Thursday Thoughts, October 21, 2021

Just a heads up that next week's newsletter may be delayed or abbreviated.

Department of Technology:

• AI governance is going to be a big deal soon. Various legal/regulatory proposals are considering mandating it, and companies are starting to plan. And now, start-ups are coming up with plans to offer AI ethics/compliance as a service . And, if that fails, there's always the possibility of an AI audit ... In any event, most of the most pressing challenges relating to AI are ethical or human-centered problems , so there is ample space for this sector to take off.
• Congress is again considering a set of revisions to CDA Section 230 . It'd be really, really helpful if legislators spent time working with technologists who could explain the issues in more concrete terms and help craft better legislation that accomplishes intended goals.
• Everyone is talking about Facebook , so I might as well. First, it's crazy that they've kept huge secrets from their Oversight Board (what's the point of the Board if they aren't informed?). Second, it's wild that litigants are targeting Zuck personally in lawsuits (but perhaps that's the only way to force change)? Third, changing their name won't fool anyone . Ask Google. Finally, I'm going to have to agree with Jack Dorsey's view of a Facebook-driven "metaverse" (but at least it'll drive job growth !).
• In any event, Facebook Blue and Instagram are both losing ground with teens .
• Not seeing the deal rationale here: PayPal is reportedly in talks to buy Pinterest .
• An update on earlier stories regarding Amazon's self-favoritism on its own platform: additional research shows that being an Amazon brand is far more important for promotion on-platform than more useful things like review scores.
• Axios is highlighting the obvious: Big Tech has a leak problem (but, given the nature of some of the recent leaks, it's a net benefit to society that some of the information is now public).
• Science and technology are global. English, at least as of now, is not. And that leads to problems when helpful articles are published in less global languages and are missed by other researchers as a result.
• TSMC is going to be diversifying their geographic footprint with a large plant in Japan (hopefully this helps with general chip shortage we've been facing over the past year or so).
• Ian Bremmer has a great article in Foreign Affairs that conceptualizes large tech companies as quasi-nation states, and also looks at the foundational ideologies of those 'states.'
• The Internet economy is quickly becoming a larger and larger part of the overall U.S. economy, with a rapidly growing slice of the country's workers and GDP .
• If you have serious love or hate for Slack, Several People are Typing might be the book for you.
• Logistics matter: Amazon is now shipping more than FedEx .
• VC funding is up significantly in Europe this year.
• I'm really looking forward to seeing the TOS and content policies for Trump's planned social media play . <grabs popcorn>
• I guess "Lazarus companies " sounds better than "zombies"...
• Cool: how Spotify makes personalized playlists . And AI finished Beethoven's last symphony . But technology and corporate preferences killed pop music .
• Stripe is diving back into crypto .
• A good point: AI doesn't always require big data -- sometimes "small data" works well .
• The new Google Pixel 6 is packing a lot of power in a lower price tag, but its launch was marred by Google Play store issues .
• Despite Bitcoin being a technology of dubious utility (and certain ecological cost), it has seen very rapid adoption ! The next question is: hold or sell ?
• Not cool: Russia is receiving help from Apple and Google in developing their own version of a walled-garden internet .

Privacy and Security matter:

• Apple's pro-privacy moves have led to Apple's rapid growth in digital advertising . I guess if you set the rules for a widely-used platform/ecosystem, you can set them up in your favor (and claim it's really about the users) too. This seems to set up a set of obvious competition law complaints (maybe Snap will be interested in pursuing that ).
• Watch out for that sneaky GDPR: you can have a GDPR breach even if you are not 'processing' personal data , per a recent Belgian court ruling.
• New Zealand's privacy regulator issued a position paper on the topic of biometrics .
• ICYMI: Here is the IAPP-EY annual report on privacy governance . Lots to digest there.
• State-sponsored hacking rings have been exceedingly active in 2021 , resulting in Google's Threat Analysis Group sending out 33% more warnings of state-sponsored attacks this year versus this point in 2020.

Athletics are awesome:

• Baseball is a great game, but bad ump calls have made some of the biggest waves in this postseason. And that's bad for the game. A blown checked-swing call ended the SF Giants' season, and a blown strike call led to a Boston loss on Tuesday.
• Here's a super inspiring story about Jason Hardrath, the first person known to have accumulated 100 FKTs in the mountains.
• Think a marathon is long? Think a 100 miler is long? Try 354.2 miles, the distance Harvey Lewis ran at this year's Big Dog's Backyard Ultra .
• Participating in the "Balloon World Cup " looks like fun. I'm still waiting for a real Calvinball league, though.
• Hats off to Enes Kanter, who has made himself a thorn in the side of authoritarians around the world .
• MLB is aiming to do the right thing and ensure housing for minor league players , many of whom are earning poverty-level wages while dreaming of a shot in the big leagues.
• Here's a good overview of the science of marathon performance .
• Real sports are better than e-sports for developing visual acuity .
• RIP Tom Morey, the inventor of the boogie board .

Covid is a battle we can win:

• America has for a long time had problems on the public health front. Covid is only making matters worse (and quickly).
• Coming soon (as many of us expected): mixing-and-matching of vaccine booster shots .
• Brazilian lawmakers are issuing a report accusing Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro of crimes against humanity for his failure to mitigate covid risks within Brazil. It'll be fascinating to see how this plays out. Related: Marketwatch is suggesting that covid denialism in the U.S. is going to cost us in the long run .
• We now know that vaccine mandates have been working. What didn't work? Vaccine lotteries .
• There's a new covid variant to watch for: AY.4.2 . :(
• An interesting read from Time magazine on how the covid era has led to advances in psychedelic medicine .

