My reading today was Exodus 32. Moses has been on the mountain with God, hearing the instructions for the tabernacle & receiving the stone tablets. The people below, who’d seen the smoke above & heard the thunder &, that very morning, filled their bellies with bread from heaven,

decided Moses & that God above were taking too long. They needed a god below who would get with it. Get with them. Get them where they wanted to go. So they gathered around Aaron & said, “Come, make gods for us!” The same Aaron of Ex 24 who’d been invited by God to see the very

pavement beneath God’s feet. Aaron & his sons & the 70 elders, “saw Him and they ate and drank.” That Aaron. So he tells them in Ex 32, Bring me your gold & let’s see what I can do. He fashions it into the image of a calf & they present it to Israel in wording shudderingly

blasphemous. “Israel, these are your gods, who brought you up from the land of Egypt.” Over and over God has reminded them not to forget who had brought them out. Perhaps this started making Aaron a little nervous. Or maybe it didn’t. Maybe he just bought in. But his next move

is particularly telling. “When he saw this (the masses reacting to the gold idol he’d fashioned for them), he built an altar in front of it and made an announcement: ‘there will be a festival to the Lord tomorrow.’ Early the next morning they arose, offered burnt offerings &

Hello new followers! Can I introduce you to some of @RSF_inter’s other priority cases? They all deserve much more attention and support! Thread.

#DaphneCaruanaGalizia was a courageous Maltese journalist assassinated by a car bomb near her home in October 2017. More than three years on, there’s still been no justice for Daphne or the extensive corruption she had uncovered. Some background here:

We are working to support her family’s campaign for #JusticeforDaphne. Follow @daphnefdtn, her sons @mcaruanagalizia, @acaruanagalizia & @pcaruanagalizia, her sisters @Corinne_Vella & @MandyMallia, and her niece @meg_mallia. @TheShiftNews is also an excellent resource.

For the best overview, listen to #DaphneCaruanaGalizia’s son @pcaruanagalizia’s incredibly moving podcast, My Mother’s Murder.

Christopher Allen was a 26 year-old freelance journalist, and dual US/UK national, who was killed covering the civil conflict in South Sudan in August 2017. More than three years on, there’s still been no investigation and no justice.

@shiftingshifter @aghavalyan Oh) ok @shiftingshifter
The history of Christianity in Azerbaijan dates back to the II century. The first preacher of Christianity is considered the disciple of the holy Apostle Thaddeus - Saint Elisha.

@aghavalyan And already at the beginning of the IV century. Albanian kings adopt Christianity as their state religion. Since the IV century. the church in Albania becomes autocephalous, with its own monastic institution, worship, and dogma.

@aghavalyan The existence of Christian churches and monasteries in Caucasian Albania is contained in early medieval written sources, in particular in the works of the Albanian historians Moses Kalankatui and Kirakos Gandzak.

@aghavalyan Christian churches as such began to be built from the period of official approval of Christianity as a state religion, i.e. from the IV-V centuries. AD During the construction of the temple, certain concepts are followed.

@aghavalyan The composition of the development follows from west to east, from the entrance to the altar.The first room - the porch - means peace.This is followed by the main volume - the nave. The most important part of the temple is the altar with a throne.

Here's 100 confirmed conspiracies from the last 75 years. Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Purpose: To indicate why we have a RIGHT to be skeptical and critical to our governments, corporations and other large institutions.

