around and you&#x2019;re hearing probably every foreign language being spoken around this campus. You didn&#x2019;t hear that 20 years ago.</p><p><strong>Kittlaus</strong>: Walking around Infinite Loop, the thing I noticed was everyone was good at what they do, and they generally were in the right spots. That place oozes with competence. I had never been in a company that&#x2019;s spent 95 percent of its time thinking about the product. I used to work at Motorola and when I met with the top guys, it was always about how we&#x2019;re going to win the Vodafone accounts. But sitting in with Steve and Scott and the team, we would sit in a room all the time, for hours, deciding whether certain settings belonged on the top level or whether they should have been the second level on iOS.</p><p><strong>Cue</strong>: At the end of the day, I don&#x2019;t think the campus mattered, honestly. It&#x2019;s the people who make the products. Would it have worked somewhere else? Yeah. Now does leaving bring back really great memories? Of course. Sometimes it brings some sad memories.</p><p><strong>Cook</strong>: We locked up Steve&#x2019;s office. I would not have moved into his office, and no one has. I decided early on it didn&#x2019;t feel right to change that office at all. There are some personal things he had in there that are now with Laurene. But it&#x2019;s the same desk and chair, credenza, bookcase. As a matter of fact, there&#x2019;s still drawings on the whiteboard that his daughter did. Last summer she came by, and I showed her the stuff that she had drawn. You can still feel him in there, because I saw him in there so much. Some people go to the grave site to reflect on someone. I don&#x2019;t do it frequently, but I go to his office.</p><p><strong>Forstall</strong>: Soon after Apple bought land for the new campus, Steve and I walked around the property to get a feel for it. I expected Steve to be happy. But he was melancholy. He explained why as we passed a deserted building on the property and saw an old Hewlett-Packard sign. Apple had purchased the land from HP, which had been one of the most storied companies in the history of Silicon Valley, started by two legendary founders. Steve looked at the building. &#x201C;Eventually everything comes to an end,&#x201D; he said. We looked at each other for a few moments, then walked on.</p></section></div>","url":"https://www.wired.com/story/apple-infinite-loop-oral-history/","date_published":"2018-09-16T14:38:19+00:00","author":{"name":""}},{"id":"843","title":"The Rise and Demise of RSS","content_html":"<article> <p>There are two stories here. The first is a story about a vision of the web&#x2019;s\nfuture that never quite came to fruition. The second is a story about how a\ncollaborative effort to improve a popular standard devolved into one of the\nmost contentious forks in the history of open-source software development.\n</p> <p>In the late 1990s, in the go-go years between Netscape&#x2019;s IPO and the Dot-com\ncrash, everyone could see that the web was going to be an even bigger deal\nthan it already was, even if they didn&#x2019;t know exactly how it was going to get\nthere. One theory was that the web was about to be revolutionized by\nsyndication. The web, originally built to enable a simple transaction between\ntwo parties&#x2014;a client fetching a document from a single host server&#x2014;would be\nbroken open by new standards that could be used to repackage and redistribute\nentire websites through a variety of channels. Kevin Werbach, writing for\n<em>Release 1.0</em>, a newsletter influential among investors in the 1990s, predicted\nthat syndication &#x201C;would evolve into the core model for the Internet economy,\nallowing businesses and individuals to retain control over their online\npersonae while enjoying the benefits of massive scale and scope.&#x201D;<sup id=\"fnref:3\"><a href=\"https://twobithistory.org/2018/09/16/the-rise-and-demise-of-rss.html#fn:3\" class=\"footnote\">1</a></sup> He\ninvited his readers to imagine a future in which fencing aficionados, rather\nthan going directly to an &#x201C;online sporting goods site&#x201D; or &#x201C;fencing equipment\nretailer,&#x201D; could buy a new &#xE9;p&#xE9;e directly through e-commerce widgets embedded\ninto their favorite website about fencing.<sup id=\"fnref:4\"><a href=\"https://twobithistory.org/2018/09/16/the-rise-and-demise-of-rss.html#fn:4\" class=\"footnote\">2</a></sup> Just like in the television\nworld, where big networks syndicate their shows to smaller local stations,\nsyndication on the web would allow businesses and publications to reach\nconsumers through a multitude of intermediary sites. This would mean, as a\ncorollary, that consumers would gain significant control over where and how\nthey interacted with any given business or publication on the web.</p> <p>RSS was one of the standards that promised to deliver this syndicated future.\nTo Werbach, RSS was &#x201C;the leading example of a lightweight syndication\nprotocol.&#x201D;<sup id=\"fnref:5\"><a href=\"https://twobithistory.org/2018/09/16/the-rise-and-demise-of-rss.html#fn:5\" class=\"footnote\">3</a></sup> Another contemporaneous article called RSS the first protocol to\nrealize the potential of XML.<sup id=\"fnref:6\"><a href=\"https://twobithistory.org/2018/09/16/the-rise-and-demise-of-rss.html#fn:6\" class=\"footnote\">4</a></sup> It was going to be a way for both users and\ncontent aggregators to create their own customized channels out of everything\nthe web had to offer. And yet, two decades later, RSS <a href=\"https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&amp;geo=US&amp;q=rss\">appears to be a dying\ntechnology</a>,\nnow used chiefly by podcasters and programmers with tech blogs. Moreover,\namong that latter group, RSS is perhaps used as much for its political\nsymbolism as its actual utility. Though of course some people really do have\nRSS readers, stubbornly adding an RSS feed to your blog, even in 2018, is a\nreactionary statement. That little tangerine bubble has become a wistful symbol\nof defiance against a centralized web increasingly controlled by a handful of\ncorporations, a web that hardly resembles the syndicated web of Werbach&#x2019;s\nimagining.</p> <p>The future once looked so bright for RSS. What happened? Was its downfall\ninevitable, or was it precipitated by the bitter infighting that thwarted the\ndevelopment of a single RSS standard?</p> <h2 id=\"muddied-water\">Muddied Water</h2>\n<p>RSS was invented twice. This meant it never had an obvious owner, a state of\naffairs that spawned endless debate and acrimony. But it also suggests that RSS\nwas an important idea whose time had come.</p> <p>In 1998, Netscape was struggling to envision a future for itself. Its flagship\nproduct, the Netscape Navigator web browser&#x2014;once preferred by 80% of web\nusers&#x2014;was quickly losing ground to Internet Explorer. So Netscape decided to\ncompete in a new arena. In May, a team was brought together to start work on\nwhat was known internally as &#x201C;Project 60.&#x201D;<sup id=\"fnref:7\"><a href=\"https://twobithistory.org/2018/09/16/the-rise-and-demise-of-rss.html#fn:7\" class=\"footnote\">5</a></sup> Two months later, Netscape\nannounced &#x201C;My Netscape,&#x201D; a web portal that would fight it out with other\nportals like Yahoo, MSN, and Excite.</p> <p>The following year, in March, Netscape announced an addition to the My Netscape\nportal called the &#x201C;My Netscape Network.&#x201D; My Netscape users could now customize\ntheir My Netscape page so that it contained &#x201C;channels&#x201D; featuring the most\nrecent headlines from sites around the web. As long as your favorite website\npublished a special file in a format dictated by Netscape, you could add that\nwebsite to your My Netscape page, typically by clicking an &#x201C;Add Channel&#x201D; button\nthat participating websites were supposed to add to their interfaces. A little\nbox containing a list of linked headlines would then appear.</p> <p><img src=\"https://twobithistory.org/images/mnn-channel.gif\" alt=\"A My Netscape Network Channel\"></p> <p>The special file that participating websites had to publish was an RSS file. In\nthe My Netscape Network announcement, Netscape explained that RSS stood for\n&#x201C;RDF Site Summary.&#x201D;<sup id=\"fnref:8\"><a href=\"https://twobithistory.org/2018/09/16/the-rise-and-demise-of-rss.html#fn:8\" class=\"footnote\">6</a></sup> This was somewhat of a misnomer. RDF, or the Resource\nDescription Framework, is basically a grammar for describing certain properties\nof arbitrary resources. (See <a href=\"https://twobithistory.org/2018/05/27/semantic-web.html\">my article about the Semantic Web</a> if that sounds really exciting to you.)\nIn 1999, a draft specification for RDF was being considered by the W3C. Though\nRSS was supposed to be based on RDF, the example RSS document Netscape actually\nreleased didn&#x2019;t use any RDF tags at all, even if it declared the RDF XML\nnamespace. In a document that accompanied the Netscape RSS specification, Dan\nLibby, one of the specification&#x2019;s authors, explained that &#x201C;in this release of\nMNN, Netscape has intentionally limited the complexity of the RSS format.&#x201D;<sup id=\"fnref:9\"><a href=\"https://twobithistory.org/2018/09/16/the-rise-and-demise-of-rss.html#fn:9\" class=\"footnote\">7</a></sup>\nThe specification was given the 0.90 version number, the idea being that\nsubsequent versions would bring RSS more in line with the W3C&#x2019;s XML\nspecification and the evolving draft of the RDF specification.</p> <p>RSS had been cooked up by Libby and another Netscape employee, Ramanathan\nGuha. Guha previously worked for Apple, where he came up with something called\nthe Meta Content Framework. MCF was a format for representing metadata about\nanything from web pages to local files. Guha demonstrated its power by\ndeveloping an application called\n<a href=\"http://web.archive.org/web/19970703020212/http://mcf.research.apple.com:80/hs/screen_shot.html\">HotSauce</a>\nthat visualized relationships between files as a network of nodes suspended in\n3D space. After leaving Apple for Netscape, Guha worked with a Netscape\nconsultant named Tim Bray to produce an XML-based version of MCF, which in turn\nbecame the foundation for the W3C&#x2019;s RDF draft.<sup id=\"fnref:10\"><a href=\"https://twobithistory.org/2018/09/16/the-rise-and-demise-of-rss.html#fn:10\" class=\"footnote\">8</a></sup> It&#x2019;s no surprise, then,\nthat Guha and Libby were keen to incorporate RDF into RSS. But Libby later\nwrote that the original vision for an RDF-based RSS was pared back because of\ntime constraints and the perception that RDF was &#x201C;&#x2018;too complex&#x2019; for the\n&#x2018;average user.&#x2019;&#x201D;<sup id=\"fnref:11\"><a href=\"https://twobithistory.org/2018/09/16/the-rise-and-demise-of-rss.html#fn:11\" class=\"footnote\">9</a></sup></p> <p>While Netscape was trying to win eyeballs in what became known as the &#x201C;portal\nwars,&#x201D; elsewhere on the web a new phenomenon known as &#x201C;weblogging&#x201D; was being\npioneered.<sup id=\"fnref:12\"><a href=\"https://twobithistory.org/2018/09/16/the-rise-and-demise-of-rss.html#fn:12\" class=\"footnote\">10</a></sup> One of these pioneers was Dave Winer, CEO of a company called\nUserLand Software, which developed early content management systems that made\nblogging accessible to people without deep technical fluency. Winer ran his own\nblog, <a href=\"http://scripting.com/\">Scripting News</a>, which today is one of the oldest\nblogs on the internet. More than a year before Netscape announced My Netscape\nNetwork, on December 15th, 1997, Winer published a post announcing that the\nblog would now be available in XML as well as HTML.<sup id=\"fnref:13\"><a href=\"https://twobithistory.org/2018/09/16/the-rise-and-demise-of-rss.html#fn:13\" class=\"footnote\">11</a></sup></p> <p>Dave Winer&#x2019;s XML format became known as the Scripting News format. It was\nsupposedly similar to Microsoft&#x2019;s Channel Definition Format (a &#x201C;push\ntechnology&#x201D; standard submitted to the W3C in March, 1997), but I haven&#x2019;t been\nable to find a file in the original format to verify that claim.<sup id=\"fnref:14\"><a href=\"https://twobithistory.org/2018/09/16/the-rise-and-demise-of-rss.html#fn:14\" class=\"footnote\">12</a></sup> Like\nNetscape&#x2019;s RSS, it structured the content of Winer&#x2019;s blog so that it could be\nunderstood by other software applications. When Netscape released RSS 0.90,\nWiner and UserLand Software began to support both formats. But Winer believed\nthat Netscape&#x2019;s format was &#x201C;woefully inadequate&#x201D; and &#x201C;missing the key thing web\nwriters and readers need.&#x201D;<sup id=\"fnref:15\"><a href=\"https://twobithistory.org/2018/09/16/the-rise-and-demise-of-rss.html#fn:15\" class=\"footnote\">13</a></sup> It could only represent a list of links,\nwhereas the Scripting News format could represent a series of paragraphs, each\ncontaining one or more links.</p> <p>In June, 1999, two months after Netscape&#x2019;s My Netscape Network announcement,\nWiner introduced a new version of the Scripting News format, called\nScriptingNews 2.0b1. Winer claimed that he decided to move ahead with his own\nformat only after trying but failing to get anyone at Netscape to care about\nRSS 0.90&#x2019;s deficiencies.<sup id=\"fnref:16\"><a href=\"https://twobithistory.org/2018/09/16/the-rise-and-demise-of-rss.html#fn:16\" class=\"footnote\">14</a></sup> The new version of the Scripting News format\nadded several items to the <code class=\"highlighter-rouge\">&lt;header&gt;</code> element that brought the Scripting News\nformat to parity with RSS. But the two formats continued to differ in that the\nScripting News format, which Winer nicknamed the &#x201C;fat&#x201D; syndication format,\ncould include entire paragraphs and not just links.</p> <p>Netscape got around to releasing RSS 0.91 the very next month. The updated\nspecification was a major about-face. RSS no longer stood for &#x201C;RDF Site\nSummary&#x201D;; it now stood for &#x201C;Rich Site Summary.&#x201D; All the RDF&#x2014;and there was\nalmost none anyway&#x2014;was stripped out. Many of the Scripting News tags were\nincorporated. In the text of the new specification, Libby explained:</p> <blockquote> <p>RDF references removed. RSS was originally conceived as a metadata format\nproviding a summary of a website. Two things have become clear: the first is\nthat providers want more of a syndication format than a metadata format. The\nstructure of an RDF file is very precise and must conform to the RDF data\nmodel in order to be valid. This is not easily human-understandable and can\nmake it difficult to create useful RDF files. The second is that few tools\nare available for RDF generation, validation and processing. For these\nreasons, we have decided to go with a standard XML approach.<sup id=\"fnref:17\"><a href=\"https://twobithistory.org/2018/09/16/the-rise-and-demise-of-rss.html#fn:17\" class=\"footnote\">15</a></sup></p>\n</blockquote> <p>Winer was enormously pleased with RSS 0.91, calling it &#x201C;even better than I\nthought it would be.&#x201D;<sup id=\"fnref:18\"><a href=\"https://twobithistory.org/2018/09/16/the-rise-and-demise-of-rss.html#fn:18\" class=\"footnote\">16</a></sup> UserLand Software adopted it as a replacement for\nthe existing ScriptingNews 2.0b1 format. For a while, it seemed that RSS\nfinally had a single authoritative specification.</p> <h2 id=\"the-great-fork\">The Great Fork</h2>\n<p>A year later, the RSS 0.91 specification had become woefully inadequate. There\nwere all sorts of things people were trying to do with RSS that the\nspecification did not address. There were other parts of the specification that\nseemed unnecessarily constraining&#x2014;each RSS channel could only contain a maximum\nof 15 items, for example.</p> <p>By that point, RSS had been adopted by several more organizations. Other\nthan Netscape, which seemed to have lost interest after RSS 0.91, the big\nplayers were Dave Winer&#x2019;s UserLand Software; O&#x2019;Reilly Net, which ran an RSS\naggregator called Meerkat; and Moreover.com, which also ran an RSS aggregator\nfocused on news.<sup id=\"fnref:19\"><a href=\"https://twobithistory.org/2018/09/16/the-rise-and-demise-of-rss.html#fn:19\" class=\"footnote\">17</a></sup> Via mailing list, representatives from these\norganizations and others regularly discussed how to improve on RSS 0.91. But\nthere were deep disagreements about what those improvements should look like.</p> <p>The mailing list in which most of the discussion occurred was called the\nSyndication mailing list. <a href=\"https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/syndication/info\">An archive of the Syndication mailing\nlist</a> is still available.\nIt is an amazing historical resource. It provides a moment-by-moment account of\nhow those deep disagreements eventually led to a political rupture of the RSS\ncommunity.</p> <p>On one side of the coming rupture was Winer. Winer was impatient to evolve RSS,\nbut he wanted to change it only in relatively conservative ways. In June, 2000,\nhe published his own RSS 0.91 specification on the UserLand website, meant to\nbe a starting point for further development of RSS. It made no significant\nchanges to the 0.91 specification published by Netscape. Winer claimed in a\nblog post that accompanied his specification that it was only a &#x201C;cleanup&#x201D;\ndocumenting how RSS was actually being used in the wild, which was needed\nbecause the Netscape specification was no longer being maintained.<sup id=\"fnref:20\"><a href=\"https://twobithistory.org/2018/09/16/the-rise-and-demise-of-rss.html#fn:20\" class=\"footnote\">18</a></sup> In the\nsame post, he argued that RSS had succeeded so far because it was simple, and\nthat by adding namespaces or RDF back to the format&#x2014;some had suggested this be\ndone in the Syndication mailing list&#x2014;it &#x201C;would become vastly more complex, and\nIMHO, at the content provider level, would buy us almost nothing for the added\ncomplexity.&#x201D; In a message to the Syndication mailing list sent around the same\ntime, Winer suggested that these issues were important enough that they might\nlead him to create a fork:</p> <blockquote> <p>I&#x2019;m still pondering how to move RSS forward. I definitely want ICE-like\nstuff in RSS2, publish and subscribe is at the top of my list, but I am\ngoing to fight tooth and nail for simplicity. I love optional elements. I\ndon&#x2019;t want to go down the namespaces and schema road, or try to make it a\ndialect of RDF. I understand other people want to do this, and therefore I\nguess we&#x2019;re going to get a fork. I have my own opinion about where the other\nfork will lead, but I&#x2019;ll keep those to myself for the moment at least.<sup id=\"fnref:21\"><a href=\"https://twobithistory.org/2018/09/16/the-rise-and-demise-of-rss.html#fn:21\" class=\"footnote\">19</a></sup></p>\n</blockquote> <p>Arrayed against Winer were several other people, including Rael Dornfest of\nO&#x2019;Reilly, Ian Davis (responsible for a search startup called Calaba), and a\nprecocious, 14-year-old Aaron Swartz, who all thought that RSS needed\nnamespaces in order to accommodate the many different things everyone wanted to\ndo with it. On another mailing list hosted by O&#x2019;Reilly, Davis proposed a\nnamespace-based module system, writing that such a system would &#x201C;make RSS as\nextensible as we like rather than packing in new features that over-complicate\nthe spec.&#x201D;<sup id=\"fnref:22\"><a href=\"https://twobithistory.org/2018/09/16/the-rise-and-demise-of-rss.html#fn:22\" class=\"footnote\">20</a></sup> The &#x201C;namespace camp&#x201D; believed that RSS would soon be used for\nmuch more than the syndication of blog posts, so namespaces, rather than being\na complication, were the only way to keep RSS from becoming unmanageable as it\nsupported more and more use cases.</p> <p>At the root of this disagreement about namespaces was a deeper disagreement\nabout what RSS was even for. Winer had invented his Scripting News format to\nsyndicate the posts he wrote for his blog. Guha and Libby at Netscape had\ndesigned RSS and called it &#x201C;RDF Site Summary&#x201D; because in their minds it was a\nway of recreating a site in miniature within Netscape&#x2019;s online portal. Davis,\nwriting to the Syndication mailing list, explained his view that RSS was\n&#x201C;originally conceived as a way of building mini sitemaps,&#x201D; and that now he and\nothers wanted to expand RSS &#x201C;to encompass more types of information than simple\nnews headlines and to cater for the new uses of RSS that have emerged over the\nlast 12 months.&#x201D;<sup id=\"fnref:23\"><a href=\"https://twobithistory.org/2018/09/16/the-rise-and-demise-of-rss.html#fn:23\" class=\"footnote\">21</a></sup> Winer wrote a prickly reply, stating that his Scripting\nNews format was in fact the original RSS and that it had been meant for a\ndifferent purpose. Given that the people most involved in the development of\nRSS disagreed about why RSS had even been created, a fork seems to have been\ninevitable.</p> <p>The fork happened after Dornfest announced a proposed RSS 1.0 specification and\nformed the RSS-DEV Working Group&#x2014;which would include Davis, Swartz, and several\nothers but not Winer&#x2014;to get it ready for publication. In the proposed\nspecification, RSS once again stood for &#x201C;RDF Site Summary,&#x201D; because RDF had had\nbeen added back in to represent metadata properties of certain RSS elements.\nThe specification acknowledged Winer by name, giving him credit for\npopularizing RSS through his &#x201C;evangelism.&#x201D;<sup id=\"fnref:24\"><a href=\"https://twobithistory.org/2018/09/16/the-rise-and-demise-of-rss.html#fn:24\" class=\"footnote\">22</a></sup> But it also argued that just\nadding more elements to RSS without providing for extensibility with a module\nsystem&#x2014;that is, what Winer was suggesting&#x2014;&#x201D;sacrifices scalability.&#x201D; The\nspecification went on to define a module system for RSS based on XML\nnamespaces.</p> <p>Winer was furious that the RSS-DEV Working Group had arrogated the &#x201C;RSS 1.0&#x201D;\nname for themselves.<sup id=\"fnref:25\"><a href=\"https://twobithistory.org/2018/09/16/the-rise-and-demise-of-rss.html#fn:25\" class=\"footnote\">23</a></sup> In another mailing list about decentralization, he\ndescribed what the RSS-DEV Working Group had done as theft.<sup id=\"fnref:26\"><a href=\"https://twobithistory.org/2018/09/16/the-rise-and-demise-of-rss.html#fn:26\" class=\"footnote\">24</a></sup> Other members\nof the Syndication mailing list also felt that the RSS-DEV Working Group should\nnot have used the name &#x201C;RSS&#x201D; without unanimous agreement from the community on\nhow to move RSS forward. But the Working Group stuck with the name. Dan\nBrickley, another member of the RSS-DEV Working Group, defended this decision\nby arguing that &#x201C;RSS 1.0 as proposed is solidly grounded in the original RSS\nvision, which itself had a long heritage going back to MCF (an RDF precursor)\nand related specs (CDF etc).&#x201D;<sup id=\"fnref:27\"><a href=\"https://twobithistory.org/2018/09/16/the-rise-and-demise-of-rss.html#fn:27\" class=\"footnote\">25</a></sup> He essentially felt that the RSS 1.0 effort\nhad a better claim to the RSS name than Winer did, since RDF had originally\nbeen a part of RSS. The RSS-DEV Working Group published a final version of\ntheir specification in December. That same month, Winer published his own\nimprovement to RSS 0.91, which he called RSS 0.92, on UserLand&#x2019;s website. RSS\n0.92 made several small optional improvements to RSS, among which was the\naddition of the <code class=\"highlighter-rouge\">&lt;enclosure&gt;</code> tag soon used by podcasters everywhere. RSS had\nofficially forked.</p> <p>It&#x2019;s not clear to me why a better effort was not made to involve Winer in the\nRSS-DEV Working Group. He was a prominent contributor to the Syndication\nmailing list and obviously responsible for much of RSS&#x2019; popularity, as the\nmembers of the Working Group themselves acknowledged. But Tim O&#x2019;Reilly, founder\nand CEO of O&#x2019;Reilly, explained in a UserLand discussion group that Winer more\nor less refused to participate:</p> <blockquote> <p>A group of people involved in RSS got together to start thinking about its\nfuture evolution. Dave was part of the group. When the consensus of the group\nturned in a direction he didn&#x2019;t like, Dave stopped participating, and\ncharacterized it as a plot by O&#x2019;Reilly to take over RSS from him, despite the\nfact that Rael Dornfest of O&#x2019;Reilly was only one of about a dozen authors of\nthe proposed RSS 1.0 spec, and that many of those who were part of its\ndevelopment had at least as long a history with RSS as Dave had.<sup id=\"fnref:28\"><a href=\"https://twobithistory.org/2018/09/16/the-rise-and-demise-of-rss.html#fn:28\" class=\"footnote\">26</a></sup></p>\n</blockquote> <p>To this, Winer said:</p> <blockquote> <p>I met with Dale [Dougherty] two weeks before the announcement, and he didn&#x2019;t\nsay anything about it being called RSS 1.0. I spoke on the phone with Rael\nthe Friday before it was announced, again he didn&#x2019;t say that they were\ncalling it RSS 1.0. The first I found out about it was when it was publicly\nannounced.</p> <p>Let me ask you a straight question. If it turns out that the plan to call the\nnew spec &#x201C;RSS 1.0&#x201D; was done in private, without any heads-up or consultation,\nor for a chance for the Syndication list members to agree or disagree, not\njust me, what are you going to do?</p> <p>UserLand did a lot of work to create and popularize and support RSS. We\nwalked away from that, and let your guys have the name. That&#x2019;s the top level.\nIf I want to do any further work in Web syndication, I have to use a\ndifferent name. Why and how did that happen Tim?<sup id=\"fnref:29\"><a href=\"https://twobithistory.org/2018/09/16/the-rise-and-demise-of-rss.html#fn:29\" class=\"footnote\">27</a></sup></p>\n</blockquote> <p>I have not been able to find a discussion in the Syndication mailing list about\nusing the RSS 1.0 name prior to the announcement of the RSS 1.0 proposal.</p> <p>RSS would fork again in 2003, when several developers frustrated with the\nbickering in the RSS community sought to create an entirely new format.\nThese developers created Atom, a format that did away with RDF but embraced XML\nnamespaces. Atom would eventually be specified by <a href=\"https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc4287\">a proposed IETF\nstandard</a>. After the introduction of Atom,\nthere were three competing versions of RSS: Winer&#x2019;s RSS 0.92 (updated to RSS\n2.0 in 2002 and renamed &#x201C;Really Simple Syndication&#x201D;), the RSS-DEV Working\nGroup&#x2019;s RSS 1.0, and Atom.</p> <h2 id=\"decline\">Decline</h2>\n<p>The proliferation of competing RSS specifications may have hampered RSS in\nother ways that I&#x2019;ll discuss shortly. But it did not stop RSS from becoming\nenormously popular during the 2000s. By 2004, the New York Times had started\noffering its headlines in RSS and had written an article explaining to the\nlayperson what RSS was and how to use it.<sup id=\"fnref:30\"><a href=\"https://twobithistory.org/2018/09/16/the-rise-and-demise-of-rss.html#fn:30\" class=\"footnote\">28</a></sup> Google Reader, an RSS aggregator\nultimately used by millions, was launched in 2005. By 2013, RSS seemed\npopular enough that the New York Times, in its obituary for Aaron Swartz,\ncalled the technology &#x201C;ubiquitous.&#x201D;<sup id=\"fnref:31\"><a href=\"https://twobithistory.org/2018/09/16/the-rise-and-demise-of-rss.html#fn:31\" class=\"footnote\">29</a></sup> For a while, before a third of the\nplanet had signed up for Facebook, RSS was simply how many people stayed\nabreast of news on the internet.</p> <p>The New York Times published Swartz&#x2019; obituary in January, 2013. By that point,\nthough, RSS had actually turned a corner and was well on its way to becoming\nan obscure technology. Google Reader was shutdown in July, 2013, ostensibly\nbecause user numbers had been falling &#x201C;over the years.&#x201D;<sup id=\"fnref:32\"><a href=\"https://twobithistory.org/2018/09/16/the-rise-and-demise-of-rss.html#fn:32\" class=\"footnote\">30</a></sup> This prompted\nseveral articles from various outlets declaring that RSS was dead. But people\nhad been declaring that RSS was dead for years, even before Google Reader&#x2019;s\nshuttering. Steve Gillmor, writing for TechCrunch in May, 2009, advised that\n&#x201C;it&#x2019;s time to get completely off RSS and switch to Twitter&#x201D; because &#x201C;RSS just\ndoesn&#x2019;t cut it anymore.&#x201D;<sup id=\"fnref:33\"><a href=\"https://twobithistory.org/2018/09/16/the-rise-and-demise-of-rss.html#fn:33\" class=\"footnote\">31</a></sup> He pointed out that Twitter was basically a\nbetter RSS feed, since it could show you what people thought about an article\nin addition to the article itself. It allowed you to follow people and not just\nchannels. Gillmor told his readers that it was time to let RSS recede into the\nbackground. He ended his article with a verse from Bob Dylan&#x2019;s &#x201C;Forever Young.&#x201D;</p> <p>Today, RSS is not dead. But neither is it anywhere near as popular as it once\nwas. Lots of people have offered explanations for why RSS lost its broad\nappeal. Perhaps the most persuasive explanation is exactly the one offered by\nGillmor in 2009. Social networks, just like RSS, provide a feed featuring\nall the latest news on the internet. Social networks took over from RSS because\nthey were simply better feeds. They also provide more benefits to the companies\nthat own them. Some people have accused Google, for example, of shutting down\nGoogle Reader in order to encourage people to use Google+. Google might have\nbeen able to monetize Google+ in a way that it could never have monetized\nGoogle Reader. Marco Arment, the creator of Instapaper, wrote on his blog in\n2013:</p> <blockquote> <p>Google Reader is just the latest casualty of the war that Facebook started,\nseemingly accidentally: the battle to own everything. While Google did\ntechnically &#x201C;own&#x201D; Reader and could make some use of the huge amount of news\nand attention data flowing through it, it conflicted with their far more\nimportant Google+ strategy: they need everyone reading and sharing everything\nthrough Google+ so they can compete with Facebook for ad-targeting data, ad\ndollars, growth, and relevance.<sup id=\"fnref:34\"><a href=\"https://twobithistory.org/2018/09/16/the-rise-and-demise-of-rss.html#fn:34\" class=\"footnote\">32</a></sup></p>\n</blockquote> <p>So both users and technology companies realized that they got more out of using\nsocial networks than they did out of RSS.</p> <p>Another theory is that RSS was always too geeky for regular people. Even the\nNew York Times, which seems to have been eager to adopt RSS and promote it to\nits audience, complained in 2006 that RSS is a &#x201C;not particularly user friendly&#x201D;\nacronym coined by &#x201C;computer geeks.&#x201D;<sup id=\"fnref:35\"><a href=\"https://twobithistory.org/2018/09/16/the-rise-and-demise-of-rss.html#fn:35\" class=\"footnote\">33</a></sup> Before the RSS icon was designed in\n2004, websites like the New York Times linked to their RSS feeds using little\norange boxes labeled &#x201C;XML,&#x201D; which can only have been intimidating.<sup id=\"fnref:36\"><a href=\"https://twobithistory.org/2018/09/16/the-rise-and-demise-of-rss.html#fn:36\" class=\"footnote\">34</a></sup> The\nlabel was perfectly accurate though, because back then clicking the link would\ntake a hapless user to a page full of XML. <a href=\"https://twitter.com/mgsiegler/status/311992206716203008\">This great\ntweet</a> captures the\nessence of this explanation for RSS&#x2019; demise. Regular people never felt\ncomfortable using RSS; it hadn&#x2019;t really been designed as a consumer-facing\ntechnology and involved too many hurdles; people jumped ship as soon as\nsomething better came along.</p> <p>RSS might have been able to overcome some of these limitations if it had been\nfurther developed. Maybe RSS could have been extended somehow so that\nfriends subscribed to the same channel could syndicate their thoughts about an\narticle to each other. But whereas a company like Facebook was able to &#x201C;move\nfast and break things,&#x201D; the RSS developer community was stuck trying to achieve\nconsensus. The Great RSS Fork only demonstrates how difficult it was to do\nthat. So if we are asking ourselves why RSS is no longer popular, a good\nfirst-order explanation is that social networks supplanted it. If we ask\nourselves why social networks were able to supplant it, then the answer may be\nthat the people trying to make RSS succeed faced a problem much harder than,\nsay, building Facebook. As Dornfest wrote to the Syndication mailing list\nat one point, &#x201C;currently it&#x2019;s the politics far more than the serialization\nthat&#x2019;s far from simple.&#x201D;<sup id=\"fnref:37\"><a href=\"https://twobithistory.org/2018/09/16/the-rise-and-demise-of-rss.html#fn:37\" class=\"footnote\">35</a></sup></p> <p>So today we are left with centralized silos of information. In a way, we <em>do</em>\nhave the syndicated internet that Kevin Werbach foresaw in 1999. After all,\n<em>The Onion</em> is a publication that relies on syndication through Facebook and\nTwitter the same way that Seinfeld relied on syndication to rake in millions\nafter the end of its original run. But syndication on the web only happens\nthrough one of a very small number of channels, meaning that none of us &#x201C;retain\ncontrol over our online personae&#x201D; the way that Werbach thought we would. One\nreason this happened is garden-variety corporate rapaciousness&#x2014;RSS, an open\nformat, didn&#x2019;t give technology companies the control over data and eyeballs\nthat they needed to sell ads, so they did not support it. But the more mundane\nreason is that centralized silos are just easier to design than common\nstandards. Consensus is difficult to achieve and it takes time, but without\nconsensus spurned developers will go off and create competing standards. The\nlesson here may be that if we want to see a better, more open web, we have to\nget better at not screwing each other over.</p> <p><em>\nIf you enjoyed this post, more like it come out every two weeks! Follow\n<a href=\"https://twitter.com/TwoBitHistory\"> @TwoBitHistory\n</a> on Twitter or subscribe to the\n<a href=\"https://twobithistory.org/feed.xml\"> RSS feed\n</a>\nto make sure you know when a new post is out.\n</em></p> <p><em>Previously on TwoBitHistory&#x2026;</em></p> <blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\"><p>New post: This week we&apos;re traveling back in time in our DeLorean to see what it was like learning to program on early home computers.<a href=\"https://t.co/qDrwqgIuuy\">https://t.co/qDrwqgIuuy</a></p>&#x2014; TwoBitHistory (@TwoBitHistory) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/TwoBitHistory/status/1036295112375115778?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">September 2, 2018</a></blockquote> </article>","url":"https://twobithistory.org/2018/09/16/the-rise-and-demise-of-rss.html","date_published":"2018-09-16T00:00:00+00:00","author":{"name":""}},{"id":"848","title":"The Rise and Demise of RSS","content_html":"<article> <p>There are two stories here. The first is a story about a vision of the web&#x2019;s\nfuture that never quite came to fruition. The second is a story about how a\ncollaborative effort to improve a popular standard devolved into one of the\nmost contentious forks in the history of open-source software development.\n</p> <p>In the late 1990s, in the go-go years between Netscape&#x2019;s IPO and the Dot-com\ncrash, everyone could see that the web was going to be an even bigger deal\nthan it already was, even if they didn&#x2019;t know exactly how it was going to get\nthere. One theory was that the web was about to be revolutionized by\nsyndication. The web, originally built to enable a simple transaction between\ntwo parties&#x2014;a client fetching a document from a single host server&#x2014;would be\nbroken open by new standards that could be used to repackage and redistribute\nentire websites through a variety of channels. Kevin Werbach, writing for\n<em>Release 1.0</em>, a newsletter influential among investors in the 1990s, predicted\nthat syndication &#x201C;would evolve into the core model for the Internet economy,\nallowing businesses and individuals to retain control over their online\npersonae while enjoying the benefits of massive scale and scope.&#x201D;<sup id=\"fnref:3\"><a href=\"https://twobithistory.org/2018/09/16/the-rise-and-demise-of-rss.html#fn:3\" class=\"footnote\">1</a></sup> He\ninvited his readers to imagine a future in which fencing aficionados, rather\nthan going directly to an &#x201C;online sporting goods site&#x201D; or &#x201C;fencing equipment\nretailer,&#x201D; could buy a new &#xE9;p&#xE9;e directly through e-commerce widgets embedded\ninto their favorite website about fencing.<sup id=\"fnref:4\"><a href=\"https://twobithistory.org/2018/09/16/the-rise-and-demise-of-rss.html#fn:4\" class=\"footnote\">2</a></sup> Just like in the television\nworld, where big networks syndicate their shows to smaller local stations,\nsyndication on the web would allow businesses and publications to reach\nconsumers through a multitude of intermediary sites. This would mean, as a\ncorollary, that consumers would gain significant control over where and how\nthey interacted with any given business or publication on the web.</p> <p>RSS was one of the standards that promised to deliver this syndicated future.\nTo Werbach, RSS was &#x201C;the leading example of a lightweight syndication\nprotocol.&#x201D;<sup id=\"fnref:5\"><a href=\"https://twobithistory.org/2018/09/16/the-rise-and-demise-of-rss.html#fn:5\" class=\"footnote\">3</a></sup> Another contemporaneous article called RSS the first protocol to\nrealize the potential of XML.<sup id=\"fnref:6\"><a href=\"https://twobithistory.org/2018/09/16/the-rise-and-demise-of-rss.html#fn:6\" class=\"footnote\">4</a></sup> It was going to be a way for both users and\ncontent aggregators to create their own customized channels out of everything\nthe web had to offer. And yet, two decades later, RSS <a href=\"https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&amp;geo=US&amp;q=rss\">appears to be a dying\ntechnology</a>,\nnow used chiefly by podcasters and programmers with tech blogs. Moreover,\namong that latter group, RSS is perhaps used as much for its political\nsymbolism as its actual utility. Though of course some people really do have\nRSS readers, stubbornly adding an RSS feed to your blog, even in 2018, is a\nreactionary statement. That little tangerine bubble has become a wistful symbol\nof defiance against a centralized web increasingly controlled by a handful of\ncorporations, a web that hardly resembles the syndicated web of Werbach&#x2019;s\nimagining.</p> <p>The future once looked so bright for RSS. What happened? Was its downfall\ninevitable, or was it precipitated by the bitter infighting that thwarted the\ndevelopment of a single RSS standard?</p> <h2 id=\"muddied-water\">Muddied Water</h2>\n<p>RSS was invented twice. This meant it never had an obvious owner, a state of\naffairs that spawned endless debate and acrimony. But it also suggests that RSS\nwas an important idea whose time had come.</p> <p>In 1998, Netscape was struggling to envision a future for itself. Its flagship\nproduct, the Netscape Navigator web browser&#x2014;once preferred by 80% of web\nusers&#x2014;was quickly losing ground to Internet Explorer. So Netscape decided to\ncompete in a new arena. In May, a team was brought together to start work on\nwhat was known internally as &#x201C;Project 60.&#x201D;<sup id=\"fnref:7\"><a href=\"https://twobithistory.org/2018/09/16/the-rise-and-demise-of-rss.html#fn:7\" class=\"footnote\">5</a></sup> Two months later, Netscape\nannounced &#x201C;My Netscape,&#x201D; a web portal that would fight it out with other\nportals like Yahoo, MSN, and Excite.</p> <p>The following year, in March, Netscape announced an addition to the My Netscape\nportal called the &#x201C;My Netscape Network.&#x201D; My Netscape users could now customize\ntheir My Netscape page so that it contained &#x201C;channels&#x201D; featuring the most\nrecent headlines from sites around the web. As long as your favorite website\npublished a special file in a format dictated by Netscape, you could add that\nwebsite to your My Netscape page, typically by clicking an &#x201C;Add Channel&#x201D; button\nthat participating websites were supposed to add to their interfaces. A little\nbox containing a list of linked headlines would then appear.</p> <p><img src=\"https://twobithistory.org/images/mnn-channel.gif\" alt=\"A My Netscape Network Channel\"></p> <p>The special file that participating websites had to publish was an RSS file. In\nthe My Netscape Network announcement, Netscape explained that RSS stood for\n&#x201C;RDF Site Summary.&#x201D;<sup id=\"fnref:8\"><a href=\"https://twobithistory.org/2018/09/16/the-rise-and-demise-of-rss.html#fn:8\" class=\"footnote\">6</a></sup> This was somewhat of a misnomer. RDF, or the Resource\nDescription Framework, is basically a grammar for describing certain properties\nof arbitrary resources. (See <a href=\"https://twobithistory.org/2018/05/27/semantic-web.html\">my article about the Semantic Web</a> if that sounds really exciting to you.)\nIn 1999, a draft specification for RDF was being considered by the W3C. Though\nRSS was supposed to be based on RDF, the example RSS document Netscape actually\nreleased didn&#x2019;t use any RDF tags at all, even if it declared the RDF XML\nnamespace. In a document that accompanied the Netscape RSS specification, Dan\nLibby, one of the specification&#x2019;s authors, explained that &#x201C;in this release of\nMNN, Netscape has intentionally limited the complexity of the RSS format.&#x201D;<sup id=\"fnref:9\"><a href=\"https://twobithistory.org/2018/09/16/the-rise-and-demise-of-rss.html#fn:9\" class=\"footnote\">7</a></sup>\nThe specification was given the 0.90 version number, the idea being that\nsubsequent versions would bring RSS more in line with the W3C&#x2019;s XML\nspecification and the evolving draft of the RDF specification.</p> <p>RSS had been cooked up by Libby and another Netscape employee, Ramanathan\nGuha. Guha previously worked for Apple, where he came up with something called\nthe Meta Content Framework. MCF was a format for representing metadata about\nanything from web pages to local files. Guha demonstrated its power by\ndeveloping an application called\n<a href=\"http://web.archive.org/web/19970703020212/http://mcf.research.apple.com:80/hs/screen_shot.html\">HotSauce</a>\nthat visualized relationships between files as a network of nodes suspended in\n3D space. After leaving Apple for Netscape, Guha worked with a Netscape\nconsultant named Tim Bray to produce an XML-based version of MCF, which in turn\nbecame the foundation for the W3C&#x2019;s RDF draft.<sup id=\"fnref:10\"><a href=\"https://twobithistory.org/2018/09/16/the-rise-and-demise-of-rss.html#fn:10\" class=\"footnote\">8</a></sup> It&#x2019;s no surprise, then,\nthat Guha and Libby were keen to incorporate RDF into RSS. But Libby later\nwrote that the original vision for an RDF-based RSS was pared back because of\ntime constraints and the perception that RDF was &#x201C;&#x2018;too complex&#x2019; for the\n&#x2018;average user.&#x2019;&#x201D;<sup id=\"fnref:11\"><a href=\"https://twobithistory.org/2018/09/16/the-rise-and-demise-of-rss.html#fn:11\" class=\"footnote\">9</a></sup></p> <p>While Netscape was trying to win eyeballs in what became known as the &#x201C;portal\nwars,&#x201D; elsewhere on the web a new phenomenon known as &#x201C;weblogging&#x201D; was being\npioneered.<sup id=\"fnref:12\"><a href=\"https://twobithistory.org/2018/09/16/the-rise-and-demise-of-rss.html#fn:12\" class=\"footnote\">10</a></sup> One of these pioneers was Dave Winer, CEO of a company called\nUserLand Software, which developed early content management systems that made\nblogging accessible to people without deep technical fluency. Winer ran his own\nblog, <a href=\"http://scripting.com/\">Scripting News</a>, which today is one of the oldest\nblogs on the internet. More than a year before Netscape announced My Netscape\nNetwork, on December 15th, 1997, Winer published a post announcing that the\nblog would now be available in XML as well as HTML.<sup id=\"fnref:13\"><a href=\"https://twobithistory.org/2018/09/16/the-rise-and-demise-of-rss.html#fn:13\" class=\"footnote\">11</a></sup></p> <p>Dave Winer&#x2019;s XML format became known as the Scripting News format. It was\nsupposedly similar to Microsoft&#x2019;s Channel Definition Format (a &#x201C;push\ntechnology&#x201D; standard submitted to the W3C in March, 1997), but I haven&#x2019;t been\nable to find a file in the original format to verify that claim.<sup id=\"fnref:14\"><a href=\"https://twobithistory.org/2018/09/16/the-rise-and-demise-of-rss.html#fn:14\" class=\"footnote\">12</a></sup> Like\nNetscape&#x2019;s RSS, it structured the content of Winer&#x2019;s blog so that it could be\nunderstood by other software applications. When Netscape released RSS 0.90,\nWiner and UserLand Software began to support both formats. But Winer believed\nthat Netscape&#x2019;s format was &#x201C;woefully inadequate&#x201D; and &#x201C;missing the key thing web\nwriters and readers need.&#x201D;<sup id=\"fnref:15\"><a href=\"https://twobithistory.org/2018/09/16/the-rise-and-demise-of-rss.html#fn:15\" class=\"footnote\">13</a></sup> It could only represent a list of links,\nwhereas the Scripting News format could represent a series of paragraphs, each\ncontaining one or more links.</p> <p>In June, 1999, two months after Netscape&#x2019;s My Netscape Network announcement,\nWiner introduced a new version of the Scripting News format, called\nScriptingNews 2.0b1. Winer claimed that he decided to move ahead with his own\nformat only after trying but failing to get anyone at Netscape to care about\nRSS 0.90&#x2019;s deficiencies.<sup id=\"fnref:16\"><a href=\"https://twobithistory.org/2018/09/16/the-rise-and-demise-of-rss.html#fn:16\" class=\"footnote\">14</a></sup> The new version of the Scripting News format\nadded several items to the <code class=\"highlighter-rouge\">&lt;header&gt;</code> element that brought the Scripting News\nformat to parity with RSS. But the two formats continued to differ in that the\nScripting News format, which Winer nicknamed the &#x201C;fat&#x201D; syndication format,\ncould include entire paragraphs and not just links.</p> <p>Netscape got around to releasing RSS 0.91 the very next month. The updated\nspecification was a major about-face. RSS no longer stood for &#x201C;RDF Site\nSummary&#x201D;; it now stood for &#x201C;Rich Site Summary.&#x201D; All the RDF&#x2014;and there was\nalmost none anyway&#x2014;was stripped out. Many of the Scripting News tags were\nincorporated. In the text of the new specification, Libby explained:</p> <blockquote> <p>RDF references removed. RSS was originally conceived as a metadata format\nproviding a summary of a website. Two things have become clear: the first is\nthat providers want more of a syndication format than a metadata format. The\nstructure of an RDF file is very precise and must conform to the RDF data\nmodel in order to be valid. This is not easily human-understandable and can\nmake it difficult to create useful RDF files. The second is that few tools\nare available for RDF generation, validation and processing. For these\nreasons, we have decided to go with a standard XML approach.<sup id=\"fnref:17\"><a href=\"https://twobithistory.org/2018/09/16/the-rise-and-demise-of-rss.html#fn:17\" class=\"footnote\">15</a></sup></p>\n</blockquote> <p>Winer was enormously pleased with RSS 0.91, calling it &#x201C;even better than I\nthought it would be.&#x201D;<sup id=\"fnref:18\"><a href=\"https://twobithistory.org/2018/09/16/the-rise-and-demise-of-rss.html#fn:18\" class=\"footnote\">16</a></sup> UserLand Software adopted it as a replacement for\nthe existing ScriptingNews 2.0b1 format. For a while, it seemed that RSS\nfinally had a single authoritative specification.</p> <h2 id=\"the-great-fork\">The Great Fork</h2>\n<p>A year later, the RSS 0.91 specification had become woefully inadequate. There\nwere all sorts of things people were trying to do with RSS that the\nspecification did not address. There were other parts of the specification that\nseemed unnecessarily constraining&#x2014;each RSS channel could only contain a maximum\nof 15 items, for example.</p> <p>By that point, RSS had been adopted by several more organizations. Other\nthan Netscape, which seemed to have lost interest after RSS 0.91, the big\nplayers were Dave Winer&#x2019;s UserLand Software; O&#x2019;Reilly Net, which ran an RSS\naggregator called Meerkat; and Moreover.com, which also ran an RSS aggregator\nfocused on news.<sup id=\"fnref:19\"><a href=\"https://twobithistory.org/2018/09/16/the-rise-and-demise-of-rss.html#fn:19\" class=\"footnote\">17</a></sup> Via mailing list, representatives from these\norganizations and others regularly discussed how to improve on RSS 0.91. But\nthere were deep disagreements about what those improvements should look like.</p> <p>The mailing list in which most of the discussion occurred was called the\nSyndication mailing list. <a href=\"https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/syndication/info\">An archive of the Syndication mailing\nlist</a> is still available.\nIt is an amazing historical resource. It provides a moment-by-moment account of\nhow those deep disagreements eventually led to a political rupture of the RSS\ncommunity.</p> <p>On one side of the coming rupture was Winer. Winer was impatient to evolve RSS,\nbut he wanted to change it only in relatively conservative ways. In June, 2000,\nhe published his own RSS 0.91 specification on the UserLand website, meant to\nbe a starting point for further development of RSS. It made no significant\nchanges to the 0.91 specification published by Netscape. Winer claimed in a\nblog post that accompanied his specification that it was only a &#x201C;cleanup&#x201D;\ndocumenting how RSS was actually being used in the wild, which was needed\nbecause the Netscape specification was no longer being maintained.<sup id=\"fnref:20\"><a href=\"https://twobithistory.org/2018/09/16/the-rise-and-demise-of-rss.html#fn:20\" class=\"footnote\">18</a></sup> In the\nsame post, he argued that RSS had succeeded so far because it was simple, and\nthat by adding namespaces or RDF back to the format&#x2014;some had suggested this be\ndone in the Syndication mailing list&#x2014;it &#x201C;would become vastly more complex, and\nIMHO, at the content provider level, would buy us almost nothing for the added\ncomplexity.&#x201D; In a message to the Syndication mailing list sent around the same\ntime, Winer suggested that these issues were important enough that they might\nlead him to create a fork:</p> <blockquote> <p>I&#x2019;m still pondering how to move RSS forward. I definitely want ICE-like\nstuff in RSS2, publish and subscribe is at the top of my list, but I am\ngoing to fight tooth and nail for simplicity. I love optional elements. I\ndon&#x2019;t want to go down the namespaces and schema road, or try to make it a\ndialect of RDF. I understand other people want to do this, and therefore I\nguess we&#x2019;re going to get a fork. I have my own opinion about where the other\nfork will lead, but I&#x2019;ll keep those to myself for the moment at least.<sup id=\"fnref:21\"><a href=\"https://twobithistory.org/2018/09/16/the-rise-and-demise-of-rss.html#fn:21\" class=\"footnote\">19</a></sup></p>\n</blockquote> <p>Arrayed against Winer were several other people, including Rael Dornfest of\nO&#x2019;Reilly, Ian Davis (responsible for a search startup called Calaba), and a\nprecocious, 14-year-old Aaron Swartz, who all thought that RSS needed\nnamespaces in order to accommodate the many different things everyone wanted to\ndo with it. On another mailing list hosted by O&#x2019;Reilly, Davis proposed a\nnamespace-based module system, writing that such a system would &#x201C;make RSS as\nextensible as we like rather than packing in new features that over-complicate\nthe spec.&#x201D;<sup id=\"fnref:22\"><a href=\"https://twobithistory.org/2018/09/16/the-rise-and-demise-of-rss.html#fn:22\" class=\"footnote\">20</a></sup> The &#x201C;namespace camp&#x201D; believed that RSS would soon be used for\nmuch more than the syndication of blog posts, so namespaces, rather than being\na complication, were the only way to keep RSS from becoming unmanageable as it\nsupported more and more use cases.</p> <p>At the root of this disagreement about namespaces was a deeper disagreement\nabout what RSS was even for. Winer had invented his Scripting News format to\nsyndicate the posts he wrote for his blog. Guha and Libby at Netscape had\ndesigned RSS and called it &#x201C;RDF Site Summary&#x201D; because in their minds it was a\nway of recreating a site in miniature within Netscape&#x2019;s online portal. Davis,\nwriting to the Syndication mailing list, explained his view that RSS was\n&#x201C;originally conceived as a way of building mini sitemaps,&#x201D; and that now he and\nothers wanted to expand RSS &#x201C;to encompass more types of information than simple\nnews headlines and to cater for the new uses of RSS that have emerged over the\nlast 12 months.&#x201D;<sup id=\"fnref:23\"><a href=\"https://twobithistory.org/2018/09/16/the-rise-and-demise-of-rss.html#fn:23\" class=\"footnote\">21</a></sup> Winer wrote a prickly reply, stating that his Scripting\nNews format was in fact the original RSS and that it had been meant for a\ndifferent purpose. Given that the people most involved in the development of\nRSS disagreed about why RSS had even been created, a fork seems to have been\ninevitable.</p> <p>The fork happened after Dornfest announced a proposed RSS 1.0 specification and\nformed the RSS-DEV Working Group&#x2014;which would include Davis, Swartz, and several\nothers but not Winer&#x2014;to get it ready for publication. In the proposed\nspecification, RSS once again stood for &#x201C;RDF Site Summary,&#x201D; because RDF had had\nbeen added back in to represent metadata properties of certain RSS elements.\nThe specification acknowledged Winer by name, giving him credit for\npopularizing RSS through his &#x201C;evangelism.&#x201D;<sup id=\"fnref:24\"><a href=\"https://twobithistory.org/2018/09/16/the-rise-and-demise-of-rss.html#fn:24\" class=\"footnote\">22</a></sup> But it also argued that just\nadding more elements to RSS without providing for extensibility with a module\nsystem&#x2014;that is, what Winer was suggesting&#x2014;&#x201D;sacrifices scalability.&#x201D; The\nspecification went on to define a module system for RSS based on XML\nnamespaces.</p> <p>Winer was furious that the RSS-DEV Working Group had arrogated the &#x201C;RSS 1.0&#x201D;\nname for themselves.<sup id=\"fnref:25\"><a href=\"https://twobithistory.org/2018/09/16/the-rise-and-demise-of-rss.html#fn:25\" class=\"footnote\">23</a></sup> In another mailing list about decentralization, he\ndescribed what the RSS-DEV Working Group had done as theft.<sup id=\"fnref:26\"><a href=\"https://twobithistory.org/2018/09/16/the-rise-and-demise-of-rss.html#fn:26\" class=\"footnote\">24</a></sup> Other members\nof the Syndication mailing list also felt that the RSS-DEV Working Group should\nnot have used the name &#x201C;RSS&#x201D; without unanimous agreement from the community on\nhow to move RSS forward. But the Working Group stuck with the name. Dan\nBrickley, another member of the RSS-DEV Working Group, defended this decision\nby arguing that &#x201C;RSS 1.0 as proposed is solidly grounded in the original RSS\nvision, which itself had a long heritage going back to MCF (an RDF precursor)\nand related specs (CDF etc).&#x201D;<sup id=\"fnref:27\"><a href=\"https://twobithistory.org/2018/09/16/the-rise-and-demise-of-rss.html#fn:27\" class=\"footnote\">25</a></sup> He essentially felt that the RSS 1.0 effort\nhad a better claim to the RSS name than Winer did, since RDF had originally\nbeen a part of RSS. The RSS-DEV Working Group published a final version of\ntheir specification in December. That same month, Winer published his own\nimprovement to RSS 0.91, which he called RSS 0.92, on UserLand&#x2019;s website. RSS\n0.92 made several small optional improvements to RSS, among which was the\naddition of the <code class=\"highlighter-rouge\">&lt;enclosure&gt;</code> tag soon used by podcasters everywhere. RSS had\nofficially forked.</p> <p>It&#x2019;s not clear to me why a better effort was not made to involve Winer in the\nRSS-DEV Working Group. He was a prominent contributor to the Syndication\nmailing list and obviously responsible for much of RSS&#x2019; popularity, as the\nmembers of the Working Group themselves acknowledged. But Tim O&#x2019;Reilly, founder\nand CEO of O&#x2019;Reilly, explained in a UserLand discussion group that Winer more\nor less refused to participate:</p> <blockquote> <p>A group of people involved in RSS got together to start thinking about its\nfuture evolution. Dave was part of the group. When the consensus of the group\nturned in a direction he didn&#x2019;t like, Dave stopped participating, and\ncharacterized it as a plot by O&#x2019;Reilly to take over RSS from him, despite the\nfact that Rael Dornfest of O&#x2019;Reilly was only one of about a dozen authors of\nthe proposed RSS 1.0 spec, and that many of those who were part of its\ndevelopment had at least as long a history with RSS as Dave had.<sup id=\"fnref:28\"><a href=\"https://twobithistory.org/2018/09/16/the-rise-and-demise-of-rss.html#fn:28\" class=\"footnote\">26</a></sup></p>\n</blockquote> <p>To this, Winer said:</p> <blockquote> <p>I met with Dale [Dougherty] two weeks before the announcement, and he didn&#x2019;t\nsay anything about it being called RSS 1.0. I spoke on the phone with Rael\nthe Friday before it was announced, again he didn&#x2019;t say that they were\ncalling it RSS 1.0. The first I found out about it was when it was publicly\nannounced.</p> <p>Let me ask you a straight question. If it turns out that the plan to call the\nnew spec &#x201C;RSS 1.0&#x201D; was done in private, without any heads-up or consultation,\nor for a chance for the Syndication list members to agree or disagree, not\njust me, what are you going to do?</p> <p>UserLand did a lot of work to create and popularize and support RSS. We\nwalked away from that, and let your guys have the name. That&#x2019;s the top level.\nIf I want to do any further work in Web syndication, I have to use a\ndifferent name. Why and how did that happen Tim?<sup id=\"fnref:29\"><a href=\"https://twobithistory.org/2018/09/16/the-rise-and-demise-of-rss.html#fn:29\" class=\"footnote\">27</a></sup></p>\n</blockquote> <p>I have not been able to find a discussion in the Syndication mailing list about\nusing the RSS 1.0 name prior to the announcement of the RSS 1.0 proposal.</p> <p>RSS would fork again in 2003, when several developers frustrated with the\nbickering in the RSS community sought to create an entirely new format.\nThese developers created Atom, a format that did away with RDF but embraced XML\nnamespaces. Atom would eventually be specified by <a href=\"https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc4287\">a proposed IETF\nstandard</a>. After the introduction of Atom,\nthere were three competing versions of RSS: Winer&#x2019;s RSS 0.92 (updated to RSS\n2.0 in 2002 and renamed &#x201C;Really Simple Syndication&#x201D;), the RSS-DEV Working\nGroup&#x2019;s RSS 1.0, and Atom.</p> <h2 id=\"decline\">Decline</h2>\n<p>The proliferation of competing RSS specifications may have hampered RSS in\nother ways that I&#x2019;ll discuss shortly. But it did not stop RSS from becoming\nenormously popular during the 2000s. By 2004, the New York Times had started\noffering its headlines in RSS and had written an article explaining to the\nlayperson what RSS was and how to use it.<sup id=\"fnref:30\"><a href=\"https://twobithistory.org/2018/09/16/the-rise-and-demise-of-rss.html#fn:30\" class=\"footnote\">28</a></sup> Google Reader, an RSS aggregator\nultimately used by millions, was launched in 2005. By 2013, RSS seemed\npopular enough that the New York Times, in its obituary for Aaron Swartz,\ncalled the technology &#x201C;ubiquitous.&#x201D;<sup id=\"fnref:31\"><a href=\"https://twobithistory.org/2018/09/16/the-rise-and-demise-of-rss.html#fn:31\" class=\"footnote\">29</a></sup> For a while, before a third of the\nplanet had signed up for Facebook, RSS was simply how many people stayed\nabreast of news on the internet.</p> <p>The New York Times published Swartz&#x2019; obituary in January, 2013. By that point,\nthough, RSS had actually turned a corner and was well on its way to becoming\nan obscure technology. Google Reader was shutdown in July, 2013, ostensibly\nbecause user numbers had been falling &#x201C;over the years.&#x201D;<sup id=\"fnref:32\"><a href=\"https://twobithistory.org/2018/09/16/the-rise-and-demise-of-rss.html#fn:32\" class=\"footnote\">30</a></sup> This prompted\nseveral articles from various outlets declaring that RSS was dead. But people\nhad been declaring that RSS was dead for years, even before Google Reader&#x2019;s\nshuttering. Steve Gillmor, writing for TechCrunch in May, 2009, advised that\n&#x201C;it&#x2019;s time to get completely off RSS and switch to Twitter&#x201D; because &#x201C;RSS just\ndoesn&#x2019;t cut it anymore.&#x201D;<sup id=\"fnref:33\"><a href=\"https://twobithistory.org/2018/09/16/the-rise-and-demise-of-rss.html#fn:33\" class=\"footnote\">31</a></sup> He pointed out that Twitter was basically a\nbetter RSS feed, since it could show you what people thought about an article\nin addition to the article itself. It allowed you to follow people and not just\nchannels. Gillmor told his readers that it was time to let RSS recede into the\nbackground. He ended his article with a verse from Bob Dylan&#x2019;s &#x201C;Forever Young.&#x201D;</p> <p>Today, RSS is not dead. But neither is it anywhere near as popular as it once\nwas. Lots of people have offered explanations for why RSS lost its broad\nappeal. Perhaps the most persuasive explanation is exactly the one offered by\nGillmor in 2009. Social networks, just like RSS, provide a feed featuring\nall the latest news on the internet. Social networks took over from RSS because\nthey were simply better feeds. They also provide more benefits to the companies\nthat own them. Some people have accused Google, for example, of shutting down\nGoogle Reader in order to encourage people to use Google+. Google might have\nbeen able to monetize Google+ in a way that it could never have monetized\nGoogle Reader. Marco Arment, the creator of Instapaper, wrote on his blog in\n2013:</p> <blockquote> <p>Google Reader is just the latest casualty of the war that Facebook started,\nseemingly accidentally: the battle to own everything. While Google did\ntechnically &#x201C;own&#x201D; Reader and could make some use of the huge amount of news\nand attention data flowing through it, it conflicted with their far more\nimportant Google+ strategy: they need everyone reading and sharing everything\nthrough Google+ so they can compete with Facebook for ad-targeting data, ad\ndollars, growth, and relevance.<sup id=\"fnref:34\"><a href=\"https://twobithistory.org/2018/09/16/the-rise-and-demise-of-rss.html#fn:34\" class=\"footnote\">32</a></sup></p>\n</blockquote> <p>So both users and technology companies realized that they got more out of using\nsocial networks than they did out of RSS.</p> <p>Another theory is that RSS was always too geeky for regular people. Even the\nNew York Times, which seems to have been eager to adopt RSS and promote it to\nits audience, complained in 2006 that RSS is a &#x201C;not particularly user friendly&#x201D;\nacronym coined by &#x201C;computer geeks.&#x201D;<sup id=\"fnref:35\"><a href=\"https://twobithistory.org/2018/09/16/the-rise-and-demise-of-rss.html#fn:35\" class=\"footnote\">33</a></sup> Before the RSS icon was designed in\n2004, websites like the New York Times linked to their RSS feeds using little\norange boxes labeled &#x201C;XML,&#x201D; which can only have been intimidating.<sup id=\"fnref:36\"><a href=\"https://twobithistory.org/2018/09/16/the-rise-and-demise-of-rss.html#fn:36\" class=\"footnote\">34</a></sup> The\nlabel was perfectly accurate though, because back then clicking the link would\ntake a hapless user to a page full of XML. <a href=\"https://twitter.com/mgsiegler/status/311992206716203008\">This great\ntweet</a> captures the\nessence of this explanation for RSS&#x2019; demise. Regular people never felt\ncomfortable using RSS; it hadn&#x2019;t really been designed as a consumer-facing\ntechnology and involved too many hurdles; people jumped ship as soon as\nsomething better came along.</p> <p>RSS might have been able to overcome some of these limitations if it had been\nfurther developed. Maybe RSS could have been extended somehow so that\nfriends subscribed to the same channel could syndicate their thoughts about an\narticle to each other. But whereas a company like Facebook was able to &#x201C;move\nfast and break things,&#x201D; the RSS developer community was stuck trying to achieve\nconsensus. The Great RSS Fork only demonstrates how difficult it was to do\nthat. So if we are asking ourselves why RSS is no longer popular, a good\nfirst-order explanation is that social networks supplanted it. If we ask\nourselves why social networks were able to supplant it, then the answer may be\nthat the people trying to make RSS succeed faced a problem much harder than,\nsay, building Facebook. As Dornfest wrote to the Syndication mailing list\nat one point, &#x201C;currently it&#x2019;s the politics far more than the serialization\nthat&#x2019;s far from simple.&#x201D;<sup id=\"fnref:37\"><a href=\"https://twobithistory.org/2018/09/16/the-rise-and-demise-of-rss.html#fn:37\" class=\"footnote\">35</a></sup></p> <p>So today we are left with centralized silos of information. In a way, we <em>do</em>\nhave the syndicated internet that Kevin Werbach foresaw in 1999. After all,\n<em>The Onion</em> is a publication that relies on syndication through Facebook and\nTwitter the same way that Seinfeld relied on syndication to rake in millions\nafter the end of its original run. But syndication on the web only happens\nthrough one of a very small number of channels, meaning that none of us &#x201C;retain\ncontrol over our online personae&#x201D; the way that Werbach thought we would. One\nreason this happened is garden-variety corporate rapaciousness&#x2014;RSS, an open\nformat, didn&#x2019;t give technology companies the control over data and eyeballs\nthat they needed to sell ads, so they did not support it. But the more mundane\nreason is that centralized silos are just easier to design than common\nstandards. Consensus is difficult to achieve and it takes time, but without\nconsensus spurned developers will go off and create competing standards. The\nlesson here may be that if we want to see a better, more open web, we have to\nget better at not screwing each other over.</p> <p><em>\nIf you enjoyed this post, more like it come out every two weeks! Follow\n<a href=\"https://twitter.com/TwoBitHistory\"> @TwoBitHistory\n</a> on Twitter or subscribe to the\n<a href=\"https://twobithistory.org/feed.xml\"> RSS feed\n</a>\nto make sure you know when a new post is out.\n</em></p> <p><em>Previously on TwoBitHistory&#x2026;</em></p> <blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\"><p>New post: This week we&apos;re traveling back in time in our DeLorean to see what it was like learning to program on early home computers.<a href=\"https://t.co/qDrwqgIuuy\">https://t.co/qDrwqgIuuy</a></p>&#x2014; TwoBitHistory (@TwoBitHistory) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/TwoBitHistory/status/1036295112375115778?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">September 2, 2018</a></blockquote> </article>","url":"https://twobithistory.org/2018/09/16/the-rise-and-demise-of-rss.html","date_published":"2018-09-16T00:00:00+00:00","author":{"name":""}},{"id":"826","title":"'Designing Women' Creator Goes Public With Les Moonves War: Not All Harassment Is Sexual (Guest Column)","content_html":"<div class=\"article__body js-fitvids-content\"> <p>This is not the article you might be expecting about Les Moonves. It&#x2019;s not going to be wise or inspiring. It&#x2019;s going to be petty and punishing. In spite of my proper Southern mother&#x2019;s admonition to always be gracious, I am all out of grace when it comes to Mr. Moonves. In fact, like a lot of women in Hollywood, I am happy to dance on his professional grave. And not just any dance &#x2014; this will be the Macarena, the rumba, the cha-cha and the Moonwalk. You get the idea.</p>\n<p>I was never sexually harassed or attacked by Les Moonves. My encounters were much more subtle, engendering a different kind of destruction. In 1992, I was given the largest writing and producing contract in the history of CBS. It was for $50 million, involving five new series with hefty penalties for each pilot not picked up.</p>\n<p><em>Designing Women</em> was my flagship CBS show, and <em>Evening Shade</em> had just been lauded as the best new comedy of the season. CBS chairman Howard Stringer and president Jeff Sagansky attended many of the<em> Designing Women</em> tapings, reveling in the show, quoting the lines and giving us carte blanche to tackle any subject, including sexual harassment, domestic violence and pornography. They even greenlighted an entire episode satirizing Clarence Thomas&#x2019; Supreme Court nomination. It was, to say the least, exhilarating. Little did I know that it would soon all be over.</p>\n<p>By 1995, Mr. Stringer and Mr. Sagansky were gone and a new, unknown (to me) president named Les Moonves had taken over. By then, I was producing a new pilot, prophetically titled <em>Fully Clothed Non-Dancing Women</em>. I was immediately concerned when I heard that Mr. Moonves was rumored to be a big fan of topless bars. Then, someone delivered the news that he especially hated <em>Designing Women</em> and their loud-mouthed speeches. He showed up at the first table read and took a chair directly across from mine (actress Illeana Douglas, who later accused him of sexual harassment, sat next to me). Having been voted most popular in high school, I felt confident that I would be able to charm him. I was wrong. He sat and stared at me throughout the entire reading with eyes that were stunningly cold, as in, &#x201C;You are so dead.&#x201D; I had not experienced such a menacing look since Charles Manson tried to stare me down on a daily basis when I was a young reporter covering that trial. As soon as the pilot was completed, Moonves informed me that it would not be picked up. I was at the pinnacle of my career. I would not work again for seven years.</p>\n<p>During that period, because my contract was so valuable, I continued trying to win over Moonves. And he continued turning down every pilot I wrote. Often, if he would catch me in the parking lot, he would make sure to tell me that my script was one of the best he&#x2019;d read but that he had decided, in the end, not to do it. It always seemed that he enjoyed telling me this. Just enough to keep me in the game. I was told he refused to give my scripts to any of the stars he had under contract. Then, I began to hear from female CBS employees about his mercurial, misogynist behavior, with actresses being ushered in and out of his office. His mantra, I was told, was, &#x201C;Why would I wanna cast &#x2019;em if I don&#x2019;t wanna fuck &#x2019;em?&#x201D; And he was an angry bully who enjoyed telling people, &#x201C;I will tear off the top of your head and piss on your brain!&#x201D;</p>\n<p>Soon, I would hear how he had invited a famous actress to lunch in the CBS dining room. Coming off the cancellation of her iconic detective show, the star began pitching a new one. He informed her that she was too old to be on his network. She began to cry and stood up to go. He stood up too, taking her by the shoulders and telling her, &#x201C;I can&#x2019;t let you leave like this.&#x201D; She reacted, suddenly touched. Then he shoved his tongue down her throat. I know this happened because the star is the person who told me.</p>\n<p>Over the years, even when an actress managed to get one of my scripts through an agent, the deal would immediately be killed. It was like a personal vendetta and I will never know why. Was it because I was championing the New South? Or an admittedly aggressive, feminist agenda? Or both? When the legendary Bette Midler informed Moonves that she wanted to do a series with me, I&#x2019;m told he denied her request. When the singer Huey Lewis, whom Les had become enamored with, chose me to write a pilot for him, his contract was canceled.</p>\n<p>It would have been so easy, not to mention honorable, to simply tell me he was never going to put a show of mine on the air. That was certainly his right. But instead, he kept me hopping and hoping. When I finally realized he was never going to put a show of mine on the air, I left. It was never really about the money anyway, I just wanted to work. People asked me for years, &#x201C;Where have you been? What happened to you?&#x201D; Les Moonves happened to me.</p>\n<p>Somewhere in the middle of all this, I was walking the halls one day in the original CBS building. In spite of no longer having gainful employment, I still felt proud that I had been allowed to make a creative contribution to the network I had grown up with &#x2014; starting with Lucy and Ethel, who had electrified me and inspired me to write comedy. I never dreamed that I would become the first woman, along with my then-writing partner, Mary Kay Place, to write for <em>M*A*S*H</em>. I took pride in being part of a network that always seemed to be rife with crazy, interesting, brash women, from Mary Tyler Moore and Rhoda, to Maude, to Murphy Brown, to the Designing Women. Many of these female characters paved the way for women to be single, to pursue careers and equal pay and to lead rich, romantic lives with reproductive rights.</p>\n<p>As I walked, I noticed that the portraits of all these iconic women were no longer adorning the walls. I don&#x2019;t know why and I didn&#x2019;t ask. I just know that the likes of them have rarely been seen on that network again. Thanks to Les Moonves, I can only guess they all became vaginal swabs in crime labs on <em>CSI Amarillo</em>.</p>\n<p>For years, Moonves loaded up the network with highly profitable, male-dominated series, always careful to stir in and amply reward an occasional actress, like the fabulous Patti Heaton or the irresistible Kaley Cuoco. But mostly, he presided over a plethora of macho crime shows featuring a virtual genocide of dead naked hotties in morgue drawers, with sadistic female autopsy reports, ratcheted up each week (&#x201C;Is that a missing breast implant, lieutenant?&#x201D; &#x201C;Yes sir, we also found playing cards in her uterus.&#x201D;) On the day I officially parted company with CBS, the same day Mr. Moonves said he would only pay a tiny fraction of the penalties, my incredulous agent asked what he should tell me. Mr. Moonves replied, &#x201C;Tell her to go fuck herself!&#x201D;</p>\n<p>I was not surprised when Moonves finally admitted on Sept. 9 that he &#x201C;may have made some women uncomfortable&#x201D; and that &#x201C;those were mistakes.&#x201D; Let&#x2019;s be clear. Shoving your tongue or penis down a woman&#x2019;s throat during an office meet and greet is not a &#x201C;mistake.&#x201D; It is an act of terror. It cannot be corrected with a special Hallmark card saying, &#x201C;Sorreee! My bad!&#x201D;</p>\n<p>I had planned to make this a lofty piece about how we women in entertainment can draw strength from our shared historical DNA as we slowly dig our way out of Hollywood&#x2019;s darkest places. I could have easily referenced Peg Entwistle, the young actress who jumped to her death, supposedly rejected by a number of powerful men. Bette Davis had gone to see her portrayal of Hedvig, inspiring Bette that very day to pursue a career in acting &#x2014; thus giving new purpose to the dead girl, lying at the base of the Hollywood sign, who never knew she had already passed the torch to arguably the greatest actress to ever grace the silver screen.