SALUTATIONS you fantastic denizens of the internet! The first #FridayNightHistory of 2021 is here! This week, a new mystery: the true name of "John Williams," Japanese Veteran of the American Civil War.

Yeah, you heard right. And he's not the only one, either.

Now-- I know, I know. Ordinarily you see me talking about the Japanese aftermath of the US Civil War, in the form of people and surplus equipment from the US that ended up there during the Boshin War.

I find myself in pursuit of the opposite, today. @DuPertweet brought a tweet by @KyleMizokami to my attention, with photos of an article talking about Asian-American/Pacific Islander veterans of the US Civil War in general and 2 Japanese vets in particular.

I'm starting from one of those two, and seeing how much I can reconstruct, because there really weren't that many Japanese people outside of Japan in the timespan of the US Civil War (1861-1865), so I think it should be possible to narrow down their precise names and identities.

And this week I want to start from one. What do we know about this person who American records call John Williams?

In response to my posts supporting repeal of Section 230 (https://t.co/ceZZWXyzi6 and https://t.co/af0rjlGTVF) I have a number of people give me horror stories about bad post-repeals hypotheticals (thread)

Let me say that none of these hypoetheticals sound that bad to me (I couldn't care less if Substack goes under -- sorry to all the Substackers out there), but let me give a hypothetical horror story allowed by Section 230

Imagine that some right-winger bought tens of millions of dollars worth of ads on Facebook, with a doctored photo, showing your favorite politician, activist, writer, academic etc, doing the the most disgusting thing imagineable

The target of these ads would of course have the right to sue the person who paid for the ads for defamation.

Suppose that "person" was the XYZ corporation, whose existence is a post office box in Lincoln, Nebraska, registered to John Doe.

I keep seeing posts by people complaining about NDP doing their job as opposition and ‘always being negative’. This is a go-to UCP retort as well. Alberta has never really had an effective opposition in the last 50 years at least. This is what it looks like. 1/11

I worked as a tour guide in the #ableg. It was the summer of the Universiade games and we had a lot of international visitors. We had our memorized tour script, including little quips and bits of trivia (the portrait eyes that follow you, the rain echo from the fountain, 2/11

the palm trees in the dome, the carillon, the kinds of marble, how the gemstones on the mace start with the letters ALBERTA, etc.) One bit was to point out the ‘opposition’ seats. I think there were 4 at that time. People from all over found that astonishing (and strange). 3/11

One of the opposition members at that time was Rachel Notley’s father. He was universally liked and admired. But there is only so much that such a small group of people can do to hold the government to account. 4/11

We now have an opposition who have been government themselves, who know how things work, who know what questions to ask, who know which stones to look under, and who have people that are very smart, very capable, and very much looking out for ALL Albertans. 5/11

2021 NEW YEAR MESSAGE
Happy New Year Dear Compatriots and friends across the world.
This is the beginning of a new journey, a new chapter, a fresh opportunity to start and recover from the losses of 2020.

Last year was a challenging year, characterized by tales of misfortunes, deaths and illnesses. It was a tough moment for many homes and families owing to the unfortunate #COVID19 .

The pandemic plagued our world with many consequences, causing hardship and other forms of insecurity.

2020 was a year of many challenges and struggles both as individuals and as a nation. From #COVID19 to #EndSarsProtests, we witnessed disruptions in our cultures, economy, livelihoods and life itself.

These unfortunate events should propel us to re-examine ourselves, re-evaluate our priorities and commit ourselves to new norms, new cultures and new traditions.

We need to understand misinformation & disinformation as systems, not just individual actions. An economy of false information.

[this thread continues from what I posted last night, about some of the most prominent South African misinfo posters]

When I started teaching courses on false information systems a few years ago at Wits, I made a point to look at it systemically: there are producers of information, distribution channels/platforms, and audiences (which can also distribute/reshare content).

