Thursday Thoughts, July 22, 2021

The Department of Tech:

• The "right to repair " isn't just good for consumers: it's also good for reducing waste and thus good for the planet.
• Nominating Jonathan Kanter to head the DOJ's Antitrust Division , following on Lina Khan for the FTC chair, suggests that the Biden administration is very serious regarding its plans to evaluate better tech regulation. Likewise, the UK's competition regulator just announced plans for a program on tech regulation , and ProtonMail jumped into the antitrust fray with accusations against app stores and Gmail.
• The Internet Archive is a useful tool that tries to archive the entire Internet. The problem is that parts of the Internet contain vile/bad content, and archive.org has become a means for preserving and circulating that content .
• Thankfully the damage was minor: climate-change fueled flooding hit Apple's largest production facility in China .
• Tech workers are probably doing better than nearly all workers in all industries in the U.S., but about half want to unionize .
• Clubhouse has opened its doors to all .
• From a PR perspective, Uber's Dara Khosrowshahi seems like a huge step forward from Travis Kalanick, but quotes like this make you wonder: “Our system is called capitalism. It’s designed to optimize for long-term growth of capital. When people wonder, ‘Well, are capital owners advantaged over labor?’ it ain’t called laborism.”
• Wow. California’s Department of Fair Employment and Housing accuses Activision Blizzard of being, more or less, a frat house that happens to make video games .
• If, like Amazon, you claim you're just a marketplace, but you're selling hundreds of thousands of hazardous items, you might just attract regulatory scrutiny .
• Twitter killed off "Fleets" , its 'fleeting' stories feature.
• Revolut, a one-stop-shop financial services app, raised $800m at a $33b valuation (!).
• Anthony Bourdain has been deep-faked , as documentary filmmakers recreate his voice to read his own words.
• China's tech crackdown continued , with Taobao, Weibo, and others fined for allegedly processing children's data illegally.
• Everyone wants to invest in content creators and content creation tools .
• Robots are improving every year . They may need to be subject to regulation soon (given their superhuman capabilities).

Privacy and Security Matter:

• Everyone speculated that the GDPR would kill the online ad industry. Or that browser changes would. Or that the death of cookies would. Or that device-level permission changes would. But no, instead, the online ad industry is seeing huge deal volumes, investments, and growth .
• Did you know that you might be tracked while you're shopping? If not, or if you're concerned about the practices, learn more about what's happening .
• After Apple's iOS updates made it easier for users to block tracking, Facebook advertisers are apparently freaking out .
• Privacy-protective moves by device and browser manufacturers may be democratizing privacy. As the Register points out, opting out of an advertising driven internet experience is currently expensive and time consuming .
• The doxxing of a priest using his phone location data shows how stronger privacy laws are needed in the U.S. , Vox argues.
• Some experts are suggesting that companies may be flagging themselves for ransomware hackers by purchasing cybersecurity insurance .
• The 'GDPR compliance industry' is expected to reach $4 billion in value by 2025 .
• The U.S. and its NATO allies blamed China for a major hack earlier this year.
• The Pegasus spyware made by the NSO group, a shadowy Israeli company, and licensed to governments worldwide has been found on smartphones of activists, journalists, executives, and others . While privacy advocates focus on online advertising, this is the kind of privacy invasion that leads to actual harm.

Sports are awesome:

• The Olympics open on Friday, which makes this a great time to examine the Olympics more generally. First question: do they even make sense ? Yes, much of the world loves sports and athletics, but do the Games need to rotate cities and cost billions for host countries ? For instance, Japan is losing lots of money on this iteration of the Games . And are the Olympics equitable? Even as LGBTQ+ representation is increasing , there are structural problems that disproportionately affect certain kinds of athletes (like black women) . Will the Olympics be a venue for speech and protest , or will athletes be muzzled? In the end, though, the Olympics are generally fun to watch. Here's how to catch as much action as possible .
• Speaking of Olympics, this may sound crazy but...the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics are only ~200 days away. The venues are already shaping up . And Brisbane was just awarded the 2032 Summer Games (of course, no one else was in the running).
• The Washington Post has a good write-up on mothers competing in the Olympics .
• Phillip Kreycik is still missing .
• A member of the BTC weighs in on the difficulties associated with watching track and field on TV. Speaking of track, if you want to watch some of the top runners' workouts, go here .
• Tadej Pogacar, an insanely strong cyclist at age 22, just won his second Tour de France .
• Fran?ois D’haene?and Sabrina Stanley won the Hardrock 100 in epic fashion over the weekend, with strong wins amidst some of the best competition the race has seen .
• Stian Angermund is 'Stian-rolling' the competition in the Golden Trail World Series . And good for him - he's been so close to winning these races for years.
• The NYT dives into the challenges that runners are experiencing in getting back to running shape while battling long covid .
• The Bucks, led by Giannis Antetokounmpo, won their first championship in 50 years. If you don't know the Giannis story--it's amazing and inspiring--here's a good book to read .

