Interesting analysis of China's internal discussions about the country's reliance on US technology ...

... from 2005 to 2022

The researchers (including @henryfarrell) found two inflection points where Chinese authorities got worried about their exposure to US tech

2013: Snowden reveals NSA intrusions into global tech
2018: US gov't threatens ZTE and Huawei

... and from then on, Chinese authorities say "we need to be tech independent"

https://www.programmablemutter.com/p/why-china-is-going-it-alone-on-technology

I had forgotten that one of the points made in the Declaration of Independence ...

... was that Americans needed freedom from a king ...

... guilty of “transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended Offences"

Jamelle Bouie in the NYT, gift link: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/16/opinion/trump-court-order-constitution.html?unlocked_article_code=1.AE8.e3RK.7GGqf2pos1Qh&smid=url-share

The Trump administration is going to dismantle Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty …

… even as authoritarianism has been on the rise in many of the countries where its reporters broadcast …

… and viewership/listenership is massive

The NYT talked to several RFE/RL journalists, including some who’d been recently jailed for their work by despots

Gift link: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/16/world/europe/trump-radio-free-europe-liberty.html?unlocked_article_code=1.AE8.W9ho.YiCBzje3OXMi&smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare&sgrp=c-cb

I"m finally getting around to watching Daredevil: Born Again ...

... and it's making me reflect again how much pop culture is basically fixated on "the chaotic, crime-ridden streets of NYC / [big-cities-in-general]" ...

it's as if the cultural imagination got completely frozen in the crime peak of the early 80s, and can't move on

man alive, crime in NYC today is -- in the real world -- lower than in much of the city's history, and lower than the national average

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_New_York_City