Interesting Links: May 25, 2019

Facebook prepares for the 2020 launch of its Globalcoin technology; AT&T begins accepting bitcoin; SpaceX launches 60 experimental satellites to begin building its global Internet capability; What prisoners and prosecutors can learn from each other; and more...

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Business, News, Science, Technology, or whatever gets my attention.

Straight from my RSS feed:

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Ten links and micro-summaries from my 1000+ daily headlines. I filter them so you don't have to.

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1. Facebook is apparently planning to launch its digital currency in early 2020 - According to the BBC, Facebook is planning to launch the internally named Globalcoin in a dozen or so countries during 2020. In preparation, the company has been holding conversations with people from Western Union, the Bank of England, and the US Treasury. The currency is expected to be anchored to the value of the US Dollar, and there is some uncertainty as to whether it will be a cryptocurrency or some other form of digital money.


2. AT&T Now Accepts Bitcoin — Are T-Mobile and Verizon Next? - AT&T subscribers can now pay their bills in bitcoin, and the article speculates that T-Mobile and Verizon will soon follow suit. AT&T has contracted with BitPay to convert bitcoin into dollars, so claims that AT&T is accumulating bitcoin are not supported by the announcement.


3. SpaceX just unleashed its first 60 Starlink high-speed-internet satellites and recorded a 'weird' video of the maneuver - The rocket company that was founded by Elon Musk deployed the first 60 satellites in a fleet that is intended to provide Internet coverage around the globe. The satellites will be deployed in a mesh at lower altitude than geostationary satellites. This low altitude makes it possible to provide Internet access with lower latency. The launch also incorporated an innovative deployment technique that allowed the rocket to release all 60 satellites in a short burst. Because the satellite mesh operates in the vacuum of space, transmissions will be 50% faster than ground based fiber transmissions.
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What prosecutors and incarcerated people can learn from each other - In this TED talk, Jarrell Daniels credits a co-learning experience between prisoners and prosecutors for the transformation that led him from incarceration to scholar at Columbia University. In his talk, he also discusses the empathy that develops among prosecutors who participate in the class and hear the stories of the prisoners.

Why telcos 'handed over' people's GPS coords to a bounty hunter: He just had to ask nicely - A bounty hunter was charged in federal court last month for using fraudulent claims to obtain GPS information on his targets from Sprint, Verizon, and T-Mobile USA.

Could Parallel Universes Be Physically Real? - In this article, astrophysicist Ethan Siegel describes how inflation, in the time before the big bang, may be involved in the creation of other universes. The author also points out, however, that unless it has been happening for an infinite amount of time, there cannot be enough universes to cover every possible configuration of time and space. In concluding, the article advises, "In all the multiverse, there is likely only one you. You must make this Universe count, as there is no alternate version of you. Take the dream job. Stand up for yourself. Navigate through the difficulties with no regrets, and go all-out every day of your life. " h/t RealClear Science

Facebook removes about as many fake accounts as it has actual monthly users (yes, billions) in effort to clean up online - In a blog post, Facebook describes their Prevalence metric, a measure of how often its users are exposed to harmful content. Facebook also reports that it deleted as much as 2.6 million harmful posts, and 2.2 billion fake accounts during Q1 of 2019. Facebook's content moderators also received a raise, and the company has made on-site counselling available to them.

Does the brain awaken via a continuous phase transition? - Research in Physical Review Letters describes work by physicists in Brazil who studied the brainwaves of rats and found that the patterns are consistent with a continuous phase transition, but that they contradict the currently leading theory that the continuous phase transition occurs through a percolation-like model. Instead, the article reports that the transition resembles a critical oscilation model for neuronal avalanches (CROS). h/t RealClear Science

STEEM Is Intel's Employee Retention Hotline Hiding a Bigger Problem - In this post, @mrosenquist comments on a CNN story about Intel's anonymous hotline to help unhappy workers. The article notes that, according to the numbers, 1 in 5 employees are unhappy. This suggests to the author that the hotline may be treating the symptom, but they're missing the root problem, which may be poor leadership due to a loss of focus on management training. (@mrosenquist will receive 5% of the rewards from this post.)

STEEM NASA Announces a Space Station to Orbit the Moon - This article by @cosmiccitadel contains a NASA video and some written commentary. The video describes NASA's plan to go to the moon, permanently, by 2024, by making use of a "gateway" or space station, and collecting needed resources from the moon's surface. @cosmiccitadel points out that the cost needs to be reduced to enable private actors to get involved, and that the process can be repeated in other places, like Mars and beyond. (5% of the rewards from this post will go to @cosmiccitadel.)

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