Covid is a battle we can win:

• Covid rates have grown significantly in the U.S. over the past few weeks. There are a decent number of breakthrough cases but this current resurgence of covid in the U.S. is almost entirely a pandemic of the unvaccinated . I'm really struggling to understand the willfully unvaccinated (keeping in mind that many unvaccinated people have been unable to be vaccinated due to life circumstances), particularly those who are opposed to vaccination on ideological grounds (i.e., are they really thinking "I'd rather risk death than listen to elites and accept that scientists are right?"). And it's apparently going to be hard to reach those hold-outs, despite the impact from the Delta variant .
• That all being said, distrust regarding the vaccines in certain under-represented groups is understandable, given past experiences . It highlights the need for improved outreach to those vulnerable communities .
• As a result of this, it's no wonder that experts are suggesting that the CDC should start pushing for additional safeguards . LA County has reimposed a mask mandates for indoors gatherings and the Bay Area counties are recommending mask use as well. And, if you want to go out for a drink in SF, you may well need to wear a mask .
• Facebook and the Biden administration sparred over misinformation leading to people avoiding vaccinations. Despite Facebook's protestations , the degree of misinformation on their platform is still astounding (at least, anecdotally, as Facebook makes it hard to obtain detailed information ). At least Twitter is suspending bad actors . Chris Krebs has likened vaccine misinformation to election misinformation (seems like an apt comparison: both are malicious and both affect the same low-information audience).
• If the covid variants keep increasing the case rate, the odds of an economic bounce-back are jeopardized .
• UCSF docs weigh in on the risks of the Delta variant to vaccinated people : not entirely known, but greatly reduced relative to the risk to unvaccinated people.
• To safely expand vaccination efforts on a global basis, the world will need increased syringe production . We might also want to expedite vaccine trials .
• Incredibly sad: we all knew the situation in India was bad, but it might be worse than we previously expected, with a death toll in the millions .
• JAMA published a study in June suggesting that children wearing masks were exposed to high levels of carbon dioxide. It has now pulled the article, citing a number of scientific problems with its findings . Meanwhile, the NIH is going to dive into researching the topic of long covid and kids , as other researchers dig into the connection between covid and MIS-C in children .
• Covid had the effect of lowering the average U.S. life expectancy by 1.5 years in 2020 relative to 2019.
• The covid economic recession of 2020 was the shortest recession in the U.S. in modern history . And covid didn't kill cities , as we've learned.
• Some countries are planning to find a way to live with covid .
• Great news for Africa: Pfizer and BioNTech have agreed to enable South Africa-based Biovac Institute manufacture their mRNA vaccine .
• There are conflicting studies on the efficacy of the J&J shot against the Delta variant .
• China really doesn't want further investigations into the Wuhan lab leak theory , for some reason.
• Finally: vaccinated Americans can visit Canada .

Climate Change is a challenge we must meet:

• The recent Pacific Northwest heat wave, the epic flooding in Europe, and the recent record temperatures in the British Isles were all 'black swan' events outside the parameters of what was understood to be occurring at this point with climate change . They highlight a concerning problem: the models for climate change may be too conservative and in need of adjustment. And they highlight something else: climate change is not something that the wealthy parts of the world can escape .
• Likewise, China recently faced enormous floods that resulted in the evacuation of 1.2 million people .
• Awesome: as part of the EU's plan to combat global warming, the continent plans to plant 3 billion more trees .
• The fires in Oregon and California are again expanding rapidly --outpacing firefighting efforts--and generating their own weather (pyrocumulus clouds can generate lightning, resulting in faster fire growth). And we're well ahead of where we were last year , which was a historically bad year for fires. Despite the obvious, many people in the more conservative areas affected by these fires don't make a connection between these megafires and climate change .
• The wildfires in the West are, again, a national problem as smoke blankets the Northeast . Speaking of the East Coast, it's wild that summers in DC and Philly are now as hot as Atlanta was not all that long ago .
• Due to the drought, there may have been a near-total loss of young salmon in the Sacramento River . (Related: the Land Desk has a good essay on water use in the West .)
• As the world recovers economically from the pandemic, we are in danger of dramatically increasing carbon outputs .
• Good: the Fed is likely going to require banks to stress test for climate change risk .
• Want to help with climate change (and also stay ahead of inflation)? Go veg .
• Global freight shipping creates a lot of pollution. Now there's a proposal to make shippers pay for pollution . Speaking of transport: United is purchasing 100 electric planes for short flights .

California is a fascinating state:

• Bad news: this may be another La Nina year , leading to lower-than-normal precipitation across the state. If so, 2022 runs the risk of being apocalyptic.
• California is moving forward on an ambitious plan (create a massive 'middle mile' network and funding last-mile efforts for underserved communities) to enable broader and faster access to broadband across the state.
• PG&E power lines may have started the Dixie fire . Now the utility is planning to bury 10,000 miles worth of lines to avoid future fires (and liabilities).
• California is (finally) accelerating the number of controlled burns to combat the risk of megafires.
• To improve life in California's cities, we should be planting millions more trees . (But where will we get the water? Maybe from all of the illegal pot grows throughout the state, which are stealing tons of water .)
• If you think you know food, you might be able to work for the Berkeley Bowl .
• Bay Area regulators just tackled refinery emissions , which should help low-income, Bay-front communities breathe easier.
• Conor Friedersdorf, following other writers since the 1850s, declares that California may be 'over' soon . Snark aside, he raises some very good points regarding our sclerotic politics, NIMBYism , and more. Related: those tech workers who swore off the Bay Area? They're coming back, as expected .
• Watch your head: California's coastal cliffs are collapsing .
• Gavin Newsom may survive his recall election but the SF School Board probably wouldn't survive theirs if it moves forward.

Everything Else:

• Iceland recently tried a four-day workweek . Similar to Microsoft Japan's experiment (which saw a 40% increase in productivity from employees), it was a smashing success.
• The failure to hold powerful people accountable for crimes is not only wrong , it is also going to embolden future bad actors. When people say there are two justice systems in America, this is what they mean.
• The world is an increasingly complex, risky place . That's okay (for now) but our current course may lead to lots of challenges (wars and other crises) in the not-too-distant future.
• Gerrymandering is an existential risk for democracy in the U.S.
• Fascinating article on how people often insert unnecessary complexity in problem-solving .
• If you have a great product that is doing really well in the market, do you tinker with it? Coca-Cola tried that in the 80s with "New Coke." That didn't go well at all. They're trying it again by reformulating Coke Zero .
• The battle between Hawaiians and scientists over the Mauna Kea summit continues. It's a tough scenario to resolve : on the one hand, you have a unique location for space observation (in the middle of an ocean and 13,000+ ft in elevation); on the other, you have a fragile ecosystem on the top of a mountain that is sacred to the original inhabitants of the island. I don't know if there is a way to resolve so both sides get what they want.
• Texas law apparently makes it easier for companies to dodge responsibility for bad acts or mistakes.
• Wall Street banks are learning that, at a certain point, throwing more money to your staff will only help so much in combatting burn-out and attrition .
• The Biden administration is warning companies regarding conducting business in Hong Kong , but that doesn't seem to be dissuading large banks from doubling down on the city .
• A federal judge dashed dreams of immigrant children last week in a disappointing ruling . Hopefully Congress will do the right thing and put in place a permanent path forward for Dreamers.
• Very cool: nano-particle urine tests can now diagnose cancer and pinpoint the location in the body .
• Moderna is looking to use its mRNA vaccine technology to combat other diseases .
• Note to self: don't go to Siberia in July . That said, the High Sierra looked almost as bad last weekend...