Allen Zhang the creator of WeChat (I am a fangirl) gave a 2 hr long speech yesterday abt his thoughts on the product on the eve of its 10th anniversary.

It's a lot on Channels (the new video function in WeChat).

Here are my notes & comments in parentheses:

WeChat daily usage looks like this:

1.09 Bn users log in, 330mm use video chat
780mm users view Moments feed (like FB feed), 120mm users post to Moments
360mm read articles, 400mm use mini programs

Why're we going after video?
In last 5 years, users are sending 33x more video msgs in chat, 10x more videos into their Moments feed.
Not everyone can write long content, but doing video requires new acct system (current public acct system is subscription based), we tried in 2017

but didn't get too far. But since video SO obviously the big thing in next 10 yrs, we began working on it for real in 2019. (Very late, if you ask me).
Channels is NOT like your WeChat ID, which is for PRIVATE comms. It's WeChat's foray into public content.

So now, you need a new Channel ID to make content, but not view content (use your existing WeChat ID & leverage social network / relationships).
WeChat tried 3 separate internal algo teams. Found that algo rec was much worse than people rec content performance.

Latest OpDis INTEL Updates 01.19.2021

"Over last weekend the Military raided CIA Headquarters in Langley VA. A military general who was part of the team said they came away with a ton of evidence. Well known politicians were guilty of embezzlement, identity fraud,

Thread: Conservative Policy and the Trump Presidency

On the last full day of the Trump administration, I think it's useful to examine why he accomplished so little legislatively. TLDR version: American conservatism has almost no policy program.

The most important thing to know about conservative politicking is that people do not vote FOR Republicans, they vote AGAINST Democrats.

The GOP is dominated by a minority of far-right activists and wealthy donors who have views that their own voters don't support.

American conservatism is premised on the twin ideas that the New Deal & Great Society were immoral and that God himself created America and that we should honor this creation by establishing full Christian supremacism in which LGBT people, atheists, and Muslims have fewer rights.

Because God created America, this means that conservatives believe in essentially no domestic policy of any kind. If it wasn't literally in the Constitution, then the feds shouldn't be doing it is their opinion.

This is not, however, how things used to be in the GOP.

For much of its history, American conservatism was a sort of intellectual parasite on the Republican party which was run by a mix of moderates and liberals. They actually had domestic policies. Dwight Eisenhower and Richard Nixon had many policies that actually helped America.

1) Let's talk about the question of 'how should we think about Chinese tech'

What do we talk about when we talk about Chinese tech? Who is 'we' here? How do you pronounce Elema?

I've hit 10k in followers and it's time to earn my stripes as a thinkboi.

2) Chinese tech is a loaded term. The very fact that we have to say 'Chinese' tech rather than tech demotes its otherness.

So what does a place of origin signify? The different market conditions, political context and imo most importantly, the development stage of the country.

3) I think @benedictevans and @ToniCowanBrown's podcast on 'How to think about Chinese tech when you know fa about China' (my title, not theirs), lays some of the groundwork here.

China's different market conditions and political context often means a parallel tech world

4) This means a fundamental rethinking of first principals that's hard to stomach for most Western tech folks
- Copy is not wrong, in fact, it shows you've picked a de-risked business model
- There are no unscalable resources, esp when labour is

5) But I think the most important factor that gets overlooked is that China tech demotes something very particular. It is coming from a developing country. The life stage of a country is different from its cultural context.

What happens when a developing country is innovating?

1) The Hitchhiker’s Guide to Starting an Impeachment Trial

2) It is unclear when and how the Senate may begin President Trump’s second impeachment trial. The problem with “starting” an impeachment trial is that once you start, under the Senate impeachment rules, it can potentially supersede all other Senate action.

3) That’s the case - UNLESS - the Senate works out some sort of an agreement on handling an impeachment trial. Otherwise, once you start an impeachment trial, without a side agreement, the Senate meets six days a week at 1 pm et, Sundays excluded, until the trial is finished.

4) The key is when the House sends over the article of impeachment. That triggers a lot of things.

