The Celsius examiner's report: a picture of fraud and incompetence

“For some reason, Pillay stops short of outright stating that “Celsius was a Ponzi scheme”, but the facts speak for themselves.”  #Crypto [Link]

Child care crisis is causing parents to leave their jobs or get fired, study shows

"Of the parents surveyed, 26 percent quit their jobs because of child care problems and 23 percent were fired. The number of parents who were fired or had their pay reduced is three times as high as it was just five years ago. The rate of parents quitting has

Where is abortion legal? Almost half of all Americans aren’t sure, new poll shows

“Half of women are unsure if medication abortion is legal in their state, and a third don’t know if they are allowed to access emergency contraceptive pills, new polling from the Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF) found.”  #Society [Link]

ShotSpotter Employees Not Only Have The Power To Alter Gunshot Reports, But Do It Nearly 10% Of The Time

“ShotSpotter’s human techs don’t just alter reports to distinguish things like a car’s backfiring from a suspected criminal’s gun firing. They also alter determinations and gunshot locations to better serve the needs of law enforcement agencies that interact with them.”  #Technology [Link]

Media's Money Problem

“Low pay and grueling hours mean barriers to entry that skew journalism toward a certain demographic — white and male. It’s impossible to do your best work shining light on the activities of elected officials when you make $12 an hour and those same elected officials are organizing social media

Reading, watching, playing, using: January 2023

This is my monthly roundup of the books, articles, and streaming media I found interesting. Here's my list for January, 2023. Apps + Websites Permission Slip. “It’s no secret that a huge number of companies are collecting, buying and selling data about us. Find out what information they

Instagram's co-founders are mounting a comeback

“TikTok’s innovation was to show you stuff using only algorithmic predictions, regardless of who your friends are or who you followed. It soon became the most downloaded app in the world. Artifact represents an effort to do the same thing, but for text.” Potentially an interesting app, based on

The generative AI revolution has begun—how did we get here?

“But there was also a surprise. The OpenAI researchers discovered that in making the models bigger, they didn’t just get better at producing text. The models could learn entirely new behaviors simply by being shown new training data. In particular, the researchers discovered that GPT3 could be trained to

Newsrooms that move beyond ‘objectivity’ can build trust

“Newer, nonprofit news organizations often have launched with stated missions. The national digital news site the 19th, for example, aims to “elevate voices of women, people of color, and the LGBTQ+ community.””  #Media [Link]

‘I’m flabbergasted’: UNC leaders blindsided by trustees' decision on School of Civic Life and Leadership

“Mimi Chapman, chairperson of faculty, said she was “flabbergasted” in response to the exclusion of faculty input in the decision, which she said she considers to be an attack on shared University governance.” From the same university that denied tenure to Nikole Hannah-Jones. #Democracy [Link]

Women, minorities lose ground in tech layoffs

“The technology industry has long struggled to recruit a diverse workforce, but the recent spate of cuts by Silicon Valley companies has hit women particularly hard, according to recently published analyses of demographic data from the layoffs. Women and some minorities were particularly vulnerable to layoffs because they were newer

A vast majority of Americans are concerned people could face criminal penalties for abortion

“The data found that 80 percent of Americans are concerned that domestic abuse survivors could be reported by their abuser for getting an abortion. Eighty percent of people are also concerned that law enforcement could investigate people who have miscarriages or stillbirths if they are suspected of getting an abortion.