We're at a crossroads in humanity here. Unifying as human beings is the biggest threat to the people who are exploiting us. They exploit us for our time and money, and are constantly thinking up new ways to give us just enough to not complain. Unfortunately for them, they got

tw weight , dieting , eating disorders
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can we all have a touch grass moment for a second. can we please remember that idols are real people. real people with problems they might not have the access to solutions for. many of them young, early 20’s, brains still unfinished.

yes, there is a level of responsibility when it comes to what you share with your audience, especially if they are young and impressionable, however, idols are not going to be hyperonline like most of us, and are not going to know the ins and outs of what might be acceptable +

+ especially in regards to something as nuanced and varied from place to place as diet culture. no, i don’t think talking about going on a diet as an idol is inherently bad. they are sharing their life with us.

as it stands, their jobs revolve around being open with us, and if it provides some comfort to them to be able to share things like this, then i don’t think it should necessarily be shamed as hard as it was this morning.

i saw a tweet saying to pick up a book on fat politics to see why this whole debacle is just unbridled fatphobia from the artist.

no idol that i know of has ever purported to be apart of any kind of body posi/fat liberation movement.

Why You Should Give Out Your Best Content for FREE to Land More Clients and $$$ (In ONE PDF)

If you’ve taken @PaikCapital “The Agency Course” this is a MUST READ

-THREAD-

What the hell are you talking about?

Yes, you heard me, you will get more clients when giving out your best content for free.

And it’s all in ONE pdf.

Hang with me..

Now, here’s why you should do this

Basically…

You will create an authority feeling around yourself as an agency to your niche when you do this.

You will be the go-to agency in this area.

People will then WANT to work with you

You will be the master among the people who do the same thing as you.

That's why you want to give it all away, reveal all your “super-secrets”.

In one pdf.

Let’s take an example

Let’s say that you’re running an agency that’s helping eCommerce businesses increase sales with Facebook ads.

When prospects (eCommerce owners) come onto your landing page, you want to collect their email addresses because they can become future clients, right?

This interview from @OSchiffey has great quotes that directly refute the nonsense that many privacy advocates spout about how the death of cross-site tracking will help ad-supported publishers on the open web. https://t.co/bj1gWPKOei 1/

The interview is with a senior leader at a major global ad agency. Someone who actually knows what advertisers are talking about, where they are directing their spending, and what the future trends will be. Not a privacy advocate who knows nothing about the advertising market 2/

First, privacy advocates spread misinformation and bad research data that ITP hasn't hurt publisher revenue and/or hasn't affected advertiser spending. And yet here is an unequivocal answer as to the impact of ITP on advertiser spending. 3/

The agency exec also clearly shares the opinion that the end of 3PC will push money away from the open web, exactly what privacy advocates claim won't happen. 4/

She also talks about how context matters, but so does audience. Audience targeting is effectively dead without 3PC and non-Chrome browsers are doing nothing to change this. 5/

"The engineers on my team just want to code. They don't want to have anything to do with product. They just want specs. What do I do?"

1/n Are you asking them do to X *and* do their "day job" as defined by their managers (and frankly your roadmap) ?

If so, start there...

2/n Do they have a reason to believe that doing X will in any way improve the quality of the product and make their lives easier? Have they ever seen X "work" ?

Show don't tell.

3/n Is there average day/week a quagmire of unnecessary meetings, wading through tech debt, struggling to get *anything* to work ... and jumping through process hoops to prove their worth?

If so...no they will not have bandwidth.

4/n How do incentives work on the engineering team? Maybe they want to help, but their "grade" is determined by something altogether different.

"I'd love to, but I am on the hook to deliver [some project] this quarter to make a good impression..."

Talk to eng management.

5/n Have they had any time to practice?

Or did they get thrown into the deep end the first time they were given a shot ... expected to brainstorm on demand, be as vocal as practiced PdMs and designers, and "participate" !

Make it safe to practice. Reasonable expectations.

1/ A lot of people ask me how Bleacher Report found our first writers when we were tiny and had no funding.

So here's a thread on all the things we tried, what worked best, and lessons on growing a community from scratch:

2/ When we first started B/R, all the articles were written by my co-founders, our friends, and me.

This led to some hilariously bad takes. Like this article where I panned the SF Giants for drafting future World Series MVP Madison Bumgarner.

3/ When we were ready to start building our community, we started with word of mouth. We drafted an email pitching our concept. It went out to everyone we knew, asking them to share it with anyone who would be interested.

