The two most irritating sentences I find myself typing over and over on this website are:
1. "There are many pathways to universal healthcare"
&
2. "No, the Democratic party would not be a center right party in European countries either in social or economic terms"

& if you're going to come at me from the economic angle, plz do some research into EU center right parties. There's a lot of btwn-country variation, but these parties typically aim towards increased privatization of public systems & deregulation of industry. Dems do the opposite.

A related area is austerity. To look at recent history, examine how many EU countries chipped away at funding their extant safety nets, esp in healthcare, during the recession. What did the US do under Dems? A massive expansion of healthcare.

Now, the ACA is far from perfect and I want a much greater public role as well as the eventual minimization/near-elimination of private insurance in the system. That said, it's simply true that the U.S. expanded our healthcare system when many EU countries were cutting theirs.

You can't just compare a party in absolute economic terms across countries. This is especially the case when you have massive generational differences in building of the social safety net/welfare state.

have you ever:
- struggled to find junior roles with game studios?
- wondered how to find contract roles?
- been a contractor, been disallowed from attending a holiday party and not known why?

let's talk about the weird world of contract labor in the US games industry! 🧵

first, i want to give context for why the system works this way so that you aren't just reading this thread going "WHY?"

in 2000, Microsoft lost a lawsuit with contractors. you can read more about it here. this is where "permatemp" comes from.

that lawsuit formed the backbone of "permatemp" contractor law in the US. the end result was that companies who need a lot of contract labor (i.e. game studios!) distance themselves from the process of hiring contractors, and it's largely done via third party shell companies.

i want to disclaim a little bit that by creating this thread, i'm not arguing that the contract labor process is ideal or fair or pro-worker. i have been a contractor. it had pros... and serious cons. i am simply describing the system as it works; do with this info as you will.

other disclaimer that obviously, i am not a lawyer, and please don't interpret any of this as "100% true in all situations." this info is based on my experience contracting, helping hire/convert contractors as a manager, and having many friends who have been through this process.

1/ Everyone knows that time is money. In the digital realm, however, money is also intricately related to time. It has to

2/ Among other things, money solves a coordination problem. Trading a single good against others solves the combinatorial explosion of a barter economy. It is a scalability solution that allows coordination across large groups of people.

3/ The two basic forms of money are ledgers (made of information) and physical tokens (made of atoms). Physical tokens keep track of themselves. Ledgers need someone who is in charge.

4/ In the informational realm, only ledgers exist. And to make sure that transactions on a ledger are in order, a concept of time is required. In other words: Tokens are timeless, ledgers are not.

5/ A decentralized system can't rely on our human concept of time. A trustless, non-local time is required. Trustless, because we must not introduce a third party. Non-local because we don't have the luxury of a central frame of reference.

https://t.co/cJDj5nwe4l

Expand further.
Make the connection.
Map currently has 43 confirmed connections.
Important to understand.
When this breaks many won’t swallow.
MSM not trusted.
You are the voice.
We are here to help guide.
Future proves past.
You are the calm before and during the storm.

MONEY.
POWER.
CONTROL.
People are simply in the way.
SLAVES.
SHEEP.
PAWNS.
MASS EXT EVENTS DESIGNED TO DECREASE THREAT LEVEL OF POPULATION.
GUN CONTROL.
WARS [FAKE][TOP HAPPY][BACKEND DEAL].
ELECTION RIGGING.
CONTROL.
YOUR VOICE DOES NOT MATTER.
PHARMA [CLAS-D]
WATER
AIR

CHEMICALS PUSHED FOR HOME USE CLEANING [CANCER][BABY ON FLOOR-HANDS IN MOUTH - THE START].
VACCINES [NOT ALL].
TOBACCO.
OPIOIDS.
ULTIMATE WIN [DEATH + MONEY].
THE FED.
ROTHSCHILD.
'CONSPIRACY'
'CONSPIRACY'
'CONSPIRACY'
UK/GER [5 days].
Choice is yours.
REVELATIONS.

ENOUGH IS ENOUGH.

0/ Yesterday was my last day as the Rosetta Technical Lead at @coinbase. Starting tomorrow (crypto never sleeps, right?), I’ll join @el33th4xor, @kevinsekniqi, and the rest of the talented team at @avalabsofficial in building @avalancheavax.

1/ When I joined Coinbase out of college, I thought I “knew” blockchain. Boy was I wrong! Standardizing and scaling asset addition at Coinbase while collaborating with the top blockchain engineers at the top projects by market cap flipped my world upside down.

