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Great write up on the Zoom explosion! Yuan sounds like quite a character. I like how candid he was in the interview. I can't imagine the pressure that he and his employees are under.

Really well put together. I found it easy to lose myself and be immersed in the stories being told. Well worth the read!

Interesting analysis but it seems to take it as a given that art not only has to be political, but must advance a specific flavor of politics.

This is great! I love the idea of using both thumbs to count up to 144 on your fingers. The suggested glyphs and terminology seemed less than ideal though. I think hexadecimal got it right by using A-F along with a prefix.

An incredibly sad story, powerfully told. This raises so many interesting and difficult questions about psychology, culture and criminal justice.

I still maintain that the term "surveillance capitalism" simply doesn't make any sense. Capitalism is an economic system and there have always been markets for information about consumer behavior. Comparing Google and Facebook using user data to sell ads to the slaughter of indigenous populations is downright shameful and highlights the fear mongering opportunism of the author.

Maudlin? Me? Compared to these people, I guess so! I loved this. Brilliant!

Awesome news! This needs to be the next Readup feature!

The Waffle House Index is real.

This is awesome! I had no idea that Native Americans practiced controlled burns as a means of forest management. It's good to read that the Karuks and Yuroks are being allowed to manage their land according to their traditional methods once again.

Shout out to all fellow weirdos out there! Her dad being excited about the free toilet paper is the greatest thing ever.

Agonizing, indeed. This is a very heavy, disturbing read but I think it provides an important window into the unimaginable torment that some people carry with them.

The split between the US and the UK/Europe is interesting. Youth disengagement as a possible explanation unfortunately rings true.

Only surprise here is that it took investors so long to clue in. Also that the founder still thinks teleop makes any sense. There's never been a doubt in my mind that L3 is the threshold for human equivalence. And even at that point I've never seen any real explanation on how liability will work when we have autonomous cars killing humans. I don't care how much better they could ever theoretically get, it would still be a large non-zero number and the psychological effects are different.

Interesting history and a important warning to not take for granted the status quo of the open internet that many of us enjoy today.

This really puts into perspective just how incomplete a picture we have of this whole situation. Really important to keep in mind when new statistics are getting thrown around every day and the negative impacts of the mitigation efforts seem to be growing and expanding as fast as the disease itself.

Very interesting and insightful interview!

A seriously awesome read about flu pandemics! Such a well-written piece. The extensive history, detailed scientific facts and stories of different researchers were all tied together so perfectly. Total 10.

This is how Readup is built! Whether or not it's a good idea to put logic, especially "business" logic, in the database is a controversial subject among programmers. After almost a decade of experience writing (and importantly: supporting) web applications using ORMs that abstract away database access I've come around to instead fully embracing SQL (PostgreSQL specifically). The talk given by Rich Hickey is life changing.

Very interesting piece. I'm not sure I totally understand or agree with all of the authors' perspectives but it's well worth the read to see how some people inside the industry are thinking about these things at a high level.

I'm a bit confused by the assertion that AI automation becoming a replacement for humans is "a mirage" and the seemingly contradictory closing statement that an "AI-driven, automation-based dystopia" is inevitable if liberal democracies do nothing.

If their point is that we must see through the bullshit surrounding the technology in order to not be hoodwinked into delegating power and decision making to AI systems then I am in full agreement. I think it's important for people to realize that AI has nothing to do with actual human intelligence and that any AI system is reliant on human programming and data and that it inherits our own biases as a result.

It's crazy to think about what Paper and Instant Articles could have become. I think their fate is an indication of how antithetical advertising is to everything but rampant distraction.

This makes me very happy.

What a strange story!

I wonder if Russia ever dreamed their online/social media disruption operation could be so successful. It's gotten to the point where anything related to Russia is so politicized that people will write pro-Kremlin content for no reason other than to appeal to their political audience. Then if you act suspicious and suggest that there might be some sort of collusion with the Russian government and there isn't you look like a conspiracy nut yourself and only prove their point. It's amazing.

All of Zero Hedge’s posts are written under the nom de plume of “Tyler Durden,” the anti-establishment character played by Brad Pitt in the film Fight Club.

This is too funny. It's mind boggling how anyone could take this site seriously.

Cash App got exceedingly lucky that Twitter users created the perfect marketing opportunity for them.

Payment apps make me feel old. I've had a PayPal account for 15 years and never understood why anyone would use Venmo, Cash App or any of the others over it.

