Yeah I'd like to think that too, but the article mentions in its first paragraph that this aid was announced by the 'Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian.'
So in this case it doesn't seem like they're different.
Wondering if any geopolitical experts on HN can take a stab at explaining this move? From my rudimentary understanding, China was (has been) allied with Russia behind the scenes in this move against Ukraine.
Is this a hedge to maintain a good reputation and a good working relationship with the world by using this action as a: "Hey, look we helped Ukraine in its time of need"?
> China has refused to describe Russia's activities in Ukraine as invasion.
Just because a place doesn't resemble Canada or Ukraine or people who look and act like your version of civilized society doesn't give the US a right to wage war resulting in large numbers of civilians being displaced or killed.
What's happening in Ukraine is reprehensible - but the result of US policy blunders in places like Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, numerous South American countries and the like has been more damaging for the world we live in IMO.
While this isn't an apples to apples comparison, maybe you've got to convince us that the people of Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran, etc. are better off after US involvement. From my perspective, the answer is an obvious 'no'. Even under Saddam Hussein (who was a dictator and evil person - I'm in agreement there) the people of Iraq, who lived under some repression in their daily lives, were better off than before the US invasion.
If others are looking to keep up with news in a low key way (including the OP), I'd highly recommend this approach that's been working well for me.
1. Create an instagram account to follow just one account.
2. Follow an account called @mosheh. It's run by a former CBS News Producer [1]
3. 1x or 2x per day, go through his stories.
No affiliation but I'd highly recommend this approach for those that are already on instagram or want to use the platform to keep up with the news. He aggregates news stories from most major news sources and in a couple of minutes you can be informed of what's happening around the world.
I've used Bitwarden for over 4 years now after first hearing about it on HN. I really can't complain. I have Bitwarden on my phone, on my browser (chrome + firefox) and it works flawlessly for me. I even have the Mac app but I almost never have to use it.
I'd highly recommend it in case anyone here's looking to switch to Bitwarden.
I've used LastPass previously, but that was so long ago that it'd hardly be a fair comparison to Bitwarden now - but I remember not being satisfied with LastPass enough to export my data and switch.
I mean such behaviour is not uncommon on chess.com either. I've reported multiple people for game abandonment / abusive language / acting like jerks / taking super long to make moves in a game that's obviously been lost / etc.
My inbox is on chess is full of such generic boilerplate messages from chess.com; I doubt they really kick anyone off their platform though (unless the player does something extreme):
We've taken action on one of the Stalling / Quitting Games reports that you submitted. (To respect the privacy of our members, we don't specify usernames. Our response may have included warning the member, restricting their activity, or even closing the account.)
Maybe there's nothing wrong with this submission and maybe I'm a skeptic but definitely seems like a gamed submission. Submission by a new account, another new account posts that this is the best piece they've read about this game, front page in less than 30min...
Also the title seems eerily similar to a good primer on the company that I had read earlier this year by twitter.com/packym that was titled, "Infinite Revenue, Infinite Possibilities." That was a super bullish piece though so perhaps the growth is tapering off as the title of this piece seems to suggest.
Anyways - I'd highly recommend that piece [0] for a primer on the company and catalysts for its growth (if anyone reading this isn't familiar with this company and wants a deeper dive + more context around blockchains+games).
I think the biggest reason why the price is so high (beyond the brand, and the fact that the government policy results in everyone getting whatever loan amount they want) is because they're contractually required to share a huge chunk of that money with 2U (the same company that bought EDx's assets).
The article mentions that the old contract stated that about 60% of revenue gets shared with 2U but then there was a revision to the contract so it's not clear what the current figure is but even if they lowered it to 40-55%, that's still a huge chunk of change for basically running ads to target students into the funnel. It's actually sickening that the contract extends to 2030.
So USC is only getting $115,000 * .4 = $46,000 which while still high is substantially lower and sounds like a reasonable amount to offer the degree at. I'm not sure why they haven't built out an internal function since and tried to get out of the contract.
For the peak year of graduation mentioned (2017, 1500 students), 2U's take at the 60% figure is ginormous. $115k * 1500 students * 0.6. = $103.5 million.
Anyway there's so much wrong with what's happening here.
EDIT: I just re-read the article, it seems like the 1500 figure is a combination of in-person and online graduates for the year 2017. Still the premise holds true: a 60% take rate is excessive.
> “The only way a Substack grows is through tweets. I am like 85% serious when I say this.”
