Note: This is a version of my personal newsletter, which I send out via Ghost, the open-source publishing platform. You can see other issues and sign up here.
A group of Afghan employees from the Kabul bureau of The New York Times adjust after evacuation to the United States: “Marwa Rahim began the day preoccupied with something very different than war. She had bought a new pink-and-white dress for the return of in-person medical school, and it needed to be pressed. Kabul, Afghanistan’s capital, had reliable power only in the middle of the night, so she set her alarm for 2 a.m., ironed her dress and went back to bed. When she awoke at 7 a.m., she saw the text from a friend: The Taliban were advancing, fast. Marwa put on her dress anyway, hoping she might still make it to class.”
Hackers linked to China have been targeting human rights groups for years
A hacking group linked to China has spent the last three years targeting human rights organizations, think tanks, news media, and agencies of multiple foreign governments, according to a revealing new report from the cybersecurity firm Recorded Future. The report, shared exclusively with MIT Technology Review, offers new clues about how the Chinese government gains the ability to hit more espionage targets—and frees up resources within intelligence and military agencies to carry out more advanced hacking.
Wolfgang Petersen, director of “The Neverending Story” dies
Wolfgang Petersen, director of films such as “Das Boot,” “In the Line of Fire,” “Air Force One,” “The Perfect Storm” and “Troy,” has died — he was 81. Petersen’s first film in Hollywood was the 1984 fantasy adventure “The NeverEnding Story,” which he directed and co-scripted. The story centered on a boy in our reality and the kingdom of Fantasia, which exists in a storybook. Roger Ebert wrote: “The only thing standing between Fantasia and Nothingness is the faith of a small boy named Bastian (Barret Oliver). He discovers the kingdom in a magical bookstore, and as he begins to read the adventure between the covers, it becomes so real that the people in the story know about Bastian.”
The Rise of the Worker Productivity Score
In lower-paying jobs, the monitoring is already ubiquitous: not just at Amazon, where the second-by-second measurements became notorious, but also for Kroger cashiers, UPS drivers and millions of others. Eight of the 10 largest private U.S. employers track the productivity metrics of individual workers, many in real time, according to an examination by The New York Times. Now digital productivity monitoring is also spreading among white-collar jobs and roles that require graduate degrees. Many employees, whether working remotely or in person, are subject to trackers, scores, “idle” buttons, or just quiet, constantly accumulating records. Pauses can lead to penalties, from lost pay to lost jobs.
How It Feels To Chase a Tornado Across Three States
Matthew Cappucci describes what storm-chasing is like: “In the moments before entering every supercell thunderstorm, there’s a moment of pause that washes over me. It usually comes as daylight vanishes, a few seconds after I turn on my headlights; just before the first raindrops, and just after the wind has gone still. I silence the radio, tighten my seatbelt, and lower my armrest. Here we go again, I think. There’s no turning back now. Then it hits, in this case like a car wash. The strongest storms often have the sharpest precipitation gradients. There’s no gradual arrival of the heavy rain. You’re either in or out. And I was in it.”
Care Tactics: Hacking an ableist world
Here’s the kind of thing that goes viral when it comes to disabled tech: braille decoder rings, sign-language-translating gloves, “haptic footwear” for blind folks, stair-climbing wheelchairs. In other words, a preponderance of innovations, unveiled to great fanfare, that purport to solve disability-related problems. While the press applauds the tech sector’s forward-thinking and sensitivity to the needs of underserved populations, the concerns of disabled people—voiced again and again and again—are disregarded.
Ancient Incan water jugs sound like animal calls
https://twitter.com/historyjournal4/status/1559244388907290624?t=y2mSldowIuECz7zEtEUyxg&s=19