This got us maybe a few dozen signups.

From the email:

4/ With only a handful of members, we needed to make the community feel more active.

So we faked it til we made it.

Our team created multiple accounts and posted using different fake names. This created the sense of more activity and encouraged new members to join in.

5/ Later, I learned that the founders of Reddit did the same thing early on.

Sometimes the solution to the "chicken and the egg" problem of building community is to create the illusion of more chickens (or

Bruno Fernandes

Player Analysis | A THREAD

An analysis where we look at how Bruno Fernandes, the Portuguese magnifico has revived the confidence of the Red Devils.

(Data accurate till 31st December, 2020)

When Bruno arrived at Old Trafford, @ManUtd was sitting at 5th on the table - six points behind Chelsea and fourteen behind Leicester! The image given below explains why United had to sign the Portuguese and how he turned the table around pretty much single-handedly.

United manager, Ole Gunnar Solskjaer mostly plays in a 4-2-3-1 formation with Bruno Fernandes as the player behind the striker. At times, Solskjaer has employed Fernandes as the highest central midfielder behind the two strikers in a 4-1-2-1-2 setup.

(Source: @SofaScoreINT )

In general, like most other creative midfielders, Bruno Fernandes tries to occupy the gap in between the opposition’s midfield line and defensive line. He often drifts to both sides as well, to support the wide players.

KILLMONGER'S DIARY

Fuck Africa. I'm American. Any African mad at dem words, kick rocks. Don't like it, jump ship. Back 2 Africa. Need receipts. How much yall made off us? U think we didn't know? Mafucka, we the vibranium that made Africa pop. We werent stole. We were sold.

Yall sold us. Then yall hv the audacity 2 come here, pass as American niggas, lecture us about racism & white supremacy, police our emotion, critique our anger & then U have the bravado 2 lecture us about fighting when yall let Europeans come & take yall shit? Fuck out of here.

Immigrants by nature unpatriotic. When times got tough, you left your country. You abdicated the responsibility to make your country better. You didn't fight. You ran. We didn't leave. We stayed. We fighters. Yall runners. Ain't know runner can tell a fighter about a damn thing.

"Erik U dont understand. We wouldve been killed." So the fuck what. We died fo our shit, but yall weren't willing 2 die for yours & now U come here trying 2 cut the line & take our place & Bitch, dont be calling me by my 1st name. We aint cool like that. Thats Mr. Killmonger 2 U.

& we ain' family. I dont play crayola politics so I dont care we got da same skin color. I ain't got no Melanin infatuation like the rest of deese niggas. I's knows what yall done did to us. I gives as much afuck about Africans as George Jefferson gave about Archie Bunker.

American democracy has suffered attacks over the past decade.

It’s time for change.

The #ForThePeopleAct (#HR1) would enact some of the greatest improvements our democracy has seen in decades. What's in the bill? Here are some of the highlights:

#HR1 will protect access to the fundamental right to vote. It would ensure voters can always register on Election Day and are not wrongfully purged from voter rolls. The bill would also expand the right to vote by mail to every eligible voter.

#HR1 will end partisan gerrymandering & ensure #FairMaps for all. H.R.1 requires the establishment of an independent redistricting commission (IRC) in each state, a reform essential to restoring confidence that every vote matters. Learn more about IRCs:

#HR1 will help ensure transparency in our elections and in digital political advertising. Voters have a right to know which wealthy special interests are spending big money to secretly influence our vote and our government. 4/ #StopSecretSpending

Multiple sections of #HR1 will strengthen protections against foreign influence in our elections, by extending the foreign national spending ban to ballot referenda, improving donor disclosure laws & updating digital transparency requirements. 5/ #GovernmentByUS

Thread:

While the entire US crypto industry (exchanges, funds, associations, PsPs, lobbyists, etc) is currently focused on fighting the AML rules proposed by FinCEN, the XRP Community has been left ALONE fighting the securities battle FOR THE BENEFIT of the whole industry.

