What’s the most underrated material in the modern world? Published on August 20, 2021 Written by Ed Conway How about concrete? Often dismissed as boring, ugly & inert. Concrete is actually surprising, dynamic & incredibly complex. With that in mind here are a few reasons why we need to start talking about concrete First off, we use a lot of it. A hell of a lot of it. Every minute of every day, construction firms around the world pour out the equivalent of more than 200,000 bathtubs of concrete. Every year we pour enough concrete to cover the entire landmass of England.
The vast majority of concrete these days is being poured in China, to build bridges, skyscrapers, high speed rail etc. Indeed China produced more cement in the past three years alone (2018-2020) than the US did in EVERY year since the first Portland cement plant opened in 1865. Or another way of looking at it. At this stage you’re prob wondering about why I’m saying both “cement” and “concrete”. Calling it extraordinary isn’t overdoing it. This all happens in a kiln.
Big Tech Suppresses Information About the Health Damage It Inflicts on Kids. We believe that modern technology platforms, such as Google, Facebook, Amazon and Apple, are even more powerful than most people realize – Eric Schmidt, Google, 2014 There is a preponderance of evidence that social media and smartphone usage seriously damage the mental health of adolescents. Suicide rates among adolescents and young women have skyrocketed from 2007 to 2017.Smartphones and social media consumption by adolescents are intertwined. Almost all the social media platforms and smartphones are supplied by the following five Big Tech companies: Google, Facebook, Twitter, Microsoft, and Apple.
These five companies have a total market cap of $3.5 Trillion. They are the wealthiest and most powerful companies in the world.This article shows how these five Big Tech companies use their tremendous influence to suppress information and deter scrutiny of how their products, services, and practices are damaging the health of young people. Introduction Fig. 1. Spreadsheet: Politics That’s bad. How are households actually using internet connectivity, and why does it matter? | American Enterprise Institute. More than a hundred million US households have fixed-line broadband access, generating tens of billions of dollars in yearly access charges, but there is surprisingly little reliable knowledge about online user behavior.
Nonetheless, copious amounts of attention — not to mention subsidies and other government resources — are applied to universal service policies and other regulatory and judicial activities (such as merger and antitrust evaluations) that must hinge on a detailed understanding of how consumers respond to various internet service providers’ offers. Effective decisions require policymakers to have a detailed knowledge of how consumers allocate their attention across a panoply of internet applications and content. How consumers allocate their attention among internet sites may seem to have much in common with other standard consumer choice settings: Internet user attention is a scarce resource, and users must make choices about where to spend their limited time. To discuss concerns about privacy and data sharing, we must understand how Big Tech uses APIs | American Enterprise Institute.
When considering how to manage data sharing and privacy concerns, it helps to have a baseline understanding of how the technologies that policy will influence actually work. How do companies such as Google, Facebook, and Amazon use the data they gather on their users? Application programming interfaces (APIs) are one type of technology used by the tech giants that compile user data to be analyzed and shared with third parties. An API allows applications or computers to communicate with one another through a coded interface. They are designed to interconnect two or more online services to exchange relative data points. Along with reducing friction for users, APIs allow additional access to data about each customer that conducts transactions across different platforms. Through APIs, platform companies gain more data about visitors to each other’s websites or apps.
Europe’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) has also forced a rethinking of data collection. Huawei makes false promises on 5G security as one of the ‘Five Eyes’ goes blind. China has been a major funder of infrastructure in Asia and Africa in recent years through its Belt and Road Initiative, a global effort by Beijing to create geopolitical allies through investment in traditional physical infrastructure. But over the past decade, the initiative has found itself shape-shifting into a digital strategy in Europe, thanks in large part to work by Huawei, the Chinese telecoms giant. A Huawei logo is pictured at the Shanghai auto show in China April 16, 2019 – via REUTERS Last week, news leaked that Britain’s National Security Council had voted to allow Huawei “to supply some ‘non-core’ technology [for the UK’s 5G wireless network] . . . but several ministers in the meeting on Tuesday raised concerns even about that concession, arguing instead for a total ban on the supplier.”
Huawei is using its ability to provide cheaper (subsidized) telecommunications equipment to integrate itself into the UK and European countries. So what’s happening in the UK? Center for Humane Technology. How a Technology Addiction Can Hurt Your Health. Dopamine, How to Improve Your Motivation, Happiness, and Digestion. Nomophobia — 5 Steps to Ending Your Smartphone Addiction. Does the “ding” of your phone have you dropping whatever you’re doing to see who “liked” your latest Facebook status? Are you answering work emails before rubbing the sleep from your eyes? Does a low battery icon leave you quivering in fear? You, my friend, are likely suffering from nomophobia. Nomowhat? Nomophobia is the fear of being without your smartphone, or more simply smartphone addiction, and it’s a “first world problem” that’s showing no signs of slowing down, regardless of age.
And while it might sound silly — can you really be addicted to a handheld device? About half of U.S. adults are checking their phone at least several times an hour, with 11 percent tapping their screen awake every few minutes. (1) No space is safe from the rush of a new tweet, either. Almost 1 in 10 Americans has admitted to using their phone during sex. Is it a surprise, then, that 12 percent think that smartphones are detrimental to relationships?
