Imagine if, in the midst of the massive BLM riots this summer, the entire tech infrastructure had deplatformed Facebook because some had used that app to plan events devolving into violence. People would rightly have called that an insane act of ideological fascism.

Yet today, media will celebrate Amazon doing exactly that to Parler. The tech bros are making a horrible and dangerous moment significantly more horrible and dangerous. There are no consistent standards being applied. There is reactionary deplatforming in the name of one side.

Private companies are by law free to do what they like. That’s why I have always said that the solution to the censorship of Twitter is alternatives -- which is what Parler was attempting to be, whatever its flaws.

But when the technological instruments necessary for speech are located in essentially three companies, all of which are moving toward like-minded censorship (Amazon controls about half of all public-cloud infrastructure, Microsoft 16%, and Google 4%), that avenue closes.

I am by nature anti-regulation. But even the consumer-based theory of anti-monopoly championed by free market advocates cuts in favor of anti-monopolistic regulation if these companies are acting in de facto collusion to shut all avenues of dissent.

A few weeks ago @ClareCraigPath, @RealJoelSmalley and I wrote a short piece on endemic Covid, and what it might look like.

It seems particularly relevant to current

Consider the possibility that all our naso-pharynxes together make up a single ecosystem, in which only one predator can be completely dominant.

We are not saying that this has definitely happened with Covid - but it would explain the disappearance of flu this year.

Every winter, we see "excess deaths" in the sense that more (mainly elderly) people die in the winter than in the summer.

This is a worldwide phenomenon.

It is now thought that all or nearly all of the extra deaths in Winter are due to infection with winter respiratory viruses, mainly

However, we do not - and never have - extensively tested for the presence of such viruses in the critically ill elderly population, so we really have no idea how frequently infection is present, or in fact what its contribution to death is.

"In Wake of Black Lives Matter Protests, New York Attorney General Wants Federal Monitor to Oversee NYPD for Civil Rights Abuses"

@NewYorkStateAG is holding a press conference soon, and I will update this developing story. https://t.co/XuH44IdqjJ via @lawcrimenews

NYAG's federal complaint is embedded in the story.

NYAG James's press conference is ongoing.

Live stream

NYAG speaks of her investigation into civil rights abuse:

"What we found was an egregious abuse of police power, rampant excessive use of force and leadership unable and unwilling to stop it."

NYAG James:

"This lawsuit seeks broad injunctive relief, including systemic reforms to the NYPD and a monitor to oversee the NYPD's compliance with the law."

NYAG:

"Since the end of May 2020, my office has received more than 1,300 complaints and pieces of evidence about the NYPD misconduct. We have also received 300 submissions of written evidence."

'Stay at home' for #LekkiMassacre protest is not a sign of weakness. The likes of Odanz -or is it Odense? - have called attention to this and they are not pacifists. They are strategist-realists.
Activism is the art of war. Pounce when the enemy is at its weakest [Thread]

As a young activist in 1991 and NANS President, I knew activism was and still the art of war; and also knew that in war you pounce when your enemy is at its weakest.

What I didn't realize is the strength of the "pouncer"

NANS Senate - the highest organ of NANS- met in Ilorin in March 1991 and issued 13 points 30-day ultimatum to IBB, chief of which was to scrap the political transition programme, resign and handover to the Government of National Unity.

As NANS Chief I was saddled with the duty of moving around Nigeria mobilizing for a showdown with the junta beginning from 1 May 1991. Negotiations between NANS and FGN led by Prof Babs Fafunwa and Alex Akinyele broke down before the expiration of ultimatum on 30 April 1991

At the joint press conference addressed by Fafunwa and Akinyele on 27 April 1991, Akinyele threatened that "students leaders will be picked like snails" and asked parents to advise their wards. Traditional rulers joined in the blackmail.

Good morning, Baltimore. A thread on walking and writing. It will be boring but possibly helpful if you wish to walk or write more.