I remember being forced to install Venmo to accept a payment from a friend and seeing the public stream of everyone's payments to one another. Why on earth would anyone want that information public? I get angry just thinking about it. I've never uninstalled an app so fast.

I had no idea insurance companies would negotiate with hackers to lower a ransom and then pay it. Almost half a million sounds like such a huge amount for a town with about 12,000 people.

I'm so curious about the backup systems these towns had in place and what the actual process was like when dealing with the hackers. I was an IT contractor for two even smaller towns (about 3,000 people each) for over 10 years. I dealt with plenty of hardware failures that required restoring files from backup but luckily I never had to deal with a ransomware attack.

This is an awesome episode, and a great intro to Reply All if you've never listened before! Definitely one of my favorite podcasts.

I was convinced that I remembered the song after hearing some of the lyrics in the first few minutes but then was totally second guessing myself. Here's a direct link to listen on their website or you can search for "The Case of the Missing Hit" in any podcast app: https://gimletmedia.com/shows/reply-all/o2h8bx/158-the-case-of-the-missing-hit

This article does the brilliant headline justice. The best critique of social entrepreneurship I've ever read. Worth the read for the "Humanitarians of Tinder" excerpts alone.

Really good stuff! I'm all for charging people for the amount of waste they produce. It just makes sense. Imagine how much more energy would be wasted if we were charged a flat rate for electricity.

“But also I say the government shouldn’t act directly. There needs to be an intermediary between the government and the people. Groups like us. That can explain back and forth. People don’t want to hear it straight from the government.”

This is really smart. I feel like this approach could help to depoliticize any policy proposals and make it more likely to be accepted by the public.

Beautiful message of peace and harmony.

Really excellent read on the housing crisis in Aspen and across the country! Very well written and thought provoking.

It seems so counter-intuitive that opportunity is becoming increasingly more concentrated in certain urban centers when white-collar jobs can theoretically be performed remotely from anywhere.

While the current technology isn't quite there (I can't stand trying to work over video calls and screen sharing) it seems like we should be close to being able to solve this. Could be the killer feature for virtual or augmented reality if the fidelity and ergonomics can be improved enough.

It's awesome that places with alternative ways of living like Green Bank exist. Even if electromagnetic hypersensitivity is a completely psychological condition (which it certainly seems to be) it's still nice that people have the option to move somewhere different and find a unique lifestyle that works for them and their family.

There are many really great subreddits with lots of valuable information but in my experience they can tend towards annoying levels of groupthink as they grow.

Of course, when that happens another subreddit can always spring up as an alternative to or parody of the original. Case in point: /r/Frugal_Jerk/ whose community description reads:

We are the proud few who stand on the cutting edge of frugality. We hold our heads high while we steal toilet paper, shoplift lentils, reuse condoms and syringes, and drink our own piss to save multiple dollars each year.

Also, how can you write an article about finance subreddits without mentioning /r/wallstreetbets?!

So much great advice here! I love the ideas of consciously guiding your own feedback reward loops and designing your own dopamine diet. Couldn't help but notice that reading wasn't included in the list of consumption experiences. It certainly belongs in a different category. I feel like this guy would love Readup.

The answer to the title question is yes, as pointed out in the article. I think whether that's really a solution though is a bit more complicated. Is someone who believes in conspiracy theories really going to be dissuaded by an actual conspiracy by YouTube to suppress their favorite channels? If anything it seems like it might just reinforce the problem.

I like the idea of recommending content with alternate points of view or providing authoritative sources on some topics, but that's much more challenging to get right compared to recommending videos that are similar to the ones you just watched.

I forget where I found this but it's fascinating stuff! I had always heard about Roman aqueducts but never knew they had standardized pipes and valves as well, let alone last-mile distribution right into certain public buildings and fancy homes. I also love the fact that there is a Valve Magazine that just has articles about valves.

Wow, this is really excellent! Totally enthralling.

I can't wait to finally be able to support all the other browsers. And Android soon after!

Captivating! I really want to try this fruit and I'm glad the author was able to make some progress on her wonderment paralysis. A fantastic name for a very real problem.

What a crazy experience. I was surprised to read elsewhere that the Spanish Flu which killed tens of millions of people in 1918 had a case fatality rate of only 2-3%. Even if the vast majority of individual cases are mild like this one the potential global impact could still be huge.

Incredibly important read! This article does an amazing job of demonstrating the importance of family structure and also pointing out the pitfalls of both contemporary conservative and liberal positions on the subject. With increasing amounts of focus on the loneliness epidemic and diseases of despair this article delves deep into many of the causes but also ends on a high note with some emerging remedies.