Before anyone outside her hometown knew her name, Disha Ravi spent four years raising awareness among young people in Bangalore about the effects of climate change. Now the 21-year-old activist is jailed in New Delhi. The allegation: She distributed a "tool kit" in the form of a Google Doc containing talking points and contact information for influential groups to drum up support for farmers who have been protesting against the Indian government for months. The New York Times: The document -- which the police say she shared with Greta Thunberg, the 18-year-old Swedish climate activist -- resembles the kind that grass-roots organizations around the world have used for years to campaign for their causes. But Ms. Ravi, the police contend, was using it to "spread disaffection against the Indian State." The arrest, the latest in a series of broader crackdown on activists, has triggered anger and disbelief among opposition politicians, student groups and lawyers, who say the government is using its law enforcement agencies to increasingly stifle dissent, in line with a broader deterioration of free speech in India. Ms. Ravi's arrest, they said, has raised the crackdown to a new level. "There is a method to this madness," said Manshi Asher, a researcher with the nonprofit group Environmental Justice, "and a pattern that is so clearly telling us that those asking critical questions would be silenced." Ms. Ravi is being held under a stringent sedition law that has been used to criminalize everything from leading rallies to posting political messages on social media. Although she has not been formally charged, she is to spend five days in police custody. In its response to other contentious policies -- including citizenship laws that worked against Muslims, a clampdown on the disputed Kashmir region and the farmers' protests -- Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government has resorted to arrests, stifling dissenting voices and blocking access to the internet. Groups that track internet freedom say India's has declined for a third consecutive year. For months, thousands of farmers, many of them Sikhs from the agricultural heartland state of Punjab, have camped out on the outskirts of New Delhi, protesting a slate of new laws that will dismantle a subsidy system that has for decades protected them from the vagaries of the free market.

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Morgan Housel, on the art and power of storytelling: C. R. Hallpike is a respected anthropologist who once wrote a review of a young author's recent book on the history of humans. It states: "It would be fair to say that whenever his facts are broadly correct they are not new, and whenever he tries to strike out on his own he often gets things wrong, sometimes seriously ... [It is not] a contribution to knowledge." Two things are notable here. One is that the book's author doesn't seem to disagree with the assessment. Another is that the author, Yuval Noah Harari, has sold over 27 million books, making him one of the bestselling contemporary authors in any field, and his book Sapiens -- which Hallpike was reviewing -- the most successful anthropology book of all time. Harari recently said about writing Sapiens: "I thought, 'This is so banal!' ... There is absolutely nothing there that is new. I'm not an archeologist. I'm not a primatologist. I mean, I did zero new research... It was really reading the kind of common knowledge and just presenting it in a new way. What Sapiens does have is excellent writing. Beautiful writing. The stories are captivating, the flow is effortless. Harari took what was already known and wrote it better than anyone had done before. The result was fame greater than anyone before him could imagine. Best story wins. It's nothing to be ashamed of, because so many successes work this way. The Civil War is probably the most well-documented period in American history. There are thousands of books analyzing every conceivable angle, chronicling every possible detail. But in 1990 Ken Burns' Civil War documentary became an instant phenomenon, with 39 million viewers and winning 40 major film awards. As many Americans watched Ken Burns' Civil War in 1990 as watched the Super Bowl that year. And all he did -- not to minimize it, because it's such a feat -- is take 130-year-old existing information and wove it into a (very) good story. Bill Bryson is the same. His books fly off the shelves, which I understand drives the little-known academics who uncovered the things he writes about crazy. His latest work is basically an anatomy textbook. It has no new information, no discoveries. But it's so well written -- he tells such a good story -- that it became an instant New York Times bestseller and the Washington Post's Book of the Year. Charles Darwin didn't discover evolution, he just wrote the first and most compelling book about it. John Burr Williams had more profound insight on the topic of valuing companies than Benjamin Graham. But Graham knew how to write a good paragraph, so he became the legend.

