Ben Werdmüller werd.io/profile/benwerd

Reading, watching, playing, using: January, 2022

{
    "type": "entry",
    "published": "2022-02-01T15:50:16+00:00",
    "url": "https://werd.io/2022/reading-watching-playing-using-january-2022",
    "name": "Reading, watching, playing, using: January, 2022",
    "content": {
        "text": "This is my monthly roundup of the books, articles, and streaming media I found interesting. Here's my list for January, 2022.BooksThis Is How You Lose the Time War, by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone. A treatise on love and conflict wrapped up in beautiful, occasionally wryly hilarious prose and a science fiction conceit. It took me a little while for this to hook me, but when it did, I found myself wanting a lot more. It stops just as the story becomes really interesting; an appetizer rather than a full meal.The Jakarta Method: Washington's Anticommunist Crusade and the Mass Murder Program That Shaped Our World, by Vincent Bevins. If every American - and every citizen of a first world nation - could read and understand this, it would make the world a better place. An illuminating, aggravating portrait of how the US used murder to further its interests around the world, and how that has affected modern culture everywhere. It should be required reading. Please get yourself a copy.Being Seen: One Deafblind Woman's Fight to End Ableism, by Elsa Sjunneson. A frank, and often wryly funny, account of life as a Deafblind woman. Some of her experiences were familiar to me, at least second-hand; the account of hearing aids squealing at the wrong moment made me think of someone very dear to me who happens to be Deaf. The author is a self-described activist, and the passages discussing ableism and capitalist healthcare were as searing, pointed, and brilliant as the passages describing her experiences were human. I loved every moment of getting to know her.StreamingA Hero. A nuanced morality play. Occasionally the protagonist\u2019s poor decisions stretch credulity, but there\u2019s a lot to think about here; nobody is out to cause harm, but the plot spirals nonetheless. The writing, direction, and cinematography are masterful but never anything less than subtle. Beautifully done.Notable ArticlesBusinessVCs with Ignorant Views on Race Have No Place in Venture Capital. No founder or investor should work with anyone like this. But please note: he\u2019s not just a VC, he\u2019s the founder of Palantir. Which assumptions do Palantir\u2019s products and services - famously sold to law enforcement and more - have baked into them?The touchy-feely groups where CEOs learn to emote. A lot of my work style is indirectly inspired by the Stanford \u201cTouchy Feely\u201d class - it was what led to a lot of Matter\u2019s culture, which I\u2019ve found enormously helpful. This might sound like ridiculous stuff on the face of it, but it really works, and it\u2019s a way to get to a kinder business culture.Hybrid Tanked Work-Life Balance. Here\u2019s How Microsoft Is Trying to Fix It. \u201cWhile initially this seemed like the best way for teams to stay connected, we\u2019ve since realized that these non-stop video calls, emails, and chats have turned into digital overload, and we see the well-being impacts in our Microsoft employee surveys. Between April and November 2020, employees\u2019 satisfaction with work-life balance dropped by 13 percentage points.\u201dHow to quit like a boss. \u201cThe goal of this post is to summarise some patterns and anti-patterns, so that in the future you or I can leave our roles in the most professional and positive way possible. The content is applicable to people in a wide range of companies, at different levels of seniority, but is probably most directed at mid-career types.\u201dThe 5 Stages of Burnout. This, unfortunately, all sounds familiar to me.YC\u2019s $500,000 Standard Deal. Wowzers. It\u2019s going to be hard for other accelerators to compete with this. (Matter invested one tenth of this amount.)Building American Dynamism. I do not subscribe to the future this a16z piece paints. The future is for and by the public, not locked up in private businesses.Three words popping up in LinkedIn job listings. \u201cLinkedIn has been watching how different keywords correlate to engagement on company posts, and which words have been appearing more often in job listings on the site. The terms \u201cflexibility,\u201d \u201cwell-being\u201d and \u201cculture\u201d all appear in LinkedIn posts more often than they did in 2019, LinkedIn revealed Tuesday in its 2022 Global Talent Trends Report. Company posts that use those terms also attract more engagement, LinkedIn found.\u201d Shocking nobody but important to highlight.Backlash as US billionaire dismisses Uyghur abuse. \u201cBillionaire investor Chamath Palihapitiya is under fire for saying that he - and most Americans - \u201cdon\u2019t care\u201d about abuses against the Uyghur minority in China. [...] Boston Celtics Forward Enes Kanter, who has been outspoken about human rights issues and campaigned on behalf of the forced labour law, was among those condemning the comments. \u201cWhen genocides happen, it is people like this that let it happen,\u201d he wrote.\u201dWhen Microsoft Office Went Enterprise. \u201cPractically, any time someone tries to take on two conflicting perspectives in one product, the product comes across as a compromise. It is neither one nor the other, but a displeasing mess. The hope I had at the start was that by deprioritizing our traditional retail-customer focus on personal productivity at the start of the release, we avoided the messy middle. We succeeded at that, but I was struggling with how unsatisfying this felt.\u201dLet\u2019s stop saying these two things. \u201cWhen I hear \u201cdrinking the Kool-Aid\u201d, I think about Leo Ryan, Jackie Speier, and 900+ dead followers of Jim Jones. [...] If your white grandfather was eligible to vote prior to the passage of the Fifteenth Amendment, you were eligible to vote. When you talk about being grandfathered in, that\u2019s what you\u2019re referring to.\u201dYour Startup\u2019s Management Training Probably Sucks \u2014 Here\u2019s How to Make it Better. \u201cWhen you\u2019re a really small startup, co-founder drama is the likely company-killer. But as your org gets larger, the thing that often tanks the company is waiting too long to bring on competent management.\u201dCovidUtah tech company founder claims COVID vaccine part of extermination plot by 'the Jews'. \u201cThe founder and chair of Entrata, a Silcon Slopes tech firm, sent an email to a number of tech CEOs and Utah business and political leaders, claiming the COVID-19 vaccine is part of a plot by \u201cthe Jews\u201d to exterminate people.\u201d I wonder how many other people quietly hold similar views?What older people and caregivers need to know about omicron. \u201cThe 19th spoke with a wide range of experts about what older people and family caregivers should know about the risk omicron poses to seniors, as well as best practices to keep loved ones safe.\u201d\u2018Menace to public health\u2019: 270 doctors criticize Spotify over Joe Rogan\u2019s podcast. \u201cThe letter was first reported by Rolling Stone, which quoted Katrine Wallace, an epidemiologist at the University of Illinois Chicago school of public health, calling Rogan \u201ca menace to public health\u201d for airing anti-vaccine ideology.\u201dA paperwork hurdle for trans people: COVID-19 vaccine cards. \u201cMahoney is one of several trans and nonbinary people who told The 19th they feel like they are being put in stressful situations where they are required to out themselves, or use their deadname. Some also feel like they are being left out of data collection on COVID-19 vaccination entirely \u2014 that transgender people are an afterthought.\u201dNeil Young demands Spotify remove his music over Joe Rogan vaccine misinformation. \u201cIn an open letter to his manager and record label that was posted to his website and later taken down, Young wrote: \u201cI am doing this because Spotify is spreading fake information about vaccines \u2013 potentially causing death to those who believe the disinformation being spread by them. Please act on this immediately today and keep me informed of the time schedule.\u201d\u201dOverworked Pharmacy Employees Are the Covid Pandemic\u2019s Invisible Victims. \u201cBloomberg spoke with a dozen current and former Walgreens and CVS pharmacists and pharmacy technicians, most of whom requested anonymity because they feared retaliation. More responded to Bloomberg\u2019s reporting request via email and text messages, detailing crushing workloads in sparsely staffed stores.\u201dCryptoMy first impressions of web3. \u201cThis was surprising to me. So much work, energy, and time has gone into creating a trustless distributed consensus mechanism, but virtually all clients that wish to access it do so by simply trusting the outputs from these two companies without any further verification.\u201d Moxie Marlinspike, creator of Signal, dives into web3.Andy Warhol, Clay Christensen, and Vitalik Buterin walk into a bar. \u201cBill Gates once said, \u201cWe always overestimate the change that will occur in the next two years and underestimate the change that will occur in the next ten. Don\u2019t let yourself be lulled into inaction.\u201d That doesn\u2019t mean to rush out and buy the latest meme stock, meme coin, or overpriced NFT. But it does mean that it\u2019s important to engage with the social, legal, and economic implications of crypto. The world advances one bubble at a time. What matters is that what\u2019s left behind when the bubble pops makes the world richer in possibilities for the next generation to build on.\u201dThe NFT Art World Wouldn't Be the Same Without This Woman's Nightmares. \u201cWhile she\u2019s not able to discuss financial specifics, her compensation, she says, \u201cwas definitely not ideal.\u201d However, she insists, she\u2019s grateful for the experience and the entryway to a realm she can no longer imaging living without.\u201dWhy Bored Ape Yacht Club is Racist and Started by Neo Nazis. \u201cKnowing the history of alt-right/4chan types in crypto I started looking into it. I found what I believe to be definitive\u00a0evidence that the group behind the creation of these images are neo-nazis. Here is how I have arrived at this conclusion.\u201dCulturePet Door Show\u2019s Up-and-Coming Artists You Should Know in 2022. My sister\u2019s epic list of new, independent artists that are worth a listen. Amazing as always.Bambi: cute, lovable, vulnerable ... or a dark parable of antisemitic terror? \u201cFar from being a children\u2019s story, Bambi was actually a parable about the inhumane treatment and dangerous precariousness of Jews and other minorities in what was then an increasingly fascist world, the new translation will show. In 1935, the book was banned by the Nazis, who saw it as a political allegory on the treatment of Jews in Europe and burned it as Jewish propaganda.\u201dSuperheroes create cultural acceptance for popular oligarchy. \u201cWhat does the current popularity of comic book superheroes, in culture, do? It reinforces the idea of a hierarchy of human, with the ubermensch as its apex. The superhero makes things alright without being asked. It looks after us, it protects, it cleans up the streets. It\u2019s a parental role. [...] It says that the superhero is someone other \u2013 it ain\u2019t us. And that\u2019s a good thing, it says.\u201dVegan Babybel Cheese Is Here at Last. \u201cInstead of the classic red wax featured in the dairy version, the mini vegan cheese wheels are wrapped in peelable green wax. The cheese snack is made from a blend of coconut oil and starch and contains calcium as well as vegan-friendly vitamin B12.\u201d Honestly, this seems kind of great?Caffs Not Cafes finds the magic in London\u2019s old school joints. \u201cThe page functions as a hub of London\u2019s best local eateries and their delicious dishes, celebrating these spots in all their day-to-day glory. Many of them have distinct shopfronts, too, which 30-year-old Rangaswami never fails to point out, often via poetic captions about the history of hot dogs, old school cash registers or musings over what a chip shop might say if it could talk.\u201d Quite lovely.Breaking the mold. \u201cMerch is so often seen as the death knell of a media property, the maggots hatching in the corpse of art - but a lot of the time, the exact opposite is true. Some of the most beloved media properties of Millennial childhoods were, in one way or another, made by toys.\u201d A great breakdown of franchise toys and their cultural impact.MediaIf American democracy is going to survive, the media must make this crucial shift. \u201cMuch of this work has been impressive. And yet, something crucial is missing. For the most part, news organizations are not making democracy-under-siege a central focus of the work they present to the public.\u201dBBC licence fee to be abolished in 2027 and funding frozen. \u201cThe culture secretary, Nadine Dorries, is expected to confirm that the cost of an annual licence, required to watch live television and access iPlayer services, will remain at \u00a3159 until 2024 before rising slightly for the following three years. She said this would be the end of the current licence fee funding model for the BBC, raising doubts about the long-term financial future and editorial independence of the public service broadcaster under a Conservative government.\u201d This is big news - while the license fee is a regressive tax, the BBC\u2019s status as a public broadcaster has been important. It\u2019s, broadly speaking, a force for good. What happens now?Joe Rogan and the problem of false balance. \u201cTo illustrate this, I want to talk briefly about Joe Rogan, because a Facebook post about him is what inspired this article. Full disclosure, I am, to say the least, not a fan of Rogan. In my opinion he is (to quote a friend of mine), \u201ca dumb person\u2019s idea of a smart person\u201d (which to be clear, does not automatically mean that anyone who likes him is dumb). He frequently makes claims that are nonsense, and he uses his podcast to give a voice to all manner of quacks and conspiracy theorists.\u201dPoliticsCapitol rioters called Nancy Pelosi's office looking for a 'lost and found' for items they left behind on January 6, according to Rep. Jamie Raskin. \u201cAnd when they were told that they were trespassing and invading the Capitol, they said the president invited them to be there. They didn\u2019t have any kind of subtle understanding of the separation of powers. They just thought that the number one person in the US government had invited them to be there, and therefore they had a right.\u201dBiden has nominated 8 Black women to become appellate judges. \u201cAs of Wednesday, with the selection of Arianna J. Freeman for the 3rd Circuit, the president has nominated eight Black women to the 13 U.S. Courts of Appeals. Five have been confirmed, most recently on Thursday, when Judge Holly A. Thomas cleared Senate approval to join the 9th Circuit. If the remaining three are confirmed, Biden would have doubled the total number of Black women to ever serve on federal appeals courts from eight to 16.\u201dKamala Harris drove within several yards of pipe bomb at DNC headquarters during Capitol riot. \u201cThen-Vice President-elect Kamala Harris drove within several yards of a pipe bomb lying next to a bench outside the Democratic National Committee headquarters on January 6, 2021,https://www.cnn.com/2021/01/13/politics/notable-arrests-capitol/index.htmland remained inside the DNC for nearly two hours before the bomb was discovered, according to multiple law enforcement officials familiar with the situation.\u201dScienceScientists Train Goldfish To Drive On Land In Tiny Cars. \u201cNot only were the fish able to reach the targets, but they could overcome obstacles, dead ends and wrong turns, and weren\u2019t fooled by false targets laid out by the researchers. Their FOV Formula One demonstrates that the navigational skills of fish aren\u2019t dependent on a watery environment, and that something more universal may be at play in deciding how we find our way.\u201dHow bad are gas stoves? I ran some experiments to find out. \u201cEvery year more damning evidence piled up. In 2013 another meta-analysis confirmed the results of the 1993 meta-analysis. But this time, researchers were more specific and pointed to gas stoves in particular as the likely cause of respiratory illness. They concluded, \u201cChildren living in a home with gas cooking have a 42% increased risk of having current asthma.