The New Yorker [read free]: After successive waves of post-pandemic change, worn-out knowledge workers need a fresh start. “It’s been almost four years since the coronavirus pandemic inaugurated a period of sustained upheaval for knowledge workers. The first wave of change came in early 2021, with the Great Resignation—a mass exodus from the workforce that… Continue Reading
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Monthly Archives: December 2023
International Threats to Freedom of Expression: 2023 Year in Review
EFF: “2023 has been an unfortunate reminder that the right to free expression is most fragile for groups on the margins, and that it can quickly become a casualty during global conflicts. Threats to speech arose out of the ongoing war in Palestine. They surfaced in bills and laws around the world that explicitly restrict… Continue Reading
Businessweek Jealousy List 2023
“News flash: We are kind of awesome! In these increasingly weird, anxious, foreboding times, what we make—some of the best journalism around—matters. A lot. And we don’t thank you nearly enough for tuning in to our coverage and for letting us claim your attention. But as awesome as we are, on occasion we’re reminded that… Continue Reading
He Made a Magazine, 95 Issues, While Hiding From the Nazis in an Attic
The New York Times – “The people who hid Curt Bloch, a German Jew, in the crawl space of a Dutch home gave him both food and the materials he needed to make a highly creative magazine now drawing attention. For more than two years, home for Curt Bloch was a tiny crawl space below… Continue Reading
Times Sues OpenAI and Microsoft Over AI Use of Copyrighted Work
The New York Times [read free]: “The New York Times sued OpenAI and Microsoft for copyright infringement on Wednesday, opening a new front in the increasingly intense legal battle over the unauthorized use of published work to train artificial intelligence technologies. The Times is the first major American media organization to sue the companies, the… Continue Reading
OpenJustice.ai: A Global Open-source Legal Language Model
Dahan, Samuel and Bhambhoria, Rohan and Liang, David and Zhu, Xiaodan, OpenJustice.ai: A Global Open-source Legal Language Model (October 2023). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=4624814 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4624814 “Generalized AI like ChatGPT cannot and should not be used for legal tasks. It presents significant risks for both the legal professions as well as litigants. However, domain-specific AI… Continue Reading
Access to abortion pills has grown since Dobbs
Vox: “Eighteen months after the Dobbs v. Jackson decision that overturned the constitutional right to abortion, and with a new Supreme Court challenge pending against the abortion medication mifepristone, confusion abounds about access to reproductive health care in America. Since the June 2022 decision, abortion rates in states with restrictions have plummeted, and researchers estimated… Continue Reading
U.S. SARS-CoV-2 Wastewater Levels, COVID-19 Case Estimates
Pandemic Epidemic Collaborative 4-Week Forecast – General Commentary – “We are in the 8th U.S. COVID wave and 2nd biggest all-time, barring any atypical downward corrections of wastewater levels. We have surpassed the best estimates of the initial COVID wave, the first winter, the Delta wave, and the most recent late-summer wave. Any claims that… Continue Reading
America Lost Its One Perfect Tree
The Atlantic: Lumber, shelter, delicious nuts—there was nothing the American chestnut couldn’t provide. [read free] “Across the Northeast, forests are haunted by the ghosts of American giants. A little more than a century ago, these woods brimmed with American chestnuts—stately Goliaths that could grow as high as 130 feet tall and more than 10 feet… Continue Reading
Explanations of how the world works
Morgan Housel: A list of ideas, in no particular order and from different fields, that help explain how the world works: “…Fact-Check Scarcity Principle: This article is called 100 Little Ideas but there are fewer than 100 ideas. 99% of readers won’t notice because they’re not checking, and most of those who notice won’t say… Continue Reading
How to investigate companies – UK
Online Journalism Blog – recommendations from Graham Barrow: “Start with Companies House – Companies House is where all the businesses based in the UK need to be registered. It is fully transparent, open, and free. Check the basics of a company: who are the directors? Does the company have real activity? A website? If a company… Continue Reading
Tips for Your “24 for 2024” List
Gretchen Rubin: “Every very year, on the Happier with Gretchen Rubin podcast, my sister Elizabeth and I do the Happier Trifecta to set ourselves up for the new year. Many people don’t like making New Year’s resolutions, and the exercises of the Trifecta offer a fun (and still effective) alternative. The Trifecta for 2024: One-word… Continue Reading