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India said on Monday local firms will no longer need a license or other permission to collect, generate, store and share geospatial data of the country, bringing sweeping changes to its earlier stance that it admitted hindered innovation. From a report: Until now, New Delhi required Indian firms to seek licenses and additional approvals to create and publish topographical data. India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi said today's "deregulation" step will help the country become more self-reliant and reach its $5 trillion GDP goal. "The regulations that apply to geospatial data and maps henceforth stand radically liberalised. The Department of Science and Technology is announcing sweeping changes to India's mapping policy, specifically for Indian companies. What is readily available globally does not need to be restricted in India and therefore geospatial data that used to be restricted will now be freely available in India," New Delhi said in a statement.

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Software people from the 80s will probably find this search engine of Esther Dyson's RELease 1.0 newsletter that Steve Williams wrote. Look at all the references to ThinkTank and UserLand.

A workplace has its own informal cardinal directions: elevatorward, kitchenward, bathroomward. It's a map we share. From an essay: I love visiting offices, listening to their hum. Literally: I sometimes went to a giant financial firm where they traded different kinds of securities on different floors, and if it was a big day in bonds the fourth floor would be loud, loud; the fifth floor, though, focused on shorter-term investments, would be almost silent. You could hear the economy. I enjoy the rituals of visiting. First, there is security: How long will I wait? Who will greet me in the lobby, should I ever gain access -- a human whose job is to handle ingress and egress, or is each person expected to greet their own visitors? Will I get a VISITOR sticker, and will the sticker change color in a day, for security purposes? Is the coffee brought to me or may I get it myself? Sometimes you learn that people have had sex in a given office, which is hard to forget. There are cardinal directions -- elevatorward, kitchenward, bathroomward. Favored stalls. Better sinks. Teensy little geographies shared between humans. I have a friend who worked at the White House, back in calmer times, and he told me about some of his workplace battles. I said to him one of the dumbest things I've ever said in my life: "The White House seems like a really political place to work." I still cringe to think of it. Yet it's a place where power is absolutely explicit and geography means everything. And "place," as Tuan points out, is really a proxy for time. The president might summon anyone any moment of the day, from anywhere in the nation. If you work in one of the rare offices in the West Wing, instead of across the alley at the enormous Executive Office Building, you can be in the Oval Office in a minute. It's purely about time, measured in the count of footsteps between you and power. Everyone knows that. The West Wing offices themselves absolutely suck. The whole place smells weird.

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The Perseverance rover could not be more aptly named, says Nasa science chief Thomas Zurbuchen.

The World Health Organization (WHO) on Monday listed AstraZeneca and Oxford University's COVID-19 vaccine for emergency use, widening access to the relatively inexpensive shot in the developing world. From a report: A WHO statement said it had approved the vaccine as produced by AstraZeneca-SKBio (Republic of Korea) and the Serum Institute of India. "We now have all the pieces in place for the rapid distribution of vaccines. But we still need to scale up production," said Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO Director-General. The listing by the UN health agency comes days after a WHO panel provided interim recommendations on the vaccine, saying two doses with an interval of around 8 to 12 weeks must be given to all adults, and can be used in countries with the South African variant of the coronavirus as well. The AstraZeneca/Oxford shot has been hailed because it is cheaper and easier to distribute than some rivals, including Pfizer/BioNTech's, which was listed for emergency use by the WHO late in December.

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Back in the late 80s I started a company called UserLand. My second company. I knew that was going to be the name when I was running my first, Living Videotext, named after the tech. By the time I was ready for the second, I came to believe that every company is about the users, not the tech, hence UserLand. 33 years later, I feel the same way, only more so.

I hoped that when Ben Smith wrote about the Donald McNeil firing at the NYT, he'd look at the media angle, not the internal chaos at the NYT. I guess maybe in a sense that is media? It's an old story, honestly I think only journalism insiders care. I don't.

McNeil was like Jeremy Lin in 2012 and the NYT was the Knicks. Right person at the right place at the right time. And (oddly) the NYT did the same thing with McNeil that the Knicks did with Lin. Weird how that works. Someone should write a book. ;-)

What mattered with Lin and what matters with McNeil is that the users love them. You should check that out. I could go into great detail, but honestly that's not my job. I'm a user and actually a longtime fan of both the Knicks and the NYT.

