Thursday Thoughts, June 3, 2021

The Department of Tech:

• Microsoft's Satya Nadella makes a good argument for developers in suggesting that app store fees should be cut .
• Russia is continuing to crack down on Western technology firms .
• The Biden Administration, borrowing an old page from Google, is looking to dramatically expand broadband access in the U.S. (About time.)
• As expected, Florida is being sued left and right over its ill-designed law to restrict tech platforms .
• Unfortunately, most business leaders aren't all that interested in AI fairness or ethics . I suspect/hope that will change.
• The Biden Administration is looking to significantly step up its regulation of tech. But it hasn't yet filled the critical regulatory vacancies for those positions that would manage the regulation/enforcement.
• As some viewpoints that were formerly considered conspiracy theories acquire some potential factual support (e.g., the covid lab-origin theory, theories about UFOs), the teams combatting misinformation on social media platforms have had to be nimble and expeditious in responding . Meanwhile, the European Commission issued guidance on how the EU's Code of Practice on Disinformation should be improved .
• Speaking of regulation: the U.S. government is planning to start rolling out more serious regulation and oversight of cryptocurrencies soon.
• Another day ending in "y": Facebook is again facing potential legal troubles, this time regarding alleged violations of competition law with respect to their marketplace product .
• Benedict Evans has a great thought piece on the relationship between e-commerce and logistics .
• Very cool: Confluent--which originated at LinkedIn--has filed its S-1 for its IPO .
• In the near future, AI will help firefighters make life-saving decisions .
• Astonishing: even as Brussels plans to regulate AI, a recent poll shows a majority of Europeans would support replacing lawmakers with AI (respondents in China overwhelmingly supported the idea, whereas U.S. respondents were strongly opposed).
• Motherboard has a good read on the insanity surrounding the Citizen app team's efforts to cash in on vigilantism re: a suspected arsonist.
• Whoa: Stack Overflow is selling for $1.8 billion to Prosus (the investment arm of Naspers).
• Good news: QAnon catchphrases are 'evaporating ' from the public internet.
• Very cool: United is committing to buy 15 Boom supersonic airliners . Assuming things go well, they'll be in operation in 2029.

Privacy Matters:

• The Supreme Court has decided that the term "authorized access" in the CFAA doesn't mean what (I suspect) most people think it means, overturning the conviction of a Georgia police officer who misused police data systems available to him for personal purposes .
• JBS (the largest meat supplier in the world) was hit by a nasty ransomware attack last weekend. Ransomware is big business now , with state sponsors and steady streams of revenue coming in. If the attacks can't be defended against (since threat vectors constantly emerge and employee errors can open the door to exploits - hello phishing!), the right answer may be to address the revenue side of the equation. Crypto currencies currently enable a safe way for ransomers to receive payment and, as noted above, it may be time for governments to address crypto regulation more seriously. Otherwise, we'll see more and more challenges in negotiating with ransomware hackers .
• It's generally a really bad idea to upload sensitive materials on free apps like, say, nuclear weapon management materials on flashcard apps .
• Don't like robocallers? Lawmakers don't, either, and some are proposing criminal penalties as a means of curbing the annoyance .
• Google apparently made it difficult for Android users to find and use privacy settings , particularly regarding location privacy settings. Speaking of settings, Venmo is improving user privacy and settings after Joe Biden's Venmo account was discovered .
• Quartz has a new deep dive into the changing world of cookies (abridged from their deeper dive last month ).
• The hackers who hit SolarWinds are back at the attack , leveraging the damage they inflicted through their earlier exploits.
• Public transit (e.g., the NYC Subway and the Martha's Vineyard ferry system) has been under attack recently .
• Cryptographers will need to be on their toes: quantum computers could break 2048 bit RSA encryption in just 8 hours .
• Activists in the EU complained to regulators in five different EU member states last week regarding Clearview AI's practices .
• WhatsApp and India are fighting over the company's recent efforts to update its privacy policy. Thankfully, the company no longer plans to limit app functionality for users who do not accept the new privacy policy.
• TrustArc issued a report on how companies are handling privacy governance . Lots of interesting data points.
• Perhaps because of all the major hacks recently, the White House is requesting nearly $10 billion in funding for cybersecurity in this year's budget .

Sports are awesome:

• Kudos to Naomi Osaka for standing up for herself (and other athletes). It can't be easy to withdraw from competition at the world's largest stage but she has now prompted the major tournaments to promise reforms .
• 3:34:36 . Hobbs Kessler set a new 1500m high school record, clearing the Olympic standard and beating the current 1500m collegiate record at the Portland Track Festival. One of the best runs by a high schooler, ever. Also last weekend: Texas A&M phenom Athing Mu broke the women's collegiate record in the 400m .
• Also impressive: Malcolm Gladwell (you know, the author of The Tipping Point, Blink, Outliers, etc.) ran a 5:15 mile at age 57 .
• Damian Hall just took out a 30 year record for the Wainwright Coast to Coast run across England .
• Timothy Olson is trying to set an FKT for the PCT : 2,650+ miles in under 52 days.
• Ultramarathons are more popular than ever (even if the runners are slower). But as events get more popular, where do they go next ? How do they become more relatively extreme (since ultras are the new marathon) while remaining somewhat safe? On a somewhat related note, Trail Runner has a good deep dive into the recent tragedy in China as does Outside Online .
• Runners World has a good piece on why running in super shoes on the daily may not be the best approach for most runners.
• Scientists and doctors are arguing in the NEJM that canceling the Olympics is the safest approach for athletes, fans, and the Japanese public . Perhaps this is another way of illustrating the well known fact that hosting the Olympics is often a losing proposition for host cities . Meanwhile, athletes are beginning to arrive for the Games .
• A few years out from Major League Baseball's 150th anniversary, the league's 2 millionth run scored last weekend .
• Whoa: Coach K will be retiring from Duke after the next season.
• Wow. I can't believe the NFL was 'race-norming' on claims for brain injuries . Ridiculous that they were doing that; hopefully they will remedy the past wrongs.
• There have been a couple of deadly accidents already on Denali this year, after years without climber deaths. The NPS rangers have issued a statement explaining what's happening and why summit fever for the tallest peak in North America can be a recipe for disaster .
• And, finally, as some of us saw over the Memorial Day Weekend, the National Park System is going to be crowded this summer .