2/ I don’t think there is any other place that ramps you up into the magical moon math of crypto as fast as @coinbase and I firmly believe it is the best place for any crypto engineer to start their career. Good news! They're hiring!

3/ To all my former coworkers, I want to say thank you for everything you’ve taught me. I’ll never forget all the time and energy you spent helping me become a better engineer and a better person. I have no doubt that you’ll continue pushing Rosetta forward for years to come.

4/ For the next few months, I’ll remain an advisor to the Rosetta project. I will lend a hand to asset issuers implementing Rosetta for the first time and chime in on high-level design decisions.

here's the agenda for today's albemarle-charlottesville regional jail authority meeting

https://t.co/uljERCsAMc

A statement from Met leadership on the Capitol desecration:

"The attack on the United States Capitol was an act of domestic terrorism that violated our nation’s highest values." 1/12

"The actions of these treasonous rioters underscore the threat to democracy in a society where misinformation, racism, and other hateful ideologies are allowed to run rampant." 2/12

"Bringing to justice those responsible for these criminal actions is an essential first step towards healing and reconciliation for a deeply divided nation." 3/12

"Last week’s events at the Capitol were not only an attack on the lawmakers who were there to certify the election but also on the very symbols of our government and this country’s ideals. The Met has a responsibility to speak out on both of these areas." 4/12

"The Capitol building and its treasured art collection were subject to acts of shameful vandalism and desecration, including the spraying of a blood-like substance on statues and the general destruction of art and objects throughout the building." 5/12

Robert Sanford, the retired PA firefighter who has been charged in the DC riot, went to the Capitol following "the President's instructions," a complaining witness told the FBI.

Peter Harding, a Buffalo area man, has been charged by feds in the Capitol riot. The FBI notes that he was captured in social media photo lighting fire to media camera equipment outside building before entering.

The FBI says Kevin Lyons was "evasive" at first about being inside the Capitol. Then, when agents showed him an Instagram pic he'd taken & posted of Nancy Pelosi's office, he caved.
"Wow, you're pretty good," he said. "That was only up for an hour."

Kevin Seefried told the feds that he and his son Hunter went to DC on Jan. 6 from their home in Delaware "to hear President Trump speak."
They brought along the Confederate battle flag from the house "where it is usually displayed outside."

The feds were able to find & charge Jenny Cudd of Texas in part b/c she posted a FB video of her incursion on the Capitol.
"We did break down Nancy Pelosi's office door & somebody stole her gavel..." Cudd said. "...Hell yes I am proud of my actions."

Today we are releasing the public beta of the @stripe extension for @code, which brings Stripe inside your editor. Let me give you some background on why we built this extension, what it does, and where we are going with our developer tools.

https://t.co/FyyHVNQtWA

A thread 🧵

By bringing Stripe inside code editors, we move Stripe-specific information inside the context where developers already are when they build. We believe this will reduce context switching, reduce friction, and make it faster to integrate, build, and test with Stripe.

We decided to start with VS Code, one of the most popular code editors, and build an extension that would bring in a range of common workflows through a new Stripe panel in the activity bar and a set of custom commands.

Let me walk you through the features:

🛠 Webhooks can be burdensome to work with, so we made it easy to forward webhooks events to your local box. You can trigger events to test - this is integrated with the VS Code debugger so you can easily set breakpoints and step through your code.

📑 Sometimes when you’re integrating events, it's hard to know what the payloads will look like. You can now see the most recent events, and we’ll fetch the full event payload as JSON if you click on it, so you can easily see the properties — all without leaving the editor! 🔥

@johnkoetsier @LarryRosenthal @John_Westra True, but I only get 140 characters at a time and I’m trying to cover a lot.

“The media” meaning the primary outlets of information and opinion in America: news, TV shows, movies, magazines. Nearly all follow and promote whatever the dominant cultural values are at the moment.

@LarryRosenthal @John_Westra It used to be that there was civility in the media. But that came from a more civil society, where traditionally correct behavior was deemed important. That’s been erased by modernism. Today political correctness has replaced civility, and the media parrots that instead.

@LarryRosenthal @John_Westra The moral distortion becomes evident when you read the words Trump speaks. Consider what he might be referring to without PC bias, and then watch how those media outlets speak about those same words. The presumption of guilt starts, fills and ends nearly every message.

@LarryRosenthal @John_Westra Charlottesville is a perfect example. “There were good people on both sides” was entirely referring to those for and against removal of statues - NOT about “good white supremacy”
or “good Antifa counter-protesters”. He clarified this exact point at the time. That’s the “truth”.