To try and understand the types of false information, I also felt it was important to look at the intention/motivation of the producers of the false info. What motivated them? Money? Notoriety? Political agenda? (all of these types are in play)

It's NB to understand motive of the false info maker so you can effectively disrupt or correct their false and/or harmful information. A guy in it for clicks/fame requires different strategy to a paid actor or propagandist – although both messages/content may be the same

What we're seeing with Covid-19 misinfo is that the content created and shared by deniers is effectively the same as the conspiracy theories shared by lobbies that are anti-government, anti-media, or who blame Soros etc. This is not an accident, although original motives diverge

1. Lots of talk about Miami's innovation economy. Here's a little analysis we did several years back. Lots more of this at our old site for the Miami Urban Future

2. First and foremost, Miami is a near completely different animal than Austin. Austin is a talent/ creative class leader, and Miami is a laggard (though it has some strengths which I'll get to in a minute.

3. Austin's creative class share is 34.% 8th among large metros. San Jose is first by the way with 46.4%. Miami is 47th (out of 53 large metros) with 26%.

4. But like I said Miami does have strengths. With @iamstevenpedigo we can Location Quotients for specific innovative/creative/knowledge/ professional occupations.

5. Key strengths are in financial/HQ & healthcare space: legal occupations LQ 1.75; business & finance 1.06; healthcare 1.08. Much less strength in management .72, computer & mathematics .7; engineering & architecture .59; sciences .5

This is our summary of some of the notable Corporate Deals that affected Nigerian companies in 2020.
 
The thread starts here...

January 2020
 
@Paga announced investment in Ethiopian-based software development firm, Apposit for an undisclosed amount. The deal gave Paga full access to the expertise of Apposit’s engineers and technicians.

a Nigerian payment firm raised a sum of $35m in series B funding, led by VC firms, eVentures and Greycoft. The deal allows Flutterwave to embark on its expansion plans to Francophone and northern African countries.

Also, @Bolt received $55.8m debt financing from the EU Inv. Bank (EIB) in order to improve on technology as well as launch into new businesses.
@AccessBank acquired Kenyan Based TNB for an undisclosed amount.

February 2020
@LeapFrog III Insurance acquired 38.8% major equity stake in AIICO Insurance for N5.28bn. This was a move to boost the capital base of AIICO Insurance.

Trends affecting career change and influences from 2020 and how to leverage them for working lives will be the key themes from @HerminiaIbarra #DOPConf

Longevity, technology, work change and social expectations are the four major 2020 trends in light of the Covid-19 pandemic. #DOPConf

Previous ideas about longevity of careers and how we think about work are no longer valid with the changes in life expectancy. #DOPConf

Technology change entails fewer jobs, and corporate change brings cost reduction and higher unemployment, with gig work on the rise. #DOPConf #2020

Social change has driven "portfolio careers" and the pursuit of "passion" and worklife meaning and well-being. #DOPConf

THREAD – Mortality 2020

Today we published England & Wales mortality statistics for the w/e 25 Dec

Nearly a full year’s data for 2020

In the last 52 weeks there were:
c.604k deaths registered across E&W

This is:
c.73k deaths (14%) above the 5-yr avg = excess deaths

1/11

Remember the bank holiday effect which affects weekly figs

And the lag between deaths occurring and being registered

We now provide modelled estimates of death occurrences to remove these

The chart below shows both registrations and modelled occurrences across 2020

2/11

Looking at excess deaths, we began the year with death levels below the 5-yr avg

This was followed by a huge peak in the spring, driven by COVID, until lockdown1 took effect

Note the small Aug heatwave peak

And then a gradual pick up through autumn as CV took hold again

3/11

A seasonal effect means more deaths in winter than summer

The pattern of excess deaths as a % of normal weekly deaths is similar

There is a noticeable jump in the latest w/e 25 Dec

Given the recent alarming rise in CV infections this will increase further in Jan

4/11

For longer term context we can compare annual deaths back to 1900

Deaths have been rising recently as life expectancy improvements have stalled, but the jump this year to over 600k is clear

Only one previous year has topped 600k – 1918, the year of the “Spanish” flu

5/11