This rings true for me as a consumer of tech and tech-adjacent news. Most writers that I've started to follow via their newsletters, I've come across on twitter via their tweets that have gone viral or have been liked/retweeted by people in my network.
Another journalist that I subscribe to via their Substack in Eric Newcomer who also recently published a "Looking Back ..." post [0]. Interesting just to diff it from this post. From my understanding, Eric started writing his newsletter last year without importing a pre-existing list (at least that's the impression I got). His numbers (11,867 free subscribers and 1374 paid subscribers) definitely seems to suggest that Substack's guidance that about 10% of subscribers convert to paid is in the ballpark.
While this behaviour by corporations (eg: Zillow buying and flipping, or Blackstone buying and renting out houses [0]) is inflating housing prices across the country, I don't see them stopping anytime soon even in the face of temporary losses (in the case of Zillow here). As a corporation they can withstand this, triage the situation internally and get smarter about flipping in the future.
Personally I feel that this only makes housing more unaffordable in the long run for most people and only policy level intervention by the government is going to stem such actions in the future.
Obviously real estate/housing is seen as a good investment because it's one of the few asset classes available to average/retail investors where they can access leverage in a massive way to build up a portfolio of housing assets over time so if any legislation about this is even considered, it'll probably face a lot of opposition even from people it won't possibly affect (because that's what happens these days + FUD).
I guess I don't really see any meaningful changes in the near future that'll make housing affordable for the masses (at least in some of the most desirable real estate markets, can't talk about rural markets as I don't know enough). For more context, I live in Toronto and unless I settle for owning a condo or housing in the suburbs, owning a house in the city is pretty much a no go for me and most of my peers.
A&W restaurants are pretty prevalent in Canada, at least in Toronto anyways. Just looked at stats: they have about ~1000 restaurants in the country spread over 470+ cities.
But a commenter below said they have around a 1000 restaurants worldwide so perhaps the Canadian A&W is a separate entity from the American A&W otherwise that number doesn't make sense.
While I wouldn't say that their reserve is matching now ( I do not know) there were a few threads on twitter that I read a while back that stated that the folks behind tether were increasing the supply (of tether) to artificially inflate the value of their bitcoin holdings - which is something that they could have liquidated in exchange for more fiat since then. Obviously this is all conjecture.
This is the best reference I could find in relation to what I've said above:
In newly published research, with Amin Shams of Ohio State University, he finds evidence that Bitcoin’s 2017–2018 bubble was inflated by a lesser-known digital currency called Tether. [0]
I think the article's trying to convey that instagram has a more curated look and so by algo-design/human-design doesn't reward videos/reels that are shot on poor resolution phones and those that don't directly follow their guidelines for being promoted - these can be barriers for folks from marginalized communities and folks that have poor access to resources.
Tiktok on the other hand promoted your video to other users on the platform regardless of these 'requirements' and as a result those from poor/marginalized communities had the opportunity go viral and gain followers as well - without investment in the polish necessary to gain the same visibility on instagram. This polish could be in the form of better phones(cameras), better clothing or better backgrounds/scenes.
I'd highly recommend Darknet Diaries [0] to get a bit more colour on the NSO group for those that are interested. The relevant episodes are #99 & #100.
It seems like a lot of the NSO group's customers (a lot of which are authoritarian/corrupt governments) abuse the system and there's no real check on that power. The host mentions that officially the company has said that there have been 'only 3 instances' of abuse of its systems that they've detected and he goes on to expose how blatantly false that is. Anyways this is now all third hand info - I'd highly recommend checking out the podcast (not affiliated, just a fan).
The statement for that those that don't have fb accounts or don't want to login:
"I wanted to share a note I wrote to everyone at our company.
---
Hey everyone: it's been quite a week, and I wanted to share some thoughts with all of you.
First, the SEV that took down all our services yesterday was the worst outage we've had in years. We've spent the past 24 hours debriefing how we can strengthen our systems against this kind of failure. This was also a reminder of how much our work matters to people. The deeper concern with an outage like this isn't how many people switch to competitive services or how much money we lose, but what it means for the people who rely on our services to communicate with loved ones, run their businesses, or support their communities.
Second, now that today's testimony is over, I wanted to reflect on the public debate we're in. I'm sure many of you have found the recent coverage hard to read because it just doesn't reflect the company we know. We care deeply about issues like safety, well-being and mental health. It's difficult to see coverage that misrepresents our work and our motives. At the most basic level, I think most of us just don't recognize the false picture of the company that is being painted.