</p>\n<p>I wanted to offer this story in stark opposition to all the women-hating, slimeball men like Harvey Weinstein, James Toback and Les Moonves to say, &#x201C;This is how we, in the face of them, continue to lift and inspire one another.&#x201D; But I don&#x2019;t feel inspired anymore. I just feel angry.</p>\n<p>The truth is, Les Moonves may never be punished in the way that he deserves. He will almost certainly never go to jail. And he has already made hundreds of millions of dollars during his highly successful and truly immoral, bullying, misogynist reign.</p>\n<p>Perhaps the best we can do is thank Ronan Farrow and all the brave women who came forward to make sure a man like this is finally gone, while putting all the other sexual predators who are still in our business on notice. We are not going to stop until every last one of you is gone. We don&#x2019;t care anymore if you go to jail or go to hell. Just know at some point that you are leaving.</p>\n<p>And as for you, Mr. Moonves, in spite of the fact that I was raised to be a proper Southern female, and with your acknowledgement that I have never, in my life, spoken a single cross word to you, despite the way you treated me, may I simply say, channeling my finest Julia Sugarbaker delivery: &#x201C;Go fuck yourself!&#x201D;</p>\n<p><em>Bloodworth Thomason is a television writer, author and documentary filmmaker. She is currently finishing her memoir, </em>Rising Girl, My Adventures in Politics and Entertainment<em> and penning the book for the musical </em>First Wives Club.&#xA0;</p> <p><em>A version of this story appears in the Sept. 12 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. To receive the magazine, <a href=\"https://subscribe.hollywoodreporter.com/sub/?p=THR&amp;f=saleb&amp;s=IH1402HR20\">click here to subscribe.</a></em></p>\n</div>","url":"https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/designing-women-creator-les-moonves-not-all-harassment-is-sexual-1142448","date_published":"2018-09-15T17:37:19+00:00","author":{"name":""}},{"id":"813","title":"Conspiracy theory: an alien, ‘Annihilation’ event is unfolding at Sunspot Solar Observatory in New Mexico","content_html":"<div class=\"post__body\">\n<p>Here are the facts, as we know them at this point:</p><p>Last Thursday, the National Solar Observatory in Sunspot, New Mexico was closed to the public and evacuated for reasons that remain unclear. According to <a href=\"https://www.kvia.com/news/top-stories/closure-of-national-solar-observatory-remains-shrouded-in-mystery/793035021\">a report</a> from local television station KVIA, the Postal Service was told of the evacuation first and given no further information. &#x201C;We were told on September 6th that we would be evacuated along with the surrounding area, we were not told why,&#x201D; the local USPS said, &#x201C;We were told just to be out of the area.&#x201D;</p><p>This is the Sunspot facility.</p><div class=\"photo-embed\"><div class=\"photo-embed__image\"><div class=\"photo-embed__image__wrapper\"><img alt=\"Sunspot National Solar Observatory\" src=\"https://outline-prod.imgix.net/20180914-3RnRpp89dtrqU0arExj0?auto=format&amp;q=60&amp;w=1280&amp;s=26aadf7e12be4d29bbce404c2aa977b2\" srcset=\"https://im-dev-proxy.imgix.net/https%3A%2F%2Foutline-prod.imgix.net%2F20180914-3RnRpp89dtrqU0arExj0%3Fauto%3Dformat%26q%3D60%26w%3D1280%26s%3D26aadf7e12be4d29bbce404c2aa977b2?auto=format&amp;q=60&amp;w=320&amp;s=2ef38faeeed7bf559932b7497217f6e5 320w, https://im-dev-proxy.imgix.net/https%3A%2F%2Foutline-prod.imgix.net%2F20180914-3RnRpp89dtrqU0arExj0%3Fauto%3Dformat%26q%3D60%26w%3D1280%26s%3D26aadf7e12be4d29bbce404c2aa977b2?auto=format&amp;q=60&amp;w=640&amp;s=a4f11c475544851546c99f71d11acdae 640w\"></div></div><p class=\"photo-embed__caption\">\nSunspot National Solar Observatory <span class=\"photo-embed__caption__byline\"><a href=\"https://delange.org/National_Solar_Observatory_Sacramento_Peak/National_Solar_Observatory_Sacramento_Peak.htm\">delange.org</a></span></p></div><p>Look familiar?</p><div class=\"photo-embed\"><div class=\"photo-embed__image\"><div class=\"photo-embed__image__wrapper\"><img alt=\"The lighthouse in the film Annihilation.\" src=\"https://outline-prod.imgix.net/20180914-Hpr7DZWDoUp7CWXQ4k7l?auto=format&amp;q=60&amp;w=1280&amp;s=b738c44a66c3c911d9002093d482630b\" srcset=\"https://im-dev-proxy.imgix.net/https%3A%2F%2Foutline-prod.imgix.net%2F20180914-Hpr7DZWDoUp7CWXQ4k7l%3Fauto%3Dformat%26q%3D60%26w%3D1280%26s%3Db738c44a66c3c911d9002093d482630b?auto=format&amp;q=60&amp;w=320&amp;s=f99effe2bf036d0bb60fa5493b79ad28 320w, https://im-dev-proxy.imgix.net/https%3A%2F%2Foutline-prod.imgix.net%2F20180914-Hpr7DZWDoUp7CWXQ4k7l%3Fauto%3Dformat%26q%3D60%26w%3D1280%26s%3Db738c44a66c3c911d9002093d482630b?auto=format&amp;q=60&amp;w=640&amp;s=b71aadb210d15c5610eca2970ad03e06 640w\"></div></div><p class=\"photo-embed__caption\">\nThe lighthouse in the film <em>Annihilation</em>. </p></div><p>According to Otero County Sheriff Benny House, the FBI is involved in the evacuation, but the local authorities have been given no other information. &#x201C;The FBI is refusing to tell us what&#x2019;s going on,&#x201D; <a href=\"https://www.alamogordonews.com/story/news/local/2018/09/07/sunspot-observatory-south-cloudcroft-closed-due-security-issue/1227788002/\">House told</a> the <em>Alamogordo Daily News</em>. &#x201C;We&#x2019;ve got people up there that requested us to standby while they evacuate it. Nobody would really elaborate on any of the circumstances as to why. The FBI were up there. What their purpose was nobody will say.&#x201D; He added that there have been Blackhawk helicopters near the facility. &#x201C;There was a Blackhawk helicopter, a bunch of people around antennas and work crews on towers but nobody would tell us anything.&#x201D;</p><p>The observatory itself posted a cryptic message on its Facebook page, raising more questions than it answered.</p><p>According to <a href=\"https://www.desertoracle.com/\"><em>Desert Oracle</em></a> proprietor and all-around genius Ken Layne, the area of the Sunspot Observatory is not exactly, uh, inconspicuous.</p><blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\"><p>Up there in the mountains just over Holloman AFB (and roughly 100 miles from the Trinity Site to the north &amp; Roswell to the east, if you&apos;re paranoid). This is the supposed Holloman Landing of April 1964: <a href=\"https://t.co/jCBh5ejjSW\">https://t.co/jCBh5ejjSW</a></p>&#x2014; Ken Layne (@KenLayne) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/KenLayne/status/1039781406778388480?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">September 12, 2018</a></blockquote><p>Look, we&#x2019;re not saying that an alien creature intent on mutating living and inanimate forms of matter together into some kind of ever-evolving genetic stew is currently spreading outward from the Sunspot Solar Observatory in New Mexico. But we&#x2019;re also not saying it isn&#x2019;t. And frankly that&#x2019;s about all we can say right now.</p><div class=\"editorial-stack-embed-41f6a3 editorial-stack-embed-41f6a3--native\"><div class=\"editorial-stack-embed-41f6a3__wrapper\"><div class=\"card-stack-wrapper\"><div class=\"card-stack card-stack--fan\"><div class=\"card-stack__container\"><div class=\"card-stack__elements\"><div class=\"card-stack__element\"><a class=\"card-stack__element__link\" href=\"https://theoutline.com/post/5708/what-if-that-meteor-was-aliens\"></a><div class=\"card-degraded\"><div class=\"quick-post-card-degraded\"><div class=\"quick-post-card-degraded__bg\"><div class=\"card__bg__image\"><img alt=\"\" src=\"https://im-dev-proxy.imgix.net/https%3A%2F%2Fasset-1.theoutline.com%2Fv1%2Fduotone%2Fpreview%3Fend%3DFFE7D1%26start%3D14464A%26url%3Dhttps%253A%252F%252Foutline-prod.imgix.net%252F20180805-KOA02Ja25s1UA8FrIY98%253Fs%253D21351301b1d4163e150dde459757aa9c?auto=&amp;fm=jpg&amp;w=320&amp;s=2d72f9a149e1e131a74187cc082aa2db%20320w,%20https://im-dev-proxy.imgix.net/https%3A%2F%2Fasset-1.theoutline.com%2Fv1%2Fduotone%2Fpreview%3Fend%3DFFE7D1%26start%3D14464A%26url%3Dhttps%253A%252F%252Foutline-prod.imgix.net%252F20180805-KOA02Ja25s1UA8FrIY98%253Fs%253D21351301b1d4163e150dde459757aa9c?auto=&amp;fm=jpg&amp;w=640&amp;s=16c7236bcc0cb4c34e64ce19baafcaa7%20640w\" srcset=\"https://im-dev-proxy.imgix.net/https%3A%2F%2Fasset-1.theoutline.com%2Fv1%2Fduotone%2Fpreview%3Fend%3DFFE7D1%26start%3D14464A%26url%3Dhttps%253A%252F%252Foutline-prod.imgix.net%252F20180805-KOA02Ja25s1UA8FrIY98%253Fs%253D21351301b1d4163e150dde459757aa9c?auto=&amp;fm=jpg&amp;w=320&amp;s=2d72f9a149e1e131a74187cc082aa2db 320w, https://im-dev-proxy.imgix.net/https%3A%2F%2Fasset-1.theoutline.com%2Fv1%2Fduotone%2Fpreview%3Fend%3DFFE7D1%26start%3D14464A%26url%3Dhttps%253A%252F%252Foutline-prod.imgix.net%252F20180805-KOA02Ja25s1UA8FrIY98%253Fs%253D21351301b1d4163e150dde459757aa9c?auto=&amp;fm=jpg&amp;w=640&amp;s=16c7236bcc0cb4c34e64ce19baafcaa7 640w\"></div></div></div></div></div><div class=\"card-stack__element\"><a class=\"card-stack__element__link\" href=\"https://theoutline.com/post/5384/the-secret-history-of-marxist-alien-hunters\"></a><div class=\"card-degraded background_effect--zoom color_filter--blue-red-saturated filter_type--duotone text_color--white text_size--large desktop_text_size--medium card_type--headline\"></div></div><div class=\"card-stack__element\"><a class=\"card-stack__element__link\" href=\"https://theoutline.com/post/2889/tom-delonge-aliens-very-intriguing-person\"></a><div class=\"card-degraded background_effect--none color_filter--lightpink-acidblue filter_type--duotone text_color--color text_size--large desktop_text_size--large card_type--outline\"><div class=\"outline-card-degraded outline-card-degraded--3\"><div class=\"outline-card-degraded__bg\"><div class=\"card__bg__image\"><img alt=\"\" src=\"https://im-dev-proxy.imgix.net/https%3A%2F%2Fasset-1.theoutline.com%2Fv1%2Fduotone%2Fpreview%3Fend%3DFFBCAA%26start%3D4745D1%26url%3Dhttps%253A%252F%252Foutline-prod.imgix.net%252F20180111-K9eYOuAp100TaqGIqoF8%253Fs%253D209e3fe52b8ffa5d9a93ebabeb69bb61?auto=&amp;fm=jpg&amp;w=320&amp;s=1c8eef59663a1316fbcbaa88635a0470%20320w,%20https://im-dev-proxy.imgix.net/https%3A%2F%2Fasset-1.theoutline.com%2Fv1%2Fduotone%2Fpreview%3Fend%3DFFBCAA%26start%3D4745D1%26url%3Dhttps%253A%252F%252Foutline-prod.imgix.net%252F20180111-K9eYOuAp100TaqGIqoF8%253Fs%253D209e3fe52b8ffa5d9a93ebabeb69bb61?auto=&amp;fm=jpg&amp;w=640&amp;s=c05a291052cb26f23f0c437936b946f9%20640w\" srcset=\"https://im-dev-proxy.imgix.net/https%3A%2F%2Fasset-1.theoutline.com%2Fv1%2Fduotone%2Fpreview%3Fend%3DFFBCAA%26start%3D4745D1%26url%3Dhttps%253A%252F%252Foutline-prod.imgix.net%252F20180111-K9eYOuAp100TaqGIqoF8%253Fs%253D209e3fe52b8ffa5d9a93ebabeb69bb61?auto=&amp;fm=jpg&amp;w=320&amp;s=1c8eef59663a1316fbcbaa88635a0470 320w, https://im-dev-proxy.imgix.net/https%3A%2F%2Fasset-1.theoutline.com%2Fv1%2Fduotone%2Fpreview%3Fend%3DFFBCAA%26start%3D4745D1%26url%3Dhttps%253A%252F%252Foutline-prod.imgix.net%252F20180111-K9eYOuAp100TaqGIqoF8%253Fs%253D209e3fe52b8ffa5d9a93ebabeb69bb61?auto=&amp;fm=jpg&amp;w=640&amp;s=c05a291052cb26f23f0c437936b946f9 640w\"></div></div></div></div></div><div class=\"card-stack__element\"><a class=\"card-stack__element__link\" href=\"https://theoutline.com/post/3529/if-the-aliens-come-they-wont-bother-trying-to-say-whats-up\"></a><div class=\"card-degraded background_effect--none color_filter--coral-purple filter_type--duotone text_color--color text_size--large desktop_text_size--large card_type--bigdata\"><div class=\"bigdata-card-degraded bigdata-card-degraded--1\"><div class=\"bigdata-card-degraded__bg\"><div class=\"card__bg__image\"><img alt=\"\" src=\"https://im-dev-proxy.imgix.net/https%3A%2F%2Fasset-1.theoutline.com%2Fv1%2Fduotone%2Fpreview%3Fend%3DFB6754%26start%3D7D3C9E%26url%3Dhttps%253A%252F%252Foutline-prod.imgix.net%252F20180225-JraBtlYtaD0wPZ1sZWsk%253Fs%253Df23aaa640b59fc8a74ce6d79074c77f2?auto=&amp;fm=jpg&amp;w=320&amp;s=9b0a9ee5c49ead301f38c98bb99cc04b%20320w,%20https://im-dev-proxy.imgix.net/https%3A%2F%2Fasset-1.theoutline.com%2Fv1%2Fduotone%2Fpreview%3Fend%3DFB6754%26start%3D7D3C9E%26url%3Dhttps%253A%252F%252Foutline-prod.imgix.net%252F20180225-JraBtlYtaD0wPZ1sZWsk%253Fs%253Df23aaa640b59fc8a74ce6d79074c77f2?auto=&amp;fm=jpg&amp;w=640&amp;s=644896a46fd97bde316c9f83a79c1ae7%20640w\" srcset=\"https://im-dev-proxy.imgix.net/https%3A%2F%2Fasset-1.theoutline.com%2Fv1%2Fduotone%2Fpreview%3Fend%3DFB6754%26start%3D7D3C9E%26url%3Dhttps%253A%252F%252Foutline-prod.imgix.net%252F20180225-JraBtlYtaD0wPZ1sZWsk%253Fs%253Df23aaa640b59fc8a74ce6d79074c77f2?auto=&amp;fm=jpg&amp;w=320&amp;s=9b0a9ee5c49ead301f38c98bb99cc04b 320w, https://im-dev-proxy.imgix.net/https%3A%2F%2Fasset-1.theoutline.com%2Fv1%2Fduotone%2Fpreview%3Fend%3DFB6754%26start%3D7D3C9E%26url%3Dhttps%253A%252F%252Foutline-prod.imgix.net%252F20180225-JraBtlYtaD0wPZ1sZWsk%253Fs%253Df23aaa640b59fc8a74ce6d79074c77f2?auto=&amp;fm=jpg&amp;w=640&amp;s=644896a46fd97bde316c9f83a79c1ae7 640w\"></div></div><div class=\"bigdata-card-degraded__content\"><div class=\"bigdata-card-degraded__title\"><div class=\"bigdata-card-degraded__description\"><p>The number of reported UFO sightings this year, according to the National UFO Reporting Center</p></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div> <div class=\"post__surveylink\"> Hey you! We want to know what you think about The Outline (and you can win some cool swag too). We know you love to answer questions, so <a href=\"https://theoutline.typeform.com/to/t0ykjM?source=post-footer-6177\">take our 5 minute survey</a>. </div> </div>","url":"https://theoutline.com/post/6177/alien-annihilation-sunspot-national-solar-observatory-new-mexico-we-re-doomed","date_published":"2018-09-14T14:52:52+00:00","author":{"name":""}},{"id":"811","title":"Marmol Radziner and Charles de Lisle Restore and Revive a Classic Home in San Francisco","content_html":"<div><p>When you&#x2019;re a professional shelter-magazine writer, certain clich&#xE9;s come with the territory. There&#x2019;s the house that&#x2019;s modern but surprisingly warm; the house that blurs the boundaries between indoors and out; the house in which every object and design detail tells a story. The San Francisco home of Jessica and Aaron Sittig is all of the above&#x2014;but there&#x2019;s nothing clich&#xE9;d about it.</p><p>&#x201C;This was one of the most thoughtful and deliberate design processes we&#x2019;ve ever been through. Aaron and Jessica wanted to drill down into every aspect of the project&#x2014;conceptual, narrative, aesthetic, mechanical, and functional,&#x201D; says Leo Marmol of <a href=\"https://www.architecturaldigest.com/story/marmol-radziner-ad100\">Marmol Radziner</a>, the Los Angeles&#x2013;based AD100 architecture firm and restoration specialist tasked with the rehab of the Sittigs&#x2019; classic midcentury residence in San Francisco. His partner, Ron Radziner, seconds that emotion: &#x201C;The level of rigor reminded me of the conversations we had when we were restoring Neutra&#x2019;s Kaufmann House. We almost never get the opportunity to go this deep.&#x201D;</p><p class=\"callout\"><figure class=\"embedded-image\"><figcaption class=\"callout-image-caption\"><div class=\"caption\"><p>Jessica and Aaron Sittig in the entryway.</p>\n</div></figcaption></figure></p><p>Interior designer Charles de Lisle, who spent five years working in close collaboration with the homeowners and Marmol Radziner, is equally rhapsodic. &#x201C;Jessica and Aaron approached the design process with a kind of intellectual curiosity beyond compare. We&#x2019;d have eight-hour meetings about a door handle and hinges,&#x201D; he recalls. &#x201C;What makes them so extraordinary is that they don&#x2019;t feel beholden to conventional wisdom about objects and rooms. They wanted to question everything.&#x201D;</p><p>The Sittigs are a young power couple in the technology world, although they&#x2019;d undoubtedly be mortified to find themselves described as such. They&#x2019;d much rather be known, if at all, for their dedication to design, particularly as design development has always been part of their professional milieu. &#x201C;We&#x2019;re interested in how something great comes to be&#x2014;whether it&#x2019;s a perfectly placed tree, a piece of software, or a chair,&#x201D; Jessica says.</p><div class=\"callout standard inset-right\"><p>We wanted to work with people we could have a conversation with.</p></div><p>Originally built in 1963, the Sittigs&#x2019; house is composed of stacked rectilinear volumes of redwood and glass, projecting from a steep San Francisco hillside. The taut modernist structure had barely been touched in the half-century since it arose in a neighborhood better known for Victorian and Beaux Arts finery. Its architect, Hank Schubart of Schubart and Friedman, apprenticed under Frank Lloyd Wright and worked in the studio of influential Bay Area maestro William Wurster.</p><p>In typically fastidious fashion, the Sittigs drew up a detailed spreadsheet of nearly 100 architects before ultimately alighting on Marmol Radziner. &#x201C;We wanted to work with people we could have a conver-sation with&#x2014;people deeply invested in research,&#x201D; Aaron explains. A similarly exhaustive process led the couple to de Lisle, a San Francisco interior and product designer. &#x201C;Charles is more chaotic and willing to improvise. We thought he&#x2019;d be a good foil to the architects,&#x201D; Jessica says.</p><p class=\"callout\"><figure class=\"embedded-image\"><figcaption class=\"callout-image-caption\"><div class=\"caption\"><p>A Betty Woodman wall-mounted ceramic sculpture overlooks a Pierre Chapo cocktail table.</p>\n</div></figcaption></figure><figure class=\"embedded-image\"><figcaption class=\"callout-image-caption\"><div class=\"caption\"><p>The powder room features a hand-carved elm sink; black lacquered rosewood paneling on walls.</p>\n</div></figcaption></figure></p><p>Indeed, the extraordinary character of the home emerges from the tension between the meticulous architectural restoration and the wild panoply of decorative elements contained within. Deferring to the spirit of Schubart&#x2019;s plans, the Sittigs and their design team essentially gutted and rebuilt the house, invisibly introducing necessary mechanical and seismic upgrades while replicating and refining its original design details.</p><p>Since many of the original off-the-rack hinges, knobs, and pulls went out of production decades ago&#x2014;midcentury architects loved a good hardware store&#x2014;the Sittigs had them remade. When a parti-cular architectural lighting fixture could not be procured, the couple went through the process of obtaining a UL listing for a custom version. &#x201C;The stove top was our Waterloo,&#x201D; Jessica laments, referring to a complex and as yet unresolved engineering challenge involving flush-mounted burners.</p><p>The homeowners&#x2019; fascination with craft and process naturally extended from humble hinges to the splashier furnishings and decorative flourishes that coalesce in de Lisle&#x2019;s kaleidoscopic assemblage. For pure sex appeal (as design nerds would understand the phrase), it&#x2019;s hard to beat the commodious living/dining room, with its panoramic view, massive retractable skylight, and huge glass sliders. Along one side of the room, panels of figured red birch veneer conceal a seriously seductive bar, bookshelves, and a small work station. Floating within the open expanse is an ever-changing landscape of toothsome vintage furnishings by the likes of Gio Ponti, Ward Bennett, Joe Colombo, Maurice Dufr&#xE8;ne, and Pierre Chapo, all set atop a sprawling carpet of abaca tiles. A custom de Gournay wallpaper of pine trees in fog, as delicate as a Japanese ink drawing, lines the bar interior.</p><p>In addition to orchestrating this heady mix, de Lisle made his own contribution in the form of custom sofas that nod to both Northern California and Japanese craft traditions. De Lisle also served as a conduit between the Sittigs and the myriad designers, artists, and master craftsmen they enlisted to create custom pieces. Consider the bespoke dining table by Martino Gamper. De Lisle took his clients to London to meet the designer, and after more than a year and a half of conversations, sketches, and on-site mock-ups, Gamper fabricated a series of super-site-specific tables made of teak-banded Marmoleum set on powder-coated aubergine legs.</p><p>Max Lamb, another London-based design star, contributed a monolithic freestanding sink in the children&#x2019;s bathroom. Cut from a solid block of Belgian bluestone, hand-finished, and embellished with an array of whimsical brass fixtures, the massive piece required plumbing to be rerouted and structural reinforcement of the floor.</p><p>Beyond boldface names on the international scene, the Sittigs engaged master artisans with deep ties to the California craft movement. In the stunning powder room off the kitchen, where the walls of rift-cut redwood are lacquered black in a nod to Japanese urushi, Rick Yoshimoto fashioned a hand-carved elm sink of de Lisle&#x2019;s design that feels like a high altar in a pocket temple. Now based in New Mexico, Yoshimoto worked for years alongside California craft titan J. B. Blunk. The homeowners also commissioned designer Tripp Carpenter, son of the revered woodworker Arthur Espenet Carpenter, to create a desk for the Sittigs&#x2019; guest room, where de Lisle&#x2019;s madcap strawberry pattern adorns the headboard, walls, and bed linens.</p><p>&#x201C;Our joy comes from working with people we admire, giving them our story and the story of the house, and seeing what they come up with. It&#x2019;s not about collecting,&#x201D; Jessica says of the couple&#x2019;s extraordinary design odyssey. Aaron puts a finer point on the process: &#x201C;It was our job to care more than anyone else.&#x201D;</p></div>","url":"https://www.architecturaldigest.com/story/marmol-radziner-and-charles-de-lisle-restore-and-revive-a-classic-home-in-san-francisco","date_published":"2018-09-14T14:23:59+00:00","author":{"name":""}},{"id":"801","title":"The iPhone Franchise","content_html":"<div class=\"entry-content\"> <p>Apple released a new flagship iPhone yesterday, the iPhone XS. This isn&#x2019;t exactly ground-breaking news: it is exactly what the company has done for eleven years now (matching the 11-year run of non-iOS iPods, by the way<sup><a href=\"https://stratechery.com/2018/the-iphone-franchise/#footnote_0_3679\" id=\"identifier_0_3679\" class=\"footnote-link footnote-identifier-link\">1</a></sup>). To that end, what has always interested me more are new-to-the-world non-flagship models: the iPhone 5C in 2013, the iPhone 8 last year, and the iPhone XR yesterday. Each, I think, highlights critical junctions not only in how Apple thinks about the iPhone strategically, but also about how Apple thinks about itself.</p>\n<h4>The iPhone 5C</h4>\n<p>It&#x2019;s hard to remember now, but the dominant Apple narrative in 2013, after a five-year iPhone run that saw the company&#x2019;s stock price increase around 700%, was that the company was at risk of low-end disruption from Android and high-end saturation now that smartphone technology was &#x201C;good enough&#x201D;.</p>\n<p><a href=\"https://stratechery.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/Screen-Shot-2018-09-13-at-6.55.50-PM.png\"><img src=\"https://stratechery.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/Screen-Shot-2018-09-13-at-6.55.50-PM-1024x463.png%201024w,%20https://stratechery.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/Screen-Shot-2018-09-13-at-6.55.50-PM-300x136.png%20300w,%20https://stratechery.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/Screen-Shot-2018-09-13-at-6.55.50-PM-768x347.png%20768w,%20https://stratechery.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/Screen-Shot-2018-09-13-at-6.55.50-PM-1200x543.png%201200w,%20https://stratechery.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/Screen-Shot-2018-09-13-at-6.55.50-PM.png%201300w\" alt=\"Apple&apos;s stock price during the iPhone era\" width=\"640\" class=\"aligncenter size-large wp-image-3683\" srcset=\"https://stratechery.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/Screen-Shot-2018-09-13-at-6.55.50-PM-1024x463.png 1024w, https://stratechery.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/Screen-Shot-2018-09-13-at-6.55.50-PM-300x136.png 300w, https://stratechery.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/Screen-Shot-2018-09-13-at-6.55.50-PM-768x347.png 768w, https://stratechery.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/Screen-Shot-2018-09-13-at-6.55.50-PM-1200x543.png 1200w, https://stratechery.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/Screen-Shot-2018-09-13-at-6.55.50-PM.png 1300w\"></a></p>\n<p>This was, for me, rather fortuitous: Stratechery launched in the middle of the <em>Apple-needs-a-cheap-iPhone</em> era, providing plenty of fodder not only for articles defending Apple&#x2019;s competitive position,<sup><a href=\"https://stratechery.com/2018/the-iphone-franchise/#footnote_1_3679\" id=\"identifier_1_3679\" class=\"footnote-link footnote-identifier-link\">2</a></sup> but also multiple articles speculating on what the iPhone 5C would cost and how it would be positioned.</p>\n<p>For the record, I <a href=\"https://stratechery.com/2013/c-is-for-changing-my-mind/\">guessed wrong</a>, and I knew I was wrong <a href=\"https://stratechery.com/2013/two-minutes-fifty-six-seconds/\">Two Minutes, Fifty-six Seconds</a> into the keynote.</p>\n<blockquote><p>It was at two minutes, fifty-six seconds that Tim Cook said there would be a video &#x2013; a video! &#x2013; about the <em>iTunes Festival</em>.</p>\n<p>And it was awesome.</p>\n<div><iframe width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https://www.youtube.com/embed/yBX-KpMoxYk?list=UUE_M8A5yxnLfW0KghEeajjw&amp;start=176\" class=\"\"></iframe></div>\n<p>In case you didn&#x2019;t watch the whole video (and you really should &#x2013; it&#x2019;s only a couple of minutes; due to a copyright claim I had to embed Apple&#x2019;s full-length keynote), this clip of the ending captures why it matters:</p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_513\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http://stratechery.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/apple-brand.gif\"><img src=\"https://stratechery.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/apple-brand.gif\" alt=\"Message: Apple is cool.\" width=\"450\" class=\"size-full wp-image-513\"></a><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Message: Apple is cool.</figcaption></figure>\n<p>This was Apple, standing up and saying to all the pundits, to all the analysts, to everyone demanding a low price iPhone:</p>\n<p>NO!</p>\n<p>No, we will NOT compete on price, we will offer something our competitors can&#x2019;t match.</p>\n<p>No, we are NOT selling a phone, we are selling an experience.</p>\n<p>No, we will NOT be cheap, but we will be cool.</p>\n<p>No, you in the tech press and on Wall Street do NOT understand Apple, but we believe that normal people love us, love our products, and will continue to buy, start to buy, or aspire to buy.</p>\n<p>Oh, and <a href=\"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nf5-Prx19ZM\">Samsung</a>? Damn straight people line up for us. 20 million for a concert. &#x201C;It&#x2019;s like a product launch.&#x201D;</p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_517\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http://stratechery.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/itunesvsamsung.png\"><img src=\"https://stratechery.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/itunesvsamsung-600x210.png\" alt=\"Apple&apos;s iTunes Festival video on the left, Samsung&apos;s Galaxy SIII commercial mocking those standing in line on the right\" width=\"600\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-517\"></a><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Apple&#x2019;s iTunes Festival video on the left, Samsung&#x2019;s Galaxy SIII commercial mocking those standing in line on the right</figcaption></figure>\n<p>This attitude and emphasis on higher-order differentiation &#x2014; the <em>experience</em> of using an iPhone &#x2014; dominated the entire keynote and the presentation of features, with particularly emphasis throughout on the interplay between software and hardware.</p>\n</blockquote>\n<p>In fact, that understated Apple&#x2019;s position in the market: <a href=\"https://stratechery.com/2017/the-lessons-and-questions-of-the-iphone-x-and-the-iphone-8/\">as I discussed last year</a> the iPhone 5C &#x2014; which in retrospect, was really just an iPhone 5 replacement in Apple&#x2019;s trickle-down approach to serving more price-sensitive customers &#x2014; was a bit of a failure: Apple customers only wanted the best iPhone, and those that couldn&#x2019;t afford the current flagship preferred a <em>former</em> flagship, not one that was &#x201C;unapologetically plastic&#x201D;.</p>\n<p>Thus the first lesson: Apple wouldn&#x2019;t go down-market, nor did its customers want it to.</p>\n<h4>The iPhone X</h4>\n<p>Last year, meanwhile, was in many respects the opposite of the iPhone 5S and 5C launch, at least from a framing perspective. The iPhone 8 was the next in-line after the iPhone 7 and all of the iPhones before it; it was the iPhone X that was presented as being out-of-band &#x2014; &#x201C;one more thing&#x201D;, to use the company&#x2019;s famous phrase. The iPhone X was the &#x201C;future of the smartphone&#x201D;, with a $999 price tag to match.</p>\n<p>A year on, it is quite clear that the future is very much here. CEO Tim Cook bragged during yesterday&#x2019;s keynote that the iPhone X was the best-selling phone in the world, something that was readily apparent in Apple&#x2019;s financial results. iPhone revenue was again up-and-to-the-right, not because Apple was selling more iPhones &#x2014; unit growth was flat &#x2014; but because the iPhone X grew ASP so dramatically:</p>\n<p><a href=\"https://stratechery.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Screen-Shot-2018-08-01-at-8.15.21-AM.png\"><img src=\"https://stratechery.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Screen-Shot-2018-08-01-at-8.15.21-AM-1024x463.png%201024w,%20https://stratechery.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Screen-Shot-2018-08-01-at-8.15.21-AM-300x136.png%20300w,%20https://stratechery.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Screen-Shot-2018-08-01-at-8.15.21-AM-768x347.png%20768w,%20https://stratechery.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Screen-Shot-2018-08-01-at-8.15.21-AM.png%201156w\" alt=\"iPhone Revenue, Units, and ASP on a TTM basis\" width=\"640\" class=\"aligncenter size-large wp-image-3616\" srcset=\"https://stratechery.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Screen-Shot-2018-08-01-at-8.15.21-AM-1024x463.png 1024w, https://stratechery.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Screen-Shot-2018-08-01-at-8.15.21-AM-300x136.png 300w, https://stratechery.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Screen-Shot-2018-08-01-at-8.15.21-AM-768x347.png 768w, https://stratechery.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Screen-Shot-2018-08-01-at-8.15.21-AM.png 1156w\"></a></p>\n<p>This was the second lesson: for Apple&#x2019;s best customers, price was no object.</p>\n<h4>The iPhone XR</h4>\n<p>To be clear, the overall strategy and pricing of the iPhones XS and XR were planned out two to three years ago; that&#x2019;s how long product cycles take when it comes to high-end smartphones. Perhaps that is why the lessons of the iPhone 5C seem so readily apparent in the iPhone XR in particular.</p>\n<p>First off, while the XR does not have stainless steel edges like the iPhones X or XS, it is a far cry from plastic: the back is glass, like the high end phones, and the aluminum sides not only look premium but will be hidden when the phone is in a case, as most will be. What really matters is that the front is the same, with that notch: this looks like a high-end iPhone, with all of the status that implies.</p>\n<p>Second, the iPhone XR is big &#x2014; bigger than the XS (and smaller than the XS Max, and yes, that is its real name). This matters less for 2018 and more for 2020 and beyond: presuming Apple follows its trickle-down strategy for serving more price-sensitive markets, that means in two years its lowest-end offering will not be a small phone that the vast majority of the market rejected years ago, particularly customers for whom their phone is their only computing device, but one that is far more attractive and useful for far more people.</p>\n<p>Third, that 2020 iPhone XR is going to be remarkably well-specced. Indeed, probably the biggest surprise from these announcements (well, other than the name &#x201C;XS Max&#x201D;) is just how good of a smartphone the XR is.</p>\n<ul>\n<li>The XR has Apple&#x2019;s industry-leading A12 chip, which is so far ahead of the industry that it will still be competitive with the best Android smartphones in two years, and massively more powerful than lower-end phones. </li>\n<li>The XR has the same wide-angle camera as the XS, and the same iteration of Face ID. Both, again, are industry-leading and will be more than competitive two years from now. </li>\n<li>The biggest differences from the XS are the aforementioned case materials, an LCD screen, and the lack of 3D Touch. Again, though, aluminum is still a premium material, Apple&#x2019;s LCD screens are &#x2014; and yes there is a theme here &#x2014; the best in the industry, and 3D Touch is a feature that is so fiddly and undiscoverable that one could make the case XR owners are actually better off. </li>\n</ul>\n<p>There really is no other way to put it: the XR is a fantastic phone, one that would be more than sufficient to maintain Apple&#x2019;s position atop the industry were it the flagship. And yet, in the context of Apple&#x2019;s strategy, it is best thought of as being quite literally ahead of its time.</p>\n<h4>The iPhone XS</h4>\n<p>There is, of course, the question of cannibalism: if the XR is so great, why spend $250 more on an XS, or $350 more for the giant XS Max?</p>\n<p>This is where the iPhone X lesson matters. Last year&#x2019;s iPhone 8 was a great phone too, with the same A11 processor as the iPhone X, a high quality LCD screen like the iPhone XR, and a premium aluminum-and-glass case (and 3D Touch!). It also had Touch ID and a more familiar interface, both arguably advantages in their own right, and the Plus size that so many people preferred.</p>\n<p>It didn&#x2019;t matter: Apple&#x2019;s best customers, not just those who buy an iPhone every year, but also those whose only two alternatives are &#x201C;my current once-flagship iPhone&#x201D; or &#x201C;the new flagship iPhone&#x201D; are motivated first-and-foremost by having <a href=\"https://stratechery.com/2017/apple-at-its-best/\">the best</a>; price is a secondary concern. That is why the iPhone X was the best-selling smartphone, and the iPhone 8 &#x2014; which launched two months before the iPhone X &#x2014; a footnote.</p>\n<p>To be sure, the iPhone X had the advantage of being something truly new, not just the hardware but also the accompanying software. It was the sort of phone an Apple fan might buy a year sooner than they had planned, or that someone more price sensitive might choose over a cheaper option. The XS will face headwinds in both regards: it is faster than the iPhone X, has a better camera, comes in gold &#x2014; it&#x2019;s an S-model, in other words &#x2014; but it&#x2019;s hard to see it pulling forward upgrades; it&#x2019;s more likely natural XS buyers were pulled forward by the X. And, as noted above, the XR is a much more attractive alternative to the X than the 8 was to the X; most Apple fans may want the best, but some just want a deal, and the XR is a great one.</p>\n<p>Apple should be fine though: overall unit sales may fall slightly, but the $1,099 XS Max will push the average selling price even higher. Note, too, that the XR is only available starting at $749; the longstanding $650 iPhone price point was bumped up to $699 last year, and is now a distant memory.<sup><a href=\"https://stratechery.com/2018/the-iphone-franchise/#footnote_2_3679\" id=\"identifier_2_3679\" class=\"footnote-link footnote-identifier-link\">3</a></sup></p>\n<p><a href=\"https://stratechery.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/Screen-Shot-2018-09-13-at-7.03.49-PM.png\"><img src=\"https://stratechery.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/Screen-Shot-2018-09-13-at-7.03.49-PM-1024x573.png%201024w,%20https://stratechery.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/Screen-Shot-2018-09-13-at-7.03.49-PM-300x168.png%20300w,%20https://stratechery.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/Screen-Shot-2018-09-13-at-7.03.49-PM-768x430.png%20768w,%20https://stratechery.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/Screen-Shot-2018-09-13-at-7.03.49-PM-1125x630.png%201125w,%20https://stratechery.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/Screen-Shot-2018-09-13-at-7.03.49-PM.png%201300w\" alt=\"Apple&apos;s Fall 2018 iPhone Lineup\" width=\"640\" class=\"aligncenter size-large wp-image-3684\" srcset=\"https://stratechery.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/Screen-Shot-2018-09-13-at-7.03.49-PM-1024x573.png 1024w, https://stratechery.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/Screen-Shot-2018-09-13-at-7.03.49-PM-300x168.png 300w, https://stratechery.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/Screen-Shot-2018-09-13-at-7.03.49-PM-768x430.png 768w, https://stratechery.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/Screen-Shot-2018-09-13-at-7.03.49-PM-1125x630.png 1125w, https://stratechery.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/Screen-Shot-2018-09-13-at-7.03.49-PM.png 1300w\"></a></p>\n<p>To put it another way, to the extent the XR cannibalizes the XS, it cannibalizes them with an average selling price equal to Apple&#x2019;s top-of-the-line iPhone from two years ago; the iPhone 8 is $50 higher than the former $550 price point as well.</p>\n<h4>Mission Impossible iPhone</h4>\n<p>This is what I meant when I said Apple&#x2019;s <em>second</em> iPhone models capture how the company has changed not only its strategy but how the company seems to view itself:</p>\n<ul>\n<li>2013 was a time of uncertainty, with a sliding stock price and a steadily building clamor heralding Apple doom via low-end disruption; the company, though, found its voice with the 5C and declared its intentions to be unapologetically high-end; the 5C&#x2019;s failure, such that it was, only cemented the rightness of that decision.</li>\n<li>In 2017 the company, for the first time in ten years, started to truly test the limits of supply-and-demand with the iPhone X: given its commitment to being the best, just how much could Apple charge for an iPhone?</li>\n<li>This year, then, comes the fully-formed iPhone juggernaut: an even more expensive phone, with arguably one of the weaker feature-driven reasons-to-buy to date, but for the fact it is Apple&#x2019;s newest, and best, iPhone. And below that, a cheaper iPhone XR that is nearly as good, but neatly segmented primarily by virtue of not being the best, yet close enough to be a force in the market for years to come.</li>\n</ul>\n<p>The strategy is, dare I say, bordering on over-confidence. Apple is raising prices on its best product even as that product&#x2019;s relative differentiation to the company&#x2019;s next best model is the smallest it has ever been.</p>\n<p>Here, though, I thought <a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JHi-WGFGWek\">the keynote&#x2019;s &#x201C;Mission: Impossible&#x201D;-themed opening</a> really hit the mark: the reason why franchises rule Hollywood is their dependability. Sure, they cost a fortune to make and to market, but they are known quantities that sell all over the world &#x2014; $735 million-to-date for the latest Tom Cruise thriller, to take a pertinent example.</p>\n<p>That is the iPhone: it is a franchise, the closest thing to a hardware annuity stream tech has ever seen. Some people buy an iPhone every year; some are on a two-year cycle; others wait for screens to crack, batteries to die, or apps to slow. Nearly all, though, buy another iPhone, making the purpose of yesterday&#x2019;s keynote less an exercise in selling a device and more a matter of informing self-selected segments which device they will ultimately buy, and for what price.</p> </div>","url":"https://stratechery.com/2018/the-iphone-franchise/","date_published":"2018-09-13T11:15:11+00:00","author":{"name":"Ben Thompson"}},{"id":"825","title":"Forget the new iPhones: Apple’s best product is now privacy","content_html":"<article class=\"post__article \"><div><p>When my friends come to me asking which smartphone or laptop they should buy, I almost always recommend an Apple product&#x2013;the latest iPhone or MacBook. I recommend these products not just because they are Apple&#x2019;s best, but because as someone who covers technology for a living, I believe that for most people, Apple offers better products and solutions than its competitors.</p></div><div><p>Yes, Apple&#x2019;s products are more expensive than many, &#x201C;but you get what you pay for,&#x201D; I frequently explain. In the case of iPhones, they generally have the fastest smartphone processors on the market, sport arguably the best industrial design, and have the most refined and stable operating system. I attribute similar qualities to Apple&#x2019;s MacBooks, although my recommendation for those also include the line, &#x201C;you&#x2019;ll pay a little more up front, but they&#x2019;ll last you twice as long as a PC laptop.&#x201D;</p><p>Of course, this week Apple introduced its newest iPhones, the <a href=\"https://www.fastcompany.com/90236094/making-sense-of-the-most-confusing-new-iphone-lineup-ever\">iPhone XS, XS Max, and XR</a>. Once again, journalists, analysts, and armchair Apple pundits have taken to social media to state that the new iPhones are Apple&#x2019;s best products ever.</p><p>Yet I no longer think this is a true statement. I now believe the best product Apple offers is intangible, yet far more valuable than a flagship smartphone. The best product Apple has&#x2013;and the single biggest reason that consumers should choose an Apple device over competing devices&#x2013;is privacy.</p><p>In 2018, no issue is more important than user privacy&#x2013;or the lack of it. We&#x2019;re tracked by private industry on an unprecedented scale, with major corporations having so much data about us&#x2013;much of it gleaned without our knowledge&#x2013;that they can tell when a teenager is pregnant (<a href=\"http://www.slate.com/blogs/how_not_to_be_wrong/2014/06/09/big_data_what_s_even_creepier_than_target_guessing_that_you_re_pregnant.html\">and inform the teen&#x2019;s father</a>) or even <a href=\"https://theintercept.com/2018/04/13/facebook-advertising-data-artificial-intelligence-ai/\">predict your future actions</a> based on decisions you haven&#x2019;t made yet. If you want to be part of this world, designed by advertisers and tech giants, you must relinquish your right to privacy. In other words, we live in a commercial surveillance state.</p><p>Well, unless you use Apple&#x2019;s products.</p><p>Apple&#x2019;s devices and software&#x2013;and the company&#x2019;s ethos&#x2013;are now steeped in user privacy protections that other tech companies would never dream of embracing. And this isn&#x2019;t a stance Apple has only recently adopted. It is something that has been building for years at the company, starting under Steve Jobs&#x2019; leadership and rapidly accelerating under Tim Cook&#x2019;s reign.</p></div><div><p>It has only been in the last few years that the perils of online privacy have made their way to the forefront of national conversation, thanks to the Cambridge Analytica scandal and a seemingly unending string of data breaches and hacks. Such events have left consumers rightly worried just how the data tech companies are collecting about them are being used and abused. Yet Apple seems to be the only major tech company that had the foresight&#x2013;and the will&#x2013;to begin tackling these issues before they reached a crisis point.</p><h2>Apple protects your privacy other tech companies won&#x2019;t</h2><p>With each recent iteration of iOS and MacOS, Apple has steadily made it harder for third-parties to siphon our data from us. For example, Apple&#x2019;s Safari browser was the first browser to block third-party cookies by default. In iOS 11 and MacOS High Sierra, Apple went a step further and implemented Intelligent Tracking Prevention, which reduces the ability of advertisers to track your movements around the web.</p><p>iOS 12, which ships on the new iPhones announced this week&#x2013;and will be available for all iPhones and iPads going back to the iPhone 5s and original iPad Air&#x2013;will allow users to shield themselves even more from the likes of Google and Facebook, whose prying digital eyes tracking us around the web via the embedded Like and Share buttons on web pages. Yep, Facebook and Google can track your movements even if you don&#x2019;t interact with these buttons&#x2013;well, until Apple shut that down.</p><p>In iOS 12 Apple is also introducing anti-fingerprinting technology in Safari. Fingerprinting is a tracking technology advertisers and data firms use to identify your movements online. They do this by recording characteristics about the device you are using&#x2013;such as hard drive size, screen resolution, fonts installed, and more&#x2013;and then recording a log of that device&#x2019;s movements. Though fingerprinting doesn&#x2019;t give the firms access to your name, they know what the owner of a specific device does online and can build a profile around those actions. Well, again, until Apple shut that down with iOS 12 by stripping the unique characteristics of your device away from advertisers&#x2019; tracking software. These same benefits are also found in Apple&#x2019;s latest MacOS Mojave, by the way.</p><p><figure class=\"wp-caption aligncenter image-wrapper\"><img class=\"size-large wp-image-90236227 lazyload\" alt=\"\" width=\"525\" src=\"https://images.fastcompany.net/image/upload/w_596,c_limit,q_auto:best,f_auto/wp-cms/uploads/2018/09/i-Apple-iPhone-Xs-line-up.jpg\"><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">iPhone XSs and iPhone XS Max [Photo: courtesy of Apple]</figcaption></figure><br>\nAnd Apple&#x2019;s privacy protections extend to the hardware itself. In iOS 11, Apple introduced tech that physically disables data transfers from a device&#x2019;s Lightning port to thwart bad actors from using cracking tools to access your data on your device. The company was also the first to introduce full disk encryption on its laptops and desktops with its FileVault technology. With FileVault 2, it turned this encryption on by default on every Mac&#x2013;making it infinitely harder for someone with access to your Mac to access the data on it without the password. And with its latest MacBook Pros Apple even introduced a hardware backstop where the microphone in the laptop is automatically disabled when the lid is closed&#x2013;ensuring no one can listen in on you. Further, in MacOS Mojave, apps will now need your explicit permission to access your Mac&#x2019;s camera and microphone, so malware can&#x2019;t hijack your camera to creep in on you and advertisers can&#x2019;t use <a href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/28/business/media/alphonso-app-tracking.html?_r=1\">ultrasonic ad tracking</a> to hear what you are watching on television.</p><p>Apple is now also enforcing its strict privacy protection policies on third-party developers. The company recently <a href=\"https://www.fastcompany.com/90224974/apple-makes-facebook-pull-its-spywareish-vpn-from-the-app-store\">forced Facebook to remove its Onavo Protect VPN app</a> from the App Store because Facebook was using it to create a log of every website an Onavo user went to (the app is still available for Android devices). Apple is also <a href=\"https://www.macrumors.com/2018/08/31/all-app-store-apps-to-require-privacy-policy/\">requiring all of its app developers to have a publicly posted privacy policy</a> on how they use user data if they want their apps to continue to be available in the App Store after their next app update. While simply forcing app developers to publish their privacy policies can&#x2019;t stop bad developers from abusing user data, it will create a written record that will make it easier to call developers out on privacy violations.</p></div><div><p>Once I&#x2019;ve explained all of these points, some of my friends ask me why can Apple do this. Or to put it another way, why don&#x2019;t other tech giants like Facebook and Google? A small part of the reason is ideological. So far, Tim Cook hasn&#x2019;t said or done anything that makes me think his claim that <a href=\"https://www.fastcompany.com/40581691/all-the-people-apple-just-pissed-off-to-better-protect-your-privacy\">privacy is a fundamental human right</a> isn&#x2019;t sincere.</p><p>But let&#x2019;s be honest&#x2013;Apple is a corporation, and a corporation&#x2019;s goal is to make as much money as possible. In this age of tech giants, user data may be the new black gold, but Apple&#x2019;s business model doesn&#x2019;t rely on monetizing such information. Apple makes its hundreds of billions every year by selling physical products that have a high markup. Facebook and Google, on the other hand, have a business model built around advertisers who want as much data about users as possible so they can better target them. This is why, for example, Google would never build the types of anti-tracking and privacy protections into the Android OS that Apple has done with MacOS and iOS. Google&#x2013;and Facebook&#x2013;aren&#x2019;t going to cut off their access to all that black gold.</p><figure class=\"video-wrapper\"><iframe width=\"525\" height=\"295\" src=\"https://www.youtube.com/embed/9m_K2Yg7wGQ?feature=oembed\" class=\"\"></iframe></figure><p>That&#x2019;s not to say Apple doesn&#x2019;t collect user data, it does; it just keeps it to a minimum. Matter of fact, <a href=\"https://www.macrumors.com/2018/08/22/android-sends-data-google-10-times-ios-to-apple/\">iOS devices send ten times less data to Apple than Android devices send to Google</a>, according to independent researchers. And most of the information an iOS device does send back to Apple is <a href=\"https://www.apple.com/privacy/docs/Differential_Privacy_Overview.pdf\">obfuscated with a technique called Differential Privacy</a>, which adds random information to a user&#x2019;s data before it reaches Apple so the company has no way of knowing that it came from your device.</p><h2>Apple can still improve its privacy protections</h2><p>Mind you, all this isn&#x2019;t to say Apple still can&#x2019;t improve user privacy. My biggest gripe here is that while Apple uses end-to-end encryption for user passwords and messages, <a href=\"https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT202303\">among other data</a>&#x2013;preventing hackers, authorities, and even Apple itself from accessing such information&#x2013;it hasn&#x2019;t expanded that end-to-end encryption to other places that need it. For instance, as many of us move to storing all of our files online, it&#x2019;s disappointing that Apple doesn&#x2019;t offer end-to-end encryption for files stored in iCloud Drive and the Notes app.</p><p>However, I should add a caveat. I understand why Apple (and Dropbox and other cloud storage providers) doesn&#x2019;t provide end-to-end encryption for documents stored in the cloud: it&#x2019;s a trade-off between user experience and security. If Apple were to enable end-to-end encryption on iCloud Drive and a user, such as my 71-year-old mother, did forget a password, Apple would be physically unable to recover their photos, financial documents, and any other data they have stored in iCloud. Still, having an option to enable end-to-end encryption on iCloud Drive would be nice for those of us willing to take the risk.</p><p>Another area where Apple could take the lead in improved privacy protections is by restricting which data fields are shared when a user decides to grant an app access to their contacts. Right now, all contacts data&#x2013;from names to emails, phone numbers, birthdays, and home addresses&#x2013;are upload to an app developer&#x2019;s servers, and who knows what those developers do with that information at that point? Additionally, the notes section of a contact card is also uploaded&#x2013;presenting a big security risk as many people use the notes section on a contact card to write personal information (such as a child&#x2019;s social security number). Ideally, Apple will restrict contact data uploads to just the names and email addresses in the future&#x2013;and this is something I expect we&#x2019;ll see the company do sooner rather than later.</p></div><div><p>Yet despite these limited gripes, my recommendation stands. When you pay that extra money for an Apple product, you&#x2019;re not just buying better industrial design or more advanced underlying tech&#x2013;you&#x2019;re buying the right to keep more information about yourself to yourself. In an age when data breaches are the norm, data manipulation is a business model, and corporate surveillance of your life is at an all-time high&#x2013;what better product is there than privacy?</p></div><div></div></article>","url":"https://www.fastcompany.com/90236195/forget-the-new-iphones-apples-best-product-is-now-privacy","date_published":"2018-09-13T10:00:33+00:00","author":{"name":""}},{"id":"797","title":"The problem with real news — and what we can do about it","content_html":"<div><div><div class=\"section-content\"><div class=\"section-inner sectionLayout--fullWidth\"><figure id=\"e9af\" class=\"graf graf--figure graf--layoutFillWidth graf--leading\"><img class=\"progressiveMedia-noscript js-progressiveMedia-inner\" src=\"https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/2000/1*-jhSy7c2Rg-i2MgwcGgL5Q.jpeg\"><figcaption class=\"imageCaption\">Design and illustrations by Leon Postma (De Correspondent), art direction by Harald Dunnink&#xA0;(Momkai)</figcaption></figure></div><div class=\"section-inner sectionLayout--insetColumn\"><p id=\"c473\" class=\"graf graf--p graf-after--h3\">Forget fake news, a poisonous term. Real news is an even bigger problem.</p><p id=\"0aae\" class=\"graf graf--p graf-after--p\">This realization is what inspired me to found the Dutch journalism platform <a href=\"http://decorrespondent.nl/\" class=\"markup--anchor markup--p-anchor\">De Correspondent</a> in 2013, promising to be &#x201C;an antidote to the daily news grind&#x201D; for its readers. So many people responded that we even set a world record in crowdfunding a news site. Today, we&#x2019;re on the verge of launching <a href=\"http://thecorrespondent.com/\" class=\"markup--anchor markup--p-anchor\">The Correspondent,</a> bringing <em class=\"markup--em markup--p-em\">unbreaking news </em>to the United States and beyond.</p><figure id=\"7fc0\" class=\"graf graf--figure graf--layoutOutsetLeft graf-after--p\"><img class=\"progressiveMedia-noscript js-progressiveMedia-inner\" src=\"https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/1200/1*WV_TckH9RheSzMq1ecuYig.jpeg\"><figcaption class=\"imageCaption\">Rob Wijnberg speaking at the launch of De Correspondent | Photo: Bas&#xA0;Losekoot</figcaption></figure><p id=\"3acd\" class=\"graf graf--p graf-after--figure\">That the news in its traditional forms is the problem with journalism actually dawned on me much earlier, when in 2006 I joined the editorial department of a major Dutch newspaper. I was 24 and studying philosophy when I landed a job covering domestic affairs. As a philosophy student does, I immediately started asking: what <em class=\"markup--em markup--p-em\">is </em>this thing called news that I&#x2019;m supposed to make here? Scrutinizing the practices of my colleagues, I eventually distilled a definition that I think describes news pretty accurately.</p><p id=\"0bfc\" class=\"graf graf--p graf-after--p\">News is all about <strong class=\"markup--strong markup--p-strong\"><em class=\"markup--em markup--p-em\">sensational</em>, <em class=\"markup--em markup--p-em\">exceptional</em>, <em class=\"markup--em markup--p-em\">negative</em>,</strong> and <strong class=\"markup--strong markup--p-strong\"><em class=\"markup--em markup--p-em\">current events</em></strong>.</p><p id=\"2312\" class=\"graf graf--p graf-after--p\">And those five words capture precisely the problem with news.</p><p id=\"a5e8\" class=\"graf graf--p graf-after--h3\">To start off with the <em class=\"markup--em markup--p-em\">sensational</em>: news is generally that which is shocking, scandalous, or appalling enough to evoke comment. It often revolves around what&#x2019;s most visible&#x200A;&#x2014;&#x200A;one might even say explosive. That is why terrorist attacks are often news, says <em class=\"markup--em markup--p-em\">Guardian</em> journalist Joris Luyendijk, but occupations of foreign lands are not. Attacks are shocking, highly visible events, occupation much less so. Put another way: it&#x2019;s easy to capture a bus exploding, yet very hard to film the suppression of everyday freedoms.</p><p id=\"5fef\" class=\"graf graf--p graf-after--p\">Extending this idea, the news also mostly revolves around the highly <em class=\"markup--em markup--p-em\">exceptional</em>. Cartoonist Matt Wuerker captured this attribute of news brilliantly: while we&#x2019;re surrounded with millions and millions of peace loving, law abiding, hate fighting, unity advocating fellow citizens, it only takes a few neo-Nazis, jihadis or KluKluxKlanners to fill a news cycle twentyfourseven.</p><figure id=\"9062\" class=\"graf graf--figure graf--layoutOutsetLeft graf-after--p\"><img class=\"progressiveMedia-noscript js-progressiveMedia-inner\" src=\"https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/1200/1*hXqi5-IShTRez5BRpJfmcg.jpeg\"><figcaption class=\"imageCaption\">Cartoon: Matt Wuerker | Source:&#xA0;<a href=\"https://www.politico.com/cartoons/2018/08/02/matt-wuerker-cartoons-august-2018-000069?slide=4\" class=\"markup--anchor markup--figure-anchor\">Politico</a></figcaption></figure><p id=\"2b14\" class=\"graf graf--p graf-after--figure\">Not only does this skew our view of other human beings, news also makes us blind to the influential that is not exceptional at all. That&#x2019;s why we often don&#x2019;t hear about major developments until something highly improbable happens (events the Lebanese-American philosopher Nassim Taleb dubbed &#x201C;black swans&#x201D;).</p><p id=\"ad57\" class=\"graf graf--p graf-after--p\">The 2008 financial crisis, for example, didn&#x2019;t become huge news until the Lehman Brothers investment bank filed for bankruptcy&#x200A;&#x2014;&#x200A;a highly unusual event. But the<em class=\"markup--em markup--p-em\"> lead up</em> to this event&#x200A;&#x2014;&#x200A;banks that kept piling risk on top of risk, little by little, day by day&#x200A;&#x2014;&#x200A;never made it to the front page because of the fundamental mismatch between what was happening (gradual risk increase) and the way news commonly signals what is happening (event-driven sensationalism).</p><p id=\"d1cd\" class=\"graf graf--p graf-after--p\">The news is also, almost without exception, <em class=\"markup--em markup--p-em\">negative</em>. &#x201C;If it bleeds, it leads&#x201D; is a journalism catchphrase. In other words: good news is no news. People who keep up with the news are thus quick to think the world is getting ever more dangerous&#x200A;&#x2014;&#x200A;<a href=\"https://www.npr.org/2016/07/16/486311030/despite-the-headlines-steven-pinker-says-the-world-is-becoming-less-violent\" class=\"markup--anchor markup--p-anchor\">though in fact the opposite is true.</a> What&#x2019;s more, the news constantly gives us the feeling that people can&#x2019;t be trusted: they commit fraud, they&#x2019;re corrupt, they steal from one another, they blow themselves up. The reality is that the overwhelming majority of people are good and want to do right by others. But that&#x2019;s not news, is it?</p><p id=\"8bf7\" class=\"graf graf--p graf-after--p\">The news is also obsessed by what&#x2019;s <em class=\"markup--em markup--p-em\">recent</em>. Almost everything that&#x2019;s news must be something that has <em class=\"markup--em markup--p-em\">just now</em> taken place. But the most recent thing isn&#x2019;t by definition the most influential one. Everything in the world has a history. And that history determines in large part why something happens. Because the news usually keeps its eye trained on <em class=\"markup--em markup--p-em\">today</em>, it blinds us to the longer term, both past and future. Informing us about power structures that have grown over time, like the historical roots of racism, or alerting us to gradual societal changes, like the financialization of our economy, is simply not natural to the forms and rhythms of daily news.</p><p id=\"44dc\" class=\"graf graf--p graf-after--p\">And the reason for that, lastly, is that the news revolves mainly around <em class=\"markup--em markup--p-em\">events</em>. News has to have a hook, to use journalism jargon: a reason to report it now instead of later. That sounds logical, but it means that <em class=\"markup--em markup--p-em\">trends</em> rarely make the evening news. For trends aren&#x2019;t instances; they progress over time. That&#x2019;s why the nightly news always ends with the <em class=\"markup--em markup--p-em\">weather</em>, but never with the <em class=\"markup--em markup--p-em\">climate</em>. You can&#x2019;t say: &#x201C;Today the climate changed&#x201D;, even though it actually did.</p><p id=\"429f\" class=\"graf graf--p graf-after--p\">Hook-think is also why much of the news consists of what we might call calendar journalism: recurring, often planned events that serve as an excuse to elevate something to the status of news. Consider press conferences, quarterly earnings, think tank reports, commemorative services, and anniversaries. Or the president&#x2019;s tweets. That means you can pencil in much of the news in advance, making it something that isn&#x2019;t &#x201C;new&#x201D; at all.</p><figure id=\"cd60\" class=\"graf graf--figure graf-after--p\"><img class=\"progressiveMedia-noscript js-progressiveMedia-inner\" src=\"https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/1600/1*Z-Od5_fq76cgnfseyPp9pg.png\"></figure><p id=\"c29c\" class=\"graf graf--p graf-after--h3\">When you put all this together, it means the news actually fails to deliver on its single biggest promise: to tell us what&#x2019;s happening in the world. People who follow the news mostly know what <em class=\"markup--em markup--p-em\">doesn&#x2019;t happen</em>. It portrays the world to us as a never ending string of sensational, unusual, terrible, rapidly forgotten events. In contrast to fake news, which is misleading because it&#x2019;s simply untrue, real news misleads us in a more subtle and fundamental way. It gives us a deeply skewed view of probability, history, progress, development, and relevance.</p><p id=\"13b8\" class=\"graf graf--p graf-after--p\">That&#x2019;s why we&#x2019;re quick to think that <a href=\"https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/jul/20/muslim-terror-attacks-press-coverage-study\" class=\"markup--anchor markup--p-anchor\">most terrorists are Muslims,</a> <a href=\"https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/domestic-terrorism-white-supremacists-islamist-extremists_us_594c46e4e4b0da2c731a84df\" class=\"markup--anchor markup--p-anchor\">even though that isn&#x2019;t true.</a> Or that the world is <a href=\"https://www.forbes.com/sites/stevedenning/2017/11/30/why-the-world-is-getting-better-why-hardly-anyone-knows-it/#516536687826\" class=\"markup--anchor markup--p-anchor\">only getting worse,</a> <a href=\"https://www.theguardian.com/world/commentisfree/2018/apr/11/good-news-at-last-the-world-isnt-as-horrific-as-you-think\" class=\"markup--anchor markup--p-anchor\">even though that isn&#x2019;t true.</a> Or that terrorist attacks pose <a href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/01/climate/islamic-state-climate-change-worlds-greatest-threats-pew-survey.html\" class=\"markup--anchor markup--p-anchor\">a greater threat to our well-being than sugar</a>, <a href=\"https://ourworldindata.org/is-it-fair-to-compare-terrorism-and-disaster-with-other-causes-of-death\" class=\"markup--anchor markup--p-anchor\">even though that isn&#x2019;t true.</a> Or that the financial crisis started in 2008, <a href=\"https://archives.cjr.org/cover_story/power_problem.php\" class=\"markup--anchor markup--p-anchor\">even though that isn&#x2019;t true.</a> Or that <a href=\"https://news.gallup.com/poll/186308/americans-say-crime-rising.aspx\" class=\"markup--anchor markup--p-anchor\">crime is going up in the United States</a>, <a href=\"http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/01/30/5-facts-about-crime-in-the-u-s/\" class=\"markup--anchor markup--p-anchor\">even though that isn&#x2019;t true</a>.</p><p id=\"bf76\" class=\"graf graf--p graf-after--p\">In short, our news obsession takes away from what journalism as a practice is supposed to be about: helping everyone who is part of the public understand the world well enough to join in public discussion about what is to be done.</p><p id=\"cf64\" class=\"graf graf--p graf-after--p\">As the saying goes: &#x201C;If you don&#x2019;t read the newspaper, you&#x2019;re uninformed. If you do read the newspaper, you&#x2019;re misinformed.&#x201D;</p><figure id=\"c2bc\" class=\"graf graf--figure graf-after--p\"><img class=\"progressiveMedia-noscript js-progressiveMedia-inner\" src=\"https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/1600/1*8qSGpcBIGfKUUAbmc1cEng.png\"></figure><p id=\"b1de\" class=\"graf graf--p graf-after--h3\">To be clear: when I say &#x201C;news&#x201D; I don&#x2019;t mean &#x201C;all journalism.&#x201D; There are countless types of journalism that are thorough and informative, and there are ten of thousands of journalists committed to public service who do invaluable work. Nor is my criticism of the news meant as a dismissal of &#x201C;the media,&#x201D; as that phrase is now commonly understood. Like many of my colleagues, I am worried by the wave of mistrust toward journalists that&#x2019;s currently sweeping the United States and the world at large, spurred on by a political elite that hopes to exploit this suspicion of the media.</p><p id=\"545c\" class=\"graf graf--p graf-after--p\">But of all the forms that journalism can take, the <em class=\"markup--em markup--p-em\">news </em>is by far the most influential. We consume it in unbelievable quantities: on average Americans spend <a href=\"http://www.people-press.org/2010/09/12/americans-spending-more-time-following-the-news/\" class=\"markup--anchor markup--p-anchor\">almost 70 minutes a day following the news in some form</a>&#x200A;&#x2014;&#x200A;that&#x2019;s more than four full years across an average lifespan. As a result it dominates our water cooler conversations, largely sets the political agenda, and heavily shapes our view of humanity and the world.</p><p id=\"8052\" class=\"graf graf--p graf-after--p\">And not in a good way. The ultimate effect of our excessive news consumption&#x200A;&#x2014;&#x200A;more accurately, our news <em class=\"markup--em markup--p-em\">addiction</em>&#x200A;&#x2014;&#x200A;is to make us afraid of other people, skeptical of the future, <a href=\"http://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/2017/11/lowest-point.aspx\" class=\"markup--anchor markup--p-anchor\">and cynical about our own ability to affect it.</a> Day in, day out, the news confirms our most stubborn prejudices and our greatest fears. It makes us pessimistic and suspicious. It even makes us unhappy.</p><p id=\"dff8\" class=\"graf graf--p graf-after--p\">In short, the news is bad for us, as individuals and as a society. &#x201C;News is to the mind,&#x201D; the Swiss writer Rolf Dobelli once wrote, &#x201C;what sugar is to the body.&#x201D; Really, the news should come with a surgeon general&#x2019;s warning.</p><figure id=\"9107\" class=\"graf graf--figure graf-after--p\"><img class=\"progressiveMedia-noscript js-progressiveMedia-inner\" src=\"https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/1600/1*jBif_ggqdo63NG-4iBWtOA.png\"></figure><p id=\"ea9f\" class=\"graf graf--p graf-after--h3\">To help temper the negative effects of the news, I founded the Dutch journalism platform De Correspondent five years ago with a crowdfunding campaign. The idea behind it was simple: let&#x2019;s redefine the news together&#x200A;&#x2014;&#x200A;from the <em class=\"markup--em markup--p-em\">sensational</em> to the <em class=\"markup--em markup--p-em\">foundational</em>. And the response was overwhelming: nearly 19,000 founding members joined our cause and helped us achieve a world record in journalism crowdfunding. We raised $1.7 million in a country of just 17 million people. In five years our member base grew to over 60,000 today, making us one of the fastest growing community funded news sites in Europe.</p><p id=\"22f1\" class=\"graf graf--p graf-after--p\">These members enable De Correspondent to be a fiercely ad-free, in-depth journalism platform, making good on our slogan on a daily basis: being &#x201C;an antidote to the daily news grind.&#x201D;</p><figure id=\"8413\" class=\"graf graf--figure graf-after--p\"><img class=\"progressiveMedia-noscript js-progressiveMedia-inner\" src=\"https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/1600/1*hl1AyylRfaN1PuY3q-KXAg.png\"></figure><p id=\"9bed\" class=\"graf graf--p graf-after--h3\">That slogan perfectly captures our mission: to serve as a remedy to the worst effects of the news. Central to that is a different definition of news. Instead of looking only at what happened today, at De Correspondent we look at what happens <em class=\"markup--em markup--p-em\">every</em> day. When you do that consistently, it makes for a different view of the world.</p><p id=\"4eef\" class=\"graf graf--p graf-after--p\">Because why is it that after nearly every major societal shock, from weapons of mass destruction to the financial crisis to Brexit to Trump&#x2019;s election, people in the news media ask the same question: why didn&#x2019;t we see this coming?</p><p id=\"856a\" class=\"graf graf--p graf-after--p\">The most common answer is ideological bias. Journalists are &#x201C;too left-wing&#x201D; or &#x201C;too liberal&#x201D; and so they don&#x2019;t want to acknowledge what is really going on. I think there&#x2019;s a better answer. The news media have the wrong definition of news.</p><p id=\"3829\" class=\"graf graf--p graf-after--p\">Lehman Brothers&#x2019; fall, Britain&#x2019;s break from the EU, and Trump&#x2019;s election are indeed spectacular, exceptional <em class=\"markup--em markup--p-em\">events</em>, but they are also the result of slow, unobtrusive, systemic <em class=\"markup--em markup--p-em\">trends</em>. Phenomena that take place not today but everyday, and therefore never develop a hook that qualifies them to be presented as news. Phenomena that are also too everyday to generate sensational headlines or clicks.</p><figure id=\"4096\" class=\"graf graf--figure graf-after--p\"><img class=\"progressiveMedia-noscript js-progressiveMedia-inner\" src=\"https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/1600/1*bvknVb3jXRBpfpl-WBUL-A.jpeg\"><figcaption class=\"imageCaption\">Rob founded <a href=\"https://decorrespondent.nl/\" class=\"markup--anchor markup--figure-anchor\">De Correspondent</a> in Amsterdam in&#xA0;2013</figcaption></figure><p id=\"0812\" class=\"graf graf--p graf-after--h3\">At De Correspondent in the Netherlands, we try to tell precisely those stories that aren&#x2019;t news, but news-<em class=\"markup--em markup--p-em\">worthy </em>nevertheless. Or, as we often say, that reveal not the weather but the climate. Those stories are written by correspondents who don&#x2019;t have a news-driven schedule to meet, and thus can take the time they need to develop an area of expertise and learn to recognize and describe the truly influential developments of our time. Our ultimate goal: to replace the sensational with the foundational and the recent with the relevant.</p><p id=\"2736\" class=\"graf graf--p graf-after--p\">To achieve that, we&#x2019;ve had to learn new journalistic habits at De Correspondent. And even more important: we&#x2019;ve had to break old ones.</p><p id=\"f6b4\" class=\"graf graf--p graf-after--p\">The key habit we had to break was the journalist&#x2019;s traditional bar for relevance and timeliness. There&#x2019;s a kind of unspoken agreement among journalists on what exactly constitutes the most important &#x201C;issues of the day&#x201D;&#x200A;&#x2014;&#x200A;and that unspoken agreement is tightly linked to the fact that journalists are themselves extremely heavy news consumers.</p><p id=\"06ec\" class=\"graf graf--p graf-after--p\">Their own excessive news consumption predisposes journalists to believe that what&#x2019;s happening in the world right this instant, and what&#x2019;s the most important story to tell right now, is whatever&#x2019;s getting a lot of airplay in other media. That makes it easy and safe to do the same. Then no one can be blamed for over-reporting it, because everyone is responsible for that.</p><p id=\"274b\" class=\"graf graf--p graf-after--p\">To put an end to this self-fulfilling prophecy, the first thing we do is teach our correspondents to seriously moderate their own consumption of news. We encourage them to seek inspiration for article ideas outside of the day&#x2019;s newspapers, talk shows, and tweets&#x200A;&#x2014;&#x200A;by going out into the streets, by reading books, and, above all, by asking our readers the question, &#x201C;What do you encounter every day at work or in your life that rarely makes the front page, but really should?&#x201D;</p><p id=\"ca68\" class=\"graf graf--p graf-after--p\">Now, it may sound easy to ignore the news, but it turns out to be quite a challenge. Journalists are quick to fear they&#x2019;re missing out: there&#x2019;s no sin more cardinal than letting a competing news outlet take center stage with breaking news you don&#x2019;t have yourself.</p><p id=\"4236\" class=\"graf graf--p graf-after--p\">Even at De Correspondent, we still wrestle with this problem on occasion. Especially when events happen that rivet the world&#x2019;s attention, such as terrorist attacks. But those are precisely the moments we guard against, lest we reflexively fall back into the habit of reporting on mayflies.</p><p id=\"79d6\" class=\"graf graf--p graf-after--p\">We resist that urge not by asking ourselves &#x201C;What are we going to do with this news?&#x201D; but by asking &#x201C;What do we have to <em class=\"markup--em markup--p-em\">add</em> to this news that isn&#x2019;t available anywhere else?&#x201D; If the answer is &#x201C;nothing,&#x201D; then we won&#x2019;t report on even the most major of news events.</p><p id=\"968f\" class=\"graf graf--p graf-after--p\">That&#x2019;s why in 2016, on the day of the tragic bombings in Brussels, just 125 miles from our office in Amsterdam, we didn&#x2019;t publish a word. Instead, we referred our members to the best reporting by other outlets, in full keeping with the philosophy of media professor Jeff Jarvis: &#x201C;Do what you do best, link to the rest.&#x201D; Our readers appreciated this so much that we welcomed more new members that day than ever before.</p><p id=\"93e6\" class=\"graf graf--p graf-after--p\">That change of habit&#x200A;&#x2014;&#x200A;that redefinition of <em class=\"markup--em markup--p-em\">relevant</em>&#x200A;&#x2014;&#x200A;has sparked a deeper and, we believe, profoundly positive change: it&#x2019;s no longer our correspondents&#x2019; goal to be the first, get a scoop, or be picked up by other outlets. Their goal is to thoroughly ground themselves in the major developments of our time and, along the way, share their learning curve with a growing community of followers.</p><p id=\"4b70\" class=\"graf graf--p graf-after--p\">To get there, we&#x2019;ve also had to train our correspondents to stop thinking in completed stories. Most newspaper articles and television news items can&#x2019;t be published or broadcast until they&#x2019;re complete. But that limitation is absent online, where news can be an unfolding process instead of a static snapshot. Instead of only presenting readers with the finished product, our correspondents share their plans and ideas, and then provide interim updates by keeping a public notebook.