\u201d\u201d I love cooking with gas, but it may be time to change.What the Discovery of an Extra Artery Means for Human Evolution. \u201c\u201cThe study demonstrates that humans are evolving at a faster rate than at any point in the past 250 years,\u201d said Teghan Lucas, lead author of the study and an archaeologist at Flinders University, in a press release. In fact, Lucas predicts that the median artery will continue to be a common occurrence in the human forearm far into the future.\u201dSocietyThe Last Time the Suez Canal Was Blocked a Utopian Communist Micronation Was Formed at Sea. \u201cThe last time ships got stuck in the Suez Canal, they were there for eight years. From 1967 to 1975, in the aftermath of the Six-Day War, 14 ships were stranded in the Great Bitter Lake, a salt lake connected to the canal. Unable to leave, the crews, dubbed the \u201cYellow Fleet\u201d because of the desert sand that eventually covered them, developed their own society at sea. This society developed its own postal service and stamps, and held a version of the Olympics in 1968.\u201dRampant caste-based harassment means Dalits like me are silenced on social media. \u201cEven today, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube in India are dominated by dominant castes. In fact, I quit Instagram last year because I could not relate to the elite, high-resolution world of the dominant castes. Given the lack of diverse voices, caste slurs are rampant on social media in India. Many caste names are casually used as curse words.\u201dNotes From the End of a Very Long Life by New York's Oldest. \u201cAt the end of each year, I asked the elders if they were glad to have lived it. Did the year have value to them? Always the answer was the same, even from those, including Ruth, who had said during the year that they were ready to go, that they wished for an end sooner rather than later. Yes, they said, yes, it was worth living.\u201dOh, 2022! SF author Charlie Stross\u2019s stock take of where we are this year. Come for the cogent commentary on covid - stay for the link to the absolutely batshit community about quantum Bible changes. Insightful as always.Who owned slaves in Congress? A list of 1,700 enslavers in Senate, House history. \u201cMore than 1,700 people who served in the U.S. Congress in the 18th, 19th and even 20th centuries owned human beings at some point in their lives, according to a Washington Post investigation of censuses and other historical records.\u201d Amazing work; a vital database. An important and troubling part of America\u2019s history. Slavery is core to what it is.Look around you. The way we live explains why we are increasingly polarized. \u201cWhether it comes to the climate emergency or systemic racism, the migrant crisis or the ongoing pandemic, so much turns on whether we can acknowledge and accept the intertwining of our separate lives. But it\u2019s not just our homes that are styled now like defensive fortresses.\u201d A superb portrait of modern American society.Black mothers in MLK Jr.'s neighborhood will receive monthly cash payments. \u201cThe program, which will launch early this year in King\u2019s neighborhood, will send monthly payments of $850 to 650 Black women over two years, making it one of the largest guaranteed income programs to date. Guaranteed income \u2014 the concept of sending people cash payments with no strings attached \u2014 was featured in King\u2019s 1967 book, \u201cWhere Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community?\u201d in which he argued that sometimes the simplest idea could be the most effective in ending poverty.\u201dHow a Married Undercover Cop Having Sex With Activists Killed a Climate Movement. \u201cIn 2003, Kennedy had been sent undercover by an elite unit in London\u2019s Metropolitan Police Service to gather intelligence on activists like Wilson. He spent seven years living a double life: He was a fearless organizer who had a shadowy backstory as a cocaine runner, but he was also a cop with a family in Ireland.\u201d I suspect this is more common than we realize. Activists are often targeted for intelligence gathering, and this is a good way to do it over time. It\u2019s morally repugnant, of course.Patriot Front Fascist Leak Exposes Nationwide Racist Campaigns. \u201cThe detailed inner workings and patterns of operation of fascists in the neo-Nazi organization Patriot Front have come to light after a massive leak from their chat servers. The exposed communications show coordination with their leader Thomas Rousseau to deface murals and monuments to Black lives across the United States, and intimate struggles to bolster morale through group activities like hiking and camping.\u201dSan Francisco Police Illegally Spying on Protesters. \u201cIt\u2019s feels like a pretty easy case. There\u2019s a law, and the SF police didn\u2019t follow it.\u201dThe Revenge of the Hot Water Bottle. \u201cA hot water bottle is a sealable container filled with hot water, often enclosed in a textile cover, which is directly placed against a part of the body for thermal comfort. The hot water bottle is still a common household item in some places \u2013 such as the UK and Japan \u2013 but it is largely forgotten or disregarded in most of the industrialised world. If people know of it, they usually associate it with pain relief rather than thermal comfort, or they consider its use an outdated practice for the poor and the elderly.\u201d I loved this piece about the history of hot water bottles. (They\u2019re great!)Faster internet speeds linked to lower civic engagement in UK. \u201cVolunteering in social care fell by more than 10% when people lived closer to local telecoms exchange hubs and so enjoyed faster web access. Involvement in political parties fell by 19% with every 1.8km increase in proximity to a hub. By contrast, the arrival of fast internet had no significant impact on interactions with family and friends.\u201d This feels solvable to me.On pronouns and shades of pink. \u201cAn accusation of virtue signalling often feels, to me, the same kind of denial of solidarity as the old \u201cif you think people should pay more tax, write a cheque to the Treasury yourself\u201d. Individualising the social must be something the left resists the right in doing, for the left to have any real meaning.\u201dMy heart bursts with pain. \u201cThese extracts are from letters written by victims of the Holocaust during their final days. Needless to say, their messages are desperately sad. But they should never be forgotten.\u201dFull-time transgender workers among lowest paid LGBTQ+ people in US. \u201cThe HRC found that trans men and nonbinary or gender-nonconforming people earn 70 cents for every dollar the typical worker earns, while trans women earn 60 cents to that dollar, based on responses from roughly 6,800 LGBTQ+ workers last spring.\u201dTechnology2021: A Year of Resilience in Tech. \u201c2021 was another big year for tech workers organizing for a greater say at their workplaces. This year, more workers took action to build lasting, enforceable structures to protect their rights. Across multiple industries, it was a record year for unionizing, and tech was no exception.\u201dWordle Is a Love Story. \u201cBut since Wordle was built originally for just Mr. Wardle and Ms. Shah, the initial design ignored a lot of the growth-hacking features that are virtually expected of games in the current era. While other games send notifications to your phone hoping you\u2019ll come back throughout the day, Wordle doesn\u2019t want an intense relationship.\u201d Just really lovely.The anti-muslim Bulli Bai app is just the latest in GitHub\u2019s list of moderation failures in India. \u201cWhile GitHub quickly took down the app, following massive social media backlash, this is the second time in seven months that the platform has been used to target Muslim women in India. In mid-2021, a similar web application called \u201cSulli Deals\u201d was hosted on Github to trade Muslim women without their consent. The app was online for weeks before it was taken down.\u201dJan. 6 launched a wave of anti-content moderation bills in America. \u201cFacebook, Twitter and other tech companies took an unprecedented step last year when they banned a sitting U.S. president from their platforms in the wake of the attack on the Capitol. Since that day, Republican legislators in more than half the country have introduced their own unprecedented wave of bills that aim to prevent tech platforms from taking that very kind of action.\u201dHappy 10th Birthday, Bridgy! Wow. Time flies. Bridgy is such an important part of the indieweb ecosystem. Thank you to Ryan and everyone who\u2019s worked on it.Google Had Secret Project to \u2018Convince\u2019 Employees \u2018That Unions Suck\u2019. \u201cA National Labor Relations Board ruling sheds light on a highly secret anti-union campaign at Google, that a top executive explicitly described as an initiative to \u201cconvince [employees] that unions suck.\u201d\u201d Gross.Using Foreign Nationals to Bypass US Surveillance Restrictions. \u201cWhat\u2019s most interesting to me about this new information is how the US used the Australians to get around domestic spying laws.\u201d The US and GCHQ have a similar arrangement, I think?Google's Alleged Scheme to Corner the Online Ad Market. \u201cThe document provides unprecedented insight into how Google allegedly misled advertisers and publishers for years by manipulating auctions in its own favor using inside information. As one employee put it in a newly revealed internal document, Google\u2019s public claim about second-price auctions were \u201cuntruthful.\u201d\u201dWhy companies are hiring sci-fi writers to imagine the future. OK, how do I get to do this for a living?!Over 40 small tech companies just stood up to Apple and Google. \u201cThe Act, introduced by Senators Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), Chuck Grassley, would keep large platforms like Apple and Google from excluding competitor products. Specifically, it prohibits businesses from using a companies\u2019 data to compete against it, biasing search results against competitors, or requiring other companies to buy their own services for preferential placement. It also keeps companies from preventing interoperability.\u201dThe baseline for web development in 2022. \u201cThe baseline for web development in 2022 is: low-spec Android devices in terms of performance, Safari from two years before in terms of Web Standards, and 4G in terms of networks. The web in general is not answering those needs properly, especially in terms of performance where factors such as an over-dependence on JavaScript are hindering our sites\u2019 performance.\u201dWelcome to the Link-in-Bio Economy. \u201cBy and large, these linking tools are making money through a swirl of paid-subscription programs and commissions on the transactions that happen inside the link-in-bio. Whether that is enough to sustain a profitable business isn\u2019t clear, but it\u2019s easy to envision a future in which link-in-bios become even more ubiquitous, something like the new personal website in the TikTok age. When you stumble across an influencer and want to know what their deal is, your first stop will be their link-in-bio.\u201dSearching for Susy Thunder. \u201cThere were ways to use the rules to break the rules. The older she got, the more she saw the polygraph as a lesson, revealing, to her, the hidden truth of the world: that everything is a system, and every system can be cracked.\u201d A genuinely amazing, beautifully-written portrait of an important hacker and so much more.The IRS Should Stop Using Facial Recognition. \u201cThough [ID.me] asserts that \u201csignificant benefits\u201d come from the use of one-to-one facial recognition, the company fails to adequately address its known harms or deeply engage with specific findings that indicate substantial racial bias.\u201dThe New York Times Purchases Wordle. \u201cWordle was acquired for an undisclosed price in the low seven figures.\u201d BRB, getting to work on building a viral word game ...Google Fonts lands website privacy fine by German court. \u201cThe unauthorized disclosure of the plaintiff\u2019s dynamic IP address by the defendant to Google constitutes a violation of the general right of personality in the form of the right to informational self-determination according to \u00a7 823 Para. 1 BGB.\u201d Embedding Google resources like fonts as a GDPR violation: wow.",
        "html": "<p>This is my monthly roundup of the books, articles, and streaming media I found interesting. Here's my list for January, 2022.</p><h3>Books</h3><p><a href=\"https://bookshop.org/a/7949/9781534430990\">This Is How You Lose the Time War, by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone.</a> A treatise on love and conflict wrapped up in beautiful, occasionally wryly hilarious prose and a science fiction conceit. It took me a little while for this to hook me, but when it did, I found myself wanting a lot more. It stops just as the story becomes really interesting; an appetizer rather than a full meal.</p><p><a href=\"https://bookshop.org/a/7949/9781541724006\">The Jakarta Method: Washington's Anticommunist Crusade and the Mass Murder Program That Shaped Our World, by Vincent Bevins.</a> If every American - and every citizen of a first world nation - could read and understand this, it would make the world a better place. An illuminating, aggravating portrait of how the US used murder to further its interests around the world, and how that has affected modern culture everywhere. It should be required reading. Please get yourself a copy.</p><p><a href=\"https://bookshop.org/a/7949/9781982152376\">Being Seen: One Deafblind Woman's Fight to End Ableism, by Elsa Sjunneson.</a> A frank, and often wryly funny, account of life as a Deafblind woman. Some of her experiences were familiar to me, at least second-hand; the account of hearing aids squealing at the wrong moment made me think of someone very dear to me who happens to be Deaf. The author is a self-described activist, and the passages discussing ableism and capitalist healthcare were as searing, pointed, and brilliant as the passages describing her experiences were human. I loved every moment of getting to know her.</p><h3>Streaming</h3><p><a href=\"https://www.primevideo.com/detail/A-Hero/0PTXHN9HZ6QFQ5CWCOTXHOB3MX\">A Hero.</a> A nuanced morality play. Occasionally the protagonist\u2019s poor decisions stretch credulity, but there\u2019s a lot to think about here; nobody is out to cause harm, but the plot spirals nonetheless. The writing, direction, and cinematography are masterful but never anything less than subtle. Beautifully done.</p><h3>Notable Articles</h3><h4>Business</h4><p><a href=\"https://www.thisisgoingtobebig.com/blog/2022/1/1/joe-lonsdale-racism-black-culture\">VCs with Ignorant Views on Race Have No Place in Venture Capital.</a> No founder or investor should work with anyone like this. But please note: he\u2019s not just a VC, he\u2019s the founder of Palantir. Which assumptions do Palantir\u2019s products and services - famously sold to law enforcement and more - have baked into them?</p><p><a href=\"https://www.protocol.com/workplace/t-groups-ceo\">The touchy-feely groups where CEOs learn to emote.</a> A lot of my work style is indirectly inspired by the Stanford \u201cTouchy Feely\u201d class - it was what led to a lot of Matter\u2019s culture, which I\u2019ve found enormously helpful. This might sound like ridiculous stuff on the face of it, but it really works, and it\u2019s a way to get to a kinder business culture.</p><p><a href=\"https://hbr.org/2021/12/hybrid-tanked-work-life-balance-heres-how-microsoft-is-trying-to-fix-it?utm_campaign=hbr&amp;utm_medium=social&amp;utm_source=facebook&amp;fbclid=IwAR2iIat-mNZuiGsGfKZTzUUxL79vr6P3qdhTHe-YxoBhFXILSQXmHgiSzlQ\">Hybrid Tanked Work-Life Balance. Here\u2019s How Microsoft Is Trying to Fix It.</a> \u201cWhile initially this seemed like the best way for teams to stay connected, we\u2019ve since realized that these non-stop video calls, emails, and chats have turned into digital overload, and we see the well-being impacts in our Microsoft employee surveys. Between April and November 2020, employees\u2019 satisfaction with work-life balance dropped by 13 percentage points.\u201d</p><p><a href=\"https://jmsbrdy.com/blog/leaving-spring/\">How to quit like a boss.