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DL 300

A Digital Master Key

Published: July 31, 2021 • 📧 Newsletter

Welcome to Digitally Literate, issue 300. Your go-to source for insightful content on education, technology, and the digital landscape.

🔖 Key Takeaways

Welcome to the 300th issue of this newsletter. I'm not sure if it means anything, but it's been fun to keep researching and writing this content each week.

We've got some changes coming soon...but for now let me thank you for being steady readers and reaching out to say hey when you get a chance.

I'm taking the next two weeks off from this newsletter. Just a bit of a break to recharge and enjoy the family. See you on the other side. :)

📺 Watch

Often when we talk about deepfakes, the conversation circles back to misinformation and revenge. Thankfully, in this story we're talking Star Wars.

One artist's rendition of deepfake Luke Skywalker was so good that they were ultimately hired by Industrial Light and Magic, the studio that works on actual Star Wars films.

A rare positive outcome in the deepfake landscape—talent recognized and channeled into legitimate creative work.

📚 Read

Last month a U.S. federal judge threw out two antitrust lawsuits made against Facebook. The judge failed to see how Facebook was a monopoly.

Forty state attorneys general disagree and plan on appealing the decision. According to New York attorney general Letitia James: "We can no longer allow Facebook to profit off of exploiting consumer data."

The battle over Big Tech's power continues.

When you think of facial recognition, you most likely expect it at places like the airport. Do you think it's appropriate when you're out shopping?

Rebecca Heilweil reports that some of the most popular stores in the U.S.—Albertsons, Macy's, and even Apple Stores—are using facial recognition on their customers.

On July 14, Fight for the Future helped launch a nationwide campaign to document which retailers are deploying facial recognition. The campaign, supported by more than 35 human rights groups, aims to draw attention to retail stores using facial-scanning algorithms to boost profits, intensify security, and even track employees.

Amazon's Mission: Getting a 'Key' to Your Apartment Building

Amazon is pushing landlords around the country to give its drivers the ability to unlock apartment building front doors whenever they need to leave packages in the lobby instead of the street.

The service, called Amazon Key for Business, allows delivery workers to make their rounds faster. Fewer stolen packages could give Amazon an edge over other online retailers.

But is this what we want? The device is connected to the internet, making it vulnerable to hackers. Tenants may not know that Amazon drivers have access to their building's front doors.

Hundreds of Ways to Get S#!+ Done—and We Still Don't

You want to be productive. Software wants to help. But even with a glut of tools claiming to make us into taskmasters, we almost never master our tasks.

There's a big disjoint between the tasks people plan to do and the tasks they actually do.

Soviet psychologist Bluma Zeigarnik became fascinated by this phenomenon. She found a quirk of the human mind: when a task is unfinished, we can't seem to stop thinking about it. We perseverate.

This is now known as the Zeigarnik effect, and psychologists who study task management say it's part of why so many of us feel perpetually frazzled by organizing work and life.

When we cooperate on certain tasks, our brainwaves might synchronize. This finding could upend current understanding of consciousness.

Some recent neuroscience research argues that a shift in our understanding of consciousness is warranted—specifically, we might see an "extension of consciousness."

We know that an individual's neural activity is embodied in their interactions with the world. Now, research suggests that other people may play a role in that process.

🔨 Do

Believe it or not, most of us breathe incorrectly.

The most efficient way to breathe is by bringing the air down toward the belly. As the diaphragm contracts, the belly expands to fill the lungs with air.

"Belly breathing" is efficient because it pulls the lungs downward, creating negative pressure inside the chest. This brings air into the lungs more effectively than shallow chest breathing.

A simple practice with significant benefits for stress reduction and overall health.

🤔 Consider

Progress is impossible without change, and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything.

George Bernard Shaw

Shaw's observation about change connects to this issue's threads—the deepfake artist whose skills led to legitimate employment, the attorneys general who won't accept a judge's ruling, and the retailers quietly changing the terms of shopping without our consent. Change happens whether we choose it or resist it.

Bonus: Human society is on track for collapse in the next two decades if there isn't a serious shift in global priorities, according to a reassessment of a 1970s report.

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