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That's a big part of the appeal of places like Hacker News and Tumblr- the focus on being a social network without adding in additional ad-delivery "features."

I don't know if going full ascetic by removing images, reactions, etc. will achieve the same effect or not. Something like that would be very nice for smaller communities: IRC is still kicking, despite everything. Curious to see how the project goes, I'm unsure if the article cut off unexpectedly or if it's just very early.

BLUF:

* Follow common privacy tips (browsers, VPNs, etc.)

* Take care with what you say if you communicate over anything that could be logged (such as SMS)

* Not included, but if you're using an app to track your period, stop. Switch to a moon calendar or a (heavens forbid) IRL whiteboard calendar to track this. Companies already use this data to market products to you at certain times of the month and could detect pregnancies as early as 10 years ago (https://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/19/magazine/shopping-habits.... - apologies for paywall). The data on an app like this is even more reliable.

Good writers probably do have the best insight on what the best books are, but that's a clear conflict of interest. It also gives less visibility to new or "indie" writers.

Some sites, such as Drive Thru RPG, do not allow you to leave reviews if you are a publisher, presumably to avoid this conflict. Folks can certainly log on with their personal account, but at least it is some level of accountability.

I've seen a few people in the media specify that the war's about Putin's aggression, rather than Russian aggression. But I doubt that they're the majority. Russophobia sells better. We've got people vandalizing businesses [1] and sending threats in the US as well. That doesn't help anyone in Ukraine, if that's really their goal. It certainly doesn't affect Russia's economy if a restaurant in another country takes a dive. The point of the sanctions is to hurt Russia's government (and therefore their military). There's a cost to sanctions as well for Russian citizens who have nothing to do with the war, but I've yet to see an alternative solution beyond escalating the conflict.

[1] https://www.axios.com/russian-businesses-us-vandalism-threat...

Then the important thing is that a process of weighing those rights/costs/benefits and so on exists. e.g., if they needed to tear down a couple of apartment buildings and disrupt hundreds of folks, I could see an argument against that. But for just one guy? Eh...

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That article has a lot of disturbing things in it- 200 extra workers (that even the union guys said weren't needed), inflated costs, low competition driving up bids, gifts given to government officials from contractors, and so on.

This bit is the most concerning:

“Is it rigged? Yes,” said Charles G. Moerdler, who has served on the M.T.A. board since 2010. “I don’t think it’s corrupt. But I think people like doing business with people they know, and so a few companies get all the work, and they can charge whatever they want.”

If you gotta play semantics on whether you're in a rigged system or a corrupt one...