</a> \u201cThe goal of this post is to summarise some patterns and anti-patterns, so that in the future you or I can leave our roles in the most professional and positive way possible. The content is applicable to people in a wide range of companies, at different levels of seniority, but is probably most directed at mid-career types.\u201d</p><p><a href=\"https://vitrueremote.com/5-stages-of-burnout/\">The 5 Stages of Burnout.</a> This, unfortunately, all sounds familiar to me.</p><p><a href=\"https://blog.ycombinator.com/ycs-standard-deal/\">YC\u2019s $500,000 Standard Deal.</a> Wowzers. It\u2019s going to be hard for other accelerators to compete with this. (Matter invested one tenth of this amount.)</p><p><a href=\"https://future.a16z.com/building-american-dynamism/\">Building American Dynamism.</a> I do not subscribe to the future this a16z piece paints. The future is for and by the public, not locked up in private businesses.</p><p><a href=\"https://www.protocol.com/workplace/linkedin-global-talent-trends-report\">Three words popping up in LinkedIn job listings.</a> \u201cLinkedIn has been watching how different keywords correlate to engagement on company posts, and which words have been appearing more often in job listings on the site. The terms \u201cflexibility,\u201d \u201cwell-being\u201d and \u201cculture\u201d all appear in LinkedIn posts more often than they did in 2019, LinkedIn revealed Tuesday in its 2022 Global Talent Trends Report. Company posts that use those terms also attract more engagement, LinkedIn found.\u201d Shocking nobody but important to highlight.</p><p><a href=\"https://www.bbc.com/news/business-60045076\">Backlash as US billionaire dismisses Uyghur abuse.</a> \u201cBillionaire investor Chamath Palihapitiya is under fire for saying that he - and most Americans - \u201cdon\u2019t care\u201d about abuses against the Uyghur minority in China. [...] Boston Celtics Forward Enes Kanter, who has been outspoken about human rights issues and campaigned on behalf of the forced labour law, was among those condemning the comments. \u201cWhen genocides happen, it is people like this that let it happen,\u201d he wrote.\u201d</p><p><a href=\"https://future.a16z.com/hardcore-software-when-microsoft-office-went-enterprise/\">When Microsoft Office Went Enterprise.</a> \u201cPractically, any time someone tries to take on two conflicting perspectives in one product, the product comes across as a compromise. It is neither one nor the other, but a displeasing mess. The hope I had at the start was that by deprioritizing our traditional retail-customer focus on personal productivity at the start of the release, we avoided the messy middle. We succeeded at that, but I was struggling with how unsatisfying this felt.\u201d</p><p><a href=\"https://tins.rklau.com/2022/01/lets-stop-saying-these-two-things/\">Let\u2019s stop saying these two things.</a> \u201cWhen I hear \u201cdrinking the Kool-Aid\u201d, I think about Leo Ryan, Jackie Speier, and 900+ dead followers of Jim Jones. [...] If your white grandfather was eligible to vote prior to the passage of the Fifteenth Amendment, you were eligible to vote. When you talk about being grandfathered in, that\u2019s what you\u2019re referring to.\u201d</p><p><a href=\"https://review.firstround.com/your-startups-management-training-probably-sucks-heres-how-to-make-it-better\">Your Startup\u2019s Management Training Probably Sucks \u2014 Here\u2019s How to Make it Better.</a> \u201cWhen you\u2019re a really small startup, co-founder drama is the likely company-killer. But as your org gets larger, the thing that often tanks the company is waiting too long to bring on competent management.\u201d</p><h4>Covid</h4><p><a href=\"https://www.fox13now.com/news/local-news/entrata-chair-emails-tech-ceos-claiming-covid-vaccine-part-of-sterilization-plot-by-the-jews\">Utah tech company founder claims COVID vaccine part of extermination plot by 'the Jews'.</a> \u201cThe founder and chair of Entrata, a Silcon Slopes tech firm, sent an email to a number of tech CEOs and Utah business and political leaders, claiming the COVID-19 vaccine is part of a plot by \u201cthe Jews\u201d to exterminate people.\u201d I wonder how many other people quietly hold similar views?</p><p><a href=\"https://19thnews.org/2022/01/seniors-older-people-caregivers-omicron/\">What older people and caregivers need to know about omicron.</a> \u201cThe 19th spoke with a wide range of experts about what older people and family caregivers should know about the risk omicron poses to seniors, as well as best practices to keep loved ones safe.\u201d</p><p><a href=\"https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/jan/14/spotify-joe-rogan-podcast-open-letter?CMP=twt_gu&amp;utm_source=Twitter&amp;utm_medium#Echobox=1642160922-1\">\u2018Menace to public health\u2019: 270 doctors criticize Spotify over Joe Rogan\u2019s podcast.</a> \u201cThe letter was first reported by Rolling Stone, which quoted Katrine Wallace, an epidemiologist at the University of Illinois Chicago school of public health, calling Rogan \u201ca menace to public health\u201d for airing anti-vaccine ideology.\u201d</p><p><a href=\"https://19thnews.org/2022/01/trans-paperwork-vaccination-cards/\">A paperwork hurdle for trans people: COVID-19 vaccine cards.</a> \u201cMahoney is one of several trans and nonbinary people who told The 19th they feel like they are being put in stressful situations where they are required to out themselves, or use their deadname. Some also feel like they are being left out of data collection on COVID-19 vaccination entirely \u2014 that transgender people are an afterthought.\u201d</p><p><a href=\"https://www.theguardian.com/music/2022/jan/25/neil-young-demands-spotify-remove-his-music-over-joe-rogan-vaccine-misinformation\">Neil Young demands Spotify remove his music over Joe Rogan vaccine misinformation.</a> \u201cIn an open letter to his manager and record label that was posted to his website and later taken down, Young wrote: \u201cI am doing this because Spotify is spreading fake information about vaccines \u2013 potentially causing death to those who believe the disinformation being spread by them. Please act on this immediately today and keep me informed of the time schedule.\u201d\u201d</p><p><a href=\"https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-01-26/overworked-pharmacy-employees-are-the-covid-pandemic-s-invisible-victims\">Overworked Pharmacy Employees Are the Covid Pandemic\u2019s Invisible Victims.</a> \u201cBloomberg spoke with a dozen current and former Walgreens and CVS pharmacists and pharmacy technicians, most of whom requested anonymity because they feared retaliation. More responded to Bloomberg\u2019s reporting request via email and text messages, detailing crushing workloads in sparsely staffed stores.\u201d</p><h4>Crypto</h4><p><a href=\"https://moxie.org/2022/01/07/web3-first-impressions.html\">My first impressions of web3.</a> \u201cThis was surprising to me. So much work, energy, and time has gone into creating a trustless distributed consensus mechanism, but virtually all clients that wish to access it do so by simply trusting the outputs from these two companies without any further verification.\u201d Moxie Marlinspike, creator of Signal, dives into web3.</p><p><a href=\"https://www.oreilly.com/radar/andy-warhol-clay-christensen-and-vitalik-buterin-walk-into-a-bar/\">Andy Warhol, Clay Christensen, and Vitalik Buterin walk into a bar.</a> \u201cBill Gates once said, \u201cWe always overestimate the change that will occur in the next two years and underestimate the change that will occur in the next ten. Don\u2019t let yourself be lulled into inaction.\u201d That doesn\u2019t mean to rush out and buy the latest meme stock, meme coin, or overpriced NFT. But it does mean that it\u2019s important to engage with the social, legal, and economic implications of crypto. The world advances one bubble at a time. What matters is that what\u2019s left behind when the bubble pops makes the world richer in possibilities for the next generation to build on.\u201d</p><p><a href=\"https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/seneca-bored-ape-yacht-club-digital-art-nfts-1280341/\">The NFT Art World Wouldn't Be the Same Without This Woman's Nightmares.</a> \u201cWhile she\u2019s not able to discuss financial specifics, her compensation, she says, \u201cwas definitely not ideal.\u201d However, she insists, she\u2019s grateful for the experience and the entryway to a realm she can no longer imaging living without.\u201d</p><p><a href=\"http://gordongoner.com/\">Why Bored Ape Yacht Club is Racist and Started by Neo Nazis.</a> \u201cKnowing the history of alt-right/4chan types in crypto I started looking into it. I found what I believe to be definitive\u00a0evidence that the group behind the creation of these images are neo-nazis. Here is how I have arrived at this conclusion.\u201d</p><h4>Culture</h4><p><a href=\"https://hannahwerdmuller.medium.com/pet-door-shows-up-and-coming-artists-you-should-know-in-2022-5cdbf46add02\">Pet Door Show\u2019s Up-and-Coming Artists You Should Know in 2022.</a> My sister\u2019s epic list of new, independent artists that are worth a listen. Amazing as always.</p><p><a href=\"https://www.theguardian.com/news/2021/dec/25/bambi-cute-lovable-vulnerable-or-a-dark-parable-of-antisemitic-terror\">Bambi: cute, lovable, vulnerable ... or a dark parable of antisemitic terror?</a> \u201cFar from being a children\u2019s story, Bambi was actually a parable about the inhumane treatment and dangerous precariousness of Jews and other minorities in what was then an increasingly fascist world, the new translation will show. In 1935, the book was banned by the Nazis, who saw it as a political allegory on the treatment of Jews in Europe and burned it as Jewish propaganda.\u201d</p><p><a href=\"https://interconnected.org/home/2022/01/03/batman\">Superheroes create cultural acceptance for popular oligarchy.</a> \u201cWhat does the current popularity of comic book superheroes, in culture, do? It reinforces the idea of a hierarchy of human, with the ubermensch as its apex. The superhero makes things alright without being asked. It looks after us, it protects, it cleans up the streets. It\u2019s a parental role. [...] It says that the superhero is someone other \u2013 it ain\u2019t us. And that\u2019s a good thing, it says.\u201d</p><p><a href=\"https://www.livekindly.co/vegan-babybel-cheese-to-hit-stores-next-year/\">Vegan Babybel Cheese Is Here at Last.</a> \u201cInstead of the classic red wax featured in the dairy version, the mini vegan cheese wheels are wrapped in peelable green wax. The cheese snack is made from a blend of coconut oil and starch and contains calcium as well as vegan-friendly vitamin B12.\u201d Honestly, this seems kind of great?</p><p><a href=\"https://theface.com/culture/best-london-caffs-not-cafes-isaac-rangaswami-history-stinkpipes-community-food-interior-design\">Caffs Not Cafes finds the magic in London\u2019s old school joints.</a> \u201cThe page functions as a hub of London\u2019s best local eateries and their delicious dishes, celebrating these spots in all their day-to-day glory. Many of them have distinct shopfronts, too, which 30-year-old Rangaswami never fails to point out, often via poetic captions about the history of hot dogs, old school cash registers or musings over what a chip shop might say if it could talk.\u201d Quite lovely.</p><p><a href=\"https://www.eyeznteef.com/posts/toys-vs-canon\">Breaking the mold.</a> \u201cMerch is so often seen as the death knell of a media property, the maggots hatching in the corpse of art - but a lot of the time, the exact opposite is true. Some of the most beloved media properties of Millennial childhoods were, in one way or another, made by toys.\u201d A great breakdown of franchise toys and their cultural impact.</p><h4>Media</h4><p><a href=\"https://www.washingtonpost.com/media/2022/01/03/media-democracy-jan6-atlantic-npr/\">If American democracy is going to survive, the media must make this crucial shift.</a> \u201cMuch of this work has been impressive. And yet, something crucial is missing. For the most part, news organizations are not making democracy-under-siege a central focus of the work they present to the public.\u201d</p><p><a href=\"https://www.theguardian.com/media/2022/jan/16/bbc-licence-fee-to-be-abolished-in-2027-and-funding-frozen\">BBC licence fee to be abolished in 2027 and funding frozen.</a> \u201cThe culture secretary, Nadine Dorries, is expected to confirm that the cost of an annual licence, required to watch live television and access iPlayer services, will remain at \u00a3159 until 2024 before rising slightly for the following three years. She said this would be the end of the current licence fee funding model for the BBC, raising doubts about the long-term financial future and editorial independence of the public service broadcaster under a Conservative government.\u201d This is big news - while the license fee is a regressive tax, the BBC\u2019s status as a public broadcaster has been important. It\u2019s, broadly speaking, a force for good. What happens now?</p><p><a href=\"https://thelogicofscience.com/2022/01/14/joe-rogan-and-the-problem-of-false-balance/\">Joe Rogan and the problem of false balance.</a> \u201cTo illustrate this, I want to talk briefly about Joe Rogan, because a Facebook post about him is what inspired this article. Full disclosure, I am, to say the least, not a fan of Rogan. In my opinion he is (to quote a friend of mine), \u201ca dumb person\u2019s idea of a smart person\u201d (which to be clear, does not automatically mean that anyone who likes him is dumb). He frequently makes claims that are nonsense, and he uses his podcast to give a voice to all manner of quacks and conspiracy theorists.\u201d</p><h4>Politics</h4><p><a href=\"https://www.businessinsider.com/capitol-rioters-called-pelosis-office-for-lost-and-found-raskin-2022-1\">Capitol rioters called Nancy Pelosi's office looking for a 'lost and found' for items they left behind on January 6, according to Rep. Jamie Raskin.</a> \u201cAnd when they were told that they were trespassing and invading the Capitol, they said the president invited them to be there. They didn\u2019t have any kind of subtle understanding of the separation of powers. They just thought that the number one person in the US government had invited them to be there, and therefore they had a right.\u201d</p><p><a href=\"https://19thnews.org/2022/01/biden-black-women-appellate-judges/\">Biden has nominated 8 Black women to become appellate judges.</a> \u201cAs of Wednesday, with the selection of Arianna J. Freeman for the 3rd Circuit, the president has nominated eight Black women to the 13 U.S. Courts of Appeals. Five have been confirmed, most recently on Thursday, when Judge Holly A. Thomas cleared Senate approval to join the 9th Circuit. If the remaining three are confirmed, Biden would have doubled the total number of Black women to ever serve on federal appeals courts from eight to 16.\u201d</p><p><a href=\"https://www.cnn.com/2022/01/31/politics/kamala-harris-january-6-2021-democratic-national-committee/index.html\">Kamala Harris drove within several yards of pipe bomb at DNC headquarters during Capitol riot.</a> \u201cThen-Vice President-elect Kamala Harris drove within several yards of a pipe bomb lying next to a bench outside the Democratic National Committee headquarters on January 6, 2021,<a href=\"https://www.cnn.com/2021/01/13/politics/notable-arrests-capitol/index.htmland\">https://www.cnn.com/2021/01/13/politics/notable-arrests-capitol/index.htmland</a> remained inside the DNC for nearly two hours before the bomb was discovered, according to multiple law enforcement officials familiar with the situation.\u201d</p><h4>Science</h4><p><a href=\"https://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/scientists-train-goldfish-to-drive-on-land-in-tiny-cars/\">Scientists Train Goldfish To Drive On Land In Tiny Cars.</a> \u201cNot only were the fish able to reach the targets, but they could overcome obstacles, dead ends and wrong turns, and weren\u2019t fooled by false targets laid out by the researchers. Their FOV Formula One demonstrates that the navigational skills of fish aren\u2019t dependent on a watery environment, and that something more universal may be at play in deciding how we find our way.\u201d</p><p><a href=\"https://carbonswitch.co/how-bad-is-my-gas-stove-part-two\">How bad are gas stoves? I ran some experiments to find out.</a> \u201cEvery year more damning evidence piled up. In 2013 another meta-analysis confirmed the results of the 1993 meta-analysis. But this time, researchers were more specific and pointed to gas stoves in particular as the likely cause of respiratory illness. They concluded, \u201cChildren living in a home with gas cooking have a 42% increased risk of having current asthma.