Mass media routinely portray information about COVID-19 deaths on logarithmic graphs. But do their readers understand them? Alessandro Romano, Chiara Sotis, Goran Dominioni, and Sebastian Guidi carried out an experiment which suggests that they don't. From a report: The fact that the framing of information can dramatically alter how we react to it will hardly surprise any reader of this blog. Incidentally, the canonical example of framing effects involves an epidemic: a disease that kills 200 out of 600 people is considered worse than one in which 400 people survive. Whereas this imaginary epidemic was just a thought experiment, an actual global pandemic turns out to be an unfortunate laboratory for framing effects. In a recent experiment, we show how framing crucially affects people's responses to one of the most important building blocks of the COVID-19 informational puzzle: the number of deaths. We show that the logarithmic scale graphs that the media routinely use to display this information are poorly understood by the public and affect people's attitudes and policy preferences towards the pandemic. This finding has important implications because during a pandemic, even more than usually, the public depends on the media to convey understandable information in order to make informed decisions regarding health-protective behaviours. Many media outlets portray information about the number of COVID-19 cases and deaths using a logarithmic scale graph. At first sight, this seems sensible. In fact, many of them defend their decision by showing how much better these charts are in conveying information about the exponential nature of the contagion. For history lovers, the popular economist Irving Fisher also believed this, which led him to strongly advocate for their use in 1917 (right before the Spanish Flu rendered them tragically relevant). Fisher was ecstatic about this scale: "When one is once accustomed to it, it never misleads." It turns out, however, that even specialized scientists don't get used to it. Not surprisingly, neither does the general public. We conducted a between-subjects experiment to test whether people had a better understanding of graphs in a logarithmic or in a linear scale, and whether the scale in which the chart is shown affects their level of worry and their policy preferences. Half of our n=2000 sample of US residents was shown the progression of COVID-19 related deaths in the US at the time of the survey plotted on a logarithmic scale. The other half received exactly the same information -- this time plotted on a good old linear scale. [...]

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schwit1 writes: Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer issued an emergency declaration after the Edenville Dam and Sanford dams failed in Midland County, forcing thousands of residents to immediately evacuate their homes on Tuesday. Downtown Midland could be under 9 feet of water by Wednesday morning, Gov. Whitmer said during a Livestream on Tuesday night following the two collapses. A flash flood emergency is in effect for the areas downstream, which includes Midland City and Freeland, Michigan. "Extremely dangerous flooding is ongoing along the Tittabawassee River in Midland County due to catastrophic failures at the Edenville and Sanford dams," the NWS wrote. "A Flood Warning is in effect, and anyone near the river should seek higher ground immediately, avoid driving into flood waters, and continue to heed evacuation orders given by local authorities. Life-threatening flooding continues today." The report notes the rising concerns among residents and environmentalists "about the potential of widespread toxic contamination after floodwaters mixed with containment ponds at the vast Dow chemical plant."

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Nasa's Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken are a week away from their flight to the space station.

The mythical, unreleased version of the 2017 superhero film "Justice League" will finally see the light of day on Warner Media's HBO Max in 2021. From a report: After years of campaigning from talent and comic book fans, the studio behind the DC Films ensemble "Justice League" will offer original director Zach Snyder's cut of the film, which saw heroes Batman, Wonder Woman, Aquaman, The Flash, Cyborg and Superman share the same screen. Director Zack Snyder announced the news on a live Q&A Wednesday, following a virtual screening of his Henry Cavill-led Superman film "Man of Steel." Snyder completed the majority of work on "Justice League" in 2016, but stepped away from post-production and editing in light of a family tragedy. Warner Bros. brought in "The Avengers" helmer Joss Whedon to finish the job, and the varying styles of both men led many fans to believe Snyder had envisioned a much darker take on the project. Budgeted at a reported $300 million, the film grossed over $650 million worldwide and did not resonate with critics, sitting at 40% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes. The DC assemblage was largely perceived as a miss in comparison to the juggernaut of Marvel Studios, and led to a creative pivot away from a tightly connected cinematic universe in favor of a far more loosely assembled collection of comic book adaptations.