Covid is a battle we can win:

• Very, very good news: immunity to covid will likely last for years . Also: more and more people in the U.S. will be getting shots, putting 70+% vaccination rates within reach . And the U.S. is nearing the point where it'll start shipping tens of millions of doses to other countries (hopefully the pace will pick up).
• The covid vaccine giveaways keep expanding: California will have a big-prize lottery . Anheuser-Busch may buy all 21+ year old Americans a beer . And West Virginia, well, they may give you a hunting rifle .
• The EEOC explains that employers can mandate covid vaccines for workers and can offer incentives for workers to get shots .
• As we're seeing in India and elsewhere in Asia, we need to speed up vaccination efforts to reduce the risk of future surges . That's why the failures (so far) of Covax are so disappointing.
• Israel has noted that there may be a link between the Pfizer shot and myocarditis in young men .
• When the pandemic eventually ends, how will we memorialize the losses of lives and dreams ?
• As the pandemic moves towards a conclusion, we may also want to keep digging into the origins of Covid-19: more and more evidence seems to be flipping the narrative and suggesting that the virus originated in a lab . Understanding where Covid-19 came from may be critical in preventing future pandemics .
• Schools lost lots of learning opportunities this past year. Some are arguing that the smart thing to do (to catch up on learning) would be to extend the school year by a month .
• Latest sign that things are getting closer to normal? Costco is bringing back free samples . Also: the EU is loosening travel requirements for those with a vaccine passport .

Climate Change is a challenge we must meet:

• Environmentalists have won some major battles --from the court rooms to the board rooms--against major polluters in the past weeks.
• Great news! The Biden administration is suspending the ANWR exploration leases . Now, if only they could work to preserve the forests in the Pacific Northwest ...
• Unfortunately, climate change didn't slow down during the pandemic. If anything, it sped up .
• The U.S. Southwest is in the middle of a population boom as it's hitting a major drought (the second worst in ~1200 years) and running out of water . Here's a scary visualization of the state of the drought . And as the West dries up, hydropower may go with it , putting the region in graver danger.

California is a fascinating state:

• It's like Schitt's Creek, only in the Mojave: the town of Nipton, CA is for sale .
• Devastating: the SQF/Castle Creek fires in the Souther Sierra obliterated an estimated 7,500-10,000 mature sequoias , representing a 10-14% loss of the species' population. The NPS and Forest Service need to speed up and expand controlled burn programs to improve the health of the forests (SEKI currently burns about 1,000 acres per year in controlled burns).
• Meanwhile, in the northern part of the state, the Klamath River water crisis may result in the loss of a generation of salmon , leading the Karuk tribe to declare a climate emergency.
• The California coast is now opening up to wind farms , which could power millions of homes in the Golden State.
• Speaking of the coast, the New Yorker has a good write-up on the Bolinas poetry scene from the 1960s-70s .
• There have been some significant efforts to plant milkweed along the coast to help California's rapidly dwindling monarch butterfly population.
• SF is planning to spend an additional $1 billion to address homelessness over the next two years . The City already spends ~$300 million per year on the issue (more than $30,000 per homeless individual). One has to hope that this money will be better spent.
• There's an interesting argument in the Atlantic that LA is a city state .

Everything Else:

• The Tulsa Race Massacre occurred one hundred years ago this week. In a sign of how close we are to those events, the three remaining survivors of the Massacre were honored last Friday in Tulsa .
• Nicholas Bloom, in an interview with Bloomberg, explains how changes to a hybrid work model (i.e., part remote, part in-office) may affect work, housing, and our relationships with city centers . One interesting tidbit Bloom hints at (and I've been thinking about for a while) is that some workers (generally, younger, single, and male) will want to be in the office full time and they may benefit disproportionately in terms of pay/promotions down the line .
• Things might get bumpier on the trade front as the U.S. is indicating that the 'era of engagement' with China is over due to the increased assertiveness of the Chinese government. China is now slapping warning labels on some Western-originating goods. Meanwhile, the U.S. government is allocating millions to help Hong Kong circumvent China's 'great firewall.'
• Get ready for "shrinkflation " as companies conceal higher prices with smaller packaging.
• In a win for Native American tribal sovereignty, the Supreme Court has ruled that tribal authorities have police powers over non-tribal members on tribal land .
• People may be swearing more as a result of the pandemic, and that's okay .
• I don't know how I hadn't heard of this before, but there is a show called "Lego Masters" that showcases Lego expert builders . Seven year old me would have made appearing on the show my life's mission.
• The recent volcanic eruption in Congo could have been much, much worse .
• Azeem Azhar has another great collection of charts to help contextualize what's happening in the world , from income inequality to media landscape changes to AI.
• Most financial advisors generate lots of noise and inconsistency .
• Ezra Klein has a long podcast/interview with Barack Obama . It's well-worth a read or listen.
• There is a very good long read in the Atlantic about how we manage our time , and how to waste less of it.