\u201d\u201d I love cooking with gas, but it may be time to change.</p><p><a href=\"https://www.discovermagazine.com/the-sciences/what-the-discovery-of-an-extra-artery-means-for-human-evolution\">What the Discovery of an Extra Artery Means for Human Evolution.</a> \u201c\u201cThe study demonstrates that humans are evolving at a faster rate than at any point in the past 250 years,\u201d said Teghan Lucas, lead author of the study and an archaeologist at Flinders University, in a press release. In fact, Lucas predicts that the median artery will continue to be a common occurrence in the human forearm far into the future.\u201d</p><h4>Society</h4><p><a href=\"https://www.vice.com/en/article/akd5zg/the-last-time-the-suez-canal-was-blocked-a-utopian-communist-micronation-was-formed-at-sea\">The Last Time the Suez Canal Was Blocked a Utopian Communist Micronation Was Formed at Sea.</a> \u201cThe last time ships got stuck in the Suez Canal, they were there for eight years. From 1967 to 1975, in the aftermath of the Six-Day War, 14 ships were stranded in the Great Bitter Lake, a salt lake connected to the canal. Unable to leave, the crews, dubbed the \u201cYellow Fleet\u201d because of the desert sand that eventually covered them, developed their own society at sea. This society developed its own postal service and stamps, and held a version of the Olympics in 1968.\u201d</p><p><a href=\"https://restofworld.org/2022/caste-harassment-india-dalit-social-media/\">Rampant caste-based harassment means Dalits like me are silenced on social media.</a> \u201cEven today, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube in India are dominated by dominant castes. In fact, I quit Instagram last year because I could not relate to the elite, high-resolution world of the dominant castes. Given the lack of diverse voices, caste slurs are rampant on social media in India. Many caste names are casually used as curse words.\u201d</p><p><a href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/06/nyregion/ruth-willig-oldest-new-yorkers.html\">Notes From the End of a Very Long Life by New York's Oldest.</a> \u201cAt the end of each year, I asked the elders if they were glad to have lived it. Did the year have value to them? Always the answer was the same, even from those, including Ruth, who had said during the year that they were ready to go, that they wished for an end sooner rather than later. Yes, they said, yes, it was worth living.\u201d</p><p><a href=\"http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2022/01/oh-2022.html\">Oh, 2022!</a> SF author Charlie Stross\u2019s stock take of where we are this year. Come for the cogent commentary on covid - stay for the link to the absolutely batshit community about quantum Bible changes. Insightful as always.</p><p><a href=\"https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/interactive/2022/congress-slaveowners-names-list/\">Who owned slaves in Congress? A list of 1,700 enslavers in Senate, House history.</a> \u201cMore than 1,700 people who served in the U.S. Congress in the 18th, 19th and even 20th centuries owned human beings at some point in their lives, according to a Washington Post investigation of censuses and other historical records.\u201d Amazing work; a vital database. An important and troubling part of America\u2019s history. Slavery is core to what it is.</p><p><a href=\"https://www.theguardian.com/global/2022/jan/16/look-around-you-why-increasingly-polarized?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other\">Look around you. The way we live explains why we are increasingly polarized.</a> \u201cWhether it comes to the climate emergency or systemic racism, the migrant crisis or the ongoing pandemic, so much turns on whether we can acknowledge and accept the intertwining of our separate lives. But it\u2019s not just our homes that are styled now like defensive fortresses.\u201d A superb portrait of modern American society.</p><p><a href=\"https://19thnews.org/2022/01/black-mothers-mlk-neighborhood-guaranteed-income-atlanta/\">Black mothers in MLK Jr.'s neighborhood will receive monthly cash payments.</a> \u201cThe program, which will launch early this year in King\u2019s neighborhood, will send monthly payments of $850 to 650 Black women over two years, making it one of the largest guaranteed income programs to date. Guaranteed income \u2014 the concept of sending people cash payments with no strings attached \u2014 was featured in King\u2019s 1967 book, \u201cWhere Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community?\u201d in which he argued that sometimes the simplest idea could be the most effective in ending poverty.\u201d</p><p><a href=\"https://www.vice.com/en/article/epxbpj/kate-wilson-mark-kennedy-undercover-cop-sex-with-activists\">How a Married Undercover Cop Having Sex With Activists Killed a Climate Movement.</a> \u201cIn 2003, Kennedy had been sent undercover by an elite unit in London\u2019s Metropolitan Police Service to gather intelligence on activists like Wilson. He spent seven years living a double life: He was a fearless organizer who had a shadowy backstory as a cocaine runner, but he was also a cop with a family in Ireland.\u201d I suspect this is more common than we realize. Activists are often targeted for intelligence gathering, and this is a good way to do it over time. It\u2019s morally repugnant, of course.</p><p><a href=\"https://unicornriot.ninja/2022/patriot-front-fascist-leak-exposes-nationwide-racist-campaigns/\">Patriot Front Fascist Leak Exposes Nationwide Racist Campaigns.</a> \u201cThe detailed inner workings and patterns of operation of fascists in the neo-Nazi organization Patriot Front have come to light after a massive leak from their chat servers. The exposed communications show coordination with their leader Thomas Rousseau to deface murals and monuments to Black lives across the United States, and intimate struggles to bolster morale through group activities like hiking and camping.\u201d</p><p><a href=\"https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2022/01/san-francisco-police-illegally-spying-on-protesters.html\">San Francisco Police Illegally Spying on Protesters.</a> \u201cIt\u2019s feels like a pretty easy case. There\u2019s a law, and the SF police didn\u2019t follow it.\u201d</p><p><a href=\"https://solar.lowtechmagazine.com/2022/01/the-revenge-of-the-hot-water-bottle.html\">The Revenge of the Hot Water Bottle.</a> \u201cA hot water bottle is a sealable container filled with hot water, often enclosed in a textile cover, which is directly placed against a part of the body for thermal comfort. The hot water bottle is still a common household item in some places \u2013 such as the UK and Japan \u2013 but it is largely forgotten or disregarded in most of the industrialised world. If people know of it, they usually associate it with pain relief rather than thermal comfort, or they consider its use an outdated practice for the poor and the elderly.\u201d I loved this piece about the history of hot water bottles. (They\u2019re great!)</p><p><a href=\"https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/jan/23/internet-access-decline-civic-engagement-uk?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other\">Faster internet speeds linked to lower civic engagement in UK.</a> \u201cVolunteering in social care fell by more than 10% when people lived closer to local telecoms exchange hubs and so enjoyed faster web access. Involvement in political parties fell by 19% with every 1.8km increase in proximity to a hub. By contrast, the arrival of fast internet had no significant impact on interactions with family and friends.\u201d This feels solvable to me.</p><p><a href=\"https://www.justtypical.com/index.php/16-on-pronouns-and-shades-of-pink\">On pronouns and shades of pink.</a> \u201cAn accusation of virtue signalling often feels, to me, the same kind of denial of solidarity as the old \u201cif you think people should pay more tax, write a cheque to the Treasury yourself\u201d. Individualising the social must be something the left resists the right in doing, for the left to have any real meaning.\u201d</p><p><a href=\"https://news.lettersofnote.com/p/my-heart-bursts-with-pain\">My heart bursts with pain.</a> \u201cThese extracts are from letters written by victims of the Holocaust during their final days. Needless to say, their messages are desperately sad. But they should never be forgotten.\u201d</p><p><a href=\"https://19thnews.org/2022/01/transgender-workers-wage-gap-lowest-paid-lgbtq/\">Full-time transgender workers among lowest paid LGBTQ+ people in US.</a> \u201cThe HRC found that trans men and nonbinary or gender-nonconforming people earn 70 cents for every dollar the typical worker earns, while trans women earn 60 cents to that dollar, based on responses from roughly 6,800 LGBTQ+ workers last spring.\u201d</p><h4>Technology</h4><p><a href=\"https://collectiveaction.tech/2022/2021-a-year-of-resilience-in-tech/\">2021: A Year of Resilience in Tech.</a> \u201c2021 was another big year for tech workers organizing for a greater say at their workplaces. This year, more workers took action to build lasting, enforceable structures to protect their rights. Across multiple industries, it was a record year for unionizing, and tech was no exception.\u201d</p><p><a href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/03/technology/wordle-word-game-creator.html\">Wordle Is a Love Story.</a> \u201cBut since Wordle was built originally for just Mr. Wardle and Ms. Shah, the initial design ignored a lot of the growth-hacking features that are virtually expected of games in the current era. While other games send notifications to your phone hoping you\u2019ll come back throughout the day, Wordle doesn\u2019t want an intense relationship.\u201d Just really lovely.</p><p><a href=\"https://restofworld.org/2022/why-anti-muslim-apps-keep-reappearing-on-github/\">The anti-muslim Bulli Bai app is just the latest in GitHub\u2019s list of moderation failures in India.</a> \u201cWhile GitHub quickly took down the app, following massive social media backlash, this is the second time in seven months that the platform has been used to target Muslim women in India. In mid-2021, a similar web application called \u201cSulli Deals\u201d was hosted on Github to trade Muslim women without their consent. The app was online for weeks before it was taken down.\u201d</p><p><a href=\"https://www.protocol.com/bulletins/anti-content-moderation-bills\">Jan. 6 launched a wave of anti-content moderation bills in America.</a> \u201cFacebook, Twitter and other tech companies took an unprecedented step last year when they banned a sitting U.S. president from their platforms in the wake of the attack on the Capitol. Since that day, Republican legislators in more than half the country have introduced their own unprecedented wave of bills that aim to prevent tech platforms from taking that very kind of action.\u201d</p><p><a href=\"https://snarfed.org/2022-01-08_happy-10th-birthday-bridgy\">Happy 10th Birthday, Bridgy!</a> Wow. Time flies. Bridgy is such an important part of the indieweb ecosystem. Thank you to Ryan and everyone who\u2019s worked on it.</p><p><a href=\"https://www.vice.com/en/article/v7d7j9/google-had-secret-project-to-convince-employees-that-unions-suck\">Google Had Secret Project to \u2018Convince\u2019 Employees \u2018That Unions Suck\u2019.</a> \u201cA National Labor Relations Board ruling sheds light on a highly secret anti-union campaign at Google, that a top executive explicitly described as an initiative to \u201cconvince [employees] that unions suck.\u201d\u201d Gross.</p><p><a href=\"https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2022/01/using-foreign-nationals-to-bypass-us-surveillance-restrictions.html\">Using Foreign Nationals to Bypass US Surveillance Restrictions.</a> \u201cWhat\u2019s most interesting to me about this new information is how the US used the Australians to get around domestic spying laws.\u201d The US and GCHQ have a similar arrangement, I think?</p><p><a href=\"https://www.wired.com/story/google-antitrust-ad-market-lawsuit/\">Google's Alleged Scheme to Corner the Online Ad Market.</a> \u201cThe document provides unprecedented insight into how Google allegedly misled advertisers and publishers for years by manipulating auctions in its own favor using inside information. As one employee put it in a newly revealed internal document, Google\u2019s public claim about second-price auctions were \u201cuntruthful.\u201d\u201d</p><p><a href=\"https://www.cpacanada.ca/en/news/pivot-magazine/2020-02-27-sci-fi-prototyping\">Why companies are hiring sci-fi writers to imagine the future.</a> OK, how do I get to do this for a living?!</p><p><a href=\"https://www.protocol.com/tech-startups-stand-up\">Over 40 small tech companies just stood up to Apple and Google.</a> \u201cThe Act, introduced by Senators Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), Chuck Grassley, would keep large platforms like Apple and Google from excluding competitor products. Specifically, it prohibits businesses from using a companies\u2019 data to compete against it, biasing search results against competitors, or requiring other companies to buy their own services for preferential placement. It also keeps companies from preventing interoperability.\u201d</p><p><a href=\"https://engineering.linecorp.com/en/blog/the-baseline-for-web-development-in-2022/\">The baseline for web development in 2022.</a> \u201cThe baseline for web development in 2022 is: low-spec Android devices in terms of performance, Safari from two years before in terms of Web Standards, and 4G in terms of networks. The web in general is not answering those needs properly, especially in terms of performance where factors such as an over-dependence on JavaScript are hindering our sites\u2019 performance.\u201d</p><p><a href=\"https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2022/01/instagram-tik-tok-link-in-bio-linktree/621365/\">Welcome to the Link-in-Bio Economy.</a> \u201cBy and large, these linking tools are making money through a swirl of paid-subscription programs and commissions on the transactions that happen inside the link-in-bio. Whether that is enough to sustain a profitable business isn\u2019t clear, but it\u2019s easy to envision a future in which link-in-bios become even more ubiquitous, something like the new personal website in the TikTok age. When you stumble across an influencer and want to know what their deal is, your first stop will be their link-in-bio.\u201d</p><p><a href=\"https://www.theverge.com/c/22889425/susy-thunder-headley-hackers-phone-phreakers-claire-evans?scrolla=5eb6d68b7fedc32c19ef33b4\">Searching for Susy Thunder.</a> \u201cThere were ways to use the rules to break the rules. The older she got, the more she saw the polygraph as a lesson, revealing, to her, the hidden truth of the world: that everything is a system, and every system can be cracked.\u201d A genuinely amazing, beautifully-written portrait of an important hacker and so much more.</p><p><a href=\"https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/01/irs-should-stop-using-facial-recognition/621386/\">The IRS Should Stop Using Facial Recognition.</a> \u201cThough [ID.me] asserts that \u201csignificant benefits\u201d come from the use of one-to-one facial recognition, the company fails to adequately address its known harms or deeply engage with specific findings that indicate substantial racial bias.\u201d</p><p><a href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/31/crosswords/nyt-wordle-purchase.html\">The New York Times Purchases Wordle.</a> \u201cWordle was acquired for an undisclosed price in the low seven figures.\u201d BRB, getting to work on building a viral word game ...</p><p><a href=\"https://www.theregister.com/2022/01/31/website_fine_google_fonts_gdpr/\">Google Fonts lands website privacy fine by German court.</a> \u201cThe unauthorized disclosure of the plaintiff\u2019s dynamic IP address by the defendant to Google constitutes a violation of the general right of personality in the form of the right to informational self-determination according to \u00a7 823 Para. 1 BGB.\u201d Embedding Google resources like fonts as a GDPR violation: wow.</p>"
    },
    "author": {
        "type": "card",
        "name": "Ben Werdm\u00fcller",
        "url": "https://werd.io/profile/benwerd",
        "photo": "https://werd.io/file/5d388c5fb16ea14aac640912/thumb.jpg"
    },
    "post-type": "article",
    "_id": "26990818",
    "_source": "191",
    "_is_read": true
}