Climate Change is a challenge we must meet:

• There are significant shortages coming up in the fossil fuel place, and we haven't built out enough renewables or storage facilities to combat the shortages. The Economist points out that this might lead to a backlash against a clean energy-first approach , even when (1) that's not causing the entirety of the problem and (2) that's what's necessary to combat climate change. That said, wind power and hydro are both facing challenges right now.
• We keep talking about climate change in the future tense. It's here, and hurting us in ways that many don't even realize. Likewise, ground-level ozone from fossil fuel emissions is currently creating a significant threat to biodiversity at the ground level .
• We're going to need more EVs to combat climate change, but first we're going to need a lot more batteries .
• Bad news: we're definitely not where we need to be in terms of cutting fossil fuel emissions (i.e., we're exceeding the limits of the Paris Agreement ). And we should continue to press forward with carbon removal systems, but there are lots of challenges with that approach .
• A good idea, but sanitation will be a challenge: bringing reusable containers to pick up takeout .
• Wild: decarbonizing make-up could reduce the environmental impact of jet fuel .
• Smart: the Biden White House is going to consider the 'systemic' financial risks associated with climate change events .
• Meanwhile, in Congress, a single U.S. senator , indebted to the dinosaur coal industry and representing a small fraction of the population, is derailing the hopes for meaningful legislative action on climate in the U.S. It's horrible and will be a stain on his legacy .
• Part of the reason we need to combat climate change: to preserve the beautiful species at risk (including these rare California butterflies ).
• It makes sense: since we already name hurricanes and winter storms, why not name heatwaves ? Seville, Spain, a very warm place pre-global warming, will start doing just that.
• Bloomberg has a good read on how Germany, a country with a strong industrial base, is moving towards a greener future . In part, it's because there is a view that the country owes it to the future generations to solve the challenge of climate change.
• In a court case with potentially massive ramifications, a Dutch court ordered Shell to cut emissions faster and more significantly than Shell's own plans required.
• Kudos to Google for developing a green campus in Silicon Valley .
• If you have not yet figured out a reason to take part in the effort to combat climate change, maybe this will help: climate change will potentially lead to a population explosion for rattlesnakes .

California is a fascinating state:

• We're about to get a major atmospheric river hitting California, delivering billions of gallons of much needed water. The SFGate has a great interview with an expert from Scripps on how to think about ARs . This AR has the potential to reach "AR5" status, meaning an exceptionally strong system, and there are some risks of mudslides as a result . It's aided by a "bomb cyclone " off the North Coast. This is despite a La Nina system nearer the Equator (here's more on what that means ).
• And, aided by rain and snow over the past couple of weeks, the Caldor Fire is finally fully contained .
• California's future is drier, largely because it'll be warmer (the same amount of precipitation may occur, but it'll evaporate faster).
• The future of California homes will be (hopefully) much more fire resistant .
• As desert-by-the-sea San Diego is flush with water due to good conservation efforts, desalination, and redirected water from the Colorado, Imperial Valley, and other sources, fairly wet places in the North Bay are encountering salty water . And somehow golf courses in the Palm Springs area are consuming as much as 1 million gallons of water per day (in one of the driest places in the U.S.). Talk about wasteful.
• First, KFOG. Now, Alt 105.3 . Bay Area is suffering from a serious lack of good rock radio.
• Not sure how to feel about this: the GGNRA is considering charging for parking throughout the area's federal public lands.
• Cow manure methane produces more money for dairy farmers than milk in California. Insane. Related: if you want to make an impact on the climate but don't want to give up meat, at least give up beef .
• SF's Catholic Archbishop sure likes to get involved in politics .
• Walgreens is claiming that shoplifting is causing it to pull several stores from the SF Bay Area. There might be more to the story .
• Good for Cal State LA for helping inmates turn their lives around .
• There are lots of new laws on the books in California, as well as many near-laws that will have to wait for another chance .

Everything Else:

• Ideally, you would want politics to be boring, and government leadership to be a space where idealistic, smart, and hard-working people help shape a better tomorrow. But America likes entertainment and, as a society, we're becoming more and more accustomed to celebrities and entertainers as politicians .
• Newspapers aren't just dying due to digital advertising. They're also being gobbled up, having their value extracted, and spun off by hedge funds .
• Now we're seeing "Generation Alpha" following Gen Z and the Millenials. The generation includes births spanning from 2010 (when Instagram and the iPad launched and "app" was the word of the year) to 2025, and it'll be the largest generational cohort in world history (estimated at 2 billion people). As they come of age, the marketers are getting ready . What's fascinating (and sad, personally, because it dates me) is that the Gen Z/Gen Alpha nostalgia economy is focused on nostalgia for the early 2000s ...
• Using new dating techniques, archaeologists have pinpointed when Vikings settled in L'Anse aux Meadows: 1021 AD, i.e., 471 years pre-Columbus .
• Nationalism keeps rearing its head, this time with nationalist parties in Poland pushing back against the EU .
• Look, I like the Grateful Dead. Not a Deadhead, but really like their music. And I love cool t-shirts. But $17,640 for an early Dead shirt ? That's too much.
• A "drone army " is being developed to help rid the world's oceans of plastics. This is a great development.
• The wealthiest 1% in the U.S. hold as much wealth as the entire middle class , a reversion to the pre-Depression era concentrations of capital.
• Finally, a beautiful story about the evolution of life on Earth and why birds can fly over Mt. Everest.