In my pre-pandemic life, there was lots of incidental walking. I averaged 2.4 miles a day, or 5,662 steps.

Pandemic life ended most incidental walking -- not daily walk to school, then coffee shop, fewer errands. In June, after finishing a book, I decided to shoot for 6-7k "deliberate" steps a day.

On December 1, I decided to up my daily mileage to 5 miles. That required more planning -- I couldn't get that done in the pre-dawn hours while my daughter sleeps. I would need to add a second walk, maybe a third.

Then I noticed that I was close to averaging 8k steps a day by year's end. Kind people here on Twitter, using this strange magic called algebra, calculated that I would need to average 10.5k miles a day to up my year average to 8k.

The focal S:N501 build has been updated with data from 15 Jan, & includes 164 non-UK, non-South African sequences in 501Y.V1 (B.1.1.7 #b117) & 501Y.V2.

The S:E484 build has also been updated. Includes 501Y.V3 & 20B/S.484K (predominantly in Brazil).

1/16

https://t.co/3bdttjKVl4

There are 161 new, non-UK sequences in 501Y.V1 (B.1.1.7) from the Netherlands, Denmark, Australia, Spain, Norway, Germany, the USA, & Switzerland, and from Turkey and Ecuador for the first time.

2/16

Turkey has 19 sequences in 501Y.V1 for the first time. These indicate many independent introductions, though a few clusters may indicate local transmission, and pairs with common exposure.

3/16

Ecuador has 4 sequences in 501Y.V1 for the first time, which represent 2 separate introductions (pic 2). 3 are identical, and may represent exposure to a common source (pic 3). The connection to the Spanish sequence may be a common source, or onward transmission.

4/16

Denmark has 66 new sequences (orange). A few are independent introductions, though many link with older sequences, showing continuing local transmission.

5/16

Since you're all about sea shanties these days, WHO WANTS TO HEAR ABOUT GAY MARRIAGE IN THE GOLDEN AGE OF PIRACY?

Now, a lot of what we're about to tell you is the subject of debate, because history, when written down, tends to elide homosexuality. Therefore, there's nothing in history which outright says "these pirates were hella gay and marrying each other all across the high seas".

So, among pirate communities during the golden age of piracy, there was an arrangement called "matelotage". Crew members could form a bond together where one would inherit the other's wealth - rather like a marriage.

Now, some say that matelotage was a strictly economic arrangement for division of assets, but tbh, that's what a conventional marriage is, so.

There was definitely passion involved in some matelotages - for example, when Captain Bartholomew Roberts stabbed a crewman for being rude to him, the dead man's matelot got VERY angry, confronted his captain furiously... and Roberts stabbed him, too. Then had him beaten.

How do some sections of society constantly try to attack and defame Hinduism ??

Let's talk about this :-

#THREAD

They use several ways to create a negative perspective of people towards Hinduism.

One of the method is to target Hindu festivals & rituals.
(1/14)

How they do this ?
Let's talk about some of our festivals -
- On Shivratri, they will say that rather than offering the milk to 'भगवान शिव', distribute it among the poor.
- They will raise the issue of water conservation on Holi.
(2/14)

They won't say about water conservation and feeding the poor the whole year but suddenly awakens during Holi and Shivratri.

- They say that Karwa chauth is a patriarchal and misogynist festival!
(3/14)

- On Diwali, they will ask people not to burn crackers but they will not ask people to avoid burning crackers on New Year day, may be because according to them crackers burnt on New Year day doesn't causes pollution!
(4/14)

On diwali 👇 On Christmas 👇

-Those people won't talk about women empowerment for the whole year, but their selective activism starts during Navratri!
(5/14)

THREAD: Today ONS has published a report on how it decided that the Census question "what is your sex" should *not* mean the sex you were born

The ONS considered 5 difference concepts of sex:
Sex registered at birth,
Sex recorded on birth certificate,
Sex recorded on legal/official documents,
living / presenting sex,
Self-identified sex.