Malcolm Blaney mblaney.xyz

{
    "type": "entry",
    "published": "2022-02-01T18:21:18+10:00",
    "url": "https://mblaney.xyz/2022-02-01-I_dont_blog_much_since_I_started_working_full",
    "content": {
        "text": "I don't blog much since I started working full time... mostly just a few twitter reposts. But I still maintain a bunch of websites on the side, and one of my favourite things about that is when making updates like I've just done I just push my changes to just one server.\n\n\nThat server happens to be dobrado.net, which can talk websub, and the other servers are subscribed to an updates feed for software changes. So when I make a change, I build it so it can be fetched which then also posts to the updates feed. Each server sees the new feed entry, downloads the change and installs it automatically. In the case of a javascript change it also creates a new minified version and updates the version number in the query string for some cache busting.\n\n\nThis has been working for a few years now, I'm always surprised that it does what it's meant to.",
        "html": "I don't blog much since I started working full time... mostly just a few twitter reposts. But I still maintain a bunch of websites on the side, and one of my favourite things about that is when making updates like I've just done I just push my changes to just one server.<br /><br />\nThat server happens to be <a href=\"https://dobrado.net\">dobrado.net</a>, which can talk websub, and the other servers are subscribed to an updates feed for software changes. So when I make a change, I build it so it can be fetched which then also posts to the updates feed. Each server sees the new feed entry, downloads the change and installs it automatically. In the case of a javascript change it also creates a new minified version and updates the version number in the query string for some cache busting.<br /><br />\nThis has been working for a few years now, I'm always surprised that it does what it's meant to."
    },
    "author": {
        "type": "card",
        "name": "Malcolm Blaney",
        "url": "https://mblaney.xyz",
        "photo": "https://mblaney.xyz/public/profile_thumb.png"
    },
    "post-type": "note",
    "_id": "26987116",
    "_source": "3708",
    "_is_read": true
}