</p><p id=\"7280\" class=\"graf graf--p graf-after--p\">This interactive way of doing journalism has a major advantage: our readers can traverse the same learning curve our journalists do. Instead of assuming all kinds of background, as the news often does, our reporting allows the reader to join in at his or her own level of knowledge, and grow from there.</p><p id=\"b2d2\" class=\"graf graf--p graf-after--p\">And often, that starting point is even <em class=\"markup--em markup--p-em\">higher</em> than that of the journalist. By shining a public light on the journalistic process instead of hiding it behind the wizard&#x2019;s curtain, we give our readers a way to share their specific knowledge and experiences with our correspondents.</p><p id=\"4894\" class=\"graf graf--p graf-after--p\">And so we&#x2019;ve trained our journalists to no longer view their readers as passive consumers of information, but as active contributors of expertise.</p><figure id=\"3d8f\" class=\"graf graf--figure graf-after--p\"><img class=\"progressiveMedia-noscript js-progressiveMedia-inner\" src=\"https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/1600/1*-dW4n-fH_ftkmgHCJJZrtQ.png\"></figure><p id=\"3767\" class=\"graf graf--p graf-after--h3\">Our members play a crucial role in discovering and exploring the everyday systems that are the focus of our journalism. At De Correspondent we believe that a hundred readers by definition know more than a single journalist. On our platform these everyday experts share their knowledge and experience with our correspondents.</p><p id=\"e096\" class=\"graf graf--p graf-after--p\">For example, hundreds of teachers, students, and school principals help our Education correspondent understand what&#x2019;s happening in our schools, and hundreds of doctors, mail carriers, and train conductors help our Public Services correspondent understand the issues at play in our country&#x2019;s public sector. We ask our members, &#x201C;What do you encounter every day at work or in your life that rarely makes the news, but really ought to be on the front page?&#x201D; Their answers are often the start of discoveries we could never have made alone.</p><p id=\"3092\" class=\"graf graf--p graf-after--p\">It is by now no exaggeration to say that the knowledge of our more than 60,000 members has become indispensable to our journalism. Not just because they share what they know, but also because they are willing to pay $80 a year to do so! Their willingness to pay lets us keep De Correspondent fully ad-free. Beyond being pleasant to the eye&#x200A;&#x2014;&#x200A;no blinking banners screaming for attention&#x200A;&#x2014;&#x200A;it&#x2019;s also an essential condition for the kind of journalism we aspire to make.</p><p id=\"9208\" class=\"graf graf--p graf-after--p\">Because the sensationalism and hypersensitivity of our daily news feeds is caused in large part by the underlying business model. Since the 19th century the news has been largely funded by advertising. That means the real product isn&#x2019;t so much the news itself, but <em class=\"markup--em markup--p-em\">the public&#x2019;s attention</em>.</p><p id=\"1ff8\" class=\"graf graf--p graf-after--p\">This attention economy is the breeding ground for today&#x2019;s screaming front-page headlines and the clickbait glutting our social media. These incentives are less present at De Correspondent because the readers themselves are our clients, and not the advertisers.</p><p id=\"e6fd\" class=\"graf graf--p graf-after--p\">This is a big reason we can shift from the sensational to the foundational and publish an antidote to the daily news grind: we have members who grasp the connection between the kind of journalism we practice and the elimination of that third party in between journalists and readers, the advertisers.</p><figure id=\"82b1\" class=\"graf graf--figure graf-after--p\"><img class=\"progressiveMedia-noscript js-progressiveMedia-inner\" src=\"https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/1600/1*KN1czcJi7XUha6s_jZNr3g.png\"></figure><p id=\"c616\" class=\"graf graf--p graf-after--h3\">This kind of journalism, in which journalists don&#x2019;t just produce and readers don&#x2019;t just consume, is ultimately rooted in an underlying conviction: that by sharing our knowledge and experience with each other, we can leave the world better than we found it. Said another way, De Correspondent is based on a belief in progress.</p><p id=\"a265\" class=\"graf graf--p graf-after--p\">That belief isn&#x2019;t a baseless hope; it isn&#x2019;t even a political stance. Believing in progress is a rational, factual conclusion. Because the history of humankind <em class=\"markup--em markup--p-em\">is</em> a history of progress.</p><p id=\"4040\" class=\"graf graf--p graf-after--p\">Think about it. Not a single chimpanzee has ever gone to the moon. Not a single chimpanzee carries everything she knows in her pants pocket. Not a single chimpanzee has ever been to court. Yet the chimpanzee and man share a very recent common ancestor.</p><p id=\"4383\" class=\"graf graf--p graf-after--p\">The reason we&#x2019;ve evolved from nut-cracking apes into rocket-flying humans is as simple as it is ingenious: there is no species on Earth as good at sharing knowledge as we are.</p><p id=\"382c\" class=\"graf graf--p graf-after--p\">No single individual human knows how to build an iPhone, a rocket, or a system of justice, because all of them are the product of shared knowledge. This simple principle of sharing what we know enabled us to keep taking the next step in specializing in what we&#x2019;re best at. Together, we progressed.</p><p id=\"5f63\" class=\"graf graf--p graf-after--p\">But crazily enough fewer and <a href=\"https://ems.ipsos-mori.com/researchpublications/researcharchive/3805/Majority-across-25-countries-say-their-country-is-on-the-wrong-track.aspx\" class=\"markup--anchor markup--p-anchor\">fewer people believe this progress still exists</a>. For the first time since the nineteenth century, when belief in progress became common, a majority of the population in 25 countries believes the world is headed in the wrong direction. Also gaining ground is the idea that the lives of our children and grandchildren will be worse than our own.</p><p id=\"09c8\" class=\"graf graf--p graf-after--p\">And one of the worst enablers of this waning belief in progress is&#x200A;&#x2014;&#x200A;you guessed it&#x200A;&#x2014;&#x200A;the daily news that we consume. Because the news mostly disseminates outrage and pessimism, not knowledge and confidence. As a result we&#x2019;re less informed about the world we live in and more skeptical of our ability to change it.</p><p id=\"9cf6\" class=\"graf graf--p graf-after--p\">I believe there&#x2019;s another way. I believe that humanity&#x2019;s fate is best served by sharing knowledge and experience instead of outrage and fear. That together, we can still understand the world. And that a world we understand is a world we can change. Together, we can still make progress.</p><p id=\"a0d9\" class=\"graf graf--p graf-after--p\">Now that&#x2019;s <em class=\"markup--em markup--p-em\">real</em> news.</p></div><div class=\"section-inner sectionLayout--fullWidth\"><figure id=\"b354\" class=\"graf graf--figure graf--layoutFillWidth graf-after--p\"><img class=\"progressiveMedia-noscript js-progressiveMedia-inner\" src=\"https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/2000/1*w370TtSOFz3mL0I9vBNqCA.png\"></figure></div><div class=\"section-inner sectionLayout--insetColumn\"><p id=\"bbff\" class=\"graf graf--p graf-after--figure\">This article is the first in a four-piece Unbreaking News series in which I share the philosophy behind The Correspondent&#x2019;s journalism:</p><p id=\"1059\" class=\"graf graf--p graf-after--p\"><strong class=\"markup--strong markup--p-strong\">Part 1:&#xA0;<br>Forget fake news. Here&#x2019;s why real news is the bigger problem&#x200A;&#x2014;&#x200A;And what we can do about it</strong></p><p id=\"ed2e\" class=\"graf graf--p graf-after--p\"><strong class=\"markup--strong markup--p-strong\">Part 2:&#xA0;<br>Why we want our journalists to take a stance at The Correspondent&#x2014; and ask them to keep a public notebook<br></strong><em class=\"markup--em markup--p-em\">Coming on September 17</em></p><p id=\"8aaf\" class=\"graf graf--p graf-after--p\"><strong class=\"markup--strong markup--p-strong\">Part 3:&#xA0;<br>The Correspondent is founded on the idea of progress&#x200A;&#x2014;&#x200A;it&#x2019;s why we collaborate with our knowledgable members</strong>&#xA0;<br><em class=\"markup--em markup--p-em\">Coming on September 20</em></p><p id=\"265c\" class=\"graf graf--p graf-after--p\"><strong class=\"markup--strong markup--p-strong\">Part 4:&#xA0;<br>Here&#x2019;s how our correspondents work<br></strong><em class=\"markup--em markup--p-em\">Coming on September 24</em></p><figure id=\"3ae6\" class=\"graf graf--figure graf-after--p\"><img class=\"progressiveMedia-noscript js-progressiveMedia-inner\" src=\"https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/1600/1*i7T_aVtLkRmMp_Dey-JS0A.gif\"></figure><p id=\"8b86\" class=\"graf graf--p graf-after--figure\">Follow me on Twitter (<a href=\"http://twitter.com/robwijnberg\" class=\"markup--anchor markup--p-anchor\">@robwijnberg</a>) or subscribe to <a href=\"http://thecorrespondent.com/\" class=\"markup--anchor markup--p-anchor\">my newsletter</a> and I&#x2019;ll let you know when I publish the next instalment!</p><figure id=\"ce74\" class=\"graf graf--figure graf-after--p\"><img class=\"progressiveMedia-noscript js-progressiveMedia-inner\" src=\"https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/1600/1*RboNM90JuR0zrXsGb30Y5A.png\"></figure><p id=\"00e1\" class=\"graf graf--p graf-after--figure\"><strong class=\"markup--strong markup--p-strong\">Rob Wijnberg</strong><em class=\"markup--em markup--p-em\"> (1982) is the founder of </em><a href=\"https://decorrespondent.nl/\" class=\"markup--anchor markup--p-anchor\"><em class=\"markup--em markup--p-em\">De Correspondent</em></a><em class=\"markup--em markup--p-em\">, an ad free journalism platform in The Netherlands with more than 60,000 paying members. Rob, who&#x2019;s both American and Dutch, moved to the United States in 2017 to prepare the launch of The Correspondent, the English language platform for Unbreaking News.</em></p><p id=\"5bb4\" class=\"graf graf--p graf-after--p graf--trailing\"><strong class=\"markup--strong markup--p-strong\">Let&#x2019;s build a movement for radically different news, together!<em class=\"markup--em markup--p-em\"><br></em></strong><em class=\"markup--em markup--p-em\">Check out </em><a href=\"https://thecorrespondent.com/\" class=\"markup--anchor markup--p-anchor\"><em class=\"markup--em markup--p-em\">thecorrespondent.com</em></a><em class=\"markup--em markup--p-em\"> to learn more.</em></p></div></div></div></div>","url":"https://medium.com/de-correspondent/the-problem-with-real-news-and-what-we-can-do-about-it-f29aca95c2ea","date_published":"2018-09-12T13:08:44+00:00","author":{"name":"Rob Wijnberg"}},{"id":"786","title":"Trump’s 4 Biggest Lies about Today’s Economy","content_html":"<li class=\"post\"><a href=\"http://robertreich.org/post/177953319405\"></a><br><a href=\"http://robertreich.org/post/177953319405\" class=\"timestamp\">Monday, September 10, 2018</a><div class=\"caption\"><p>Trump is putting out 4 big whoppers about today&#x2019;s economy. Here&#x2019;s what he&#x2019;s saying, and here&#x2019;s the truth:<br></p><p> 1. <b>&#x201C;Best job growth ever.&#x201D;</b> Wrong. Job growth has actually slowed. In the last 19 months of the Obama administration it averaged 3.96 million new jobs per month. In the first 19 months of Trump, 3.58 million.</p><p> 2. &#x201C;<b>Lowest unemployment rate ever.</b>&#x201D; Rubbish. The unemployment rate is now down to 3.9 percent. That&#x2019;s good. But it doesn&#x2019;t measure how many people are still too discouraged to look for work or are working part time who&#x2019;d rather be working full time. The labor participation rate (percent of prime working age work who actually have jobs) has been stuck at 88.9 percent for over a year. </p><p> And the current 3.9 percent rate is hardly better than ever in history. It was 3.4 percent in 1968 under Johnson, and below 3.9 percent for much of 1951, 1952, and 1953, under Eisenhower. </p><p> The practical question is always how low the Fed will allow unemployment to fall before raising rates, for fear of inflation. In 1996, unemployment fell to 4.4 percent, but Fed Chair Alan Greenspan then raised rates. This time around, Fed Chair Janet Yellen and her successor Jerome Powell have been quite accommodating, but Powell is starting to raise rates again. </p><p> 3. &#x201C;<b>Fastest economic growth in history.</b>&#x201D; Wrong again. The economy is now growing at annualized rate of 4.2 percent (that&#x2019;s for the 2nd quarter). That&#x2019;s not as good as the 5.1 percent and 4.9 percent achieved in 2 quarters in 2014, or the 4.7 percent in one quarter in 2011. During the Clinton years of 1997-1999, it grew by over 4.5 percent annually. Under Reagan, the recovery averaged 4.4 percent a year. Under Eisenhower, even faster. </p><p> 4. <b>&#x201C;Best wages, ever</b>.&#x201D; Not even close. Today&#x2019;s hourly wage has less purchasing power than it did over four decades years ago. Adjusted for inflation, the average hourly wage in <i>January 1973</i> would be $23.68 today. Yet today&#x2019;s actual average hourly wage is $22.73. And, of course, the lion&#x2019;s share is going to the top.</p><p>Trump is having only one positive impact on the economy: His continuous P.T. Barnum lies about how good it is have improved consumer confidence. Which I suppose is good &#x2013; until, like the character in the road-runner cartoons, consumers look down and realize there&#x2019;s nothing under them. <br></p></div><a href=\"http://www.addthis.com/bookmark.php?v=250\" class=\"addthis_button\"><img src=\"http://s7.addthis.com/static/btn/v2/lg-share-en.gif\" width=\"125\" alt=\"Share\"></a></li>","url":"http://robertreich.org/post/177953319405","date_published":"2018-09-11T00:29:01+00:00","author":{"name":""}},{"id":"776","title":"The Challenge of Accurate Dosing in THC and CBD Products","content_html":"<article class=\"post-article js-post-gallery grid__item main float--left three-quarters\"> <div class=\"article__title__meta\"> <time class=\"article__time\"> on August 30, 2018 at 7:12 pm</time> </div> <p><em>The following content is sponsored by <a href=\"https://xanthicbio.com/\">Xanthic Biopharma</a></em></p>\n<p><img src=\"http://2oqz471sa19h3vbwa53m33yj.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/xanthic-biopharma.png\" alt=\"The Challenge of Accurate Dosing in THC and CBD Products\"></p>\n<p>The potential of cannabis-derived consumer products seems endless. From food to drink, to skincare and medicine, there are many versatile uses.</p>\n<p>However, there&#x2019;s a significant challenge still facing the industry: it&#x2019;s tricky to measure the appropriate dosage of cannabis compounds like CBD and THC, for the desired effects to take place.</p>\n<h2>Barriers to Accurate Dosing</h2>\n<p>Today, the practice of accurately labeling cannabis dosages faces two main challenges:</p>\n<ol>\n<li>While the FDA will take action against products making misleading health claims, it doesn&#x2019;t provide clear labeling guidance in general.</li>\n<li>Cannabis laws and regulations also vary from state to state, leading the potential of diminished quality control and mislabeling.</li>\n</ol>\n<p>These two facts are exemplified in a recent study, which found that <a href=\"https://www.pennmedicine.org/news/news-releases/2017/november/penn-study-shows-nearly-70-percent-of-cannabidiol-extracts-sold-online-are-mislabeled\">70%</a> of 84 CBD products sold online were mislabeled. </p>\n<h2>Why Accurate Dosing is Important</h2>\n<p>The cannabis industry is rapidly shifting to better suit the needs of the modern individual&#x2019;s health and lifestyle, making accurate dosing more important than ever before.</p>\n<p>That&#x2019;s why companies like <a href=\"https://xanthicbio.com/\">Xanthic Biopharma</a>, who have embraced natural medicine, are committed to developing high quality cannabinoids that are properly labeled with accurate dosages, using patent-pending technology.</p>\n<p>With quality testing and accurate dosing, cannabis compounds are on the verge of transforming human health and wellness.</p> <h3 class=\"jp-relatedposts-headline\"><em>Related</em></h3> <div class=\"article__meta article--single__meta\"> <div class=\"btn-list\"> <p class=\"btn\">Tagged</p> <a class=\"btn btn--small btn--tertiary\" href=\"http://www.visualcapitalist.com/tag/cannabis/\">cannabis</a><a class=\"btn btn--small btn--tertiary\" href=\"http://www.visualcapitalist.com/tag/cbd/\">cbd</a><a class=\"btn btn--small btn--tertiary\" href=\"http://www.visualcapitalist.com/tag/dosing/\">dosing</a><a class=\"btn btn--small btn--tertiary\" href=\"http://www.visualcapitalist.com/tag/products/\">Products</a><a class=\"btn btn--small btn--tertiary\" href=\"http://www.visualcapitalist.com/tag/thc/\">thc</a> </div> </div> <aside class=\"author\"> </aside> </article>","url":"http://www.visualcapitalist.com/accurate-dosing-thc-cbd-products/","date_published":"2018-09-09T17:25:46+00:00","author":{"name":"Author Sponsored Content "}},{"id":"765","title":"Unsealed FBI documents detail Roger Stone’s Watergate-era dirty tricks","content_html":"<div><div class=\"photo-embed\"><div class=\"photo-embed__image\"><div class=\"photo-embed__image__wrapper\"><img alt=\"\" src=\"https://im-dev-proxy.imgix.net/https%3A%2F%2Fasset-1.theoutline.com%2Fv1%2Fduotone%2Fpreview%3Fend%3DFFFFB3%26start%3D402952%26url%3Dhttps%253A%252F%252Foutline-prod.imgix.net%252F20180908-AUp0BPCy8YNDDmrx1wrV%253Fs%253Ddd0ff048238d31cf731e82a9b2e713f9?auto=format&amp;q=60&amp;w=1280&amp;s=09679d8d2ade6a7718da108bc9829349\" srcset=\"https://im-dev-proxy.imgix.net/https%3A%2F%2Fasset-1.theoutline.com%2Fv1%2Fduotone%2Fpreview%3Fend%3DFFFFB3%26start%3D402952%26url%3Dhttps%253A%252F%252Foutline-prod.imgix.net%252F20180908-AUp0BPCy8YNDDmrx1wrV%253Fs%253Ddd0ff048238d31cf731e82a9b2e713f9?auto=format&amp;q=60&amp;w=320&amp;s=ee2e82d7c53d8a227f3e73d0673fa854 320w, https://im-dev-proxy.imgix.net/https%3A%2F%2Fasset-1.theoutline.com%2Fv1%2Fduotone%2Fpreview%3Fend%3DFFFFB3%26start%3D402952%26url%3Dhttps%253A%252F%252Foutline-prod.imgix.net%252F20180908-AUp0BPCy8YNDDmrx1wrV%253Fs%253Ddd0ff048238d31cf731e82a9b2e713f9?auto=format&amp;q=60&amp;w=640&amp;s=1208593911550f6c5ee21818a76a8007 640w\"></div></div><p class=\"photo-embed__caption\"><span class=\"photo-embed__caption__byline\">Screen grab via <em>Get Me Roger Stone</em> trailer, <a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5IPyv4KgTAA\">YouTube</a></span></p></div><div class=\"post__body__group\"><p>The indispensable non-profit organization Property of the People has <a href=\"https://propertyofthepeople.org/2018/09/07/fbi-documents-on-roger-stone-reveal-sabotage-espionage-and-the-life-of-a-serial-bagman/\">obtained FBI long-sealed documents</a> fully explaining the role that longtime right-wing saboteur Roger Stone played in Richard Nixon&#x2019;s 1972 re-election campaign (aka the one with all the Watergate stuff). Given that Stone, a longtime Donald Trump associate who serves as an unofficial advisor to the President, is <a href=\"https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-russia-mueller-credico/two-associates-of-trump-adviser-stone-questioned-in-russia-probe-idUSKCN1LN291\">currently facing scrutiny</a> for his potential role helping a bucketload of Hillary Clinton campaign emails wind up on Wikileaks, this seems, uh, relevant.</p><p>Writes Emma Best for Property of the People:</p><blockquote class=\"pullquote pullquote--block\"><span>The FBI documents include a list &#x201C;highlights&#x201D; of acts of political sabotage in which Stone was either directly involved or served as the handler for the relevant operative. In one case, Stone sent 200 Democrats invitations to a non-existent primary campaign breakfast. In another, Stone directed Democratic campaign literature intended for the black community to be sent to union workers, and literature intended for union workers to be sent to the black community. In yet another, Stone saw to it that phone lines used by a Democratic primary campaign were tampered with. This resulted in Democratic failure to contact many potential voters, while others were potential voters were inadvertently contacted &#x201C;numerous times.&#x201D; In still another instance, Stone made a phony donation from the Young Socialist Alliance to create and exploit divisions among Democrats. </span></blockquote><p>While Stone&#x2019;s activities on behalf of Nixon have been covered previously, Best&#x2019;s reporting offers a fuller picture of Roger Stone&#x2019;s antics than ever before. Stone, for his part, <a href=\"https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/roger-stone-opens-up-about-russia-mueller-trump-and-whats-next-629805/\">denies</a> having committed any illegal acts in the service of Donald Trump&#x2019;s 2016 campaign. But, well, yeah.</p></div></div>","url":"https://theoutline.com/post/6155/fbi-documents-detail-roger-stones-watergate-era-dirty-tricks","date_published":"2018-09-08T21:36:56+00:00","author":{"name":""}},{"id":"758","title":"Rather than overspending on your wedding, why not just get it #sponsored?","content_html":"<div class=\"_61c55\"><p class=\"container _92842 _0007a\">If you&#x2019;ve ever planned a wedding, you may be familiar with the feeling of hemorrhaging money. My own is three weeks away, and I&#x2019;m fairly certain I lost $3,000 just opening my email this morning. Thanks to Instagram influencer Chiara Ferragni, I now realize that&#x2019;s because <em>I&#x2019;m doing it wrong</em>.</p><p class=\"container _92842 _0007a\">Watching Ferragni&#x2019;s wedding unfold on social media last weekend, and learning in the following days that her nuptials in Sicily earned the brands whose products were featured in the extravaganza an <a href=\"https://www.launchmetrics.com/resources/blog/chiara-ferragni-fedez-wedding\">estimated $36 million</a>&#x2014;not a typo&#x2014;I feel a little bit naive, like Steve Martin in <a href=\"http://www.tcm.com/mediaroom/video/1109021/Father-Of-The-Bride-Movie-Clip-This-Blessed-Event.html\">the opening scene</a> of the 1991 classic,&#xA0;<em>Father of the Bride</em>.&#xA0;&#x201D;I used to think a wedding was a simple affair,&#x201D; he says, massaging his feet in his confetti-strewn living room. &#x201C;Boy and girl meet. They fall in love. He buys a ring. She buys a dress. They say, &#x2018;l do.&#x2019; I was wrong. That&#x2019;s getting married. A wedding is an entirely different proposition.&#x201D;</p><amp-instagram width=\"400\" height=\"400\"></amp-instagram><p class=\"container _92842 _0007a\">And where the wedding industrial complex and the social media spotlight collide, it is a business proposition.</p><p class=\"container _92842 _0007a\">Ferragni, if you&#x2019;re not familiar, is the creator of blog called <a href=\"https://www.theblondesalad.com/\">The Blonde Salad</a>. When The Blonde Salad <a href=\"https://wwd.com/business-news/media/the-blonde-salad-at-harvard-8172610/\">was the subject</a> of a Harvard Business School case study in 2015, Ferragni had about 3.2 million Instagram followers, and her business was projected to make about $9 million in annual revenue. Cute! Three years later, Ferragni has about 15 million followers, and <a href=\"https://wwd.com/business-news/business-features/chiara-ferragni-takes-on-president-ceo-role-in-her-company-11075897/\">is the president and CEO</a> of two companies: TBS Crew (Get it? The Blonde Salad), a talent management and media production company that oversees Ferragni and her sister&#x2019;s projects, and Chiara Ferragni Collection, a fashion label that generated more than <a href=\"https://www.businessoffashion.com/articles/intelligence/the-blonde-salad-chiara-ferragni-launches-e-commerce\">$15 million in revenue in 2016</a>.</p><p class=\"b18b1\">Why settle on just making your ex jealous, when you could make millions?</p><p class=\"container _92842 _0007a\">In December 2017, Ferragni took on the CEO role while six months pregnant with her son with the Italian rapper Fedez. She described a refocusing of the business to WWD then: &#x201C;Ferragni emphasized that the changes also involve increasingly putting herself at the center of every project,&#x201D; <a href=\"https://wwd.com/business-news/business-features/chiara-ferragni-takes-on-president-ceo-role-in-her-company-11075897/\">wrote Luisa Zargani</a>. &#x201C;Ferragni &#x2026; realized that the projects that worked best were those that saw her as the focus.&#x201D;</p><p class=\"container _92842 _0007a\">Case in point: her wedding. This project was a weekend-long extravaganza that included at least four white designer ensembles, a sponsored Alitalia flight to transport guests to Sicily (with customized snacks, obvs), a floral welcome mat laid out on cobblestoned streets, lots of customized merch (mugs, buttons, etc.), and a Coachella-themed reception complete with a celebrity DJ, a ferris wheel, fireworks, and endless Instagram-able moments.&#xA0;See: Ferragni&#x2019;s <a href=\"https://www.instagram.com/stories/highlights/17974829308019174/?hl=en\">&#x201C;wedding&#x201D; Instagram story</a> with panes featuring the customized Alitalia flight, the custom Dior dresses and shoes, the #suppliedbyPrada rehearsal dress, and the Lancome makeover in-process, as well as at least 40 posts on Ferragni&#x2019;s own page&#x2014;not to mention all the guests who used the hashtag #TheFerragnez.</p><p class=\"container _92842 _0007a\">According to the marketing analytics firm Launchmetrics, Ferragni&#x2019;s wedding weekend earned the brands associated with the blessed event many millions in &#x201C;media impact value,&#x201D; or MIV,&#xA0;<a href=\"https://www.launchmetrics.com/resources/blog/understanding-miv-the-ferragnez\">Launchmetric&#x2019;s proprietary measurement</a> of the monetary value of a social media post.</p><amp-instagram width=\"400\" height=\"400\"></amp-instagram><p class=\"container _92842 _0007a\">Sure, it may feel a little crude to put price-tags on sharing one&#x2019;s memories of such a personal event, but let&#x2019;s be honest. Weddings are, in a sense, exercises in personal branding, executed for their intended audiences. In some cases, those intended audiences might be simply one&#x2019;s grandmother (smoked salmon platter at a Sunday brunch), the groom&#x2019;s ex-hippie friends from college (Mason jars of signature cocktails), or whoever happens to be at City Hall (whatever!). In others, they may include the FOMO-stricken followers of a wedding-specific hashtag.&#xA0;In Ferragni&#x2019;s case, that hashtag&#x2014;#TheFerragnez&#x2014;got <a href=\"https://fashionista.com/2018/09/chiara-ferragni-dior-wedding-dress-media-press-value?utm_source=Fashionista%20Newsletters%20Master%20List&amp;utm_campaign=5644d23839-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2017_12_19_COPY_01&amp;utm_medium=email&amp;utm_term=0_a23c93579d-5644d23839-410536821\">a cool 67 million</a>, um, engagements.</p><p class=\"container _92842 _0007a\">While we don&#x2019;t know exactly how much Alitalia or Lancome paid for those posts marked as advertising, or whether Launchmetric&#x2019;s estimates are spot-on, it&#x2019;s clear that Ferragni&#x2019;s wedding earned a great deal of eyeballs for the brands associated with it, and raised Ferragni&#x2019;s public profile in the process. And also that she didn&#x2019;t have to pay for those flights or couture dresses. But she did have to Instagram a lot. Here&#x2019;s what that looked like.</p><h2 class=\"container _5e420 _0007a\">The customized Alitalia flight and confusing associated costumed characters</h2><amp-instagram width=\"400\" height=\"400\"></amp-instagram><h2 class=\"container _5e420 _0007a\">The rehearsal dinner dress, #suppliedbyPrada</h2><amp-instagram width=\"400\" height=\"400\"></amp-instagram><h2 class=\"container _5e420 _0007a\">The Lancome face</h2><amp-instagram width=\"400\" height=\"400\"></amp-instagram><h2 class=\"container _5e420 _0007a\">The Alberta Ferretti-clad bridesmaids</h2><amp-instagram width=\"400\" height=\"400\"></amp-instagram><h2 class=\"container _5e420 _0007a\">Couture wedding look #1, #suppliedbyDior</h2><amp-instagram width=\"400\" height=\"400\"></amp-instagram><h2 class=\"container _5e420 _0007a\">Wedding bands, #suppliedbyPomellato</h2><amp-instagram width=\"400\" height=\"400\"></amp-instagram><h2 class=\"container _5e420 _0007a\">Couture wedding look #2, #suppliedbyDior</h2><amp-instagram width=\"400\" height=\"400\"></amp-instagram><h2 class=\"container _5e420 _0007a\">Surprise! Couture look #3&#x2014;a practical skirt swap #suppliedbyDior</h2><amp-instagram width=\"400\" height=\"400\"></amp-instagram></div>","url":"https://qz.com/quartzy/1382834/chiara-ferragni-fashion-influencer-and-genius-bride/","date_published":"2018-09-08T16:49:39+00:00","author":{"name":"Jenni Avins"}},{"id":"759","title":"Bonus Quote of the Day","content_html":"<div class=\"entry-content\"><p>&#x201C;I can&#x2019;t be held responsible for his actions. I can only be held responsible for my own actions. The one thing about this president, he certainly communicates with the people of this country and lets them know what he thinks.&#x201D;</p>\n<p>&#x2014; Rep. Mimi Walters (R-CA), in interview with <a href=\"https://www.cnbc.com/2018/09/07/calif-house-candidates-mimi-walters-and-katie-porter-on-the-issues.html\">CNBC</a>, on whether she thinks President Trump is dangerous.</p>\n<span class=\"wpfp-span\"><img src=\"https://1lme911nv0cg3ned26127983-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/Bookmark-e1487617811729.png\" alt=\"Favorite\" class=\"wpfp-img\"><img src=\"https://1lme911nv0cg3ned26127983-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/plugins/wp-favorite-posts/img/loading.gif\" alt=\"Loading\" class=\"wpfp-hide wpfp-img\"><a class=\"wpfp-link\" href=\"https://politicalwire.com/2018/09/08/bonus-quote-of-the-day-1015/?wpfpaction=add&amp;postid=1012345\">Save to Favorites</a></span><div id=\"ssba-classic-2\" class=\"ssba ssbp-wrap left ssbp--theme-1\"><div><a class=\"ssba_twitter_share\" href=\"http://twitter.com/share?url=https://politicalwire.com/2018/09/08/bonus-quote-of-the-day-1015/&amp;text=Bonus%20Quote%20of%20the%20Day%20\"><img src=\"https://1lme911nv0cg3ned26127983-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/plugins/simple-share-buttons-adder/buttons/simple/twitter.png\" class=\"ssba ssba-img\" alt=\"Tweet about this on Twitter\"></a><a class=\"ssba_facebook_share\" href=\"http://www.facebook.com/sharer.php?u=https://politicalwire.com/2018/09/08/bonus-quote-of-the-day-1015/\"><img src=\"https://1lme911nv0cg3ned26127983-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/plugins/simple-share-buttons-adder/buttons/simple/facebook.png\" class=\"ssba ssba-img\" alt=\"Share on Facebook\"></a><a class=\"ssba_linkedin_share ssba_share_link\" href=\"http://www.linkedin.com/shareArticle?mini=true&amp;url=https://politicalwire.com/2018/09/08/bonus-quote-of-the-day-1015/\"><img src=\"https://1lme911nv0cg3ned26127983-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/plugins/simple-share-buttons-adder/buttons/simple/linkedin.png\" class=\"ssba ssba-img\" alt=\"Share on LinkedIn\"></a><a class=\"ssba_email_share\" href=\"mailto:?subject=Bonus%20Quote%20of%20the%20Day&amp;body=From%20Political%20Wire:%20%20https://politicalwire.com/2018/09/08/bonus-quote-of-the-day-1015/\"><img src=\"https://1lme911nv0cg3ned26127983-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/plugins/simple-share-buttons-adder/buttons/simple/email.png\" class=\"ssba ssba-img\" alt=\"Email this to someone\"></a></div></div></div>","url":"https://politicalwire.com/2018/09/08/bonus-quote-of-the-day-1015/","date_published":"2018-09-08T00:00:00+00:00","author":{"name":"Taegan Goddard"}},{"id":"768","title":"Seeds of next economic crash seen in widening imbalance","content_html":"<div><section class=\"body\"> <p>Sept. 15 will mark the 10th anniversary of the collapse of Lehman Brothers and the near meltdown of Wall Street, followed by the Great Recession.</p> <p>Since hitting bottom in 2009, the economy has grown steadily, the stock market has soared, and corporate profits have ballooned.</p> <p>But most Americans are still living in the shadow of the Great Recession. More have jobs, to be sure. But they haven&#x2019;t seen any rise in their wages, adjusted for inflation.</p> <p>Many are worse off because of the escalating costs of housing, health care and education. And the value of whatever assets they own is less than in 2007.</p> <p>Last year, about 40 percent of American families struggled to meet at least one basic need &#x2014; food, health care, housing or utilities, according to an Urban Institute survey.</p> <p>All of which suggests we&#x2019;re careening toward the same sort of crash we had in 2008, and possibly as bad as 1929.</p> <p>Clear away the financial rubble from those two former crashes, and you&#x2019;d see they both followed widening imbalances between the capacity of most people to buy and what they as workers could produce. Each of these imbalances finally tipped the economy over.</p> <p>The same imbalance has been growing again. The richest 1 percent of Americans now take home about 20 percent of total income and own more than 40 percent of the nation&#x2019;s wealth.</p> <p>These are close to the peaks of 1928 and 2007.</p> <p>The U.S. economy crashes when it becomes too top-heavy because the economy depends on consumer spending to keep it going, yet the rich don&#x2019;t spend nearly as much of their income as the middle class and the poor.</p> <p>For a time, the middle class and poor can keep the economy going nonetheless by borrowing. But, as in 1929 and 2008, debt bubbles eventually burst.</p> <p>We&#x2019;re getting dangerously close. By the first quarter of this year, household debt was at an all-time high of $13.2 trillion.</p> <p>Almost 80 percent of Americans are now living paycheck to paycheck. In a recent Federal Reserve survey, 40 percent of Americans said they wouldn&#x2019;t be able to pay their bills if faced with a $400 emergency.</p> <p>They&#x2019;ve managed their debts because interest rates have remained low. But the days of low rates are coming to an end.</p> <p>The underlying problem isn&#x2019;t that Americans have been living beyond their means. It&#x2019;s that their means haven&#x2019;t been keeping up with the growing economy. Most gains have gone to the top.</p> <p>It was similar in the years leading up to the crash of 2008. From 1983 to 2007, household debt soared while most economic gains went to the top. Had the majority of households taken home a larger share, they wouldn&#x2019;t have needed to go so deeply into debt.</p> <p>Similarly, from 1913 to 1928, the ratio of personal debt to the total national economy nearly doubled. As Marriner Eccles, chairman of the Federal Reserve Board from 1934 to 1948, explained: &#x201C;As in a poker game where the chips were concentrated in fewer and fewer hands, the other fellows could stay in the game only by borrowing.&#x201D;</p> <p>Eventually there were &#x201C;no more poker chips to be loaned on credit,&#x201D; Eccles said, and when &#x201C;credit ran out, the game stopped.&#x201D;</p> <p>After the 1929 crash, the government invented new ways to boost wages &#x2014; Social Security, unemployment insurance, overtime pay, a minimum wage, the requirement that employers bargain with labor unions, and, finally, a full-employment program called World War II.</p> <p>After the 2008 crash, the government bailed out the banks and pumped enough money into the economy to contain the slide. But apart from the Affordable Care Act, nothing was done to address the underlying problem of stagnant wages.</p> <p>President Trump and his Republican enablers are now reversing regulations put in place to stop Wall Street&#x2019;s excessively risky lending.</p> <p>But Trump&#x2019;s real contributions to the next crash are his sabotage of the Affordable Care Act, rollback of overtime pay, burdens on labor organizing, tax reductions for corporations and the wealthy but not for most workers, cuts in programs for the poor, and proposed cuts in Medicare and Medicaid &#x2014; all of which put more stress on the paychecks of most Americans.</p> <p>Ten years after Lehman Bros. collapsed, it&#x2019;s important to understand that the real root of the Great Recession wasn&#x2019;t a banking crisis. It was the growing imbalance between consumer spending and total output, brought on by stagnant wages and widening inequality.</p> <p>That imbalance is back. Watch your wallets.</p> <p><i>&#xA9; 2018 Robert Reich</i></p> <em><p>Robert Reich, a former U.S. secretary of labor, is professor of public policy at UC Berkeley. To comment, submit your letter to the editor at <a href=\"http://sfchronicle.com/letters\">SFChronicle.com/letters</a>.</p></em> </section></div>","url":"https://www.sfchronicle.com/opinion/reich/article/Seeds-of-next-economic-crash-seen-in-widening-13204777.php","date_published":"2018-09-07T22:36:12+00:00","author":{"name":""}},{"id":"744","title":"Sick of jacked-up pharma prices, 500 hospitals join to make their own drugs","content_html":"<div><div><div>EMAILED ON September 7, 2018 BY <a href=\"https://thehustle.co/\">THE HUSTLE</a></div>\n</div><div><p>A group of major American hospitals <a href=\"https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/hospitals-are-fed-up-with-drug-companies-so-theyre-starting-their-own/2018/09/05/61c27ec4-b111-11e8-9a6a-565d92a3585d_story.html?noredirect=on&amp;utm_term=.c833d6ae9cd3\">banded</a> together to form a not-for-profit generic drug company called Civica Rx to reduce dependence on inconsistent drug prices.</p>\n<p>The creation of the mission-driven enterprise, which has already secured more than $100m in preliminary funding, highlights the urgent need for reform in the drug business.&#xA0;</p>\n<h4><strong>The drug-pricing system makes hospitals sick</strong></h4>\n<p>Arbitrage between drugmakers, pharmacy benefit managers, and doctors leads to <a href=\"https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/02/price-of-2-in-1-drug-spikes-to-3000-separately-the-two-drugs-cost-36/\">price spikes</a> and <a href=\"https://thehustle.co/epi-pen-shortage/\">shortages</a> of common, lifesaving medicines.&#xA0;</p>\n<p>Price changes force hospitals to pay premiums of as much as <a href=\"https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/hospitals-are-fed-up-with-drug-companies-so-theyre-starting-their-own/2018/09/05/61c27ec4-b111-11e8-9a6a-565d92a3585d_story.html?noredirect=on&amp;utm_term=.c833d6ae9cd3\">50%</a> for common drugs, diverting lifesaving resources toward tracking drug supplies and predicting what the f*ck drugmakers will do next.</p>\n<p>So to create a more consistent supply, a consortium of 7 massive health systems encompassing more than 500 hospitals <a href=\"https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/hospitals-are-fed-up-with-drug-companies-so-theyre-starting-their-own/2018/09/05/61c27ec4-b111-11e8-9a6a-565d92a3585d_story.html?noredirect=on&amp;utm_term=.c833d6ae9cd3\">formed</a> a &#x201C;first-of-its-kind societal asset to make essential generic medicines affordable and available to everyone&#x201D; with a $100m initial investment.</p>\n<h4><strong>Taking matters into their own medicine cabinets</strong></h4>\n<p>Civica Rx has already attracted interest from more than 120 health organizations (&#x2153; of the country&#x2019;s hospitals) and <a href=\"http://fortune.com/2018/09/06/civica-rx-nonprofit-drug-company/?xid=gn_editorspicks\">tapped</a> Martin VanTrieste, former head of biotech giant Amgen, to serve as pro-bono CEO.</p>\n<p>By stripping away the pressures of shareholders and middlemen, Civica plans to produce a stable supply of <a href=\"https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2018/09/06/644935958/hospitals-prepare-to-launch-their-own-drug-company-to-fight-high-prices-and-shor\">14</a> commonly overpriced drugs and distribute them at consistent prices to the hospitals in its network. The company hopes to bring its first drugs to the market next year.</p>\n</div></div>","url":"https://thehustle.co/hospitals-make-generic-drug-company-civica/","date_published":"2018-09-07T15:00:26+00:00","author":{"name":""}},{"id":"743","title":"Blame It on the Base: Trump Tells Supporters His Impeachment Would Be Their Fault","content_html":"<div id=\"page\"> <p id=\"main-wrapper\"><main id=\"main\" class=\"amp-main clearfix\"> <div id=\"content\" class=\"amp-main__content column\"><div class=\"section\"> <a id=\"main-content\"></a> <div class=\"region region-content\"> <div id=\"block-system-main\" class=\"block block-system\"> <div class=\"content\"> <article id=\"node-121393\" class=\"node node-headline clearfix\"> <div class=\"grid-size-12\"> <div class=\"field field-name-field-main-caption field-type-text-long field-label-hidden\"><div class=\"field-items\"><div class=\"field-item even\"><p>U.S. president Donald Trump greets supporters during a campaign rally at Four Seasons Arena on July 5, 2018 in Great Falls, Montana. President Trump held a campaign style &apos;Make America Great Again&apos; rally in Great Falls, Montana with thousands in attendance. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)</p></div></div></div><div class=\"field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden amp-img pullquote\"><div class=\"field-items\"><div class=\"field-item even\"><p>With the prospect of such an eventuality growing alongside increasing levels of support for his ouster, President Donald Trump on Thursday night told a crowd of (<a href=\"https://billingsgazette.com/news/government-and-politics/protesters-among-crowd-at-metrapark-before-trump-rally-in-billings/article_d379edae-6e57-524e-a148-16c2aa717725.html\">mostly</a>) adoring supporters at a campaign-style rally in Montana that if he is ultimately impeached it won&apos;t be his fault&#x2014;but distinctly theirs.</p>\n<p>&quot;I say how do you impeach somebody that&apos;s doing a great job? That hasn&apos;t done anything wrong?&quot; Trump declared.</p>\n<p>&quot;It is so ridiculous,&quot; he continued. &quot;But if it does happen it is your fault because you did not go out and vote. You did not go out to vote, that is the only way it can happen.&quot;</p>\n<p>Watch:</p> <p>Just one week ago, an ABC News/Washington Post showed <a href=\"https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-partisan/wp/2018/08/31/poll-by-sinking-poll-trump-inches-toward-impeachment/?utm_term=.99c02fa50646\">that a full 60 percent of voters</a> now favor impeachment proceedings for the president.</p>\n<p>And on Thursday, in the wake of an <a href=\"https://www.commondreams.org/news/2018/09/05/while-trump-clearly-horrible-president-critics-denounce-right-wing-unelected-cabal\">explosive and troubling op-ed</a> in the <em>New York Times</em> written by a high-level official from inside his administration describing a dangerous person running the nation, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) joined those saying <a href=\"http://time.com/5389522/elizabeth-warren-25th-amendment-trump\">it was time to invoke the 25th Amendment to remove Trump from office</a>.</p>\n</div></div></div> <div class=\"field-wrapper content-container clearfix\" id=\"field-wrapper-sign-up-prompt\"><div class=\"content-prompt clearfix\"><p>[cta:content_block_template_one]</p>\n</div></div> </div> </article> </div>\n</div> </div> </div></div> </main></p> </div>","url":"https://www.commondreams.org/news/2018/09/07/blame-it-base-trump-tells-supporters-his-impeachment-would-be-their-fault","date_published":"2018-09-07T00:00:00+00:00","author":{"name":""}},{"id":"745","title":"Uber CEO: 'I had no fricking clue what I was getting into'","content_html":"<section class=\"body\"> <p><typographytag class=\"character\">When Dara Khosrowshahi took the helm of Uber a year ago, replacing ousted co-founder Travis Kalanick, he projected confidence mixed with humility.</typographytag></p> <p>&#x201C;I had no fricking clue what I was getting into &#x2014; no predisposed notions,&#x201D; he said Thursday during an interview at a tech conference in San Francisco. &#x201C;Travis and team ... built an incredible, important company. The board brought me on to change direction.&#x201D;</p> <p>And so Khosrowshahi has tried to do that, both in tone and in substance.</p> <p>Uber started as a car service, but increasingly its mission is to get rid of cars, offering consumers a broad range of choices of how to get around. Uber, Khosrowshahi told the audience at TechCrunch Disrupt at the Moscone West convention center, aspires to be the &#x201C;Amazon of transportation,&#x201D; moving consumers, things and food from point A to point B via ride-hailed cars, scooters, bikes, robot taxis, flying taxis, rental cars and other modes.</p> <p>A decade from now, Uber&#x2019;s core ride-hailing business will be less than 50 percent of its business, but it will still offer consumers more choice than anyone else on how to get around, he predicted.</p> <p>&#x201C;We&#x2019;ve got to deconstruct that car, just like cable is being unbundled,&#x201D; he said. &#x201C;Hopefully, 10 years from now, no one in the audience will own a car. I&#x2019;m very bullish on personal electric vehicles. Scooters are (version) 1.&#x201D;</p> <p>Uber took another step toward the less car-centric future on Thursday, announcing an app feature called Mode Switch that allows users to more readily select options such as e-bikes or car rentals from Getaround. Uber, which provided part of a $335 million round of financing for San Francisco scooter startup Lime, soon will add Lime&#x2019;s e-scooters as an option in cities where it operates.</p> <p>Uber&#x2019;s other units include Eats for food delivery, which Khosrowshahi said is the largest delivery service outside of China; <a href=\"https://www.sfchronicle.com/business/article/Uber-keeps-on-truckin-as-Freight-expands-12959435.php\">Freight,</a> for long-haul trucking; Elevate, the flying car service; and <a href=\"https://www.sfchronicle.com/business/article/Uber-acquires-bicycle-startup-Jump-12818264.php\">Jump</a> for e-bikes and e-scooters. Eats, Jump and Freight are all growing and scaling as quickly as the UberX ride-hailing did in its early days, he said.</p> <p>Even with losses that measure in the billions, Khosrowshahi thinks investors will understand that the $6 trillion transportation market offers extraordinary growth potential. He has said that Uber plans to go public next year.</p> <p>Divesting Uber&#x2019;s autonomous car project is &#x201C;not in the plans,&#x201D; even after a <a href=\"https://www.sfchronicle.com/business/article/Uber-settles-with-Arizona-self-driving-car-crash-12790842.php\">fatal crash</a> in March, he said. That &#x201C;was an enormous wake-up call for the company. You think about these possibilities theoretically and real life hits you in the face.&#x201D;</p> <p>Uber has completely revamped its robot-car approach, rethinking how it builds and tests self-driving technology. &#x201C;We will be a better company for it,&#x201D; Khosrowshahi said.</p> <p>Uber drivers fear that robot cars will supplant them, a fear stoked by Kalanick&#x2019;s past comments about getting rid of &#x201C;the other dude&#x201D; in the car. But Khosrowshahi said it&#x2019;s not an either/or proposition, predicting that the company will offer a hybrid of human and robot drivers for years to come, based on what makes sense for each individual trip.</p> <p>&#x201C;There&#x2019;s this drama around, is it autonomous or is it people,&#x201D; he said. &#x201C;The reality is people and computers ... work together better than on a stand-alone basis.&#x201D;</p> <p>Flying taxis in the near future are entirely realistic, he said &#x2014; and taking to the skies makes more sense than ever as increasingly dense cities face challenges building new infrastructure: &#x201C;The true innovators, in the early days, have to be willing to be called crazy.&#x201D;</p> <p>The company&#x2019;s multimodal aspirations just suffered a setback in San Franciso, where its Jump unit <a href=\"https://www.sfchronicle.com/business/article/Scooters-to-return-to-San-Francisco-city-picks-13194487.php\">failed to win a permit</a> for an electric scooter pilot program that will start in mid-October.</p> <p>&#x201C;Listen, we weren&#x2019;t happy about the result of that process,&#x201D; Khosrowshahi said. &#x201C;The good news is we&#x2019;ve got a bunch of Jump bikes on the streets now, so we have connectivity in the San Francisco market.&#x201D;</p> <p>Moreover, as a global company, Uber has 599 other cities where it operates that it can target with e-scooters, he said &#x2014; including Santa Monica, where it was one of four companies (along with Lyft, Lime and Bird) to get permits for a scooter and bike pilot program. Khosrowshahi declined to say if Uber would appeal San Francisco&#x2019;s decision, as Lime has already said it will do.</p> <p>Khosrowshahi also addressed Uber&#x2019;s issues with diversity and alleged insensitivity.</p> <p>Uber is changing recruiting and promotions to improve representation of women and underrepresented groups and already sees improvements at all levels of the company, he said. A <a href=\"https://www.sfchronicle.com/business/article/Uber-reports-meager-progress-on-diversity-in-12858511.php\">report</a> Uber released in April showed modest increases, in the low single digits.</p> <p>Khosrowshahi defended his hiring of new COO Barney Harford, who a <a href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/13/technology/uber-barney-harford-behavior.html\">New York Times article</a> said, quoting unnamed sources, had made racially insensitive comments. &#x201C;We&#x2019;ve taken this as a learning moment, and goddamn it, we&#x2019;ll improve,&#x201D; he said.</p> <p>Harford wrote a heartfelt apology and doesn&#x2019;t deserve to be marked by a single remark, he said.</p> <p>&#x201C;I&#x2019;ve known Barney for years, and I stand 100 percent behind him,&#x201D; he said.</p> <p>Overall, Uber is tackling an immense challenge.</p> <p>&#x201C;We are a digital company that is organizing the physical world,&#x201D; Khosrowshahi said. &#x201C;The physical world is a lot messier than the digital world: messy, unpredictable, tough to organize &#x2014; and also more fundamental.&#x201D;</p> <em><p>Carolyn Said is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: <a href=\"mailto:csaid@sfchronicle.com\">csaid@sfchronicle.com</a> Twitter: <a href=\"https://twitter.com/csaid\">@csaid</a></p></em> </section>","url":"https://www.sfchronicle.com/business/article/Uber-CEO-I-had-no-fricking-clue-what-I-was-13210260.php","date_published":"2018-09-06T23:38:46+00:00","author":{"name":""}},{"id":"766","title":"A 22-year Apple veteran explains why Silicon Valley's 'fast fail' approach won't work with health tech","content_html":"<div><div id=\"article_body\" class=\"content\">            \n\n                                             \n\t\n\n\n\n\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"group-container \">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\n\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\n<div class=\"embed-container image\">\n\t\t\t    \t<img src=\"https://fm.cnbc.com/applications/cnbc.com/resources/img/editorial/2018/09/06/105436635-1536254307573robingoldsteinbiophotohigh-res.1910x1000.jpeg?v=1536255081\" alt=\"Robin Goldstein was an Apple employee for 22 years.\" width=\"530\">\n    \t\t\t<meta><meta><meta><meta><meta><meta><meta><meta> <meta><meta><meta> <meta> \n\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"caption\">Robin Goldstein was an Apple employee for 22 years.</div>\n\t\t\t</div>\n\t\n\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"group\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<p>Think about the last piece of technology you bought that didn&apos;t work as expected.</p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t<meta id=\"speakablemeta3\">\n\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t    \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<p>What did you do? Return it? Give it away? Put it in a drawer with its sad digital cousins?</p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t    \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<p>Most likely the stakes accompanying your poor experience were low, and you simply chalked it up to the cost of being an early adopter. What you didn&apos;t do was abandon the field completely. If you were lucky enough to have spent your hard earned money on a Betamax, when that platform failed you didn&apos;t swear off all forms of recorded entertainment. If you thought Chumby was the future of internet appliances, you haven&apos;t refused to use an iPad or Alexa strictly on principle. And if you were one of the faithful who waited in line to buy the first iPhone &#x2014; the one that Apple&apos;s formerly senior director of marketing, Bob Borcher, <a class=\"inline_asset\" href=\"https://www.trustedreviews.com/news/former-iphone-senior-director-apologizes-to-owners-of-the-original-iphone-2915686\">reportedly</a> apologized for &#x2014; you haven&apos;t gone back to a flip phone or landline. You&apos;ve upgraded and moved on.</p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t    \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<p>The Cube didn&apos;t kill Apple. The Fire Phone didn&apos;t kill Amazon. The Nexus Player didn&apos;t kill Google.</p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t    \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<p>This is the mindset Silicon Valley has brought to every space it enters: A bad product or poor user experience doesn&apos;t have any ramifications beyond that particular product or experience, and they can always wipe the slate clean and start again.</p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t    \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<p>In the world of digital health this is a big problem. Here are three reasons why:</p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t    \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<p><strong>Unlike other consumer products, digital health products connect users to their own mortality</strong>. Although we refer to them as &quot;health&quot; products, the current crop is primarily focused on diagnosing, screening and managing illness and disease. Unless you have a specific need, most people would rather &quot;get busy living&quot; than &quot;get busy dying.&quot; In other words, the ultimate stakes for current digital health products are, by design, life and death. This differentiates them from all other products these companies design and sell.</p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t    \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<p><strong>Digital health products require buy-in from both the user and their health care provider. </strong>Simply using a health-related device or app is not enough. A user must close the loop with a clinician before any meaningful action can take place. So if a patient uses a digital health product but their health care provider won&apos;t accept and incorporate the results into their treatment, it&apos;s a fail. And if a primary care doc recommends a device, but the consumer doesn&apos;t use it as &quot;prescribed&quot; (for any of a number of reasons) it&apos;s also a fail.</p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t    \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<p><strong>The old adage, &quot;You don&apos;t get a second chance to make a first impression&quot; is especially true in healthcare.</strong> This is because when adopting new technologies, the marketplace performs a kind of calculus that evaluates perceived benefit, perceived risk, cost, maturity and history. Or for the poets, how much good will let us put up with the possibility of bad; how bad is bad enough before it outweighs the possible good; what&apos;s the track record of those making claims about the possibilities of good and bad so we don&apos;t get fooled (again); and what does it all cost? With health, a bad outcome can be truly disastrous.</p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t    \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<p>As a result of each of these elements, early mistakes can have a lasting impact that reverberate beyond the offending company to impact an entire industry, affecting both the regulatory landscape and broad public perception.</p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t    \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<p>Think about Theranos.</p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t    \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<p>The blood-testing company&apos;s collapse has resulted in skepticism across the medical, regulatory, and investment landscape. Every new microfluidics testing venture is now subject to both increased scrutiny and has to to overcome a general suspicion regarding the technology, its effectiveness, and actual benefits. In other words, everyone who follows Theranos has the burden of proving they&apos;re not Theranos before even getting to the question of whether their product will pass the risk/benefit analysis discussed above.</p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t    \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<p>While this is not unique in the digital health space &#x2014;consider recent stories regarding autonomous vehicle accidents and how that colors the way the entire field is perceived &#x2014; the size of the healthcare market and relative ease with which products can be developed, as well as the current appeal of applying algorithms and machine learning to the imprecision of the human body, requires that extra care be taken. High tech cannot view digital health as simply the next great market opportunity.</p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t    \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<p><em>Robin Goldstein recently completed a 22-year-tour at </em><a class=\"inline_quotes\" href=\"https://www.cnbc.com/quotes/?symbol=AAPL\"><em>Apple</em></a><em> where she served in multiple roles across the company, including Senior Engineering Manager, Principal Counsel, Associate Instructor at Apple University, and most recently Senior Manager of Health Special Projects.</em></p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t    \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t</div>\n\t\t\t\t\t</div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\n            \t\t</div></div>","url":"https://www.cnbc.com/2018/09/06/apple-veteran-robin-goldstein-fast-fail-commentary.html","date_published":"2018-09-06T17:56:17+00:00","author":{"name":"Robin Goldstein"}},{"id":"757","title":"Democrats defy GOP warnings about Senate rules, release Kavanaugh documents","content_html":"<div><div id=\"article_body\" class=\"content\">            \n\n                                             \n\t\n\n\n\n\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"group-container last\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\n\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\n<div class=\"embed-container image\">\n\t\t\t    \t<img src=\"https://fm.cnbc.com/applications/cnbc.com/resources/img/editorial/2018/09/06/105436219-1536244341843gettyimages-1027679964.1910x1000.jpeg?v=1536244380\" alt=\"Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., threatens to release committee confidential documents during the start of day three of Brett Kavanaugh&apos;s confirmation hearing to be Associate Justice of the Supreme Court in the Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday morning, Sept. 6, 2018.&#xA0;\" width=\"530\">\n    \t\t\t<meta><meta><meta><meta><meta><meta><meta><meta> <meta><meta><meta> <meta> \n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"attribution\">Bill Clark | CQ-Roll Call Group | Getty Images</div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"caption\">Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., threatens to release committee confidential documents during the start of day three of Brett Kavanaugh&apos;s confirmation hearing to be Associate Justice of the Supreme Court in the Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday morning, Sept. 6, 2018.&#xA0;</div>\n\t\t\t</div>\n\t\n\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"group\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<p>Democratic senators, led by <a href=\"https://www.cnbc.com/cory-booker/\">Cory Booker</a> of New Jersey, released confidential documents related to Supreme Court nominee <a href=\"https://www.cnbc.com/id/105320949\">Brett Kavanaugh</a> on Thursday over the objections of some Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee.</p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t<meta id=\"speakablemeta3\">\n\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t    \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<p>Booker, who was joined by Sens. <a href=\"https://www.cnbc.com/mazie-k-hirono/\">Mazie Hirono</a>, D-Hawaii, and <a href=\"https://www.cnbc.com/richard-durbin/\">Dick Durbin</a>, D-Ill., said that he is willing to face charges that could potentially have them expelled from the Senate as a result of their actions.</p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t    \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<p>The <a class=\"inline_asset\" href=\"https://www.scribd.com/document/387988906/Booker-Confidential-Kavanaugh-Hearing\">documents showing email correspondence between Kavanaugh and a number of White House officials</a> during President <a href=\"https://www.cnbc.com/george-w-bush/\">George W. Bush</a>&apos;s administration were designated &quot;committee confidential,&quot; a label barring senators from discussing their contents in open session, NBC News reported.</p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t    \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<p><strong>Read more:</strong><a href=\"https://www.cnbc.com/2018/09/06/cory-bookers-kavanaugh-document-release-not-as-defiant-as-it-seemed.html\">\n<strong>Booker&apos;s &apos;I am Spartacus&apos; document release wasn&apos;t as defiant as it seemed</strong>\n</a></p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t    \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<p>Booker&apos;s gambit was the latest play in an ongoing struggle by Democrats to release hundreds of thousands of pages of documents related to Kavanaugh&apos;s Bush years, and while he was an attorney on the team of Kenneth Starr, who investigated President <a href=\"https://www.cnbc.com/bill-clinton/\">Bill Clinton</a> in the 1990s.</p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t    \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<p>But Booker had already received clearance to publicly release the documents in question before the hearing, said William Burck, a Kavanaugh ally and former co-worker who is playing a role in the document release process.</p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t    \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<p>&quot;We cleared the documents last night shortly after Senator Booker&apos;s staff asked us to,&quot; Burck told CNBC.</p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t    \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<p>&quot;I was surprised to learn about Senator Booker&apos;s histrionics this morning because we had already told him he could use the documents publicly. In fact, we have said yes to every request made by the Senate Democrats to make documents public,&quot; Burck said.</p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t    \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<p>Booker had clarified his comments later at the hearing. &quot;I broke those rules yesterday. Today, I released the documents, but they, because I shamed them,&quot; Booker said. &quot;They didn&apos;t go through the process.&quot;</p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t    \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<p>At the hearing, Sen. <a href=\"https://www.cnbc.com/john-cornyn/\">John Cornyn</a>, R-Texas, accused Booker of making a political play. &quot;Running for president is no excuse for violating the rules of the senate or of confidentiality of the documents that we are privy to,&quot; Cornyn said.</p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t    \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<p>After learning that the documents were already set to be made public, Cornyn told reporters that &quot;all this drama&quot; was for nothing.</p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t    \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<p>A spokesperson for Judiciary Chairman <a href=\"https://www.cnbc.com/chuck-grassley/\">Chuck Grassley</a>, R-Iowa, was not immediately available for comment. Booker&apos;s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.</p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t    \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<p>At the hearing, Booker acknowledged that doing so would violate Senate rules and could technically lead to his expulsion. &quot;If Sen. Cornyn believes I violated senate rules, I openly invite and accept the consequences of my team releasing that email right now,&quot; he said.</p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t    \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<p>Booker was quickly joined by Durbin and Hirono.</p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t    \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<p>&quot;Count me in,&quot; Durbin said. &quot;I want to be part of this process.&quot;</p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t    \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<p>Hirono chimed in a few minutes later: &quot;I would defy anyone reading this document to be able to conclude that this should be deemed confidential in any way, shape or form.&quot;</p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t    \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<p><blockquote class=\"embed-container twitter-tweet\">\n<a class=\"inline_asset\" href=\"https://twitter.com/maziehirono/status/1037710716952870913\">Hirono tweet</a>\n</blockquote></p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t    \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<p>Democrats&apos; opening salvo Thursday echoed the raucous opening minutes of the confirmation hearings two days earlier, when Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., demanded the confirmation hearings be delayed until senators had time to review Kavanaugh&apos;s paper trail.</p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t    \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<p>More than 100,000 pages of documents have been blocked for public release, though lawmakers have been permitted to review them.</p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t    \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<p>&quot;This entire process has cast a cloud over Judge Kavanaugh,&quot; Sen. <a href=\"https://www.cnbc.com/dianne-feinstein/\">Dianne Feinstein</a>, D-Calif., the top Democrat on panel, said Tuesday. &quot;We go to these hearings under protest.&quot;</p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t    \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<p>Republicans have insisted that there have been more documents released for Kavanaugh&apos;s nomination than for previous nominees.</p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t    \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<p><em>&#x2014; CNBC&apos;s </em><a href=\"https://www.cnbc.com/jacob-pramuk/\">\n<em>Jacob Pramuk</em>\n</a><em> and </em><a href=\"https://www.cnbc.com/john-schoen/\">\n<em>John Schoen</em>\n</a><em> contributed to this report.</em></p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t    \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t</div>\n\t\t\t\t\t</div>\n\t\n            \t\t</div></div>","url":"https://www.cnbc.com/2018/09/06/democratic-senators-say-they-will-risk-expulsion-fight-to-release-kavanaugh-documents.html","date_published":"2018-09-06T14:41:29+00:00","author":{"name":"Kevin Breuninger, Tucker "}},{"id":"750","title":"Brown signs 'prosecution fee' bill sparked by Desert Sun investigation","content_html":"<div class=\"asset-double-wide double-wide p402_premium\"><div id=\"module-position-RKNWaJTNylQ\" class=\"story-asset video-asset\"><div class=\"ui-video-wrapper \"><div class=\"js-ui-video-init ui-pluto-video js-video-aps js-uw-iframe-video uw-iframe-video story-video inline-story-video priority smallarticleattophtml5\"><meta><meta><meta><div class=\"js-ptb pluto-title-bar\"><div class=\"js-ptb-close pluto-title-bar-vcenter pluto-title-bar-close\"><div>CLOSE<img class=\"pluto-title-bar-close-icon\" src=\"https://www.gannett-cdn.com/uxstatic/desertsun/uscp-web-static-3410.0/images/sprites/icon_close.png\"></div></div></div><meta><meta></div><div class=\"ui-video-controls story-video inline-story-video priority\"><p class=\"video-desc\"> A Desert Sun investigation has revealed that Coachella City Hall fined 91-year-old Marjorie Sansom, who was dying of dementia, $39,000 because of her abandoned property. Now that Sansom has died, Coachella says her family has to pay. <span class=\"credit\">Wochit</span></p></div></div></div><p class=\"speakable-p-1 p-text\">Less than one year after a Desert Sun investigation revealed Indio and Coachella had hired an outside law firm to prosecute residents found in violation of municipal ordinances, then charged them thousands in &#x201C;prosecution fees,&#x201D; the practice has been officially outlawed in California.</p><p class=\"speakable-p-2 p-text\">On Wednesday, Governor Jerry Brown signed into law Assembly Bill 2495, prohibiting cities from charging residents the cost of legal services used to prosecute them.</p><p class=\"p-text\">The bill&#x2019;s author, Assemblymember Chad Mayes, R-Yucca Valley, said he was excited to hear Brown had signed the bill and credited the Desert Sun&#x2019;s investigation as the first step in the process to its enactment.</p><p class=\"p-text\">In a five-part series, The Desert Sun found Silver &amp; Wright, an outside law firm hired by Indio and Coachella, had charged residents thousands in prosecution fees, often for minor infractions involving things like messy yards, keeping chickens on a property, and failing to apply for building permits.</p><p class=\"p-text\"><span class=\"exclude-from-newsgate\"><a href=\"http://m.me/thedesertsun\"><strong>SIGN UP FOR FACEBOOK NEWS ALERTS:</strong> Message us here to get started</a></span></p><p class=\"p-text\"><span class=\"exclude-from-newsgate\"><strong>More: </strong><a href=\"https://www.desertsun.com/story/news/crime_courts/2017/11/15/he-confessed-minor-crime-then-city-hall-billed-him-31-k-his-own-prosecution/846850001/\">They confessed to minor crimes. Then City Hall billed them $122K in &apos;prosecution fees&apos;</a></span></p><p class=\"p-text\">The bill received support from civil rights groups, corporate lawyers and criminal justice reform advocates.</p><p class=\"p-text\">The Civil Justice Association of California, a group that supports tort reform and generally opposes trial lawyers, lauded the bill.</p><p class=\"p-text\">&#x201C;This arrangement has evolved into a for profit-scheme where law firms are aggressively marketing themselves to cities to prosecute code violations and insisting cities rewrite local codes to explicitly provide for recovery of fees,&#x201D; they wrote in a letter to the Assembly Public Safety Committee</p><p class=\"p-text\">In another support letter, Gareth Elliott and Nick Brokaw, lobbyists for the California Public Defenders Association, called the practice an example of &#x201C;how corrosive monetary interests can be on the criminal justice system.&#x201D;</p><p class=\"p-text\">But the League of California Cities and the California Association of Code Enforcement Officers began lobbying against the bill, claiming it infringed upon local control and hindered cities&#x2019; abilities to enforce their municipal codes.</p><p class=\"p-text\"><span class=\"exclude-from-newsgate\"><strong>More: </strong><a href=\"https://www.desertsun.com/story/news/2018/05/24/prosecution-fees-ban-passes-california-assembly/642850002/\">Bill banning &#x2018;prosecution fees&#x2019; unanimously passes California Assembly</a></span></p><p class=\"p-text\"><span class=\"exclude-from-newsgate\"><strong>More: </strong><a href=\"https://www.desertsun.com/story/news/crime_courts/2018/02/13/institute-justice-attacks-california-prosecution-fees/331308002/\">She was fined $5,600 for a few chickens. Now she is suing to end &#x2018;prosecution fees&#x2019; in Indio and Coachella.</a></span></p><div id=\"module-position-RKNWaJTNn9U\" class=\"story-asset image-asset\"><aside class=\"wide single-photo\"><img src=\"https://www.gannett-cdn.com/-mm-/4044b1e7645488621f157de466cf1a990870caa2/r=500x333/local/-/media/2016/10/15/PalmSprings/PalmSprings/636121534556607580-California-42nd-Assembly-District-Debate007.JPG\" alt=\"Assemblymember Chad Mayes, right, speaks during a debate\" width=\"540\"><meta><meta><meta><span class=\"mycapture-btn-wrap\"><span class=\"mycapture-non-priority-horizontal-image mycapture-btn-with-text js-mycapture-btn js-mycapture-photo-asset\">Buy Photo</span></span><p>Assemblymember Chad Mayes, right, speaks during a debate moderated by The Desert Sun at Rancho Mirage Public Library on Oct. 15, 2016.<meta>&#xA0;<span class=\"credit\">(Photo: Richard Lui/The Desert Sun)</span></p></aside></div><p class=\"p-text\">In a letter to Mayes, John Lovell and Dan Carrigg, lobbyists for the two groups opposing the bill, wrote that limiting cities from charging prosecution fees would empower people who repeatedly violated municipal codes, such as slumlords, and impose an undue financial burden on city budgets.</p><p class=\"p-text\">&#x201C;When prior notices and other efforts to get voluntary compliance fail, a city&#x2019;s most effective and quickest tool to gain compliance and protect occupants is criminal prosecution,&#x201D; Lovell and Carrigg wrote, defending the practice.</p><p class=\"p-text\">In June, after the State Senate Public Safety Committee considered the bill, Mayes added several amendments to clarify that the scope of the bill was limited to city ordinances and didn&#x2019;t apply to probation departments charging cost recovery fees.&#xA0;</p><p class=\"p-text\">In August, a majority of Democrats and Republicans in both the Senate and Assembly voted in favor of the bill, sending it to the Governor Brown&#x2019;s desk to be signed.</p><p class=\"p-text\">Rather than dividing politicians along partisan lines, AB 2495 exposed a conflict between city officials and state legislators.</p><div id=\"module-position-RKNWaJSE6tA\" class=\"story-asset image-asset\"><aside class=\"wide single-photo\"><img src=\"https://www.gannett-cdn.com/-mm-/a6599ce50186071d9d1df17e81f0b1212168b2eb/r=500x378/local/-/media/2018/05/05/PalmSprings/PalmSprings/636611309036599688-Eduardo-Garcia.jpg\" alt=\"State Rep. Eduardo Garcia\nAssembly member Eduardo Garcia,\" width=\"540\"><meta><meta><meta><p>State Rep. Eduardo Garcia\nAssembly member Eduardo Garcia, a Democrat from Coachella, pictured June 23, 2016, in Sacramento.<meta>&#xA0;<span class=\"credit\">(Photo: Rich Pedroncelli, Rich Pedroncelli/Associated Pres)</span></p></aside></div><p class=\"p-text\">Mayes and Assemblymember Eduardo Garcia, D-Coachella, who co-authored the bill, discussed the code enforcement practice in front of local business leaders and politicians at a legislative update event hosted by the Greater Coachella Valley Chamber of Commerce. With a League of Cities representative and city government officials in the audience, including from Indio and Coachella, Mayes alluded to the pushback the bill generated among city officials.</p><p class=\"p-text\">&#x201C;The League of Cities was not exactly thrilled with me on (AB 2495) and I got a few phone calls from a couple of city council members, but, I&#x2019;ll tell you, it was right, it was just,&#x201D; Mayes said.</p><p class=\"p-text\">He&#xA0;called the practice &#x201C;policing for profit&#x201D; and said it was inappropriate and unethical.</p><p class=\"p-text\">Echoing Mayes, Asm. Garcia said taking residents to criminal court for minor infractions, then charging them for the cost of the prosecution imposed an undue burden on low-income residents.