I'm Fine I'm Fine Just Understand, by ND Stevenson

Just beautiful. What a wonderful use of the newsletter form. [Link]

First Malaria Vaccine Approved by W.H.O.

"Malaria kills about half a million people each year, nearly all of them in sub-Saharan Africa — including 260,000 children under 5. The new vaccine, made by GlaxoSmithKline, rouses a child’s immune system to thwart Plasmodium falciparum, the deadliest of five malaria pathogens and the most prevalent in

Some flash fiction

I've been experimenting with publishing flash fiction on Medium. Some recent pieces: Mining on the crop-fields: The rig embedded in my spine made a tell-tale beep: another coin earned. Three more and I could knock off for eight hours or so; another and I’d be saving towards

New Report Shows Black Media's Critical Role in Covering Issues Affecting Black Communities

"The report, “Why Black Media Matters Now,” analyzed the coverage of nearly 100 Black-owned news outlets over 15 momentous months between March 2020 and May 2021. In general, it found that Black media publishes as much as six times more coverage than mainstream outlets on issues of importance to

The New Anti-Remote Propaganda Wants To Gaslight You Back To The Office

“This is the next front of this fight - the executive sect has realized that simply telling people that remote work is terrible using the flimsiest arguments possible won’t work. Thus they’ve moved on to scaring the workers themselves. Remote workers are “short-changed,” and too much remote work

Banks and fintechs agree: It’s time for screen scraping to go. So what’s next?

“Banks have complained that startups were essentially hacking into their systems to grab their customers' data through screen scraping, while fintechs accused banks of selfishly restricting access to information that legally belongs to account holders.” The tech underlying the US financial system is absurd, and if it doesn’t

The Taliban are using private messaging apps to threaten Afghan journalists

“Journalists who spoke to Rest of World also said the Taliban often use apps like WhatsApp and Telegram because they know journalists typically turn off DMs on Twitter and change Facebook Messenger settings to avoid this type of harassment.” [Link]

The New Deal devalued home care workers. Advocates hope new legislation can undo that.

“The low pay and lack of benefits is a legacy of racism baked into President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal, which left farm and domestic workers — many of them women, many people of color — out of the job and financial protections it offered. As Congress debates President Joe Biden’

Being a tech whistleblower is dangerous and expensive. Now there’s a guide to the risks.

“Pinterest whistleblower Ifeoma Ozoma, alongside whistleblower support agencies including Lioness, the Signals Network, Elite Strategy Global and the Whistleblowing International Network, launched a website intended to serve as a guide to helping workers across the tech industry decide if they want to speak publicly about an issue or story, and,

Cryptocurrency's Carbon Footprint Underestimated

"This could mean that in the worst case the top 5 cryptocurrencies had a carbon footprint of between 1100 and 2770 MtCO2/yr, or between Japan (~1074) and the EU (~2637)." [Link]

Thoughts and actions for the week of October 4, 2021

Thoughts 1. As I write this, Facebook is down. I’m not certain how much this will cost their business in lost ad revenue, although I’m sure someone will do the calculation. I’m sure there will be some kind of a post mortem. But it’s worth asking

Pandora Papers: An offshore data tsunami

"The Pandora Papers investigation is the world’s largest-ever journalistic collaboration, involving more than 600 journalists from 150 media outlets in 117 countries. The investigation is based on a leak of confidential records of 14 offshore service providers that give professional services to wealthy individuals and corporations seeking to