Ben Werdmüller werd.io/profile/benwerd

Building an outboard brain

{
    "type": "entry",
    "published": "2022-02-01T03:02:44+00:00",
    "url": "https://werd.io/2022/building-an-outboard-brain",
    "name": "Building an outboard brain",
    "content": {
        "text": "I\u2019m a long-time Notion user: my linkblog is based on it (with new links posted to my site via Micropub), and I use it for everything from tasks to shopping lists. But so far, it hasn\u2019t been quite right for me. It\u2019s slow, and perhaps too structured both in form and editor.I tried Roam Research, for a while, but the interconnected personal wiki approach isn\u2019t right for me either. It\u2019s not structured enough somehow: getting started has been incredibly hard for me. I don\u2019t fully understand how to get the most out of it, perhaps.In my fiction writing, I really like Ulysses: an app that provides just enough structure for long projects. I\u2019ve been able to map the story circle into a template there, and it\u2019s been a pretty good framework for building up a plot. I have work to do to improve my writing, but (particularly in comparison to Scrivener, which gets in my way) provides me the kind of light-weight support I\u2019m looking for. Its super-responsive index-cards-and-markdown approach works well with the way I think.What kind of life-and-work note-taking app will work for me? As part of my ongoing quest, I\u2019m trying out Obsidian. It\u2019s got a beautiful interface and is super-fast in the way that Ulysses is. It\u2019s also unstructured in the way that Roam is, so I\u2019m having the same sorts of difficulties, but I\u2019m finding that if I ignore the mindmap graph view and the \u201cdaily notes\u201d feature, I can get somewhere. I also absolutely love that it\u2019s based on local text files, so I get to keep all my data.Why do I need something like this? I want to keep notes about ideas, people, and companies I encounter. There are so many situations where I find myself thinking, \u201cI wish I could remember that thing that did that thing\u201d - and having an outboard brain where I can not just remember those details but also how I felt about them could be useful. My blog is that in a way, but it\u2019s less an intentional knowledge-base than a record of what I\u2019m thinking about. I\u2019d love to start intentionally building up the former.I\u2019ve been thinking about it as a private set of notes, but I also wonder if I should be doing this thinking in public. Clearly I can\u2019t keep notes on companies I\u2019ve met privately and publish them to the world, but there\u2019s something to be said for making more general notes and analysis available. One of the benefits of blogging as openly as I do - perhaps the benefit - has been finding similarly-minded people and building community. I\u2019ve often said (because it\u2019s true) that every job opportunity since my very first startup can be directly tracked back to blogging. Would putting a knowledge-base out there help me do that more efficiently? Or would it be counterproductive?Anyway, I\u2019m experimenting with Obsidian, but maybe I\u2019ll think about doing something more public.If you use a personal note-taking app - particularly if you make your notes public - what have you found to work for you?",
        "html": "<p><a href=\"https://obsidian.md/\"><img src=\"https://werd.io/file/61f8a3aea1174367e40a69b3/thumb.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1024\" height=\"543\" /></a></p><p>I\u2019m a long-time <a href=\"https://notion.so\">Notion</a> user: my linkblog is based on it (with new links posted to my site via <a href=\"https://indieweb.org/Micropub\">Micropub</a>), and I use it for everything from tasks to shopping lists. But so far, it hasn\u2019t been quite right for me. It\u2019s slow, and perhaps too structured both in form and editor.</p><p>I tried <a href=\"https://roamresearch.com/\">Roam Research</a>, for a while, but the interconnected personal wiki approach isn\u2019t right for me either. It\u2019s not structured enough somehow: getting started has been incredibly hard for me. I don\u2019t fully understand how to get the most out of it, perhaps.</p><p>In my fiction writing, I really like <a href=\"https://ulysses.app/\">Ulysses</a>: an app that provides <em>just enough</em> structure for long projects. I\u2019ve been able to map <a href=\"https://channel101.fandom.com/wiki/Story_Structure_101:_Super_Basic_Shit\">the story circle</a> into a template there, and it\u2019s been a pretty good framework for building up a plot. I have work to do to improve my writing, but (particularly in comparison to <a href=\"https://www.literatureandlatte.com/scrivener/overview\">Scrivener</a>, which gets in my way) provides me the kind of light-weight support I\u2019m looking for. Its super-responsive index-cards-and-markdown approach works well with the way I think.</p><p>What kind of life-and-work note-taking app <em>will</em> work for me? As part of my ongoing quest, I\u2019m trying out <a href=\"https://obsidian.md/\">Obsidian</a>. It\u2019s got a beautiful interface and is super-fast in the way that Ulysses is. It\u2019s also unstructured in the way that Roam is, so I\u2019m having the same sorts of difficulties, but I\u2019m finding that if I ignore the mindmap graph view and the \u201cdaily notes\u201d feature, I can get somewhere. I also absolutely love that it\u2019s based on local text files, so I get to keep all my data.</p><p>Why do I need something like this? I want to keep notes about ideas, people, and companies I encounter. There are so many situations where I find myself thinking, \u201cI wish I could remember <em>that thing</em> that did <em>that thing</em>\u201d - and having an outboard brain where I can not just remember those details but also how I felt about them could be useful. My blog is that in a way, but it\u2019s less an intentional knowledge-base than a record of what I\u2019m thinking about. I\u2019d love to start intentionally building up the former.</p><p>I\u2019ve been thinking about it as a private set of notes, but I also wonder if I should be doing this thinking in public. Clearly I can\u2019t keep notes on companies I\u2019ve met privately and publish them to the world, but there\u2019s something to be said for making more general notes and analysis available. One of the benefits of blogging as openly as I do - perhaps <em>the</em> benefit - has been finding similarly-minded people and building community. I\u2019ve often said (because it\u2019s true) that every job opportunity since my very first startup can be directly tracked back to blogging. Would putting a knowledge-base out there help me do that more efficiently? Or would it be counterproductive?</p><p>Anyway, I\u2019m experimenting with Obsidian, but maybe I\u2019ll think about doing something more public.</p><p>If you use a personal note-taking app - particularly if you make your notes public - what have you found to work for you?</p>"
    },
    "author": {
        "type": "card",
        "name": "Ben Werdm\u00fcller",
        "url": "https://werd.io/profile/benwerd",
        "photo": "https://werd.io/file/5d388c5fb16ea14aac640912/thumb.jpg"
    },
    "post-type": "article",
    "_id": "26978088",
    "_source": "191",
    "_is_read": true
}

Manton Reece www.manton.org

{
    "type": "entry",
    "author": {
        "name": "Manton Reece",
        "url": "https://www.manton.org/",
        "photo": "https://micro.blog/manton/avatar.jpg"
    },
    "url": "https://www.manton.org/2022/01/31/this-mornings-microblog.html",
    "content": {
        "html": "<p>This morning\u2019s Micro.blog update included performance improvements, bug fixes to ActivityPub and Micropub, scrolling to current post in conversations (thanks <a href=\"https://micro.blog/sod\">@sod</a>!), and a server hardware upgrade.</p>",
        "text": "This morning\u2019s Micro.blog update included performance improvements, bug fixes to ActivityPub and Micropub, scrolling to current post in conversations (thanks @sod!), and a server hardware upgrade."
    },
    "published": "2022-01-31T09:52:59-06:00",
    "post-type": "note",
    "_id": "26965343",
    "_source": "12",
    "_is_read": true
}

Ben Werdmüller werd.io/profile/benwerd

Community with just enough friction

{
    "type": "entry",
    "published": "2022-01-30T17:44:07+00:00",
    "url": "https://werd.io/2022/community-with-just-enough-friction",
    "name": "Community with just enough friction",
    "content": {
        "text": "The other day I posed the question:I've started two end-user open source social platforms: Elgg and Known, from the web2 desktop and mobile era respectively. Imagine I was going to create an open source community platform today. What would be different about it?As you might imagine, I expected the answers to be broadly related to web3 and crypto: perhaps a decentralized platform where each community is interrelated and identity and reputation can be transferred.But I really liked this reply from Colin Walker:Everything on social networks is too easy \u2014 that's why I used to like Google+ when it launched. There was no API, no way to share something to the network from outside, everything had to be an intentional act.There\u2019s something really powerful about the idea of anti-virulence. Instead of optimizing around a platform\u2019s K-Factor, we should make the conversation just hard enough to require a thoughtful reply.The indieweb - blogging in general, actually - has this characteristic. You can\u2019t just knock off a blog post in 10 seconds without time for your brain to kick in. It requires thought, but at the same time, you\u2019re not writing an essay for the New Yorker. In other words, it requires just enough thought. It\u2019s definitely the medium for me.I wonder what a community platform that was centered around long-form thought would look like? Medium, perhaps? Or something else?",
        "html": "<p><img src=\"https://werd.io/file/61f6ce62b563db1eb340fdc2/thumb.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1024\" height=\"683\" /></p><p>The other day <a href=\"https://werd.io/2022/ive-started-two-end-user-open-source-social\">I posed the question</a>:</p><blockquote><p>I've started two end-user open source social platforms: Elgg and Known, from the web2 desktop and mobile era respectively. Imagine I was going to create an open source community platform today. What would be different about it?</p></blockquote><p>As you might imagine, I expected the answers to be broadly related to web3 and crypto: perhaps a decentralized platform where each community is interrelated and identity and reputation can be transferred.</p><p>But <a href=\"https://colinwalker.blog/?date=2022-01-29\">I really liked this reply from Colin Walker</a>:</p><blockquote><p>Everything on social networks is too easy \u2014 that's why I used to like Google+ when it launched. There was no API, no way to share something to the network from outside, everything had to be an intentional act.</p></blockquote><p>There\u2019s something really powerful about the idea of anti-virulence. Instead of optimizing around <a href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K-factor_(marketing)\">a platform\u2019s K-Factor</a>, we should make the conversation <em>just hard enough</em> to require a thoughtful reply.</p><p>The <a href=\"https://indieweb.org\">indieweb</a> - blogging in general, actually - has this characteristic. You can\u2019t just knock off a blog post in 10 seconds without time for your brain to kick in. It requires thought, but at the same time, you\u2019re not writing an essay for the New Yorker. In other words, it requires <em>just enough</em> thought. It\u2019s definitely the medium for me.</p><p>I wonder what a community platform that was centered around long-form thought would look like? Medium, perhaps? Or something else?</p>"
    },
    "author": {
        "type": "card",
        "name": "Ben Werdm\u00fcller",
        "url": "https://werd.io/profile/benwerd",
        "photo": "https://werd.io/file/5d388c5fb16ea14aac640912/thumb.jpg"
    },
    "post-type": "article",
    "_id": "26940598",
    "_source": "191",
    "_is_read": true
}

Shell

{
    "type": "entry",
    "author": {
        "name": "Kh\u00fcrt Williams",
        "url": "https://islandinthenet.com/",
        "photo": null
    },
    "url": "https://islandinthenet.com/shell/",
    "published": "2022-01-29T10:04:31-05:00",
    "content": {
        "html": "<p>Testing webmention reply to @khurtwilliams.</p>",
        "text": "Testing webmention reply to @khurtwilliams."
    },
    "name": "Shell",
    "post-type": "article",
    "_id": "26918169",
    "_source": "242",
    "_is_read": true
}

gRegor Morrill gregorlove.com

{
    "type": "entry",
    "published": "2022-01-26 17:26-0800",
    "rsvp": "yes",
    "url": "https://gregorlove.com/2022/01/im-attending-homebrew-website-club/",
    "category": [
        "indieweb"
    ],
    "syndication": [
        "https://twitter.com/gRegorLove/status/1486512688955944962"
    ],
    "in-reply-to": [
        "https://events.indieweb.org/2022/01/homebrew-website-club-pacific-7N5iRHCxRt7K"
    ],
    "content": {
        "text": "I\u2019m attendingHomebrew Website Club (virtual) tonight at 6PM Pacific.\n\nJoin us if you\u2019re interested in talking about personal websites and the independent web!",
        "html": "<p>I\u2019m attending<a class=\"u-in-reply-to h-event\" href=\"https://events.indieweb.org/2022/01/homebrew-website-club-pacific-7N5iRHCxRt7K\">Homebrew Website Club</a> (virtual) tonight at 6PM Pacific.</p>\n\n<p>Join us if you\u2019re interested in talking about personal websites and the independent web!</p>"
    },
    "author": {
        "type": "card",
        "name": "gRegor Morrill",
        "url": "https://gregorlove.com/",
        "photo": "https://gregorlove.com/site/assets/files/3473/profile-2016-med.jpg"
    },
    "post-type": "rsvp",
    "refs": {
        "https://events.indieweb.org/2022/01/homebrew-website-club-pacific-7N5iRHCxRt7K": {
            "type": "event",
            "name": "Homebrew Website Club",
            "url": "https://events.indieweb.org/2022/01/homebrew-website-club-pacific-7N5iRHCxRt7K",
            "post-type": "event"
        }
    },
    "_id": "26853260",
    "_source": "95",
    "_is_read": true
}