</p><p class=\"p-text\">&#x201C;We don&#x2019;t want to see people ending up in court charged with criminal charges and then ultimately having to pay those fees to attorneys or law firms prosecuting on behalf of cities,&#x201D; he explained.</p><p class=\"p-text\">Both Mayes and Garcia began their political careers in local government and said the pushback from Coachella Valley city officials and the League of California Cities stemmed from concerns about the state imposing restrictions on cities.</p><p class=\"p-text\">&#x201C;It&#x2019;s a local control issue,&#x201D; Garcia said. &#x201C;We&#x2019;re impeding on their ability to do what they need to or want to do.&#x201D;</p><p class=\"p-text\">Mayes said he often advocates for local control but saw no problem with the state limiting local government&#x2019;s ability to charge its residents prosecution fees.</p><p class=\"p-text p-text-last\" id=\"article-body-p-last\">&#x201C;I am a strong believer in local governance,&#x201D; Mayes said, &#x201C;but you got to put controls, not only on the governed but on those who govern. It&#x2019;s absolutely appropriate for state government to put restraints on other governments so they can&apos;t take life, liberty, or property away from folks.&#x201D;</p><p class=\"article-print-url\">Read or Share this story: https://desert.sn/2CpWtHD</p></div>","url":"https://www.desertsun.com/story/news/politics/2018/09/06/california-bans-cities-charging-residents-prosecution-fees/1208614002/","date_published":"2018-09-06T00:00:00+00:00","author":{"name":"Samuel Metz"}},{"id":"746","title":"Theranos, scandal-plagued blood testing startup, to shut down","content_html":"<div><section class=\"body\"> <p>Theranos is going out with barely a whisper. Once heralded as a revolutionary new way to conduct a blood test to detect myriad diseases, all with a single finger prick, the company is making preparations to close its operations, according to a letter sent to shareholders.</p> <p>&#x201C;We are now out of time,&#x201D; David Taylor, the company&#x2019;s CEO and general counsel, informed investors in an email that was first reported Tuesday by the Wall Street Journal, whose in-depth investigation unraveled the company&#x2019;s claims. Taylor declined to comment further, saying the letter speaks for itself.</p> <p>Theranos is now focusing its efforts on avoiding bankruptcy.</p> <p>It is in default under a credit agreement reached last year with Fortress Investment Group, Taylor told shareholders. The company is negotiating a settlement with Fortress, which would then own the company&#x2019;s intellectual property and allow Theranos to distribute its remaining cash &#x2014; an estimated $5 million &#x2014; to unsecured creditors.</p> <div class=\"gallery media-gallery\"> <p class=\"gallery__slider\"> <figure class=\"gallery__slider-item\" id=\"1-image-15280081\"><div class=\"image\"><img class=\"slide-media media-gallery-slide-media\" src=\"https://s.hdnux.com/photos/72/22/37/15280081/3/gallery_xlarge.jpg\"></div><figcaption><span class=\"count\"><strong>1</strong>of 2</span><span class=\"caption\">FILE- In this Nov. 2, 2015, file photo, Elizabeth Holmes, founder and CEO of Theranos, speaks at the Fortune Global Forum in San Francisco. The publisher of an investigative book on Theranos has moved up the release date from October to this spring. &#xFFFD;Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup&#xFFFD; was written by Pulitzer Prize winning journalist John Carreyrou, who in The Wall Street Journal first raised questions about the company&#xFFFD;s blood-testing technology. Alfred A. Knopf announced Thursday that publication is now scheduled for May 21. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu, File)</span><span class=\"credits\">Photo: Jeff Chiu, Associated Press</span></figcaption></figure><figure class=\"gallery__slider-item\" id=\"2-image-10180647\"><div class=\"image\"><img class=\"slide-media media-gallery-slide-media\" src=\"https://s.hdnux.com/photos/46/65/40/10180647/9/gallery_xlarge.jpg\"></div><figcaption><span class=\"count\"><strong>2</strong>of 2</span><span class=\"caption\">Theranos founder and CEO Elizabeth Holmes speaks at the Fortune Global Forum in San Francisco, California, on Monday, Nov. 2, 2015.</span><span class=\"credits\">Photo: Connor Radnovich, The Chronicle</span></figcaption></figure> </p> </div> <p>&#x201C;Because the company&#x2019;s cash is not nearly sufficient to pay all of the creditors in full, there will be no distribution to shareholders&#x201D; under the plan, Taylor said in the letter.</p> <p>The Theranos board is expected to meet Friday, and the process of dissolving the company is expected to take six to 12 months.</p> <p>Founded in 2003 by Elizabeth Holmes, a 19-year-old Stanford University dropout, Theranos promised to shake up the entire lab industry, making blood tests much easier and less expensive than traditional methods.</p> <p>A charismatic executive who wore black turtlenecks and spoke passionately about giving people control over their health information, Holmes attracted high-profile investors and assembled a Who&#x2019;s Who of directors, including two former secretaries of state and two former U.S. senators. Jim Mattis, the current secretary of defense, also served on the board.</p> <p>At its peak, the privately held company was valued at a lofty $9 billion, and Holmes was promoted as one of the nation&#x2019;s most successful female entrepreneurs. But questions emerged about the accuracy of the company&#x2019;s testing, and federal regulators barred Holmes from owning and operating a laboratory for two years in 2016.</p> <p>In March, the Securities and Exchange Commission charged Holmes with widespread fraud, accusing her of exaggerating &#x2014; even lying &#x2014; about her technology. In announcing the charges, the SEC said Theranos and Holmes agreed to a settlement.</p> <p>Then in June, Holmes was indicted on criminal charges, and she has pleaded not guilty.</p> <p>The company&#x2019;s travails are the subject of a book by Wall Street Journal reporter John Carreyrou called &#x201C;Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup,&#x201D; and a forthcoming movie.</p> <p>Lawyers for the company and Holmes did not respond to requests for comment.</p> <p>Ramesh Balwani, the company&#x2019;s former president who continues to fight the civil and criminal charges against him, issued a statement through a representative: &#x201C;As an investor who put millions of dollars of his own money and nearly seven years of his life into Theranos, Mr. Balwani was saddened to see the letter from Theranos to investors yesterday.&#x201D;</p> <em><p>Reed Abelson is a New York Times writer.</p></em> </section></div>","url":"https://www.sfgate.com/business/article/Theranos-scandal-plagued-blood-testing-startup-13207548.php","date_published":"2018-09-05T21:52:59+00:00","author":{"name":""}},{"id":"773","title":"Jeanette Winterson’s 10 Tips on Writing","content_html":"<div class=\"entry_content\"> <p><a href=\"http://www.amazon.com/Why-Happy-When-Could-Normal/dp/0802120873/?tag=braipick-20\"><img class=\"cover\" src=\"https://i1.wp.com/www.brainpickings.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/winterson.jpg?w=680&amp;ssl=1\"></a>In 2010, inspired by Elmore Leonard&#x2019;s classic <a href=\"https://www.brainpickings.org/2013/08/21/elmore-leonard-10-rules-of-writing/\"><em>10 Rules of Writing</em></a> published nearly a decade earlier, <em>The Guardian</em> <a href=\"https://www.theguardian.com/books/2010/feb/20/10-rules-for-writing-fiction-part-two\">invited</a> some of the world&#x2019;s most celebrated living authors to share their own dicta of the craft. <em>&#x201C;Resign yourself to the lifelong sadness that comes from never &#xAD;being satisfied,&#x201D;</em> Zadie Smith counseled in the last of <a href=\"https://www.brainpickings.org/2012/09/19/zadie-smith-10-rules-of-writing/\">her ten</a>. Midway through <a href=\"https://www.brainpickings.org/2012/10/05/margaret-atwood-10-rules-of-writing/\">her list</a>, Margaret Atwood grounded the psychological dimensions of the craft in the pragmatic and the physical: <em>&#x201C;Do back exercises. Pain is distracting.&#x201D;</em> Neil Gaiman thought <a href=\"https://www.brainpickings.org/2012/09/28/neil-gaiman-8-rules-of-writing/\">eight</a> rather than ten tenets would be sufficient &#x2014; a meta-testament to his sixth: <em>&#x201C;Perfection is like chasing the horizon. Keep moving.&#x201D;</em></p>\n<p>Among the contributors was <strong>Jeanette Winterson</strong> &#x2014; a writer of exquisite prose and keen insight into the deepest strata of the human experience: <a href=\"https://www.brainpickings.org/2014/07/21/jeanette-winterson-elinor-wachtel-interview/\">time and language</a>, <a href=\"https://www.brainpickings.org/2013/11/04/jeanette-winterson-adoption-storytelling/\">our elemental need for belonging</a>, <a href=\"https://www.brainpickings.org/2014/10/27/jeanette-winterson-art-objects/\">the power of art</a>, <a href=\"https://www.brainpickings.org/2017/06/01/jeanette-winterson-edinburgh-book-festival-art/\">how storytelling transforms us</a>.</p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_61652\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img src=\"https://i1.wp.com/www.brainpickings.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/jeanettewinterson00.jpg?w=645&amp;ssl=1%20645w,%20https://i1.wp.com/www.brainpickings.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/jeanettewinterson00.jpg?resize=240%2C240&amp;ssl=1%20240w,%20https://i1.wp.com/www.brainpickings.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/jeanettewinterson00.jpg?resize=320%2C320&amp;ssl=1%20320w,%20https://i1.wp.com/www.brainpickings.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/jeanettewinterson00.jpg?resize=600%2C600&amp;ssl=1%20600w,%20https://i1.wp.com/www.brainpickings.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/jeanettewinterson00.jpg?resize=32%2C32&amp;ssl=1%2032w,%20https://i1.wp.com/www.brainpickings.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/jeanettewinterson00.jpg?resize=50%2C50&amp;ssl=1%2050w,%20https://i1.wp.com/www.brainpickings.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/jeanettewinterson00.jpg?resize=64%2C64&amp;ssl=1%2064w,%20https://i1.wp.com/www.brainpickings.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/jeanettewinterson00.jpg?resize=96%2C96&amp;ssl=1%2096w,%20https://i1.wp.com/www.brainpickings.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/jeanettewinterson00.jpg?resize=128%2C128&amp;ssl=1%20128w\" alt=\"\" width=\"645\" class=\"size-full wp-image-61652\" srcset=\"https://i1.wp.com/www.brainpickings.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/jeanettewinterson00.jpg?w=645&amp;ssl=1 645w, https://i1.wp.com/www.brainpickings.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/jeanettewinterson00.jpg?resize=240%2C240&amp;ssl=1 240w, https://i1.wp.com/www.brainpickings.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/jeanettewinterson00.jpg?resize=320%2C320&amp;ssl=1 320w, https://i1.wp.com/www.brainpickings.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/jeanettewinterson00.jpg?resize=600%2C600&amp;ssl=1 600w, https://i1.wp.com/www.brainpickings.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/jeanettewinterson00.jpg?resize=32%2C32&amp;ssl=1 32w, https://i1.wp.com/www.brainpickings.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/jeanettewinterson00.jpg?resize=50%2C50&amp;ssl=1 50w, https://i1.wp.com/www.brainpickings.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/jeanettewinterson00.jpg?resize=64%2C64&amp;ssl=1 64w, https://i1.wp.com/www.brainpickings.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/jeanettewinterson00.jpg?resize=96%2C96&amp;ssl=1 96w, https://i1.wp.com/www.brainpickings.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/jeanettewinterson00.jpg?resize=128%2C128&amp;ssl=1 128w\"><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Jeanette Winterson (Photograph: Polly Borland)</figcaption></figure>\n<p>Winterson offers:</p>\n<blockquote>\n<ol>\n<li>Turn up for work. Discipline allows creative freedom. No discipline equals no freedom.</li>\n<li>Never stop when you are stuck. You may not be able to solve the problem, but turn aside and write something else. Do not stop altogether.</li>\n<li>Love what you do.</li>\n<li>Be honest with yourself. If you are no good, accept it. If the work you are &#xAD;doing is no good, accept it.</li>\n<li>Don&#x2019;t hold on to poor work. If it was bad when it went in the drawer it will be just as bad when it comes out.</li>\n<li>Take no notice of anyone you don&#x2019;t respect.</li>\n<li>Take no notice of anyone with a &#xAD;gender agenda. A lot of men still think that women lack imagination of the fiery kind.</li>\n<li>Be ambitious for the work and not for the reward.</li>\n<li>Trust your creativity.</li>\n<li>Enjoy this work!</li>\n</ol>\n</blockquote>\n<p>For more hard-earned guidance on the writing process from other titans of literature, see Henry Miller&#x2019;s <a href=\"https://www.brainpickings.org/2012/02/22/henry-miller-on-writing/\">eleven commandments of writing</a>, Eudora Welty on <a href=\"https://www.brainpickings.org/2018/02/21/eudora-welty-one-writers-beginnings/\">the art of narrative</a>, Susan Sontag&#x2019;s <a href=\"https://www.brainpickings.org/2015/03/30/susan-sontag-writing-storytelling-at-the-same-time/\">advice to writers</a>, and T.S. Eliot&#x2019;s <a href=\"https://www.brainpickings.org/2018/01/18/t-s-eliot-alice-quinn-letter/\">warm, wry letter of advice</a> to a sixteen-year-old girl aspiring to be a writer. </p> </div>","url":"https://www.brainpickings.org/2018/09/05/jeanette-winterson-10-tips-on-writing/","date_published":"2018-09-05T06:00:05+00:00","author":{"name":"Maria Popova"}},{"id":"774","title":"Attention Bret Stephens","content_html":"<div class=\"post hentry uncustomized-post-template\">\n<meta>\n<meta>\n<meta>\n<a></a> <div class=\"post-body entry-content\" id=\"post-body-3543380926013495813\">\n<div class=\"separator\">\n<a href=\"http://www.flickr.com/photos/32245200@N00/4446867076/\"><img alt=\"CONS\" src=\"http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2789/4446867076_6d6bf2ac59_o.jpg\"></a></div> You apparently missed it&#xA0; (from Mr. Stephens in the NYT today) --<blockquote>\n<b>Now Twitter Edits The New Yorker</b><br>\n<i>The venerable magazine hands the reins to the digital mob.</i>\n... <p>\n<i>If speaking truth to power isn&#x2019;t the ultimate task of publications such as The New Yorker, they&#x2019;re on the road to their own left-wing version of &#x201C;Fox &amp; Friends.&#x201D;</i></p></blockquote>\n-- but we already debated white supremacy. The Confederacy lost. We debated it again. The Nazis lost. We debated it yet again. Jim Crow lost.\n<p>\nBut if you really are so cut off from the real world that you believe white supremacy is somehow underrepresented in the public square, I would urge you stop listening to <i>Seven Days to Better Bowling</i> or whatever retro self-help hokum you are using to shape and tone your critical thinking --</p>\n<br>\n<p>\n<iframe height=\"300\" src=\"https://www.youtube.com/embed/EzpPtCn_XoA\" width=\"480\" class=\"\"></iframe></p> <p>\n-- and instead listen to Conservative Hate Radio or watch Fox News at <b><i>any </i></b>time of day or night, <i><b>anywhere </b></i>in America, at <b><i>any </i></b>point over the last 20 years.</p> Why do we have keep explaining this shit to you?\n<p>\nHonestly I&apos;m tired of trying, so<a href=\"https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/enough-already-with-anything-steve-bannon-has-to-say-we-got-it-the-first-time/2018/09/04/27160fa6-b036-11e8-9a6a-565d92a3585d_story.html?utm_term=.c31d1cc151e1\"> <i>take it away Margaret Sullivan:</i></a></p><br>\n<blockquote>\n<b>Enough, already, with anything Steve Bannon has to say. We got it the first time.</b>\n<p>\n<i>No one wants a festival of ideas to turn into a cozy chat among like-minded friends. That&#x2019;s pointless.</i></p><br>\n<i><br></i>\n<i>But also utterly pointless is the notion that Steve Bannon, President Trump&#x2019;s former chief strategist, might have something new or valuable to offer.</i><br>\n<i><br></i>\n<i>That&#x2019;s why it was a thoroughly lousy idea for the New Yorker magazine to offer a high-profile perch &#x2014; an onstage interview by top editor David Remnick &#x2014; at next month&#x2019;s annual festival to the deposed Svengali.</i><br>\n<i><br></i>\n<i>There is nothing more to learn from Bannon about his particular brand of populism, with its blatant overlay of white supremacy.</i><br>\n<i><br></i>\n<i>While we&#x2019;re at it, there is also nothing more to learn from the die-hard Trump voters in what I&#x2019;ve called the Endless Diner Series &#x2014; the media&#x2019;s recidivistic journeys to the supposed heartland to hear what we&#x2019;ve heard a thousand times before about blind loyalty in the face of all reason.</i><br>\n<i><br></i>\n<i>There is also nothing more to learn from proven dissemblers, like Kellyanne Conway, who keep being invited onto the top news shows to shamelessly spout whatever falsehood serves the Trumpian moment.</i><br>\n<i><br></i>\n<i>Yes, it&#x2019;s time, well past time, to stop lending the media&#x2019;s biggest and most prestigious platforms to this crowd of racists and liars.</i><br>\n<i>...</i></blockquote> PS, shut the hell up, Podhoretz.<blockquote>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p>\nRemnick wanted to make Bannon a villain but in the liberal world now you silence the bad guy rather than defeat him</p>\n&#x2014; John Podhoretz (@jpodhoretz) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/jpodhoretz/status/1036753849829285888?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">September 3, 2018</a></blockquote>\n</blockquote> <p>\n<b><span>Behold, a Tip Jar!</span></b></p> </div> </div>","url":"http://driftglass.blogspot.com/2018/09/attention-bret-stephens.html","date_published":"2018-09-04T22:56:00+00:00","author":{"name":"driftglass"}},{"id":"732","title":"Why the social media boycott over Colin Kaepernick is a win for Nike","content_html":"<div><div><figure class=\"e-image e-image--hero\">\n  <span class=\"e-image__inner\">\n    <span class=\"e-image__image \">\n      \n        <picture class=\"c-picture\">\n  \n\n\n  <source srcset=\"https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/jL_heatM2pE1PZdLoOU60DxLt3M=/0x0:361x462/320x213/filters:focal(163x210:219x266):format(webp)/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/61138291/Screen_Shot_2018_09_04_at_4.30.23_PM.0.png 320w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/NjJS3KeT2oP4K0inLIOZHHA0lbM=/0x0:361x462/620x413/filters:focal(163x210:219x266):format(webp)/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/61138291/Screen_Shot_2018_09_04_at_4.30.23_PM.0.png 620w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/MbdeXHI40DPcn8paAsPK3fkeqxM=/0x0:361x462/920x613/filters:focal(163x210:219x266):format(webp)/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/61138291/Screen_Shot_2018_09_04_at_4.30.23_PM.0.png 920w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/sjME8fhs0p--jdja_lVdydMZErM=/0x0:361x462/1220x813/filters:focal(163x210:219x266):format(webp)/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/61138291/Screen_Shot_2018_09_04_at_4.30.23_PM.0.png 1220w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/FkFti0GI-Wtk0y4wRYP5HvPqsCQ=/0x0:361x462/1520x1013/filters:focal(163x210:219x266):format(webp)/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/61138291/Screen_Shot_2018_09_04_at_4.30.23_PM.0.png 1520w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/tR6JfLEepPo7LHqdWc30oKKnz2I=/0x0:361x462/1820x1213/filters:focal(163x210:219x266):format(webp)/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/61138291/Screen_Shot_2018_09_04_at_4.30.23_PM.0.png 1820w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/dcSDrtOLK3m2nbeFtwodtgSXR7Q=/0x0:361x462/2120x1413/filters:focal(163x210:219x266):format(webp)/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/61138291/Screen_Shot_2018_09_04_at_4.30.23_PM.0.png 2120w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/9GKgg5tJfzqiMkjwIDMo6GdERPA=/0x0:361x462/2420x1613/filters:focal(163x210:219x266):format(webp)/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/61138291/Screen_Shot_2018_09_04_at_4.30.23_PM.0.png 2420w\">\n\n\n<img srcset=\"https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/asnbL3iNTN4A9v4RoDS_tqDgnv0=/0x0:361x462/320x213/filters:focal(163x210:219x266)/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/61138291/Screen_Shot_2018_09_04_at_4.30.23_PM.0.png 320w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/lVLVV3JpoyEoVUdqgHhKc1-NAp8=/0x0:361x462/620x413/filters:focal(163x210:219x266)/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/61138291/Screen_Shot_2018_09_04_at_4.30.23_PM.0.png 620w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/1LbNNbU96s2z3x9ZPg5qHFcyhGY=/0x0:361x462/920x613/filters:focal(163x210:219x266)/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/61138291/Screen_Shot_2018_09_04_at_4.30.23_PM.0.png 920w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/oX7AGjvvJEhHCcpQBQa8DxHiImQ=/0x0:361x462/1220x813/filters:focal(163x210:219x266)/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/61138291/Screen_Shot_2018_09_04_at_4.30.23_PM.0.png 1220w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/nWc9iT7THmRv8kxb8y64my9bSiE=/0x0:361x462/1520x1013/filters:focal(163x210:219x266)/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/61138291/Screen_Shot_2018_09_04_at_4.30.23_PM.0.png 1520w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/NEmKZybwWFPnv9TSNx9Y6CKHZSE=/0x0:361x462/1820x1213/filters:focal(163x210:219x266)/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/61138291/Screen_Shot_2018_09_04_at_4.30.23_PM.0.png 1820w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/YgVcmwJQpVJwyI5-ZzdeKBIPLxM=/0x0:361x462/2120x1413/filters:focal(163x210:219x266)/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/61138291/Screen_Shot_2018_09_04_at_4.30.23_PM.0.png 2120w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/U1dnCqHPUHl83YZ9mrJaIev2je0=/0x0:361x462/2420x1613/filters:focal(163x210:219x266)/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/61138291/Screen_Shot_2018_09_04_at_4.30.23_PM.0.png 2420w\" alt=\"\" src=\"https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/asnbL3iNTN4A9v4RoDS_tqDgnv0=/0x0:361x462/320x213/filters:focal(163x210:219x266)/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/61138291/Screen_Shot_2018_09_04_at_4.30.23_PM.0.png%20320w,%20https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/lVLVV3JpoyEoVUdqgHhKc1-NAp8=/0x0:361x462/620x413/filters:focal(163x210:219x266)/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/61138291/Screen_Shot_2018_09_04_at_4.30.23_PM.0.png%20620w,%20https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/1LbNNbU96s2z3x9ZPg5qHFcyhGY=/0x0:361x462/920x613/filters:focal(163x210:219x266)/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/61138291/Screen_Shot_2018_09_04_at_4.30.23_PM.0.png%20920w,%20https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/oX7AGjvvJEhHCcpQBQa8DxHiImQ=/0x0:361x462/1220x813/filters:focal(163x210:219x266)/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/61138291/Screen_Shot_2018_09_04_at_4.30.23_PM.0.png%201220w,%20https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/nWc9iT7THmRv8kxb8y64my9bSiE=/0x0:361x462/1520x1013/filters:focal(163x210:219x266)/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/61138291/Screen_Shot_2018_09_04_at_4.30.23_PM.0.png%201520w,%20https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/NEmKZybwWFPnv9TSNx9Y6CKHZSE=/0x0:361x462/1820x1213/filters:focal(163x210:219x266)/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/61138291/Screen_Shot_2018_09_04_at_4.30.23_PM.0.png%201820w,%20https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/YgVcmwJQpVJwyI5-ZzdeKBIPLxM=/0x0:361x462/2120x1413/filters:focal(163x210:219x266)/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/61138291/Screen_Shot_2018_09_04_at_4.30.23_PM.0.png%202120w,%20https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/U1dnCqHPUHl83YZ9mrJaIev2je0=/0x0:361x462/2420x1613/filters:focal(163x210:219x266)/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/61138291/Screen_Shot_2018_09_04_at_4.30.23_PM.0.png%202420w\">\n\n</picture>\n\n      \n    </span>\n    \n  </span>\n  \n    <figcaption class=\"e-image__meta\">\n      \n        <figcaption>Kaepernick&#x2019;s Nike ad.</figcaption>\n      \n      \n        <cite>Nike</cite>\n      \n    </figcaption>\n  \n</figure><div class=\"c-entry-content\">\n  <p id=\"ynIG5n\">Goaded by the performative nature of the internet, people are destroying their Nike apparel and declaring a moral boycott over shoes they&#x2019;ve already purchased &#x2014; all in the name of denouncing <a href=\"https://www.vox.com/2018/9/4/17818162/nike-kaepernick-controversy-face-of-just-do-it\">Colin Kaepernick</a>, the newest face of Nike&#x2019;s &#x201C;Just Do It&#x201D; campaign.</p>\n<p id=\"6Wpywu\">On Monday, <a href=\"https://www.vox.com/2018/9/4/17818162/nike-kaepernick-controversy-face-of-just-do-it\">Nike announced</a> that Kaepernick is one of the athletes <a href=\"https://www.adweek.com/creativity/colin-kaepernick-gets-the-call-fronts-nikes-30th-anniversary-of-just-do-it/\">helping commemorate</a> the 30th anniversary of the brand&#x2019;s iconic slogan. (<a href=\"https://twitter.com/serenawilliams/status/1036769320196616198\">Serena Williams</a> and <a href=\"https://twitter.com/OBJ_3/status/1035685609250025472\">Odell Beckham Jr.</a> are among the other faces of the campaign.) The ad is a black-and-white close-up of Kaepernick&#x2019;s face with the words, &#x201C;Believe in something. Even if it means sacrificing everything&#x201D; &#x2014; a reference to Kaepernick&#x2019;s <a href=\"https://www.sbnation.com/nfl/2018/8/30/17801870/colin-kaepernick-nfl-collusion-lawsuit-summary-judgement\">lawsuit against the NFL </a>for allegedly colluding to keep the former San Francisco 49ers quarterback out of the league over his protests against police brutality. </p>\n\n<p id=\"TeXBHa\">Though Kaepernick and other NFL players who have kneeled during the national anthem maintain that <a href=\"https://www.vox.com/2018/8/15/17619122/kaepernick-trump-nfl-protests-2018\">their protest</a> is about police brutality resulting in the deaths of unarmed black Americans, that hasn&#x2019;t stopped their critics, including <a href=\"https://www.cbssports.com/nfl/news/donald-trump-nfl-should-have-suspended-colin-kaepernick-for-kneeling/\">President Donald Trump</a>, from claiming that Kaepernick is disrespecting his flag and country. </p>\n<p id=\"nX2qq9\">And so the new Nike ad has inspired some people to post videos and photos of them destroying their Nike apparel in an illustration of their fealty to said flag and country:</p>\n<div id=\"7qoVdY\">\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p>First the <a href=\"https://twitter.com/NFL?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">@NFL</a> forces me to choose between my favorite sport and my country. I chose country. Then <a href=\"https://twitter.com/Nike?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">@Nike</a> forces me to choose between my favorite shoes and my country. Since when did the American Flag and the National Anthem become offensive? <a href=\"https://t.co/4CVQdTHUH4\">pic.twitter.com/4CVQdTHUH4</a></p>&#x2014; Sean Clancy (@sclancy79) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/sclancy79/status/1036749717206691840?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">September 3, 2018</a>\n</blockquote>\n\n</div>\n<p id=\"WgHsoV\">What&#x2019;s followed is a boycott largely confined to performative social-media outrage. Unsurprisingly, this outrage caught the attention of President Donald Trump, leading him to double down on his attacks on Kaepernick and the NFL on Wednesday, in a tweet claiming that the boycott was punitively damaging Nike:</p>\n<div id=\"1AUe70\">\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p>Just like the NFL, whose ratings have gone WAY DOWN, Nike is getting absolutely killed with anger and boycotts. I wonder if they had any idea that it would be this way? As far as the NFL is concerned, I just find it hard to watch, and always will, until they stand for the FLAG!</p>&#x2014; Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1037334510159966214?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">September 5, 2018</a>\n</blockquote>\n\n</div>\n<p id=\"Rw0dkf\">Americans destroying apparel they&#x2019;ve already paid for to scold a multibillion-dollar company over an ad campaign that promotes rebellion but also is implicitly selling conformity: It sounds like deep-level satire. But that is the world we live in, and it crystallizes some specifics of how the internet outrage machine operates &#x2014; and how Nike has already won. </p>\n<h3 id=\"Ww4kkD\">Some people are destroying Nike stuff they&#x2019;ve already bought. More people are mocking them for doing so.</h3>\n<p id=\"UcYDy1\">When Kaepernick&#x2019;s ad was released on Monday night, social media quickly lit up with excitement. But there was also a vocal contingent who staged their own protest, of sorts, in response. </p>\n<p id=\"b3uZfP\">John Rich, of the country duo Big &amp; Rich, tweeted that his sound man (a former Marine) was moved to destroy a pair of white Nike tube socks over the news:</p>\n\n<p id=\"MmbDkt\">Rich went on to clarify that the news was so inflammatory that it drove the sock-cutter into such a rage that he couldn&#x2019;t cut straight into the fabric:</p>\n<div id=\"n2jTZE\">\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p>Nah, he was just so wound up that he didn&apos;t take time. It&apos;s a wonder he didn&apos;t cut himself. You think we&apos;ll roll over on shit like this? hahaa! Ok. Have another SnowCone.</p>&#x2014; John Rich (@johnrich) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/johnrich/status/1036763109791289344?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">September 3, 2018</a>\n</blockquote>\n\n</div>\n<p id=\"Acent1\">Rich&#x2019;s tweet went viral, though it&#x2019;s unclear how much of that reflects support for his statement versus a desire to dunk on the guy who destroyed those tube socks:</p>\n<div id=\"k6Ykq8\">\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p>THIS IS THE GREATEST, STUPIDEST THING. If there is ANY upside to the ugliness of the wave of open white supremacy we are experiencing right now it is THE HILARIOUS COMEDY OF SHEER DUMBITUDE <a href=\"https://t.co/uoY8kzzbRq\">https://t.co/uoY8kzzbRq</a></p>&#x2014; Paul F. Tompkins (@PFTompkins) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/PFTompkins/status/1036767711051694082?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">September 4, 2018</a>\n</blockquote>\n\n</div>\n<p id=\"Ks4y20\">However, Rich&#x2019;s documentation of Nike destruction wasn&#x2019;t the first to appear on social media, nor the first to get dunked on. It followed on the heels of another <a href=\"https://twitter.com/sclancy79\">viral tweet</a> from Twitter user Sean Clancy (whose avatar includes Pepe the frog and the text &#x201C;don&#x2019;t tread on memes&#x201D;), which featured a video of a pair of Nike shoes on fire and seems to have, ahem, ignited the hashtag <a href=\"https://twitter.com/search?vertical=default&amp;q=%23burnyournikes&amp;src=tyah\">#BurnYourNikes</a>.<strong> </strong></p>\n<p id=\"tQlOlb\">But while there&#x2019;s a smattering of <a href=\"https://twitter.com/Liberty4Freemen/status/1036742900305063937\">seemingly</a> <a href=\"https://twitter.com/alteratyeshiva/status/1036790590581690368\">sincere</a> participants in this incendiary boycott, including some encouragement from the sitting president of the United States, the #BurnYourNikes hashtag is currently heavily populated by those mocking the performance, pointing out that destroying Nike goods that are already bought and paid for doesn&#x2019;t actually hurt Nike&#x2019;s bottom line. In some cases, burning Nikes might inadvertently be advertising <em>for</em> the company. </p>\n<p id=\"QDr3kV\">Other details this viral Nike boycott has thus far failed to take into consideration: whether it also means never rooting for Ohio State, Penn State, Michigan State, Michigan, Texas, Baylor, or any <a href=\"https://www.si.com/college-basketball/2017/10/02/adidas-nike-under-armour-contracts-schools-conferences\">other college that is sponsored by Nike</a>; whether it extends to Converse, Hurley, and all the other <a href=\"http://media.corporate-ir.net/media_files/IROL/10/100529/nike-gs09/portfolio.html\">brands owned by Nike</a>; whether boycotters will also forgo brands like <a href=\"http://fortune.com/2017/08/15/kevin-plank-donald-trump-controversy/\">Under Armour, which has also delved into political waters</a> and opposed Trump; and whether the service members <a href=\"https://twitter.com/search?q=nike%20troops&amp;src=typd\">being used as justification for the boycott</a> want to be used as props:</p>\n<div id=\"ENgrct\">\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p>Stop using the troops as an excuse to burn your Nike shit. I&#x2019;m not your scapegoat. I&#x2019;m gonna sit over here and continue to buy my Nike stuff, they give military a discount   <a href=\"https://twitter.com/hashtag/NikeBoycott?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#NikeBoycott</a></p>&#x2014; Katlin Bellaw (@KatlinBellaw) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/KatlinBellaw/status/1036968838745604096?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">September 4, 2018</a>\n</blockquote>\n\n</div>\n<div id=\"gkMTTt\">\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p>Here&apos;s an idea. If you think America&apos;s veterans deserve more respect, why not donate your clothes to a veterans&apos; charity instead of cutting them up with scissors like a dumb, spiteful little brat? <a href=\"https://twitter.com/hashtag/NikeBoycott?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#NikeBoycott</a></p>&#x2014; Matthew Chapman (@fawfulfan) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/fawfulfan/status/1036948238342008832?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">September 4, 2018</a>\n</blockquote>\n\n</div>\n<p id=\"lTdaZt\">What&#x2019;s being underlined in this conversation around Nike destruction and its relative merit is that this performative boycott isn&#x2019;t just about the brand itself. Setting Nike shoes on fire or cutting up socks allows these users to voice their displeasure with Nike, and to assert their own identity in a public space that might invite some mockery, sure, but will also reward them for their performance: In shunning Nike on Twitter, they&#x2019;re also courting follows, likes, and retweets, the platform&#x2019;s main currency. </p>\n<p id=\"o5uQXl\">For some users, this boycott, regardless of its sincerity, doubles as a branding opportunity &#x2014; especially for someone like Rich, who has posted several follow-up tweets about Nike and attempted to <a href=\"https://twitter.com/johnrich/status/1036983476145336320\">coin his own hashtag</a>, #PigSocks. His country music band is now more visible than it&#x2019;s been in years, and the viral boycott he helped spark has drawn increased attention to his Twitter page &#x2014; which as of press time features a pinned tweet promoting his Redneck Riviera whiskey brand.</p>\n<p id=\"1paLLY\">The irony here, of course, is that the Kaepernick ad is itself branding &#x2014; and in reacting to it, its critics are ensuring that Nike is getting exactly what it paid for.</p>\n<h3 id=\"QzqfFP\">Nike knew what it was doing when it picked Kaepernick for the ad</h3>\n<p id=\"3vOlId\">Nike deciding to highlight Kaepernick wasn&#x2019;t done on a whim. The company has had Kaepernick under contract since 2011, and <a href=\"https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/early-lead/wp/2018/09/03/colin-kaepernick-is-now-the-face-of-nikes-just-do-it-campaign\">reportedly</a> began negotiating a &#x201C;new, multi-year pact&#x201D; with him months ago, well after he initiated the lawsuit alluded to in the ad&#x2019;s text. The timing is not a coincidence.</p>\n<p id=\"lD74Fh\">Like any billion-dollar brand, Nike employs a lot of people, many of whom are experts in marketing. The risk of a negative response was undoubtedly assessed before making the deal, which makes clear that Nike believes the rewards of sponsoring Kaepernick outweigh the cost. That the ad became part of the national conversation within minutes of its release means that it&#x2019;s already worked, and whatever minor hit Nike&#x2019;s stock has taken in the immediate aftermath <a href=\"https://finance.yahoo.com/news/nikes-colin-kaepernick-campaign-reward-risk-131301863.html\">is outweighed</a> by the long-term attention the brand has received. </p>\n\n<aside id=\"na0x9h\">\n</aside><p id=\"OnDzTm\">Another thing to keep in mind is that the identity factor works both ways. The spirit that drives one person to burn a pair of already purchased Nikes is the same spirit that might move another person to buy the <a href=\"https://twitter.com/CharlesRobinson/status/1036741136294064128\">branded apparel</a> that&#x2019;s part of Kaepernick&#x2019;s endorsement with the company. Whether they&#x2019;re detractors burning items they&#x2019;ve already paid for or supporters indicating their approval by buying new items, Nike makes money on both. </p>\n<div id=\"E97XbD\">\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p>You burning your Nike gear costs Nike nothing, &amp; gives them free advertising.<br><br>They are going to sell more to others because of the campaign.<br><br>You think a multi billion dollar company didn&apos;t study the cost/benefit fallout before launching the campaign?<br><br>Lol.<a href=\"https://twitter.com/hashtag/NikeBoycott?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#NikeBoycott</a></p>&#x2014; Benjamin Allbright (@AllbrightNFL) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/AllbrightNFL/status/1036979989281787906?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">September 4, 2018</a>\n</blockquote>\n\n</div>\n<p id=\"cM4Jt2\">In that respect, as Rolling Stone&#x2019;s <a href=\"https://twitter.com/JamilSmith/status/1036724964185931776\">Jamil Smith points out</a>, this isn&#x2019;t a completely altruistic story. Nike is still going to make a profit off social justice and people&#x2019;s desire to do something for a cause. </p>\n<p id=\"n5jvqY\">But it&#x2019;s also a rare example of a company taking a loud, public stand for social justice and civil rights, and Nike is putting at least some of its money where its mouth is: Kaepernick&#x2019;s deal with the company reportedly includes a contribution to his Know Your Rights charity. (<a href=\"https://www.ninersnation.com/2018/1/31/16956016/colin-kaepernick-donations-full-list-of-organizations-one-million-dollars\">Kaepernick himself has donated</a> to several civil rights and equality organizations.) That counts for something, even if it loses Nike some fans (who have already bought merchandise) along the way. </p>\n</div></div></div>","url":"https://www.vox.com/2018/9/4/17818148/nike-boycott-kaepernick","date_published":"2018-09-04T21:00:02+00:00","author":{"name":"Alex Abad-Santos"}},{"id":"775","title":"Hotter days where you were born","content_html":"<div class=\"entry\">\n<p>It&#x2019;s getting hotter around the world. The New York Times zooms in on your hometown <a href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/08/30/climate/how-much-hotter-is-your-hometown.html\">to show the average number of &#x201C;very hot days&#x201D; (at least 90 degrees) since you were born</a> and then the projected count over the next decades. Then you zoom out to see how that relates to the rest of the world.</p>\n<p>I&#x2019;ve always found it interesting that visualization and analysis are typically &#x201C;overview first, then details on demand&#x201D;, whereas storytelling more often goes the opposite direction. Focus on an individual data point first and then zoom out after.</p>\n</div>","url":"http://flowingdata.com/2018/09/04/hotter-days-where-you-were-born/","date_published":"2018-09-04T15:40:34+00:00","author":{"name":""}},{"id":"707","title":"Who controls your data?","content_html":"<div class=\"i-nav_drawer_slide@tp-\"> <header class=\"uk-cookiebanner o-sticky_header@tp- th-reverse@tp- c-white@tp- border-bottom@tp- bc-gray-2@tp- i-nav_drawer_slide@tp-__panel z-1\" id=\"engadget-header\"> </header> <nav id=\"engadget-global-nav\" class=\"o-nav_drawer@tp- bg-gray-1 c-gray-5 border-bottom bc-gray-2 h-80@tl+ i-nav_drawer_slide@tp-__nav z-5@tp- z-0@tl+\"> <a href=\"https://www.engadget.com/2018/09/04/who-controls-your-data/#\" class=\"i-nav_drawer_slide@tp-__close hide@tl+ absolute r-n40 c-gray-2\"> <svg class=\"icon increase-hit__inner\"> <use xlink:href=\"#icon-close\"/> </svg> </a> </nav> <section id=\"search-box\" class=\"i-search_box is-box-hidden is-results-hidden i-nav_drawer_slide@tp-__panel z-1 fixed@tp- absolute@tl+ full-width t-0@tp- t-80@tl+\"> <section class=\"th-reverse bg-gray-2 bc-gray-3 c-gray-6 border-top pt-15 pb-25 i-search_box__results\"> </section>\n</section> <p class=\"i-nav_drawer_slide@tp-__panel\"> <aside class=\"\"> </aside> <main class=\"th-base o-h\"> <nav id=\"engadget-context-nav\" class=\"i-context_nav bc-white-10 border-bottom c-gray-5 t-0 full-width o-context_nav hide@tp- z-10\"> <div class=\"th-reverse bc-gray-2 h-80\"> <section class=\"i-context_nav__related bg-gray-2 c-gray-9 bc-gray-5 pt-25 pb-25 o-context_nav__related\"> <div class=\"container\"> <div class=\"grid\"> <div class=\"grid__cell col-1-of-3\"> <a href=\"https://www.engadget.com/2018/09/04/facebook-war-room-2018-midterm-elections/\" class=\"c-white:hvr\"> <article class=\"table\"> <div class=\"table-cell-top pr-20 w-130\"> <img src=\"https://o.aolcdn.com/images/dims?thumbnail=130%2C87&amp;quality=80&amp;image_uri=https%3A%2F%2Fs.aolcdn.com%2Fhss%2Fstorage%2Fmidas%2F9143eaf5685e2c20888a14f05cd498e0%2F206638943%2Fcapital-ed.jpg&amp;client=amp-blogside-v2&amp;signature=3d52effc0fb2ded41002b195043c579e3d35a07c\" alt=\"Facebook is building a &apos;war room&apos; for the midterm elections\" class=\"max-img\"> </div> </article> </a> </div> <div class=\"grid__cell col-1-of-3\"> <a href=\"https://www.engadget.com/2018/09/03/five-eyes-countries-anti-encryption-policy/\" class=\"c-white:hvr\"> <article class=\"table\"> <div class=\"table-cell-top pr-20 w-130\"> <img src=\"https://o.aolcdn.com/images/dims?thumbnail=130%2C87&amp;quality=80&amp;image_uri=https%3A%2F%2Fo.aolcdn.com%2Fimages%2Fdims%3Fcrop%3D2122%252C1415%252C0%252C0%26quality%3D85%26format%3Djpg%26resize%3D1600%252C1067%26image_uri%3Dhttp%253A%252F%252Fo.aolcdn.com%252Fhss%252Fstorage%252Fmidas%252F4d5f52de9dae01f6ee3c77f0f13cc28b%252F201384787%252F495514569.jpg%26client%3Da1acac3e1b3290917d92%26signature%3Da2aa8ef6c1a6bc75a03e47411e0b641f99b21a41&amp;client=amp-blogside-v2&amp;signature=1fbc636f323a5dc70c3a106592eb95d586e82a9b\" alt=\"US, UK and others push for mandatory access to encrypted data\" class=\"max-img\"> </div> </article> </a> </div> <div class=\"grid__cell col-1-of-3\"> <a href=\"https://www.engadget.com/2018/08/31/us-says-china-recruiting-spies-via-linkedin/\" class=\"c-white:hvr\"> <article class=\"table\"> <div class=\"table-cell-top pr-20 w-130\"> <img src=\"https://o.aolcdn.com/images/dims?thumbnail=130%2C87&amp;quality=80&amp;image_uri=https%3A%2F%2Fo.aolcdn.com%2Fimages%2Fdims%3Fcrop%3D3500%252C2060%252C0%252C0%26quality%3D85%26format%3Djpg%26resize%3D1600%252C942%26image_uri%3Dhttp%253A%252F%252Fo.aolcdn.com%252Fhss%252Fstorage%252Fmidas%252F998c96cc1c084ad03d8a9e64f7377455%252F206633857%252FRTS1ZHWC.jpeg%26client%3Da1acac3e1b3290917d92%26signature%3D69e9f9026a2c5bd98f02dabd35408175b231f099&amp;client=amp-blogside-v2&amp;signature=d0b32213c55f0933df031cf54881e7d7928f3d6d\" alt=\"US says China is aggressively recruiting spies on LinkedIn\" class=\"max-img\"> </div> </article> </a> </div> </div> </div> </section> </div> </nav> <header class=\"bg-gray-11 cf\"> <figure class=\"contain c-gray-7@tp- hide@m-\"> <img src=\"https://s.aolcdn.com/hss/storage/midas/27a2ac1ff8362b95179cb9df92ca1b49/206632543/GDPR.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"stretch-img\"> </figure> <div class=\"container hide@m-\"> </div> </header> <div class=\"container@tp+ pt-40@tp+\"> <div class=\"grid flex\"> <div class=\"grid__cell col-12-of-15@d \"> <div class=\"hide@tp+\"> <img src=\"https://o.aolcdn.com/images/dims?quality=100&amp;image_uri=https%3A%2F%2Fs.aolcdn.com%2Fhss%2Fstorage%2Fmidas%2F27a2ac1ff8362b95179cb9df92ca1b49%2F206632543%2FGDPR.jpg&amp;client=amp-blogside-v2&amp;signature=585a25af3868aad9cc8fed7446b7b9b11be7885e\" class=\"stretch-img\"> <div class=\"container hide@m-\"> </div> </div> <article class=\"c-gray-1\"> <div id=\"page_body\"> <div class=\"container@m-\"> </div> </div> </article> </div> </div> </div> <aside class=\"pb-40@m- pb-20@s pt-25@m mt-25@m- border-top\"> <div class=\" pb-40@tp+ pt-40@tp+\"> <div class=\"container@m+\"> <article class=\"o-hit \"> <div class=\"grid@m+\"> <div class=\"grid@m+__cell col-2-of-4@tp col-3-of-8@tl+ col-4-of-15@d\"> <div class=\"o-rating_thumb c-white\"> <img alt=\"Watch tomorrow&apos;s Jack Dorsey congressional hearings right here\" class=\"stretch-img prelazy\" src=\"https://o.aolcdn.com/images/dims?thumbnail=300%2C200&amp;quality=80&amp;image_uri=https%3A%2F%2Fo.aolcdn.com%2Fimages%2Fdims%3Fcrop%3D4000%252C2667%252C0%252C0%26quality%3D85%26format%3Djpg%26resize%3D1600%252C1067%26image_uri%3Dhttp%253A%252F%252Fo.aolcdn.com%252Fhss%252Fstorage%252Fmidas%252Fef47696c5e078b4e50a9b6cad16fc8d2%252F205693018%252Fjack-dorsey-chief-executive-officer-and-cofounder-of-square-inc-a-picture-id826429950%26client%3Da1acac3e1b3290917d92%26signature%3Df98454b51af289d1783bd6865771a8d566805a18&amp;client=amp-blogside-v2&amp;signature=0ee49cc8c3822ddf870859dbe0063b3f670f9841\"> </div>\n</div> <div class=\"grid@m+__cell col-2-of-4@tp col-4-of-8@tl+ col-10-of-15@d \"> <div class=\" o-feed_listing@m- o-feed_bleed@s\"> <div class=\" o-feed_listing@m-__mid\"> <div class=\" o-feed_listing@m-__inner th-base@m- break-left@s \"> <div class=\"hide@s mt-10@s\"> <p class=\"mt-15@m+ t-d5@m- t-d5@tp+ c-gray-3\">Foreign interference and &#x201C;content moderation&#x201D; on Twitter will be the talk of the day.</p> </div> <div class=\"mt-20@s\"> <div class=\"\"> </div> </div> </div> </div> </div>\n</div> </div><a href=\"https://www.engadget.com/2018/09/04/jack-dorsey-sheryl-sandberg-twitter-facebook-congressional-hearings/\" class=\"o-hit__link\"> View </a> </article> </div> </div> <div class=\"border-top@tp+ pb-40@tp+ pt-40@tp+\"> <div class=\"container@m+\"> <article class=\"o-hit \"> <div class=\"grid@m+\"> <div class=\"grid@m+__cell col-2-of-4@tp col-3-of-8@tl+ col-4-of-15@d\"> <div class=\"o-rating_thumb c-white\"> <img alt=\"Netflix&apos;s &apos;The Witcher&apos; series casts Henry Cavill as Geralt\" class=\"stretch-img prelazy\" src=\"https://o.aolcdn.com/images/dims?thumbnail=300%2C200&amp;quality=80&amp;image_uri=https%3A%2F%2Fo.aolcdn.com%2Fimages%2Fdims%3Fcrop%3D2999%252C1999%252C0%252C0%26quality%3D85%26format%3Djpg%26resize%3D1600%252C1066%26image_uri%3Dhttp%253A%252F%252Fo.aolcdn.com%252Fhss%252Fstorage%252Fmidas%252Fabb8f2a00a0c891fb1958220ffb6c26d%252F206639415%252Factor-henry-cavill-who-plays-quotaugust-walkerquot-in-mission-walks-picture-id1004358918%26client%3Da1acac3e1b3290917d92%26signature%3D2f6623b76fe63017e6f5434dcb96029e6d23c4fa&amp;client=amp-blogside-v2&amp;signature=f93b6859abc5a09a3ab67d7371418cc3fb3aab09\"> </div>\n</div> <div class=\"grid@m+__cell col-2-of-4@tp col-4-of-8@tl+ col-10-of-15@d \"> <div class=\" o-feed_listing@m- o-feed_bleed@s\"> <div class=\" o-feed_listing@m-__mid\"> <div class=\" o-feed_listing@m-__inner th-base@m- break-left@s \"> <div class=\"hide@s mt-10@s\"> <p class=\"mt-15@m+ t-d5@m- t-d5@tp+ c-gray-3\">The Superman star will play the monster hunter for hire.</p> </div> <div class=\"mt-20@s\"> <div class=\"\"> </div> </div> </div> </div> </div>\n</div> </div><a href=\"https://www.engadget.com/2018/09/04/netflix-the-witcher-henry-cavill-geralt/\" class=\"o-hit__link\"> View </a> </article> </div> </div> <div class=\"border-top@tp+ pb-40@tp+ pt-40@tp+\"> <div class=\"container@m+\"> <article class=\"o-hit \"> <div class=\"grid@m+\"> <div class=\"grid@m+__cell col-2-of-4@tp col-3-of-8@tl+ col-4-of-15@d\"> <div class=\"o-rating_thumb c-white\"> <img alt=\"&apos;Let&apos;s Sing 2019&apos; is the latest game destined for the Wii\" class=\"stretch-img prelazy\" src=\"https://o.aolcdn.com/images/dims?thumbnail=300%2C200&amp;quality=80&amp;image_uri=https%3A%2F%2Fs.aolcdn.com%2Fhss%2Fstorage%2Fmidas%2Fd7aa28724e1aef2ae0a27875fa81275a%2F206638881%2Flet%2527s-sing-2018-thq.jpg&amp;client=amp-blogside-v2&amp;signature=d486f2b2a00fe7b91578366d2ad8c997c5f3592f\"> </div>\n</div> <div class=\"grid@m+__cell col-2-of-4@tp col-4-of-8@tl+ col-10-of-15@d \"> <div class=\" o-feed_listing@m- o-feed_bleed@s\"> <div class=\" o-feed_listing@m-__mid\"> <div class=\" o-feed_listing@m-__inner th-base@m- break-left@s \"> <div class=\"hide@s mt-10@s\"> <p class=\"mt-15@m+ t-d5@m- t-d5@tp+ c-gray-3\">Wii is dead may never die.</p> </div> <div class=\"mt-20@s\"> <div class=\"\"> </div> </div> </div> </div> </div>\n</div> </div><a href=\"https://www.engadget.com/2018/09/04/lets-sing-2019-coming-to-wii/\" class=\"o-hit__link\"> View </a> </article> </div> </div> <div class=\"border-top@tp+ pb-40@tp+ pt-40@tp+\"> <div class=\"container@m+\"> <article class=\"o-hit \"> <div class=\"grid@m+\"> <div class=\"grid@m+__cell col-2-of-4@tp col-3-of-8@tl+ col-4-of-15@d\"> <div class=\"o-rating_thumb c-white\"> <img alt=\"Who controls your data?\" class=\"stretch-img prelazy\" src=\"https://o.aolcdn.com/images/dims?thumbnail=300%2C200&amp;quality=80&amp;image_uri=https%3A%2F%2Fs.aolcdn.com%2Fhss%2Fstorage%2Fmidas%2F27a2ac1ff8362b95179cb9df92ca1b49%2F206632543%2FGDPR.jpg&amp;client=amp-blogside-v2&amp;signature=67a5ac1f4d261c135f1390edff8b891fc8164d7a\"> </div>\n</div> <div class=\"grid@m+__cell col-2-of-4@tp col-4-of-8@tl+ col-10-of-15@d \"> <div class=\" o-feed_listing@m- o-feed_bleed@s\"> <div class=\" o-feed_listing@m-__mid\"> <div class=\" o-feed_listing@m-__inner th-base@m- break-left@s \"> <div class=\"hide@s mt-10@s\"> <p class=\"mt-15@m+ t-d5@m- t-d5@tp+ c-gray-3\">We requested our personal information from dozens of companies. Here&#x2019;s what they gave us -- and what they didn&#x2019;t.</p> </div> <div class=\"mt-20@s\"> <div class=\"\"> </div> </div> </div> </div> </div>\n</div> </div><a href=\"https://www.engadget.com/2018/09/04/who-controls-your-data/\" class=\"o-hit__link\"> View </a> </article> </div> </div> <footer class=\"container@m- pt-40@s\"> <a href=\"https://www.engadget.com/all\" class=\"o-btn@m- th-btn block h-120@tp+ pt-45@tp+ ta-c border-top@tp+ border-bottom@tp+ mb-45@tp+\"> <span class=\"t-meta\">More Stories</span> </a> </footer>\n</aside> </main> <footer> <nav class=\"th-reverse pt-40 pb-60 h-450 hide@tp-\"> </nav> <nav class=\"pb-25@tp- th-reverse bg-gray-2@tl+\"> <div class=\"container\"> <div class=\"grid\"> <section class=\"grid__cell col-2-of-5 col-12-of-12@tp- pt-40 pt-30@tp- hide@tp-\"> </section> <section class=\"grid__cell col-3-of-5 col-12-of-12@tp- pt-60 pt-20@tp- bc-white-10 ta-r@tl+\" id=\"engadget-followus\"> </section> </div> </div> </nav> </footer> </p> </div>","url":"https://www.engadget.com/2018/09/04/who-controls-your-data/","date_published":"2018-09-04T00:00:00+00:00","author":{"name":""}},{"id":"694","title":"Study Finds Worldwide Gun Deaths Have Reached 250,000 Yearly","content_html":"<div class=\"wsw\">\n<div class=\"wsw__embed\"> </div> <p>A new study shows that guns are responsible for about 250,000 deaths worldwide every year.</p>\n<p>It also found that the United States is among just six countries in which half of all gun deaths take place.</p>\n<p>The findings are from one of the most wide-reaching investigations of gun deaths to date. A report on the study appeared in <em>The Journal of the American Medical Association</em> in late August. An <strong>editorial </strong>published with the report called gun deaths &#x201C;a major public health problem for humanity.&#x201D;</p>\n<p>Recent news stories make it seem like gun violence is increasing around the world. But the new report tells a more complex story.</p>\n<p>Researchers counted about 209,000 gun deaths in 1990 compared to 251,000 in 2016. But the average rate, about four per 100,000 people, was mostly unchanged.</p>\n<p>Two-thirds of the deaths in 2016 were listed as <strong>homicides</strong>. Yet the United States is among wealthy countries with more suicides by gun than gun killings, the study found. In fact, U.S. gun suicides increased from 19,700, in 1990, to 23,800, in 2016.</p>\n<p>Christopher Murray, the lead investigator, is a Professor of Global Health at the University of Washington. He told the Associated Press the numbers show more than &#x201C;how many guns are around in a country.&#x201D;</p>\n<p>Murray noted that cultural beliefs about guns and suicide differ from one country to another around the world.</p>\n<p>&#x201C;That&#x2019;s where we get this <strong>incredible range</strong> of <strong>firearm</strong> deaths,&#x201D; Murray added.</p>\n<p>There were larger increases in many of the 195 countries involved in the study, especially in Central America and South America. Researchers said the illegal drug trade and economic unrest may have been partly responsible.</p>\n<p>Brazil, Colombia, Guatemala, Mexico and Venezuela are the countries that, along with the U.S, were home to half the deaths the study reported. El Salvador had the highest gun death rate of all. Nearly 40 in every 100,000 Salvadorans died in gun violence. Singapore had the lowest rate, with 0.1 death per 100,000 individuals.</p>\n<p>The study raises concerns about the lack of research on causes of gun violence and ways to prevent it, the editorial said.</p>\n<p>I&#x2019;m Pete Musto.</p> <p><em>Lindsay Tanner reported this story for the Associated Press. Pete Musto adapted her report for VOA Learning English. George Grow was the editor. </em></p>\n<p><em>We want to hear from you. How can countries work to reduce or even completely eliminate gun deaths? Write to us in the Comments Section or on our Facebook page.</em></p>\n<p>________________________________________________________________</p>\n<h2 class=\"wsw__h2\"><strong>Words in This Story</strong></h2> <p><strong>editorial</strong> &#x2013; <em>n.</em> a piece of writing in a publication that gives the opinions of its editors or publishers</p>\n<p><strong>homicide</strong>(<strong>s</strong>) &#x2013; <em>n.</em> the act of killing another person</p>\n<p><strong>incredible</strong> &#x2013; <em>adj.</em> difficult or impossible to believe</p>\n<p><strong>range</strong> &#x2013; <em>n.</em> a group or collection of different things or people that are usually similar in some way</p>\n<p><strong>firearm</strong> &#x2013; <em>n.</em> a small gun</p>\n</div>","url":"https://learningenglish.voanews.com/a/study-finds-worldwide-gun-deaths-have-reached-250000-yearly/4552921.html","date_published":"2018-09-03T02:45:23+00:00","author":{"name":""}},{"id":"675","title":"Is Donald Trump just a liar or has he lost his grip on reality?","content_html":"<div><div class=\"blog-content https-content\"><p><em>Welcome to another edition of What Fresh Hell?,&#xA0;</em>Raw Story<em>&#x2019;s roundup of news items that might have become controversies under another regime, but got buried &#x2013; or were at least under-appreciated &#x2013; due to the daily firehose of political pratfalls, unhinged tweet storms and other sundry embarrassments coming out of the current White House.</em></p>\n<p>It violates a whole bunch of norms to suggest that the president of the United States may be suffering from serious mental illness. It&#x2019;s long been considered inappropriate for professionals to diagnose someone from afar. It&#x2019;s also harmful to stigmatize people with mental illnesses, who are, statistically speaking, no more likely to become a corrupt white nationalist buffoons than anyone else.</p>\n <br>\n<p>But a problematic result of those sensible prohibitions is that, as a society, we&#x2019;re underestimating the possibility that a guy who has access to the nuclear football is off his rocker.</p>\n<p>We bring this up in the context of Trump&#x2019;s latest eye-raising nonsense: His tweet suggesting that his infamous interview with NBC&#x2019;s Lester Holt was somehow manipulated to make it <em>appear</em> that he had stupidly blurted out a confession that he&#x2019;d fired former FBI Director James Comey to put an end to the Russia investigation.</p>\n<p>This followed an earlier tweet in which Trump claimed that Google had a team of Antifa elves, maybe, sifting through news stories and demoting those that said nice things about Trump.</p>\n<p>Most observers see this stuff as an example of the Big Lie technique, and that may be correct. Virtually every word out of Trump&#x2019;s mouth is a lie, and always has been, yet his base continues to believe that he&#x2019;s the sole arbiter of truth. It hasn&#x2019;t hurt him with Congressional Republicans, in part because they know their constituents like Trump more than them, or their party. So he just offers up an endless stream of happy bullshit, and this claim about the Holt interview is just one more example.</p>\n<p>But the Big Lie is for public consumption, and Trump makes similar claims in private. Recall a report from <a href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/28/us/politics/trump-access-hollywood-tape.html\"><em>The New York Times</em></a> last year that, &#x201C;despite his&#xA0;public acknowledgment&#x201D; that the Access Hollywood tape that captured Trump bragging that he could grab &#x2018;em by the pussy was real, &#x201C;and his hasty videotaped apology under pressure from his advisers,&#x201D; Trump began &#x201C;raising the prospect with allies that it may not have been him on the tape after all.&#x201D; According to the report, shortly before the inauguration, &#x201C;Trump told a Republican senator that he wanted to investigate the recording that had him boasting about grabbing women&#x2019;s genitals.&#x201D;</p>\n<p>Which brings us to a serious question: Does he <em>actually believe</em> this stuff? It&#x2019;s one thing to peddle it to his gullible, perpetually pissed-off supporters for political gain, but what if the pressures of the office &#x2013; and the myriad investigations closing in on him &#x2014; have caused a legitimate break from reality? <a href=\"https://www.nami.org/earlypsychosis\">According to the National Alliance on Mental Illness</a>, psychosis is best understood &#x201C;as disruptions to a person&#x2019;s thoughts and perceptions that make it difficult for them to recognize what is real and what isn&#x2019;t.&#x201D;</p>\n<p>While we at <em>What Fresh Hell</em> aren&#x2019;t psychologists, you don&#x2019;t need a degree to see that trump displays all of the classic symptoms of narcissistic personality disorder. In addition to having trouble empathizing with others and displaying &#x201C;a sense of entitlement&#x201D; and the need for &#x201C;constant, excessive admiration,&#x201D; <a href=\"https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/narcissistic-personality-disorder/symptoms-causes/syc-20366662\">per the Mayo Clinic</a>, people who suffer from this disorder &#x201C;have trouble handling anything they perceive as criticism,&#x201D; and can &#x201C;experience major problems dealing with stress and adapting to change.&#x201D;</p>\n<p>Trump&#x2019;s 71, and it&#x2019;s hard to imagine a more stressful change than shifting from the lifestyle of a sleazy business man and game show host who&#x2019;s always surrounded himself with sycophantic yes men to that of a POTUS dogged by scandals and hemmed in by investigators.</p>\n<p>We can&#x2019;t know what he believes is real and what&#x2019;s just spin, but we should probably take the possibility that he&#x2019;s gone nuts more seriously than we tend to. He&#x2019;s no longer just a reality TV star.</p>\n<p>*****</p>\n<p>One story that certainly didn&#x2019;t fly under the radar this week was <a href=\"https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/aug/31/paul-manafort-sam-patten-charged-cambridge-analytica\">Friday&#x2019;s indictment</a> of Sam Patten, an associate of Paul Manafort with ties to Cambridge Analytica, for illegally funneling cash from a pro-Russian Ukrainian oligarch to Trump&#x2019;s inauguration fund.</p>\n<p>But we wanted to take the opportunity to remind you that Trump had a cheap, bare-bones inauguration that raised and supposedly spent almost twice as much as Barack Obama&#x2019;s, and nobody knows what happened with the cash &#x2014; $107 million of it. In March, George Jenkins, who oversaw George W. Bush&#x2019;s 2005 inaugural (for $42 million) told <em><a href=\"https://www.propublica.org/article/trump-inc-podcast-trump-record-inauguration-spending\">ProPublica</a></em>, &#x201C;It&#x2019;s inexplicable to me. I literally don&#x2019;t know. They had a third of the staff and a quarter of the events and they raise at least twice as much as we did,&#x201D; Jenkins said. &#x201C;So there&#x2019;s the obvious question: Where did it go? I don&#x2019;t know.&#x201D;</p>\n<p>We have known since May, <a href=\"https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/exclusive-special-counsel-probing-donations-foreign-connections-trump/story?id=55054482\">when ABC broke the story</a>, that Robert Mueller&#x2019;s team was trying to get to the bottom of it, asking &#x201C;questions about donors with connections to Russia, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and&#xA0;Qatar.&#x201D;</p>\n<p>*****</p>\n<p>Speaking of Qatar, <em><a href=\"https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-new-lobbying-qatar-targeted-250-trump-influencers-to-change-u-s-policy-1535554647\">The WSJ reported</a></em> this week that the embattled Gulf state targeted 250 &#x201C;Trump influencers&#x201D; in a sprawling lobbying campaign designed to change US policy in the region. Among others, the Qataris feted Allan Dershowitz and Mike Huckabee (who got $50,000 to visit the country). Steve Bannon was paid $100,000 to speak at a conference.</p>\n<p>Julie Bycowicz wrote that, &#x201C;because Mr. Trump often shuns traditional policy-making processes,&#xA0;relying on advice of friends and associates, interest groups have spent the past 19 months reorienting their lobbying. New approaches include advertising during the president&#x2019;s favorite television shows and&#xA0;<a href=\"https://www.wsj.com/articles/t-mobile-says-it-hired-lobbying-firm-tied-to-former-trump-aide-corey-lewandowski-1527273066?mod=article_inline\">forming ties with people who speak to him</a>.&#x201D;</p>\n<p>This is not normal.</p>\n<p>*****</p>\n<p>There&#x2019;s an old saying that &#x201C;personnel is policy,&#x201D; and with that in mind, we&#x2019;d like to connect a couple of dots.</p>\n<p>In June, <a href=\"https://www.rawstory.com/2018/06/fresh-hell-trump-show-just-exhausting/\">we mentioned</a> that the regime had placed a number of people connected to anti-immigrant hate groups in senior positions in DHS and in the relevant agencies that deal with refugees.</p>\n<p>Now we get this fresh Hell&#x2026;</p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p>Trump-appointed DHS immigration policy analyst: &#x201C;Your Jew-free dinner party sounds fun, will I get to meet other literal Nazis&#x201D; <a href=\"https://t.co/hUMoOQwJKd\">https://t.co/hUMoOQwJKd</a> <a href=\"https://t.co/RbdzyEFCvn\">pic.twitter.com/RbdzyEFCvn</a></p>\n<p>&#x2014; Adam Weinstein (@AdamWeinstein) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/AdamWeinstein/status/1035505353692209153?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">August 31, 2018</a></p></blockquote>\n<p>Welp. (Smith resigned after emails he&#x2019;d exchanged with acknowledged white supremacists were obtained by reporters.)</p>\n<p>Which brings us to this genuinely fascistic move by the regime: <a href=\"https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/the_americas/us-is-denying-passports-to-americans-along-the-border-throwing-their-citizenship-into-question/2018/08/29/1d630e84-a0da-11e8-a3dd-2a1991f075d5_story.html?utm_term=.237a6731e793\">According to the <em>WaPo&#x2019;s</em> Kevin Sieff</a>, the Trumpers are denying the citizenship of (brown) Americans in the Southern border region. &#x201C;In some cases, passport applicants with official U.S. birth certificates are being jailed in immigration detention centers and entered into deportation proceedings,&#x201D; wrote Sieff. &#x201C;In others, they are stuck in Mexico, their passports suddenly revoked when they tried to reenter the United States. As the Trump administration attempts to reduce both legal and illegal immigration, the government&#x2019;s treatment of passport applicants in South Texas shows how U.S. citizens are increasingly being swept up by immigration enforcement agencies.&#x201D;</p>\n<p>(Your wingnut uncle may tell you that the Obama administration did the same, <a href=\"https://twitter.com/mjs_DC/status/1035183229337329664\">but that&#x2019;s not true</a>.)</p>\n<p>Meanwhile, <a href=\"https://www.revealnews.org/blog/government-seeks-to-end-court-oversight-of-how-it-treats-immigrant-children/\">Laura Morel&#xA0;and&#xA0;Aura Bogado&#xA0;reported for <em>Reveal</em></a> that the regime &#x201C;is seeking to end court oversight of how it treats immigrant children, more than 20 years after a landmark lawsuit over mistreatment of children in the nation&#x2019;s immigration system.&#x201D; The <em>Flores </em>settlement assures some minimum standards for how the government cares for immigrant children, and provided the legal basis for a court to order the reunification of families. This move comes as &#x201C;federal officials report that more than 500 immigrant children remain separated from their parents in the wake of President Donald Trump&#x2019;s &#x2018;zero-tolerance&#x2019; policy.&#x201D;</p>\n<p><em><a href=\"https://www.latimes.com/world/la-fg-el-salvador-us-family-separations-abuse-20180831-story.html\">The Los Angeles Times reported</a></em> this week that &#x201C;three children from El Salvador who were separated from their families after immigrating to the U.S. were sexually abused in detention centers in Arizona,&#x201D; the latest in a series of similar stories.</p>\n<p>With &#x201C;literal Nazis&#x201D; and lesser nativists embedded in relevant government agencies, all of this should be unsurprising &#x2013;shocking but unsurprising.</p>\n<p>*****</p>\n<p>ICYMI&#x2026;</p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p>.<a href=\"https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">@realDonaldTrump</a> intervened in plans to turn the FBI HQ across the street from his luxury hotel into a construction zone, then invoked executive privilege to block inspector general from learning what he said in meetings. <a href=\"https://t.co/H4sBeMXZ0A\">https://t.co/H4sBeMXZ0A</a> <a href=\"https://t.co/gwqtItP4NJ\">pic.twitter.com/gwqtItP4NJ</a></p>\n<p>&#x2014; Todd J. Gillman (@toddgillman) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/toddgillman/status/1034166362162249729?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">August 27, 2018</a></p></blockquote>\n<p>Not normal!</p>\n<p>*****</p>\n<p>&#x201C;For much of last year,&#x201D; <a href=\"https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/top-interior-staffer-who-backed-shrinking-national-monuments-to-join-bp/2018/08/27/ab241d0a-aa42-11e8-8a0c-70b618c98d3c_story.html?noredirect=on&amp;utm_term=.deade7633d6a\">wrote <em>WaPo&#x2019;s </em>Juliet Eilperin</a>, Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke&#x2019;s deputy chief of staff, Downey Magallanes, &#x201C;pursued his agenda with vigor,&#x201D; leading &#x201C;an effort to cut the size of two vast protected areas in southern Utah, opening public lands to possible development and energy exploration. She participated in deliberations over how to&#xA0;scale back safety monitoring rules&#xA0;for offshore oil and gas operations. And she helped develop a leasing plan that would permit drilling in most U.S. continental shelf waters.&#x201D;</p>\n<p>You can see where this is heading, right?</p>\n<p>&#x201C;As of next week, Magallanes will have a new job: working for the energy giant BP, on its government affairs team.&#x201D;</p>\n<p>*****</p>\n<p>This week, one career public servant had enough. In a &#x201C;scathing resignation letter,&#x201D; Seth Frotman, &#x201C;the federal official in charge of protecting student borrowers from predatory lending practices,&#x201D; blasted CFPB head Mick Mulvaney, <a href=\"https://www.npr.org/2018/08/27/642199524/student-loan-watchdog-quits-blames-trump-administration\">according to NPR</a>. In it, he said that the &#x201C;current leadership &#x2018;has turned its back on young people and their financial futures.</p>\n<p>&#x201C;Unfortunately, under your leadership, the Bureau has abandoned the very consumers it is tasked by Congress with protecting,&#x201D; it read. &#x201C;Instead, you have used the Bureau to serve the wishes of the most powerful financial companies in America.&#x201D;</p>\n<p>*****</p>\n<p>We have to give it to Republicans: They are pretty creative when it comes to shrinking the voting pool.</p>\n<p>&#x201C;The state of Georgia has blocked all foreign internet traffic to its online voter registration site, <a href=\"https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/kevincollier/georgia-is-blocking-overseas-voters-from-registering-online\">BuzzFeed News has learned</a>, a move that would do little to deter hackers but blocks absentee voters.&#x201D;</p>\n<p>*****</p>\n<p>Over the past 18 months, Donald Trump has signed a series of bills passed by the Republican Congress that are projected to add $2.7 trillion to federal deficits over the next ten years. Deficits are only &#x201C;generational warfare&#x201D; when Democrats are in office.</p>\n<p>It was always clear that they would turn around and cite those very deficits to push for cuts to programs that help ordinary people, and they&#x2019;ve followed through with gusto.</p>\n<p>&#x201C;House Republicans are holding the farm bill hostage by insisting on stricter work requirements for millions of people who depend on food stamps to supplement their meager incomes,&#x201D; <a href=\"https://www.modernhealthcare.com/article/20180830/NEWS/180829889\">wrote Merrill Goozner for <em>Modern Healthcare</em></a> this week. &#x201C;Never mind that the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program already has the strictest work requirements of any federal program for low-income Americans. Never mind that the food stamp rolls have fallen by 2 million people in the past year or that average payment to households still receiving aid fell $20 a month over the past five years. The average individual benefit is down to $1.40 a meal.&#x201D; Goozner doesn&#x2019;t mention it, but a number of Republican lawmakers have said that this is being driven by the need to reduce the massive deficits they created.</p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p>Just a reminder that Trump&#x2019;s tax cut gave an average benefit of $69,660 to people who make more than $1,000,000 per year. <a href=\"https://t.co/FyP3Usdk7y\">https://t.co/FyP3Usdk7y</a></p>\n<p>&#x2014; Brian Klaas (@brianklaas) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/brianklaas/status/1035399661215989760?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">August 31, 2018</a></p></blockquote>\n<p>&#x201C;Donald Trump is canceling pay raises due in January for most civilian federal employees, he informed Congress on Thursday, citing budget constraints,&#x201D; <a href=\"https://www.apnews.com/b83e65d63f29472992cafaebe8f67b59?utm_campaign=SocialFlow&amp;utm_source=Twitter&amp;utm_medium=AP_Politics\">reported The Associated Press</a>. The move may ultimately cost more than the pay raises by forcing some federal workers into the private sector and forcing the government to rely on more contractors to keep things functioning.</p>\n<p>*****</p>\n<p>We try to leave you with something positive, and it wasn&#x2019;t easy this week. But we&#x2019;ll go with NAACP president <a href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/27/opinion/politics/midterm-elections-race-polling.html\">Derrick Johnson writing about</a> some potentially important new research&#x2026;</p>\n<blockquote><p>This poll&#x2026; analyzed the views of African-American, white, Latino, Asian-American and Native American voters in 61 of the nation&#x2019;s most competitive midterm races. We found that African-Americans stand to play a key role in 21 of these races, making up from 7 to 24 percent of the voting-age population. In 31 of the key races, voters of color represent 20 to 78 percent of the voting-age population and are positioned to have a significant impact.</p>\n<p>Based on this, we expect their perceptions of Mr. Trump&#x2019;s racism and his party&#x2019;s acceptance of it will motivate them to cast votes for Democratic candidates.</p></blockquote>\n<p>Perhaps we&#x2019;re seeing the makings of a backlash against the backlash against the first black president.</p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n</div></div>","url":"https://www.rawstory.com/2018/09/donald-trump-just-liar-lost-grip-reality/","date_published":"2018-09-01T18:25:00+00:00","author":{"name":"Joshua Holland"}},{"id":"670","title":"@stoweboyd","content_html":"<ul id=\"posts\"> <li class=\"post group\"> <section class=\"top link_post\"> <a href=\"https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Ftwitter.com%2Fstoweboyd%2Fstatus%2F1035533474134994944&amp;t=YzI3YmY5NTI5YWVlMWVkMTQ2ZGJjNGE5MmI2NzQ0ZTUwZmRjNDk4ZCwwMmFRMGlNNQ%3D%3D&amp;b=t%3AGs6I4BFv-h1LegvV1iFKiA&amp;p=http%3A%2F%2Fstoweboyd.com%2Fpost%2F177588278562%2Fstoweboyd&amp;m=0\" class=\"link\">@stoweboyd</a> </section> <section class=\"group caption_and_post_info after_top_part islink \"> <section class=\"caption group\"> </section> <ul class=\" post_info \"> <li> </li> <li><a href=\"http://stoweboyd.com/post/177588278562/stoweboyd\" class=\" timestamp has_caption \">2018.8.31</a></li> <li><a class=\"notecount\" href=\"http://stoweboyd.com/post/177588278562/stoweboyd#notes\">2 notes</a></li> <li><a class=\"tag\" href=\"http://stoweboyd.com/tagged/twitter\">twitter</a></li> <li><a class=\"tag\" href=\"http://stoweboyd.com/tagged/stoweboyd\">stoweboyd</a></li> </ul> <section class=\"post_notes\"> <a> </a> </section> </section> </li> </ul>","url":"http://stoweboyd.com/post/177588278562/stoweboyd","date_published":"2018-08-31T16:45:31+00:00","author":{"name":""}},{"id":"669","title":"Marco Rubio Should Probably Go See First Man Before He Accuses It of “Total Lunacy”","content_html":"<div><div class=\"article__content\"> <figure class=\"image image--center \"> <div class=\"lazy-container\"> <img class=\"image__src\" alt=\"Ryan Gosling, Patrick Fugit, Shawn Eric Jones, and others wear uniforms with the NASA logo on them.\" src=\"https://compote.slate.com/images/0bb04dd7-8c3e-4d84-a974-9ca300e82cab.jpeg?width=780&amp;height=520&amp;rect=996x664&amp;offset=372x0%201x,%20https://compote.slate.com/images/0bb04dd7-8c3e-4d84-a974-9ca300e82cab.jpeg?width=780&amp;height=520&amp;rect=996x664&amp;offset=372x0%202x\"> </div> <figcaption class=\"image__caption-credit\"> <p class=\"image__credit\">Universal Pictures.</p> </figcaption> </figure> <p class=\"slate-paragraph\"> Marco Rubio probably shouldn&#x2019;t weigh in on movies he hasn&#x2019;t actually seen. Case in point: On Friday, the Florida senator tweeted his two cents about a very silly controversy surrounding Damien Chazelle&#x2019;s biopic of Neil Armstrong, <a href=\"https://slate.com/culture/2018/08/the-first-reviews-of-first-man.html\"><em>First Man</em></a>. It all started after <a href=\"https://www.telegraph.co.uk/films/2018/08/29/first-man-neil-armstrong-film-fails-fly-flag-us-patriotism/\">the Telegraph</a> reported that star Ryan Gosling had been asked at the Venice Film Festival about the decision not to show the American flag being planted on the moon in the movie. </p> <p class=\"slate-paragraph\"> &#x201C;I don&#x2019;t think that Neil viewed himself as an American hero. From my interviews with his family and people that knew him, it was quite the opposite. And we wanted the film to reflect Neil,&#x201D; Gosling responded, adding, jokingly, &#x201C;I&#x2019;m Canadian, so might have cognitive bias.