/2

A big part of their evidence for why asking 'sex registered at birth' was unacceptable was that trans people won't like it and might boycott the Census. /3

From this they concluded "The highest negative impact on accuracy & reliability is anticipated if sex registered at birth was collected due to the likely negative impact on response rates caused by the perceived invasion of privacy" /4

and that "The data need [for birth sex] is not considered to be strong enough to justify collecting this" /5

Historians agree that corruption was a pandemic in European life and politics in the 1800s, and that since then, corruption has generally declined along with economic growth and prosperity. What can Africans learn from this?

From the outset, when reading the very scarce literature on Western corruption it is clear that the decline of corruption largely corresponds with sociopolitical change and most importantly ECONOMIC GROWTH

Two main reasons are given for reduction in corruption: 1. SUSTAINED GROWTH which results in more entrepreneurship & productive investment

2. A PROSPERING ECONOMY that can afford to pay civil servants well, improving overall living standards, reducing motivation for corruption

There is very limited historical literature on corruption in Europe which often gives the impression that this is/was never really a major problem. Not so, for e.g for centuries England, was described as “shot through with corruption and venality”, just like the rest of Europe...

This period of rampant corruption in the West was at a time when Europe was at it's poorest economically. Even with the plunder and looting of the rest of the world, Europe would occasionally fall into hard times, and at this time, corruption would increase accordingly

1. LIDAR thread. Will write a longer article in a few days. Light Detection and Ranging is technology using lasers to measure distances. In particular Robots, Autonomous Cars and industrial applications.

2. Although LIDAR tech has been around for a while, it is very useful for autonomous driving. Either in passenger cars or "robot taxis". Since 2010 over 30 startups have been founded to build LIDARs specifically for these applications

3. There are 3 types (high level) Scanners (MEMS and non MEMS), Frequency modulated and Time modulated. Every vehicle will need LIDARs. Think of LIDAR as the CPU for autonomous vehicles.

4. Many of the companies developing LIDARs have been acquired as well. E.g. GM Cruise acquired one and the first tier auto suppliers have made investments in multiple.

5. The "furthest along" in this is Google WAYMO and Velodyne. But Velodyne LIDAR is big and expensive ($75K). So the race is on to make them smaller and <$100. $VLDR announced a sub $1000 and sub $500 LIDAR in late 2019 but $LAZR is making prototypes in <$1000 LIDAR

It never happens. A thread.

Many must be familiar with "it never happens". When you bring up women having concerns about Self ID and allowing potentially abusive males to have access to female spaces and that it will lead to violence or worse "It never happens".

When evidence is shows "It never happens" MAY turn into "It's an isolated incident" before defaulting back to "It never happens" for the next time the argument crops up. This complete apathy for a very real concern is deliberate. It's framed as if having these concerns...

makes a woman illogical. Because "Trans Women are Women" it's just another woman being excluded. Not an intact male, not just any male who decides to identify as a woman. I've watched women point out the percentage of sexual abusers who "transition" to be in women's prison.

I've seen them told they're being hysterical, that they're endangering trans people. The argument is very clever, they frame it as an attack on what most people think of as trans people ie someone who has transitioned completely. They never frame it as some...

bloke with a beard, a cock and balls and a history of wrongdoing. "IT NEVER HAPPENS". So recently something very interesting happened on Twitter. I saw @helenstaniland responding to a post

I've got a thread for you. First, this:

Folks is crying on reddit that this is 4chan propaganda. Which, I suppose, technically it is. However...

...4chan didn't make this sheit up.

Is Refusing to Date Trans People Transphobic?
Dating While Trans | The thin line between preferences and

Transgender exclusion from the world of dating

"The results are discussed within the context of the implications for trans persons seeking romantic relationships and the pervasiveness of cisgenderism and

Are Trans People Excluded from the World of Dating?

[If you only follow one link, make it this one. The author compares straight people dating trans people to interracial marriage. NOTE: You can't be straight and date