Jeremy Keith adactio.com

{
    "type": "entry",
    "published": "2022-01-26T09:39:28Z",
    "url": "https://adactio.com/links/18802",
    "category": [
        "wen",
        "monetisation",
        "free",
        "markets",
        "web3",
        "crypto",
        "scams",
        "capitalism",
        "indieweb",
        "personal",
        "publishing",
        "liberation"
    ],
    "bookmark-of": [
        "https://mxb.dev/blog/make-free-stuff/"
    ],
    "content": {
        "text": "Make Free Stuff | Max B\u00f6ck\n\n\n\n\n  At its very core, the rules of the web are different than those of \u201creal\u201d markets. The idea that ownership fundamentally means that nobody else can have the same thing you have just doesn\u2019t apply here. This is a world where anything can easily be copied a million times and distributed around the globe in a second. If that were possible in the real world, we\u2019d call it Utopia.",
        "html": "<h3>\n<a class=\"p-name u-bookmark-of\" href=\"https://mxb.dev/blog/make-free-stuff/\">\nMake Free Stuff | Max B\u00f6ck\n</a>\n</h3>\n\n<blockquote>\n  <p>At its very core, the rules of the web are different than those of \u201creal\u201d markets. The idea that ownership fundamentally means that nobody else can have the same thing you have just doesn\u2019t apply here. This is a world where anything can easily be copied a million times and distributed around the globe in a second. If that were possible in the real world, we\u2019d call it Utopia.</p>\n</blockquote>"
    },
    "author": {
        "type": "card",
        "name": "Jeremy Keith",
        "url": "https://adactio.com/",
        "photo": "https://adactio.com/images/photo-150.jpg"
    },
    "post-type": "bookmark",
    "_id": "26829750",
    "_source": "2",
    "_is_read": true
}

Manton Reece www.manton.org

{
    "type": "entry",
    "author": {
        "name": "Manton Reece",
        "url": "https://www.manton.org/",
        "photo": "https://micro.blog/manton/avatar.jpg"
    },
    "url": "https://www.manton.org/2022/01/25/a-date-has.html",
    "content": {
        "html": "<p>A date has been set for the <a href=\"https://events.indieweb.org/2022/02/personal-libraries-pop-up-session-Wax8N17zQuY0\" class=\"u-in-reply-to\">IndieWeb personal libraries pop-up session</a>: February 19th. Looking forward to it! \ud83d\udcda </p>",
        "text": "A date has been set for the IndieWeb personal libraries pop-up session: February 19th. Looking forward to it! \ud83d\udcda"
    },
    "published": "2022-01-25T09:11:31-06:00",
    "category": [
        "Books"
    ],
    "post-type": "note",
    "_id": "26810519",
    "_source": "12",
    "_is_read": true
}

James jamesg.blog

{
    "type": "entry",
    "author": {
        "name": "James",
        "url": "https://jamesg.blog",
        "photo": "https://avatars.micro.blog/avatars/2022/91251.jpg"
    },
    "url": "https://jamesg.blog/notes/2022-01-25-839/",
    "content": {
        "html": "<p>I am RSVP'ing <span class=\"p-rsvp\">yes</span> to the <a href=\"https://events.indieweb.org/2022/02/personal-libraries-pop-up-session-Wax8N17zQuY0\">IndieWeb Personal Libraries pop up</a> being held in February.<a href=\"https://brid.gy/publish/twitter\"></a>\n<a href=\"https://fed.brid.gy/\"></a></p>",
        "text": "I am RSVP'ing yes to the IndieWeb Personal Libraries pop up being held in February."
    },
    "published": "2022-01-25T13:40:07+00:00",
    "post-type": "note",
    "_id": "33380009",
    "_source": "7224",
    "_is_read": true
}

Jeremy Keith adactio.com

{
    "type": "entry",
    "published": "2022-01-24T17:31:13Z",
    "url": "https://adactio.com/links/18797",
    "category": [
        "web",
        "history",
        "personal",
        "publishing",
        "indieweb",
        "independent",
        "liberation",
        "freedom",
        "expression",
        "design",
        "hyperlinks",
        "linking"
    ],
    "bookmark-of": [
        "https://interfacecritique.net/book/olia-lialina-from-my-to-me/"
    ],
    "content": {
        "text": "Interfacecritique \u2014 Olia Lialina: From My To Me\n\n\n\n\n  Don\u2019t see making your own web page as a nostalgia, don\u2019t participate in creating the netstalgia trend. What you make is a statement, an act of emancipation. You make it to continue a 25-year-old tradition of liberation.",
        "html": "<h3>\n<a class=\"p-name u-bookmark-of\" href=\"https://interfacecritique.net/book/olia-lialina-from-my-to-me/\">\nInterfacecritique \u2014 Olia Lialina: From My To Me\n</a>\n</h3>\n\n<blockquote>\n  <p>Don\u2019t see making your own web page as a nostalgia, don\u2019t participate in creating the netstalgia trend. What you make is a statement, an act of emancipation. You make it to continue a 25-year-old tradition of liberation.</p>\n</blockquote>"
    },
    "author": {
        "type": "card",
        "name": "Jeremy Keith",
        "url": "https://adactio.com/",
        "photo": "https://adactio.com/images/photo-150.jpg"
    },
    "post-type": "bookmark",
    "_id": "26784775",
    "_source": "2",
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Ben Werdmüller werd.io/profile/benwerd

Some links out to the blogosphere

{
    "type": "entry",
    "published": "2022-01-22T19:12:18+00:00",
    "url": "https://werd.io/2022/some-links-out-to-the-blogosphere",
    "name": "Some links out to the blogosphere",
    "content": {
        "text": "I\u2019ve added two links to the bottom of every page on my website.The first is to the IndieWeb webring: a directory of personal websites from people who are a part of the indieweb movement. These sites run the gamut of topics, but they\u2019re mostly personal profiles from people who like to write on the web. Just like me! (You can click the left or right arrows to get to a random site.)The second is to Blogroll.org, which I learned about from a post on Winnie Lim\u2019s site. It\u2019s exactly what you\u2019d expect from the name: a categorized list of blogs. I love it and I\u2019m glad it exists.I want more of you to blog. Please write about your personal experiences! I want to read them! And doing it on your personal space is far better than simply tweeting, or using something like Facebook or (shudder) LinkedIn, simply because you can be more long-form, and build up a corpus of writing that really represents you. And sure, yes, Medium is fine. But I want to read what you have to say, and other people do too.",
        "html": "<p>I\u2019ve added two links to the bottom of every page on my website.</p><p>The first is to the <a href=\"https://xn--sr8hvo.ws/directory\">IndieWeb webring</a>: a directory of personal websites from people who are a part of the <a href=\"https://indieweb.org\">indieweb movement</a>. These sites run the gamut of topics, but they\u2019re mostly personal profiles from people who like to write on the web. Just like me! (You can click the <a href=\"https://xn--sr8hvo.ws/%F0%9F%8E%B7%F0%9F%88%82%EF%B8%8F%E2%86%AA%EF%B8%8F/previous\">left</a> or <a href=\"https://xn--sr8hvo.ws/%F0%9F%8E%B7%F0%9F%88%82%EF%B8%8F%E2%86%AA%EF%B8%8F/next\">right</a> arrows to get to a random site.)</p><p>The second is to <a href=\"https://blogroll.org\">Blogroll.org</a>, which I learned about from <a href=\"https://winnielim.org/notes/when-someone-blogs-about-your-writing/\">a post on Winnie Lim\u2019s site</a>. It\u2019s exactly what you\u2019d expect from the name: a categorized list of blogs. I love it and I\u2019m glad it exists.</p><p>I want more of you to blog. Please write about your personal experiences! I want to read them! And doing it on your personal space is far better than simply tweeting, or using something like Facebook or (shudder) LinkedIn, simply because you can be more long-form, and build up a corpus of writing that really represents you. And sure, yes, Medium is fine. But I want to read what you have to say, and other people do too.</p>"
    },
    "author": {
        "type": "card",
        "name": "Ben Werdm\u00fcller",
        "url": "https://werd.io/profile/benwerd",
        "photo": "https://werd.io/file/5d388c5fb16ea14aac640912/thumb.jpg"
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Jamie Tanna www.jvt.me

{
    "type": "entry",
    "published": "2022-01-16T16:42:00+0000",
    "url": "https://www.jvt.me/mf2/2022/01/v8yee/",
    "category": [
        "oidc",
        "git-lab",
        "git-hub",
        "micropub"
    ],
    "content": {
        "text": "Has anyone done anything interesting aside from cloud provider deployments with the #OIDC support in #GitLab and #GitHub? Thinking I may use it as a means to automatically publish notes to my site via #Micropub when publishing a new version of a library",
        "html": "<p>Has anyone done anything interesting aside from cloud provider deployments with the <a href=\"https://www.jvt.me/tags/oidc/\">#OIDC</a> support in <a href=\"https://www.jvt.me/tags/git-lab/\">#GitLab</a> and <a href=\"https://www.jvt.me/tags/git-hub/\">#GitHub</a>? Thinking I may use it as a means to automatically publish notes to my site via <a href=\"https://www.jvt.me/tags/micropub/\">#Micropub</a> when publishing a new version of a library</p>"
    },
    "author": {
        "type": "card",
        "name": "Jamie Tanna",
        "url": "https://www.jvt.me",
        "photo": "https://www.jvt.me/img/profile.png"
    },
    "post-type": "note",
    "_id": "26583983",
    "_source": "2169",
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Jamie Tanna www.jvt.me

The startupification of tech

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    "url": "https://www.jvt.me/mf2/2022/01/zoelu/",
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        "startup",
        "capitalism",
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Ben Werdmüller werd.io/profile/benwerd

