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#fcc #netneutrality

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How many books are sold in the United States? The only tracker we have is BookScan, which logs point of sale—i.e., customer purchases at stores, websites, etc.—for most of the market. BookScan counted 767 million print sales in 2023. BookScan claims to cover 85% of print sales, although many in publishing think it’s much less. It does not capture all store sales, any library sales, most festival and reading sales, etc. (Almost every author will tell you their royalty reports show significantly more sales than BookScan captures. Sometimes by orders of magnitude.)

Yes, People Do Buy Books

#books

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Tom Tomorrow: Freedom from speech

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American capitalism is coming apart because of people like Elon Musk, who insists on getting the largest pay package in corporate history while extorting his shareholders and shafting his workers.

Elon Musk’s grotesque distortion of capitalism

#elonmusk

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Many experienced a culture shock. The bustling cities of Taiwan are densely packed and offer extensive public transport, ubiquitous street food, and 24-hour convenience stores every few blocks. In northern Phoenix, everyday life is impossible without a car, and East Asian faces are scarce.

Inside TSMC’s Phoenix, Arizona expansion struggles

#arizona #taiwan

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But over the next two years, Bruce came to realize that the reality of working at TSMC wasn’t exactly what he had envisioned. While working on nanometer-level processes to make state-of-the-art chips, he struggled with language barriers, long hours, and a strict hierarchy. Bruce soon began second-guessing what he had signed up for. The plant, which was originally set to begin operating in 2024, fell woefully behind schedule; production at the facility is now set to start in 2025. Bruce, who said he signed a confidentiality agreement with TSMC, requested anonymity for this story.

He wasn’t the only one disappointed with TSMC’s progress in Arizona — other U.S. workers who spoke to Rest of World echoed Bruce’s concerns. In the past two years, the company has relocated hundreds of Taiwanese workers and their families to Arizona. Instead of a gleaming new facility, these workers found an active construction site, and a company struggling to bridge Taiwanese and American professional and cultural norms. 

Over the past four months, Rest of World spoke with more than 20 current and former TSMC employees — from the U.S. and Taiwan — at the Arizona plant. All of them requested anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media or because they feared retaliation from the company. In February, Rest of World traveled to Phoenix to visit the growing TSMC complex and spend time with the nascent community of transplanted Taiwanese engineers. 

The American engineers complained of rigid, counterproductive hierarchies at the company; Taiwanese TSMC veterans described their American counterparts as lacking the kind of dedication and obedience they believe to be the foundation of their company’s world-leading success.

#tsmc #arizona #tech

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Garth German

#trump

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A grand jury has charged 11 Arizona Republicans and seven top aides to Donald Trump in a scheme to keep Trump in the White House by falsely certifying he won the state in 2020, though voters in the Grand Canyon State narrowly favored Joe Biden. 

Attorney General Kris Mayes, a Democrat, announced on Wednesday the grand jury had issued the nine-count indictment. It alleges the slate of Republicans sometimes known as fake electors and the Trump aides engaged in a conspiracy aimed at "preventing the lawful transfer of the presidency of the United States, keeping President Donald J. Trump in office against the will of Arizona voters, and depriving Arizona voters of their right to vote and have their votes counted."

The names of the seven Trump allies were redacted from the 58-page indictment, meaning they have not yet been served notice of the charges against them.

Though their names are redacted, as are the specific charges against them, details in the indictment make clear that the architects of Trump's national campaign to steal the election are also facing charges in Arizona. Those individuals appear to include Trump lawyers Rudy Giuliani and John Eastman, former chief of staff Mark Meadows, lawyers Jenna Ellis and Christina Bobb, and Trump advisers Boris Epshteyn and Michael Roman.

#arizona #trump #election2020

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Paul’s argument was that God’s salvation was now for everyone, even including unclean gentiles, and no longer exclusively for Israel. It took a few centuries, and an emperor, to flip that on its head, inverting and perverting it to an argument that God’s salvation was now only for gentiles and now somehow excluded Israel.

Fred Clark

#bible

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About one-quarter of U.S. adults age 50 and older who are not yet retired say they expect to never retire and 70% are concerned about prices rising faster than their income, an AARP survey finds.

About 1 in 4 have no retirement savings, according to research released Wednesday by the organization that shows how a graying America is worrying more and more about how to make ends meet even as economists and policymakers say the U.S. economy has all but achieved a soft landing after two years of record inflation.

Everyday expenses and housing costs, including rent and mortgage payments, are the biggest reasons why people are unable to save for retirement.

The data will matter this election year as Democratic President Joe Biden and Republican rival Donald Trump are trying to win support from older Americans, who traditionally turn out in high numbers, with their policy proposals.

#polistat #retirement

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#gaza #israel

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The Good Death movement, for all its good intentions, remains a kind of idealized version of death where we have the time and space to confront the reality of mortality and the emotions that ensue. But the pandemic that began in 2020 and is still ongoing is just one of the many obvious reminders that most of us do not have the time or luxury of working through five stages. For the past four years, people have died suddenly, they have died on Zoom, they have died alone. They have died angry, depressed, and in denial. They are not dying neatly, with the kind of acceptance that makes those left behind feel good and reassured. We have come a long way since the 1960s, getting better at helping the terminally ill get what they actually need and want, and not just what we think is good for them. But death is still a brutal, messy business.

Lost in the Five Stages of Grief

#books #death

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Israel has dropped more than 70,000 bombs on Gaza in 200 days. That’s 20 times more than the US dropped on Iraq in 6 years. And Iraq is 3,500 times the size of Gaza. It’s not a war. It’s a full on genocide.

KNEECAP

#gaza #genocide #israel

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Donald Trump’s legal payroll is easily the largest and most diverse of any political figure in modern U.S. history. But while most of the attorneys that Trump’s various fundraising committees have paid over the years are a matter of public record, one of the top recipients still poses a mystery—with more than $8 million in legal costs going to an unknown firm, or firms, through what appears to be a corporate intermediary.

#trump

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#trump

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I’m glad there’s OxyContin and video games to keep those people quiet.

Mark Andreessen

#techoverlords