&#x201D; </p> <p class=\"slate-paragraph\"> Conservative backlash was as swift as it was uninformed. &#x201C;This is where our country&#x2019;s going,&#x201D; said Ainsley Earhardt on <em>Fox &amp; Friends</em>. &#x201C;They don&#x2019;t think America is great&#x2015;they want to kneel for the flag, for the anthem&#x2015;it was never great. This is the direction&#x2015;they&#x2019;re scared to use the American flag. It&#x2019;s Hollywood.&#x201D; Rubio got in on the action, too. </p> <aside class=\"clay-tweet\"> <blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\"><p>This is total lunacy. And a disservice at a time when our people need reminders of what we can achieve when we work together. The American people paid for that mission,on rockets built by Americans,with American technology &amp; carrying American astronauts. It wasn&#x2019;t a UN mission. <a href=\"https://t.co/eGwBq7hj8C\">https://t.co/eGwBq7hj8C</a></p>&#x2014; Marco Rubio (@marcorubio) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/marcorubio/status/1035502827131613184?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">August 31, 2018</a></blockquote> </aside> <p class=\"slate-paragraph\"> Let&#x2019;s get something straight: the American flag is in <em>First Man. </em>While it&#x2019;s true that Chazelle&#x2019;s movie doesn&#x2019;t show the American flag being planted on the moon, it also doesn&#x2019;t pretend that it never happened. The flag appears in the background, and when the astronauts depart, it&#x2019;s clearly visible on the lunar surface. Sure, you might disagree with the decision not to show the flag being placed, but it&#x2019;s in keeping with the movie&#x2019;s tone: It&#x2019;s a biopic about Armstrong, after all, not a reenactment of the moon landing. And no one is pretending that NASA&#x2019;s flight was &#x201C;a U.N. mission.&#x201D; </p> <p class=\"slate-paragraph\"> Rubio&#x2019;s comment was in response to a Business Insider tweet about the controversy, and based on how he reacted, it seems like a good bet that he not only didn&#x2019;t see the movie, he probably didn&#x2019;t even read the original article. In criticizing <em>First Man</em>, however, he did open himself up to some pretty incredible burns: </p> <aside class=\"clay-tweet\"> <blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\"><p>yeah man, get Non and Zod to put that flag back where it belongs <a href=\"https://t.co/U0iNUnyYjH\">pic.twitter.com/U0iNUnyYjH</a></p>&#x2014; Dave Itzkoff (@ditzkoff) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/ditzkoff/status/1035535224610988032?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">August 31, 2018</a></blockquote> </aside> <aside class=\"clay-tweet\"> <blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\"><p>Judging by your history, a strongly worded tweet about how this movie does not represent the best of American values means that you will see it at least 12x in theaters, defend it against and all criticism from here on out and possibly campaign for it during oscar season.</p>&#x2014; Tyler Huckabee (@TylerHuckabee) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/TylerHuckabee/status/1035525682204475392?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">August 31, 2018</a></blockquote> </aside> <aside class=\"clay-tweet\"> <blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\"><p>Glad you&#x2019;re feeling outraged about this and not, say, the several recent mass shootings in your state</p>&#x2014; Jess Dweck (@TheDweck) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/TheDweck/status/1035542203416764417?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">August 31, 2018</a></blockquote> </aside> <p class=\"slate-paragraph slate-paragraph--tombstone\"> Then again, if Rubio hadn&#x2019;t weighed in, then we&#x2019;d never have been given the great and almost certainly unintentional moon pun (&#x201C;total lunacy&#x201D;), so it all evens out. </p> <section class=\"kicker-promo\"> <svg width=\"23.911\" height=\"24.241\" class=\"kicker-promo__icon\"> <use xlink:href=\"/media/components/slate-kicker-promo/sprite.svg#plus\"/> </svg> <div class=\"kicker-promo__body\"> <p>If you think Slate&#x2019;s work matters, become a Slate Plus member. You&#x2019;ll get exclusive members-only content and a suite of great benefits&#x2014;and you&#x2019;ll help secure Slate&#x2019;s future.</p> <a href=\"https://my.slate.com/plus?utm_medium=kicker&amp;utm_campaign=plus_support&amp;utm_content=general&amp;utm_source=article\" class=\"kicker-promo__link\">Join Slate Plus</a> </div> <a href=\"https://my.slate.com/plus?utm_medium=kicker&amp;utm_campaign=plus_support&amp;utm_content=general&amp;utm_source=article\" class=\"kicker-promo__btn\"> Join <svg width=\"85\" height=\"13\"> <use xlink:href=\"/media/sites/slate-com/global-sprite.svg#splus\"/> </svg> </a> </section> </div></div>","url":"https://slate.com/culture/2018/08/first-man-american-flag-controversy-marco-rubio-and-fox-news-weigh-in.html","date_published":"2018-08-31T15:58:27+00:00","author":{"name":""}},{"id":"663","title":"Colin Kaepernick Scores Big Win Over NFL In Collusion Case Before Season Starts","content_html":"<div class=\"post-content\"> <p>The <a href=\"https://deadline.com/tag/nfl/\" id=\"auto-tag_nfl\">NFL</a>&#x2019;s Hail Mary hope that it could get <a href=\"https://deadline.com/tag/colin-kaepernick/\" id=\"auto-tag_colin-kaepernick\">Colin Kaepernick</a>&#x2019;s collusion lawsuit against the league and team owners tossed off the field has floundered with a week to go before the new season kicks-off.</p> <p>In what can only be viewed as the legal equivalent of a touchdown for the former San Francisco 49ers quarterback and instigator of protests by players over social injustice in America, the league and NFL Players Association appointed arbitrator has rejected the Roger Goodell led organization&#x2019;s attempt to have Kaepernick&#x2019;s case dismissed.</p>\n<p>The news was revealed today when Kaepernick&#x2019;s lawyer <a href=\"https://deadline.com/tag/mark-geragos/\" id=\"auto-tag_mark-geragos\">Mark Geragos</a> posted a short statement from the arbitrator online:</p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p>Breaking news <a href=\"https://twitter.com/Kaepernick7?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">@Kaepernick7</a> <a href=\"https://t.co/mAYhkRKwB9\">pic.twitter.com/mAYhkRKwB9</a></p>\n<p>&#x2014; Mark Geragos (@markgeragos) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/markgeragos/status/1035261764139511808?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">August 30, 2018</a></p>\n</blockquote>\n<p>While they were awfully chatty earlier today about how the networks would have to figure out how to deal with potential controversies over the playing of the National Anthem on TV and players taking a knee or not, the NFL told Deadline they would &#x201C;decline comment&#x201D; on the denial, according to spokesman Brian McCarthy.</p> <p>The controversy over players taking a knee or using another form of protest during the National Anthem was widely cited as one of the reasons the NFL and big bucks paying networks took a ratings hit last season.</p>\n<p>The multi-year playing, now much honored and forthright Kaepernick filed his grievance against the NFL last fall after several months of free agency that saw not a single one of the 32 teams in the league offering the 49ers 2013 Super Bowl quarterback a contract. The NFL denied that any blackballing had occurred and earlier this summer pushed to see if there was even enough evidence for the matter to go forward &#x2013; as it clearly is now, unless the parties settle out of court.</p> <p>Starting in a pre-season game in late August 2016, Kaepernick remained on the bench during the playing of &#x2018;The Star Spangled-Banner.&#x2019; The QB did not make a big stance about his actions at the time and, in fact, it was mainly noticed due to an unrelated photo posted on social media.</p>\n<p>&#x201C;I am not going to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses black people and people of color,&#x201D; Kaepernick explained when queried about his actions after the 49ers&#x2019; August 26, 2016 loss to the Green Bay Packers. &#x201C;To me, this is bigger than football and it would be selfish on my part to look the other way,&#x201D; the QB added, noting he had done the same thing in the first two pre-season games that year but wasn&#x2019;t dressed for play on those occasions. &#x201C;There are bodies in the street and people getting paid leave and getting away with murder.&#x201D;</p>\n<p>&#x201C;In respecting such American principles as freedom of religion and freedom of expression, we recognize the right of an individual to choose and participate, or not, in our celebration of the national anthem,&#x201D; the 49ers said in an evenhanded statement of their own. &#x201C;Players are encouraged but not required to stand during the playing of the national anthem,&#x201D; added the then rather placid NFL itself.</p>\n<p>In the next pre-season match up, Kaepernick took a knee for the first time. He later said was a shift to show respect to current and former members of the U.S. military.</p>\n<p>As other players joined in, with many citing a link to the Black Lives Matter movement, a backlash developed among some fans and others who saw the protests as an affront. Those critics, which came to include some team owners and the current POTUS, often centered on the National Anthem and not the underlying social inequality that Kaepernick was focused on.</p>\n<p><img class=\"alignright wp-image-201469 size-medium\" src=\"https://pmcdeadline2.files.wordpress.com/2011/12/nfl-logo__111206082201.jpg?w=300&amp;h=199%20300w,%20https://pmcdeadline2.files.wordpress.com/2011/12/nfl-logo__111206082201.jpg?w=150&amp;h=100%20150w,%20https://pmcdeadline2.files.wordpress.com/2011/12/nfl-logo__111206082201.jpg%20600w\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" srcset=\"https://pmcdeadline2.files.wordpress.com/2011/12/nfl-logo__111206082201.jpg?w=300&amp;h=199 300w, https://pmcdeadline2.files.wordpress.com/2011/12/nfl-logo__111206082201.jpg?w=150&amp;h=100 150w, https://pmcdeadline2.files.wordpress.com/2011/12/nfl-logo__111206082201.jpg 600w\"></p> <p>As President <a href=\"https://deadline.com/tag/donald-trump/\" id=\"auto-tag_donald-trump\">Donald Trump</a> jumped into the fray and began to use the issue as a political football, the NFL not only seemed to keep Kaepernick off the field but instituted a no protest policy. Made public in late May in what seemed a straight up pandering to Trump and the power of his Twitter feed, the league plan&#xA0;included fines for protesting players. That didn&#x2019;t stand up long as the Players Association<a href=\"https://deadline.com/2018/06/nfl-players-association-may-challenge-new-anthem-policy-in-court-1202411170/\"> in June</a> started making rumblings about taking the NFL to court over the plan, which they were never consulted on.</p>\n<p><a href=\"https://deadline.com/2018/07/nfl-and-players-assn-agree-to-temporarily-avoid-anthem-protest-rules-enforcement-1202430041/\">By July,</a> much to the <a href=\"https://deadline.com/2018/05/donald-trump-tweets-nfl-kneeling-policy-1202396643/\">continuing anger</a> of President Trump, the policy was suspended. Despite Rupert Murdoch owned Fox taking on Thursday Night Football this year and ongoing concerns about ratings, the non-policy looks certain not be enforced in the forthcoming season, at least the pre-season and early games <a href=\"https://deadline.com/2018/08/nfl-national-anthem-protests-no-resolution-in-sight-time-grows-short-1202448149/\">as talks between the league and the NFLPA continue</a>.</p>\n<p>After several weeks of pre-season games, the 2018/2019 NFL season formally begins on September 6 with the current Super Bowl champs the Philadelphia Eagles v. the Atlanta Falcons on NBC.</p>\n<p>BTW, Kaepernick is not the only player to have such a grievance against the NFL. He&#x2019;s actually not even the only ex-49er. Currently unsigned safety Eric Reid, who joined with Kaepernick in his actions, is also hauling the league into court &#x2013; double play.</p> </div>","url":"https://deadline.com/2018/08/colin-kaepernick-nfl-grevience-trial-arbitrator-ruling-1202455055/","date_published":"2018-08-31T00:47:33+00:00","author":{"name":"Dominic Patten"}},{"id":"658","title":"Exclusive: Apple Watch Series 4 revealed — massive display, dense watch face, more","content_html":"<div class=\"post-body\"> <p>In addition to discovering exclusive <a href=\"https://9to5mac.com/2018/08/30/2018-iphone-xs-design-larger-version-gold-exclusive/\">iPhone XS</a> details today, <em>9to5Mac</em>&#xA0;can exclusively share the first look at the new Apple Watch Series 4. This is the new Apple Watch that we believe Apple will unveil at its special event announced earlier today.</p>\n<p><span id=\"more-549307\"></span> <ins class=\"adsbygoogle author_ad\"></ins> <div class=\"th14b4d830 th229cbe2f\"><div class=\"thd1aa3409\"><img src=\"data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7\" class=\"th666af2ef\"></div></div><div class=\"th7c0b19c0 th9eba98ec\"><div class=\"thd1aa3409\"><img src=\"data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7\" class=\"th666af2ef\"></div></div><div class=\"th59ec48f9 thdbcf9bca\"><div class=\"thd1aa3409\"><img src=\"data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7\" class=\"th666af2ef\"></div></div><div class=\"th98883303 th098849a5\"><div class=\"thd1aa3409\"><img src=\"data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7\" class=\"th666af2ef\"></div></div><div class=\"th80c3f931 th4d972454\"><div class=\"thd1aa3409\"><img src=\"data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7\" class=\"th666af2ef\"></div></div><div class=\"th18dade49 th74154d28\"><div class=\"thd1aa3409\"><img src=\"data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7\" class=\"th666af2ef\"></div></div><div class=\"th09f856c4 th491f6c8c\"><div class=\"thd1aa3409\"><img src=\"data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7\" class=\"th666af2ef\"></div></div><div class=\"the7d0f169 th6eab08b5\"><div class=\"thd1aa3409\"><img src=\"data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7\" class=\"th666af2ef\"></div></div><div class=\"thebd716f8 th63d8e64d\"><div class=\"thd1aa3409\"><div class=\"th42498653 th4a67d334\"><div class=\"thd1aa3409\"><img src=\"https://i1.wp.com/9to5mac.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/6/2016/01/happy-hour-16-9.png?resize=300%2C250&amp;quality=82&amp;strip=all&amp;ssl=1\"></div></div></div></div><div class=\"th6be275a0 th3e200937\"><div class=\"thd1aa3409\"><img src=\"data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7\" class=\"th666af2ef\"></div></div><div class=\"thbf6971e4 th907303df\"><div class=\"thd1aa3409\"><img src=\"data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7\" class=\"th666af2ef\"></div></div><div class=\"thc9d56006 th0e8da6c2\"><div class=\"thd1aa3409\"><img src=\"data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7\" class=\"th666af2ef\"></div></div><div class=\"the098e99c th29b3e14d\"><div class=\"thd1aa3409\"><img src=\"data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7\" class=\"th666af2ef\"></div></div><div class=\"th9d8a44c4 th2201128a\"><div class=\"thd1aa3409\"><img src=\"data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7\" class=\"th666af2ef\"></div></div><div class=\"th5741f8e7 th076ab009\"><div class=\"thd1aa3409\"><img src=\"data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7\" class=\"th666af2ef\"></div></div><div class=\"th98aa1ac6 th13870983\"><div class=\"thd1aa3409\"><img src=\"data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7\" class=\"th666af2ef\"></div></div></p>\n<p>The biggest change is the all-new edge-to-edge display. Apple has been rumored to be working on ~15% bigger displays for both sizes of Apple Watch &#x2014; that rumor has been confirmed in the images we&#x2019;ve discovered. As expected, Apple has achieved this by dramatically reducing the bezel size around the watch display.</p>\n<p>In addition to taking the display edge-to-edge, we&#x2019;re also looking at a brand new watch face capable of showing way more information than the current faces offered. The analog watch face shows a total of eight complications around the time and within the clock hands. While we haven&#x2019;t seen a new digital face yet, it&#x2019;s likely that Apple has designed more new watch faces to take advantage of the larger display.</p>\n<p>Also seen in the image is a new hole between the side button and Digital Crown, likely an additional microphone, and compatibility with what appears to be current watch bands. Both the Digital Crown and side button appear modified from the current Apple Watch models as well.</p>\n<p>Again, for another look at the new Apple Watch Series 4:</p>\n<p><img class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-549316\" src=\"https://9to5mac.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/6/2018/08/apple_watch_series_4_9to5mac.jpg?quality=82&amp;strip=all\" alt=\"\" width=\"1000\"></p>\n<p>(Not a mockup)</p>\n<p>We&#x2019;ll learn much more about what will likely be called the Apple Watch Series 4 on <a href=\"https://9to5mac.com/2018/08/30/apple-iphone-event-announced/\">September 12</a> when Apple is set to unveil its new hardware lineup.</p>\n<p><a href=\"https://9to5mac.com/author/guirambobr/\"><em>Guilherme Rambo contributed to this report.</em></a></p> <p><a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/c/9to5mac?sub_confirmation=1\">Subscribe to 9to5Mac on YouTube for more Apple news:</a></p>\n<p><span class=\"embed-youtube\"><iframe class=\"youtube-player\" width=\"1000\" height=\"563\" src=\"https://www.youtube.com/embed/pPU72f67gZc?version=3&amp;rel=1&amp;fs=1&amp;autohide=2&amp;showsearch=0&amp;showinfo=1&amp;iv_load_policy=1&amp;wmode=transparent\"></iframe></span></p> </div>","url":"https://9to5mac.com/2018/08/30/exclusive-apple-watch-series-4/","date_published":"2018-08-30T18:35:53+00:00","author":{"name":"Zac Hall"}},{"id":"631","title":"cleverdevil/Indiepaper-macOS","content_html":"<body class=\"logged-out env-production page-responsive min-width-0\"> <p id=\"ajax-error-message\" class=\"ajax-error-message\"> <svg class=\"octicon octicon-alert\" width=\"16\" height=\"16\"><path/></svg> You can&#x2019;t perform that action at this time. </p> <p class=\"js-stale-session-flash\"> <svg class=\"octicon octicon-alert\" width=\"16\" height=\"16\"><path/></svg> <span class=\"signed-in-tab-flash\">You signed in with another tab or window. <a href=\"\">Reload</a> to refresh your session.</span> <span class=\"signed-out-tab-flash\">You signed out in another tab or window. <a href=\"\">Reload</a> to refresh your session.</span> </p> <template id=\"site-details-dialog\"> <details class=\"details-reset details-overlay details-overlay-dark lh-default text-gray-dark\"> <summary></summary> <details-dialog class=\"Box Box--overlay d-flex flex-column anim-fade-in fast\"> </details-dialog> </details>\n</template> <p id=\"hovercard-aria-description\" class=\"sr-only\"> Press h to open a hovercard with more details.\n</p> </body>","url":"https://github.com/cleverdevil/Indiepaper-macOS","date_published":"2018-08-29T23:18:50+00:00","author":{"name":"cleverdevil"}},{"id":"630","title":"Configure Indiepaper with IndieAuth","content_html":"<section id=\"content\" class=\"main\"> <img width=\"100\" src=\"https://www.indiepaper.io/images/indieauth-logo-color.png\" alt=\"IndieAuth Logo\"> </section>","url":"https://www.indiepaper.io/indieauth.html?success=true","date_published":"2018-08-29T23:15:50+00:00","author":{"name":""}},{"id":"624","title":"You’re on the list!","content_html":"<p class=\"content\"> <section class=\"thanks\"> <header> </header> <p>Thanks for your interest in helping us test new versions of our software. You&#x2019;ve been added to our signup waiting list and we&#x2019;ll let you know when it&#x2019;s your turn.</p> </section> </p>","url":"https://www.omnigroup.com/test/confirm/7aef13fb-e0c1-40f9-9439-ba2a0bd841c4","date_published":"2018-08-29T17:53:28+00:00","author":{"name":""}},{"id":"612","title":"What's Wrong with Tech? Late Stage Capitalism | The Future of Work","content_html":"<div class=\"content__container\"> <p>As the techlash continues to gather momentum, I wanted to share a perspective that seems to be being overlooked. It&#x2019;s not tech itself that is the problem, it&#x2019;s <em>late-stage capitalism</em>. Let me explain;</p> <p>-----------------------------------------------</p> <p><strong>ACT I </strong></p> <p>A young-ish person sits in a garage/dorm room/Starbucks and comes up with a cool idea.</p> <p>Said young-ish person writes some code, finds some MVP funding, hires a small team, and sets out their shingle.</p> <p>Through a completely mysterious and unpredictable set of circumstances, said young-ish person&#x2019;s company/app &#x2013; let&#x2019;s call it Sunflower &#x2013; starts getting traction.</p> <p>Sunflower&#x2019;s funders arrange the next stage of funding, bringing in other investors &#x2013; typically large institutions.</p> <p>Articles start appearing about the next great thing in tech &#x2013; a small, stealthy start up called Sunflower.</p> <p>Sunflower&#x2019;s traction goes through the roof.</p> <p>Said young-ish person appears on the cover of Wired. Then in articles in the Journal, the Pink &#x2018;Un, the style pages of the Old Gray Lady.</p> <p>The investors invite said young-ish person to a long week-end of &#x201C;next steps brainstorming&#x201D; at the Rosewood Bermuda. &#x201C;Bring a friend&#x201D; they say; &#x201C;H-ll, bring a few friends. Or we&#x2019;ll find some for you&#x201D;.</p> <p>On the third day of spit balling &#x2013; after the cruise on the 100 foot yacht, the dinner with Michael Douglas, the full treatment at the SENSE Spa &#x2013; the investors lay it all out. &#x201C;You&#x2019;ve hit the payload. You can be the next Zuck; the next Steve. We&#x2019;re going to make you a gazillionaire&#x201D;.</p> <p>Gazillionairization begins. The process is simple. Harvest profile data from the usage of Sunflower and sell ads against those profiles.</p> <p>Gazillions flow.</p> <p>Said young-ish person becomes unimaginably wealthy. The investors get wealthier yet.</p> <p>Another great American success story.</p> <p><strong>ACT II</strong></p> <p>Q by Q growth starts declining from 867% to 789% to 689%. The investors call said young-ish person. &#x201C;Fix it FAST&#x201D;.</p> <p>Said young-ish person ideates new customer retention approaches, involving gamification, and behavioral nudges.</p> <p>The head of data analytics from a Las Vegas casino is hired.</p> <p>Cass Sunstein and Richard Thaler are retained for a consulting project.</p> <p>AI systems are created to introduce sludge into customer experiences.</p> <p>The head of sales from a Madison Avenue advertising company is hired.</p> <p>Q by Q growth rebounds.</p> <p>Sunflower goes past 500 million users.</p> <p>Said young-ish person attends Davos.</p> <p>Quarterly numbers disappoint. The investors scream at said young-ish person. &#x201C;Fix it NOW&#x201D;.</p> <p>Algorithms are trained to flag and promote inflammatory posts &#x2013; political, cultural, economic, sexual, violent, fantasy. &#x201C;Making the Extreme Mainstream&#x201D; becomes the whispered joke at Sunflower off-sites.</p> <p>Next quarter numbers are through the roof.</p> <p>Algorithms learn what drives user attention.</p> <p>Ad rates are increased 33%.</p> <p>Further gazillions flow.</p> <p><strong>ACT III </strong></p> <p>Said young-ish person is still young but not quite so young.</p> <p>Sunflower is the S in FAANGS.</p> <p>Said young person spends $7m a year on personal protection.</p> <p>Politicians in Europe and the US demand said young person answer questions about how Sunflower is destroying democracy.</p> <p>Sunflower has more lobbyists in Washington, London, and Brussels than any other company.</p> <p>Quarterly numbers disappoint. The investors plead, &#x201C;You&#x2019;re spending too much time on externalities&#x201D;. Said young person, insulated by his gazillions and his dual class voting system, stares out of the window and wonders when did this all stop being fun?</p> <p>Algorithms are tweaked, favoring political ranting. Rant well and your post is placed in front of other ranters. Ad rates for HRS (High Rant Score) posts are increased 33%.</p> <p>Further gazillions flow.</p> <p>Said young person signs the Giving Pledge.</p> <p>Said young person creates a space exploration company.</p> <p>Seed, Angel, Stage 1, 2, and 3 investors holiday at the Rosewood Bermuda. Said young person doesn&#x2019;t show.</p> <p>Said young person drives cross-country to his parent&#x2019;s house thinking all the way that Sunflower is about fun and joy and lightness and brightness. It&#x2019;s meant to be beautiful. Something to make your day better. Not worse. How did it become a force of darkness and misery? How did I become the whipping boy for all the problems in the world? Why is fake news my problem? Why do I have to make all the crazy people sane? How can I know everyone who&#x2019;s advertising on the site? Whether they&#x2019;re &#x201C;real&#x201D; or not? Honest or not? How I can adjudicate arguments between people. Sunflower&#x2019;s a platform &#x2013; what people do there isn&#x2019;t my problem. Is AT&amp;T responsible for the nonsense people say on a phone call?</p> <p>HRS posts do even better than anticipated. Ad rates are increased a further 15%.</p> <p>The investors extend their Rosewood vacation and decide to go straight to Davos.</p> <p>Said person (really not young at all anymore) gives the WEF a miss, stays home, and posts a picture of his new baby on Sunflower.</p> <p>And, a picture of the ground breaking ceremony of the house at Kukio.</p> <p>-----------------------------------------------</p> <p>The world is awash with capital. The intermediaries that manage this capital have never been larger in scale, more sophisticated, or more aggressive. To make this mountain &#x2013; which estimates put at a multiple of quadrillions of dollars &#x2013; grow (and thus justify their &#x201C;carry&#x201D;) these intermediaries have to find and nurture anything and everything that has the potential to get big quick. In a wealth fund of $100bn, only investments that can generate huge returns on accelerated timescales can be backed.</p> <p>In short, tech has become the epicenter of a toxic brew. What other sector has the potential to generate &#x201C;fast scale hits&#x201D; from relatively small amounts of investment like tech? Infrastructure, healthcare, education, energy? Nope. Returns on investments in bridges, tunnels, pharmaceuticals, and windfarms come slowly over decades, require big up front amounts, and are lathered in regulation and oversight that can drive the average Randian libertarian (even more) insane. Only real estate comes close to tech, hence why London is now full of basement swimming pools and Manhattan is full of 360&#xB0; view condos paid for in cash but empty 300 days of the year.</p> <p>Tech is the wild west of regulatory free low-risk/high-return investing. The Vampire Squids long ago recognized that, and in an era of globalized, free-moving capital have funneled the world&#x2019;s wealth into the hands of said young-ish people with the only requirement being that that capital is repaid in spades.</p> <p>Is it any wonder then that ideas like Sunflower go from being cool and fun to odious in the blink of an eye? Is it any wonder that the beauty of a young person&#x2019;s vision mutates into the ugliness of a machine that&#x2019;s only purpose is to make as much money as quickly as possible? (&#x201C;Maximize shareholder value&#x201D; in the jargon). Is it any wonder that weird long term high-risk/low-return ideas (which have the potential to positively change the world) have no chance of getting funding? Is it any wonder that the financial intermediaries &#x2013; that in aggregate act akin to a single ecosystem algorithm &#x2013; have learnt the recipe of short-term success and nudge their algorithm to favor ideas that are already familiar? Is it any wonder that every new app/url looks and feels the same? Is it any wonder that harvesting user data to sell ads is now <strong>the</strong> business model of the future? (As an aside, does anyone remember that people left TV for the Internet to get away from advertising in the first place?)</p> <p>As a futurist &#x2013; someone whose passion and job it is to find the unevenly distributed future and share its glories &#x2013; it pains me to say that the future is being ruined by money. The capital of past success and its insatiable demands, and the avarice of those that would claim to be able to satisfy it, are cheapening and debasing the technological innovation that many of us love and on which all of us depend. The success of yesterday (capital) is lowering the odds of meaningful success tomorrow. Every new Sunflower is going to go through the same scenario outlined above &#x2026;</p> <p>Unless &#x2026;</p> <p>Unless the next generation of entrepreneurs and innovators reject the Faustian bargain of funding for growth at any cost. Unless more said young-ish people act like Tim Berners-Lee and Jimmy Wales. Unless more capitalists place long term bets that don&#x2019;t rely on advertising based business models. Unless investors favor history making moon shots over instantly forgettable lowest common denominator slam dunks. Unless we customers spend our dollars with companies that don&#x2019;t monetize our data in cavalier ways. Unless we customers recognize there&#x2019;s nothing as expensive as a free lunch, and paying directly for things typically makes sense in the long run.</p> <p>In other words, unless the world changes beyond all recognition &#x2026;</p> <p>In 1973 the actions of Lonrho CEO, Tiny Rowland, led British Prime Minister, Edward Heath, to describe Lonrho&#x2019;s business activities as the &#x201C;unpleasant and unacceptable face of capitalism&#x201D;. In 2018 those actions (too legion to go into here but involving &#x201C;corporate raiding&#x201D; and financial reporting obfuscated by layers of offshore legal entities, spin doctors and lawyers etc.) would be seen as completely normal and unremarkable. Business as usual in fact, for the sharp of elbow and tongue pumped out of business schools by the bus load. The plot line for an episode of Billions &#x2026;</p> <p>In 2018, it is harder and harder to see an acceptable face of capitalism. Without countervailing forces in the world &#x2013; the ethical brake of religion, the critique of Marxists backed by tanks and nuclear weapons &#x2013; capitalism reigns supreme and year on year becomes more unfettered in its ability to create wealth, at greater scale, more quickly, at any cost, and in Piketty&#x2019;s formula, in ways that deliver more and more of that wealth into the hands of the existing owners of wealth. In 2018, capitalism is an idea as powerful as Christianity was in 17<sup>th</sup> century Europe. In 2018, tech is the holy grail of that idea &#x2013; the fulcrum of growth in a world grown stagnant under the weight of its wealth. Tech and late-stage capitalism are melded together in a way that Stewart Brand and Woz and the other members of the Homebrew Computer Club would have never have imagined. Apple was meant to stick it to the man. Now Apple is the Trillion Dollar Man.</p> <p>What&#x2019;s wrong with tech is that it has become a handmaiden to money rather than being a conjurer of new and better worlds. Tech has always been the wellspring of the &#x201C;better&#x201D;; better health, better food, better security, better education, better entertainment, better transport. But now tech can only disrupt if the disruption makes money &#x2013; to hell with making anything better.</p> <p>Tech &#x2013; the tech I love, you love, the tech in the best Sci-Fi &#x2013; is being spoiled (nay, soiled) by the greed of the past. Tech has kowtowed to capital in a way that can&#x2019;t and won&#x2019;t end well. After all, being a handmaiden never has a happy ending &#x2026;</p> <p>Lest this is all beginning to sound too d-mn Commie, let me say a couple of things. First I&#x2019;m not. And secondly, I may be a dreamer &#x2013; that the current modus operandi is unsustainable and needs to change - but I&#x2019;m not the only one.</p> <p>Martin Wolf is no Communist. <a href=\"https://apac01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.ft.com%2Fcontent%2F3aea8668-88e2-11e8-bf9e-8771d5404543&amp;data=02%7C01%7CBenjamin.Pring%40cognizant.com%7C64d36ff1ede44139140b08d5fc71e390%7Cde08c40719b9427d9fe8edf254300ca7%7C0%7C0%7C636692488442301562&amp;sdata=ENseMEkoGjE4peXE9WHfLT3koMDD8FOBSxQKc6tcrqw%3D&amp;reserved=0\">https://www.ft.com/content/3aea8668-88e2-11e8-bf9e-8771d5404543</a> <a href=\"https://nyti.ms/2OjOr4q\">Michael Tomasky</a> is no Communist. <a href=\"https://bit.ly/2vJTO53\">Gary Cohn</a> is no Communist. Marc Benioff is no Communist.</p> <p><img src=\"https://www.cognizant.com/futureofwork/images/article/assets/444d0a8a98d2920217ee1762e7bdb5d8.jpg\" alt=\"\"></p> <p>Yet all of them &#x2013; high priests of capitalism one and all &#x2013; are amongst the many, many business leaders around the world who in differing ways and with different prisms are all saying variations of the same thing. That capital is out of control and that tech is making things worse not better.</p> <p>In fact, to be uncritical of the current state of affairs is to be willfully blind or ignorant to what is really going on. Or maybe it&#x2019;s just a sign that you&#x2019;re spending too long in your counting house counting all your money.</p> <p>Throughout my professional career I&#x2019;ve been an evangelist for tech. Increasingly, I feel like I&#x2019;m becoming an apologist for it.</p> <p>&#x201C;Yes, data is being abused&#x201D;.</p> <p>&#x201C;Yes, the dark side of the Halo seems to have an upper hand&#x201D;.</p> <p>&#x201C;Yes, there will be blood&#x201D;.</p> <p>&#x201C;Yes, many jobs will disappear&#x201D;.</p> <p>&#x201C;But things will be ok &#x2026;&#x201D;</p> <p>I&#x2019;ve long been a Marxist, of the Groucho variety &#x2013; &#x201C;these are my principles and if you don&#x2019;t like them I have others &#x2026; &#x201C;&#x2013; but never of the Karl school. I have no intention of becoming a member anytime soon. But carrying Adam Smith&#x2019;s water is becoming increasingly hard &#x2013; his invisible hand not being good with a bucket.</p> <p>An overthrow of the defining economic system of our age seems unlikely anytime soon. Tech will probably continue down its current path for the rest of my working days. The fever dreams of moderate centrists will likely find no traction. But being a critic &#x2013; an honorable profession itself sullied by the editorial needs of eyeball attraction &#x2013; requires being critical. Tech has messed up. Is messing up. The tech finding funding and favor is not the tech I want. It&#x2019;s far from being the tech that one can love.</p> <p>What&#x2019;s wrong with tech is what&#x2019;s wrong with the world. Monetization rules. Said Young Person can&#x2019;t be entirely blamed. He just wanted to make a fun, cool app. But when the money showed up everything else went out of the window. In the words of another manifestation of late stage capitalism &#x2026; &#x201C;sad&#x201D;.</p> <p>No, an overthrow of the defining economic system of our age does not seem imminent. My critique will likely end up where most critiques end up &#x2013; in a trash can. But then again &#x2026; the decline of Catholicism would have seemed unlikely to Pope Innocent X.</p> <p>Perhaps the darkest hour comes just before dawn.</p> <p>Perhaps.</p> <p>We will see.</p> <p>Said Young People of the world unite. You have nothing to lose but your Blockchain. You have nothing to gain but your souls.</p> <footer class=\"body__footer\"> </footer> </div>","url":"https://www.cognizant.com/futureofwork/article/whats-wrong-with-tech","date_published":"2018-08-28T17:20:43+00:00","author":{"name":""}},{"id":"617","title":"America is married to the mob: But now the crime boss in the White House is feeling the heat","content_html":"<div><article><p>All sorts of melodramatic language has been deployed to describe Donald Trump&#x2019;s presidency over the last couple of years: It&#x2019;s a treasonous conspiracy to undermine American democracy and install a puppet regime controlled by our enemies; it&#x2019;s a slow-motion fascist coup, seeking to undo civil rights and cultural diversity and institute a white-supremacist theocracy.</p> <p>What if it was never anything quite so grandiose? Now that the Trump regime is beginning to crack and crumble &#x2014; one piece at a time, and without the satisfying, cathartic crash so many people have longed for since the fall of 2016 &#x2014; it looks a lot like something more familiar: a second-rate mob drama.</p>\n<p>There&#x2019;s nothing original about this metaphor, which quite likely isn&#x2019;t even a metaphor. It&#x2019;s been there all along: Pulitzer-winning reporter David Cay Johnston, who has followed Donald Trump&#x2019;s career for four decades, has <a href=\"https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/05/donald-trump-2016-mob-organized-crime-213910\">written extensively</a> about Trump&#x2019;s longtime connections to organized crime, as have <a href=\"https://newrepublic.com/article/143253/trump-mobster-president\">numerous other journalists</a>, including Salon&apos;s <a href=\"https://www.salon.com/2018/04/19/michael-cohen-has-many-alleged-links-to-organized-crime-does-that-mean-he-wont-flip-on-trump/\">Heather Digby Parton</a>. Those connections clearly go back to Trump&#x2019;s early days of doing shifty deals in the bottomed-out market of 1970s Manhattan real estate, where the only way to build anything, buy anything or make anything happen was to work with the made men and their allies.</p>\n<p>Investigative reporter Craig Unger&#x2019;s new book &quot;<a href=\"https://amzn.to/2BSJpdw\">House of Trump, House of Putin,</a>&quot; which does indeed allege a sinister relationship between the Russian president and our own (and endorses the theory that embarrassing sexual <em>kompromat</em> plays a role), largely traces the link through Trump&#x2019;s byzantine business empire and his dealings with the Russian mob. Unger&#x2019;s case is complicated and a lot of it is circumstantial; he believes, for example, that Trump was a person of interest to Russian intelligence clear back to the Soviet period. His contention that the Russian crime lords and oligarchs who began arriving in New York in the &#x2018;80s <a href=\"https://newrepublic.com/article/143586/trumps-russian-laundromat-trump-tower-luxury-high-rises-dirty-money-international-crime-syndicate\">used real estate in Trump Tower</a> and other Trump properties as vehicles for money-laundering, and that this arrangement was more than mere coincidence or convenience, is pretty convincing.</p>\n<div> <p>Of course the mob-boss analogy exploded back into the headlines this week, after Paul Manafort&#x2019;s conviction on eight charges of financial fraud (entirely unrelated to his work for Trump, in fairness) and Michael Cohen&#x2019;s plea-bargain admission that he had orchestrated payments to the president&#x2019;s alleged former lovers (or two of them, anyway), in a blatant end-around of campaign finance laws. As the New York Times observed in a <a href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/23/us/politics/trump-vocabulary-mob.html\">front-page article</a> &#x2014; as usual, after everyone else had said the same thing &#x2014; Trump&#x2019;s embittered responses about who had been a &#x201C;rat&#x201D; and who hadn&#x2019;t, and whether &#x201C;flipping&#x201D; to cooperate with prosecutors ought to be illegal, seemed straight out of the mobbed-up New York of 1980s Hollywood movies.</p>\n</div> <p>I can&#x2019;t even say it was startling to encounter the president of the United States talking (or tweeting) like some goombah two notches below John Gotti holding forth in a Queens Boulevard diner. Can you? It should be obvious by now that this is a person with no perception of boundaries, so massively narcissistic that he either doesn&#x2019;t notice or doesn&#x2019;t care what people from the more respectable quadrants of society think of him. Indeed, Trump&#x2019;s ability to shock the bourgeoisie &#x2014; to use that term very loosely &#x2014; is an important aspect of his supposed mass appeal. Just as his fans celebrate his shameless vulgarity, I think they also love his evident criminality, which may bespeak profound cynicism not just about politics but about human nature.</p>\n<p>What I found amusing, and perhaps oddly revelatory, was that Trump felt the need to <a href=\"https://www.salon.com/2018/08/23/trump-argues-michael-cohens-hush-money-payments-werent-crimes-and-flipping-should-be-outlawed/\">explain to Fox News viewers</a> what the term &#x201C;flipping&#x201D; meant. Because there is literally no one in America &#x2014; not the 86-year-old retired school-bus driver in North Dakota, not anyone &#x2014; whose consciousness has not been shaped by endless hours of gangland dramas and police procedurals and zany mobster comedies produced since &#x201C;The Godfather&#x201D; was released in 1972. Everybody knows what flipping is, and everybody knows that&#x2019;s what Michael Cohen just did to his former boss; the possibility had been discussed in the media for weeks beforehand.</p>\n<p>But Trump has no idea what people know and don&#x2019;t know, which strikes me as an important insight. His cultural references and his reality framework are decades out of date, which is probably why he&#x2019;s so obsessed with violent crime (which in the real world is at historically low levels, especially in the city where he has lived his entire life). No matter what Trump says or what his devotees pretend to believe about him, he has virtually no contact with the lives of ordinary people, and perceives them only as hazy extras in a mid-century movie where he, of course, is the hero. Perhaps he understands them as innocents or rubes or marks or lovable pets &#x2014; and those are the ones he claims to like! &#x2014; although it&#x2019;s not healthy to venture too far into speculative Trumpian psychology. But he presumes they know nothing about the stuff tough guys like him have to deal with, such as having your longtime personal attorney &quot;flip&quot; on you and &quot;rat&quot; you out.</p> <p>The simpler way to say this is that <em>Donald Trump is a mobster</em>, and he&#x2019;s been a mobster all his life. He&#x2019;s sitting inside a vast palace of corruption, looking down at the peasants gathered at the gates. How should he know what non-mobsters think or believe? Why should he even be interested?</p>\n<p>This isn&#x2019;t an idle observation. It might be a key to understanding this strange moment in American history. I&#x2019;ve devoted a lot of mental effort over the last couple of years to making sense of the &#x201C;Donald Trump era,&#x201D; suggesting that it inaugurated a <a href=\"https://www.salon.com/2017/04/29/welcome-to-the-new-age-of-revolution-it-isnt-over-yet-and-we-have-no-idea-where-its-going/\">new age of revolutionary chaos</a>, or marked the next stage of what Jean Baudrillard called <a href=\"https://www.salon.com/2017/07/29/from-911-to-president-donald-trump-a-short-history-of-world-war-iv/\">World War IV</a>, the post-9/11 internal conflict within the Western world. I still believe those big-think questions have some salience, but in terms of the current specific situation in American politics, it might be a lot simpler than that. Maybe Trump is just a big old crook, and the lawmen are now hunting him in classic fashion, by following the money.</p>\n<p>It&#x2019;s worth noting that Robert Mueller and several members of his team have considerable experience in tracking and cracking both organized crime and white-collar crime (which are highly similar in structural terms, albeit with more broken bones and dead bodies attached to the former). They&#x2019;ve been trying to find a way into the criminal edifice of the Trump empire, which is guarded by mist, shadows and dragons, and now they&#x2019;ve got one: The blatantly stupid mishandling of some payoffs to old girlfriends, which probably happened that way because nobody involved even understood they were illegal. As Donald Trump undoubtedly knows, Al Capone was probably responsible for dozens of murders. He was never even charged with any of them, but wound up in federal prison for tax evasion.</p>\n<p><a href=\"https://goo.gl/bbg6Qx\">READ MORE: <i>When a woman is accused of sexual misconduct: The strange case of Avital Ronell</i></a></p>\n<p>Who, we might add, did Trump hire as his personal attorney, after jettisoning Cohen and John Dowd and Ty Cobb and whoever else? Rudy Giuliani, of course, who has made a monstrous hash of his TV appearances. But Rudy got elected mayor of New York in the first place because he had broken up the mob as U.S. attorney in the early &#x2018;90s. If there&#x2019;s one&#xA0;area where he has unquestioned legal expertise,&#xA0;it&#x2019;s the strengths and weaknesses of criminal enterprises.</p>\n<p>Trump&#x2019;s mob-boss outburst on Fox News, we might add, came even before we learned two more mob-style news items. A pair of Trump&#x2019;s most trusted confidants, <a href=\"https://www.salon.com/2018/08/24/tabloid-tell-all-national-enquirer-publisher-poised-to-flip-on-donald-trump/\">American Media CEO David Pecker</a> (effectively the publisher of National Enquirer) and <a href=\"https://www.salon.com/2018/08/24/longtime-trump-organization-cfo-set-to-testify-in-michael-cohen-case-after-being-granted-immunity/\">Trump Organization CFO Allen Weisselberg</a>, were granted immunity in the Michael Cohen investigation. This was presumably so they could tell federal prosecutors in New York exactly how Trump funneled money through Cohen to Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal.</p> <p>Weisselberg, a man who stays out of the limelight and&#xA0;is believed to know almost everything about Donald Trump&apos;s finances, is obviously a figure of enormous concern to the president. There&#x2019;s been a whole lot of overheated speculation from the likes of <a href=\"https://www.cnn.com/2018/08/24/politics/allen-weisselberg-trump/index.html\">Chris Cillizza at CNN</a>&#xA0;and <a href=\"https://hillreporter.com/alan-weisselberg-knows-everything-trump-will-resign-says-art-of-the-deal-author-tony-schwartz-6311\">Trump ghostwriter Tony Schwartz</a> about what Weisselberg (or Pecker) might have to say about other matters to other investigators, now that he can&#x2019;t be prosecuted (or pardoned, for that matter) for whatever less-than-legal stuff he may have signed onto. But Weisselberg has not spoken to Mueller or his grand jury, as far as we know, and I suspect that&#x2019;s missing the point.</p>\n<p>What&#xA0;the media&apos;s&#xA0;many students of scandal-ology keep assuming, or hoping, is that some huge and dramatic reveal is coming, the proverbial smoking gun that will definitively prove that Donald Trump conspired with the Russians to hack Hillary Clinton&#x2019;s emails, spread lies on the internet and &#x201C;steal&#x201D; the election. Trump will be hauled away in chains, every elected Republican in the country will resign in disgrace and Nancy Pelosi will unanimously be elected emperor for life. Or something. I have a prediction to make: Nope. I am fairly well convinced that Robert Mueller has concluded no such evidence exists, and that the 2016 Trump campaign&apos;s collaboration with Russian agents &#x2014; while dubious and sleazy as all get-out &#x2014; was pretty much a freelance or impromptu sideline endeavor to the much larger criminal project of House Trump.</p>\n<p>When Trump protests, in public and apparently in private, that the criminal conspiracy in which Michael Cohen has implicated him was an obscure technical violation of campaign finance law and had nothing to do with Russian collusion, he is 100 percent correct. He too is missing the point. Turning Cohen against the guy who believed he was the unassailable <em>capo di tutti capi &#x2014; </em>and to some extent turning Pecker and Weisselberg too &#x2014; was less about the specific charges in the Cohen case than about a demonstration of prosecutorial power. If you&apos;re looking for some reassurance about the enduring force of American institutions, there it is: The man who has consistently maintained he is above the law is not. Now the mob boss in the big house on Pennsylvania Avenue knows that his enemies have him encircled and have identified his weak spots, and that even his most trusted lieutenants can be trusted no longer.</p>\n<p>This may well be the beginning of the end of the Trump presidency, although its endgame could take a long while yet. I have a further prediction, which is that we will probably never know for sure what happened between Donald Trump and the Russians, or exactly what kind of leverage Vladimir Putin has over Trump. That will be endlessly disappointing to those who want the real world to have the plot points of a miniseries (which, in fairness, is almost everyone), but it doesn&#x2019;t mean Trump will get off scot-free.</p>\n<p>Craig Unger&#x2019;s book, which overtly seeks to prove the most grandiose case for collusion (and gets at least part of the way there), is full of so much arcane back story and rampant speculation that it reads like a first draft abandoned by John le Carr&#xE9; as too hard to follow. Mueller appears to have given up on pursuing those fairytales and legends, and is following a much simpler narrative. He believes Donald Trump is running a moderately successful but not very efficient crime family, which blundered into pulling off the biggest con job in history. He knows what to do in that situation: Keep on squeezing the money and sooner or later it talks.</p> </article><div id=\"lp-wrapper-inline\"> <div> </div>\n</div></div>","url":"https://www.salon.com/2018/08/25/america-is-married-to-the-mob-but-now-the-crime-boss-in-the-white-house-is-feeling-the-heat/","date_published":"2018-08-25T12:00:01+00:00","author":{"name":""}},{"id":"607","title":"An inversion of nature: how air conditioning created the modern city","content_html":"<div><div class=\"content__article-body from-content-api js-article__body\">\n<p>Once, when I was staying in Houston, Texas, my host was showing me round her house. It included a mighty fireplace.</p>\n<p>&#x201C;How often does it get cold enough to light a fire?&#x201D; I asked, as what little I knew about the city included the fact that it is mostly hot and humid. Maybe once or twice a year, she replied, but her husband came from Wisconsin. He liked a log fire. So they would turn up the air conditioning and light one.</p>\n<aside class=\"element element-pullquote element--supporting\">\n\n<blockquote>\n<p class=\"pullquote-paragraph\">We reached the point where a ski-slope with &apos;real&apos; snow could be built in a Dubai shopping mall and air-conditioned football stadiums could be planned for the 2022 Qatar World Cup</p>\n</blockquote>\n</aside>\n<p>This was climate as television, to be summoned with the twiddle of a dial, the outcome of a century which started in 1902, when Willis Carrier was simply asked to find a way to prevent heat and humidity from warping the paper at the Brooklyn printing company Sackett-Wilhelms. But the air-conditioning that he helped develop has changed buildings, and the ways they are used, more than any other invention: more than reinforced concrete, plate glass, safety elevators or steel frames. Its effects have directed the locations and shapes of cities. They have been social, cultural and geopolitical.</p>\n<p>The shopping mall would have been inconceivable without air conditioning, as would the deep-plan and glass-walled office block, as would computer servers. The rise of Hollywood in the 1920s would have been slowed if, as previously, theatres had needed to close in hot weather. The expansion of tract housing in postwar suburban America relied on affordable domestic air conditioning units. A contemporary museum, such as Tate Modern or Moma, requires a carefully controlled climate to protect the works of art.</p>\n<figure class=\"element element-image img--landscape  fig--narrow-caption fig--has-shares \" id=\"img-2\">\n<meta>\n<meta>\n<meta>\n<a href=\"https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2018/aug/14/how-air-conditioning-created-modern-city?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other#img-2\" class=\"article__img-container js-gallerythumbs\">\n<div class=\"u-responsive-ratio\">\n<picture>\n\n<source srcset=\"https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/df5021026d04c2141f82dc253e8eb091499a2847/160_491_4527_2716/master/4527.jpg?width=620&amp;quality=45&amp;auto=format&amp;usm=12&amp;fit=max&amp;dpr=2&amp;s=1bdf3833174ecced6a72d1f5aae7a16d 1240w\">\n<source srcset=\"https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/df5021026d04c2141f82dc253e8eb091499a2847/160_491_4527_2716/master/4527.jpg?width=620&amp;quality=85&amp;auto=format&amp;usm=12&amp;fit=max&amp;s=2e5a0dd7b38291ec2301eafafb75db5b 620w\">\n<source srcset=\"https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/df5021026d04c2141f82dc253e8eb091499a2847/160_491_4527_2716/master/4527.jpg?width=605&amp;quality=45&amp;auto=format&amp;usm=12&amp;fit=max&amp;dpr=2&amp;s=59c552ad5f8db509656ead2dd7775497 1210w\">\n<source srcset=\"https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/df5021026d04c2141f82dc253e8eb091499a2847/160_491_4527_2716/master/4527.jpg?width=605&amp;quality=85&amp;auto=format&amp;usm=12&amp;fit=max&amp;s=a90b00774250e835f0456a6a1aafce69 605w\">\n<source srcset=\"https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/df5021026d04c2141f82dc253e8eb091499a2847/160_491_4527_2716/master/4527.jpg?width=445&amp;quality=45&amp;auto=format&amp;usm=12&amp;fit=max&amp;dpr=2&amp;s=886498f56ba6eda52e4bf81679a8fbc2 890w\">\n<source srcset=\"https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/df5021026d04c2141f82dc253e8eb091499a2847/160_491_4527_2716/master/4527.jpg?width=445&amp;quality=85&amp;auto=format&amp;usm=12&amp;fit=max&amp;s=56faf31aee803d29cb810fd2ff0ed170 445w\">\n\n<img class=\"gu-image\" alt=\"The Avenues shopping mall in Kuwait City.\" src=\"https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/df5021026d04c2141f82dc253e8eb091499a2847/160_491_4527_2716/master/4527.jpg?width=300&amp;quality=85&amp;auto=format&amp;usm=12&amp;fit=max&amp;s=0e7f78c3c77a8d69c514c955caa071ad\">\n</picture>\n</div>  </a>\n\n<figcaption class=\"caption caption--img caption caption--img\">\n Shoppers inside the Avenues mall in Kuwait City. Photograph: Alamy\n</figcaption>\n</figure>\n<p>Cities have boomed in places where, previously, the climate would have held them back. In 1950, 28% of the population of the US lived in its sunbelt, 40% in 2000. The combined population of the Gulf cities went from less than 500,000 before 1950 to 20 million now. Neither the rise of Singapore, nor the exploding cities of China and India, would have happened in the same way if they had still relied on punkah fans, shady verandas and afternoon naps.</p>\n<p>There are, of course, other factors, such as the presence of oil reserves in both Houston and the Gulf, but the mitigation of otherwise unbearable temperatures radically changed the way the stories of these cities played out. And so, in the 21st century, we reached the point where a ski-slope with &#x201C;real&#x201D; snow could be built in a Dubai shopping mall and air-conditioned football stadiums could be planned for the 2022 Qatar World Cup, epics of refrigeration whose USP was their outrageous &#x2013; and hitherto unfeasible &#x2013; inversion of nature.</p>\n<figure class=\"element element-embed\">\n<iframe src=\"https://www.theguardian.com/email/form/plaintone/4266\" height=\"52px\" class=\"iframed--overflow-hidden email-sub__iframe js-email-sub__iframe js-email-sub__iframe--article\"></iframe>\n<figcaption class=\"caption caption--img\">\nThe Cityscape: get the best of Guardian Cities delivered to you every week, with just-released data, features and on-the-ground reports from all over the world\n</figcaption>\n</figure>\n<p>With air conditioning goes a new kind of architecture, one in which traditional hot-climate devices such as porches, cross-ventilation or pools of water, which create both layers and permeability between inside and out, have given way to sealed boxes. Persian wind-catching towers, or the fountains of the Alhambra, or the humble dogtrot house of the southern US, in which living and cooking quarters are separated by a passage open to the breeze, all proceeded by negotiation between built fabric and the environment. Now it is a matter of technological conquest.</p>\n<p>Building services &#x2013; their heating, cooling and ventilating systems &#x2013; came to eat up larger proportions of their total budgets. The people who designed them, services engineers, became influential if underacknowledged officers in the shaping of cities. By the 1980s, buildings such as Richard Rogers&#x2019; Lloyds building gave formal expression to the ducts and extracts that until then had been hidden. In the Die Hard movies they become a crucial setting of suspense and action, being large enough to accommodate the body of Bruce Willis.</p>\n<figure class=\"element element-image img--landscape element--showcase  fig--narrow-caption fig--has-shares \" id=\"img-3\">\n<meta>\n<meta>\n<meta>\n<a href=\"https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2018/aug/14/how-air-conditioning-created-modern-city?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other#img-3\" class=\"article__img-container js-gallerythumbs\">\n<div class=\"u-responsive-ratio\">\n<picture>\n\n<source srcset=\"https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/64258763deb0dafc0cc2b090fd0e8eb7a8c7e2bf/229_0_3620_2172/master/3620.jpg?width=860&amp;quality=45&amp;auto=format&amp;usm=12&amp;fit=max&amp;dpr=2&amp;s=b755597c79ee4d0b89d4ff08463037c2 1720w\">\n<source srcset=\"https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/64258763deb0dafc0cc2b090fd0e8eb7a8c7e2bf/229_0_3620_2172/master/3620.jpg?width=860&amp;quality=85&amp;auto=format&amp;usm=12&amp;fit=max&amp;s=f7ebe5942fd265fe9df21a7aece7ce9d 860w\">\n<source srcset=\"https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/64258763deb0dafc0cc2b090fd0e8eb7a8c7e2bf/229_0_3620_2172/master/3620.jpg?width=780&amp;quality=45&amp;auto=format&amp;usm=12&amp;fit=max&amp;dpr=2&amp;s=8c81cf9d055aca3a79efab17098e24ec 1560w\">\n<source srcset=\"https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/64258763deb0dafc0cc2b090fd0e8eb7a8c7e2bf/229_0_3620_2172/master/3620.jpg?width=780&amp;quality=85&amp;auto=format&amp;usm=12&amp;fit=max&amp;s=6d934e29d4429c55c70d66af929c243d 780w\">\n<source srcset=\"https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/64258763deb0dafc0cc2b090fd0e8eb7a8c7e2bf/229_0_3620_2172/master/3620.jpg?width=620&amp;quality=45&amp;auto=format&amp;usm=12&amp;fit=max&amp;dpr=2&amp;s=483508dc9857e683b7443a937e5ded74 1240w\">\n<source srcset=\"https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/64258763deb0dafc0cc2b090fd0e8eb7a8c7e2bf/229_0_3620_2172/master/3620.jpg?width=620&amp;quality=85&amp;auto=format&amp;usm=12&amp;fit=max&amp;s=a12864eb1f7595ed272d5aec0d8846f9 620w\">\n<source srcset=\"https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/64258763deb0dafc0cc2b090fd0e8eb7a8c7e2bf/229_0_3620_2172/master/3620.jpg?width=605&amp;quality=45&amp;auto=format&amp;usm=12&amp;fit=max&amp;dpr=2&amp;s=4a60a81110426e9e4d1facabdf0027dd 1210w\">\n<source srcset=\"https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/64258763deb0dafc0cc2b090fd0e8eb7a8c7e2bf/229_0_3620_2172/master/3620.jpg?width=605&amp;quality=85&amp;auto=format&amp;usm=12&amp;fit=max&amp;s=494d4283349c66fba96484b06b28f5e2 605w\">\n<source srcset=\"https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/64258763deb0dafc0cc2b090fd0e8eb7a8c7e2bf/229_0_3620_2172/master/3620.jpg?width=445&amp;quality=45&amp;auto=format&amp;usm=12&amp;fit=max&amp;dpr=2&amp;s=8495ddd577f7adf3e90d6fd85a4f06c3 890w\">\n<source srcset=\"https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/64258763deb0dafc0cc2b090fd0e8eb7a8c7e2bf/229_0_3620_2172/master/3620.jpg?width=445&amp;quality=85&amp;auto=format&amp;usm=12&amp;fit=max&amp;s=04fbe13a082bb7e0acc352dd46e9ff5f 445w\">\n\n<img class=\"gu-image\" alt=\"Air conditioning enables people to move from their homes to their cars to a shopping mall, or office &#x2013; all conditioned environments.\" src=\"https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/64258763deb0dafc0cc2b090fd0e8eb7a8c7e2bf/229_0_3620_2172/master/3620.jpg?width=300&amp;quality=85&amp;auto=format&amp;usm=12&amp;fit=max&amp;s=4b4ace5bea7403ce2911fda48b3f68c9\">\n</picture>\n</div>  </a>\n\n<figcaption class=\"caption caption--img caption caption--img\">\n Air conditioning enables people to move from their homes to their cars to a shopping mall, or office &#x2013; all conditioned environments. Photograph: Alamy\n</figcaption>\n</figure>\n<p>The most significant architectural effect of air conditioning, however, is in the social spaces it creates. In Houston, as in most southern American cities, you can progress from your air-conditioned house to your air-conditioned garage and then in your air-conditioned car to parking garages, malls and workplaces which are all, also, air-conditioned. In the city&#x2019;s downtown area, underpasses and bridges link different buildings, so that you can go from one to another without exposing yourself to the exterior. It is possible, indeed habitual, to spend whole days and weeks in controlled weather.</p>\n<p>In the brutal climate of Doha, Qatar (or indeed in Dubai, Shenzhen or Singapore) similar spaces recur. Buildings which appear separate from the outside (for the few, that is, who choose to be outside) are internally fused, a hotel turning into a mall into a food court into a multiplex via a series of lobbies whose d&#xE9;cor of marble, carpet and timber veneer can&#x2019;t decide if it is internal or external. The hierarchies and distinctions of European cities &#x2013; between buildings and streets, and between degrees of public and private space &#x2013; are bypassed and dissolved.</p>\n<p>The architect Rem Koolhaas called this phenomenon &#x201C;Junkspace&#x201D;, a &#x201C;product of the encounter between escalator and air conditioning, conceived in an incubator of sheetrock &#x2026; always interior, so extensive that you rarely perceive limits.&#x201D; In the Gulf and China as in much of the US, the mall became the principal gathering place, being a zone where large numbers could comfortably pass their time, leaving streets to be occupied by air conditioning&#x2019;s mechanical ally, the automobile.</p>\n<aside class=\"element element-pullquote element--supporting\">\n\n<blockquote>\n<p class=\"pullquote-paragraph\">Air conditioning is anti-social. It buys its owner comfort at the cost of shifting the surplus heat somewhere else</p>\n</blockquote>\n</aside>\n<p>The result is a form of sensory deprivation that almost everyone now accepts without question, in which the active interplay of body and atmosphere becomes homogenised and passive. The stimuli of scent, touch, sound and sight are almost entirely at the discretion of the mall management: &#x201C;a low grade purgatory&#x201D;, as Koolhaas called it, &#x201C;overripe and undernourishing at the same time &#x2026; like being condemned to a perpetual jacuzzi with millions of your best friends.&#x201D;</p>\n<p>There is also an absence of what a European might consider public space, that is somewhere in principle available to everyone, open to activities both unprogrammed and not necessarily retail. It has been observed that the climate-controlled networks of Houston or Jakarta or Dubai can serve not only to exclude heat and humidity, but also those considered undesirable or insufficiently profitable. In such places there is a clear divide, social and often racial, between those inside the conditioned cocoon and those outside. The street becomes actively hostile, the effects of weather compounded by those of motor traffic and indifference to the needs of pedestrians. Here are the people you don&#x2019;t see in the malls &#x2013; the blue-uniformed migrant workers in the Gulf, the homeless and luckless in America.</p>\n<p>Environmentally speaking, air conditioning is anti-social. It buys its owner comfort at the cost of shifting the surplus heat somewhere else, on to surrounding streets and ultimately into the atmosphere of the planet. The night-time temperature of Phoenix, Arizona, is believed to be <a href=\"http://www.conservationmagazine.org/2014/07/vicious-cycle-air-conditioning-is-making-your-city-even-hotter/\" class=\"u-underline\">increased by one degree or more</a> by the heat expelled from its air conditioning. This is, you could say, the perfectly neoliberal technology, based on division and displacement. <a href=\"https://www.pri.org/stories/2014-10-04/how-air-conditioning-got-ronald-reagan-elected-president\" class=\"u-underline\">According to one theory</a>, air conditioning helped to elect Ronald Reagan, by attracting conservatively inclined retirees to the southern states that swung in his favour.</p>\n<figure class=\"element element-image img--landscape  fig--narrow-caption fig--has-shares \" id=\"img-4\">\n<meta>\n<meta>\n<meta>\n<a href=\"https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2018/aug/14/how-air-conditioning-created-modern-city?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other#img-4\" class=\"article__img-container js-gallerythumbs\">\n<div class=\"u-responsive-ratio\">\n<picture>\n\n<source srcset=\"https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/6187773f830580d2bdd9f2ea95fb3ecc8d5236ff/0_324_4866_2920/master/4866.jpg?width=620&amp;quality=45&amp;auto=format&amp;usm=12&amp;fit=max&amp;dpr=2&amp;s=23d958e8839d140a2256bc7b07b4a643 1240w\">\n<source srcset=\"https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/6187773f830580d2bdd9f2ea95fb3ecc8d5236ff/0_324_4866_2920/master/4866.jpg?width=620&amp;quality=85&amp;auto=format&amp;usm=12&amp;fit=max&amp;s=7e1db57bb52f6b2b91330251ddd68462 620w\">\n<source srcset=\"https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/6187773f830580d2bdd9f2ea95fb3ecc8d5236ff/0_324_4866_2920/master/4866.jpg?width=605&amp;quality=45&amp;auto=format&amp;usm=12&amp;fit=max&amp;dpr=2&amp;s=fcb65d06a5227b6f8f13e4fa3b1075a9 1210w\">\n<source srcset=\"https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/6187773f830580d2bdd9f2ea95fb3ecc8d5236ff/0_324_4866_2920/master/4866.jpg?width=605&amp;quality=85&amp;auto=format&amp;usm=12&amp;fit=max&amp;s=3aad75ddeca90ad6cca044b7af1f05c6 605w\">\n<source srcset=\"https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/6187773f830580d2bdd9f2ea95fb3ecc8d5236ff/0_324_4866_2920/master/4866.jpg?width=445&amp;quality=45&amp;auto=format&amp;usm=12&amp;fit=max&amp;dpr=2&amp;s=04a34fc4a949978eba2727777696ef4d 890w\">\n<source srcset=\"https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/6187773f830580d2bdd9f2ea95fb3ecc8d5236ff/0_324_4866_2920/master/4866.jpg?width=445&amp;quality=85&amp;auto=format&amp;usm=12&amp;fit=max&amp;s=e3ce844724c92735ae5e887696b072b8 445w\">\n\n<img class=\"gu-image\" alt=\"Air conditioning units in Shenyang, China.\" src=\"https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/6187773f830580d2bdd9f2ea95fb3ecc8d5236ff/0_324_4866_2920/master/4866.jpg?width=300&amp;quality=85&amp;auto=format&amp;usm=12&amp;fit=max&amp;s=a1052362923bd5270bf70451340cd740\">\n</picture>\n</div>  </a>\n\n<figcaption class=\"caption caption--img caption caption--img\">\n Air conditioning units in Shenyang, China. Photograph: VCG via Getty Images\n</figcaption>\n</figure>\n<p>In pointing out the shortcomings of air conditioning, it is easy to overlook its achievements, to ask, in the style of Life of Brian, what it ever did for us. Considerable reductions in the loss of life through excess heat is one answer. Increased productivity and economic activity in hot regions of the world is another. Or better-functioning hospitals and schools. Most of us would be grateful for its contribution to computing and movies. Few people who have spent time in hot and humid climates would not sometimes want the refuge of artificially cooled air.</p>\n<p>One defence of air-conditioned cities is that they are <a href=\"https://www.citylab.com/equity/2013/03/cities-dependent-air-conditioning-might-be-more-sustainable-we-think/5115/\" class=\"u-underline\">more energy-efficient than very cold cities</a> &#x2013; Minneapolis, for example &#x2013; that need to be heated up in winter, and if the statistics of energy consumption sound terrifying, they can also be put in perspective. The US expends more energy on air conditioning, for example, than the whole of Africa does on everything. Then again, it expends even more energy on hot water, which doesn&#x2019;t get the same rap.</p>\n<aside class=\"element element-rich-link element--thumbnail element-rich-link--not-upgraded\">\n\n</aside>\n<p>The question then is not whether to condition climate, but how. As long ago as the 1940s the Egyptian architect Hassan Fathy demonstrated, with his village of <a href=\"https://www.wmf.org/project/new-gourna-village\" class=\"u-underline\">New Gourna</a> near Luxor, how traditional techniques of orientation, ventilation, screening and shading could be revived. Many contemporary architects are following his lead &#x2013; the Nigerian Kunl&#xE9; Adeyemi, for example, whose new <a href=\"http://www.nleworks.com/case/black-rhino-academy/\" class=\"u-underline\">Black Rhino Academy</a> in Tanzania tries to optimise the conditions for its users by finding the best location, environmentally speaking, on its site.</p>\n<p>If these principles are now better known, the challenge remains to expand the village-scale achievements of an architect like Hassan Fathy to large, fast-growing cities. Addressing this challenge is the promise of high-profile, government-backed projects such as Msheireb in Qatar and Masdar City in Abu Dhabi, which boast of their combinations of old forms &#x2013; shady courtyards and arcades; narrow, breezy streets &#x2013; with solar panel arrays and what Masdar&#x2019;s architects, Foster and Partners, call &#x201C;state-of-the-art technologies&#x201D;.</p>\n<p>There has been some scepticism, about Masdar in particular, that these projects&#x2019; purposes might be more symbolic than truly environmental. But the places they create are incomparably more pleasurable than the downtowns, mechanised by cars and air-conditioning, of the cities in which they are placed. They are, at least, steps forward in what is an essential task for the 21st century: to develop new forms of public space in hot climates, not the city-scaled habitable fridges of the 20th.</p>\n<p><em>Follow Guardian Cities on <a href=\"https://twitter.com/guardiancities\" class=\"u-underline\">Twitter</a>, <a href=\"https://www.facebook.com/guardiancities\" class=\"u-underline\">Facebook</a> and <a href=\"https://www.instagram.com/guardiancities/?hl=en\" class=\"u-underline\">Instagram</a> to join the discussion, and <a href=\"https://www.theguardian.com/cities\" class=\"u-underline\">explore our archive here</a></em></p>\n\n\n</div></div>","url":"https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2018/aug/14/how-air-conditioning-created-modern-city","date_published":"2018-08-14T05:00:53+00:00","author":{"name":"Rowan Moore"}},{"id":"377","title":"The EPA's own staff are aghast that Trump is bringing back asbestos","content_html":"<div class=\"amp-wp-article-content\"> <p>\rThe Trump administration&apos;s plan to <a href=\"https://boingboing.net/2018/08/07/russian-asbestos-firm-loves-tr.html\">bring back asbestos</a> is right in line with Trumpist ideology that any science that interferes with profits is a hoax (Trump claims that <a href=\"https://archpaper.com/2018/08/epa-asbestos-manufacturing/\">the asbestos-cancer link is a conspiracy</a> to help the mafia make money on asbestos removal contracts), and the fact that the leading Russian asbestos company (which has ties to Putin) <a href=\"https://www.ewg.org/release/russian-asbestos-giant-praises-trump-administration-actions-keep-deadly-carcinogen-legal\">put Trump&apos;s face on their packaging</a> is just an extra too-shitty-to-be-true detail for all of us to ponder as we die of mesothelioma in a few years. </p><p>\rThe New York Times has obtained a trove of internal EPA memos showing that the agency&apos;s own staff are just as frightened and upset by this reckless maneuver as the rest of us. </p>\n<blockquote>\r<p>\r&#x201C;Upper management asked us to take a different approach,&#x201D; wrote Robert T. Courtnage, an associate chief in E.P.A.&#x2019;s Office of Pollution Prevention and Toxics, in an April 25 email sent to 13 members of an agency group working on the then-forthcoming proposal. Specifically: Rather than call for all new uses of asbestos to come before the E.P.A. for a risk review, the rule would include just 15 specific uses that would trigger a federal assessment.\r</p>\n</blockquote><p>\r<a href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/10/climate/epa-asbestos-rule.html\">E.P.A. Staff Objected to Agency&#x2019;s New Rules on Asbestos Use, Internal Emails Show</a> [Lisa Friedman/NY Times] </p>\t</div>","url":"https://boingboing.net/2018/08/10/lung-busters.html","date_published":"2018-08-10T18:39:17+00:00","author":{"name":"Cory Doctorow"}},{"id":"374","title":"Tips for Watching the Perseid Meteor Shower with Your Toddler, as Written by Someone Who Has Never Seen a Meteor Shower and Who Has Never Interacted with a Toddler for More Than a Few Minutes","content_html":"<div class=\"article-body\"> <p>Meteor showers are a unique chance to reach beyond earth&#x2019;s atmosphere and personally connect with the Universe in a real-time show more exciting than any fireworks display. And what better way to enjoy that spectacle than by sharing it with your toddler! But before you grab your little astronomer and hit a nearby rooftop, make sure to read through these helpful tips.</p>\n<h4>1. Get your toddler prepared for staying up late</h4>\n<p>The best time to see the meteor shower is very, very late at night. Fortunately, kids love staying up late. The best way to make sure your toddler will be able to stay up that late is to get him accustomed to it by keeping him up very late all week leading up to the big night.</p>\n<h4>2. Make sure to bring a pair of really good binoculars</h4>\n<p>Binoculars are great to get an even better view of the show. But only really good expensive ones are going to do the trick. So bring your best binoculars to share with your toddler.</p>\n<h4>3. Pack a snack your toddler will find out-of-this-world</h4>\n<p>Since this will already be quite the adventure for your little sidekick, it&#x2019;s the perfect time to introduce an exotic new food. What a special night &#x2013; first shooting star and first spicy tuna roll!</p>\n<h4>4. Set expectations sky-high</h4>\n<p>Tell your toddler this will be the most amazing thing she&#x2019;s ever seen. Then, when you get to the viewing location, if she starts to get antsy, all you have to do is just keep telling her, &#x201C;it&#x2019;s almost starting!&#x201D;</p>\n<h4>5. Use this special opportunity to introduce important new concepts to your toddler</h4>\n<p>Late at night, under the stars, in the middle of the majesty of the Universe is a wonderful time to introduce big new ideas to your toddler by telling him that each shooting star he sees is a member of The Wiggles ascending to heaven.</p> </div>","url":"https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/tips-for-watching-the-perseid-meteor-shower-with-your-toddler-as-written-by-someone-who-has-never-seen-a-meteor-shower-and-who-has-never-interacted-with-a-toddler-for-more-than-a-few-minutes","date_published":"2018-08-10T15:17:59+00:00","author":{"name":"MICHAEL WARD"}},{"id":"373","title":"Insane mudslide caught on video in Switzerland","content_html":"<div><div id=\"story\"> <p>\nMudslides cascading down from the steep Swiss mountains are common enough that locals knew to come out and watch them, but even jaded locals were surprised by <a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H1C40Xom8KU\">the intensity of slides</a> so big they didn&apos;t fit under the bridges.</p> <p>\n<img src=\"https://i0.wp.com/media.boingboing.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/swiss-mudslide-01.jpeg?resize=600%2C307&amp;ssl=1%20600w,%20https://i0.wp.com/media.boingboing.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/swiss-mudslide-01.jpeg?resize=300%2C153&amp;ssl=1%20300w,%20https://i0.wp.com/media.boingboing.