1/

The entire US crypto industry (excluding the XRP Community) has been miserably failing to acknowledge that, until now, all the SEC has had for purposes of characterising a blockchain-based token as a security under the Securities Act of 1933 ...

2/

... is a 75 year-old judicial precedent (i.e. 1946 Howey Test), and some non-binding internal guidance. That's it. Nothing more. No clear federal regulations and no clear binding precedents.

3/

Should the SEC definitively win the Complaint filed against Ripple, it would gain a contemporary (and *binding*) judicial precedent essentially defending the posture that it is rightful to apply a 75 year-old precedent to 2020's cutting edge technology, ...

4/

... giving the SEC's enforcement division a clear path moving forward within the crypto industry.

With such precedent (which the SEC hasn't been able to obtain so far, as a result of the early settlements reached with other crypto projects), the SEC would be ...

5/

Any thinking that the only way forward is to sweep all of this criminality, treason, & genocide-by-pandemic under the rug - without investigation & punishment - with the application of our laws as equally to the most powerful as we’ve done to the most vulnerable... is madness. /1

2/ It’s the madness of blind belief in the nation’s “exceptionalism”.

The language of “America is the greatest nation...” is always wielded by those who inherit the power to hold a criminal predecessor to account, but fail to do so.

They’re in a self-defeating belief loop...

3/...that actually damages the core of what makes America exceptional in the first place.

It’s cowardice.

We’re not angry children, who are just wailing about vengeance from our own place of grievance.

We are America itself. And we were near mortally wounded.

4/ The election was triage. A rush of action at the scene of massive crash site. The jaws of life were used, tourniquets applied, and the body placed in the ambulance - on its way to 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.

Now, we need a series of surgeries (investigations) to survive, and...

5/... a long rehab just to get ambulatory again.

It will likely take 30 yrs to restore the damage done by these criminal traitors. And I’m not talking about just steering a ship in one party’s direction over another. That’s the kind of false flag whining that conservatives do...

Essential reading for intensivists: things you didn't even dream were going on in your ventilated patients' lungs. With credit to @robertpdickson who does some very clever translational work on lungs

Firstly, we are aware of the inherent badness of oxygen. Here is protein content in alevoli after 48 hours of FiO2 95% (i.e. oedema), delightful.

Secondly, all those VAP's we get cross with (can someone silver impregnante the ET tube or something) that we think is just orally communicating flora/immunosuppression? Mais non. High FiO2 all but destroys weakling bacteria, leaving the redox-armoured king, staph aureus, to rule

Unmitigated staph surges and produces a truckload of PAMPs (pathogen associated molecular patterns). Being redoxically armoured, it is fairly happy to thwart oxidative burst from neutrophils attempting to kill them too.

Indeed the lung flora changes prior to the alveolar protein content - like both a canary in the coalmine moment, and then contributing to pathology.

I've been publicly addressing white mediocrity since my 2011 blog post "The American Way: Mediocrity, When White, Looks Like Merit," but I learned A LOT from @IjeomaOluo's MEDIOCRE. As Brittney Cooper's @nytimes review said, it really is an invitation for society to do better.

Of necessity, that invitation requires unvarnished truths. A few of my favorite lines:

“When I talk about mediocrity, I am not talking about something bland and harmless. [...] I’m talking about a dedication to ignorance and hatred that leaves people dead, for no other reason

than the fact that white men have been conditioned to believe that ignorance and hatred are their birthright and that the effort of enlightenment and connection is an injustice they shouldn’t have to face” (6).

“Perhaps one of the most brutal of white male privileges is the opportunity to live long enough to regret the carnage you have brought upon others” (30).

“Nothing says ‘American’ like a boy making a woman struggle so that he can seem independent” (35).

“Mediocre, highly forgettable white men regularly enter feminist spaces and expect to be centered and rewarded, and they have been. They get to be highly flawed, they get to regularly betray the values of their movement, yet they will be praised