I would not mind buying in from time to time if I was assured that no tracking, profiling etc occurs. It did not happen when we bought news papers (on real paper) that some folks would watch over our shoulders to see, which article, which cartoon, which section of the news which picture which add we would look at or not. I see constantly that whenever I'm logged in somewhere, the adds start to move to something the site thinks I am or (much more funny) if the site thinks I'm my wife.

the pandemic has been a boom for the super rich 360 billions fpr 9: https://www.washingtonpost.com.... Now, if we make the math and look how much 20 millions are for somebody who made 40 billions, this is like I would sponsor 40 dollars to charity. Gates lamented once in a public discussion that it is unfortunate that natural immunity works. https://youtu.be/tlygUb9RVgA?t... This guy should give a substantial part of his pandemic winnings to people who have lost their existence!

the fact that the network of stories remained undiscovered for so long might even be a selling point. I myself would be interested what she has all imagined.

yes, this very much looks like an attempt to have more control. copy right is an excuse to filter information traffic. Once the technology is in place, it can be used for other purposes like ``to curb disinformation" or to ``stop fake news". The next step will be to implement the filters client side. At the moment we still have a relatively decent democracy but it needs only a war or serious economic down-turn and also the US could slip into tyranny. The US constitution has implemented some wise breaks too prevent such things to happen like the fourth amendment that protects people from "unreasonable searches and seizures by the government". Imposing filters of any kind controlled by opaque entities and algorithms also opens the door for future unreasonable search. Assume for example that an upload filter detects copy righted content automatically alerts law enforcement? Or assume that the algorithm decides that some information is disinformation?

Banning books might justify a conspiracy theory. In that case, there is a conspiracy in the proper sense. According to the definition: "A conspiracy theory is an explanation for an event or situation that invokes a conspiracy by sinister and powerful groups". Banning books has historically been done mostly by sinister and powerful groups. The explanation of banning books is now an example of a conspiracy theory which has become a true fact: it is an event which has been conspired together by some group. We do not know in each case whether they are sinister but experience shows that censorship often was not done for the common good but for personal, political or ideological reasons. One only has to look up the history on "book burning" or "censorship" to realize this.

tech companies as well as news companies should stay clear from any manipulation. It is eventually counter productive for the cause. We live in a democracy where everybody should be mature enough to make informed decisions and forming opinions. I myself am allergic about anything which smells like propaganda, even if I have the same opinion. We need to see all sides and then decide for our selves what is right. If one does not believe in this principle any more, then democracy goes down the drain. It is an arrogant attitude to treat the general public as stupid kids who need to be ``educated" or ``protected" from ``wrong" opinions.

It looks like a good idea. Gravitons have not been detected yet and a definite source for dark matter has not been given. The connection has been speculated on earlier, like in this article of Siegel https://www.forbes.com/sites/s...). The physical review article is available https://journals.aps.org/prl/p...

Education these days is a strange world. Two paradoxes of education: A) As this story indicates, students are often no more evaluated because the teachers refuse to do so. But teachers are evaluated detailed with grades which are sometimes even publicly displayed. "look this professor has a 3.6 on ``rate your professor". b) Homework and classes have to be fun and game and entertaining and non-competitive. ``Free time" like sports or music or dance on the other hand have become highly competitive with prizes and selections. ``Recreation" has for many become an extremely stressful marathon with coaches and helicopter parents pushing their kids. Consequence of A): fewer and fewer outstanding teachers because who wants to teach where only the teachers is ranked. Consequence of B): students learn less because school has become the place to finally escape and recover from the madness of ``free time stress".

I will always prefer to own computing hardware. Similarly, I chose to own music or books or my own storage space (or then when using hosting services or cloud services have a local copy of all the material at all times). With rented or leased material one can not react fast enough. When apple started to plan hardware scanning, I got rid of the iphone. I eventually bought a new one when the plans did not get implemented but would not hesitate a second to toss it away if scanning on phones would start again. Such decisions are harder to make on a subscription base.

in a time where our faces, voices are online, this is indeed a terrible idea. The Washington post editors are on spot here also by pointing out the possibility to have a database of faces leaked. No problem also to get the "password" of a person that is much in public. Public persons like politicians would be quite vulnerable to be hacked.

thanks for explaining. I also have not got A16Z as a numeronym for AndreessenHorowitz even so their website is a16z.com

One estimates 10^31 viruses on the planet, about 100 millions for every star in the universe: https://www.nationalgeographic... 8 percent of our genome is made of viral DNA: https://www.cshl.edu/the-non-h... The constant bombardment with new strains of viruses has been beneficial in the long term. We have to learn to relax. Our modern civilisation has to adapt also to panic and relate. Accurate data would help. We especially need term comparison data which compare for example excess mortality in the long term. Health data and especially the causes for mortality are highly dependent on what is measured. More reliable are excess mortality rates. Switzerland is an example with an excellent national statistics bureau and one can see that excess mortality fluctuates in periodic waves https://www.bfs.admin.ch/bfs/d... During the entire pandemic, the excess mortality for 0-64 year olds has been constant in Switzerland. For the 65 year and older, there are winter spikes which also happened also earlier during flu seasons. Overall, if one averages over a year, the excess mortality is about constant. The pandemic has also produced deaths which are due collateral damage and many of these things are not accounted for. Overdose deaths for example https://www.nytimes.com/2021/1... The economies so far have been remarkably robust, but we have to pay for all this with high inflation https://www.cnn.com/2021/11/24... Ecomonists preach that this is not a bad thing. But most folks live on the limit. Having to pay only a few percentages more for food is a disaster. It is a disaster for the majority, including middle class https://www.nytimes.com/2021/1... The long term consequences of this could be even more severe. The wealth distribution towards the wealthy has been enormous during the last year longer as the pandemic will be prolonged, as more this will happen. It will produce huge political shifts worldwide. The current US administration will most likely be wiped off the floors in 2022 and 2024, despite the fact that they do the right thing. And the super rich will have made even more. The 8 richest have made 600 billions in 2 years. This is 100 millions per day, for each of them! https://www.cnbc.com/2020/12/2... So, keep the panic going. This is the best way to redistribute even more.

Exactly my sentiment. Email is fast enough but can get checked when convenient. Notifications are annoying when then come in the wrong moment, like when writing or programming or thinking about a problem. During the pandemic, many have started to use slack as a communication channel which by default pings you every time somebody comments. Turning off notifications helps to stay focused. Fortunately, operating systems now allow you to have control, on phone tablets or desktops. If a program or app does not follow the rules, I wipe if off my system.

we need a variety of browser options and also some who are "holding back". We do not want one player to dictate things. The problem with a dominant player is that it can introduce changes which are not wanted. Like MSSmart tags which altered the content of a website. Or routing all traffic through their own network and claim that it helps to "accelerate" things. Or introducing proprietary digital rights managements to control what can be done with media accessed by the browser.

these are different things. Rebranding is usually a completely different launch. Just changing name will probably not change anything. It will be perceived as a PR stunt. And it will be difficult. Coming up with a name which will get name recognition and still does not step on the toes of any other company and does not associate anything bad in any language is difficult. It looks as if this will be a similar stunt like Alphabet which was a rebranding of google but it is a name which nobody uses.