Many of the claims don't make any sense. If we wanted to ignore research, why would we create an industry-leading research program to understand these important issues in the first place? If we didn't care about fighting harmful content, then why would we employ so many more people dedicated to this than any other company in our space -- even ones larger than us? If we wanted to hide our results, why would we have established an industry-leading standard for transparency and reporting on what we're doing? And if social media were as responsible for polarizing society as some people claim, then why are we seeing polarization increase in the US while it stays flat or declines in many countries with just as heavy use of social media around the world?
At the heart of these accusations is this idea that we prioritize profit over safety and well-being. That's just not true. For example, one move that has been called into question is when we introduced the Meaningful Social Interactions change to News Feed. This change showed fewer viral videos and more content from friends and family -- which we did knowing it would mean people spent less time on Facebook, but that research suggested it was the right thing for people's well-being. Is that something a company focused on profits over people would do?
The argument that we deliberately push content that makes people angry for profit is deeply illogical. We make money from ads, and advertisers consistently tell us they don't want their ads next to harmful or angry content. And I don't know any tech company that sets out to build products that make people angry or depressed. The moral, business and product incentives all point in the opposite direction.
But of everything published, I'm particularly focused on the questions raised about our work with kids. I've spent a lot of time reflecting on the kinds of experiences I want my kids and others to have online, and it's very important to me that everything we build is safe and good for kids.
The reality is that young people use technology. Think about how many school-age kids have phones. Rather than ignoring this, technology companies should build experiences that meet their needs while also keeping them safe. We're deeply committed to doing industry-leading work in this area. A good example of this work is Messenger Kids, which is widely recognized as better and safer than alternatives.
We've also worked on bringing this kind of age-appropriate experience with parental controls for Instagram too. But given all the questions about whether this would actually be better for kids, we've paused that project to take more time to engage with experts and make sure anything we do would be helpful.
Like many of you, I found it difficult to read the mischaracterization of the research into how Instagram affects young people. As we wrote in our Newsroom post explaining this: "The research actually demonstrated that many teens we heard from feel that using Instagram helps them when they are struggling with the kinds of hard moments and issues teenagers have always faced. In fact, in 11 of 12 areas on the slide referenced by the Journal -- including serious areas like loneliness, anxiety, sadness and eating issues -- more teenage girls who said they struggled with that issue also said Instagram made those difficult times better rather than worse."
But when it comes to young people's health or well-being, every negative experience matters. It is incredibly sad to think of a young person in a moment of distress who, instead of being comforted, has their experience made worse. We have worked for years on industry-leading efforts to help people in these moments and I'm proud of the work we've done. We constantly use our research to improve this work further.
Similar to balancing other social issues, I don't believe private companies should make all of the decisions on their own. That's why we have advocated for updated internet regulations for several years now. I have testified in Congress multiple times and asked them to update these regulations. I've written op-eds outlining the areas of regulation we think are most important related to elections, harmful content, privacy, and competition.
We're committed to doing the best work we can, but at some level the right body to assess tradeoffs between social equities is our democratically elected Congress. For example, what is the right age for teens to be able to use internet services? How should internet services verify people's ages? And how should companies balance teens' privacy while giving parents visibility into their activity?
If we're going to have an informed conversation about the effects of social media on young people, it's important to start with a full picture. We're committed to doing more research ourselves and making more research publicly available.
That said, I'm worried about the incentives that are being set here. We have an industry-leading research program so that we can identify important issues and work on them. It's disheartening to see that work taken out of context and used to construct a false narrative that we don't care. If we attack organizations making an effort to study their impact on the world, we're effectively sending the message that it's safer not to look at all, in case you find something that could be held against you. That's the conclusion other companies seem to have reached, and I think that leads to a place that would be far worse for society. Even though it might be easier for us to follow that path, we're going to keep doing research because it's the right thing to do.
I know it's frustrating to see the good work we do get mischaracterized, especially for those of you who are making important contributions across safety, integrity, research and product. But I believe that over the long term if we keep trying to do what's right and delivering experiences that improve people's lives, it will be better for our community and our business. I've asked leaders across the company to do deep dives on our work across many areas over the next few days so you can see everything that we're doing to get there.
When I reflect on our work, I think about the real impact we have on the world -- the people who can now stay in touch with their loved ones, create opportunities to support themselves, and find community. This is why billions of people love our products. I'm proud of everything we do to keep building the best social products in the world and grateful to all of you for the work you do here every day."
Google and their services are indispensable for billions. Doesn't he deserve a personal life where he can do whatever he wants to do instead of being beholden to humanity and serve it with his brilliance forever?