Yikes. 1. 2. 3. Sound familiar? 4. Yup. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. First of Its Kind University Study Proves Without a Doubt that Your Phone is Spying On You. Chinese surveillance awaits Americans if China wins race for mobile tech. The arrest of Meng Wanzhou, chief financial officer of Huawei, sent shockwaves through policy circles in Washington, D.C., as well as in government and corporate actors in China. There has been much handwringing over what President Trump knew about the arrest — which came on the same day as his meeting with Chinese leader Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the G20 — and when he knew it, but that narrow focus ignores the bigger picture here. Meng’s arrest confirms what many already suspected: Huawei presents a multifaceted threat to U.S. interests, both at home and abroad. A man holds a Chinese flag outside the B.C.
Supreme Court bail hearing of Huawei CFO Meng Wanzhou, who was held on an extradition warrant in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada December 11, 2018. Reuters It is true that Huawei is a private company and that, as a private company, it is profit-driven in a way that China’s behemoth state-owned enterprises are not. Why the Cost of Living Is Poised to Plummet in the Next 20 Years. People are concerned about how AI and robotics are taking jobs, destroying livelihoods, reducing our earning capacity, and subsequently destroying the economy.
In anticipation, countries like Canada, India and Finland are running experiments to pilot the idea of "universal basic income" — the unconditional provision of a regular sum of money from the government to support livelihood independent of employment. But what people aren't talking about, and what's getting my attention, is a forthcoming rapid demonetization of the cost of living. Meaning — it's getting cheaper and cheaper to meet our basic needs. Powered by developments in exponential technologies, the cost of housing, transportation, food, health care, entertainment, clothing, education and so on will fall, eventually approaching, believe it or not, zero. In this blog, I'll explore how people spend their money now and how "technological socialism" (i.e., having our lives taken care of by technology) can demonetize living. (2) Food. Kicking Google out of my life: Day 1.
Have you ever had one of those moments where you feel like one company has far too much control over your computing life? I know. It's a pretty nerdy realization to have. But I'm guessing a lot of people reading this article have experienced it. And I'm just taking a wild stab in the dark here, but I'm going to go out on a limb and say the company most of you feel that way about is Google.
I do 99% (at least) of my work using Google hardware, software, and services. My three primary computing devices are a Nexus 9 tablet (Android), an Nvidia Shield tablet (Android), and a Chromebook Pixel (ChromeOS). You know what? And that is really starting to freak me out. This isn't anything new. As unlikely as it seems, what would happen if Google disappeared tomorrow? Despite this, I find the prospect of removing the "Google-ness" from my life absolutely terrifying. But simply being afraid isn't a good reason to not do something.
So I'm jumping in. Starting is pretty straight-forward. Kicking Google out of my life, Part 2: Leaving Android is not so easy. Two days ago, I declared to the world that I would be kicking Google out of my life. It's not because I think Google is some evil corporation, hell bent on the destruction of all that is good and just in this world.
And it certainly is not because the stuff they make stinks (it really doesn't). The reason is simply that I have become too reliant on Google – on one (singular) company – for everything that I do in the digital realm. That fact scares the holy bejeebers out of me. The average life-span of a Google service is 1,459 days. So I'm doing what any person with a flagrant disregard for personal productivity would do. The first two days I set the simple goal of removing all traces of Google-powered software on my personal devices – no more ChromeOS on my laptop and no more Android on my tablets. Well, I have good news and bad news to report. Replacing ChromeOS was, as I already knew, pretty simple. To my tablets. You see… I don't have a phone.
Or so I thought. Bryan Lunduke. Kicking Google out of my life: A surprise Android replacement emerges. I have 25 days left in my 30-day quest to remove my dependency on Google services (read part 1 for the full details on why I'm doing this and how I'm approaching my, perhaps foolhardy, endeavor). The first step for me was an easy one – I simply needed to take my ChromeOS-powered laptop and install a different operating system on it. Fast and easy. Took me roughly an hour to complete that goal. With ChromeOS removed from my daily life, my attentions turned to Android.
Which, for me, became a far more challenging task. To be fair, I am the one that is making this so damned challenging. I'm a Linux and Open Source guy, through and through. If I proclaimed that I was using Windows or iOS for my primary mobile devices… the Internet would never let me hear the end of it. I am not a cellphone user (instead, I've relied on VoIP services like Google Voice for all of my telephony needs). Unfortunately, as a tablet-focused guy, my options are significantly slimmer.
Bryan Lunduke. Kicking Google out of my life, Part 4: Goodbye, Gmail. Super-Fast Recap 2000™: I am currently giving myself 30 days to remove all Google products and services from my life because I have simply become too dependent upon on them. To date, both ChromeOS and Android have been replaced with other operating systems, and I am keeping a running tally of the costs (time and money) of replacing everything with non-Google (and, because I'm that sort of guy, primarily Free and Open Source) solutions. With 24 days to go and my personal hardware having been De-Google-ized, I now turn my attention to the vast array of Google services.
Services that I have come to rely upon in both my work and personal life. Services that, if they were to disappear today, would leave me squarely in the Stone Age. Let's get the big one out of the way right up front. It's time to replace Gmail. Gmail is, for lack of a better word, huge. In May, Google announced that Gmail had acquired over 900 million users. Until now, I've been one of them. Kolab Now. Oh, side note.