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The U.S. Senate approved sweeping new legislation Wednesday that could ultimately bar many Chinese companies from listing shares on U.S. exchanges, or otherwise raising money from American investors. phalse phace shares a report: Sen. John Kennedy, a Louisiana Republican, submitted the Holding Foreign Companies Accountable Act for unanimous consent, a bill co-sponsored by Democratic Sen. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland and Republican Sen. Kevin Cramer of North Dakota. The bill was approved without objection. The bill would require Chinese companies to establish they are not owned or controlled by a foreign government. Furthermore, they would be required to submit to an audit that can be reviewed by the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board, the nonprofit body that oversees audits of all U.S. companies that seek to raise money in public markets. "I do not want to get into a new cold war," Kennedy said on the Senate floor. "All I want, and I think all the rest of us want, is for China to play by the rules." Steve Dickinson of Harris Bricken wrote in the China Law Blog that American companies seeking to raise money publicly must be audited by an accredited firm and that these audits are further monitored by the PCAOB. China has refused to allow its companies to follow U.S. securities law, arguing that Chinese law bars auditors' work from being transferred out of the country, Dickinson wrote.

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Cyclone Amphan has made violent landfall in eastern India and Bangladesh, lashing communities along the coast with ferocious wind and rain. From a report: It uprooted trees and toppled dwellings in both countries, including in the Indian city of Kolkata in West Bengal. Nearly three million people were evacuated -- most of them in Bangladesh -- before the severe storm hit. At least five deaths have been reported. Coronavirus restrictions have been hampering emergency and relief efforts. Covid-19 and social-distancing measures have made mass evacuations more difficult for authorities, with shelters unable to be used to full capacity. The storm, which was the first super cyclone to form in the Bay of Bengal since 1999, is expected to have caused deadly storm surges. Its winds have now weakened but it is still classified as a very severe cyclone.

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TF International Securities' reliable analyst Ming-Chi Kuo is at it again with another ominous note on the iPhone 12: it won't come with wired EarPods included in the box. From a report: We can already feel the palpable anger bubbling up inside of you as you read these words, shaking your head in disbelief and crossing your fingers in hopes it's not true. But this is news coming from Kuo, an analyst who rarely misses when he spreads his gospel, so there's a good chance the information is right and Apple is summoning up its infamous courage once again. Every version of the iPhone has shipped with wired earbuds in the box and removing them would make the iPhone 12 less accessible. Imagine ponying up the big bucks for a shiny new iPhone 12 and not being able to listen to music in private unless you shell out separately for wired or wireless earbuds.

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UK businessman Sir Richard Branson is looking to Saturday to debut one of his new space systems.

Twitter today acknowledged that it's begun testing a new setting that let users limit who can reply to tweets. From a report: The setting was first noted earlier this year. Similar to Facebook's post view settings, the current implementation features a small glove icon in the corner. Tapping on it brings up a "Who Can Reply?" window. From there, users can pick from one of three options: Everyone, People You Follow and Only People You Mention. If you opt for either of the latter, the reply function will greyed out for all who don't fit the description. They can view, like and retweet the thing, but they won't be able to reply directly to the sender. The thread itself will also acknowledge that replies are limited.

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Secure instant messaging app Signal launched this week a new feature called "Signal PINs" which the company says will help users migrate account data between devices. From a report: Signal says that in the long run, this new feature is the base and the first step towards moving away from using phone numbers as profile IDs. The new Signal profile PIN feature is already live and available for all Signal users. The feature can be enabled in the Signal Settings section, under Privacy, and the Signal PIN option. Once enabled, users will be asked to create a PIN code that will be associated with their account. The PIN can be anything from a four-digit number to a long alpha-numerical string.

