TL;DR: Gov owns a private company -> no regulation, gov wants the company to be very profitable. Having a public competitor -> we regulate its competitors heavily, and ensure the tech is made/used (as) ethically (as possible).

Though Schneier seems un-opposed to doing both to various degrees. He seems very excited about Sovereign AI.

They measured happiness and income. Obviously this is not a controlled trial, so there are strong confounders with wealth/family/access to credit.

Still, in CA those who did best financially made incorporated businesses early and pushed to grow, while independent contractors had a pretty rough time. Happy folks gained expertise in a field and then incorporated (making less money, but still more than usual employment, and feeling pretty good about the whole thing).

wikipedia link for those who just wanna learn about giant virus's.

The wildest thing to me is that the viruses that prey on giant viruses work by infecting bacteria/algea, and then waiting for a giant virus to infect it too before it attacks.

The bacteria get infected with an anti-virus virus! It's just like Norton on computers!

I can't find a download for the mod in progress?

Oddsea

I've saved up some amount of cash, but family is poor and hasn't had useful advice. I feel like the stock market hasn't been great for society, but surely there are some causes who would use the capital for good (and give it back when I need it later)? I have a half remembered portfolio from a previous union with a big war chest, but it doesn't feel actionable.

I'm in North America + UK; but answers globally I think are interesting.

Let me be the first to say that 2020 didn't go great. But I think this advice is still quite relevant, and the overall message has stuck with me for awhile.

You know who really figured out 2019? You're not gonna like this... Mitch McConnell. He closed all tabs except for the Republican Party and locking down the courts. We got to focus like McConnell.

The news is a lot; being more focused on something smaller seems much better productively and mental health-wise.

From the conclusion:

1. Support curated digital stimming: Blockers could provide familiar, soothing content that fits neatly into a set amount of time for digital stimming, helping users settle their minds without falling into doomscrolling.

1. Use task-based rules over timers: Distractions could be blocked until a specific goal is met (for example, “until I write two pages”) rather than setting arbitrary time limits for focus.

1. Use scaffolds, not crutches: Blockers could be framed as a way to build personalized growth and self-acceptance through affirming language that normalizes fluctuating focus.

Internet developers. Please fix the apps!

What else would you like to see in a focus app? Do you know any that do a good job (in the directions above ideally)?

"How to end well: Humanitarians must better plan their exits" discusses common failure modes for aid organizations when they leave an area, and stresses the importance of planning for it. When I think of backlash around leftist policy, I see parallels. Any policy made in present representative governments seems very likely to get weakened/watered down/ended by the following election cycle; what goes into those policies to minimize the following harm/fallout?

Data held for humanitarian work is data, and that makes it a target. Seems like it would be difficult to get substantial investment into security for aid organizations (why not feed more folks instead?)...

In this particular case, and earlier audit found:

A 2022 audit of WFP’s Palestine operations said risks related to personal data collection had not been assessed or mitigated due to limited internal technical capacity.

Short piece that recommends gentleness and trying to get ahead of the stressful moment (which frankly seems a bit idealized; I'd love to be able to see the future, but I'm not sure that's easy/reliable). They do make the point that:

Most of what helps a child “have a go” is built in to the everyday conversations at home, not on the morning of the event. It’s about gently setting expectations: that we don’t always have to win, be the best, or get it right, and that’s okay.

And end with:

The goal is a child who learns, over time and in small steps, that they can do hard things, and that being different from the child next to them is okay and a normal part of life.

Fortune corresponded with a number of prominent occultists in this period. One of these was Israel Regardie, whose book The Tree of Life was regarded by Fortune as "quite the best book on magic" that she had read. Regardie later publicly criticised her for misrepresenting his works in her reviews of them; she had claimed that his works bolstered her beliefs about the Masters, although Regardie insisted that he was sceptical about the existence of such entities.

know your meme, classic I'm told.

The technology to convert wifi signals into the placement and identity of people is getting much better. Not by using their devices, just the waves bouncing of their bodies. (There's nothing new to the pipeline as far as I can tell, we're just starting to get into the accuracy ranges that make it easy/useful.)

Title: "These Wild Young People" at asterisk magazine. Anecdata on how a cohort thinks about risky behaviors, taking risks, and managing their future.

Which I find refreshing compared to the opinion pieces that cite only old people.

Anybody know of other bits of writing that feel representative of a (usually spoken about, not too) cohort?

See also here. More and more shipping is moving into Amazon's network, and so more and more of the online dollar is passing through their hands.

One of those kinda-subtle policy things that seems to slip by communities.