First things first. The Senate must send a parliamentary message to the House that it’s ready to “receive” the article.

5) This is kind of like a football referee waving his hand at a kickoff returner stationed in the end zone to make sure he’s ready to proceed with the kickoff. Once the Senate does that, the House can send the articles.

But…

The GovLab's Stefaan Verhulst will be testifying on smart city oversight before the NYC Council's Committee on Technology at 1:00 PM. You can watch him and the other witnesses live in Virtual Room 2 at:

Chair Holden opens the meeting. by speaking to the promise and potential that smart city technology offers, especially amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

He notes how big data, the internet of things, and other innovative solutions could help New Yorkers address real challenges.

However, he stresses, these come with privacy and security risks. The chair talks about the need to mitigate these challenges and ensure the benefits provided by smart city technologies outweigh costs.

Following the Chair's opening statement, John Paul Farmer, Chief Technology Officer of New York, offers testimony from the Administration.

He notes his focus will be on the city's work in Internet of Things, where NYC leads nationally and internationally.

"The Mayor's Office of the CTO has focused on improving the connectivity infrastructure needed to operate as a smart city," says Farmer

"Equitable connectivity is a foundation of the smart city. Widespread broadband is needed to connect the tools and sensors that make up IoT."

This was before I "met" someone who actually knew what was going on but I was close. I am only pouring all of this out in one day and not slowly because I have been compromised by K8. A friend who wasn't.

While many Amazon warehouse workers in Europe have unionized, its brutalized, underpaid, routinely maimed US workforce remains tragically unorganized, thanks to the US's weak labor laws that make forming a union far harder than at any time since the Gilded Age.

1/

But all that may be about to change: 6000 warehouse workers in #BHM1, the massive Amazon warehouse in Bessemer, AL, will vote next month on a push to unionize under the

Amazon, like other tech giants, is absolutely reliant on building and maintaining a competitive advantage by exploiting technology to drive wages ever downward while ducking responsibility for harming workers.

3/

Big Tech is pants-wettingly afraid of unionization, and that goes double for any solidarity between high-paid tech workers and misclassified/outsourced warehouse workers and other "unskilled" laborers.

4/

Amazon has gone so far as to hire the Pinkertons, renowned as some of history's most violent anti-worker terrorists, to bust unionization drives in its

Before the civil rights era, ALL presidential administrations in this country were both white supremacist and white nationalist. In the "modern" era, mainstream politicians learned to performatively eschew white nationalism and embrace what I call "rainbow white supremacy".

Some precisions might be helpful. White nationalism claims this country exists for the benefit of white people -- it's the legalization of white political power. White supremacy is closely tied to white nationalism, but is a broader assertion of white superiority and dominance.

From 1776 through the 1960s (roughly 200 years), the U.S. was an explicitly white nationalist and white supremacist society. After the 60s, many politicians abandoned overtly white nationalist rhetoric without redressing or dismantling centuries of white nationalist policies.

The most important thing to understand is that literally nothing was ever done by our political leadership during or after the civil rights movement to systematically uproot and dismantle the ideologies of white nationalism and white supremacy.

Instead, civil rights legislation and rhetoric were co-opted to *disregard* the white nationalist past and to *ignore* - or worse - *deny* the white supremacist present. (Cue the Bakke decision + every MLK quote used to undermine antiracist activism in the name of colorblindness)

Alejandro "Ale" Mayorkas is testifying on Capitol Hill today, as Biden's pick to lead the Department of Homeland Security - the 3rd largest federal agency.

It's not his first confirmation hearing -- previously nominated by Obama as Dep Sec in 2013, confirmed in 2014.

Mayorkas, unlike some Senators in the hearing, has kept his mask on the entire time so far -- delivering his opening statement, and even now as he begins to take questions.

Sen. Portman asking what Mayorkas learned from an investigation into his involvement in investor visa cases while he was Deputy Secretary...

Mayorkas: "I learn each and every day to be better tomorrow than I was today...these weren't the only 3 cases I was involved in, whether they involved the rich or the poor...I became involved to ensure our agency improved each day..."