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A former Apple contractor who helped blow the whistle on the company's programme to listen to users' Siri recordings has decided to go public, in protest at the lack of action taken as a result of the disclosures. From a report: In a letter announcing his decision, sent to all European data protection regulators, Thomas le Bonniec said: "It is worrying that Apple (and undoubtedly not just Apple) keeps ignoring and violating fundamental rights and continues their massive collection of data. I am extremely concerned that big tech companies are basically wiretapping entire populations despite European citizens being told the EU has one of the strongest data protection laws in the world. Passing a law is not good enough: it needs to be enforced upon privacy offenders." Le Bonniec, 25, worked as a subcontractor for Apple in its Cork offices, transcribing user requests in English and French, until he quit in the summer of 2019 due to ethical concerns with the work. "They do operate on a moral and legal grey area" he told the Guardian at the time, "and they have been doing this for years on a massive scale. They should be called out in every possible way." Following the revelations of Le Bonniec and his colleagues, Apple promised sweeping changes to its "grading" program, which involved thousands of contractors listening to recordings made, both accidentally and deliberately, using Siri. The company apologised, brought the work in-house, and promised that it would only grade recordings from users who had explicitly opted-in to the practice.

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I was talking with an old friend Don Park yesterday. He's also a software developer. First project we did together was in 1988, he did a Mac INIT that enabled interprocess communication. It was part of the foundation we built Frontier on. We got around to JavaScript and he said I should make packages anyone can use. I said Don I do! No one knows about them, he said. Yeah, but I tell them. Heh. Maybe I should be doing PR. Finding the bloggers who are most influential about new packages that make JavaScript developers lives easier. Anyway, to start, I sent Don a pointer to my davefeedread package. It's a Node package that makes it easy and fast to read a feed. Any flavor of RSS or Atom. GIve it a URL and it calls back with a JavaScript object for the whole feed. Includes a simple example, sort of a Hello World of feed reading. What you do from there is up to your imagination. It's the easiest way to read a feed in Node. A good place to start.

Infamous Israeli surveillance firm NSO Group created a web domain that looked as if it belonged to Facebook's security team to entice targets to click on links that would install the company's powerful cell phone hacking technology, according to data analyzed by Motherboard. From the report: It is not uncommon for hackers working for governments to impersonate Facebook, perhaps with a phishing page that displays a Facebook login screen but which secretly steals a target's password. But NSO's approach complicates its ongoing conflict with the tech giant. NSO is currently embroiled in a lawsuit with Facebook, which is suing the surveillance firm for leveraging a vulnerability in WhatsApp to let NSO clients remotely hack phones. Motherboard has also found more evidence that NSO used infrastructure based in the United States; a server used by NSO's system to deliver malware was owned by Amazon. A former NSO employee provided Motherboard with the IP address of a server setup to infect phones with NSO's Pegasus hacking tool.

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This little bird has been attacking a window in my house for hours.

The Bitcoin network just fine-tuned a key parameter to coax back miners who quit after last week's halving hammered their profits. From a report: More than 20 exahashes per second (EH/s) of computing power -- the equivalent of around 1.5 million older-generation mining machines -- has been switched off from Bitcoin since the network's halving. The 7-day rolling average of Bitcoin's hash rate has dropped over 20% from around 122 EH/s just prior to the halving on May 11 to now 97 EH/s. The once-in-four-years event reduced miners' block rewards from 12.5 to 6.25 bitcoin (BTC) per block. The hash rate drop after the halving has significantly outrun the hashing sprint prior to it. As such, Bitcoin's mining difficulty, which measures how hard it is to compete for block rewards, decreased 6% to 15.14 Trillion at 2:00 UTC on Wednesday in the network's first biweekly difficulty adjustment since the halving. The amount of computing power connected to Bitcoin has been on a roller-coaster ride over the past two weeks. Bitcoin's mining difficulty adjusts itself every 2,016 blocks, roughly 14 days, to ensure the average interval between blocks remains at 10 minutes. If a large number of miners are switched off from the network, resulting in a longer-than-10-minute average block interval, the difficulty will decrease to encourage participation. And Bitcoin's third halving on May 11 happened exactly at the halfway mark of the previous 2,016-block difficulty cycle.

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