Ask the NYT reporter who covers the Knicks now. They're doing great. They have a bunch of Jeremy Lins now. Somehow they figured out their business. The NYT imho is drifting further and further away from it.

The combo of McNeil and the Daily podcast was gold. Why did they break up the team? Ben, that would be a story worthy of you. Again imho. A fan. Dave

Criminals who keep their funds in cryptocurrency tend to launder funds through a small cluster of online services, blockchain investigations firm Chainalysis said in a report last week. From a report: This includes services like high-risk (low-reputation) crypto-exchange portals, online gambling platforms, cryptocurrency mixing services, and financial services that support cryptocurrency operations headquartered in high-risk jurisdictions. Criminal activity studied in this report included cryptocurrency addresses linked to online scams, ransomware attacks, terrorist funding, hacks, transactions linked to child abuse materials, and funds linked to payments made to dark web marketplaces offering illegal services like drugs, weapons, and stolen data. But while you'd expect that the money laundering resulting from such a broad spectrum of illegal activity to have taken place across a large number of services, Chainalysis reports that just a small group of 270 blockchain addresses have laundered around 55% of cryptocurrency associated with criminal activity.

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Good morning sports fans!

Nissan Motor said on Monday it is not in talks with Apple, following a report that the iPhone maker approached the Japanese company in recent months about a tie-up for its autonomous car project. From a report: The Financial Times said the companies had had brief discussions that faltered over Nissan's reluctance to become an assembler for Apple-branded cars, adding that the talks had not advanced to senior management level. "We are not in talks with Apple," a Nissan spokeswoman said. "However, Nissan is always open to exploring collaborations and partnerships to accelerate industry transformation." Hyundai and Kia also said earlier this month that they were not engaging with Apple on any car project.

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Uber called on the European Union to introduce a framework for gig economy workers, floating a model similar to that adopted by California after a contentious fight over the employment status of its drivers. From a report: The U.S. ride-hailing giant shared a "white paper" with EU competition chief Margrethe Vestager, jobs commissioner Nicolas Schmit and other officials. It urged policymakers to implement reforms that protect drivers and couriers operating through an app, without reclassifying them as employees. It's a thorny issue for Uber and other companies in the so-called gig economy that encourage temporary, flexible working models in favor of full-time employment. Last year, Uber, Lyft and other firms successfully fought against proposals in California which would have given their drivers the status of employees rather than independent contractors. Californian voters approved Proposition 22, a measure that would allow drivers for app-based transportation and delivery companies to be classified as independent contractors while still entitling them to new benefits like minimum earnings and vehicle insurance. "We're calling on policymakers, other platforms and social representatives to move quickly to build a framework for flexible earning opportunities, with industry-wide standards that all platform companies must provide for independent workers," Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi said in a blog post Monday. "This could include introducing new laws such as the legislation recently enacted in California," he added. Uber said the EU could alternatively set new principles through a "European model of social dialogue" between platform workers, policy makers and industry representatives.

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Himalayan songbirds in colder, more elevated environments have feathers with more fluffy down.

A hacking campaign that used a U.S. tech company as a springboard to compromise a raft of U.S. government agencies is "the largest and most sophisticated attack the world has ever seen," Microsoft Corp President Brad Smith said. From a report: The operation, which was identified in December and that the U.S. government has said was likely orchestrated by Russia, breached software made by SolarWinds Corp, giving hackers access to thousands of companies and government offices that used its products. The hackers got access to emails at the U.S. Treasury, Justice and Commerce departments and other agencies. Cybersecurity experts have said it could take months to identify the compromised systems and expel the hackers. "I think from a software engineering perspective, it's probably fair to say that this is the largest and most sophisticated attack the world has ever seen," Smith said during an interview that aired on Sunday on the CBS program "60 Minutes." The breach could have compromised up to 18,000 SolarWinds customers that used the company's Orion network monitoring software, and likely relied on hundreds of engineers.

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