@LarryRosenthal @John_Westra But to this day that’s not what the “media” gave to the world to chew on, now is it? Instead there is the deliberate and persistent lie that he meant to defend white supremacy because that narrative sells better to a PC public: half of America now thinks he’s a racist for sure.

MIT mechanical engineer prof Gang Chan arrested. DOJ accuses of undisclosed grants, $$, from

COMPLAINT "Since in or about 2013, CHEN’s research at MIT has been funded by more than $19 million in grants awarded by .. U.S. Department of Defense (“DOD”), the U.S. Department of Energy (“DOE”) and the
Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (“DARPA”).

"investigating CHEN for several violations of
federal law, including wire fraud due to his failure to disclose contracts, appointments, and awards
from various entities in the People’s Republic of China (“PRC”) in connection with his receipt of
federal grant funding from DOE"

"Since in or about 2012, CHEN has held various PRC contractual appointments
designed to promote the PRC’s technological and scientific development, including acting as an
“overseas expert” for the PRC government at the request of the PRC Consulate Office in New
York "

... "CHEN assessed and reviewed grant
applications, helped determine which grants the PRC government would fund, and reviewed the
results of PRC funded research. Yet, CHEN never disclosed his work for NNSFC when he applied
for grants from DOE or even his employer, MIT. "....

Q: What’s missing?
A: Exactly

Thread: Brazil is ranked number two in the world lists of Covid fatalities, behind the USA. But that is almost certainly wrong. Mexico is almost surely number two. And in this story, we explain why. https://t.co/xeKgkMU1kJ via @WSJ

Mexico is failing to accurately record the majority of those who die from Covid. How do we know? Because the surge of excess deaths in 2020 in Mexico was roughly 2.4 times the official Covid toll. On Dec 12, excess deaths were 274,486 compared to Covid toll of 113,704.

Some of the additional deaths, of course, may not be Covid but from people who put off treatment for chronic disease, for instance. But health experts say the majority of those were likely killed by Covid. Other countries have a far smaller gap between excess deaths and Covid.

In Brazil, excess deaths for last year were 200,270 by Nov 21. The Covid toll by that date was 168,989, a far smaller gap than Mexico. That means Brazil is likely doing a far better job accurately counting its Covid dead.

A big difference is testing. Mexico carries out fewest tests in the Americas. It has only done 3.6 million tests during the entire pandemic. Brazil has done nearly 29 million. Mexico's coronavirus czar @HLGatell says widespread testing is a waste of time and resources.

Over the last 5 years, I’ve helped build courses taken by 40,000 students w/ $30M+ in revenue.

Today we’re launching a *free* cohort-based course on How to Build a CBC!

At the end of this, you’ll have a full course ready to launch.

Apply here: https://t.co/kp2vyBWE9K

Read on

A CBC on CBCs is a bit meta. But it's the best way to teach a complex topic that benefits from hands-on projects, peers, feedback.

@patel0phone and I have been working 1:1 w/all-star instructors (like @APompliano @lennysan). Now we're ready to apply these lessons to your course

Our system is proven yet flexible.

It's not one-size-fits-all. We teach underlying skills & create an accountability system so you build a course that's uniquely yours.

It’s the same process I’ve used for @alt_MBA @david_perell @fortelabs

Structure and accountability:

The course creation process is complex. There are lots of interconnected
decisions & second order effects.

We help you make sense of it with:

+ Step by step process
+ Clear deliverables
+ Feedback from us & peers
+ Gut checks
+ Weekly homework

On a weekly basis, you'll know what to work on and why--so you can efficiently & effectively create a high quality course you're proud of.

It's an iterative process to get ideas out of your head, share feedback, discuss, build, refine, lock it in. Piece by piece, brick by brick

Well after House Dems pushed through the sham impeachment we all witnessed, now we have 30 House Democrats asking questions after the FBI released photos of about 180 suspects, some of the the faces looked familiar. Congresswoman Mikie Sherrill was the first to come forward.

Whenever something bad happens, people talk about passing a raft of new laws to stop it when the problem is law enforcement actively ignores the laws we already have to address these problems, especially when the perpetrators are white and/or rich.

The problem is not a lack of laws, it's a lack of enforcement.

"More laws!" is a way of looking like they're doing something instead of addressing the elephant in the room, which is that more and more restrictive laws will only end up being weaponized against Black, poor, and other marginalized people.

Because white men, especially those with money and political power, will continue getting a slap on the wrist even when committing crimes that would get someone else a lifetime in prison or shot dead in the street.

Black activists have been pointing this out for years. The impetus behind "defund" was the recognition that white supremacy is baked into to the entire justice system and cannot be fixed without ripping it up by the roots.