The startupification of tech

{
    "type": "entry",
    "published": "2022-01-14T15:54:15+00:00",
    "url": "https://werd.io/2022/the-startupification-of-tech",
    "name": "The startupification of tech",
    "content": {
        "text": "Over the last decade or two tech has become dominated by the startup: a small, new business that rapidly reinvents itself in an iterative process. Once upon a time, the aim of that process was - or at least, seemed like it was - to be as useful as possible to a well-defined target group of users. These days it feels like the aim is mostly to gain as high a valuation as possible by moving from venture capital funding round to funding round, eventually making bank through an exit event.That startupification has had an interesting effect on tech communities. I\u2019m from the utopian era of the web, when we all thought we could build something to connect that world, and by doing so that we would make it more peaceful. These days, it seems like people are mostly in it to make millions of dollars - which feels like an emptier, less exciting goal, to say the least. The possibilities for social change used to seem endless; now the conversation is mostly about funding rounds or financial yield. In itself, it\u2019s boring, but it also changes who is attracted to the space: we\u2019ve gone from a loose group of weird social idealists to being overwhelmed by a bolus of the most boring possible people. The tech workforce is becoming Wall Street in hoodies, far more concerned with the performance of their RSUs than the impact they\u2019re having in the world.Of course, there are still idealists: people who believe in making the world more equal and democratic, and that technology has a part to play in making it happen. The indieweb movement remains one great example of this; there are also plenty of people working on tech for good, or mission-driven endeavors where the social impact comes first. Even in companies that are a part of this financialization of tech, there are people doing great work on inclusivity, unionization, and advocacy for social responsibility. Nonetheless, at this point, these groups are in the minority.I find that personally demotivating - it\u2019s not why I got into the space, or why I\u2019m excited about it - but it\u2019s also kind of counterproductive. If you\u2019re laser focused on helping a defined group of people, you\u2019re more likely to build a valuable company, because you\u2019re literally generating value. Conversely, if you\u2019re focused on making money as a goal rather than a means to an end, you\u2019re more likely to make shallower decisions that undermine your value. Being focused on helping your user means you\u2019re aligned with them; being primarily focused on your financial goals means you\u2019re primarily aligned with yourself. To put it another way, if the aim is to raise a round or make a bunch of money personally, you\u2019re more likely to make decisions that screw your users and undermine that goal to begin with. It\u2019s also just a selfish, stupid way to look at the world.Remember this Apple campaign?Here\u2019s to the crazy ones, the misfits, the rebels, the troublemakers, the round pegs in the square holes\u2026 the ones who see things differently \u2014 they\u2019re not fond of rules\u2026 You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them, but the only thing you can\u2019t do is ignore them because they change things\u2026 they push the human race forward, and while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius, because the ones who are crazy enough to think that they can change the world, are the ones who do.It doesn\u2019t say here\u2019s to the stockbrokers, is all I\u2019m saying. Tech could use a little more crazy, a little more outside thinking, a little more equity-mindedness, and a little less greed. That\u2019s how the world gets changed: by focusing on people, not on dollar bills.",
        "html": "<p>Over the last decade or two tech has become dominated by the <em>startup</em>: a small, new business that rapidly reinvents itself in an iterative process. Once upon a time, the aim of that process was - or at least, <em>seemed</em> like it was - to be as useful as possible to a well-defined target group of users. These days it feels like the aim is mostly to gain as high a valuation as possible by moving from venture capital funding round to funding round, eventually making bank through an exit event.</p><p>That startupification has had an interesting effect on tech communities. I\u2019m from the utopian era of the web, when we all thought we could build something to connect that world, and by doing so that we would make it more peaceful. These days, it seems like people are mostly in it to make millions of dollars - which feels like an emptier, less exciting goal, to say the least. The possibilities for social change used to seem endless; now the conversation is mostly about funding rounds or financial yield. In itself, it\u2019s boring, but it also changes who is attracted to the space: we\u2019ve gone from a loose group of weird social idealists to being overwhelmed by a bolus of the most boring possible people. The tech workforce is becoming Wall Street in hoodies, far more concerned with the performance of their RSUs than the impact they\u2019re having in the world.</p><p>Of course, there <em>are</em> still idealists: people who believe in making the world more equal and democratic, and that technology has a part to play in making it happen. <a href=\"https://indieweb.org\">The indieweb movement</a> remains one great example of this; there are also plenty of people working on tech for good, or mission-driven endeavors where the social impact comes first. Even in companies that are a part of this financialization of tech, there are people doing great work on inclusivity, unionization, and advocacy for social responsibility. Nonetheless, at this point, these groups are in the minority.</p><p>I find that personally demotivating - it\u2019s not why I got into the space, or why I\u2019m excited about it - but it\u2019s also kind of counterproductive. If you\u2019re laser focused on helping a defined group of people, you\u2019re more likely to build a valuable company, because you\u2019re <em>literally generating value</em>. Conversely, if you\u2019re focused on making money as a goal rather than a means to an end, you\u2019re more likely to make shallower decisions that undermine your value. Being focused on helping your user means you\u2019re aligned with them; being primarily focused on your financial goals means you\u2019re primarily aligned with yourself. To put it another way, if the aim is to raise a round or make a bunch of money personally, you\u2019re more likely to make decisions that screw your users and undermine that goal to begin with. It\u2019s also just a selfish, stupid way to look at the world.</p><p>Remember this Apple campaign?</p><p><em>Here\u2019s to the crazy ones, the misfits, the rebels, the troublemakers, the round pegs in the square holes\u2026 the ones who see things differently \u2014 they\u2019re not fond of rules\u2026 You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them, but the only thing you can\u2019t do is ignore them because they change things\u2026 they push the human race forward, and while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius, because the ones who are crazy enough to think that they can change the world, are the ones who do.</em></p><p>It doesn\u2019t say <em>here\u2019s to the stockbrokers</em>, is all I\u2019m saying. Tech could use a little more crazy, a little more outside thinking, a little more equity-mindedness, and a little less greed. That\u2019s how the world gets changed: by focusing on people, not on dollar bills.</p>"
    },
    "author": {
        "type": "card",
        "name": "Ben Werdm\u00fcller",
        "url": "https://werd.io/profile/benwerd",
        "photo": "https://werd.io/file/5d388c5fb16ea14aac640912/thumb.jpg"
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    "post-type": "article",
    "_id": "26536666",
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}

James jamesg.blog

{
    "type": "entry",
    "author": {
        "name": "James",
        "url": "https://jamesg.blog",
        "photo": "https://avatars.micro.blog/avatars/2022/91251.jpg"
    },
    "url": "https://jamesg.blog/notes/2022-01-12-663/",
    "content": {
        "html": "<p>The first <a>#HomebrewWebsiteClub</a> London/Europe meetup of 2022 is beginning this evening. If you want to chat about blogging, personal websites, or the web, consider joining the meetup today! \ud83d\udcbb</p>\n<p>https://events.indieweb.org/2022/01/homebrew-website-club-europe-london-XueKi4mitTMM<a href=\"https://brid.gy/publish/twitter\"></a>\n<a href=\"https://fed.brid.gy/\"></a></p>",
        "text": "The first #HomebrewWebsiteClub London/Europe meetup of 2022 is beginning this evening. If you want to chat about blogging, personal websites, or the web, consider joining the meetup today! \ud83d\udcbb\nhttps://events.indieweb.org/2022/01/homebrew-website-club-europe-london-XueKi4mitTMM"
    },
    "published": "2022-01-12T15:30:15+00:00",
    "post-type": "note",
    "_id": "33380010",
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}

Tantek Çelik tantek.com

{
    "type": "entry",
    "published": "2022-01-09 18:30-0800",
    "url": "http://tantek.com/2022/009/t1/happy-birthday-bridgy-congrats",
    "category": [
        "indieweb",
        "socialmedia",
        "POSSE",
        "backfeed",
        "Federate"
    ],
    "in-reply-to": [
        "https://twitter.com/schnarfed/status/1480073580041805825"
    ],
    "content": {
        "text": "\ud83c\udf82 Happy birthday Bridgy! Congrats Ryan (@schnarfed), contributors, users!\n\n10 years of bridging #indieweb & #socialmedia. #POSSE posts, #backfeed responses. #Federate systems, like the web was invented to.\n\nStats & charts & more: https://snarfed.org/2022-01-08_happy-10th-birthday-bridgy",
        "html": "\ud83c\udf82 Happy birthday Bridgy! Congrats Ryan (<a class=\"h-cassis-username\" href=\"https://twitter.com/schnarfed\">@schnarfed</a>), contributors, users!<br /><br />10 years of bridging #<span class=\"p-category\">indieweb</span> &amp; #<span class=\"p-category\">socialmedia</span>. #<span class=\"p-category\">POSSE</span> posts, #<span class=\"p-category\">backfeed</span> responses. #<span class=\"p-category\">Federate</span> systems, like the web was invented to.<br /><br />Stats &amp; charts &amp; more: <a href=\"https://snarfed.org/2022-01-08_happy-10th-birthday-bridgy\">https://snarfed.org/2022-01-08_happy-10th-birthday-bridgy</a>"
    },
    "author": {
        "type": "card",
        "name": "Tantek \u00c7elik",
        "url": "http://tantek.com/",
        "photo": "https://aperture-media.p3k.io/tantek.com/acfddd7d8b2c8cf8aa163651432cc1ec7eb8ec2f881942dca963d305eeaaa6b8.jpg"
    },
    "post-type": "reply",
    "refs": {
        "https://twitter.com/schnarfed/status/1480073580041805825": {
            "type": "entry",
            "url": "https://twitter.com/schnarfed/status/1480073580041805825",
            "name": "@schnarfed\u2019s tweet",
            "post-type": "article"
        }
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    "_id": "26414375",
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Jeremy Keith adactio.com

{
    "type": "entry",
    "published": "2022-01-09T12:33:59Z",
    "url": "https://adactio.com/links/18753",
    "category": [
        "indieweb",
        "publishing",
        "sharing",
        "writing",
        "podcasts",
        "newsletters",
        "websites",
        "micro",
        "publishers",
        "independent"
    ],
    "bookmark-of": [
        "https://indies.link/"
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    "content": {
        "text": "Friendly Indie micro-publishers\n\n\n\nFrom Patrick Tanguay:\n\n\n  A list of small micro-publishers \u2014 most of them run by one person \u2014 putting out great content through their websites, newsletters, and podcasts.",
        "html": "<h3>\n<a class=\"p-name u-bookmark-of\" href=\"https://indies.link/\">\nFriendly Indie micro-publishers\n</a>\n</h3>\n\n<p>From Patrick Tanguay:</p>\n\n<blockquote>\n  <p>A list of small micro-publishers \u2014 most of them run by one person \u2014 putting out great content through their websites, newsletters, and podcasts.</p>\n</blockquote>"
    },
    "author": {
        "type": "card",
        "name": "Jeremy Keith",
        "url": "https://adactio.com/",
        "photo": "https://adactio.com/images/photo-150.jpg"
    },
    "post-type": "bookmark",
    "_id": "26400347",
    "_source": "2",
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Ryan Barrett snarfed.org

Happy 10th Birthday, Bridgy!

{
    "type": "entry",
    "published": "2022-01-08T22:44:42-08:00",
    "url": "https://snarfed.org/2022-01-08_happy-10th-birthday-bridgy",
    "syndication": [
        "https://news.indieweb.org/en/snarfed.org/2022-01-08_happy-10th-birthday-bridgy",
        "https://twitter.com/schnarfed/status/1480073580041805825"
    ],
    "name": "Happy 10th Birthday, Bridgy!",
    "content": {
        "text": "Today marks 10 years to the day since I first launched Bridgy, my little IndieWeb side project to connect social networks and personal websites. Happy Birthday, Bridgy!\nI\u2019ve always loved the internet, but I\u2019m not a Very Online person, exactly. I don\u2019t really hang out there. I didn\u2019t fall in love with the people, or the community; I fell in love with the network. The physical reality of packed switched routing, the awkward unlikely miracle of a bunch of computers \u2013 rocks we flattened and jammed lightning into \u2013 talking to each other. Interacting.\nWhat\u2019s more, we managed to connect a bunch of these separate networks together, begged and borrowed time on long strings of copper buried underground and hung high up on top of wooden poles, stretched across cities and countries and entire oceans until they circled the globe. Kind of amazing.\n Continue reading \u2192",
        "html": "<p><img src=\"https://snarfed.org/10th_birthday_cake.jpg\" alt=\"10th_birthday_cake.jpg\" /></p><img src=\"https://snarfed.org/10th_birthday_cake.jpg\" alt=\"10th_birthday_cake.jpg\" />\n<p>Today marks 10 years to the day since I <a href=\"https://snarfed.org/2012-01-08_bridgy_launched\">first launched</a> <a href=\"https://brid.gy/\">Bridgy</a>, my little <a href=\"https://indieweb.org/\">IndieWeb</a> side project to connect social networks and personal websites. Happy Birthday, Bridgy!</p>\n<p>I\u2019ve always loved the internet, but I\u2019m not a Very Online person, exactly. <a href=\"https://snarfed.org/2018-09-04_i-dont-hang-out-on-the-internet\">I don\u2019t really hang out there.</a> I didn\u2019t fall in love with the people, or the community; I fell in love with the <em>network</em>. The physical reality of packed switched routing, the awkward unlikely miracle of a bunch of computers \u2013 <a href=\"https://twitter.com/daisyowl/status/841806379962646532\">rocks we flattened and jammed lightning into</a> \u2013 <em>talking</em> to each other. Interacting.</p>\n<p>What\u2019s more, we managed to connect a bunch of these separate networks together, begged and borrowed time on long strings of copper buried underground and hung high up on top of wooden poles, stretched across cities and countries and entire oceans until they circled the globe. Kind of amazing.\n <a href=\"https://snarfed.org/2022-01-08_happy-10th-birthday-bridgy#more-45649\">Continue reading <span>\u2192</span></a></p>"
    },
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        "type": "card",
        "name": "Ryan Barrett",
        "url": "https://snarfed.org/",
        "photo": "https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/947b5f3f323da0ef785b6f02d9c265d6?s=96&d=blank&r=g"
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    "post-type": "article",
    "_id": "26397529",
    "_source": "3",
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Jamie Tanna www.jvt.me

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    "published": "2022-01-09T08:18:00+0000",
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