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/swiss-mudslide-01.jpeg?resize=768%2C392&amp;ssl=1%20768w,%20https://i0.wp.com/media.boingboing.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/swiss-mudslide-01.jpeg?resize=930%2C475&amp;ssl=1%20930w\" alt=\"\" width=\"600\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-646251\" srcset=\"https://i0.wp.com/media.boingboing.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/swiss-mudslide-01.jpeg?resize=600%2C307&amp;ssl=1 600w, https://i0.wp.com/media.boingboing.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/swiss-mudslide-01.jpeg?resize=300%2C153&amp;ssl=1 300w, https://i0.wp.com/media.boingboing.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/swiss-mudslide-01.jpeg?resize=768%2C392&amp;ssl=1 768w, https://i0.wp.com/media.boingboing.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/swiss-mudslide-01.jpeg?resize=930%2C475&amp;ssl=1 930w\"></p>\n<blockquote><p>A mudslide has hit the Swiss village of Grugnay in the municipality of Chamoson, sweeping across roads as witnesses stood close by. No injuries were reported as a result of Tuesday&apos;s mudslide, which local media said began after storms caused a river to expand and burst its banks.</p></blockquote>\n<p>\nMudslide sweeps into Swiss village (YouTube / <a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCIRYBXDze5krPDzAEOxFGVA\">Guardian News</a>)</p> </div><div id=\"next-post-thumbnails\"> <div class=\"nextstory\"> <a href=\"https://boingboing.net/2017/05/09/willy-wonka-dialogue-as-a-sax.html?utm_source=moreatbb&amp;utm_medium=nextpost&amp;utm_campaign=nextpostthumbnails\"><img width=\"600\" src=\"https://i0.wp.com/media.boingboing.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/willy-wonka-jazz-01.jpg?w=799&amp;ssl=1%20799w,%20https://i0.wp.com/media.boingboing.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/willy-wonka-jazz-01.jpg?resize=300%2C160&amp;ssl=1%20300w,%20https://i0.wp.com/media.boingboing.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/willy-wonka-jazz-01.jpg?resize=600%2C319&amp;ssl=1%20600w,%20https://i0.wp.com/media.boingboing.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/willy-wonka-jazz-01.jpg?resize=768%2C409&amp;ssl=1%20768w\" class=\"attachment-medium size-medium wp-post-image\" alt=\"\" srcset=\"https://i0.wp.com/media.boingboing.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/willy-wonka-jazz-01.jpg?w=799&amp;ssl=1 799w, https://i0.wp.com/media.boingboing.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/willy-wonka-jazz-01.jpg?resize=300%2C160&amp;ssl=1 300w, https://i0.wp.com/media.boingboing.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/willy-wonka-jazz-01.jpg?resize=600%2C319&amp;ssl=1 600w, https://i0.wp.com/media.boingboing.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/willy-wonka-jazz-01.jpg?resize=768%2C409&amp;ssl=1 768w\"></a> <p>David Dockery performed a drum solo of the climactic scene in Willy Wonka &amp; the Chocolate Factory. Then Dan Felix upped the game with a saxophone accompaniment to the original.</p> <h3><a href=\"https://boingboing.net/2017/05/09/willy-wonka-dialogue-as-a-sax.html\">READ THE REST</a></h3> </div> <p> <div class=\"nextstory\"> <a href=\"https://boingboing.net/2018/08/10/the-twisty-glass-blunt-is-a-sm.html?utm_source=moreatbb&amp;utm_medium=nextpost&amp;utm_campaign=nextpostthumbnails\"><img width=\"600\" src=\"https://i0.wp.com/media.boingboing.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/sale_4699_primary_image.jpg?w=630&amp;ssl=1%20630w,%20https://i0.wp.com/media.boingboing.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/sale_4699_primary_image.jpg?resize=300%2C225&amp;ssl=1%20300w,%20https://i0.wp.com/media.boingboing.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/sale_4699_primary_image.jpg?resize=600%2C450&amp;ssl=1%20600w\" class=\"attachment-medium size-medium wp-post-image\" alt=\"\" srcset=\"https://i0.wp.com/media.boingboing.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/sale_4699_primary_image.jpg?w=630&amp;ssl=1 630w, https://i0.wp.com/media.boingboing.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/sale_4699_primary_image.jpg?resize=300%2C225&amp;ssl=1 300w, https://i0.wp.com/media.boingboing.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/sale_4699_primary_image.jpg?resize=600%2C450&amp;ssl=1 600w\"></a> <p>You might be used to rolling your own smokes, but let&#x2019;s face it: it&#x2019;s not the cleanest or most eco-friendly way to enjoy your habit. Instead of fussing with papers, the Twisty Glass Blunt makes having a smoke as easy as packing your herb, twisting, and lighting up. You can get your own in the [&#x2026;]</p> <h3><a href=\"https://boingboing.net/2018/08/10/the-twisty-glass-blunt-is-a-sm.html\">READ THE REST</a></h3> </div> <div class=\"nextstory\"> <a href=\"https://boingboing.net/2018/08/09/how-animatron-lets-you-create.html?utm_source=moreatbb&amp;utm_medium=nextpost&amp;utm_campaign=nextpostthumbnails\"><img width=\"600\" src=\"https://i2.wp.com/media.boingboing.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/sale_15919_primary_image.jpg?w=630&amp;ssl=1%20630w,%20https://i2.wp.com/media.boingboing.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/sale_15919_primary_image.jpg?resize=300%2C225&amp;ssl=1%20300w,%20https://i2.wp.com/media.boingboing.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/sale_15919_primary_image.jpg?resize=600%2C450&amp;ssl=1%20600w\" class=\"attachment-medium size-medium wp-post-image\" alt=\"\" srcset=\"https://i2.wp.com/media.boingboing.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/sale_15919_primary_image.jpg?w=630&amp;ssl=1 630w, https://i2.wp.com/media.boingboing.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/sale_15919_primary_image.jpg?resize=300%2C225&amp;ssl=1 300w, https://i2.wp.com/media.boingboing.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/sale_15919_primary_image.jpg?resize=600%2C450&amp;ssl=1 600w\"></a> <p>Every brand has a story, and animation is one of the best ways to tell it. That&#x2019;s why companies aren&#x2019;t afraid to pay a premium for professional animators to bring their brands to life and connect with their audiences. However, for those of us lacking the funds for a full animation team or the know-how [&#x2026;]</p> <h3><a href=\"https://boingboing.net/2018/08/09/how-animatron-lets-you-create.html\">READ THE REST</a></h3> </div> <div class=\"nextstory\"> <a href=\"https://boingboing.net/2018/08/08/make-your-own-designs-with-thi.html?utm_source=moreatbb&amp;utm_medium=nextpost&amp;utm_campaign=nextpostthumbnails\"><img width=\"600\" src=\"https://i0.wp.com/media.boingboing.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/sale_15783_primary_image.jpg?w=630&amp;ssl=1%20630w,%20https://i0.wp.com/media.boingboing.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/sale_15783_primary_image.jpg?resize=300%2C225&amp;ssl=1%20300w,%20https://i0.wp.com/media.boingboing.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/sale_15783_primary_image.jpg?resize=600%2C450&amp;ssl=1%20600w\" class=\"attachment-medium size-medium wp-post-image\" alt=\"\" srcset=\"https://i0.wp.com/media.boingboing.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/sale_15783_primary_image.jpg?w=630&amp;ssl=1 630w, https://i0.wp.com/media.boingboing.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/sale_15783_primary_image.jpg?resize=300%2C225&amp;ssl=1 300w, https://i0.wp.com/media.boingboing.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/sale_15783_primary_image.jpg?resize=600%2C450&amp;ssl=1 600w\"></a> <p>Adobe Creative Cloud is undeniably king when it comes to making amazing digital content, but it&#x2019;s famously complicated, and most beginners struggle to get past its most basic functions. For those of us looking to create beautiful designs without spending an entire weekend deep inside Adobe CC tutorials,&#xA0;PixTeller Pro is a solid alternative, and it&#x2019;s [&#x2026;]</p> <h3><a href=\"https://boingboing.net/2018/08/08/make-your-own-designs-with-thi.html\">READ THE REST</a></h3> </div> </p></div></div>","url":"https://boingboing.net/2018/08/10/insane-mudslide-caught-on-vide.html","date_published":"2018-08-10T14:20:01+00:00","author":{"name":"Andrea James"}},{"id":"885","title":"“What Have We Done?”: Silicon Valley Engineers Fear They've Created a Monster","content_html":"<div><figure class=\"component-article-main-image landscape aspect-9-7\"><div class=\"\"><div class=\"component-responsive-image-full\"></div></div><figcaption class=\"main-image-caption\"><p class=\"credits\">Illustration by Ben Wiseman.</p></figcaption></figure><div class=\"content paywall drop-cap\"><p><strong>In the heart</strong> of San Francisco, the gig economy reigns supreme. Walk into\na grocery store, and a large number of shoppers you see are independent\ncontractors for grocery-delivery start-up Instacart. Step outside, and\ncars with black-and-white Uber stickers or flashing Lyft dashboard\nlights are sitting, hazards on, blocking the bike lane as they wait for\npassengers. Cyclists zigzag around the cars, many hauling bags branded\nwith various logos&#x2014;Caviar, Postmates, Uber Eats&#x2014;as they deliver food\nto customers around the city. You can stand on a street corner and count\nthe number of gig-economy workers walking by, as I often do; sometimes\nit&#x2019;s 2 out of every 10. On some corners, like the one near the Whole\nFoods on 4th and Harrison, I&#x2019;ve counted 8 out of every 10.</p><p>The gig-economy ecosystem was supposed to represent the promised land,\nstriking a harmonious egalitarian balance between supply and demand:\nconsumers could off-load the drudgery of commuting or grocery shopping,\nwhile workers were set free from the Man. &#x201C;Set your own schedule,&#x201D;\ntouts the Uber-driver Web site; &#x201C;Be your own boss,&#x201D; tempts Lyft;\n&#x201C;Make an impact on people&#x2019;s lives,&#x201D; lures Instacart. These companies\nhave been wildly successful: Uber, perhaps the most notorious, is also\nthe most valuable start-up in the U.S., reportedly worth $72 billion.\nLyft is valued at $11 billion, and grocery delivery start-up Instacart\nis valued at just over $4 billion. In recent months, however, a spate\nof lawsuits has highlighted an alarming by-product of the gig\neconomy&#x2014;a class of workers who aren&#x2019;t protected by labor laws, or\neligible for benefits provided to the rest of the nation&#x2019;s\nworkforce&#x2014;evident even to those outside the bubble of Silicon Valley.\nA July report commissioned by the New York City Taxi and Limousine\nCommission found that 85 percent of New York City&#x2019;s Uber, Lyft, Juno,\nand Via drivers earn less than $17.22 an hour. When the California\nSupreme Court ruled in May that delivery company Dynamex must treat its\ngig workers like full-time employees, Eve Wagner, an attorney who\nspecializes in employment litigation, predicted to <em>Wired,</em> &#x201C;The number\nof employment lawsuits is going to explode.&#x201D;</p><p>Of course, the threads of this disillusionment are woven into the very\nstructure that has made these start-ups so successful. A few weeks into\nmy tenure at Uber, where I started as a software developer just a year\nafter graduating from college, still blindly convinced I could make the\nworld a better place, a co-worker sat down next to my desk. &#x201C;There&#x2019;s\nsomething you need to know,&#x201D; she said in a low voice, &#x201C;and I don&#x2019;t\nwant you to forget it. When you&#x2019;re writing code, you need to think of\nthe drivers. Never forget that these are real people who have no\nbenefits, who have to live in <em>this city,</em> who depend on us to write\nresponsible code. Remember that.&#x201D; I didn&#x2019;t understand what she meant\nuntil several weeks later, when I overheard two other engineers in the\ncafeteria discussing driver bonuses&#x2014;specifically, ways to manipulate\nbonuses so that drivers could be &#x201C;tricked&#x201D; into working longer hours.\nLaughing, they compared the drivers to animals: &#x201C;You need to dangle the\ncarrot right in front of their face.&#x201D; Shortly thereafter, a wave of\nprice cuts hit drivers in the Bay Area. When I talked to the drivers,\nthey described how Uber kept fares in a perfectly engineered sweet spot:\njust high enough for them to justify driving, but just low enough that\nnot much more than their gas and maintenance expenses were covered.</p><div></div><p>Those of us on the front lines of the gig economy were the first to spot\nand expose its flaws&#x2014;two months after leaving Uber, I wrote a highly\npublicized account of my time there, describing the company&#x2019;s toxic work\nenvironment in detail. Now, as Silicon Valley struggles to come to terms\nwith its corrosive underpinnings, a new vein of disquiet has wormed its\nway into the Slack chats and happy-hour outings of low-level\nrank-and-file engineers, spurred by a question that seems to drown out\neverything else: <em>What have we done?</em> It&#x2019;s a question that I, too, have\nbeen forced to grapple with as I notice how my job as a software\nengineer has changed the nature of work in general&#x2014;and not necessarily\nfor the better.</p><div><div class=\"callout small has-pullquote\"><p class=\"embed\"><div><blockquote>\n<p>The risk, we agreed, is that the gig economy will become the <em>only</em>\neconomy.</p>\n</blockquote>\n</div></p></div></div><p>Gig-economy &#x201C;platforms,&#x201D; as they&#x2019;re called, take their inspiration\nfrom software engineering, where the goal is to create modular, scalable\nsoftware applications. To do this, engineers build small pieces of code\nthat run concurrently, dividing a task into ever smaller pieces to\nconquer it more efficiently. Start-ups function in a similar way; tasks\nthat used to make up a single job are broken down into the smallest\npossible code pieces, then partitioned so those pieces can be\naccomplished in parallel. It&#x2019;s been a successful approach for start-ups\nfor the same reason it&#x2019;s a successful approach to writing code: it is\nperfectly, beautifully efficient. Across so-called platforms, there are\nno individuals&#x2014;no bosses delegating tasks. Instead, various algorithms\nrun on the platform, matching consumers with workers, riders with the\nnearest driver, and hungry customers with delivery people, telling them\nwhere to go, what to do, and how to do it. Constant needs and their\nquick solutions all hummingly, perpetually aligned.</p><p>By now it&#x2019;s clear that these companies represent more than a trend.\nThough it&#x2019;s difficult to accurately determine the size of the gig\neconomy&#x2014;estimates range from 0.7 to 34 percent of the national\nworkforce&#x2014;the number grows with each new start-up that figures out how\nto break down another basic task. There&#x2019;s a relatively low risk\nassociated with launching gig-economy companies, start-ups that can\nengage in &#x201C;a kind of contract arbitrage&#x201D; because they &#x201C;aren&#x2019;t bearing\nthe corporate or societal cost, even as they reap fractional or\nfull-time value from workers,&#x201D; explains Seattle-based tech journalist\nGlenn Fleishman. Thanks to this buffer, they&#x2019;re almost guaranteed to\nmultiply. As the gig economy grows, so too does the danger that\nengineers, in attempting to build the most efficient systems, will chop\nand dice jobs into pieces so dehumanized that our legal system will no\nlonger recognize them. And along with this comes an even more sinister\npossibility: jobs that <em>would</em> and <em>should</em> be recognizable&#x2014;especially\nsupervisory and management positions&#x2014;will disappear altogether. If a\nsoftware engineer can write a set of programs that breaks a job into\nsmaller increments, and can follow it up with an algorithm that fills in\nas the supervisor, then the position itself can be programmed to\nredundancy.</p><p>A few months ago, a lunchtime conversation with several friends turned\nto the subject of the gig economy. We began to enumerate the potential\ncauses of worker isplacement&#x2014;things like artificial intelligence and\nrobots, which are fast becoming a reality, expanding the purview of\ncompanies such as Google and Amazon. &#x201C;The displacement is happening\nright under our noses,&#x201D; said a woman sitting next to me, another former\nengineer. &#x201C;Not in the future&#x2014;it&#x2019;s happening <em>now.</em>&#x201D;</p><p>&#x201C;What can we do about it?&#x201D; someone asked. Another woman replied that\nthe only way forward was for gig-economy workers to unionize, and the\ntable broke out into serious debate. Yet even as we roundly condemned\nthe tech world&#x2019;s treatment of a vulnerable new class of worker, we knew\nthe stakes were much higher: high enough to alter the future of work\nitself, to the detriment of all but a select few. &#x201C;Most people,&#x201D; I\nsaid, interrupting the hubbub, &#x201C;don&#x2019;t even see the problem unless\nthey&#x2019;re on the inside.&#x201D; Everyone nodded. The risk, we agreed, is that\nthe gig economy will become the <em>only</em> economy, swallowing up entire\ngroups of employees who hold full-time jobs, and that it will,\neventually, displace us all. The bigger risk, however, is that the only\npeople who understand the looming threat are the ones enabling it.</p></div></div>","url":"https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2018/08/silicon-valley-engineers-fear-they-created-a-monster","date_published":"2018-08-09T05:00:00+00:00","author":{"name":"Susan Fowler"}},{"id":"313","title":"Whois briteca.com","content_html":"<div class=\"whois_main_column\"> Please respond to the question below to continue.<br> <div id=\"availableBlk\"> <table> <tr> <td><img src=\"https://www.whois.com/images/ok.png\" alt=\"ok\"></td> <td> <span id=\"availableText\">briteca.com is available!</span><br> </td> </tr> </table> </div> <div class=\"df-block\"><p class=\"df-heading\">Domain Information</p><div class=\"df-row\"><p class=\"df-label\">Status:</p><div class=\"df-value\">clientDeleteProhibitedclientRenewProhibitedclientTransferProhibited<p>clientUpdateProhibited</p></div></div><div class=\"df-row\"><p class=\"df-label\">Name Servers:</p><p class=\"df-value\">elaine.ns.cloudflare.com<br>simon.ns.cloudflare.com</p></div></div><div class=\"df-block\"><p class=\"df-heading\">Registrant Contact</p><div class=\"df-row\"><p class=\"df-label\">Street:</p><p class=\"df-value\">DomainsByProxy.com<br>14455 N. Hayden Road</p></div></div><div class=\"df-block\"><p class=\"df-heading\">Administrative Contact</p><div class=\"df-row\"><p class=\"df-label\">Street:</p><p class=\"df-value\">DomainsByProxy.com<br>14455 N. Hayden Road</p></div></div><div class=\"df-block\"><p class=\"df-heading\">Technical Contact</p><div class=\"df-row\"><p class=\"df-label\">Street:</p><p class=\"df-value\">DomainsByProxy.com<br>14455 N. Hayden Road</p></div></div><div class=\"df-block-raw\"><p class=\"df-heading\">Raw Whois Data</p><pre class=\"df-raw\" id=\"registrarData\">Domain Name: briteca.com Registry Domain ID: 2246017047_DOMAIN_COM-VRSN Registrar WHOIS Server: whois.godaddy.com Registrar URL: http://www.godaddy.com Updated Date: 2018-03-30T19:46:56Z Creation Date: 2018-03-30T19:46:55Z Registrar Registration Expiration Date: 2023-03-30T19:46:55Z Registrar: GoDaddy.com, LLC Registrar IANA ID: 146 Registrar Abuse Contact Email: <img src=\"https://www.whois.com/eimg/5/24/524c36c920c3cc6355d55f22a9df7a257ee50e9d.png\" class=\"whois_email\" alt=\"email\">@godaddy.com Registrar Abuse Contact Phone: +1.4806242505 Domain Status: clientTransferProhibited http://www.icann.org/epp#clientTransferProhibited Domain Status: clientUpdateProhibited http://www.icann.org/epp#clientUpdateProhibited Domain Status: clientRenewProhibited http://www.icann.org/epp#clientRenewProhibited Domain Status: clientDeleteProhibited http://www.icann.org/epp#clientDeleteProhibited Registry Registrant ID: Not Available From Registry Registrant Name: Registration Private Registrant Organization: Domains By Proxy, LLC Registrant Street: DomainsByProxy.com Registrant Street: 14455 N. Hayden Road Registrant City: Scottsdale Registrant State/Province: Arizona Registrant Postal Code: 85260 Registrant Country: US Registrant Phone: +1.4806242599 Registrant Phone Ext: Registrant Fax: +1.4806242598 Registrant Fax Ext: Registrant Email: <img src=\"https://www.whois.com/eimg/2/71/2713babe62b2bf5730c59c9031b2cd1e4b74e9f7.png\" class=\"whois_email\" alt=\"email\">@domainsbyproxy.com Registry Admin ID: Not Available From Registry Admin Name: Registration Private Admin Organization: Domains By Proxy, LLC Admin Street: DomainsByProxy.com Admin Street: 14455 N. Hayden Road Admin City: Scottsdale Admin State/Province: Arizona Admin Postal Code: 85260 Admin Country: US Admin Phone: +1.4806242599 Admin Phone Ext: Admin Fax: +1.4806242598 Admin Fax Ext: Admin Email: <img src=\"https://www.whois.com/eimg/2/71/2713babe62b2bf5730c59c9031b2cd1e4b74e9f7.png\" class=\"whois_email\" alt=\"email\">@domainsbyproxy.com Registry Tech ID: Not Available From Registry Tech Name: Registration Private Tech Organization: Domains By Proxy, LLC Tech Street: DomainsByProxy.com Tech Street: 14455 N. Hayden Road Tech City: Scottsdale Tech State/Province: Arizona Tech Postal Code: 85260 Tech Country: US Tech Phone: +1.4806242599 Tech Phone Ext: Tech Fax: +1.4806242598 Tech Fax Ext: Tech Email: <img src=\"https://www.whois.com/eimg/2/71/2713babe62b2bf5730c59c9031b2cd1e4b74e9f7.png\" class=\"whois_email\" alt=\"email\">@domainsbyproxy.com Name Server: ELAINE.NS.CLOUDFLARE.COM Name Server: SIMON.NS.CLOUDFLARE.COM DNSSEC: unsigned URL of the ICANN WHOIS Data Problem Reporting System: http://wdprs.internic.net/ &gt;&gt;&gt; Last update of WHOIS database: 2018-08-02T07:00:00Z &lt;&lt;&lt; For more information on Whois status codes, please visit https://www.icann.org/resources/pages/epp-status-codes-2014-06-16-en Notes: IMPORTANT: Port43 will provide the ICANN-required minimum data set per ICANN Temporary Specification, adopted 17 May 2018. Visit https://whois.godaddy.com to look up contact data for domains not covered by GDPR policy. The data contained in GoDaddy.com, LLC&apos;s WhoIs database, while believed by the company to be reliable, is provided &quot;as is&quot; with no guarantee or warranties regarding its accuracy. This information is provided for the sole purpose of assisting you in obtaining information about domain name registration records. Any use of this data for any other purpose is expressly forbidden without the prior written permission of GoDaddy.com, LLC. By submitting an inquiry, you agree to these terms of usage and limitations of warranty. In particular, you agree not to use this data to allow, enable, or otherwise make possible, dissemination or collection of this data, in part or in its entirety, for any purpose, such as the transmission of unsolicited advertising and and solicitations of any kind, including spam. You further agree not to use this data to enable high volume, automated or robotic electronic processes designed to collect or compile this data for any purpose, including mining this data for your own personal or commercial purposes. Please note: the registrant of the domain name is specified in the &quot;registrant&quot; section. In most cases, GoDaddy.com, LLC is not the registrant of domain names listed in this database. </pre></div> </div>","url":"https://www.whois.com/whois/briteca.com","date_published":"2018-08-02T07:40:51+00:00","author":{"name":""}},{"id":"312","title":"Movie? Pass.","content_html":"<div><div><div class=\"section-content\"><div class=\"section-inner sectionLayout--outsetColumn\"><figure id=\"3d7f\" class=\"graf graf--figure graf--layoutOutsetCenter graf--leading\"><img class=\"progressiveMedia-noscript js-progressiveMedia-inner\" src=\"https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/2000/1*yg1eZ1LsfeSbHXKuHvgusQ.jpeg\"></figure></div><div class=\"section-inner sectionLayout--insetColumn\"><p id=\"d9a6\" class=\"graf graf--p graf-after--h3\">At this point, MoviePass is beyond a punchline. What they&#x2019;re doing on a daily basis now to stay afloat walks a previously undiscovered line between farcical and unethical. Certainly <a href=\"https://www.businessinsider.com/moviepass-owner-emerged-from-indian-company-accused-of-massive-fraud-2018-7\" class=\"markup--anchor markup--p-anchor\">the history behind their holding company</a>, Helios and Matheson, doesn&#x2019;t help that image. But MoviePass is no longer fun, <a href=\"https://twitter.com/mgsiegler/status/1024172980308303872\" class=\"markup--anchor markup--p-anchor\">nor funny</a>.</p><p id=\"9038\" class=\"graf graf--p graf-after--p\">Of course, <a href=\"https://medium.com/s/story/the-race-to-save-hollywood-c01733e8ce20\" class=\"markup--anchor markup--p-anchor\">I&#x2019;ve never thought the company was long for this world</a>. The underlying economics not only don&#x2019;t make sense, they&#x2019;re completely upside down. The business is as close to the old joke of selling dollars for pennies as you will find. And now the jig seems up. Certainly it will be before the end of the year when Helios and Matheson will undoubtedly be delisted from <a href=\"https://www.nasdaq.com/symbol/hmny\" class=\"markup--anchor markup--p-anchor\">the NASDAQ</a>, at which point they&#x2019;ll no longer be able to raise money as they have been. But it may end a lot sooner than that after this week&#x2019;s <a href=\"http://digg.com/2018/is-movie-pass-dead-rise-fall-timeline\" class=\"markup--anchor markup--p-anchor\">latest nonsense</a>.</p><p id=\"1706\" class=\"graf graf--p graf-after--p\">But if it&#x2019;s so obvious this would never work, why did they even try? I can only triangulate the game plan from various interviews and mix that with a bit of wishful thinking to come up with a rationale. But it seems like a clear attempt to thread a needle. Perhaps the smallest needle ever. While blindfolded.</p><p id=\"5cbe\" class=\"graf graf--p graf-after--p\">To some, the idea of a subscription movie ticket service is undoubtedly compelling. We increasingly live in an era of subscription services, after all. When MoviePass first launched as a startup (before it was owned by Helios), relatively few people were actually compelled. You can try to argue the timing was wrong, that it was too early, and that may be a part of it. But the bigger part was that the model at the time&#x200A;&#x2014;&#x200A;$50/month&#x200A;&#x2014;&#x200A;was far too expensive for an activity most people did relatively infrequently: go to the movies.</p><p id=\"21ac\" class=\"graf graf--p graf-after--p\">Yet the price back then was no accident. It was the price that would allow such a service to operate in a sustainable fashion if enough people signed up. Enough people didn&#x2019;t sign up. And so MoviePass sold its soul to the devil.</p><p id=\"5687\" class=\"graf graf--p graf-after--p\">That devil, undoubtedly aided by <a href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MoviePass\" class=\"markup--anchor markup--p-anchor\">past experience in both penny stocks and subscription services</a>, saw the aforementioned needle to thread. If they could massively drop the price of the subscription, they could entice people to sign up who would have never signed up for the original MoviePass. The price drop would effectively cause each customer to be brought on board at a loss. But it was the old &#x201C;we&#x2019;ll make it up in volume&#x201D; play.</p><p id=\"8451\" class=\"graf graf--p graf-after--p\">Except not even that would work as a straightforward proposition. A simple volume of customers when scaled here would also scale losses. So that volume needed to be leveraged in other ways: to get enough customer data to advertise against en masse. And/or to use the customer base to make the theater chains bend to their will, giving them better deals on tickets and a cut of the concession stands. To be fair, MoviePass was long transparent about their intentions here.</p><p id=\"d8d8\" class=\"graf graf--p graf-after--p\">Unfortunately, those intentions were both naive and foolish.</p><p id=\"c55b\" class=\"graf graf--p graf-after--p\">Again, the needlehead here was extremely tight because the scale needed to make this work was also the scale that would kill them. The only way this <em class=\"markup--em markup--p-em\">may</em> have worked was to grow large, but at a far more sustainable clip. Which is to say, <em class=\"markup--em markup--p-em\">slowly</em>. And preferably with <a href=\"http://monetizingmedia.com/moviepass-amc-and-the-era-of-cinema-subscriptions/\" class=\"markup--anchor markup--p-anchor\">different pricing tiers</a>. This still would have required a ton of capital, but they may have found people willing to give them said capital, buying into the long-term subscription vision. Then maybe&#x200A;&#x2014;&#x200A;just <em class=\"markup--em markup--p-em\">maybe</em>, mind you&#x200A;&#x2014;&#x200A;in a few years, they could have convinced the powers that be to play ball with their big user base.</p><p id=\"396e\" class=\"graf graf--p graf-after--p\">Instead, MoviePass doused their cash in gasoline and then drove that flaming heap to a match factory. The insane pricing strategy led to the service growing as quickly as possible. And with each new customer came a new undertaker to help them dig their own grave.</p><p id=\"6e9c\" class=\"graf graf--p graf-after--p\">This is where people like to compare the model to a more traditional startup. Isn&#x2019;t this the way many venture-backed companies get off the ground? Well, sort of and no. There have been many startups that have famously flamed out after burning through venture money while effectively trying to sell those proverbial pennies on the dollar with the promise of making it up at scale. But again, MoviePass is no longer venture-backed; their majority owner is a publicly-traded holding company. So they were attempting to do this with public money, not venture money. More importantly, this was an comically extreme version of the playbook described above. This was Helios and Matheson looking at some wildly unprofitable venture-backed startups and saying <a href=\"https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/hold-my-beer\" class=\"markup--anchor markup--p-anchor\">&#x201C;hold my beer.&#x201D;</a></p><p id=\"b3b1\" class=\"graf graf--p graf-after--p\">MoviePass has been burning something like $50 million a month and those losses have only accelerated with the aforementioned growth. They were never going to have enough time to thread their needle. They must have seen this a while ago, yet they kept up the ruse. Stock splits and ongoing promises of a large influxes of cash gave way to <a href=\"https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-07-27/moviepass-parent-borrows-6-million-to-end-service-interruption\" class=\"markup--anchor markup--p-anchor\">their truly insane reality in debt</a>.</p><p id=\"54ab\" class=\"graf graf--p graf-after--p\">And so here we are. The stock price for Helios and Matheson <a href=\"https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/HMNY/\" class=\"markup--anchor markup--p-anchor\">sits at $0.22</a>&#x200A;&#x2014;&#x200A;and that&#x2019;s <em class=\"markup--em markup--p-em\">after</em> <a href=\"https://www.marketwatch.com/story/moviepass-parent-helios-and-matheson-implements-1-to-250-reverse-stock-split-boosting-share-price-2018-07-25\" class=\"markup--anchor markup--p-anchor\">the 250-to-1 split last week</a>. The market cap is around $385 million. I&#x2019;m honestly not even sure why it&#x2019;s that high. The credits have rolled. The music has faded. The curtains are closing&#x2026;</p><figure id=\"d292\" class=\"graf graf--figure graf-after--p graf--trailing\"><img class=\"progressiveMedia-noscript js-progressiveMedia-inner\" src=\"https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/1600/1*h6TYln4tHlH0LIP22Vrj-A.jpeg\"></figure></div></div></div></div>","url":"https://500ish.com/movie-pass-1abc1263d25a","date_published":"2018-08-02T06:07:55+00:00","author":{"name":"M.G. Siegler"}},{"id":"291","title":"Why Westerners Fear Robots and the Japanese Do Not","content_html":"<p><section class=\"section-break-component\"><p><span class=\"lede\">As a Japanese, </span>I grew up watching anime like <em>Neon Genesis Evangelion</em>, which depicts a future in which machines and humans merge into cyborg ecstasy. Such programs caused many of us kids to become giddy with dreams of becoming bionic superheroes. Robots have always been part of the Japanese psyche&#x2014;our hero, Astro Boy, was officially entered into the legal registry as a resident of the city of Niiza, just north of Tokyo, which, as any non-Japanese can tell you, is no easy feat. Not only do we Japanese have no fear of our new robot overlords, we&#x2019;re kind of looking forward to them.</p><p>It&#x2019;s not that Westerners haven&#x2019;t had their fair share of friendly robots like R2-D2 and Rosie, the Jetsons&#x2019; robot maid. But compared to the Japanese, the Western world is warier of robots. I think the difference has something to do with our different religious contexts, as well as historical differences with respect to industrial-scale slavery.</p><p>The Western concept of &#x201C;humanity&#x201D; is limited, and I think it&#x2019;s time to seriously question whether we have the right to exploit the environment, animals, tools, or robots simply because we&#x2019;re human and they are not.</p></section><section class=\"section-break-component\"><p><span class=\"lede\">Sometime in the </span>late 1980s, I participated in a meeting organized by the <a href=\"http://asimo.honda.com/\">Honda Foundation</a> in which a Japanese professor&#x2014;I can&#x2019;t remember his name&#x2014;made the case that the Japanese had more success integrating robots into society because of their country&#x2019;s indigenous Shinto religion, which remains the official national religion of Japan.</p><p>Followers of Shinto, unlike Judeo-Christian monotheists and the Greeks before them, do not believe that humans are particularly &#x201C;special.&#x201D; Instead, there are spirits in everything, rather like the Force in <em>Star Wars</em>. Nature doesn&#x2019;t belong to us, we belong to Nature, and spirits live in everything, including rocks, tools, homes, and even empty spaces.</p><p>The West, the professor contended, has a problem with the idea of things having spirits and feels that anthropomorphism, the attribution of human-like attributes to things or animals, is childish, primitive, or even bad. He argued that the Luddites who smashed the automated looms that were eliminating their jobs in the 19th century were an example of that, and for contrast he showed an image of a Japanese robot in a factory wearing a cap, having a name and being treated like a colleague rather than a creepy enemy.</p><p>The general idea that Japanese accept robots far more easily than Westerners is fairly common these days. Osamu Tezuka, the Japanese cartoonist and the creator of Atom Boy <a href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/1982/01/10/magazine/japan-s-love-affair-with-the-robot.html\">noted the relationship between Buddhism and robots</a>, saying, &apos;&apos;Japanese don&apos;t make a distinction between man, the superior creature, and the world about him. Everything is fused together, and we accept robots easily along with the wide world about us, the insects, the rocks&#x2014;it&apos;s all one. We have none of the doubting attitude toward robots, as pseudohumans, that you find in the West. So here you find no resistance, simply quiet acceptance.&apos;&apos; And while the Japanese did of course become agrarian and then industrial, Shinto and Buddhist influences have caused Japan to retain many of the rituals and sensibilities of a more pre-humanist period.</p><p>In <em>Sapiens</em>, Yuval Noah Harari, an Israeli historian, describes the notion of &#x201C;humanity&#x201D; as something that evolved in our belief system as we morphed from hunter-gatherers to shepherds to farmers to capitalists. As early hunter-gatherers, nature did not belong to us&#x2014;we were simply part of nature&#x2014;and many indigenous people today still live with belief systems that reflect this point of view. Native Americans listen to and talk to the wind. Indigenous hunters often use elaborate rituals to communicate with their prey and the predators in the forest. Many hunter-gatherer cultures, for example, are deeply connected to the land but have no tradition of land ownership, which has been a source of misunderstandings and clashes with Western colonists that continues even today.</p><p>It wasn&#x2019;t until humans began engaging in animal husbandry and farming that we began to have the notion that we own and have dominion over other things, over nature. The notion that anything&#x2014;a rock, a sheep, a dog, a car, or a person&#x2014;can belong to a human being or a corporation is a relatively new idea. In many ways, it&#x2019;s at the core of an idea of &#x201C;humanity&#x201D; that makes humans a special, protected class and, in the process, dehumanizes and oppresses anything that&#x2019;s not human, living or non-living. Dehumanization and the notion of ownership and economics gave birth to slavery at scale.</p><p>In <em>Stamped from the Beginning</em>, the historian Ibram X. Kendi describes the colonial era debate in America about whether slaves should be exposed to Christianity. British common law stated that a Christian could not be enslaved, and many plantation owners feared that they would lose their slaves if they were Christianized. They therefore argued that blacks were too barbaric to become Christian. Others argued that Christianity would make slaves more docile and easier to control. Fundamentally, this debate was about whether Christianity&#x2014;giving slaves a spiritual existence&#x2014;increased or decreased the ability to control them. (The idea of permitting spirituality is fundamentally foreign to the Japanese because everything has a spirit and therefore it can&#x2019;t be denied or permitted.)</p><p>This fear of being overthrown by the oppressed, or somehow becoming the oppressed, has weighed heavily on the minds of those in power since the beginning of mass slavery and the slave trade. I wonder if this fear is almost uniquely Judeo-Christian and might be feeding the Western fear of robots. (While Japan had what could be called slavery, it was never at an industrial scale.)</p><p>Lots of powerful people (in other words, mostly white men) in the West are <a href=\"https://www.techworld.com/picture-gallery/apps-wearables/tech-leaders-warned-us-that-robots-will-kill-us-all-3611611/\">publicly expressing their fears about the potential power of robots to rule humans</a>, driving the public narrative. Yet many of the same people wringing their hands are also racing to build robots powerful enough to do that&#x2014;and, of course, underwriting research to try to keep control of the machines they&#x2019;re inventing, although this time it doesn&#x2019;t involved Christianizing robots &#x2026; yet.</p><p>Douglas Rushkoff, whose book, <em>Team Human</em>, is due out early next year, recently <a href=\"https://medium.com/s/futurehuman/survival-of-the-richest-9ef6cddd0cc1\">wrote about a meeting</a> in which one of the attendees&#x2019; primary concerns was how rich people could control the security personnel protecting them in their armored bunkers after the money/climate/society armageddon. The financial titans at the meeting apparently brainstormed ideas like using neck control collars, securing food lockers, and replacing human security personnel with robots. Douglas suggested perhaps simply starting to be nicer to their security people now, before the revolution, but they thought it was already too late for that.</p><p>Friends express concern when I make a connection between slaves and robots that I may have the effect of dehumanizing slaves or the descendants of slaves, thus exacerbating an already tense and advanced war of words and symbols. While fighting the dehumanization of minorities and underprivileged people is important and something I spend a great deal of effort on, focusing strictly on the rights of humans and not the rights of the environment, the animals, and even of things like robots, is one of the things that has gotten us in this awful mess with the environment in the first place. In the long run, maybe it&#x2019;s not so much about humanizing or dehumanizing, but rather a problem of creating a privileged class&#x2014;humans&#x2014;that we use to arbitrarily justify ignoring, oppressing, and exploiting.</p><p>Technology is now at a point where we need to start thinking about what, if any, rights robots deserve and how to codify and enforce those rights. Simply imagining that our relationships with robots will be like those of the human characters in <em>Star Wars</em> with C-3PO, R2-D2 and BB-8 is naive.</p><p>As Kate Darling, a researcher at the MIT Media Lab, notes in a <a href=\"https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2044797\">paper on extending legal rights to robots</a>, there is a great deal of evidence that human beings are sympathetic to and respond emotionally to social robots&#x2014;even non-sentient ones. I don&#x2019;t think this is some gimmick; rather, it&#x2019;s something we must take seriously. We have a strong negative emotional response when someone kicks or abuses a robot&#x2014;in one of the many gripping examples Darling cites in her paper, a US military officer called off a test using a leggy robot to detonate and clear minefields because he thought it was inhumane. This is a kind of anthropomorphization, and, conversely, we should think about what effect abusing a robot has on the abusing human.</p><p>My view is that merely replacing oppressed humans with oppressed machines will not fix the fundamentally dysfunctional order that has evolved over centuries. As a Shinto, I&#x2019;m obviously biased, but I think that taking a look at &#x201C;primitive&#x201D; belief systems might be a good place to start. Thinking about the development and evolution of machine-based intelligence as an integrated &#x201C;<a href=\"https://pubpub.ito.com/pub/extended-intelligence\">Extended Intelligence</a>&#x201D; rather than artificial intelligence that threatens humanity will also help.</p><p>As we make rules for robots and their rights, we will likely need to make policy before we know what their societal impact will be. Just as the Golden Rule teaches us to treat others the way we would like to be treated, abusing and &#x201C;dehumanizing&#x201D; robots prepares children and structures society to continue reinforcing the hierarchical class system that has been in place since the beginning of civilization.</p><p>It&#x2019;s easy to see how the shepherds and farmers of yore could easily come up with the idea that humans were special, but I think AI and robots may help us begin to imagine that perhaps humans are just one instance of consciousness and that &#x201C;humanity&#x201D; is a bit overrated. Rather than just being human-centric, we must develop a respect for, and emotional and spiritual dialogue with, all things.</p><h3>More Great WIRED Stories</h3></section></p>","url":"https://www.wired.com/story/ideas-joi-ito-robot-overlords/","date_published":"2018-07-31T23:59:26+00:00","author":{"name":""}},{"id":"281","title":"A legendary ad man’s simple advice on breaking out of a creative rut","content_html":"<div class=\"ArticleContent__content__mEAui ArticleContent__work__1tnnT\"><div>\n<p>Cannes, France</p>\n<p>Sir John Hegarty has won just about every award the ad world has to offer, and was knighted in 2007 for his services to the advertising and creative industries. At the Cannes Lions ad conference this week&#x2014;officially, the <a href=\"https://www.canneslions.com/the-festival\">International Festival of Creativity</a>&#x2014;he has been holding court among the thousands of marketing execs, creative directors, tech bigwigs, and assorted celebrities who flocked to the French Riviera for their annual gathering.</p>\n<p>Hegarty was a founding shareholder of Saatchi &amp; Saatchi in 1970, and later went on to found Bartle Bogle Hegarty. Over the years, he has worked on some of the <a href=\"https://www.campaignlive.co.uk/article/6-ads-made-bartle-bogle-hegarty/1303564\">most iconic campaigns</a> for the biggest brands, Audi, Levi&#x2019;s, and Johnnie Walker among them.</p>\n</div><div><p>Around town this week, he has been championing the deep, emotional resonance generated by the best ad campaigns, and belittling overwrought ads that are produced by committee, driven by data, and otherwise isolated from pure human inspiration. &#x201C;Our industry has forgotten about persuasion, and has become obsessed with promotion,&#x201D; he said at a session on a hotel rooftop overlooking the yacht-laden port of Cannes.</p>\n<p>On the sidelines of the conference, I asked him about how he breaks out of a creative rut&#x2014;even he has surely had a few, and may have some clever or sophisticated way to unblock things when he gets stuck. In fact, his advice is refreshingly simple.</p>\n<p>&#x201C;Go for a walk,&#x201D; he said. &#x201C;I do my best thinking when I&#x2019;m not thinking.&#x201D; He continued:</p>\n<blockquote><p>&#x201C;Looking at a screen will never unblock your creativity. What I always say to creative people is, unplug the computer and have a conversation with somebody. Talk to them. You may find that they did something last night that&#x2019;s really interesting&#x2014;you might be able to use that.</p>\n<p>Get out there. Just walk it off.</p>\n<p>When you see somebody with their feet up on a desk looking out of the window, people think, &#x2018;What are they doing? Why aren&#x2019;t they working?&#x2019; They <em>are</em> working.&#x201D;</p></blockquote>\n</div></div>","url":"https://work.qz.com/1312533/how-to-break-out-of-a-creative-rut-advice-from-advertising-legend-john-hegarty/","date_published":"2018-07-31T00:28:43+00:00","author":{"name":"Jason Karaian"}},{"id":"173","title":"Top Voting Machine Vendor Admits It Installed Remote-Access Software on Systems Sold to States","content_html":"<div class=\"article__body dsp-block-xs bod-m\"><p>The nation&apos;s top voting machine maker has admitted in a letter to a federal lawmaker that the company installed remote-access software on election-management systems it sold over a period of six years, raising questions about the security of those systems and the integrity of elections that were conducted with them.</p> <p>In a letter sent to Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) in April and obtained recently by Motherboard, Election Systems and Software acknowledged that it had &quot;provided pcAnywhere remote connection software &#x2026; to a small number of customers between 2000 and 2006,&quot; which was installed on the election-management system ES&amp;S sold them.</p> <p>The statement contradicts what the company <a href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/21/magazine/the-myth-of-the-hacker-proof-voting-machine.html\">told me and fact checkers for a story I wrote for the <i> New York Times</i></a> in February. At that time, a spokesperson said ES&amp;S had never installed pcAnywhere on any election system it sold. &quot;None of the employees, &#x2026; including long-tenured employees, has any knowledge that our voting systems have ever been sold with remote-access software,&quot; the spokesperson said.</p> <p>ES&amp;S did not respond on Monday to questions from Motherboard, and it&#x2019;s not clear why the company changed its response between February and April. Lawmakers, however, have subpoena powers that can compel a company to hand over documents or provide sworn testimony on a matter lawmakers are investigating, and a statement made to lawmakers that is later proven false can have greater consequence for a company than one made to reporters.</p> <p>ES&amp;S is the top voting machine maker in the country, a position it held in the years 2000-2006 when it was installing pcAnywhere on its systems. The company&apos;s machines were used statewide in a number of states, and at least 60 percent of ballots cast in the US in 2006 were tabulated on ES&amp;S election-management systems. It&#x2019;s not clear why ES&amp;S would have only installed the software on the systems of &#x201C;a small number of customers&#x201D; and not all customers, unless other customers objected or had state laws preventing this. </p> <p>The company told Wyden it stopped installing pcAnywhere on systems in December 2007, after the Election Assistance Commission, which oversees the federal testing and certification of election systems used in the US, released new voting system standards. Those standards required that any election system submitted for federal testing and certification thereafter could contain only software essential for voting and tabulation. Although the standards only went into effect in 2007, they were created in 2005 in a very public process during which the security of voting machines was being discussed frequently in newspapers and on Capitol Hill. </p> <p>Election-management systems are not the voting terminals that voters use to cast their ballots, but are just as critical: they sit in county election offices and contain software that in some counties is used to program all the voting machines used in the county; the systems also tabulate final results aggregated from voting machines. </p> <p>Software like pcAnywhere is used by system administrators to access and control systems from a remote location to conduct maintenance or upgrade or alter software. But election-management systems and voting machines are supposed to be air-gapped for security reasons&#x2014;that is, disconnected from the internet and from any other systems that are connected to the internet. ES&amp;S customers who had pcAnywhere installed also had modems on their election-management systems so ES&amp;S technicians could dial into the systems and use the software to troubleshoot, thereby creating a potential port of entry for hackers as well. </p> <p>In May 2006 in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, ES&amp;S technicians used the pcAnywhere software installed on that county&apos;s election-management system for hours trying to reconcile vote discrepancies in a local election, according to <a href=\"http://www.voteallegheny.org/lareport111206.pdf\">a report</a> filed at the time. And in a <a href=\"https://www.michigan.gov/documents/FINAL_CONTRACT_ACCESSIBLE_VS_6200250_162700_7.pdf\">contract with Michigan</a>, which covered 2006 to 2009, ES&amp;S discussed its use of pcAnywhere and modems for this purpose. </p> <p>&quot;In some cases, the Technical Support representative accesses the customer&#x2019;s system through PCAnywhere&#x2014;off-the-shelf software which allows immediate access to the customer&#x2019;s data and network system from a remote location&#x2014;to gain insight into the issue and offer precise solutions,&quot; ES&amp;S wrote in a June 2007 addendum to the contract. &quot;ES&amp;S technicians can use PCAnywhere to view a client computer, assess the exact situation that caused a software issue and to view data files.&quot; </p> <p>Motherboard asked a Michigan spokesman if any officials in his state ever installed the pcAnywhere software that ES&amp;S recommended they install, but got no response.</p> <p>The presence of such software makes a system more vulnerable to attack from hackers, especially if the remote-access software itself contains security vulnerabilities. If an attacker can gain remote access to an election-management system through the modem and take control of it using the pcAnywhere software installed on it, he can introduce malicious code that gets passed to voting machines to disrupt an election or alter results.</p> <p>Wyden told Motherboard that installing remote-access software and modems on election equipment &#x201C;is the worst decision for security short of leaving ballot boxes on a Moscow street corner.&#x201D; </p> <p>In 2006, the same period when ES&amp;S says it was still installing pcAnywhere on election systems, hackers <a href=\"https://www.infoworld.com/article/2618965/hacking/threatened-by-anonymous--symantec-tells-users-to-pull-pcanywhere-s-plug.html\">stole the source code for the pcAnyhere software</a>, though the public didn&#x2019;t learn of this until years later in 2012 when a hacker posted some of the source code online, forcing Symantec, the distributor of pcAnywhere, to admit that it had been stolen years earlier. Source code is invaluable to hackers because it allows them to examine the code to find security flaws they can exploit. When Symantec admitted to the theft in 2012, it took the unprecedented step of <a href=\"https://www.infoworld.com/article/2618965/hacking/threatened-by-anonymous--symantec-tells-users-to-pull-pcanywhere-s-plug.html\">warning users to disable or uninstall the software</a> until it could make sure that any security flaws in the software had been patched.</p> <p>Around this same time, security researchers <a href=\"https://www.zerodayinitiative.com/advisories/ZDI-12-018/\">discovered a critical vulnerability</a> in pcAnywhere that would allow an attacker to seize control of a system that had the software installed on it, without needing to authenticate themselves to the system with a password. And other researchers with the security firm Rapid7 scanned the internet for any computers that were online and had pcAnywhere installed on them and found nearly 150,000 were configured in a way that would allow direct access to them.</p> <p>It&#x2019;s not clear if election officials who had pcAnywhere installed on their systems, ever patched this and other security flaws that were in the software.</p> <p>&#x201C;[I]t&apos;s very unlikely that jurisdictions that had to use this software &#x2026; updated it very often,&#x201D; says Joseph Lorenzo Hall, chief technologist for the Center for Democracy and Technology, &#x201C;meaning it&apos;s likely that a non-trivial number of them were exposed to some of the flaws found both in terms of configuration ... but also flaws that were found when the source code to that software was stolen in 2006.&#x201D; </p> <p>ES&amp;S said in its letter to Wyden that the modems it installed on its election-management systems for use with pcAnywhere were configured only to dial out, not receive calls, so that only election officials could initiate connections with ES&amp;S. But when Wyden&apos;s office asked in a letter to ES&amp;S in March what settings were used to secure the communications, whether the system used hard-coded or default passwords and whether ES&amp;S or anyone else had conducted a security audit around the use of pcAnywhere to ensure that the communication was done in a secure manner, the company did not provide responses to any of these questions.</p><p>Even if ES&amp;S and its customers configured their remote connections to ES&amp;S in a secure manner, the recent <a href=\"https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/8xbnxp/mueller-indicts-12-russian-intelligence-officers-including-guccifer-20-for-hacking-democrats\">US indictments against Russian state hackers</a> who tried to interfere in the 2016 presidential elections, show that they targeted companies in the US that make software for the administration of elections. An attacker would only have had to hack ES&amp;S and then use its network to slip into a county&apos;s election-management system when the two systems made a remote connection.</p> <p>In its letter to Wyden, ES&amp;S defended its installation of pcAnywhere, saying that during the time it installed the software on customer machines prior to 2006, this was &quot;considered an accepted practice by numerous technology companies, including other voting system manufacturers.&quot;</p> <p>Motherboard contacted two of the top vendors&#x2014;Hart InterCivic and Dominion&#x2014;to verify this, but neither responded. However, Douglas Jones, professor of computer science at the University of Iowa and a longtime expert on voting machines confirmed that other companies did routinely install remote-access software during this period.</p> <p>&#x201C;Certainly, [Diebold Election Systems] did the same, and I&apos;d assume the others did too,&#x201D; he told Motherboard. &#x201C;In the case of [Diebold], many of their contracts with customers included the requirement of a remote-login port allowing [the company] to have remote access to the customer system in order to allow customer support.&#x201D;</p> <p>He notes that election officials who purchased the systems likely were not aware of the potential risks they were taking in allowing this and didn&#x2019;t understand the threat landscape to make intelligent decisions about installing such software.</p> <p>All of this raises questions about how many counties across the US had remote-access software installed&#x2014;in addition to ES&amp;S customers&#x2014;and whether intruders had ever leveraged it to subvert elections. </p> <p>Although Wyden&apos;s office asked ES&amp;S to identify which of its customers were sold systems with pcAnywhere installed, the company did not respond. ES&amp;S would only say that it had confirmed with customers who had the software installed that they &quot;no longer have this application installed.&quot; </p> <p>The company didn&apos;t respond to questions from Motherboard asking when these customers removed the software&#x2014;whether ES&amp;S had instructed them to do so back in 2007 when the company says it stopped installing the software on new systems it sold or whether it had only recently told customers to remove it following concerns raised in the 2016 presidential elections that Russian hackers were targeting election networks in the US. As late as 2011 pcAnywhere was still being used on at least one ES&amp;S customer&apos;s election-management system in Venango County, Pennsylvania.</p> <p>ES&amp;S wrote in its letter to Wyden that it would be willing to meet privately in his office to discuss election security. But when the company was asked to attend a hearing on election security last week before the Senate Committee on Rules and Administration, ES&amp;S declined to send anyone to answer Senate questions.</p> <p>Wyden says he&#x2019;s still waiting for ES&amp;S to respond to the outstanding questions he sent the company in March.</p> <p>&#x201C;ES&amp;S needs to stop stonewalling and provide a full, honest accounting of equipment that could be vulnerable to remote attacks,&#x201D; he told Motherboard. &#x201C;When a corporation that makes half of America&#x2019;s voting machines refuses to answer the most basic cyber security questions, you have to ask what it is hiding.&#x201D;</p><p><i>Correction: This story previously stated that Senator Ron Wyden is a member of the Senate Committee on Rules and Administration. He is not a member of the committee, but was asked to participate in a hearing it held last week on election security. Motherboard regrets the error.</i></p></div>","url":"https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/mb4ezy/top-voting-machine-vendor-admits-it-installed-remote-access-software-on-systems-sold-to-states","date_published":"2018-07-17T20:45:02+00:00","author":{"name":""}},{"id":"155","title":"Masthead – DCReport.org","content_html":"<div id=\"standard_blog_full\" class=\"twelve columns alpha omega\"> <p class=\"entry-content\"> <section class=\"section group\"> <div id=\"cn_content\" class=\"container row\">\n<div id=\"main\">\n<div id=\"standard_blog_full\" class=\"twelve columns alpha omega\">\n<div class=\"entry-content\">\n<div id=\"cn_content\" class=\"container row\">\n<div id=\"main\">\n<div id=\"standard_blog_full\" class=\"twelve columns alpha omega\">\n<div class=\"entry-content\">\n<section class=\"section group\"> </section>\n<section class=\"section group\">\n<div id=\"d-newsroom\" class=\"col span_4_of_11\">\n<section class=\"section group\">\n<div id=\"d-newsroom\" class=\"col span_4_of_11\">\n<section class=\"section group\"> </section>\n<div class=\"col span_4_of_11\">\n<div>TERRY H. SCHWADRON, <em>New York Editor</em></div>\n<div>SARAH OKESON, <em>Correspondent</em></div>\n<div>JILLIAN S. AMBROZ, <em>Correspondent</em></div>\n<div>JIM HENRY, <em>Senior&#xA0;Editor, Investigative Economics&#xA0;</em></div>\n<div>AMY BOYLE JOHNSTON, <em>Volunteer Researcher</em></div>\n<div>WENDY ANDERSON and MAUREEN GIBBONS,<i>&#xA0;Volunteer Proofreaders</i></div>\n</div>\n<div class=\"col span_4_of_11\">&#xA0;ADAM LEIPZIG, <em>Senior Advisor<br>\n</em></div>\n<div class=\"col span_4_of_11\">TOD HARDIN&#xA0;<em>Social Media</em> &amp;&#xA0;<em>Technical Advisor</em></div>\n<div class=\"col span_4_of_11\">SUSAN BERNICK,&#xA0;<em>Volunteer Coordinator</em></div>\n</div>\n</section>\n</div>\n</section> <div class=\"col span_4_of_11\">JONATHAN ALTER\nBRUCE BARTLETT<p>\nCHERYL PHILLIPS</p></div>\n</div>\n</div>\n</div>\n</div>\n</div>\n</div>\n</div>\n</div> </section> </p> </div>","url":"https://www.dcreport.org/masthead/","date_published":"2018-07-17T00:10:36+00:00","author":{"name":""}},{"id":"1185","title":"The Friendship That Made Google Huge","content_html":"<div><div id=\"articleBody\" class=\"ArticleBody__articleBody___1GSGP\"><div><div><div class=\"SectionBreak SectionBreak__sectionBreak___1ppA7\"><p>One day in March of 2000, six of <a class=\"ArticleBody__link___1FS03\" href=\"https://www.newyorker.com/tag/google\">Google</a>&#x2019;s best engineers gathered in a makeshift war room. The company was in the midst of an unprecedented emergency. In October, its core systems, which crawled the Web to build an &#x201C;index&#x201D; of it, had stopped working. Although users could still type in queries at google.com, the results they received were five months out of date. More was at stake than the engineers realized. Google&#x2019;s co-founders, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, were negotiating a deal to power a search engine for Yahoo, and they&#x2019;d promised to deliver an index ten times bigger than the one they had at the time&#x2014;one capable of keeping up with the World Wide Web, which had doubled in size the previous year. If they failed, google.com would remain a time capsule, the Yahoo deal would likely collapse, and the company would risk burning through its funding into oblivion.</p><p>In a conference room by a set of stairs, the engineers laid doors across sawhorses and set up their computers. Craig Silverstein, a twenty-seven-year-old with a small frame and a high voice, sat by the far wall. Silverstein was Google&#x2019;s first employee: he&#x2019;d joined the company when its offices were in Brin&#x2019;s living room and had rewritten much of its code himself. After four days and nights, he and a Romanian systems engineer named Bogdan Cocosel had got nowhere. &#x201C;None of the analysis we were doing made any sense,&#x201D; Silverstein recalled. &#x201C;Everything was broken, and we didn&#x2019;t know why.&#x201D;</p><p>Silverstein had barely registered the presence, over his left shoulder, of Sanjay Ghemawat, a quiet thirty-three-year-old M.I.T. graduate with thick eyebrows and black hair graying at the temples. Sanjay had joined the company only a few months earlier, in December. He&#x2019;d followed a colleague of his&#x2014;a rangy, energetic thirty-one-year-old named Jeff Dean&#x2014;from Digital Equipment Corporation. Jeff had left D.E.C. ten months before Sanjay. They were unusually close, and preferred to write code jointly. In the war room, Jeff rolled his chair over to Sanjay&#x2019;s desk, leaving his own empty. Sanjay worked the keyboard while Jeff reclined beside him, correcting and cajoling like a producer in a news anchor&#x2019;s ear.</p><p>Jeff and Sanjay began poring over the stalled index. They discovered that some words were missing&#x2014;they&#x2019;d search for &#x201C;mailbox&#x201D; and get no results&#x2014;and that others were listed out of order. For days, they looked for flaws in the code, immersing themselves in its logic. Section by section, everything checked out. They couldn&#x2019;t find the bug.</p><p>Programmers sometimes conceptualize their software as a structure of layers ranging from the user interface, at the top, down through increasingly fundamental strata. To venture into the bottom of this structure, where the software meets the hardware, is to turn away from the Platonic order of code and toward the elemental universe of electricity and silicon on which it depends. On their fifth day in the war room, Jeff and Sanjay began to suspect that the problem they were looking for was not logical but physical. They converted the jumbled index file to its rawest form of representation: binary code. They wanted to see what their machines were seeing.</p><p>On Sanjay&#x2019;s monitor, a thick column of 1s and 0s appeared, each row representing an indexed word. Sanjay pointed: a digit that should have been a 0 was a 1. When Jeff and Sanjay put all the missorted words together, they saw a pattern&#x2014;the same sort of glitch in every word. Their machines&#x2019; memory chips had somehow been corrupted.</p><p>Sanjay looked at Jeff. For months, Google had been experiencing an increasing number of hardware failures. The problem was that, as Google grew, its computing infrastructure also expanded. Computer hardware rarely failed, until you had enough of it&#x2014;then it failed all the time. Wires wore down, hard drives fell apart, motherboards overheated. Many machines never worked in the first place; some would unaccountably grow slower. Strange environmental factors came into play. When a supernova explodes, the blast wave creates high-energy particles that scatter in every direction; scientists believe there is a minute chance that one of the errant particles, known as a cosmic ray, can hit a computer chip on Earth, flipping a 0 to a 1. The world&#x2019;s most robust computer systems, at <em class=\"small\">NASA</em>, financial firms, and the like, used special hardware that could tolerate single bit-flips. But Google, which was still operating like a startup, bought cheaper computers that lacked that feature. The company had reached an inflection point. Its computing cluster had grown so big that even unlikely hardware failures were inevitable.</p><p>Together, Jeff and Sanjay wrote code to compensate for the offending machines. Shortly afterward, the new index was completed, and the war room disbanded. Silverstein was flummoxed. He was a good debugger; the key to finding bugs was getting to the bottom of things. Jeff and Sanjay had gone deeper.</p></div><div class=\"SectionBreak SectionBreak__sectionBreak___1ppA7\"><p>Until the March index debacle, Google&#x2019;s systems had been rooted in code that its founders had written in grad school, at Stanford. Page and Brin weren&#x2019;t professional software engineers. They were academics conducting an experiment in search technology. When their Web crawler crashed, there was no informative diagnostic message&#x2014;just the phrase &#x201C;Whoa, horsey!&#x201D; Early employees referred to BigFiles, a piece of software that Page and Brin had written, as BugFiles. Their all-important indexing code took days to finish, and if it encountered a problem it had<span></span> to re-start from the beginning. In the parlance of Silicon Valley, Google wasn&#x2019;t &#x201C;scalable.&#x201D;</p><p>We say that we &#x201C;search the Web,&#x201D; but we don&#x2019;t, really; our search engines traverse an index of the Web&#x2014;a map. When Google was still called BackRub, in 1996, its map was small enough to fit on computers installed in Page&#x2019;s dorm room. In March of 2000, there was no supercomputer big enough to process it. The only way that Google could keep up was by buying consumer machines and wiring them together into a fleet. Because half the cost of these computers was in parts that Google considered junk&#x2014;floppy drives, metal chassis&#x2014;the company would order raw motherboards and hard drives and sandwich them together. Google had fifteen hundred of these devices stacked in towers six feet high, in a building in Santa Clara, California; because of hardware glitches, only twelve hundred worked. Failures, which occurred seemingly at random, kept breaking the system. To survive, Google would have to unite its computers into a seamless, resilient whole.</p><p>Side by side, Jeff and Sanjay took charge of this effort. Wayne Rosing, who had worked at <a class=\"ArticleBody__link___1FS03\" href=\"https://www.newyorker.com/tag/apple\">Apple</a> on the precursor to the Macintosh, joined Google in November, 2000, to run its hundred-person engineering team. &#x201C;They were the leaders,&#x201D; he said. Working ninety-hour weeks, they wrote code so that a single hard drive could fail without bringing down the entire system. They added checkpoints to the crawling process so that it could be re-started midstream. By developing new encoding and compression schemes, they effectively doubled the system&#x2019;s capacity. They were relentless optimizers. When a car goes around a turn, more ground must be covered by the outside wheels; likewise, the outer edge of a spinning hard disk moves faster than the inner one. Google had moved the most frequently accessed data to the outside, so that bits could flow faster under the read-head, but had left the inner half empty; Jeff and Sanjay used the space to store preprocessed data for common search queries. Over four days in 2001, they proved that Google&#x2019;s index could be stored using fast random-access memory instead of relatively slow hard drives; the discovery reshaped the company&#x2019;s economics. Page and Brin knew that users would flock to a service that delivered answers instantly. The problem was that speed required computing power, and computing power cost money. Jeff and Sanjay threaded the needle with software.</p><p>Alan Eustace became the head of the engineering team after Rosing left, in 2005. &#x201C;To solve problems at scale, paradoxically, you have to know the smallest details,&#x201D; Eustace said. Jeff and Sanjay understood computers at the level of bits. Jeff once circulated a list of &#x201C;Latency Numbers Every Programmer Should Know.&#x201D; In fact, it&#x2019;s a list of numbers that almost no programmer knows: that an L1 cache reference usually takes half a nanosecond, or that reading one megabyte sequentially from memory takes two hundred and fifty microseconds. These numbers are hardwired into Jeff&#x2019;s and Sanjay&#x2019;s brains. As they helped spearhead several rewritings of Google&#x2019;s core software, the system&#x2019;s capacity scaled by orders of magnitude. Meanwhile, in the company&#x2019;s vast data centers technicians now walked in serpentine routes, following software-generated instructions to replace hard drives, power supplies, and memory sticks. Even as its parts wore out and died, the system thrived.</p><p>Today, Google&#x2019;s engineers exist in a Great Chain of Being that begins at Level 1. At the bottom are the I.T. support staff. Level 2s are fresh out of college; Level 3s often have master&#x2019;s degrees. Getting to Level 4 takes several years, or a Ph.D. Most progression stops at Level 5. Level 6 engineers&#x2014;the top ten per cent&#x2014;are so capable that they could be said to be the reason a project succeeds; Level 7s are Level 6s with a long track record. Principal Engineers, the Level 8s, are associated with a major product or piece of infrastructure. Distinguished Engineers, the Level 9s, are spoken of with reverence. To become a Google Fellow, a Level 10, is to win an honor that will follow you for life. Google Fellows are usually the world&#x2019;s leading experts in their fields. Jeff and Sanjay are Google Senior Fellows&#x2014;the company&#x2019;s first and only Level 11s.</p></div><div class=\"SectionBreak SectionBreak__sectionBreak___1ppA7\"><p>The Google campus, set beside a highway a few minutes from downtown Mountain View, is a series of squat, unattractive buildings with tinted windows. One Monday last summer, after a morning of programming together, Jeff and Sanjay went to lunch at a campus cafeteria called Big Table, which was named for a system they&#x2019;d helped develop, in 2005, for treating numberless computers as though they were a single database. Sanjay, who is tall and thin, wore an ancient maroon Henley, gray pants, and small wire-frame glasses. He spied a table outside and walked briskly to claim it, cranking open the umbrella and taking a seat in the shade. He moved another chair into the sun for Jeff, who arrived a minute later, broad-shouldered in a short-sleeved shirt and wearing stylish sneakers.</p><p>Like a couple, Jeff and Sanjay tell stories together by contributing pieces of the total picture. They began reminiscing about their early projects.</p><div class=\"Callout__inset-left___2rZjf\"><div class=\"CartoonEmbed__container___vf5AM \"><a class=\"Link__link___3dWao CartoonEmbed__captionLink___14pNW \" href=\"https://www.newyorker.com/cartoon/a22361\"><figure class=\"Figure__figure___U_9Te  \"><div class=\"placeholder\"><div class=\"placeholder-content\"><div class=\"Image__image___1PhYl\"><picture class=\"component-responsive-image\"><source srcset=\"https://media.newyorker.com/cartoons/5c0041855cc0c92d353cfca0/master/w_280,c_limit/181210_a22361.jpg, https://media.newyorker.com/cartoons/5c0041855cc0c92d353cfca0/master/w_560,c_limit/181210_a22361.jpg 2x\"><source srcset=\"https://media.newyorker.com/cartoons/5c0041855cc0c92d353cfca0/master/w_727,c_limit/181210_a22361.jpg, https://media.newyorker.com/cartoons/5c0041855cc0c92d353cfca0/master/w_1454,c_limit/181210_a22361.jpg 2x\"><img alt=\"\" src=\"https://media.newyorker.com/cartoons/5c0041855cc0c92d353cfca0/master/w_727,c_limit/181210_a22361.jpg\"></picture></div></div></div><figcaption class=\"ImageCaption__captionWrapper___2h5XI Figure__cartoonCaptionWrapper___1tdkA ImageCaption__default___3TPB5\"><span class=\"ImageCaption__caption___1EOQO ImageCaption__caption___1EOQO\">&#x201C;Behold, as I transform this normal woman into a sexualized prop.&#x201D;</span></figcaption></figure></a></div></div><p>&#x201C;We were writing things by hand,&#x201D; Sanjay said. His glasses darkened in the sun. &#x201C;We&#x2019;d rewrite it, and it was, like, &#x2018;Oh, that seems near to what we wrote last month.&#x2019;&#xA0;&#x201D;</p><p>&#x201C;Or a slightly different pass in our indexing<span></span> data,&#x201D; Jeff added.</p><p>&#x201C;Or slightly different,&#x201D; Sanjay said. &#x201C;And that&#x2019;s how we figure out&#x2014;&#x201D;</p><p>&#x201C;This is the essence,&#x201D; Jeff said.</p><p>&#x201C;&#x2014;this is the common pattern,&#x201D; Sanjay said, finishing their thought.</p><p>Jeff took a bite of the pizza he&#x2019;d got. He has the fingers of a deckhand, knobby and leathery; Sanjay, who looks almost delicate in comparison, wondered how they ended up as a pair. &#x201C;I don&#x2019;t quite know how we decided that it would be better,&#x201D; he said.</p><p>&#x201C;We&#x2019;ve been doing it since before Google,&#x201D; Jeff said.</p><p>&#x201C;But I don&#x2019;t know why we decided it was better to do it in front of one computer instead of two,&#x201D; Sanjay said.</p><p>&#x201C;I would walk from my D.E.C. research lab two blocks away to his D.E.C. research lab,&#x201D; Jeff said. &#x201C;There was a gelato store in the middle.&#x201D;</p><p>&#x201C;So it&#x2019;s the gelato store!&#x201D; Sanjay said, delighted.</p><p>Sanjay, who is unmarried, joins Jeff, his two daughters, and his wife, Heidi, on vacations. Jeff&#x2019;s daughters call him Uncle Sanjay, and the five of them often have dinner on Fridays. Sanjay and Victoria, Jeff&#x2019;s eldest, have taken to baking. &#x201C;I&#x2019;ve seen his daughters grow up,&#x201D; Sanjay said, proudly. After the Google I.P.O., in 2004, they moved into houses that are four miles apart. Sanjay lives in a modest three-bedroom in Old Mountain View; Jeff designed his house, near downtown Palo Alto, himself, installing a trampoline in the basement. While working on the house, he discovered that although he liked designing spaces, he didn&#x2019;t have patience for what he calls the &#x201C;Sanjay-oriented aspects&#x201D; of architecture: the details of beams, bolts, and loads that keep the grand design from falling apart.</p><p>&#x201C;I don&#x2019;t know why more people don&#x2019;t do it,&#x201D; Sanjay said, of programming with a partner.</p><p>&#x201C;You need to find someone that you&#x2019;re gonna pair-program with who&#x2019;s compatible with your way of thinking, so that the two of you together are a complementary force,&#x201D; Jeff said.