Got an FOI response almost three years late... a short thread

1/ In September 1993, then-Microsoft exec Nathan Myhrvold wrote his landmark memo "Road Kill on the Information Highway", laying out a dozen-ish predictions on the rise of the internet

27 years later, I think it's a super interesting case study. Let's evaluate the predictions -

2/ PREDICTION #1: The rise of a surveillance society - police bodycams, CCTV, 24/7 personal recording, and deepfakes

GRADE: A-

Pretty close!

3/ PREDICTION #2: Telecommuting, an end to the "tyranny of geography" and gerrymandering

GRADE: B-

Alas, the electoral college still matters today. The WFH prediction hits closer, but turns out it took two and a half decades + a pandemic to get things going

4/ PREDICTION #3: Telco convergence - phone companies become cable providers and vice versa

GRADE: A-

Honestly this one was a bit of a layup, although it took 15 years longer than anyone expected

5/ PREDICTION #4: The rise of online neo-banks

GRADE: C

Three decades later, and physical banks still exist. Neobanks have a presence in emerging markets, UK, and basically nowhere else. Regulatory inertia: officially a thing

An academic mystery novel in which we learn that the culprit murdered the victim because they could not agree on which font to use for their very important committee memo.

The tension builds throughout the book as they exchange drafts of the memo, each time changing the font back to the "proper" font.

No one mentions the font changes, they just seethe.

Exasperated, one of them sets up a Qualtrics survey for the committee. It has only one question: "what is the correct font to use for this committee's correspondence?"

Qualtrics data is inconclusive.

We are living through a period of such breathtaking, callous disregard for the lives of girls that the jeers and slurs sometimes seem all-encompassing.

Thankfully, however, those whose minds are not dulled by dogma, tribalism or misogyny are starting to realize the full scale of the crime that is being committed. All in the name of “progressive” politics./2of17

To a considerable extent, this growing realization is thanks to the work of the intrepid journalist Janice Turner, @VictoriaPeckham. Here are a few striking passages from her stunning review of a book that everyone who cares about girls - or about false gods - must read./3of17

“.... while Californian girls as young as 13 have double mastectomies the American and British liberal media either cheerlead or keep shtum.”/4of17

“No wonder the geeky or less ‘girlie’
girls we once called tomboys, especially those who are becoming aware they are attracted to other girls, ‘flee womanhood’, as Shrier puts it, ‘like a house on fire, their minds fixed on escape, not on any particular destination’.”/5of17

Can’t get over Dr. Susan Moore’s death.

It’s on my mind heavy.

Being sick is bad enough - fatigue, pain, shortness of breath. I imagine that to be a member of the majority caste in this country is to be able to just be sick. To be able to focus energy on getting well and maybe (because medical capitalism) how to pay.

There is so much more on the minds of Black patients - considering if the hospital you go to will treat you well (or at all). To have to, in the midst of the emotional and cytokine storm of infection, muster strength to fight for adequate care. To trade rest for diligence.

To have to calculate how a care provider might interpret how you express emotion & pain-too calm & you must be lying, too hysterical & you might invite the non-therapeutic intervention of armed security guards

To second guess fully disclosing your living situation, finances, diet and ability to afford and adhere to medications because of the potential consequences of the judgement that might follow.

THREAD: IN #KOSOVO & METOHIJA ALBANIAN BARBARISM AND TERRORISM BEATS THE CULTURE OF #SERBS

So far, none of the representatives from KFOR, UNMIK, UN police, who stayed in Kosovo & Metohija has written a single word of praise in the books about the so-called independent Kosovo! 👇

More than 30 representatives of various military and civilian missions from around the world in #Kosovo and Metohija since 1999 - #KFOR, #UNMIK, #UN police, #OSCE financial police, #EULEX etc. - wrote books about the real situation in the southern Serbian province! 👇

No positive words were written about #Kosovo, which in 2008 declared unilateral independence, by absolutely none of them.

The most common conclusion is that Albanian Kosovo is a criminal drug mafia artificial creation, it is an island of lawlessness! 👇

Those who wrote books about #Kosovo after staying in Serbian province for certrain amount of time, were in high positions and places in Kosovo and Metohija and knew far more about the real situation inside Kosovo, which illegally declared independence back in 2008. 👇

"Independence suits those in command: Thaci himself who runs the oil business, Bexhet Pacolli who needs a hole in which he will store his money, Ramush Haradinaj and Agim Çeku. And they don't care about independence."

- Fabio Mini wrote in his book "La Guerra spiegata a..." 👇