Mayorkas on leveraging DHS resources to support pandemic response:

-FEMA should to ensure supply chain
-CISA (cyber security) should protect supply chain from cyber attacks and ensure other agencies' work protected

"the reach of the department is significant..."

Zuckerberg’s WhatsApp follies: Tight integration with Facebook is a way of selling your data to advertisers and others

Read in today's @timesofindia

We must hope that Mark Zuckerberg has more sense of humour than he publicly shows. Only a keen sense of irony could ballast him through the self-destructive storm now ravaging his empire.

In India and around the world, the low credibility he and his businesses have earned for themselves are causing people to flee #WhatsApp in droves, not because of something he has just done, but because they have finally realised what he has been doing all along.

#Facebook , as it says, is not proposing to share the content of WhatsApp chats with Facebook. It can’t. #WhatsApp has no access to the content of the messages on its own system.

#WhatsApp uses an excellent end-to-end encryption system developed by @moxie Marlinspike and his colleagues at Signal, which is free software and which WhatsApp has adopted for its own use.

It's 16th of December, 2020. India is standing at the back of an ODI series loss and a momentum shifting win in the t20i series. It's time for the marquee Border Gavaskar trophy. The pink ball test, the boxing day, new year's test and the Gabba Challenge. Are we up for it?

Join me on a special thread where I take you through the series with the journey of the series. We shall look at the playing 11s, the game progressions, special strategies, important moments, standout performances.

Fasten your seat belt or don't, hop on anyway for 46 tweets ☺️

Match 1: Adelaide

Jadeja is injured so Ashwin becomes an easy answer for the tough question of the lone spinner. There are other tough questions as to who should be the 2nd opener, Gill who had good practice game or Shaw who scored a 50 in the last test he played? Pant or Saha?

India is going into the pink ball test with Pace trio Bumrah Shami Umesh. Shaw is opening and Saha keeping. A decision probably taken with the Wicketkeeping ability as the priority

Virat has one the toss and decided to bat. He has never lost a test match after winning the toss

Second ball of the first over and the nightmares turn true as Starc runs through Shaw. Mayank gets out after getting a start and then Virat stitches two gritty partnerships with Pujara and Rahane. Things turn bad only when Virat gets run out on an unfortunate wrong call by Rahane

The “Should we get rid of the GRE?” conversation and the “Should we pay undergrad RAs $15/hour?” conversation have three things in common that I think are really unfortunate — 🧵

(For the record, I personally think we should keep the GRE and that the minimum wage should be $15 but I know a lot more about psychometrics than labor economics so I’m more confident about the former opinion)

1- lack of clarity regarding whether a proposed change is seen as a morally good END in itself, versus a MEANS to another end, and if the latter what that end is

1b - for instance, I don’t care whether or not capital punishment deters crime; it’s instrumental purpose is irrelevant to the fact that I think it’s a moral wrong

1c -for the GRE, do you think testing is Bad, regardless of its utility? Or do you think that under representation of some racial groups is Bad? Or do you think the racial wealth gap is Bad? people rarely clarify what ultimate wrong they are trying to right

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Highlights of what happened after 36/9 - a thread.

#AUSvIND

Boxing Day Test - we lose Virat, Ajinkya takes over captaincy, with a forgettable loss still lurking. We carry a record of not winning at the 'G while chasing. Aussie win the toss & elect to bat, meaning we'd have to bat fourth.

#AUSvIND

With Shami gone due to injury, Bumrah leads from the front making sure the Aussies bundle out within 200 with the other bowlers chipping in at regular intervals. Ashwin picking Smith for a blob is the most special part of it all.

#AUSvIND

At 64/3 & in the danger of conceding a lead yet again and under immense pressure, captain Rahane chips in with a 💯 which is at par with his Lord's knock & with Jaddu's contribution lower down, India manage a lead of 131.

#AUSvIND

Siraj, the son of an auto rickshawman, having lost his father before the series & not being able to attend the funeral, plays his debut Test, tears up during the national anthem. He was the highest wicket taker for India in the 2nd innings wrapping up Aussies for 200.

#AUSvIND