The @Uber-@Postmates merger will ONLY benefit monopolistic pandemic profiteers focused on growing their power at the expense of restaurants, workers, and consumers.

2/ Both @Uber & @Postmates’ business models are built on trapping restaurants & workers in a predatory payday loan cycle of dependence and destitution.

And both @Uber & @Postmates use the “Break it till you Make It” approach to the law.
3/ @Uber was a vanguard in the business of providing illegal taxi service and misclassifying workers as “contractors.”

@Postmates pioneered the predatory practice of stealing menus and offering unauthorized delivery service from restaurants without their knowledge.
4/ Now, unauthorized deliveries are one of the apps’ favorite bait-and-switch tactics for convincing restaurants to pay 30-60% commissions.

When COVID-19 shut down dining rooms & dozens of cities capped fees to help restaurants, both @Uber & @Postmates lobbied hard to stop them.
5/ @Postmates, in particular, was not subtle about breaking the laws.
https://t.co/IU8QQIiAVC
6/ Merging these two repeat offenders will only hurt struggling independent restaurants, more than 100k of which have closed permanently or long-term due to COVID-19.
7/ Meanwhile, @Postmates & @Uber are burning $$$, backed by deep-pocketed investors who are betting they can monopolize the market, cut wages & hike their already-enormous fees.
8/ In the Q1-Q3 of 2020, @Uber lost $5.7 billion.

And @Postmates lost $105 million in Q1 & Q2 of 2020.

Obviously, their business models have been successful…🙃
9/ It’s time to recognize these eternally cash burning companies for what they really are: Silicon Valley slush funds to promote the abolition of labor rights & normalize the disruption of small biz out of existence.
10/ President-elect Biden’s new antitrust chief should investigate whether the @Uber-@Postmates deal is corrupt and undo this illegal merger.
11/11 In the meantime, there are ways to ensure restaurants & communities can connect through new tech while preventing predatory practices by middlemen.

As @moetkacik explains in “Rescuing Restaurants,” now more than ever, we must #ProtectOurRestaurants👇https://t.co/AjDGkiJqEE

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THREAD: How is it possible to train a well-performing, advanced Computer Vision model 𝗼𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗖𝗣𝗨? 🤔

At the heart of this lies the most important technique in modern deep learning - transfer learning.

Let's analyze how it


2/ For starters, let's look at what a neural network (NN for short) does.

An NN is like a stack of pancakes, with computation flowing up when we make predictions.

How does it all work?


3/ We show an image to our model.

An image is a collection of pixels. Each pixel is just a bunch of numbers describing its color.

Here is what it might look like for a black and white image


4/ The picture goes into the layer at the bottom.

Each layer performs computation on the image, transforming it and passing it upwards.


5/ By the time the image reaches the uppermost layer, it has been transformed to the point that it now consists of two numbers only.

The outputs of a layer are called activations, and the outputs of the last layer have a special meaning... they are the predictions!
1. One of the best changes in recent years is the GOP abandoning libertarianism. Here's GOP Rep. Greg Steube: “I do think there is an appetite amongst Republicans, if the Dems wanted to try to break up Big Tech, I think there is support for that."

2. And @RepKenBuck, who offered a thoughtful Third Way report on antitrust law in 2020, weighed in quite reasonably on Biden antitrust frameworks.

3. I believe this change is sincere because it's so pervasive and beginning to result in real policy changes. Example: The North Dakota GOP is taking on Apple's app store.


4. And yet there's a problem. The GOP establishment is still pro-big tech. Trump, despite some of his instincts, appointed pro-monopoly antitrust enforcers. Antitrust chief Makan Delrahim helped big tech, and the antitrust case happened bc he was recused.

5. At the other sleepy antitrust agency, the Federal Trade Commission, Trump appointed commissioners
@FTCPhillips and @CSWilsonFTC are both pro-monopoly. Both voted *against* the antitrust case on FB. That case was 3-2, with a GOP Chair and 2 Dems teaming up against 2 Rs.

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1/ Here’s a list of conversational frameworks I’ve picked up that have been helpful.

Please add your own.

2/ The Magic Question: "What would need to be true for you


3/ On evaluating where someone’s head is at regarding a topic they are being wishy-washy about or delaying.

“Gun to the head—what would you decide now?”

“Fast forward 6 months after your sabbatical--how would you decide: what criteria is most important to you?”

4/ Other Q’s re: decisions:

“Putting aside a list of pros/cons, what’s the *one* reason you’re doing this?” “Why is that the most important reason?”

“What’s end-game here?”

“What does success look like in a world where you pick that path?”

5/ When listening, after empathizing, and wanting to help them make their own decisions without imposing your world view:

“What would the best version of yourself do”?