</p><p>They pushed back from the table and set out in search of soft-serve, strolling through Big Table and its drifting Googlers. Of the two, Jeff is more eager to expound, and while they walked he shared his soft-serve strategy. &#x201C;I do the squish. I think the pushing-up approach adds stability,&#x201D; he said. Sanjay, pleased and intent, swirled a chocolate-and-vanilla mix into his cone.</p></div><div class=\"SectionBreak SectionBreak__sectionBreak___1ppA7\"><p>In his book &#x201C;<a class=\"ArticleBody__link___1FS03\" href=\"https://www.amazon.com/dp/0226238679/?tag=thneyo0f-20\">Collaborative Circles: Friendship Dynamics and Creative Work</a>,&#x201D; from 2001, the sociologist Michael&#xA0;P. Farrell made a study of close creative groups&#x2014;the French Impressionists, Sigmund Freud and his contemporaries. &#x201C;Most of the fragile insights that laid the foundation of a new vision emerged not when the whole group was together, and not when members worked alone, but when they collaborated and responded to one another in pairs,&#x201D; he wrote. It took Monet and Renoir, working side by side in the summer of 1869, to develop the style that became Impressionism; during the six-year collaboration that gave rise to Cubism, <a class=\"ArticleBody__link___1FS03\" href=\"https://www.newyorker.com/tag/pablo-picasso\">Pablo Picasso</a> and Georges Braque would often sign only the backs of their canvases, to obscure which of them had completed each painting. (&#x201C;A canvas was not finished until both of us felt it was,&#x201D; Picasso later recalled.) In &#x201C;<a class=\"ArticleBody__link___1FS03\" href=\"https://www.amazon.com/dp/1848545924/?tag=thneyo0f-20\">Powers of Two: Finding the Essence of Innovation in Creative Pairs</a>,&#x201D; the writer Joshua Wolf Shenk quotes from a 1971 interview in which John Lennon explained that either he or Paul McCartney would &#x201C;write the good bit, the part that was easy, like &#x2018;I read the news today&#x2019; or whatever it was.&#x201D; One of them would get stuck until the other arrived&#x2014;then, Lennon said, &#x201C;I would sing half, and he would be inspired to write the next bit and vice versa.&#x201D; Everyone falls into creative ruts, but two people rarely do so at the same time.</p><p>In the &#x201C;theory building&#x201D; phase of a new science or art, it&#x2019;s important to explore widely without getting caught in dead ends. Fran&#xE7;ois Jacob, who, with Jacques Monod, pioneered the study of gene regulation, noted that by the mid-twentieth century most research in the growing field of molecular biology was the result of twosomes. &#x201C;Two are better than one for dreaming up theories and constructing models,&#x201D; Jacob wrote. &#x201C;For with two minds working on a problem, ideas fly thicker and faster. They are bounced from partner to partner. They are grafted onto each other, like branches on a tree. And in the process, illusions are sooner nipped in the bud.&#x201D; In the past thirty-five years, about half of the Nobel Prizes in Physiology or Medicine have gone to scientific partnerships.</p><p>After years of sharing their working lives, duos sometimes develop a private language, the way twins do. They imitate each other&#x2019;s clothing and habits. A sense of humor osmoses from one to the other. Apportioning credit between them becomes impossible. But partnerships of this intensity are unusual in software development. Although developers sometimes talk about &#x201C;pair programming&#x201D;&#x2014;two programmers sharing a single computer, one &#x201C;driving&#x201D; and the other &#x201C;navigating&#x201D;&#x2014;they usually conceive of such partnerships in terms of redundancy, as though the pair were co-pilots on the same flight. Jeff and Sanjay, by contrast, sometimes seem to be two halves of a single mind. Some of their best-known papers have as many as a dozen co-authors. Still, Bill Coughran, one of their managers, recalled, &#x201C;They were so prolific and so effective working as a pair that we often built teams around them.&#x201D;</p><p>In 1966, researchers at the System Development Corporation discovered that<span></span> the best programmers were more than ten times as effective as the worst. The existence of the so-called &#x201C;10x programmer&#x201D; has been controversial ever since. The idea venerates the individual, when software projects are often vast and collective. In programming, few achievements exist in isolation. Even so&#x2014;and perhaps ironically&#x2014;many coders see the work done by Jeff and Sanjay, together, as proof that the 10x programmer exists.</p></div><div class=\"SectionBreak SectionBreak__sectionBreak___1ppA7\"><p>Jeff was born in Hawaii, in July of 1968. His father, Andy, was a tropical-disease researcher; his mother, Virginia Lee, was a medical anthropologist who spoke half a dozen languages. For fun, father and son programmed an IMSAI 8080 kit computer. They soldered upgrades onto the machine, learning every part of it.</p><p>Jeff and his parents moved often. At thirteen, he skipped the last three months of eighth grade to help them at a refugee camp in western Somalia. Later, in high school, he started writing a data-collection program for epidemiologists called Epi Info; it became a standard tool for field work and, eventually, hundreds of thousands of copies were distributed, in more than a dozen languages. (A Web site maintained by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, &#x201C;The Epi Info Story,&#x201D; includes a picture of Jeff at his high-school graduation.) Heidi, whom Jeff met in college, at the University of Minnesota, learned of the program&#x2019;s significance only years later. &#x201C;He didn&#x2019;t brag about any of that stuff,&#x201D; she said. &#x201C;You had to pull it out of him.&#x201D; Their first date was at a women&#x2019;s basketball game; Jeff was in a gopher costume, cheerleading.</p><p>Jeff&#x2019;s Ph.D. focussed on compilers, the software that turns code written by people into machine-language instructions optimized for computers. &#x201C;In terms of sexiness, compilers are pretty much as boring as it gets,&#x201D; Alan Eustace said; on the other hand, they get you &#x201C;very close to the machine.&#x201D; Describing Jeff, Sanjay twirled his index finger around his temple. &#x201C;He has a model going on as you&#x2019;re writing code,&#x201D; he said. &#x201C;&#xA0;&#x2018;What is the performance of this code going to be?&#x2019; He&#x2019;ll think about all the corner cases almost semi-automatically.&#x201D;</p><p>Sanjay didn&#x2019;t touch a computer until he went to Cornell, at the age of seventeen. He was born in West Lafayette, Indiana, in 1966, but grew up in Kota, an industrial city in northern India. His father, Mahipal, was a botany professor; his mother, Shanta, took care of Sanjay and his two older siblings. They were a bookish family: his uncle, Ashok Mehta, remembers buying a copy of &#x201C;<a class=\"ArticleBody__link___1FS03\" href=\"https://www.amazon.com/dp/0525535861/?tag=thneyo0f-20\">The Day of the Jackal</a>,&#x201D; by Frederick Forsyth, its binding badly worn, and watching the Ghemawat children read the broken book together, passing pages along as they finished. Sanjay&#x2019;s brother, Pankaj, became the youngest faculty member ever awarded tenure at Harvard Business School. (He is now a professor at N.Y.U. Stern.) Pankaj went to the same school as Sanjay and had a reputation as a Renaissance man. &#x201C;I kind of lived in the shadow of my brother,&#x201D; Sanjay said. As an adult, he retains a talent for self-effacement. In 2016, when he was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, he didn&#x2019;t tell his parents; their neighbor had to give them the news.</p><p>In graduate school, at M.I.T., Sanjay found a tight-knit group of friends. Still, he never dated, and does so only &#x201C;very, very infrequently&#x201D; now. He says that he didn&#x2019;t decide not to have a family&#x2014;it just unfolded that way. His close friends have learned not to bother him about it, and his parents long ago accepted that their son would be a bachelor. Perhaps because he&#x2019;s so private, an air of mystery surrounds him at Google. He is known for being quiet but profound&#x2014;someone who thinks deeply and with unusual clarity. On his desk, he keeps a stack of Mead composition notebooks going back nearly twenty years, filled with tidy lists and diagrams. He writes in pen and in cursive. He rarely references an old notebook, but writes in order to think. At M.I.T., his graduate adviser was Barbara Liskov, an influential computer scientist who studied, among other things, the management of complex code bases. In her view, the best code is like a good piece of writing. It needs a carefully realized structure; every word should do work. Programming this way requires empathy with readers. It also means seeing code not just as a means to an end but as an artifact in itself. &#x201C;The thing I think he is best at is designing systems,&#x201D; Craig Silverstein said. &#x201C;If you&#x2019;re just looking at a file of code Sanjay wrote, it&#x2019;s beautiful in the way that a well-proportioned sculpture is beautiful.&#x201D;</p><p>At Google, Jeff is far better known. There are Jeff Dean memes, modelled on the ones about Chuck Norris. (&#x201C;Chuck Norris counted to infinity&#xA0;.&#xA0;.&#xA0;. twice&#x201D;; &#x201C;Jeff Dean&#x2019;s r&#xE9;sum&#xE9; lists the things he hasn&#x2019;t done&#x2014;it&#x2019;s shorter that way.&#x201D;) But, for those who know them both, Sanjay is an equal talent. &#x201C;Jeff is great at coming up with wild new ideas and prototyping things,&#x201D; Wilson Hsieh, their longtime colleague, said. &#x201C;Sanjay was the one who built things to last.&#x201D; In life, Jeff is more outgoing, Sanjay more introverted. In code, it&#x2019;s the reverse. Jeff&#x2019;s programming is dazzling&#x2014;he can quickly outline startling ideas&#x2014;but, because it&#x2019;s done quickly, in a spirit of discovery, it can leave readers behind. Sanjay&#x2019;s code is social.</p><p>&#x201C;Some people,&#x201D; Silverstein said,<span></span> &#x201C;their code&#x2019;s too loose. One screen of code has very little information on it. You&#x2019;re always scrolling back and forth to figure out what&#x2019;s going on.&#x201D; Others write code that&#x2019;s too dense: &#x201C;You look at it, you&#x2019;re, like, &#x2018;Ugh. I&#x2019;m not looking forward to reading this.&#x2019; Sanjay has somehow split the middle. You look at his code and you&#x2019;re, like, &#x2018;O.K., I can figure this out,&#x2019; and, still, you get a lot on a single page.&#x201D; Silverstein continued, &#x201C;Whenever I want to add new functionality to Sanjay&#x2019;s code, it seems like the hooks are already there. I feel like Salieri. I understand the greatness. I don&#x2019;t understand how it&#x2019;s done.&#x201D;</p></div><div class=\"SectionBreak SectionBreak__sectionBreak___1ppA7\"><p>On a Monday morning this spring, Jeff and Sanjay stood in the kitchenette of Building 40, home to much of Google&#x2019;s artificial-intelligence division. Behind them, a whiteboard was filled with matrix algebra; a paper about unsupervised adversarial networks lay on a table. Jeff, wearing a faded T-shirt and jeans, looked like a reformed beach bum; Sanjay wore a sweater and gray pants. The bright windows revealed a stand of tall pines and, beyond it, a field. Wherever Jeff works at Google, espresso machines follow. On the kitchenette&#x2019;s counter, a three-foot-wide La Marzocco hummed. &#x201C;We&#x2019;re running late,&#x201D; Sanjay said, over a coffee grinder. It was eight-thirty-two.</p><p>After cappuccinos, they walked to their computers. Jeff rolled a chair from his own desk, which was messy, to Sanjay&#x2019;s, which was spotless. He rested a foot on a filing cabinet, leaning back, while Sanjay surveyed the screen in front of them. There were four windows open: on the left, a Web browser and a terminal, for running analysis tools; on the right, two documents in the text editor Emacs, one a combination to-do list and notebook, the other filled with colorful code. One of Sanjay&#x2019;s composition notebooks lay beside the computer.</p><p>&#x201C;All right, what were we doing?&#x201D; Sanjay asked.</p><p>&#x201C;I think we were looking at code sizes of TensorFlow Lite,&#x201D; Jeff said.</p><p>This was a major new software project related to machine learning, and Jeff and Sanjay were worried that it was bloated; like book editors, they were looking for cuts. For this task, they&#x2019;d built a new tool that itself needed to be optimized.</p><p>&#x201C;So I was trying to figure out how slow it is,&#x201D; Sanjay said.</p><p>&#x201C;It&#x2019;s pretty slow,&#x201D; Jeff said. He leaned forward, still relaxed.</p><p>&#x201C;So that one was a hundred twenty kilobytes,&#x201D; Sanjay said, &#x201C;and it was, like, eight seconds.&#x201D;</p><p>&#x201C;A hundred twenty thousand stack calls,&#x201D; Jeff said, &#x201C;not kilobytes.&#x201D;</p><p>&#x201C;Well, kilobytes of text, yeah&#x2014;about,&#x201D; Sanjay said.</p><p>&#x201C;Oh, yeah, sorry,&#x201D; Jeff said.</p><p>&#x201C;I don&#x2019;t quite know what threshold we should pick for a unit size,&#x201D; Sanjay said. &#x201C;Half a meg?&#x201D;</p><p>&#x201C;Seems good,&#x201D; Jeff said. Sanjay began to type, and Jeff was drawn into the screen. &#x201C;So you&#x2019;re just saying, if it&#x2019;s bigger than that we&#x2019;ll just sample&#xA0;.&#xA0;.&#xA0;.&#x201D; He left the rest unsaid; Sanjay answered him in code.</p><p>When Sanjay drives, he puts his hands at ten and two and stares attentively ahead. He is the same way at the keyboard. With his feet spread shoulder-width apart, he looked as if he were working on his posture. His spindly fingers moved gently across the keys. A few younger programmers began to trickle in.</p><p>Soon they reached a minor milestone, and Sanjay typed a command to test their progress. Seeming worn out, he checked his e-mail while it ran. The test finished. He didn&#x2019;t notice.</p><p>&#x201C;Hey,&#x201D; Jeff said. He snapped his fingers and pointed at the screen. Although in conversation he is given to dad jokes and puns, he can become opinionated, brusque, and disapproving when he sits at a computer with Sanjay. Sanjay takes this in stride. When he thinks Jeff is moving too fast, he&#x2019;ll lift his hands off the keyboard and spread his fingers, as if to say, &#x201C;Stop.&#x201D; (In general, Jeff is the accelerator, Sanjay the brake.) This is as close as they get to an argument: in twenty years together, they can&#x2019;t remember raising their voices.</p><p>Sanjay scrolled, bringing a new section of code into view. &#x201C;Like, all that can be made into a routine, couldn&#x2019;t it?&#x201D; Jeff said.</p><p>&#x201C;Mmm,&#x201D; Sanjay agreed.</p><p>Jeff cracked his knuckles. &#x201C;Seems doable. Should we do that?&#x201D;</p><p>Sanjay was wary. &#x201C;No, I&#x2014;&#x201D;</p><p>&#x201C;So we&#x2019;re going to ignore a problem?&#x201D; Jeff said indignantly.</p><p>&#x201C;No, I mean, we&#x2019;re just trying to get an idea of the types of things that are going on. So we could make notes about it, right?&#x201D;</p><p>&#x201C;O.K.,&#x201D; Jeff said happily, his mood having turned on a dime. They dictated a note together.</p><p>Lunchtime approached. They had worked for two hours with one ten-minute break, talking most of the time. (A lesser programmer watching them would have been impressed, more than anything else, by the fact that they never stopped or got stuck.) It&#x2019;s standard engineering practice to have your code reviewed by another coder, but Jeff and Sanjay skip this step, entering, in their log, a perfunctory &#x201C;lgtm,&#x201D; for &#x201C;looks good to me.&#x201D; In a sense, they had been occupied by minutiae. Their code, however, is executed at Google&#x2019;s scale. The kilobits and microseconds they worry over are multiplied as much as a billionfold in data centers around the world&#x2014;loud, hot, warehouse-size buildings whose unending racks of processors are cooled by vats of water. On days like these, Jeff has been<span></span> known to come home and tell his daughters, &#x201C;Sanjay and I sped up Google Search by ten per cent today.&#x201D;</p></div><div class=\"SectionBreak SectionBreak__sectionBreak___1ppA7\"><p>Jeff and Sanjay gave Google what was arguably its biggest single upgrade in the course of four months in 2003. They did it with a piece of software called MapReduce. The idea came to them the third time they rewrote Google&#x2019;s crawler and indexer. It occurred to them that, each time, they had solved an important problem: co&#xF6;rdinating work in a vast number of geographically distributed, individually unreliable computers. Generalizing their solution would mean that they could avoid revisiting the problem again and again. But it would also create a tool that any programmer at Google could use to wield the machines in its data centers as if they were a single, planet-size computer.</p><p>MapReduce, which Jeff and Sanjay wrote in a corner office overlooking a duck pond, imposed order on a process that could be mind-bendingly complicated. Before MapReduce, each programmer had to figure out how to divide and distribute data, assign work, and account for hardware failures on her own. MapReduce gave coders a structured way of thinking about these problems. Just as a chef maintains <em class=\"\">mise en place</em>&#x2014;prepping ingredients before combining them&#x2014;so MapReduce asks programmers to divide their tasks into two stages. First, a coder tells each machine how to do the &#x201C;map&#x201D; stage of a task (say, counting how many times a word appears on a Web page); next, she writes instructions for &#x201C;reducing&#x201D; all the machines&#x2019; results (for instance, by adding them up). MapReduce handles the details of distribution&#x2014;and, by doing so, hides them.</p><p>The following year, Jeff and Sanjay rewrote Google&#x2019;s crawling and indexing system in terms of MapReduce tasks. Soon, when other engineers realized how powerful it was, they started using MapReduce to process videos and render the tiles on Google Maps. MapReduce was so simple that new tasks kept suggesting themselves. Google has what&#x2019;s known as a &#x201C;diurnal usage curve&#x201D;&#x2014;there&#x2019;s more traffic during the day than there is at night&#x2014;and MapReduce tasks began soaking up the idle capacity. A dreaming brain processes its daytime experiences. Now Google processed its data.</p><p>There were inklings, early on, that Google was an A.I. company pretending to be a search company. In 2001, Noam Shazeer, who shared an office with Jeff and Sanjay, had grown frustrated with the spell-checker that Google was licensing from another company: it kept making embarrassing mistakes, such as telling users who&#x2019;d typed &#x201C;TurboTax&#x201D; that they probably meant &#x201C;turbot ax.&#x201D; (A turbot is a flatfish that lives in the North Atlantic.) A spell-checker is only as good as its dictionary, and Shazeer realized that, in the Web, Google had access to the biggest dictionary there had ever been. He wrote a program that used the statistical properties of text on the Web to determine which words were likely misspellings. The software learned that &#x201C;pritany spears&#x201D; and &#x201C;brinsley spears&#x201D; both meant &#x201C;Britney Spears.&#x201D; When Shazeer demonstrated the program at Google&#x2019;s weekly T.G.I.F. gathering, employees tried, but mostly failed, to fool it. In collaboration with Jeff and an engineer named Georges Harik, Shazeer applied similar techniques to associate ads with Web pages. Ad targeting became a river of money that the company directed back into its computing infrastructure. It was the beginning of a feedback loop&#x2014;bigness would be the source of Google&#x2019;s intelligence; intelligence the source of its wealth; and wealth the source of its growth&#x2014;that would make the company extraordinarily, and unsettlingly, dominant.</p><p>As enterprising coders used MapReduce to derive insights from Google&#x2019;s data, it became possible to transcribe users&#x2019; voice mails, answer their questions, autocomplete their queries, and translate among more than a hundred languages. Such systems were developed using relatively uncomplicated machine-learning algorithms. Still, &#x201C;very simple techniques, when you have a lot of data, work incredibly well,&#x201D; Jeff said. As &#x201C;data, data, data&#x201D;&#x2014;stored and processed with BigTable, MapReduce, and their successors&#x2014;became the company&#x2019;s prime directive, Google&#x2019;s globe-spanning infrastructure became more seamless and supple. The idea of distributed computation was an old one; concepts like &#x201C;cloud computing&#x201D; and &#x201C;big data&#x201D; predated Google&#x2019;s rise. But, by making it intellectually manageable for ordinary coders to write distributed programs, Jeff and Sanjay had given Google a new level of mastery over such technologies. Users may have sensed that something had changed: Google&#x2019;s cloud was getting smarter.</p><p>In 2004, because Jeff and Sanjay thought it would be useful to astronomers, geneticists, and other scientists with lots of data to process, they wrote a paper, &#x201C;<a class=\"ArticleBody__link___1FS03\" href=\"https://static.googleusercontent.com/media/research.google.com/en//archive/mapreduce-osdi04.pdf\">MapReduce: Simplified Data Processing on Large Clusters</a>,&#x201D; and made it public. The MapReduce paper arrived as a deus ex machina. Cheap hardware and the growth of Web services and connected devices had led to a deluge of data, but few companies had the software to process the information. Two engineers who&#x2019;d been struggling to scale a small search engine called Nutch&#x2014;Mike Cafarella and Doug Cutting&#x2014;were so convinced of MapReduce&#x2019;s importance that they decided to build a free clone of the system from scratch. They eventually called their project Hadoop, after a stuffed elephant beloved by Cutting&#x2019;s son. As Hadoop matured, it was adopted by half of the Fortune 50. It became synonymous with &#x201C;Big Data.&#x201D; <a class=\"ArticleBody__link___1FS03\" href=\"https://www.newyorker.com/tag/facebook\">Facebook</a> used &#x201C;Hadoop MapReduce,&#x201D; as it&#x2019;s often known, to store and process user metadata&#x2014;information about what was clicked, what was Liked, and which ads were viewed. At one point, it had the largest Hadoop cluster in<span></span> the world. Hadoop MapReduce helped power LinkedIn and <a class=\"ArticleBody__link___1FS03\" href=\"https://www.newyorker.com/tag/netflix\">Netflix</a>. Randy Garrett, a former director of technology at the National Security Agency, remembers demonstrating the technology to the agency&#x2019;s director, General Keith Alexander. Hadoop performed an analysis task eighteen thousand times faster than the previous system had. It became the foundation for a new approach to intelligence gathering which some observers call &#x201C;collect it all.&#x201D;</p></div><div class=\"SectionBreak SectionBreak__sectionBreak___1ppA7\"><p>Jeff has a restless nature: a problem becomes less interesting to him once he can see the shape of its solution. In 2011, as the world embraced the cloud, he began collaborating with Andrew Ng, a computer-science professor from Stanford who was leading a secretive project at Google to conduct research on neural networks&#x2014;software programs composed of virtual &#x201C;neurons.&#x201D; Jeff had encountered neural nets during his undergraduate days; back then, they hadn&#x2019;t been able to solve real-world problems. Ng had told Jeff that this was changing. At Stanford, researchers had achieved some exciting results when the nets were given access to large quantities of data. With Google&#x2019;s scale, Ng thought, neural networks could become not just useful but powerful.</p><div class=\"Callout__inset-left___2rZjf\"><div class=\"CartoonEmbed__container___vf5AM \"><a class=\"Link__link___3dWao CartoonEmbed__captionLink___14pNW \" href=\"https://www.newyorker.com/cartoon/a22225\"><figure class=\"Figure__figure___U_9Te  \"><div class=\"placeholder\"><div class=\"placeholder-content\"><div class=\"Image__image___1PhYl\"><picture class=\"component-responsive-image\"><source srcset=\"https://media.newyorker.com/cartoons/5c0041852107332d5ecc58b2/master/w_280,c_limit/181210_a22225.jpg, https://media.newyorker.com/cartoons/5c0041852107332d5ecc58b2/master/w_560,c_limit/181210_a22225.jpg 2x\"><source srcset=\"https://media.newyorker.com/cartoons/5c0041852107332d5ecc58b2/master/w_727,c_limit/181210_a22225.jpg, https://media.newyorker.com/cartoons/5c0041852107332d5ecc58b2/master/w_1454,c_limit/181210_a22225.jpg 2x\"><img alt=\"\" src=\"https://media.newyorker.com/cartoons/5c0041852107332d5ecc58b2/master/w_727,c_limit/181210_a22225.jpg\"></picture></div></div></div><figcaption class=\"ImageCaption__captionWrapper___2h5XI Figure__cartoonCaptionWrapper___1tdkA ImageCaption__default___3TPB5\"><span class=\"ImageCaption__caption___1EOQO ImageCaption__caption___1EOQO\">&#x201C;I can&#x2019;t believe I ate all that salad for nothing.&#x201D;</span></figcaption></figure></a></div></div><p>Neural networks are profoundly different from traditional computer programs. Their behavior isn&#x2019;t specified by coders in the usual way; instead, it&#x2019;s &#x201C;learned&#x201D; using inputs and feedback. Jeff&#x2019;s knowledge of neural networks hadn&#x2019;t advanced much since his undergrad years, and Heidi watched as their bathroom filled with textbooks. Jeff began spending about a day a week on the project, which was called &#x201C;Google Brain.&#x201D; Many at Google were doubtful of the technology. &#x201C;What a waste of talent,&#x201D; Alan Eustace, his manager at the time, remembers thinking. Sanjay couldn&#x2019;t understand Jeff&#x2019;s move, either. &#x201C;You work on infrastructure,&#x201D; he thought. &#x201C;What are you doing over there?&#x201D;</p><p>During the next seven years, the Google Brain team developed neural nets that beat the state of the art in machine translation and speech and image recognition. Eventually, they replaced Google&#x2019;s most important algorithms for ranking search results and targeting ads, and Google Brain became one of the fastest-growing teams in the company. Claire Cui, an engineer who started in 2001, said that Jeff&#x2019;s involvement marked a turning point for <a class=\"ArticleBody__link___1FS03\" href=\"https://www.newyorker.com/tag/artificial-intelligence\">A.I</a>. at Google: &#x201C;There were people who believed in it, and there were people who didn&#x2019;t believe in it. Jeff proved that it can work.&#x201D;</p><p>A.I. had turned out to depend on scale, which Jeff, the systems engineer, delivered. As part of the effort, he led the development of a program called TensorFlow&#x2014;an attempt to create something like the MapReduce of A.I. TensorFlow simplified the task of distributing a neural network across a fleet of computers, turning them into one big brain. In 2015, when TensorFlow was released to the public, it became the lingua franca of A.I. Recently, Sundar Pichai, Google&#x2019;s C.E.O., declared it an &#x201C;A.I. first&#x201D; company and made Jeff the head of its A.I. initiatives.</p><p>Jeff now spends four days a week running Google Brain. He directs the work of three thousand people. He travels to give talks, holds a weekly meeting to work on a new computer chip (the Tensor Processing Unit, designed specifically for neural networks), and is helping with the development of AutoML, a system that uses neural nets to design other neural nets. He has time to code with Sanjay only once a week.</p></div><div class=\"SectionBreak SectionBreak__sectionBreak___1ppA7\"><p>Feats of engineering tend to erase themselves. We remember the great explorers of the eighteenth century&#x2014;James Cook, George Vancouver&#x2014;but not John Harrison, the carpenter from Yorkshire who, after decades of work, made a clock reliable enough to reckon longitude at sea. Recently, Jeff and Sanjay were enjoying margaritas and enchiladas at Palo Alto Sol, a Mexican restaurant they frequent, when Jeff pulled out his phone. &#x201C;When did Gmail first come out?&#x201D; he asked. The phone replied, &#x201C;April 1st, 2004.&#x201D; Sanjay, who is sensitive in social situations, seemed not to appreciate the dinner-table distraction, but Jeff was elated. Google could now talk, listen, and answer questions, using a stack of programs, seamlessly integrated and largely invisible, stretching from his phone to data centers around the world.</p><p>Today, their roles have diverged. At Google, Sanjay is what is known as an &#x201C;individual contributor&#x201D;&#x2014;a coder who works alone and manages no one. For this, he feels grateful. &#x201C;I would not want Jeff&#x2019;s job,&#x201D; he says. He&#x2019;s currently working on software that makes it easier for engineers to combine and control the dozens of programs&#x2014;for fetching news, photographs, prices&#x2014;that start running as soon as a user enters text into Google&#x2019;s search box. Once a week, he meets with a group of &#x201C;Area Tech Leads&#x201D;&#x2014;Google&#x2019;s engineering Jedi council&#x2014;to make technical decisions that affect the entire company. If Google were a house, Jeff would be building an addition. Sanjay is shoring up the structure, reinforcing the beams, tightening the bolts.</p><p>Meanwhile, during their Monday coding sessions, they have started something new. It&#x2019;s an A.I. project: an attempt, Jeff says, to train a &#x201C;giant&#x201D; machine-learning model to do thousands, or millions, of different tasks. Jeff has been thinking about the idea for years; recently, he decided that it was possible. He and Sanjay plan to build a prototype that a team can grow around. In the world of software, the best way to lead is with code.</p><p>&#x201C;I think they miss each other,&#x201D; Heidi, Jeff&#x2019;s wife, says. It was when their collaboration slowed that they began having their Friday dinners.</p><p>On a Sunday in<span></span> March, Jeff and Sanjay met for a hike outside Cupertino. The weather was clear and brisk, but hot in the sun. Jeff arrived at the trailhead in a blue Tesla Roadster with a Bernie 2016 bumper sticker. Sanjay, close behind, had his own Tesla, a red Model&#xA0;S. Sanjay had spent the morning reading. Jeff had played soccer. (A device attached to his calf told him that he&#x2019;d run 7.1 miles.) Two decades after building the March index, Jeff resembled a retired endurance athlete, his skin worn by the sun. Sanjay seemed hardly to have aged.</p><p>The path was a six-mile loop that climbed through dense forests. Jeff led the way. In the woods, they reminisced about how quickly Google had grown. Sanjay recalled how, during the company&#x2019;s first growth spurt, a plumber had installed two toilets in a single stall in the men&#x2019;s bathroom. &#x201C;I remember Jeff&#x2019;s comment,&#x201D; he said. &#x201C;&#xA0;&#x2018;Two heads are better than one!&#x2019;&#xA0;&#x201D; He laughed.</p><p>They descended out of the woods and into dry, exposed country. A turkey vulture flew overhead.</p><p>&#x201C;The hills here are steeper than I thought,&#x201D; Jeff said.</p><p>&#x201C;I thought somebody said this was a pretty flat hike,&#x201D; Sanjay said.</p><p>&#x201C;I guess this explains why there&#x2019;s no biking roads up that side,&#x201D; Jeff said.</p><p>They climbed back into the woods. On a switchback, Jeff caught a glimpse beyond the trees. &#x201C;We&#x2019;re gonna have a good lookout at some point,&#x201D; he said.</p><p>The trail opened out onto a hilltop, high and wide, treeless, with panoramic views. There was a haze on the horizon. Still, they could see the Santa Cruz Mountains to the south and Mission Peak to the east. &#x201C;Sanjay, there&#x2019;s your office!&#x201D; Jeff said. They stood together, looking across the valley.&#xA0;&#x2666;</p></div></div></div></div></div>","url":"https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/12/10/the-friendship-that-made-google-huge","date_published":"2018-04-30T00:00:00+00:00","author":{"name":""}},{"id":"1299","title":"Who Really Stands to Win from Universal Basic Income?","content_html":"<div><div id=\"articleBody\" class=\"ArticleBody__articleBody___1GSGP\"><div><div><div class=\"SectionBreak SectionBreak__sectionBreak___1ppA7\"><p>In 1795, a group of magistrates gathered in the English village of Speenhamland to try to solve a social crisis brought on by the rising price of grain. The challenge was an increase in poverty, even among the employed. The social system at the time, which came to be known as Elizabethan Poor Law, divided indigent adults into three groups: those who could work, those who could not, and those&#x2014;the &#x201C;idle poor&#x201D;&#x2014;who seemed not to want to. The able and disabled received work or aid through local parishes. The idle poor were forced into labor or rounded up and beaten for being bums. As grain prices increased, the parishes became overwhelmed with supplicants. Terrorizing idle people turned into a vast, unmanageable task.</p><p>The magistrates at Speenhamland devised a way of offering families measured help. Household incomes were topped up to cover the cost of living. A man got enough to buy three gallon loaves a week (about eight and a half pounds of bread), plus a loaf and a half for every other member of his household. This meant that a couple with three children could bring home the equivalent of more than twenty-five pounds a week&#x2014;a lot of bread. The plan let men receive a living wage by working for small payments or by not working at all.</p><p>Economics is at heart a narrative art, a frame across which data points are woven into stories about how the world should work. As the Speenhamland system took hold and spread across England, it turned into a parable of caution. The population nearly doubled. Thomas Malthus posited that the poverty subsidies allowed couples to rear families before their actual earnings allowed it. His contemporary David Ricardo complained that the Speenhamland model was a prosperity drain, inviting &#x201C;imprudence, by offering it a portion of the wages of prudence and industry.&#x201D; Karl Marx attacked the system years later, in &#x201C;Das Kapital,&#x201D; suggesting that it had kept labor wages low, while Karl Polanyi, the economic historian, cast Speenhamland as the original sin of industrial capitalism, making lower classes irrelevant to the labor market just as new production mechanisms were being built. When the Speenhamland system ended, in 1834, people were plunged into a labor machine in which they had no role or say. The commission that repealed the system replaced it with Dickensian workhouses&#x2014;a corrective, at the opposite extreme, for a program that everyone agreed had failed.</p><p>In 1969, <a class=\"ArticleBody__link___1FS03\" href=\"https://www.newyorker.com/tag/richard-nixon\">Richard Nixon</a> was preparing a radical new poverty-alleviation program when an adviser sent him a memo of material about the Speenhamland experiment. The story freaked Nixon out in a way that only Nixon could be freaked out, and although his specific anxiety was allayed, related concerns lingered. According to Daniel&#xA0;P. Moynihan, another Nixon adviser, who, in 1973, published a book about the effort, Speenhamland was the beginning of a push that led the President&#x2019;s program, the Family Assistance Plan, toward a work requirement&#x2014;an element that he had not included until then.</p><p>Nixon had originally intended that every poor family of four in America with zero income would receive sixteen hundred dollars a year (the equivalent of about eleven thousand dollars today), plus food stamps; the supplement would fade out as earnings increased. He sought to be the President to lift the lower classes. The plan died in the Senate, under both Republican and Democratic opposition, and the only thing to survive was Nixon&#x2019;s late-breaking, Speenhamland-inspired fear of being seen to indulge the idle poor. By the end of his Administration, a previously obscure concept called moral hazard&#x2014;the idea that people behave more profligately when they&#x2019;re shielded from consequences&#x2014;had become a guiding doctrine of the right. A work requirement stuck around, first in the earned-income tax credit, and then in Bill Clinton&#x2019;s welfare reforms. The core of Nixon&#x2019;s plan&#x2014;what Moynihan, in &#x201C;<a class=\"ArticleBody__link___1FS03\" href=\"https://www.amazon.com/dp/0394463544/?tag=thneyo0f-20\">The Politics of a Guaranteed Income</a>,&#x201D; called &#x201C;a quantum leap in social policy&#x201D;&#x2014;was buried among his more flamboyant flops.</p><p>Recently, a resurrection has occurred. Guaranteed income, reconceived as basic income, is gaining support across the spectrum, from libertarians to labor leaders. Some see the system as a clean, crisp way of replacing gnarled government bureaucracy. Others view it as a stay against harsh economic pressures now on the horizon. The questions that surround it are the same ones that Nixon faced half a century ago. Will the public stand for such a bold measure&#x2014;and, if so, could it ever work?</p></div><div class=\"SectionBreak SectionBreak__sectionBreak___1ppA7\"><p>&#x201C;<a class=\"ArticleBody__link___1FS03\" href=\"https://www.amazon.com/dp/1524758760/?tag=thneyo0f-20\">Give People Money: How a Universal Basic Income Would End Poverty, Revolutionize Work, and Remake the World</a>&#x201D; (Crown), by the economic journalist Annie Lowrey, is the latest book to argue that a program in this family is a sane solution to the era&#x2019;s socioeconomic woes. Lowrey is a policy person. She is interested in working from the concept down. &#x201C;The way things are is really the way we choose for them to be,&#x201D; she writes. Her conscientiously reported book assesses the widespread effects that money and a bit of hope could buy.</p><p>A universal basic income, or U.B.I., is a fixed income that every adult&#x2014;rich or poor, working or idle&#x2014;automatically receives from government. Unlike today&#x2019;s means-tested or earned benefits, payments are usually the same size, and arrive without request. Depending on who designs a given system, they might replace all existing governmental assistance programs or complement them, as a wider safety net. &#x201C;A UBI is a lesson and an ideal, not just<span></span> an economic policy,&#x201D; Lowrey writes. The ideal is that a society, as a first priority, should look out for its people&#x2019;s survival; the lesson is that possibly it can do so without unequal redistributive plans.</p><p>People generally have a visceral reaction to the idea of a universal basic income. For many, a government check to boost good times or to guard against starvation in bad ones seems like an obviously humane measure. Others find such payments monstrous, a model of waste and unearned rewards. In principle, a government fixes the basic income at a level to allow subsistence but also to encourage enterprise and effort for the enjoyment of more prosperity. In the U.S., its supporters generally propose a figure somewhere around a thousand dollars a month: enough to live on&#x2014;<em class=\"\">somewhere</em> in America, at least&#x2014;but not nearly enough to live on well.</p><div class=\"Callout__inset-left___2rZjf\"><div class=\"CartoonEmbed__container___vf5AM \"><a class=\"Link__link___3dWao CartoonEmbed__captionLink___14pNW \" href=\"https://www.newyorker.com/cartoon/a21282\"><figure class=\"Figure__figure___U_9Te  \"><div class=\"placeholder\"><div class=\"placeholder-content\"><div class=\"Image__image___1PhYl\"><picture class=\"component-responsive-image\"><source srcset=\"https://media.newyorker.com/cartoons/5b34103c8ffba43192e838ff/master/w_280,c_limit/180709_a21282.jpg, https://media.newyorker.com/cartoons/5b34103c8ffba43192e838ff/master/w_560,c_limit/180709_a21282.jpg 2x\"><source srcset=\"https://media.newyorker.com/cartoons/5b34103c8ffba43192e838ff/master/w_727,c_limit/180709_a21282.jpg, https://media.newyorker.com/cartoons/5b34103c8ffba43192e838ff/master/w_1454,c_limit/180709_a21282.jpg 2x\"><img alt=\"\" src=\"https://media.newyorker.com/cartoons/5b34103c8ffba43192e838ff/master/w_727,c_limit/180709_a21282.jpg\"></picture></div></div></div><figcaption class=\"ImageCaption__captionWrapper___2h5XI Figure__cartoonCaptionWrapper___1tdkA ImageCaption__default___3TPB5\"><span class=\"ImageCaption__caption___1EOQO ImageCaption__caption___1EOQO\">&#x201C;So basically you&#x2019;re a dog now.&#x201D;</span></figcaption></figure></a></div></div><p>Recent interest in U.B.I. has been widespread but wary. Last year, Finland launched a pilot version of basic income; this spring, the government decided not to extend the program beyond this year, signalling doubt. Other trials continue. Pilots have run in Canada, the Netherlands, Scotland, and Iran. Since 2017, the startup incubator Y&#xA0;Combinator has funded a multiyear pilot in Oakland, California. The municipal government of Stockton, an ag-industrial city east of San Francisco, is about to test a program that gives low-income residents five hundred dollars a month. Last year, Stanford launched a Basic Income Lab to pursue, as it were, basic research.</p><p>One cause of the program&#x2019;s especial popularity in Northern California is also a reason for the urgency of its appeal: it is a futurist reply to the darker side of technological efficiency. Robots, we are told, will drive us from our jobs. The more this happens, the more existing workforce safety nets will be strained. In &#x201C;R<a class=\"ArticleBody__link___1FS03\" href=\"https://www.amazon.com/dp/1610396251/?tag=thneyo0f-20\">aising the Floor: How a Universal Basic Income Can Renew Our Economy and Rebuild the American Dream</a>&#x201D; (2016), the labor leader Andy Stern nominates U.B.I. as the right response to technological unemployment. Stern, a lifetime labor guy, is a former president of the two-million-member Service Employees International Union. But he thinks that the rise of robots and the general gig-ification of jobs will &#x201C;marginalize the role of collective bargaining,&#x201D; so he has made a strategic turn to prepare for a disempowered working class. &#x201C;You go into an Apple store and you see the future,&#x201D; he quotes an economist saying. &#x201C;The future of the labor force is all in those smart college-educated people with the T-shirts whose job is to be a retail clerk.&#x201D; (This presumes that people will frequent brick-and-mortar shops in the first place.)</p><p>By Lowrey&#x2019;s assessment, the existing system &#x201C;would falter and fail if confronted with vast inequality and tidal waves of joblessness.&#x201D; But is a U.B.I. fiscally sustainable? It&#x2019;s unclear. Lowrey runs many numbers but declines to pin most of them down. She thinks a U.B.I. in the United States should be a thousand dollars monthly. This means $3.9 trillion a year, close to the current expenditure of the entire federal government. To pay, Lowrey proposes new taxes on income, carbon, estates, pollution, and the like. But she is also curiously sanguine about costs, on the premise that few major initiatives balance out on the federal books: &#x201C;The Bush tax cuts were not &#x2018;paid for.&#x2019; The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were not &#x2018;paid for.&#x2019;&#xA0;&#x201D; When the country wants to launch a big project, she insists, the double joints and stretchy tendons of a giant, globalized economy come into play.</p><p>This open planning won&#x2019;t exactly soothe the cautious. A big reason for chariness with a U.B.I. is that, so far, the program lives in people&#x2019;s heads, untried on a national scale. Then again, by the same mark, the model couldn&#x2019;t be called under-thunk. The academic counterpart to Lowrey&#x2019;s journalistic book is Philippe Van Parijs and Yannick Vanderborght&#x2019;s recent &#x201C;<a class=\"ArticleBody__link___1FS03\" href=\"https://www.amazon.com/dp/0674052285/?tag=thneyo0f-20\">Basic Income: A Radical Proposal for a Free Society and a Sane Economy</a>&#x201D; (Harvard), a meticulously comprehensive, frequently persuasive accounting of U.B.I.&#x2019;s superiority by measures economic, philosophical, and pragmatic. Like Lowrey, they see basic income as a sound social program and a corrective &#x201C;hope&#x201D;: not a perfect system, but better than anything else.</p></div><div class=\"SectionBreak SectionBreak__sectionBreak___1ppA7\"><p>Traditionally, a challenge for means-tested aid is that it must determine who is most deserving&#x2014;a vestige of the old Elizabethan system. Often, there&#x2019;s a moralizing edge. Current programs, Lowrey points out, favor the working poor over the jobless. Race or racism plays into the way that certain policies are shaped, and bureaucratic requirements for getting help can be arcane and onerously cumulative. Who will certify the employee status of a guy who&#x2019;s living on the streets? How can you get disability aid if you can&#x2019;t afford the doctor who will certify you as disabled? With a universal income, just deserts don&#x2019;t seem at issue. Everybody gets a basic chance.</p><p>Observers often are squeamish about that proposition. Junkies, alcoholics, scam artists: Do we really want to hand these people monthly checks? In 2010, a team of researchers began giving two-hundred-dollar payments to addicts and criminals in Liberian slums. The researchers found that the money, far from being squandered on vice, went largely to subsistence and legitimate enterprise. Such results, echoed in other studies, suggest that some of the most beneficial applications of a U.B.I. may be in struggling economies abroad.</p><p>Like many students of the strategy, Lowrey points to<span></span> Kenya, where she reported on a U.B.I. pilot in a small village. (She won&#x2019;t say which, for fear of making it a target for thieves&#x2014;a concern worth counting as significant.) The pilot is run by a nonprofit called GiveDirectly, and is heavily funded through Silicon Valley; in that respect, it&#x2019;s a study in effective philanthropy, not a new model of society. But the results are encouraging. Before GiveDirectly sent everyone the equivalent of twenty-two U.S. dollars a month (delivered through a mobile app), Village X had dirt roads, no home electricity, and what Lowrey genteelly calls an &#x201C;open defecation&#x201D; model for some families. Now, by her account, the village is a bubbling pot of enterprise, as residents whose days used to be about survival save, budget, and plan. (The payments will continue until 2028.)</p><p>A widow tells her, &#x201C;I&#x2019;ll deal with three things first urgently: the pit latrine that I need to construct, the part of my house that has been damaged by termites, and the livestock pen that needs reinforcement, so the hyena gets nothing from me on his prowls.&#x201D; A heavy-drinking deadbeat buys a motorbike for a taxi business, sells soap, buys two cows, and opens a barbershop. His work income quadruples. He boasts to Lowrey of his new life.</p><p>Purely as a kind of foreign aid, Lowrey suggests, a basic income is better than donated goods (boxes of shoes, mosquito nets), because cash can go to any use. The Indian government&#x2019;s chief economic adviser tells her that, with a U.B.I. of about a hundred U.S. dollars a year, India, where a third of the world&#x2019;s extreme poor live, could bring its poverty rates from twenty-two per cent to less than one per cent. Those figures are stunning. But India is in the midst of major bureaucratic change. Would there be any chance of a U.B.I. finding a foothold in the entrenched U.S. political climate?</p></div><div class=\"SectionBreak SectionBreak__sectionBreak___1ppA7\"><p>Advocates have noted that the idea, generally formulated, has bipartisan support. Charles Murray, the conservative welfare critic, was an early enthusiast. His book &#x201C;<a class=\"ArticleBody__link___1FS03\" href=\"https://www.amazon.com/dp/1442260718/?tag=thneyo0f-20\">In Our Hands: A Plan to Replace the Welfare State</a>&#x201D; (2006) called for a U.B.I. of ten thousand dollars a year, plus catastrophic health insurance, to replace existing social programs, including Social Security. Rather than fester for years under the mismanaging claws of Big Government, he thought, money could flow directly to individual recipients. &#x201C;The UBI lowers the rate of involuntary poverty to zero for everyone who has any capacity to work or any capacity to get along with other people,&#x201D; Murray declared.</p><p>But although politically dissimilar people may support a U.B.I., the reasons for their support differ, and so do the ways they set the numbers. A rising group of thinkers on the left, including David Graeber and Nick Srnicek, tout a generous version of U.B.I. both as a safety net and as a way to free people from lives spent rowing overmanaged corporate galleons. Business centrists and Silicon Valley types appreciate it as a way to manage industry side effects&#x2014;such as low labor costs and the displacement of workers by apps and A.I.&#x2014;without impeding growth. In &#x201C;<a class=\"ArticleBody__link___1FS03\" href=\"https://www.amazon.com/dp/0316414247/?tag=thneyo0f-20\">The War on Normal People: The Truth About America&#x2019;s Disappearing Jobs and Why Universal Basic Income Is Our Future</a>&#x201D; (Hachette), Andrew Yang, the Venture for America founder who has already filed for Presidential candidacy in 2020, recommends the model as a way to bypass kludgy governmental systems. He imagines it paired with something he calls &#x201C;human capitalism.&#x201D; &#x201C;For example, a journalist who uncovered a particular source of waste, an artist who beautified a city, or a hacker who strengthened our power grid could be rewarded with Social Credits,&#x201D; he explains. &#x201C;Most of the technologists and young people I know would be beyond pumped to work on these problems.&#x201D;</p><p>Many of the super-rich are also super-pumped about the universal basic income. Elon Musk has said it will be &#x201C;necessary.&#x201D; Sir Richard Branson speaks of &#x201C;the sense of self-esteem that universal basic income could provide to people.&#x201D; What&#x2019;s the appeal for the plutocracy? For one thing, the system offers a hard budget line: you set the income figure, press start, go home. No new programs, no new rules. It also alleviates moral debt: because there is a floor for everyone, the wealthy can feel less guilt as they gain more wealth. Finally, the U.B.I. fits with a certain idea of meritocracy. If everybody gets a strong boost off the blocks, the winners of the economic race&#x2014;the ultra-affluent&#x2014;can believe that they got there by their industry or acumen. Of course the very rich appreciate the U.B.I.; it dovetails with a narrative that casts their wealth as a reward.</p></div><div class=\"SectionBreak SectionBreak__sectionBreak___1ppA7\"><p>A notable exception is Chris Hughes, who, in &#x201C;<a class=\"ArticleBody__link___1FS03\" href=\"https://www.amazon.com/dp/1250196590/?tag=thneyo0f-20\">Fair Shot: Rethinking Inequality and How We Earn</a>&#x201D; (St. Martin&#x2019;s), seeks to shed the idea that special skills brought him success. Hughes, who is helping to fund the Stockton U.B.I. experiment, was part of the dorm-room crew that founded Facebook. By his late twenties, when the company went public, he was worth around five hundred million dollars. Before the I.P.O., he worked for Barack Obama&#x2019;s first Presidential campaign; afterward, he bought a majority stake in <em class=\"\"><a class=\"ArticleBody__link___1FS03\" href=\"https://newrepublic.com/\">The New Republic</a></em>, mismanaged it so brazenly as to prompt a <a class=\"ArticleBody__link___1FS03\" href=\"https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/inside-collapse-new-republic\">huge staff exodus</a>, then sold it. He&#x2019;s forthright about his failures, and he&#x2019;s diffident about his putative triumphs. &#x201C;Fair Shot&#x201D; tells an interesting success story, because its author has doubts about<span></span> how he succeeded. It&#x2019;s &#x201C;Charlie and the Chocolate Factory&#x201D; if Charlie said &#x201C;Why me?&#x201D; and Wonka shrugged.</p><p>Hughes&#x2019;s book is divided between policy and memoir. When he was growing up, in suburban North Carolina, he writes, his mom clipped coupons and he went to an after-school program with mostly nonwhite kids. He dreamed of a bigger life, and applied to top high schools. Andover offered financial aid, but not enough. He called up its admissions office and pleaded for more. Once there, Hughes felt poor, and sought validation in schoolwork. This led him to Harvard, where he ended up rooming with three guys he didn&#x2019;t know too well, including <a class=\"ArticleBody__link___1FS03\" href=\"https://www.newyorker.com/tag/mark-zuckerberg\">Mark Zuckerberg</a>.</p><p>Hughes had no technical knowledge. But he was there when Facebook was being set up, and he could talk and write, so he was put in charge of its early P.R. On graduating, he found himself leading Facebook&#x2019;s communications and marketing and watching venture capitalists invest &#x201C;jaw-dropping&#x201D; sums. It bemused him. &#x201C;I didn&#x2019;t feel like some kind of genius, and while Mark was smart and talented, so were many of the other people I went to college with,&#x201D; he writes.</p><p>Hughes searches for points of exception that explain why he, not someone else from another middle-middle-class family, ended up with half a billion dollars and a speaking circuit out of the gate. His scramble to get into Andover, for one thing, seems central. But should the randomness of this early ambition&#x2014;which, even if it doesn&#x2019;t have to do with resources, does reflect community information transfer&#x2014;really determine who&#x2019;s in with a chance? Hughes thinks these individual zaps of opportunity have a large-scale correlate: the very economic setup that made him and his roommates super-rich. &#x201C;In a winner-take-all world, a small group of people get outsized returns as a result of early actions they take,&#x201D; he writes. Massive tech companies such as Facebook have been possible because of deregulation, financialization, tax cuts, and lowered tariffs rolled out, he thinks, at a cost to ordinary people since the nineteen-seventies.</p><div class=\"Callout__inset-left___2rZjf\"><div class=\"CartoonEmbed__container___vf5AM \"><a class=\"Link__link___3dWao CartoonEmbed__captionLink___14pNW \" href=\"https://www.newyorker.com/cartoon/a22027\"><figure class=\"Figure__figure___U_9Te  \"><div class=\"placeholder\"><div class=\"placeholder-content\"><div class=\"Image__image___1PhYl\"><picture class=\"component-responsive-image\"><source srcset=\"https://media.newyorker.com/cartoons/5b34103bc08f3e2877a5c1c7/master/w_280,c_limit/180709_a22027.jpg, https://media.newyorker.com/cartoons/5b34103bc08f3e2877a5c1c7/master/w_560,c_limit/180709_a22027.jpg 2x\"><source srcset=\"https://media.newyorker.com/cartoons/5b34103bc08f3e2877a5c1c7/master/w_727,c_limit/180709_a22027.jpg, https://media.newyorker.com/cartoons/5b34103bc08f3e2877a5c1c7/master/w_1454,c_limit/180709_a22027.jpg 2x\"><img alt=\"\" src=\"https://media.newyorker.com/cartoons/5b34103bc08f3e2877a5c1c7/master/w_727,c_limit/180709_a22027.jpg\"></picture></div></div></div><figcaption class=\"ImageCaption__captionWrapper___2h5XI Figure__cartoonCaptionWrapper___1tdkA ImageCaption__default___3TPB5\"><span class=\"ImageCaption__caption___1EOQO ImageCaption__caption___1EOQO\">&#x201C;Is the flight completely full, extremely full, or very full?&#x201D;</span></figcaption></figure></a></div></div><p>The solution, Hughes has decided, is a modest basic income: five hundred dollars a month for every adult in a household making less than about fifty thousand dollars. He sees it as a boost to the current system, and argues that the money can be found by closing tax exemptions for the ultra-wealthy&#x2014;&#x201C;people like me.&#x201D;</p><p>Six thousand dollars a year is not a lot of money. But Hughes believes that a light padding is enough. He describes receiving his first big payout from Facebook&#x2014;a hundred thousand dollars&#x2014;and realizing that if he set aside a five-per-cent return each year he could count on a lifelong annual income of at least five thousand dollars, no matter what. It was a little, but it meant a lot. &#x201C;The further you get from subsistence, the easier it is to ask fundamental questions like: What do I want, and how do I get it?&#x201D; he writes. The covetable entity that the Andover kids of his youth possessed wasn&#x2019;t actually wealth. Their crucial asset was the assurance of choice.</p></div><div class=\"SectionBreak SectionBreak__sectionBreak___1ppA7\"><p>Framing basic income in terms of choice, not money, helps to clarify both its opportunities and its limits. On the immediate level, one might wonder whether Hughes&#x2019;s proposal of five hundred dollars a month is really enough to boost one&#x2019;s existential swagger. That number, he says, would lift twenty million people over the poverty line, but any three-hundred-billion-dollar program should. More to the point are Hughes&#x2019;s qualms about a universal basic income&#x2014;or even a lower-middle basic income, like his&#x2014;replacing means-tested aid. (&#x201C;Trading in benefits earmarked for the poor for a benefit like guaranteed income, which is designed to provide financial stability to the middle class and the poor alike, would be regressive,&#x201D; he says.) Why spray so much money over people doing fine, he wonders, when you could direct cash as needed?</p><p>One answer is that it makes the program palatable to those who cannot stomach anything resembling government handouts. A wide range of people stand to benefit from a cushion: any worker with an abusive boss is free to take the basic wage and leave. By certain measures, in fact, giving everyone a flat check naturally rebalances opportunities for choice. A thousand bucks handed to a multimillionaire means almost nothing, but it&#x2019;s significant for a middle-income person, and for a poor person it could open up the world.</p><p>Skeptics might point out that what was meant to be a floor can easily become a ceiling. This was Marx&#x2019;s complaint about Speenhamland: a society with a basic income has no pressure to pay employees a good wage, because the bottom constraint, subsistence, has fallen away. We see such an effect already in the gig economy, where companies pay paltry wages by claiming that their endeavors are flexible and part-time and that workers surely have subsistence income from elsewhere.</p><p>Supporters of the U.B.I. frequently counter that the raised floor will lift other things. If workers are no longer compelled to take any available job to put food on the table, supporters say, work must be worth their while. Certainly, this will be true for highly undesirable jobs: the latrine cleaner can expect a pay bump and an engraved pen. But for jobs whose appeal goes beyond the paycheck&#x2014;in other words, most middle-class jobs&#x2014;the pressures are less clear. Competitive, prestigious industries often pay entry- to mid-level employees<span></span> meagrely, because they can; ambitious people are so keen for a spot on the ladder that they accept modest wages. And, since that is an easier concession for the children and intimates of the moneyed classes, influential fields can fill up with fancy people. This is not a problem that the U.B.I. would solve. If anything, paychecks in desirable jobs would be free to shrink to honorarium size, and choice opportunity would again redound to the rich, for whom the shrinkage would not mean very much.</p><p>In that sense, what&#x2019;s at issue with U.B.I. isn&#x2019;t actually the movement of money but the privileging of interests&#x2014;not who is served but who&#x2019;s <em class=\"\">best</em> served. An illuminating parallel is free college. One criticism of Bernie Sanders&#x2019;s no-tuition plan, in 2016, was that many American families could afford at least part of a tuition. With no fees to pay, that money would be freed to fund enrichments: painting lessons, private tutoring, investments, trips to rescue orphans and pandas, and other things with which well-resourced people set the groundwork for an upward-spiralling bourgeois life. Especially among the small subset of colleges that have competitive admissions&#x2014;the sector of the education market which, today, serves most reliably as an elevator toward class, influence, and long-term employment access&#x2014;those who truly have no cash for college would still be starting from behind. Opportunity would be better equalized, at least while other things in America remain very unequal, by meting out financial aid as kids actually need it.</p><p>Hughes was one such kid, of course, and then he stepped into a jet stream leading from Harvard Yard to the cover of a business magazine. Now he is part of the one per cent, which means that his son is seventy-seven times as likely to end up in the Ivy League as his counterpart from the bottom fifth in the income distribution. These effects relate to what&#x2019;s often called &#x201C;structural inequality.&#x201D; Since, his story suggests, they have little to do with the details of Hughes&#x2019;s childhood finances and a lot to do with the decades-long diversion of profit from workers to shareholders, any program to protect the workforce in the long term must go deeper than just redisbursing cash or benefits. Such a solution would need to privilege public interests, not just public awards. It may even require what many U.B.I. fans hate: a rejiggering of regulation. Simply lifting the minimum-income level leaves the largest, most defining foundations of inequality intact.</p></div><div class=\"SectionBreak SectionBreak__sectionBreak___1ppA7\"><p>The realization that a universal basic income is useful but insufficient for the country&#x2019;s long-term socioeconomic health&#x2014;that you can&#x2019;t just wind up a machine and let it run&#x2014;may cause attrition among some supporters who admire the model precisely because it seems to mean that no one will have to deal with stuff like this again. It may also dampen the scheme&#x2019;s sunny political prospects, since a healthy U.B.I. would have to be seated among other reforms, the sum of which would not be cost- or interest-neutral. This doesn&#x2019;t mean that it&#x2019;s not a practical idea. It means only that it&#x2019;s not a magic spell.</p><p>Or perhaps the difference could be split. A couple of years ago, the Dutch professional thought leader Rutger Bregman championed universal basic income in his popular book &#x201C;<a class=\"ArticleBody__link___1FS03\" href=\"https://www.amazon.com/dp/0316471917/?tag=thneyo0f-20\">Utopia for Realists</a>&#x201D;&#x2014;a title that reflects the volume&#x2019;s tone. Bregman, who studied history, hoped that we could abolish poverty, border control, and the forty-hour workweek. (He prefers fifteen.) He pointed out that G.D.P. is a questionable metric of prosperity, since it doesn&#x2019;t reflect health, clean air, and other attributes that now define First World success. His interest in a basic income was meant to synthesize the wishful and the practical; like many supporters, he touted it as a matter of both categorical principle and maximized good, and tried to make these virtues square. The effort brought him back to Speenhamland, whose reputation as a failure Bregman called, flatly, &#x201C;bogus.&#x201D;</p><p>According to Bregman&#x2019;s analysis, accounts of Speenhamland&#x2019;s disastrousness were based on a single report by the commission empowered to replace it. The report was &#x201C;largely fabricated,&#x201D; Bregman writes. The era&#x2019;s population growth was attributable not to irresponsible family planning, as Malthus thought, but to an excess of responsibility&#x2014;children, once they reached working age, were lucrative earners for a household&#x2014;plus declining rates of infant mortality. (Parallel population explosions happened in Ireland and Scotland, where the Speenhamland system was not in effect.) Wages were low during Speenhamland, but, the historian Walter&#xA0;I. Trattner has noted, they were nearly as low before Speenhamland, and the extra falloff followed the adoption of the mechanical thresher, which obviated an entire class of jobs.</p><p>Speenhamland does offer a lesson, in other words, but it is not the one most widely taught. In &#x201C;<a class=\"ArticleBody__link___1FS03\" href=\"https://www.amazon.com/dp/069117797X/?tag=thneyo0f-20\">The Failed Welfare Revolution</a>&#x201D; (2008), the sociologist Brian Steensland suggests that, if Nixon&#x2019;s Family Assistance Plan had passed, conservative policy might have evolved along a different path. George&#xA0;H. W. Bush, then a congressman, supported the guaranteed-income scheme. So did Donald Rumsfeld. From the late sixties into the seventies, he and Dick Cheney helped run trials on thirteen hundred families to see how much a modest financial top-up discouraged them from working. The falloff was smaller than expected, and the researchers were pleased. We might hope that, with Speenhamland&#x2019;s false myths finally cleared, the United States will do better going forward. But our aptitude for managing the future is no stronger than our<span></span> skill at making sense out of the past.&#xA0;&#x2666;</p></div></div></div></div></div>","url":"https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/07/09/who-really-stands-to-win-from-universal-basic-income","date_published":"2018-03-11T00:00:00+00:00","author":{"name":""}},{"id":"1371","title":"PDF Format History: Where Our Future History Lies","content_html":"<main> <nav> </nav> <p class=\"content\">\n<header class=\"hero is-medium article-banner\"> <figure class=\"image is-full is-banner\"> <img class=\"lazyload banner\" src=\"https://tedium.imgix.net/2018/02/tedium022718.gif\"> </figure>\n</header> <article> <section class=\"section article-headline\"> <div class=\"container\"> <div class=\"columns is-tablet is-centered\"> <div class=\"column is-9-desktop is-8-tablet\"> <p class=\"has-text-centered post-author\"><span class=\"icon\"> <i class=\"fas fa-pencil-alt\"></i> </span> Written by <strong><a href=\"https://tedium.co/author/ernie/\">Ernie Smith</a></strong> on Feb 27, 2018</p> <p class=\"has-text-centered post-tags\"><i class=\"fas fa-tags\"></i> <a href=\"https://tedium.co/tag/adobe/\">adobe</a>, <a href=\"https://tedium.co/tag/adobe-acrobat/\">adobe acrobat</a>, <a href=\"https://tedium.co/tag/archival/\">archival</a>, <a href=\"https://tedium.co/tag/archival-content/\">archival content</a>, <a href=\"https://tedium.co/tag/file-formats/\">file formats</a>, <a href=\"https://tedium.co/tag/internal-revenue-service/\">internal revenue service</a>, <a href=\"https://tedium.co/tag/irs/\">irs</a>, <a href=\"https://tedium.co/tag/library-of-congress/\">library of congress</a>, <a href=\"https://tedium.co/tag/pdf/\">pdf</a>, <a href=\"https://tedium.co/tag/portable-document-format/\">portable document format</a> </p> </div> </div> </div> </section> <section class=\"section blog\"> <div class=\"container\"> <div class=\"columns is-mobile is-centered\"> <div class=\"column is-four-fifths-desktop is-10-tablet is-12-mobile\"> <div class=\"blog-post\"> <div class=\"md-whitebox\"> <p><span class=\"md-big\"><strong>Today in Tedium:</strong> Every once of our file formats has a story. The GIF, for example, <a href=\"https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/brief-history-gif-early-internet-innovation-ubiquitous-relic-180963543/\">came to being</a> thanks to a need to serve up images on pokey Compuserve connections with limited RAM. The MP3, meanwhile, <a href=\"https://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com//2008/09/23/toms-essay/\">was built around the contours</a> of Suzanne Vega&#x2019;s unaccompanied voice <a href=\"https://www.npr.org/sections/therecord/2011/03/18/134598010/for-better-or-worse-mp3s-are-the-format-of-choice\">on &#x201C;Tom&#x2019;s Diner.&#x201D;</a> And the ZIP file <a href=\"http://www.bbsdocumentary.com/library/CONTROVERSY/LAWSUITS/SEA/\">came to life in a brutal legal battle</a> that was egged on by the whims of BBS users. These stories have been discussed at length by others, but there&#x2019;s a file format I see every day, one that, more than any other, has allowed our society to go (mostly) paperless. It&#x2019;s the Portable Document Format, or PDF, a file format that was exactly what the business world needed at the time of its release. Today&#x2019;s Tedium discusses the past, present, and future of the PDF. <em>&#x2014; Ernie @ Tedium</em></span></p>\n<p><em>Today&#x2019;s GIF features a PDF of an essay about &#x201C;The Camelot Project,&#x201D; as shown in Adobe Acrobat.</em></p></div> <div class=\"md-redbox\"> <p><strong>&#x2014; John E. Warnock,</strong> the cofounder of Adobe, discussing his thought process around the need for a simple document format in <a href=\"http://www.planetpdf.com/planetpdf/pdfs/warnock_camelot.pdf\">an essay revealing the existence of The Camelot Project</a> (which is, of course, in PDF format). Warnock, who was also responsible <a href=\"http://www.i-programmer.info/history/people/1254-john-warnock-the-father-of-postscript.html\">for helping to develop</a> Adobe&#x2019;s bedrock PostScript document scripting language, noted that PostScript and its sister language Display PostScript was too heavy for most computers being made at the time he wrote his essay, around 1990. &#x201C;The Display PostScript and PostScript solutions are the correct long-term solution as the power of machines increases over time, but this solution offers little help for the vast majority of today&#x2019;s users with today&#x2019;s machines,&#x201D; he explained.</p></div>\n<div class=\"md-whitebox\"> <p><img src=\"https://tedium.imgix.net/2018/02/0227_1040.jpg\" alt=\"Form 1040\"></p>\n<p><em>(<a href=\"https://www.flickr.com/photos/teegardin/5512347305\">Ken Teegardin/Flickr</a>)</em></p>\n<h3>Why the &#x201C;killer app&#x201D; for the PDF may have been, of all things, tax forms</h3>\n<p>Around the time that Warnock and his colleagues at Adobe were trying to figure out the difficult problems of creating a simple file format that could be used to read documents on regular people&#x2019;s computers, the Internal Revenue Service was dealing with an annual headache that it faced in working with the U.S. Postal Service.</p>\n<p>Basically, every year just before tax season, the IRS would mail out tax forms to hundreds of millions of people around the United States. This annual mailing was, during non-Census years, the largest annual mailing that the postal service had to deal with&#x2014;around 110 million individual mailings annually, <a href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/1991/11/21/us/tax-forms-will-be-later-in-nod-to-holiday-spirit.html\">according a 1991 <em>New York Times</em> article</a>. And the IRS, dealing with a complicated tax code, had to manage and deal with a wide variety of exceptions and differing forms, for both businesses and individual taxpayers.</p>\n<p>This was not only incredibly wasteful&#x2014;never a good thing when you&#x2019;re the Internal Revenue Service&#x2014;but it represented something of a logistical nightmare, because it also hinted at the ways that paper gummed up the works throughout the federal government.</p>\n<p>This was a situation where the PDF would have been of immense value. Certainly, software solutions <a href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/1986/03/04/science/peripherals-software-for-tax-time.html\">had existed on the market</a> at that time&#x2014;among others, TurboTax on the PC and <a href=\"https://amzn.to/2EZp1sx\">MacInTax</a> on the Mac&#x2014;but the average American user wasn&#x2019;t necessarily at a point where they would trust their computer to do their taxes. But they might be cool with printing the forms.</p>\n<p>Fortunately, Adobe was ready. At the end of 1992, the company first showed off its PDF technology, given the brand name Acrobat, at the trade show COMDEX. The trade press of the time <a href=\"https://books.google.com/books?id=hbIKmsK_U2AC&amp;pg=PA41\">wrote of Acrobat with much excitement</a>, as it represented the ability to take a document as it would show up on a printed page&#x2014;if it even needed to be printed at all. <a href=\"https://www.newspapers.com/clip/17856365/the_age/\">It was even named</a> &#x201C;Best of the Show&#x201D; that year.</p>\n<p>But Warnock admitted that, early on, his approach to solving the problem of aggressive paper didn&#x2019;t catch on right away.</p>\n<p>&#x201C;When Acrobat was announced, the world didn&#x2019;t get it. They didn&#x2019;t understand how important sending documents around electronically was going to be,&#x201D; Warnock <a href=\"http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/adobe-co-founder-john-warnock-on-the-competitive-advantages-of-aesthetics-and-the-right-technology/\">said in a 2010 interview</a> with <em><a href=\"https://tedium.co/cdn-cgi/l/email-protection\" class=\"__cf_email__\">[email&#xA0;protected]</a></em>.</p>\n<p>But the fact of the matter was, Adobe had the perfect use case already out there in the form of the IRS, not to mention the rest of corporate America.</p>\n<div class=\"fluid-width-video-wrapper\"><iframe src=\"https://www.youtube.com/embed/qRrpyY8KPWE\" class=\"\"></iframe></div>\n<p><em>An Adobe Acrobat 1.0 promotional video.</em></p>\n<p>Adobe had a potential solution to cut down on the mountains of paper being produced by offices the world over. And as Adobe had the de facto market standard already with PostScript, it also had the inside lane. You can see where this is going.</p>\n<p><a href=\"https://books.google.com/books?id=cg0EAAAAMBAJ&amp;pg=PA45\">According to <em>NetworkWorld</em></a>, the IRS was already distributing tax forms in PDF format in early 1994, a move that helped build broad momentum behind the format.</p>\n<p>But one element was missing, and that element was the web, which made the concept of accessing tax documents relatively easy. And by the 1996 tax season, that element was ready to go, as the Internal Revenue Service booted up its web servers&#x2014;complete with more than 600 documents ready for download in PDF format, according to <a href=\"https://www.newspapers.com/clip/17856587/first_article_about_irs_website/\">a 1996 column from tech guru Kim Komando</a>.</p>\n<p><a href=\"http://wwwimages.adobe.com/www.adobe.com/content/dam/acom/en/casestudies/solutions/irs/pdfs/irs-casestudy.pdf\">A case study on Adobe&#x2019;s website</a> notes that the IRS went all-in on the PDF around this time, giving copies of its software to more than 100,000 employees as of 2001, and saving millions of dollars in printing costs in the process.</p>\n<p>Beyond saving all the mailing of most of those forms, it helped the company save lots of headaches by making materials easier to find in audits. Instead of having to put stuff in obscure file cabinets, it could be accessed electronically by tax examiners and auditors.</p>\n<p>&#x201C;In terms of employee satisfaction alone, Acrobat pays for itself,&#x201D; an IRS official told Adobe. &#x201C;Add to that the benefits of easier document administration and less paper storage, and it&#x2019;s clear that Acrobat and Adobe PDF provide real returns to the agency and the people we serve.&#x201D;</p>\n<p>Clearly there&#x2019;s some fluff in that quote, but the IRS was very much a microcosm of the business world at large. The PDF, in a very short amount of time, became one of the most important ways business users shared documents. It simplified the hard work of going to Kinko&#x2019;s, because the file format was able to easily embed assets like fonts and images, simplifying one of the hardest parts of getting a file printed. (Of course, you generally couldn&#x2019;t make changes in PDF form.) Eventually, the PDF became searchable and even editable.</p>\n<p>And most importantly, in the case of the IRS, &#x201C;fillable.&#x201D; The IRS <a href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/1999/01/21/technology/library-tax-filing-web-sites-the-uncle-of-all-tax-sites.html\">quickly created versions</a> of its tax forms that allowed end users to put in their own numbers, and, eventually, even their own signatures.</p>\n<p>While none of this was as lightweight as, say, a text file nor as flexible as HTML, it sure beat PostScript for the average person.</p>\n<p>And the PDF became the long-term solution.