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I had hoped BeReal would take its twist on “appointment television” to other mediums — adding a group chat that was only active for a designated period each day, say, or collaborative videos that you could only add to at certain times. That, to me, feels more in the spirit of what the company was trying to build in the first place.

Perhaps the weirdest thing about BeReal this week was the company’s quiet announcement that it plans to never let reporters attribute any statements made by the company. “We’ll be happy to answer questions,” the company wrote in a blog post, “but irrespective of who answers questions, we’ll require that it always be reported as just from and on behalf of the BeReal Crew, not a single individual :).”In general, I don’t have a problem attributing statements to companies. Most PR statements are written by a committee, and it doesn’t always feel accurate to me to attribute a sentence to someone who I know most likely didn’t write it. At the same time, this is a really weird way to say that your CEO (Alexis Barreyrat) plans never to give an interview. And not a great sign for the company overall, I’d say. There’s no shame in keeping your head down and ignoring the press for a long time. But never allowing anyone to speak to the press under their own name is a real sign of weakness.

Of course, you shouldn’t discriminate, but when we say belonging, it has to be more than just inclusion. It has to actually be the proactive manifestation of meeting people, creating connections in friendships. And Jony Ive said, “Well, you need to reframe it. It’s not just about belonging, it’s about human connection and belonging.”And that was, I think, a really big unlock. The next thing Jony Ive said is he created this book for me, a book of his ideas, and the book was called “Beyond Where and When,” and he basically said that Airbnb should shift from beyond where and when to who and what?Who are you and what do you want in your life? And that was a part of the inspiration behind Airbnb categories, that we wanted people to come to Airbnb without a destination in mind and that we could categorize properties not just by location but by what makes them unique, and that really influenced Airbnb categories and some of the stuff we’re doing now.

Even when sleep does eventually take over it is fitful, tortured slumber, filled with nightmares of her spending time with her new love, sweet memories gone bitter, and reruns of hurtful things she said.

This realization and the feelings of inadequacy that follow will sting forever, long after I move on. I've never struggled with low self-esteem before, but knowing that I'm not someone's first choice anymore emboldens all my insecurities. To love someone is to see the world through their eyes, and it’s harder to believe in your own magic when those who used to see it no longer do.

I worry I'm trauma dumping too much and taking advantage of their kindness. So I turn back to writing, and churn out thousands of words every day, more than I even have time to edit and publish here.

Replacing the lock icon with a neutral indicator prevents the misunderstanding that the lock icon is associated with the trustworthiness of a page, and emphasizes that security should be the default state in Chrome. Our research has also shown that many users never understood that clicking the lock icon showed important information and controls.

“We want the chronological feed back!” Instagram users scream into the void. “Here, have Reels and Shopping,” said Instagram’s CEO, on the hunt for new revenue streams.“We want freedom of speech!” tweet the denizens of Twitter. “But then our sponsored hashtags won’t be brand safe,” said Twitter’s CEO (whoever that is this week).

Murdoch lobbied Trump to punish Facebook and Google for siphoning his newspapers’ advertising revenue. In 2019, Trump’s Justice Department launched an antitrust investigation of Google. In 2021, Google settled and struck a lucrative content-sharing deal with Murdoch. The source also said Murdoch pushed Trump to open up land for fracking to boost the value of Murdoch’s fossil fuel investments. The Trump administration released nearly 13 million acres of federally controlled land to fracking companies. Murdoch, who sources say has become more pro-life in recent years, encouraged Trump to appoint judges who would overturn Roe v. Wade. “Rupert wanted Trump’s Supreme Court justices in so they could make abortion illegal,” a source who spoke to Murdoch said.

Mandarin and other Chinese languages and dialects have been considered serious, practical majors for some time because of the potential professional value of speaking in China. But why would the ability to speak in Francophone Africa be less valuable, unless you think Africa will never produce economic muscle to match its population?

We have a prevalent concept of the “practical college major” in our society, but that concept is vague, not buttressed with evidence, and shifts according to whim and prejudice. And the ultimate point of stressing the practicality of certain majors while denigrating the frivolity of others is to blame people for economic conditions they can’t control.

In the 2000s and 2010s, dozens of new schools of pharmacy were opened thanks to the perception that pharmacy was a safe field for young graduates. Thousands of newly minted pharmacists flooded the market. Somehow, administrators in higher education were surprised to find that these new graduates had a harder time finding a good job than previous generations. But this is an inevitable outcome of telling young people an academic field is a practical choice, since you’re making that field more attractive and thus increasing the competition they have to face in the labor market.

programming, like all skills, is subject to the simple constraints of supply and demand, and thus the practicality of studying the major is a moving target.

I have never — never — found a consistent and coherent definition of a “practical major,” anywhere. The meaning of the term floats around depending on the whims of the person using it, and those whims are usually dependent on mockery. The entire concept seems to exist simply to serve as an instrument to blame people for their own economic misfortune.

Some will say that a practical major is one that gives you the best opportunity for secure employment. Setting aside the fact that life spent in singular pursuit of money is soul-deadening, this strikes me as great advice for people in late adolescence who are in possession of a time machine. For the rest of us, perhaps we should build a society where the educational path chosen early in life is less consequential for lifetime economic security, and where we’re all more free to study what we actually care about.

Technology can change the economy faster than any person can reasonably be expected to keep up with. Nobody knows for sure which fields might be disrupted by AI, which skills rendered unmarketable. But if the effects are as big as some predict, a lot of people are suddenly going to find their once-practical path has become fraught and unsustainable. The question is, are we callous enough to blame them for it?

It’s criticised a lot for lacking character depth and not focusing on the characters. I’d agree somewhat but there are a few characters and one in particular which I felt a real connection with as the world unfolds in the later books.What it lacks in character charm though it makes up for in mind bending sci fi. Scale. The possibilities that could lay ahead. It focuses on mass psychology, how civilisations react, different ages etc. It’s about a much much much bigger picture and almost sacrifices character development to focus on that other stuff.I wouldn’t change a thing despite finding book one quite difficult too.My appreciation for it warped beyond recognition as I made my way through books 2 and 3.

Chinese is a utilitarian language, yes. It's also a language that heavily relies on context for impact and meaning. Cixin Liu's writing is no exception and is similar throughout his entire bibliography. It's very recognizable when he was truly inspired, e.g. the hairs on Ye Wenjie's cheeks standing up when she first stepped on Radar Peak, the making of the first sophon, etc. These moments increase in number progressively through the series, and Death's End is mostly one super inspired moment he obviously dreamed about writing for a long time after another, to the point where the final chapters are a mind-boggling rush through new concepts, eons and the coming together of numerous old concepts and plot threads. In short, this was written by a practicing engineer.

One of the most intelligent case studies in design is the Chinese tea cup. They’re made without handles simply because if it’s too hot to touch, it’s too hot to drink. Humans naturally want to add more. Add a cardboard sleeve, add a warning on the outside of the cup, add a handle. The result of all these things never cools down the actual contents. And in the end, you’ll still burn your mouth from drinking too early. It’s not that people don’t see the warnings, we’re just adding more layers of separation between us and the answer.Simplify until it’s obvious.