- There were great hopes that our developments in AI would help in the battle against covid. So far, those hopes are dashed. But there is a silver lining: the learnings here might improve medical AI in the future.
- Sea level rise from global warming threatens the physical infrastructure of many tech giants in the SF Bay Area. The burning question: who should pay for hardening the region's defenses before the water rises?
- PBS has served a number of important functions in American society. Now there are suggestions that the Internet would benefit from a PBS of sorts.
- China may have killed SoftBank's golden goose.
- Square just bought AfterPay for $29 billion, making a big bet on buy-now, pay-later. I'm guessing Klarna is watching carefully.
- Crypto meets the taxman? The IRS is going to begin digging into crypto revenues.
- Interesting: Facebook is getting into the movie/content-distribution game.
- Of course Robinhood turned into a meme stonk.
- Merge at your own risk? The FTC advises that it may be delayed in reviewing mergers (but can still find mergers unlawful after the standard thirty day review period concludes).
- China is graduating STEM Ph.Ds at a far higher rate than other countries, which suggests that, over time, we should expect lots of new tech developments originating there. Hopefully the workplace conditions for most tech workers there will improve in time too.
- There's an app out there that aims to help creators get paid, but I don't want to print its name.
- Speaking of apps, it'll be interesting to see how Apple/Google handle anti-vax apps.
- Ben Thompson digs deeper into the construct of the 'metaverse.'
- When you build a social platform intended to minimize content regulation, you might just get flooded with terrorist content (as GETTR has found out).
- Twitter is crowdsourcing efforts to find biases in its image-cropping algorithm.
- MIT Tech Review has a deep dive with Facebook whistleblower Sophie Zhang.
- Fascinating: Prada is going to drop blockchain-leveraging microchips into their products to ensure provenance for buyers of their luxury goods.
- Instagram, failing to read the room, reminded Olympians that the videos of their crowning achievements do not belong to them.
Privacy and Security Matter:
- The science behind the super-spikes that athletes are wearing in track & field events. Also, it might not be the spikes causing records to fall: it could be the fact that the track is designed to be faster.
- If you didn't watch the men's high jump final, you should: it's a remarkable lesson in the Olympic spirit. Watch it here. And then, the after. And, for good measure, the before.
- Likewise, if you didn't watch the men's 400M hurdles, you should: it was a race for the ages. More here from LetsRun.
- Sifan Hassan is an insane athlete.
- Matt Hart has a good essay about the challenges facing elite running events.
- Great work by Suni Lee. And, thanks to recent developments, the soon-to-be college freshman will thankfully be able to cash in on her success.
- Mondo Duplantis, winner of the pole vault competition, has quite the interesting background.
- What makes a city runnable? Canadian researchers dug in and came up with some good (and not unexpected) answers.
- Elite runners don't just run fast: they bound. They (and other elite athletes) may also get less sleep than many people think.
- When Olympians test positive for covid, it may lead to a very quick trip to Tokyo for alternates (as U.S. pole vaulter Matt Ludwig discovered).
- Good work by Axios on digging into China's 'medal machine' to reveal the human cost of Beijing's efforts to dominate sports.
- People are complaining that Google Maps is leading hikers astray (by suggesting the most geographically direct route for a hike, rather than one that uses trails). Honestly, I don't think any hiker should rely on Google Map "directions" for mountain approaches (and I don't know anyone who does so).
- Alberto Salazar is already banned from track and field for four years for doping. He just received a lifetime ban from the U.S. Center for SafeSport for sexual/emotional misconduct. He can still appeal.
- Speaking of doping, in case you're wondering why the "Russian Olympic Committee" is competing rather than Russia--and weren't they banned?--you're not alone.
- Trail Runner has a good post on the science of steep uphill running, and Runner's World has an inspirational story of paralympians training during covid.
- Little Leagues are shrinking across the U.S. Part of the problem? Travel teams.
- MLB is going to try to have all teams play on the same Opening Day for the first time in 53 years.
- NTT and other Japanese tech firms are doing cool things, like enabling a 'teleportation' of sports events.
- The Olympics are helping skateboarding overcome stigmas in Japan.
Covid is a battle we can win:
- America might as well be schizophrenic with regard to masks and mandates. One thing that is becoming increasingly clear: a large majority of the U.S. population supports mandates in some form. And more and more employers, venues, and other public spaces are requiring vaccines as a result.
- Unvaccinated people are, on the whole, bad at understanding why covid case rates are rising. They also are continuing, as a whole, to engage in riskier behavior.
- Reminder: even with the delta variant, covid is currently a pandemic of the unvaccinated. But caution by the vaccinated is warranted as 'the war has changed.'
- Young adults comprise a surprising percentage of the unvaccinated. This despite concerns that long covid may be this generation's polio.
- If you want to learn about the way that we've gone from zero vaccines to 4 billion shots administered in less than a year, read this summary.
- Hope for covid treatment? New research in nanobodies suggests a path towards patient treatments (including for the delta variant). Hopefully it works against future 'doomsday' variants as well?
- To booster or not to booster, that is the question of the day. In SF, they'll allow it for some residents.
- One of the challenges that the Biden administration faces is that responding quickly to changing data and political pressure causes messaging whiplash.
- Wild: the Offspring kicked out their drummer for failing to vaccinate.
Climate Change is a challenge we must meet:
- This would likely be a disaster of unimaginable proportions: scientists are spotting signs of a potential slow-down or collapse of the Gulf Stream.
- One of our most significant challenges: people want to take climate action but simply don't. One way people can make a meaningful step is to start driving EVs (and the Biden administration is pushing automakers to reach 50% EV by the end of the decade). Others are suggesting "degrowth" but that seems to be an unworkable solution.
- A recent study suggests that New Zealand is the best place to weather the unravelling of society. A couple of caveats: it's prone to serious seismic activity and any large asteroid hitting the Pacific would inundate the islands.
- Turkey is burning. Now, scientists say, the entire Mediterranean region is a 'wildfire hot spot.' Oh, and the Pacific Northwest is heating up again, and the fires there could be burning into the fall.
- Speaking of fires: to be clear, climate change does 'cause' fires per se, but it makes conditions more fire-prone and makes fires more difficult to extinguish.
- Andrew Freeman in Axios explains that journalists are charged with a tough task in finding the right balance between pessimism, optimism, and reality with respect to reporting climate change. More on the topic.
- Fascinating: Nederland, Colorado gave their surrounding watershed "fundamental and inalienable rights."
- Rising gas prices may, counter-intuitively, impede our ability to move off of fossil fuels.
- It's one thing to make a pledge to plant thousands or millions of trees. It's another thing to actually plant them and actually ensure that they survive.
- Cultivated fish (including sushi!) could help reduce the degree to which oceanic fish populations are depleted.
- Changes in how we cool our buildings might also help save our planet.
- It's not just the polar bears: on the other side of the world, emperor penguins are likely doomed for extinction by climate change.
- Climate change is destroying some businesses. But it might be benefitting others (like companies making air purifiers).
- There are fascinating plants growing in the Namibian desert that might help teach agriculture/scientists how to adjust crops for a warmer world.
California is a fascinating state:
Jon these are great! Thanks.