</p></div>\n<div class=\"md-redbox\"> <p><strong>The year that Adobe first announced its plan</strong> to made the full PDF specification available as an official, open standard, rather than as a de facto standard, as it had been up to that point. (The company still builds its own proprietary extensions to the format with new versions of Acrobat.) Adobe had made the free to distribute going back to 1993, making money on the sale of tools to make the PDFs. The PDF <a href=\"https://www.iso.org/standard/51502.html\">became officially standardized</a> through the International Standards Organization (ISO) in 2008; <a href=\"https://www.adobe.com/content/dam/acom/en/devnet/acrobat/pdfs/PDF32000_2008.pdf\">here&#x2019;s the technical document</a> in case you need something long and boring to read.</p></div>\n<div class=\"md-whitebox\"> <p><img src=\"https://tedium.imgix.net/2018/02/0227_archival.jpg\" alt=\"Document archive\"></p>\n<p><em>(<a href=\"https://pixabay.com/en/files-paper-office-paperwork-stack-1614223/\">myfra/Pixabay</a>)</em></p>\n<h3>Perhaps the most important role of the PDF in the modern day is archival</h3>\n<p>Let&#x2019;s just admit something straight out: Standardization is boring.</p>\n<p>It&#x2019;s a dull topic, but it&#x2019;s something that is incredibly important in the world of archival. The reason for this is obvious, of course: If you randomly change <a href=\"https://tedium.co/2016/06/14/microfiche-microfilm-libraries-history/\">the way you produce and store microfilm</a>, for example, that microfilm becomes a pain to reuse.</p>\n<p>But this also cuts both ways. There are things that you don&#x2019;t necessarily want out of a standard. Let&#x2019;s say you don&#x2019;t care about interactivity because you&#x2019;re trying to digitize documents that date back hundreds of years. </p>\n<p>Still, there may be niceties you want, like the ability to make the text searchable. And perhaps you want to ensure maximum compatibility, working with all variants of a tool.</p>\n<p>All these reasons, and more, are why <a href=\"https://www.iso.org/standard/38920.html\">the PDF/A format</a> was created in 2005. Unlike a standard PDF, which is designed to take advantage of the fact it&#x2019;s made for a computer, PDF/A was designed to be maximally reproducible, to the point where it could replace a printed document if the original paper was lost.</p>\n<p>&#x201C;Everything that is required to render the document the exact same way, every time, is contained in the PDF/A file: fonts, colour profiles, images etc. PDF/A is also an ISO standard, guaranteeing that future software generations will know how to open and render PDF/A files,&#x201D; explains Shawna McAlearney, a marketing specialist for Appligent Document Solutions, <a href=\"https://www.pdfa.org/pdfa-faq/\">in an FAQ on the PDF Association website</a>. </p>\n<p>This is good for organizations such as the Internet Archive and the <a href=\"https://www.loc.gov/preservation/digital/formats/fdd/fdd000318.shtml\">Library of Congress</a>, who are saving information for the long haul and need it to be readable 30 years from now. But it <a href=\"https://madfileformatscience.garymcgath.com/2012/10/18/pdfa-3/\">does lead to some controversy</a> at times in the archival space, such as when the format was extended in 2012 to allow for the embedding of files like spreadsheets and HTML documents.</p>\n<p>But some critics of the quick uptake of the PDF/A are out there. In a paper on the subject, Marco Klindt of the Zuse Institute Berlin <a href=\"https://ipres2017.jp/wp-content/uploads/15Marco-Klindt.pdf\">lays out a variety of issues</a> with the format from an archival perspective, including (among other things) that it can be cumbersome to use.</p>\n<p>(Notably, usability expert Jakob Nielsen has also <a href=\"https://www.nngroup.com/articles/pdf-unfit-for-human-consumption/\">strongly come out against the use of PDFs</a> for the same reason, stating on his consultancy&#x2019;s website: &#x201C;PDF is good for printing, but that&apos;s it. Don&apos;t use it for online presentation.&#x201D;)</p>\n<p>Klindt, who also lays out legal and integrity issues with the format, suggests that the desire for a suitable preservation format limited discussion of whether or not the format really made sense in the long run. </p>\n<p>&#x201C;Familiarity of PDF led to fast and widespread adoption of PDF/A as a solution in the field of digital archiving,&#x201D; he writes. &#x201C;This fact may have muted prophetic voices demanding the quest for and development of more suitable content containers for research work (text and\ndata) with reuse in mind.&#x201D;</p>\n<p>Even if this is the case&#x2014;certainly I&#x2019;ve loaded my share of 300-megabyte PDFs over the years, and there are plenty of documents online that have no business being PDFs&#x2014;it&#x2019;s certainly worth admiring how much the format has done to digitize and protect our collective knowledge.</p>\n<p>In 50 years, these PDFs, even with their weaknesses, will help us document history with little of the ephemeral nature of the web. And unlike in paper form, those PDFs won&#x2019;t suffer from frayed pages.</p>\n<p>The history of our generation will probably be in PDF form.</p></div>\n<div class=\"md-redbox\"> <p><strong>&#x2014; Warnock,</strong> <a href=\"http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/adobe-co-founder-john-warnock-on-the-competitive-advantages-of-aesthetics-and-the-right-technology/\">speaking to <em><span class=\"__cf_email__\">[email&#xA0;protected]</span></em></a> about Acrobat&#x2019;s early years. These days we take for granted the fact that PDFs are common basically everywhere online, but there was a point when the PDF format was in such dire shape that Adobe had to stop charging for Acrobat Reader, a move Warnock described as a &#x201C;very risky choice.&#x201D; (They <a href=\"https://amzn.to/2t1T1yj\">charge lots of money for Acrobat</a> instead.) But the decision to stick with the client and make it free ultimately proved the key to Adobe&#x2019;s success as a company. Even though people might be quicker to think of Photoshop when they think of Adobe, a 2013 profile of the Adobe cofounder by his alma mater, the University of Utah, ultimately put the company&#x2019;s success at the feet of the document format Warnock created. &#x201C;The PDF put Adobe on the map,&#x201D; <a href=\"https://continuum.utah.edu/features/the-innovator/\">author Jason Matthew Smith wrote</a>.</p></div>\n<div class=\"md-graybox\"> <p><strong>The PDF format has evolved and changed over time,</strong> but when it comes down to it, it works generally as it did 25 years ago, when it was first released for public consumption. </p>\n<p>But the way it works still evades most people. One of those people is a guy named Paul Manafort. You might know him as Donald Trump&#x2019;s former campaign manager. </p>\n<p>We don&#x2019;t delve into politics much on Tedium, but it&#x2019;s not often that politics creates a perfect example of how people struggle with PDF files. </p>\n<p>Justice Department Special Counsel Robert Mueller&#x2019;s most recent indictment of Manafort noted how the lobbyist and his colleague, Richard Gates, <a href=\"http://nymag.com/selectall/2018/02/paul-manafort-created-paper-trail-by-converting-pdf.html\">collaborated on modifying a PDF document</a> by converting the document into Word format, changing an amount in the document, then changing it back to a PDF. </p>\n<p>This created something called a paper trail, bolstering Mueller&#x2019;s case against Manafort.</p>\n<p>But the funny part is this: <a href=\"https://www.pdfa.org/new/corruption-in-pdf-federal-crimes-edition/\">According to the PDF Association</a>, none of this was actually necessary. Beyond the fact that the conversion from Word to back creates subtle changes in format that can be tracked, software like Adobe Acrobat can be used to directly edit the text in a file!</p>\n<p>Here&#x2019;s the association&#x2019;s take:</p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>Manafort could have readily altered the PDF himself. Had he done so, he would have avoided a key part of the paper trail that may land him in federal prison. He probably even had a PDF editor already on his computer.</p>\n<p>In the money-laundering business, after all, it seems likely that one would frequently need to assemble pages from multiple PDF files; you need a PDF editor for that. For most of his money-laundering career, Manafort was almost certainly just one or two clicks away from the editor mode.</p>\n</blockquote>\n<p>The result is that PDF editing is likely to play a significant role in a major political scandal.</p>\n<p>Love it or hate it, that&#x2019;s how prevalent this document format is.</p></div> </div> <label class=\"subscribebox\"> <span class=\"subscribe_tease md-redbox columns is-centered has-text-centered\"> <div class=\"column\"> <p class=\"button is-large is-fullwidth is-gray\"><span class=\"fa fa-envelope\"></span>&#xA0;Get more issues in your inbox </p> </div> </span> </label> <div class=\"md-graybox\"> <div class=\"teaserbox columns\"> <div class=\"teaser-prev column is-12-mobile is-6 is-pulled-left is-newsprint\"> <figure class=\"image is-16by9\"><a href=\"https://tedium.co/2018/03/01/every-headline-on-the-internet-meme/\"> <time class=\"teaser-time\">Mar 01, 2018</time> <img src=\"https://tedium.imgix.net/2018/03/0301_meme.jpg?fit=crop&amp;w=480&amp;h=270&amp;crop=center\" width=\"480\"></a></figure></div> <div class=\"teaser-next column is-12-mobile is-6 is-pulled-right is-newsprint\"> <figure class=\"image is-16by9\"><a href=\"https://tedium.co/2018/02/22/cell-phone-ringtone-history-evolution/\"> <time class=\"teaser-time\">Feb 22, 2018</time> <img src=\"https://tedium.imgix.net/2018/02/tedium022218.gif?fit=crop&amp;w=480&amp;h=270&amp;crop=center\" width=\"480\"></a></figure></div> </div> <a class=\"button is-fullwidth is-archivetease\" href=\"https://tedium.co/archive\">Read more in the Archives&#xA0;<i class=\"fa fa-arrow-circle-right\"></i></a> </div> </div> </div> </div> </section> </article>\n</p> </main>","url":"https://tedium.co/2018/02/27/pdf-file-format-history/","date_published":"2018-02-27T00:00:00+00:00","author":{"name":""}},{"id":"1339","title":"I Am My Own System Of Record","content_html":"<div class=\"td-post-content\"> <p><img class=\"aligncenter wp-image-72070 size-full\" src=\"https://cdn.bizcatalyst360.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/29140319/PEOPLE-PASSSION-360-by-John-Philpin.jpeg%20940w,%20https://cdn.bizcatalyst360.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/29140319/PEOPLE-PASSSION-360-by-John-Philpin-125x61.jpeg%20125w,%20https://cdn.bizcatalyst360.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/29140319/PEOPLE-PASSSION-360-by-John-Philpin-500x245.jpeg%20500w,%20https://cdn.bizcatalyst360.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/29140319/PEOPLE-PASSSION-360-by-John-Philpin-324x160.jpeg%20324w,%20https://cdn.bizcatalyst360.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/29140319/PEOPLE-PASSSION-360-by-John-Philpin-533x261.jpeg%20533w,%20https://cdn.bizcatalyst360.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/29140319/PEOPLE-PASSSION-360-by-John-Philpin-696x341.jpeg%20696w,%20https://cdn.bizcatalyst360.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/29140319/PEOPLE-PASSSION-360-by-John-Philpin-858x420.jpeg%20858w,%20https://cdn.bizcatalyst360.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/29140319/PEOPLE-PASSSION-360-by-John-Philpin-1066x522.jpeg%201066w,%20https://cdn.bizcatalyst360.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/29140319/PEOPLE-PASSSION-360-by-John-Philpin-600x294.jpeg%20600w\" alt=\"PEOPLE PASSSION 360 by John Philpin\" width=\"940\" srcset=\"https://cdn.bizcatalyst360.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/29140319/PEOPLE-PASSSION-360-by-John-Philpin.jpeg 940w, https://cdn.bizcatalyst360.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/29140319/PEOPLE-PASSSION-360-by-John-Philpin-125x61.jpeg 125w, https://cdn.bizcatalyst360.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/29140319/PEOPLE-PASSSION-360-by-John-Philpin-500x245.jpeg 500w, https://cdn.bizcatalyst360.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/29140319/PEOPLE-PASSSION-360-by-John-Philpin-324x160.jpeg 324w, https://cdn.bizcatalyst360.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/29140319/PEOPLE-PASSSION-360-by-John-Philpin-533x261.jpeg 533w, https://cdn.bizcatalyst360.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/29140319/PEOPLE-PASSSION-360-by-John-Philpin-696x341.jpeg 696w, https://cdn.bizcatalyst360.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/29140319/PEOPLE-PASSSION-360-by-John-Philpin-858x420.jpeg 858w, https://cdn.bizcatalyst360.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/29140319/PEOPLE-PASSSION-360-by-John-Philpin-1066x522.jpeg 1066w, https://cdn.bizcatalyst360.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/29140319/PEOPLE-PASSSION-360-by-John-Philpin-600x294.jpeg 600w\"><strong><span class=\"dropcap dropcap3\">A</span>n email signature I have used from time to time for nearly 7 years</strong> reads &#x201C;John Philpin &#x2013; <a href=\"http://beyondbridges.net/2015/02/system-record/\">I Am My Own System Of Record</a>&#x201D;.</p>\n<p>Seven years ago people would ask me what I meant. Today? Not so much. It stems from a belief that the idea that an organization &#x2013; any organization &#x2013; thinking that its &#x2018;system of record&#x2019; is anything but a tiny lens onto who I am &#x2026; is deeply flawed.</p>\n<h4><strong>A System Of Record &#x2013; as defined by Wikipedia</strong></h4>\n<div class=\"td-paragraph-padding-6\">\n<p><span>A system of record (SOR) or Source System of Record (SSoR) is <a href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_Management\">Data Management</a> term for an <a href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information\">information</a> storage system (commonly implemented on a <a href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_system\">computer system</a>) that is the authoritative data source for a given <a href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_element\">data element</a> or piece of information. The need to identify systems of record can become acute in organizations where <a href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Management_information_system\">management information systems</a> have been built by taking output data from multiple source systems, re-processing this data, and then re-presenting the result for a new business use.</span></p>\n</div>\n<p>Maybe &#x2018;flawed&#x2019; is the wrong word. Maybe &#x2018;arrogant&#x2019; is the right one, because they forgot to include qualifiers like &#x2019;in their organization&#x2019; and &#x2018;with my permission&#x2019;. Oh wait, that&#x2019;s because they don&#x2019;t need &#x2018;my permission&#x2019; and organizations are so self-centered that &#x2018;in their organization&#x2019; is redundant.</p>\n<p>And you know I am right.</p>\n<p>Think about which enterprises you know that holds information about you, and how they treat that information. Let me share a far from complete list that can be dropped into many categories</p> <p>&#x2026; and that&#x2019;s just who you know about. What I call, &#x2018;first party&#x2019; data holders.</p>\n<p>When you add in third party brokers like <a href=\"http://www.experian.com/\">Experian</a>, Free Credit Report, FICO, Equifax, Transunion, it starts to get worrying. All of it is at the root of the inspiration that prompted this &#x2018;<a href=\"http://amzn.to/29a9Pce\">box poem</a>&#x2019; from the poet Jim Woessner.</p>\n<div class=\"td-paragraph-padding-6\">\n<div class=\"td-paragraph-padding-5\">\n<p><span>By the numbers there&#x2019;s my driver&#x2019;s license,</span></p>\n<p><span>car registration, license plate, zip code,</span></p>\n<p><span>various accounts, street address, birthdate</span></p>\n<p><span>home, work, and cell phones, passport, credit cards</span></p>\n<p><span>debit cards, PINs, social security</span></p>\n<p><span>frequent fliers, internet passwords, stocks</span></p>\n<p><span>checking, HMO, IRA, museums</span></p>\n<p><span>library card, land and enneagram.</span></p>\n<p><span>I know it&#x2019;s a lot to remember, but</span></p>\n<p><span>thank god I finally know who I am</span></p>\n</div>\n</div>\n<p><a href=\"http://amzn.to/29leXd6\"><em><span>&#x2013;Jim Woessner,&#xA0;Box Poems</span></em></a></p>\n<p>Spot on.</p>\n<p>And, when you merge first party and third party data together it starts to get really creepy. Consider for example that moment when you are on a travel booking site and out of the blue you are asked whether you had thought about remortgaging your home ? Funny that &#x2013; you had. In fact just yesterday you had been searching the web for the best deals &#x2013; and clicking through and making notes and &#x2026; wow how did they know?</p>\n<p>Well that could be one reason, along with the trackers that are routinely built into the web links we all click on.</p>\n<p>It doesn&#x2019;t stop there. These trackers are everywhere. For example, why not pop over to <a href=\"http://www.forbes.com/\">www.forbes.com</a> where you will find at least 34 different entities waiting to greet you, track where you have come from, what you are doing on the site and where you are going.</p>\n<p><img class=\"aligncenter wp-image-73207\" src=\"https://cdn.bizcatalyst360.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/29134439/forbes-blockers.jpg%20181w,%20https://cdn.bizcatalyst360.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/29134439/forbes-blockers-44x125.jpg%2044w,%20https://cdn.bizcatalyst360.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/29134439/forbes-blockers-176x500.jpg%20176w,%20https://cdn.bizcatalyst360.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/29134439/forbes-blockers-148x420.jpg%20148w\" alt=\"forbes-blockers\" width=\"265\" srcset=\"https://cdn.bizcatalyst360.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/29134439/forbes-blockers.jpg 181w, https://cdn.bizcatalyst360.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/29134439/forbes-blockers-44x125.jpg 44w, https://cdn.bizcatalyst360.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/29134439/forbes-blockers-176x500.jpg 176w, https://cdn.bizcatalyst360.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/29134439/forbes-blockers-148x420.jpg 148w\">And, this just in &#x2013; if you want to actually DO something about it, well <a href=\"http://my.1999.io/users/dsearls/2016/06/29/0010.html\">here&#x2019;s an interesting case study from Doc Searls</a> &#x2013; more of him later.</p>\n<p>And it isn&#x2019;t just the web. If you know a phone number, visit a &#x2018;reverse look up&#x2019; site for phone numbers and you will be invited to get a report that will reveal the person&#x2019;s name, their background, any criminal history, other phones numbers, associated emails, personal and business addresses, birth date and associated records, marriage/divorce records, legal judgments, relatives, court records, photos, social profiles and oh so much more.</p>\n<p>Typical price? $4.95.</p>\n<p>That said &#x2026; the point of this article is not to rail on &#x2018;tracking&#x2019;, bad IT and marketing decisions or misguided corporations. The point is to talk about something more fundamental, <strong>data privacy</strong> and who actually <strong>owns that data?</strong></p>\n<p>I think we have all accepted that when we sign up for a social network site that our &#x2018;content&#x2019; is essentially signed over to that site. Including the rights to its use. But what about when you signed up for that loyalty card. Did you think your data was going to be used, not just by the super-market, but essentially traded to a third party? And we know that happens, because if it didn&#x2019;t <a href=\"http://venturebeat.com/2015/11/10/experian-faces-class-action-lawsuit-from-t-mobile-customers-affected-by-data-breach/\">class action suits like this wouldn&#x2019;t happen</a>.</p>\n<p>And finally, you know when you have forgotten your password and the site says you need to answer a question about yourself. It used to be &#x2018;mothers maiden name&#x2019;, or &#x2018;father&#x2019;s middle name&#x2019;, which of course these days is too easy to hack. So instead they now ask a range of questions like; First car you owned? Name of your first girl/boy friend. Name of your favorite pet &#x2026; You know &#x2013; things that only you know about you. Do you think that the data miners are going to not include that in their profile on you. Oh wait &#x2013; he owns a dog? His first car was 78 BMW &#x2013; and he just signed a lease for a 2016 BMW. Now THAT is loyalty. (At least this is how it will be interpreted.)<a href=\"https://www.bizcatalyst360.com/i-am-my-own-system-of-record/#_ftn1\"><sup>[1]</sup></a></p>\n<h4><strong>When did we agree that none of our data is ours?</strong></h4>\n<p>Most surveys conclude that &#x2018;we&#x2019; have just &#x2018;given up&#x2019; and &#x2018;accept it&#x2019;. At least that is what corporations want you to believe. But it isn&#x2019;t too late, which is why two years ago, I became involved with <a href=\"https://cyber.law.harvard.edu/research/projectvrm\">Project VRM</a>, an initiative that will be ten years old this coming September, started and lead by Doc Searls (<a href=\"http://amzn.to/29cZ4UZ\">Cluetrain Manifesto</a> and <a href=\"http://amzn.to/29f9fHb\">The Intention Economy</a>). It is a great group and I am proud to be part of it. It&#x2019;s amazing to think how long this army of people has been working at the challenge.</p><div class=\"td-a-rec td-a-rec-id-content_inlineleft td-rec-hide-on-p td_uid_34_5c8c0fde9d3f3_rand td_block_template_14\"> <p><span><span><span><span><span><em><img class=\"alignleft size-thumbnail wp-image-93315\" src=\"https://cdn.bizcatalyst360.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/29091602/LEARN-COFFEE-125x83.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"125\">In the midst of a world where so many are disengaged, cynical and apathetic, isn&#x2019;t it time for some fresh air? Isn&apos;t it time to join together in building a refreshing, new community founded upon &#x201C;real&#x201D; relationships, &#x201C;real&#x201D; thought leadership, and &#x201C;authentic&#x201D; engagement? NO Clutter. NO Spam. NO NO Fees. NO Promotions. NO Kidding. SIMPLY Pure Engagement Unplugged</em></span>.</span><strong> &#x2615;&#xFE0F;</strong></span></span></span><span><strong><a href=\"https://ngagecafe.mn.co/share/4yehgxJ_YlX9AS1f?utm_source=manual\"> CLICK TO GRAB YOUR SEAT IN OUR NEW ENGAGE CAF&#xC9;</a> &#x2615;&#xFE0F;</strong> </span></p></div>\n<h4><strong>And it is getting real.</strong></h4>\n<p><a href=\"http://digi.me/\">digi.me</a> is a company based in the UK. Sponsor of the Medium publication <a href=\"https://medium.com/the-internet-of-me\">&#x2018;The Internet of Me&#x2019;</a>. Great read by the way &#x2013; edited by <a href=\"https://medium.com/@SiCarroll\">Simon Carroll</a></p>\n<p><a href=\"http://digi.me/\">digi.me</a> observe that by not only &#x2018;.. regaining control over (our) personal data gathers the only complete picture of our lives in one place and brings immediate value&#x2019;, but that by &#x2018;exchanging slices of this rich data for direct benefits has unlimited commercial, as well as personal, potential.&#x2019;</p>\n<h4><strong>Sounds good, right ?</strong></h4>\n<p>It is. They have apps available on both the iOS and Android mobile stores and on both the Mac and PC. Early days yet. The apps allow you to integrate your information stored in up to 20 separate social networks and then let you do some pretty cool stuff. But that isn&#x2019;t the point and that &#x2018;lack of point&#x2019; is not lost on some corporations.</p>\n<p><a href=\"http://digi.me/\">digi.me</a> has just <a href=\"https://blog.digi.me/2016/06/30/digi-me-raises-4-2m-6-1m-in-series-a-funding-round/\">taken a &#x2018;series A&#x2019; investment</a>. It is a resounding commitment to a slightly different future than the one that most people have come to assume is inevitable. And why am I so upbeat? Companies are taking investments all the time. Why is this one different?</p>\n<p>Turns out that this investment isn&#x2019;t your usual VC. The source of the money is <a href=\"http://www.swissre.com/\">Swiss Re</a> &#x2013; a global insurance company that have recognized that data &#x2013; my data, your data, everyone&#x2019;s data, will have far more value if we own it &#x2013; not them.</p>\n<p>I can&#x2019;t tell you where all this is going. Except it is going somewhere good. And the fact that a company as vast and data centric as <a href=\"http://www.swissre.com/\">Swiss Re</a> is sitting up, listening and investing in a company that at its core is about &#x2018;we the people&#x2019;, is heart warming.</p>\n<blockquote>\n<p><span>&#x201C;People want to be in control of their data, and many have strong views over what they are willing to share and what they want to keep private. &#xA0;We&#x2019;re excited about<a href=\"http://digi.me/\"> digi.me</a> because it will enable people to go one step further, and provide full transparency over how they can use their data to access services and benefits.&#x201D;</span></p>\n</blockquote>\n<p><em><strong>&#x2013;Daniel Ryan, Head of Digital Analytics Catalysts at Swiss Re</strong></em></p>\n<p>But there&#x2019;s more. <a href=\"https://www.euractiv.com/section/digital/opinion/refocus-the-data-debate-around-individuals/\">Check out this article by Stephen Deadman.</a> Sorry who? Stephen Deadman, Facebook&#x2019;s Global Deputy Chief Privacy Officer. Stephen writes;</p>\n<blockquote>\n<p><span>&#x2026;&#x201D;Europe&#x2019;s new privacy rules give businesses a chance to innovate &#x2013; and Facebook is starting a new coalition on personal data.&#x201D;</span></p>\n</blockquote>\n<p>and, guess who is working with Facebook on this initiative, Stephen again &#x2026;.</p>\n<blockquote>\n<p><span>&#x2026; &#x201C;Every piece of research into attitudes towards personal data tells the same story. Consumers want more control over their data. They want to get more value from their data and entrepreneurs are now rushing to give them both. Just look at <a href=\"http://digi.me/\">digi.me</a>, which is creating a user-controlled marketplace around personal data.&#x201D;</span></p>\n</blockquote>\n<p>You just can&#x2019;t make this stuff up.</p>\n<p>Massive kudos to <a href=\"http://digi.me/\">digi.me</a> &#x2013; one of over 200 companies &#x2013; and counting (according to Doc&#x2019;s <a href=\"http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/projectvrm/VRM_Development_Work\">developer catalogue</a> including Ghostery, Meeco, Adblock, Privacy Badger, Tor and so many more.</p>\n<p>What do you think? Interesting? I think so, which is why I have joined 400,000 people across 140 countries and installed the <a href=\"http://try.digi.me/\">digi.me</a> apps. Now I am thinking about how I can take even more control over<strong> my data.</strong></p>\n<p><em><span><a href=\"https://www.bizcatalyst360.com/i-am-my-own-system-of-record/#_ftnref1\"><sup>[1]</sup></a> The fix to that is easy, provided you think about it. I do what <a href=\"http://davewiner.com/\">Dave Winer</a> does. I have an online persona with a couple of pets, cars I have never owned, people I don&#x2019;t know and all of it is constantly and consistently used by me across all profile requests.</span></em></p> </div>","url":"https://www.bizcatalyst360.com/i-am-my-own-system-of-record/","date_published":"2018-02-12T17:48:26+00:00","author":{"name":"John Philpin"}},{"id":"1011","title":"Humanity at a Crossroads by Charles Handy","content_html":"<article id=\"post-1656\" class=\"post-1656 post type-post status-publish format-standard hentry category-9th-global-peter-drucker-forum tag-9th-global-peter-drucker-forum tag-charles-handy\"> <div class=\"entry-content\"> <p>We cannot let technology, however advanced, replace humanity with all its sensitivities, it&#x2019;s appreciations of love, beauty and nature, it&#x2019;s need for affection, sympathy and purpose, it&#x2019;s hopes and fears, intuitions, imagination and leaps of faith. &#xA0;Technology, even AI, in all its possibilities, can never replicate these.</p>\n<p>We must not let the demands of economic man/woman dominate our fuller humanity. &#xA0;AI must be our servant rather than our master, economics the basis of a good life for all but not its purpose.</p>\n<p>In the past century the organisation, the company (literally a gathering of companions) at its best, recognised this. &#xA0;It offered security and personal development in return for commitment. &#xA0;My own company, Shell, was paternalistic almost to a fault. &#xA0;In those days the social contract was clear &#x2013; companies looked for customers, employed workers to satisfy those customers and thus became customers themselves. &#xA0;My job, a la Drucker, was to create more customers, subject always to a requirement to earn a given return on capital in order to invest in the company&#x2019;s future and pay a reasonable rent to the shareholders for the use of their money.</p>\n<p>That was then, profit was the result not the purpose.</p>\n<p>Agency theory, shareholder value, stock options and bonuses heralded a new world in which workers became costs not assets, whatever was said by their chairmen. &#xA0;Since then Coase&#x2019;s idea that firms are needed to keep transaction costs down has been disrupted by technology, leading to the fragmentation of the company, turning it into a network of economic contracts in which individuals are valued only for the added value they contribute. It is, as Rick Wartzman says in his new book, The End of Loyalty, but it is also the end of the company as an alternative home where you could, to a degree, be your full self.</p>\n<p>The new and growing world of self-employment, gig work, small enterprises, subcontracting and part-time work suits many. &#xA0;Some small businesses are like families while many independent professionals and craftspeople&#xA0; have relished the freedom and survived any economic hazards at the beginning. &#xA0;Lucky are we whose work is both what we do and who we are. Yet for many others the freedom is illusory, the humanity is absent, the unmet need to belong to something, anything, is painful. &#xA0;Half of our populations feel they are missing out &#x2013; hence the populism and the anger. &#xA0;Those wanting to leave the future in the hands of GAFA (Google, Amazon, Facebook, Apple) and NATU (Netflix, Airbnb, Tesla, Uber) should think again. &#xA0;These new data-led organizations have many devoted followers but produce little tangible wealth and themselves employ few people. &#xA0;They cannot be the answer.</p>\n<p>So the problems are clear and becoming ever more urgent. &#xA0;So are some of the questions that need to be answered which include:</p>\n<p>Can the new technologies enliven and enrich our humanity, in health, education and better living?</p>\n<p>Could organizations deploy the new technologies to structure themselves around more human-scale clusters in which individuals had the space to flourish?</p>\n<p>Can we redefine progress, both individually and nationally, to be more than economic? &#xA0;Will experiences and relationships come to be more valued than riches? &#xA0;May we finally see the End of Economic Man that Peter Drucker first envisaged in 1939?</p>\n<p>Will the social role of business expand to include some responsibility for the education and support for the &#x2018;precariat&#x2019; workforce that surrounds them? &#xA0;If not will governments take it on?</p>\n<p>How will we define good work, a good organization and a good life?</p>\n<p>Who will lead the way to a new understanding of what it means to be a manager in this new world? &#xA0;Can the Drucker Forum be one source of the creative imagination that we will need?</p> <p><strong>About the author:</strong></p>\n<p>Charles Handy is a social philosopher and writer. He&#x2019;s been an oil executive, an economist, and professor at London Business School in his long and distinguished career. His new book is The Second Curve: Thoughts on Reinventing Society. He will make the closing address at this year&#x2019;s Forum.</p> </div> </article>","url":"https://www.druckerforum.org/blog/?p=1656","date_published":"2017-11-13T00:00:00+00:00","author":{"name":"guest"}},{"id":"1372","title":"The 10 Happiest Countries in the World","content_html":"<div><div class=\"content-body-container\"><div><p>Happiness, unlike <a href=\"http://www.cntraveler.com/stories/2016-06-22/the-10-most-expensive-cities-for-expats\">cost of living</a> or <a href=\"http://www.cntraveler.com/galleries/2016-03-31/6-places-where-the-us-dollar-is-strong-right-now\">exchange rates</a>, is a difficult thing to measure, but one initiative at the United Nations thinks it can get close to figuring it out. In honor of the <a href=\"http://www.dayofhappiness.net/#join\">International Day of Happiness</a> on March 20, the U.N. Sustainable Development Solutions Network has published the 2019 <a href=\"https://s3.amazonaws.com/happiness-report/2019/WHR19.pdf\">World Happiness Report</a>&#x2014;an annual study that examines the connections between happiness and development (while encouraging policymakers to place more of an emphasis on happiness, rather than the more easily quantifiable measures of development). Around 1,000 people in every U.N. member state rate their quality of life on a scale from 0 to 10, while researchers cull data from six areas&#x2014;GDP per capita, life expectancy, social support, trust and corruption, perceived freedom to make life decisions, and generosity. While you may not be lucky enough to find yourself in one of these blisstopias today, we still recommend slapping a smile on your face and paying it forward.</p><p>(<em>This gallery was originally published in 2016. It has been updated with new information.</em>)</p></div></div><div class=\"gallery-items-container\"><div class=\"gallery-item-wrapper-container\"><p class=\"gallery-item-wrapper\"><section class=\"gallery-item gallery-item-photo\"><div class=\"gallery-item-image__container\"><picture class=\"component-responsive-image gallery-item-image__container\"><source srcset=\"https://media.cntraveler.com/photos/5c939e72359e1811346119c0/master/w_820,c_limit/Finland_GettyImages-963211576.jpg\"><source srcset=\"https://media.cntraveler.com/photos/5c939e72359e1811346119c0/master/w_770,c_limit/Finland_GettyImages-963211576.jpg\"><source srcset=\"https://media.cntraveler.com/photos/5c939e72359e1811346119c0/master/w_420,c_limit/Finland_GettyImages-963211576.jpg\"><img alt=\"\" src=\"https://media.cntraveler.com/photos/5c939e72359e1811346119c0/master/w_420,c_limit/Finland_GettyImages-963211576.jpg\"></picture></div><p class=\"credit\">Getty</p><div><p class=\"gallery-item-index\">1</p><div class=\"image-content-container\"><div class=\"dek\"> <div><p>For the second year in a row, Finland is number one when it comes to happiness. The country consistently ranks <a href=\"https://data.oecd.org/\">among the top education systems in the world</a>, occasionally only beaten out by South Korea, Japan, and Singapore. Much of that educational success comes from a widespread reverence for teachers, who are required to have a master&#x2019;s degree (state-funded), and a pedagogical system that focuses less on quantitative testing and more on experiential learning and equal opportunity. To celebrate their ranking, the country&apos;s tourism board is launching a contest where the eight winners get a free summer trip to experience that happiness for themselves and explore the Finnish landscape, alongside a local host. The <a href=\"https://rentafinn.com/\">&quot;Rent a Finn&quot;</a> contest runs through April 4, 2019.</p></div> </div></div></div></section><section class=\"gallery-item gallery-item-photo\"><div class=\"gallery-item-image__container\"><picture class=\"component-responsive-image gallery-item-image__container\"><source srcset=\"https://media.cntraveler.com/photos/5c939e6eb96659787cd796e0/master/w_820,c_limit/Denmark_GettyImages-1044373262.jpg\"><source srcset=\"https://media.cntraveler.com/photos/5c939e6eb96659787cd796e0/master/w_770,c_limit/Denmark_GettyImages-1044373262.jpg\"><source srcset=\"https://media.cntraveler.com/photos/5c939e6eb96659787cd796e0/master/w_420,c_limit/Denmark_GettyImages-1044373262.jpg\"><img alt=\"\" src=\"https://media.cntraveler.com/photos/5c939e6eb96659787cd796e0/master/w_420,c_limit/Denmark_GettyImages-1044373262.jpg\"></picture></div><p class=\"credit\">Getty</p><div><p class=\"gallery-item-index\">2</p><div class=\"image-content-container\"><div class=\"dek\"> <div><p>Denmark moved up a spot this year, from third on the list to number two. The country rates near the top in all the metrics the data geeks at the U.N. pored over for the report&#x2014;life expectancy, social support, and generosity among them&#x2014;but it is also a country hugely committed to renewable energy production (<a href=\"http://ecowatch.com/2015/01/09/countries-leading-way-renewable-energy/\">39.1 percent of its energy was wind-generated in 2014</a>). Home to <a href=\"http://www.cntraveler.com/galleries/2015-06-10/the-most-bike-friendly-cities-in-the-world/20\">the world&#x2019;s most bike-friendly city</a> and a coastline that <a href=\"http://www.cntraveler.com/stories/2009-07-14/breaking-away-in-denmark\">you could spend a lifetime exploring</a>, the country&#x2019;s happiness certainly comes in part from a respect for the planet it&apos;s built on. But a recent study from the Copenhagen-based <a href=\"http://www.happinessresearchinstitute.com/\">Happiness Research Institute</a> (whose existence is probably reason enough for a top spot) narrows down Denmark&#x2019;s happiness to a number of different categories, including trust in the government, economic security, freedom, civil participation, and work-life balance. Our main takeaway from the institute&apos;s continuing research is that if you want to be happy, the first step is to stop stressing about how happy you are...and go for a bike ride.</p></div> </div></div></div></section></p></div><div class=\"gallery-item-wrapper-container\"><p class=\"gallery-item-wrapper\"><section class=\"gallery-item gallery-item-photo\"><div class=\"gallery-item-image__container\"><picture class=\"component-responsive-image gallery-item-image__container\"><source srcset=\"https://media.cntraveler.com/photos/5c939ff4bf833e107935b576/master/w_820,c_limit/Norway_GettyImages-726783823.jpg\"><source srcset=\"https://media.cntraveler.com/photos/5c939ff4bf833e107935b576/master/w_770,c_limit/Norway_GettyImages-726783823.jpg\"><source srcset=\"https://media.cntraveler.com/photos/5c939ff4bf833e107935b576/master/w_420,c_limit/Norway_GettyImages-726783823.jpg\"><img alt=\"Norway\" src=\"https://media.cntraveler.com/photos/5c939ff4bf833e107935b576/master/w_420,c_limit/Norway_GettyImages-726783823.jpg\"></picture></div><p class=\"credit\">Getty</p><div><p class=\"gallery-item-index\">3</p><div class=\"image-content-container\"><div class=\"dek\"> <div><p>Norway has been dropping in the ranks since 2017&#x2014;when it held the top spot&#x2014;and this year it comes in as the third-happiest country in the world. But, there&apos;s not too much to complain about. Like the U.N. shows, year after year, in <a href=\"http://hdr.undp.org/en/data\">its Human Development Report</a>, where Norway has taken the top spot for 13 years in a row, there is more to the country that makes it so livable&#x2014;and its people so happy. The mix of a well-integrated government welfare system and a thriving economy built on responsible management of its natural resources (good riddance, <a href=\"http://www.cntraveler.com/stories/2016-06-08/norway-may-ban-fossil-fuel-powered-cars-by-2025\">fossil fuel-powered cars</a>), means that very few are left behind, and the feelings of social support, trust in government, and economic well-being that come from that all contribute to overall happiness.</p></div> </div></div></div></section><section class=\"gallery-item gallery-item-photo\"><div class=\"gallery-item-image__container\"><picture class=\"component-responsive-image gallery-item-image__container\"><source srcset=\"https://media.cntraveler.com/photos/56e880bca140720e1cbcd545/master/w_820,c_limit/happiest-countries-iceland-cr-getty.jpg\"><source srcset=\"https://media.cntraveler.com/photos/56e880bca140720e1cbcd545/master/w_770,c_limit/happiest-countries-iceland-cr-getty.jpg\"><source srcset=\"https://media.cntraveler.com/photos/56e880bca140720e1cbcd545/master/w_420,c_limit/happiest-countries-iceland-cr-getty.jpg\"><img alt=\"\" src=\"https://media.cntraveler.com/photos/56e880bca140720e1cbcd545/master/w_420,c_limit/happiest-countries-iceland-cr-getty.jpg\"></picture></div><p class=\"credit\">Getty</p><div><p class=\"gallery-item-index\">4</p><div class=\"image-content-container\"><div class=\"dek\"> <div><p>Iceland ranks high in terms of the proportion of respondents who said they felt like they had a fellow citizen to count on when the going gets rough. This perhaps became most obvious in the wake of the country&apos;s <a href=\"https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/06/17/the-miraculous-story-of-iceland/\">post-2007 financial collapse</a> and subsequent revitalization. You&apos;d think that <a href=\"http://www.cntraveler.com/story/iceland-will-have-more-american-tourists-than-actual-residents-by-2017\">the perpetual flood of American tourists arriving into Reykjavik</a> might have dealt a blow to the residents&apos; happiness&#x2014;it&apos;s got to be a little harder to get that dinner reservation than it used to be, after all&#x2014;but when it comes to well-being, the Icelanders are unfazed. Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that they can always escape the city to <a href=\"http://www.cntraveler.com/stories/2016-02-12/iceland-to-the-moon-and-back-in-three-videos\">a countryside that looks like another planet</a>.</p></div> </div></div></div></section></p></div><div class=\"gallery-item-wrapper-container\"><p class=\"gallery-item-wrapper\"><section class=\"gallery-item gallery-item-photo\"><div class=\"gallery-item-image__container\"><picture class=\"component-responsive-image gallery-item-image__container\"><source srcset=\"https://media.cntraveler.com/photos/56e880bca140720e1cbcd543/master/w_820,c_limit/happiest-countries-netherlands-cr-getty.jpg\"><source srcset=\"https://media.cntraveler.com/photos/56e880bca140720e1cbcd543/master/w_770,c_limit/happiest-countries-netherlands-cr-getty.jpg\"><source srcset=\"https://media.cntraveler.com/photos/56e880bca140720e1cbcd543/master/w_420,c_limit/happiest-countries-netherlands-cr-getty.jpg\"><img alt=\"\" src=\"https://media.cntraveler.com/photos/56e880bca140720e1cbcd543/master/w_420,c_limit/happiest-countries-netherlands-cr-getty.jpg\"></picture></div><p class=\"credit\">Getty</p><div><p class=\"gallery-item-index\">5</p><div class=\"image-content-container\"><div class=\"dek\"> <div><p>The biggest stat from the Netherlands this year? That its happiness levels have barely changed (we&apos;re talking less than 0.03 percent) between 2005 and 2018. And in the Netherlands, it turns out, happiness starts young. <a href=\"https://www.unicef-irc.org/publications/pdf/rc11_eng.pdf\">A 2013 Unicef report</a> rated Dutch children the happiest in the world, based on a number of metrics related to educational well-being, safety, and health. <a href=\"http://www.cntraveler.com/galleries/2016-02-11/rent-vincent-van-goghs-bedroom-for-dollar10-a-night-on-airbnb\">Vincent van Gogh</a> was the exception, not the rule.</p></div> </div></div></div></section><section class=\"gallery-item gallery-item-photo\"><div class=\"gallery-item-image__container\"><picture class=\"component-responsive-image gallery-item-image__container\"><source srcset=\"https://media.cntraveler.com/photos/56e880c1965403d67a69c9b4/master/w_820,c_limit/happiest-countries-switzerland-cr-getty.jpg\"><source srcset=\"https://media.cntraveler.com/photos/56e880c1965403d67a69c9b4/master/w_770,c_limit/happiest-countries-switzerland-cr-getty.jpg\"><source srcset=\"https://media.cntraveler.com/photos/56e880c1965403d67a69c9b4/master/w_420,c_limit/happiest-countries-switzerland-cr-getty.jpg\"><img alt=\"\" src=\"https://media.cntraveler.com/photos/56e880c1965403d67a69c9b4/master/w_420,c_limit/happiest-countries-switzerland-cr-getty.jpg\"></picture></div><p class=\"credit\">Getty</p><div><p class=\"gallery-item-index\">6</p><div class=\"image-content-container\"><div class=\"dek\"> <div><p>From how many vacation days workers should have to how many immigrants should be allowed into the country, <a href=\"http://www.cntraveler.com/gallery/the-best-places-to-go-skiing-in-switzerland\">Switzerland</a> is a country where everything is voted on, and referendums down to the local level happen many times a year. This system of <a href=\"http://www.swissinfo.ch/directdemocracy/david-altman_-switzerland-is-the-gold-standard-for-direct-democracy-/41754530\">direct democracy</a> means that Swiss citizens feel an unparalleled sense of participation in their country&#x2019;s evolution, from landmark decisions on human rights to whether a new traffic light should be installed in their neighborhood. The Swiss are known to be insular, and it can be off-putting to first time visitors, but there is a strong social fabric held together by a belief that every voice matters, which can go a long way toward feeling content. This political outlook also may help explain why three of its cities&#x2014;Basel, Geneva, and Zurich&#x2014;made the top 10 rankings of <a href=\"http://www.cntraveler.com/galleries/2016-02-25/the-10-best-cities-for-expats\">the best cities for expats</a>.</p></div> </div></div></div></section></p></div><div class=\"gallery-item-wrapper-container\"><p class=\"gallery-item-wrapper\"><section class=\"gallery-item gallery-item-photo\"><div class=\"gallery-item-image__container\"><picture class=\"component-responsive-image gallery-item-image__container\"><source srcset=\"https://media.cntraveler.com/photos/56e880c1e340cfac77a1ea99/master/w_820,c_limit/happiest-countries-sweden-cr-getty.jpg\"><source srcset=\"https://media.cntraveler.com/photos/56e880c1e340cfac77a1ea99/master/w_770,c_limit/happiest-countries-sweden-cr-getty.jpg\"><source srcset=\"https://media.cntraveler.com/photos/56e880c1e340cfac77a1ea99/master/w_420,c_limit/happiest-countries-sweden-cr-getty.jpg\"><img alt=\"\" src=\"https://media.cntraveler.com/photos/56e880c1e340cfac77a1ea99/master/w_420,c_limit/happiest-countries-sweden-cr-getty.jpg\"></picture></div><p class=\"credit\">Getty</p><div><p class=\"gallery-item-index\">7</p><div class=\"image-content-container\"><div class=\"dek\"> <div><p>This year, Sweden continued to jump up in the rankings, from the ninth spot last year to the seventh. A high GDP per capita, which it shares with many of its Nordic neighbors, is not the sole reason, either: An emphasis on social equality that is built into the education system starting in kindergarten, 16 months of paid family leave that can be split between a couple after a new child is welcomed into a family, and free day care also make Sweden the best country for women, <a href=\"http://www.cntraveler.com/story/worlds-best-country-for-women\">according to a separate study</a>. Basically, an emphasis on work-life balance leads to a happier populace. Turns out feeling productive <em>and</em> rested leads to major smiles. Are you listening, <a href=\"http://www.cntraveler.com/destinations/new-york-city\">New York City</a>?</p></div> </div></div></div></section><section class=\"gallery-item gallery-item-photo\"><div class=\"gallery-item-image__container\"><picture class=\"component-responsive-image gallery-item-image__container\"><source srcset=\"https://media.cntraveler.com/photos/5c939e737e29f10a490720a5/master/w_820,c_limit/New-Zealand_GettyImages-1090705516.jpg\"><source srcset=\"https://media.cntraveler.com/photos/5c939e737e29f10a490720a5/master/w_770,c_limit/New-Zealand_GettyImages-1090705516.jpg\"><source srcset=\"https://media.cntraveler.com/photos/5c939e737e29f10a490720a5/master/w_420,c_limit/New-Zealand_GettyImages-1090705516.jpg\"><img alt=\"\" src=\"https://media.cntraveler.com/photos/5c939e737e29f10a490720a5/master/w_420,c_limit/New-Zealand_GettyImages-1090705516.jpg\"></picture></div><p class=\"credit\">Getty</p><div><p class=\"gallery-item-index\">8</p><div class=\"image-content-container\"><div class=\"dek\"> <div><p>Sure to fuel an already burning rivalry, New Zealand beat its neighbor Australia, who didn&apos;t even make the top 10, this year. <em>Cond&#xE9; Nast Traveler</em> readers say, year after year, that <a href=\"http://www.cntraveler.com/galleries/2015-08-14/the-2015-friendliest-and-unfriendliest-cities-in-the-world/\">Kiwis are a warm, welcoming bunch</a>, but according to the U.N.&apos;s research, a lot of that comes from satisfaction not only when they&apos;re out and about, but also in the workplace. We would guess the country&#x2019;s vast natural wealth&#x2014;its <a href=\"http://www.cntraveler.com/galleries/2015-12-30/the-best-beaches-in-new-zealand\">beaches</a>, <a href=\"http://www.cntraveler.com/stories/2016-01-13/the-best-italian-wine-comes-from-new-zealand\">vineyards</a>, and <a href=\"http://www.cntraveler.com/galleries/2015-01-22/queenstown-new-zealand-the-adventure-capital-of-the-world-extreme-sports\">mountains</a>&#x2014;plays a role, too.</p></div> </div></div></div></section></p></div><div class=\"gallery-item-wrapper-container\"><p class=\"gallery-item-wrapper\"><section class=\"gallery-item gallery-item-photo\"><div class=\"gallery-item-image__container\"><picture class=\"component-responsive-image gallery-item-image__container\"><source srcset=\"https://media.cntraveler.com/photos/5c939e6e7e29f10a490720a3/master/w_820,c_limit/Canada_GettyImages-691033951.jpg\"><source srcset=\"https://media.cntraveler.com/photos/5c939e6e7e29f10a490720a3/master/w_770,c_limit/Canada_GettyImages-691033951.jpg\"><source srcset=\"https://media.cntraveler.com/photos/5c939e6e7e29f10a490720a3/master/w_420,c_limit/Canada_GettyImages-691033951.jpg\"><img alt=\"\" src=\"https://media.cntraveler.com/photos/5c939e6e7e29f10a490720a3/master/w_420,c_limit/Canada_GettyImages-691033951.jpg\"></picture></div><p class=\"credit\">Getty</p><div><p class=\"gallery-item-index\">9</p><div class=\"image-content-container\"><div class=\"dek\"> <div><p>Here&apos;s yet another reason for all those Americans to <a href=\"http://www.cntraveler.com/story/you-could-hike-from-nyc-to-canada-on-the-new-empire-state-trail\">grab their best hiking boots</a> and head north. The only country from the Americas to have made it into the top 10, Canada&#x2019;s number nine placement is proof that money isn&#x2019;t everything, as it beats out its neighbor (the U.S. came at number 19, down from 18 last year). Canada&apos;s best ranking? In its citizens sense of freedom to make their own life choices.</p></div> </div></div></div></section><section class=\"gallery-item gallery-item-photo\"><div class=\"gallery-item-image__container\"><picture class=\"component-responsive-image gallery-item-image__container\"><source srcset=\"https://media.cntraveler.com/photos/5c939ac97e29f10a490720a1/master/w_820,c_limit/Austria_GettyImages-910955918.jpg\"><source srcset=\"https://media.cntraveler.com/photos/5c939ac97e29f10a490720a1/master/w_770,c_limit/Austria_GettyImages-910955918.jpg\"><source srcset=\"https://media.cntraveler.com/photos/5c939ac97e29f10a490720a1/master/w_420,c_limit/Austria_GettyImages-910955918.jpg\"><img alt=\"\" src=\"https://media.cntraveler.com/photos/5c939ac97e29f10a490720a1/master/w_420,c_limit/Austria_GettyImages-910955918.jpg\"></picture></div><p class=\"credit\">Getty</p><div><p class=\"gallery-item-index\">10</p><div class=\"image-content-container\"><div class=\"dek\"> <div><p>Knocking out <a href=\"https://www.cntraveler.com/package/best-of-australia\">Australia</a> from the top 10, <a href=\"https://www.cntraveler.com/gallery/photos-that-will-make-you-want-to-visit-austria\">Austria</a> made the cut with high scores in life expectancy and GDP per capita. Remember when we mentioned that taking a bike ride might help with happiness rankings? Well consider this: biking is one of our favorite ways to get around Austria (<a href=\"https://www.cntraveler.com/story/the-best-way-to-experience-austrias-wine-country-is-by-bike\">well, at least its wine country</a>).</p></div> </div></div></div></section></p></div></div></div>","url":"https://www.cntraveler.com/galleries/2016-03-16/the-10-happiest-countries-in-the-world","date_published":"2016-03-16T00:00:00+00:00","author":{"name":"Sebastian Modak"}},{"id":"1638","title":"February 4, 1977: “Punk Floyd”","content_html":"<div class=\"entry-content\"> <p>Prod by <a class=\"zem_slink\" href=\"http://pinkfloyd.com/\">Pink Floyd</a>, rec at <a class=\"zem_slink\" href=\"http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=51.4677777778,-0.190555555556&amp;spn=0.01,0.01&amp;q=51.4677777778,-0.190555555556%20(Britannia%20Row%20Studios)&amp;t=h\">Britannia Row</a>, London, April-Nov 1976, rel Feb 4 1977</p>\n<p><i><a class=\"zem_slink\" href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pigs_on_the_Wing\">Pigs on the Wing 1</a></i> (Waters), <i>Dogs</i> (Waters, Gilmour),&#xA0; <i>Pigs &#x2013; Three Different Ones</i> (Waters) Sheep (Waters), <i>Pigs on the Wing 2</i> (Waters)</p>\n<p><span class=\"embed-youtube\"><iframe class=\"youtube-player\" width=\"630\" height=\"355\" src=\"https://www.youtube.com/embed/0RpcT06rcog?version=3&amp;rel=1&amp;fs=1&amp;autohide=2&amp;showsearch=0&amp;showinfo=1&amp;iv_load_policy=1&amp;wmode=transparent\"></iframe></span><br>\n<i>Animals</i> did not receive a good reception. It was partly, that bad old media game of turning against past success, and partly that the megasales of its two predecessors gave something of a shock to those who thought everyone should die before they got old.</p>\n<p>In some ways too, it was a refusal to see that in categorising human beings as animals, <a class=\"zem_slink\" href=\"http://roger-waters.com/\">Roger Waters</a> was not denying the value of our humanity any more than Orwell&#x2019;s <i>Animal Farm</i> was consigning us to the farmyard. I have no reason to revise the judgement I made at the time, that, contrary to what the <i>Rolling Stone</i> magazine was still asserting five years later, it was saying something positive rather than negative about our humanity, despite what Roger had called &#x201C;pressures which are anti-life&#x201D;.</p>\n<p>Here&#x2019;s what I wrote about it the week before it was released (perhaps, to put the opening paragraphs in context, it should be realised that this was immediately after EMI&#x2019;s notorious cancellation of the <a class=\"zem_slink\" href=\"http://www.sexpistolsofficial.com/\">Sex Pistols</a>&#x2018; contract):</p>\n<blockquote><p>Here is a memo to Sir John Read, head of <a class=\"zem_slink\" href=\"http://emimusic.com/\">the EMI group</a>. You are about to release an album which features obscenity, profanity and a dastardly attack upon a well-known public figure.</p>\n<p>But before you consider cancelling your contract with them, perhaps you should know that it is by one of your best-selling bands, whose last two albums have hogged the album charts for months at a time, and it is my prediction that this one will repeat that pattern. It is, in short, Pink Floyd&#x2019;s long-awaited follow-up to 1973&#x2019;s <i>Dark Side of the Moon</i> and 1975&#x2019;s <i>Wish You Were Here</i>.</p>\n<p>I&#x2019;d also venture to predict that, just as the last two earned a degree of critical dismay inversely proportions to both records&#x2019; eventual success, this new release will be greeted, once again, by loud cries for the return of <a class=\"zem_slink\" href=\"http://www.sydbarrett.com/\">Syd Barrett</a>; despite which the punters will buy it by the million. Me, I like it, but then never having been a hardcore Floyd freak until <i>Meddle</i> indicated their increasing mastery of studio technology and ability to play the mixing board like it was a fifth instrument, I may be in a critical minority of one.</p>\n<p>In a sense, the new album forms the third part of a trilogy, in which the theme of alienation (<i>Dark Side</i>) and loneliness (<i>Wish</i>) is wrapped up by an intense and savage humanism, which is paradoxically all the more powerful by being personified in a series of animal caricatures.</p>\n<p>While the Bible separates people into sheep and goats, this Floyd work divides them three ways: dogs, pigs, and sheep. The three sections are sandwiched between the first and second verses of an acoustic song, <i>Pigs on the Wing</i>, sung by Waters in a neo-Sixties singer-songwriter style that is so alien to everything one associates with the Floyd that it comes like a douche of cold water to clear the mind for what follows. In itself, it is not really a great song by any standards, but in context it serves a definite purpose, as a sort of moral framework to the often horrific lyrics in between.</p>\n<p>The rest of side one is devoted to <i>Dogs</i>, a horrendous depiction of the modern world as &#x201C;nature red in tooth and claw&#x201D;, the dogs of the acquisitive society rending each other, retiring into loneliness and dying of cancer or dragged down to death by the weight you used to need to throw around.</p>\n<p>There is a moment about two-thirds of the way through the song when Waters&#x2019; singing of the phrase &#x201C;dragged down by the stone&#x201D; is put on to a tape loop and repeated almost <i>ad nauseam</i>, while the human overtones of the voice are gradually filtered out, till at the end it becomes little more than a high-pitched howl, like a cry heard through deep water.</p>\n<p>Meanwhile, the band takes the recurring phrase as the ground rhythm for a long instrumental, and the sound of barking dogs is processed through a sort of effects box called a Vocoder, creating semi-musical chords out of them, while still retaining their doggy character. A chilling moment, which managed to reach me the first time I heard it, during the fuggy chat of the Battersea Park play-through.</p>\n<p><i><a class=\"zem_slink\" href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pigs_%28Three_Different_Ones%29\">Pigs (Three Different Ones)</a></i> opens side two with very unflattering portraits of modern figures, each of them laughed to scorn, including a house-proud town mouse called Whitehouse, trying to keep our feelings off the street, which sketches in with a few deft moves, a picture of the censorious Mary as frustrated married spinster, all tight lips and cold feet. There is a line of heavy breathing on her verse, which I suspect is a censored version of something even less flattering, since it is followed by a shout of &#x201C;you!&#x201D;.</p>\n<p>Even in these savage attacks, however, there is an element of pity, for each of the three victims of Floyd&#x2019;s ire is described as really a cry, rather than the laugh the lyric pretends at first to have at their expense.</p>\n<p><i>Sheep</i> is almost a mini <i>Animal Farm</i>, a picture of the contented mass, grazing peacefully on their way to the slaughterhouse. Again, there is a chilling moment when a grim parody of the 23rd Psalm</p>\n<blockquote><p><i>with bright knives He releaseth my soul</i><br>\n<i>He maketh me to hang on hooks in high places<br>\nHe converteth me to lamb chops</i></p></blockquote>\n<p>is intoned through the Vocoder. This doesn&#x2019;t make the horror any easier to take, but it does integrate the intrusion musically, though possibly a little less processing or more upfront mixing might have brought this section out more strongly.</p>\n<p>The sheep revolt, killing the dogs, but the words march cheerfully out of obscurity into the dream suggest that perhaps this is the only part of the album not entirely rooted in reality. And is the whole thing, like the story of the canine heroes in <a class=\"zem_slink\" href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clifford_D._Simak\">Clifford Simak</a>&#x2018;s SF epic, <i>City</i>, merely a fable told by one dog to another? There is a definite suggestion that the characters huddling together for shelter from pigs on the wing in the reprise of the opening acoustic song are dogs as well.</p>\n<p>So much for the lyrical content, which is easier to talk about than the extremely thick mix of music, at times multi-layered and at others deceptively simple. Apart from the startling open and close, which is as shocking as a common chord of C in the middle of a piece of atonal music, the tunes are thematically very close to those of the previous two albums, with a number of tunes based on a rising minor second interval.</p>\n<p>But while, in the other two, it was possible to ignore the somewhat convoluted implications of the lyrics, treating the rich textures as a rather superior kind of musical wallpaper, here the savagery of the words is, at times, rather too close for this kind of complacent comfort, and the music only serves to underline the significance of the lyrics.</p>\n<p>For that reason, perhaps, the album may not be as commercially successful as the others, for at times the shocks come as staggeringly as Johnny Rotten gobbing at his audience, an uncomfortable taste of reality in a medium (&#x201C;progressive&#x201D; rock) that has become in recent years increasingly soporific. It is almost as if the Floyd realised that a lot of their buyers had managed to doze their way through the implications of the previous albums, and were determined to ensure that it didn&#x2019;t happen the third time round. Perhaps they should rename themselves Punk Floyd.</p></blockquote>\n<p>Nine years later, I am not inclined to modify that high estimate. I still think the opening and closing songs are weak, a verdict which was confirmed by the reaction of the crowd to <i>Pigs on the Wing</i> at Waters&#x2019; &#x2019;84 solo concerts, for some reason the only song from this immensely powerful and moving album which he performed. Perhaps the other songs were too long.</p>\n<p>On the other hand, though, it was extremely brave of the band to end the album on such a low-key note rather than on a rousing finish, which is the obvious rabble-rousing crowd-pleasing rock tradition. They&#x2019;ve done it since, of course, with subsequent albums, and it continues to be a brave break with convention, but this was the first time. As we have seen, the ideas and images that became, first, <i>Animals</i>, and then <i>The Wall</i>, were germinating in Roger Waters&#x2019; mind at the time of the 19723 <i>Dark Side</i> tour, and some of the <i>Animals</i> songs were given try-outs in subsequent years&#x2019; tours.</p>\n<p>After the Frankfurt opening for the promotional tour that immediately followed the release of the album, Nick Mason agreed with me that the new work was the culmination of the previous two. &#x201C;Of course,&#x201D; he said, &#x201C;but we didn&#x2019;t plan it that way. But it just seemed that with <i>Dark Side</i> we somehow got lucky, and things began to fall into place in a way they hadn&#x2019;t before.</p>\n<p>&#x201C;This one is really my favourite. I&#x2019;ve never been able to listen to any of our previous albums once we&#x2019;ve finished them because we&#x2019;ve spent so much time with them that there&#x2019;s no pleasure in it. But, with the possible exception of <i>Saucer</i>, this is the only one I like playing.&#x201D;</p>\n<p>Later, though, in 1982 Roger told me that I wasn&#x2019;t quite right with my &#x201C;trilogy&#x201D; theory: <i>Animals</i> was really the first part of <i>The Wall</i> (and I suppose <i>The Final Cut</i> and elements of <i>Hitch-hiking</i> were the conclusion).</p>\n<p>&#x201C;I think <i>Animals</i> is more to do with <i>The Wall</i> than with <i>Wish You Were Here</i>,&#x201D; he said. &#x201C;In fact, when I started jotting ideas down, strange ideas for a film, at one time, I did a lot of drawings using animal masks and things.&#x201D;</p>\n<p>DALLAS: This was after <i>The Wall</i> album but when you were working on the movie?</p>\n<p>WATERS: No, No, no, no. I was working on ideas for the movie even before I started writing music for <i>The Wall.</i></p>\n<p>That same year, Roger was dismissing &#x2018;Animals&#x2019; as &#x201C;a bit thrown together&#x201D;.</p>\n<p>From <i>Bricks in the Wall</i>, 1987</p>\n<h2><span><strong>A personal note:</strong></span></h2>\n<p>When I was in Germany with the Floyd in 1977 on the <em>Animals</em> tour, everyone was a barrel of laughs but Roger. We had dinner together, the visiting guests of EMI, the management, and three of the band, but he didn&#x2019;t come. I wondered why he was being so distant, especially since I&#x2019;d just given the new album an enthusiastic review. It turned on that he hadn&#x2019;t read it. But a few days after my return, I received the following missive, written on Lufthansa airmail paper, clearly on the same plane home as me:</p>\n<blockquote><p>Dear Karl Dallas<br>\nThis is the first and probably the last time I shall write to a member of your normally ignoble calling. I thought your piece on <em>Animals </em>in the <em>MM </em>was extremely perceptive, lucid and humane. To at last receive such tangible evidence that someone has copped it all, and explained it all so well to the great unwashed, lightened the load no end: Thank you!<br>\nYours sincerely, Roger Waters</p></blockquote> </div>","url":"https://kdarchive.wordpress.com/2013/02/18/february-4-1977-punk-floyd/","date_published":"2013-02-18T11:43:00+00:00","author":{"name":"Karl Dallas"}},{"id":"895","title":"Permanence","content_html":"<p>Nothing lasts on the internet. I could write on my weblog for years and the next day get hit by a bus. The domain expires, the posts are lost, and it doesn’t matter if I had 10 readers or 10,000; it’s as if it never happened.</p>\n\n<p>I love real books. I keep flirting with attempts to catalog our bookshelves over the years. My daughter offered to help once, excited through the first hundred books before she realized the rest would take all day and lost interest.</p>\n\n<p>Some people say “good riddance” to the cheap printed book, but I don’t agree. Recently in our house I found a paperback of an old favorite, <a href=\"http://www.amazon.com/Tigana-Guy-Gavriel-Kay/dp/0451457765\">Tigana</a>, which I had bought while traveling in Europe. Inside the cover I had written “Oxford, 1999”. I flipped through the pages and out fell a wine label that I hadn’t seen in 13 years. It was from a bottle of wine my wife and I had in Greece, sitting on the sand of an island beach the night I proposed.</p>\n\n<p>I had kept it back then because I knew years later it would matter — a memory fused into a piece of paper, waiting. That trip was a story told in events like that one, in personal journals, and through email to family. The digital parts of the story didn’t last; <a href=\"http://www.manton.org/2002/07/yahoo_mail_reset.html\">the email is gone</a>.</p>\n\n<p>Write on Twitter and it vanishes from the internet after 3200 more such posts, unlinked and unfindable. But write the same on a scrap of paper tucked into a book and it will be rediscovered again years later.</p>\n\n<p>A self-published novel in PDF on your web site is a ticking time bomb, waiting for your hosting bill to go unpaid. But print 10 copies and give it to 10 friends and it lasts forever.</p>\n\n<p>The only way to preserve something is to make multiple copies and distribute them. The problem with digital is that it makes it just as easy to accidentally delete or lose copies as it is to create them. Evolving file formats and storage devices require constant supervision and maintenance, pushing files up each technology bump from floppies to CDs to Zip disks to DVDs to hard drives. It never ends.</p>\n\n<p>We need to solve this. It’s something <a href=\"http://scripting.com/stories/2011/01/10/nytOnFuturesafeArchives.html\">Dave Winer has written about</a>. It’s something anyone with a large collection of writing online probably thinks about. How do we preserve the culture and art and stories of our time when the preferred media is so fragile?</p>","url":"http://manton.micro.blog/2012/07/20/permanence.html","date_published":"2012-07-20T19:31:02+00:00","author":{"name":""}},{"id":"1338","title":"Core and Context","content_html":"<article id=\"post-1040\" class=\"post-1040 page type-page status-publish hentry\"> <div class=\"entry-content\"> <p><strong>What is it?<a href=\"http://strategictoolkits.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/strategic-concept.jpg\"><img class=\"alignright\" src=\"http://strategictoolkits.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/strategic-concept.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"150\"></a></strong></p>\n<p>Core and Context is a distinction that separates the few activities that a company does that create true differentiation in customers eyes (CORE) from everything else that a company need to do to stay in business (CONTEXT).</p>\n<p>Geoffrey Moore articulated this framework in his great book &#x201C;Dealing with Darwin&#x201D;, arguing that a company should manage these two different sorts of activity in fundamentally different ways.</p>\n<p><a href=\"http://strategictoolkits.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/core-context-matrix.jpg\"><img class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-1218\" src=\"http://strategictoolkits.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/core-context-matrix.jpg%20728w,%20http://strategictoolkits.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/core-context-matrix-300x208.jpg%20300w\" alt=\"\" width=\"640\" srcset=\"http://strategictoolkits.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/core-context-matrix.jpg 728w, http://strategictoolkits.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/core-context-matrix-300x208.jpg 300w\"></a></p> <p>Products and capabilities tend to rotate around this matrix clockwise:</p>\n<ul>\n<li>New Products start in the bottom left quadrant, since the reason for their existence is to create differentiation for customers but have no P&amp;L impact initially. This is where the Minimum Viable Product mindset of the Lean Start-up rules, with the focus on learning and innovation, not worrying about the robustness needed to scale successfully</li>\n<li>Successful new products will swell in profitability, becoming mission critical. The management focus changes from innovation to the hard-nosed practicality needed to deploy this innovation robustly at scale across the entire company</li>\n<li>Nothing lasts forever. Customer needs evolve and competitors are racing hard to match your innovation. The innovation stops differentiating and becomes a <a href=\"http://strategictoolkits.com/strategic-concepts/basis-of-competition-3/\">hygiene factor</a>. The management approach needed is to manage the product &#x2013; the tactical tweets and turns needed to get the most out of a big product differentiation at full maturity</li>\n<li>Finally, with the innovation commoditised, it ceases to matter for customers or to the company. Then is the time to OFFLOAD, focusing on &#xA0;cost reduction, standardisation and outsourcing to companies where this activity would be core to them and could give it full attention</li>\n</ul>\n<p>The company needs to constantly fight organisational entropy, actively removing activities from context and adding to core.</p>\n<p><strong>When is it useful?</strong></p>\n<p>This concept is useful during strategic analysis of your portfolio. Analyse your products, channels, customer segments or geographies to identify which of the four quadrants it is in. Then check &#x2013; do you have the right management approach for each one?</p>\n<p>Secondly, once you have identified your strategy, apply this framework to it as a checklist to identify how to manage the different initiatives that are launched.</p>\n<p><strong>An Example?</strong></p>\n<p>An example is customer data analysis in an FMCG company.</p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>INVENT.</strong>&#xA0;Initially a &#x201C;skunkworks&#x201D; team was set up in one market, and they played around with different approaches to CRM, matching insight with big data analysis to identify patterns. After a year of experimenting, they learnt which digital prompts triggered a consumer purchase</li>\n<li><strong>DEPLOY. </strong>The company dedicated a separate team to deploying this in all major markets. They managed IT projects to ensure it worked with local market systems, ran training workshops on localisation for marketers and planned reinforcing communication from the Marketing Director. Initially, they deployed some of the insights to realise quick wins and build credibility with in-market teams. Metrics were established to course correct and identify markets with best practices to share.</li>\n<li><strong>MANAGE.</strong> Over time, customer data analytics was regarded as just another tool in the marketers armoury. Competitors were doing it, it was taken for granted that every digital touchpoint was captiured in a unified big data platform. Even though it was mission critical for the company for thie data analytical machine to run well, it no longer created much edge. In response, the company centralised the team, building one shared service cwentre to manage the workflows as efficiently as possible</li>\n<li><strong>OFFLOAD. </strong>Finally, the company was approached by their cloud hosting company looking to enhance their value -added . Because the FMCG company &#xA0;had invested in standardising and simplifying all the processes, it was very cost efficient to hand-over, there was no &#x201C;fat&#x201D; permanently baked into the outsourcing margins.</li>\n</ul>\n<p><strong>I want to know more</strong></p>\n<p>Start <a href=\"https://www.slideshare.net/sasindia/keynote-geoffrey-mooreusinginnovationtothriveandstrive\">here</a>, if you like it read Geoffrey Moore&#x2019;s book, <a href=\"https://www.amazon.com/Dealing-Darwin-Companies-Innovate-Evolution-ebook/dp/B000OZ0NOY\">Dealing with Darwin</a></p> <span id=\"tve_leads_end_content\"></span> </div> </article>","url":"http://strategictoolkits.com/strategic-concepts/core-and-context/","date_published":"2012-05-19T22:02:21+00:00","author":{"name":""}},{"id":"805","title":"Don’t Shave That Yak!","content_html":"<div><div class=\"has-content-area\"><p>The single best term I&#x2019;ve learned this year.</p><p>Apparently turned into a computer term by the MIT media lab five years ago, <a href=\"http://www.catb.org/~esr/jargon/html/Y/yak-shaving.html\">yak shaving</a> was recently referenced by my pal Joi Ito. (Link: <a href=\"http://joi.ito.com/archives/2005/03/05/yak_shaving.html#trackbacks\">Joi Ito&#x2019;s Web: Yak Shaving</a>)</p><p>I want to give you the non-technical definition, and as is my wont, broaden it a bit.</p><p>Yak Shaving is the last step of a series of steps that occurs when you find something you need to do. &#x201C;I want to wax the car today.&#x201D;</p><p>&#x201C;Oops, the hose is still broken from the winter. I&#x2019;ll need to buy a new one at Home Depot.&#x201D;</p><p>&#x201C;But Home Depot is on the other side of the Tappan Zee bridge and getting there without my EZPass is miserable because of the tolls.&#x201D;</p><p>&#x201C;But, wait! I could borrow my neighbor&#x2019;s EZPass&#x2026;&#x201D;</p><p>&#x201C;Bob won&#x2019;t lend me his EZPass until I return the mooshi pillow my son borrowed, though.&#x201D;</p><p>&#x201C;And we haven&#x2019;t returned it because some of the stuffing fell out and we need to get some yak hair to restuff it.&#x201D;</p><p>And the next thing you know, you&#x2019;re at the zoo, shaving a yak, all so you can wax your car.</p><p>This yak shaving phenomenon tends to hit some people more than others, but what makes it particularly perverse is when groups of people get involved. It&#x2019;s bad enough when one person gets all up in arms yak shaving, but when you try to get a group of people together, you&#x2019;re just as likely to end up giving the yak a manicure.</p><p>Which is why solo entrepreneurs and small organizations are so much more likely to get stuff done. They have fewer yaks to shave.</p><p>So, what to do?</p><p>Don&#x2019;t go to Home Depot for the hose.</p><p>The minute you start walking down a path toward a yak shaving party, it&#x2019;s worth making a compromise. Doing it well now is much better than doing it perfectly later.</p></div><p class=\"byline\"> <span class=\"date\">March 5, 2005</span></p></div>","url":"https://seths.blog/2005/03/dont_shave_that/","date_published":"2005-03-05T22:51:32+00:00","author":{"name":"March 5, 2005"}}]}