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2022-01-18 10:00:01 𝙱𝚘𝚘𝚝𝚜 𝙾𝚗 𝚃𝚑𝚎 𝙶𝚛𝚘𝚞𝚗𝚍: 𝟸𝟶 𝚈𝚎𝚊𝚛𝚜 𝙾𝚏 𝚄𝚂 𝚃𝚛𝚘𝚘𝚙𝚜 𝙸𝚗 𝙰𝚏𝚐𝚑𝚊𝚗𝚒𝚜𝚝𝚊𝚗

One of the biggest geopolitical stories of 2021 was the Western evacuation of Afghanistan. At the end of August, with the Taliban already occupying control of much of the city, the last US troops left Kabul - Afghanistan’s capital city.

The withdrawal was the final chapter of US involvement in Afghanistan that at one point had seen around 100,000 US troops stationed in various parts of Afghanistan, which is not to mention the thousands of contractors and the thousands of troops from allies such as the United Kingdom, Canada, Germany, Italy, France and others.

𝙲𝚑𝚊𝚛𝚝𝚛 | 𝙳𝚊𝚝𝚊 𝚂𝚝𝚘𝚛𝚢𝚝𝚎𝚕𝚕𝚒𝚗𝚐 Open / Comment

2022-01-17 10:00:01 𝚃𝚑𝚎 𝚁𝚒𝚜𝚎 𝙾𝚏 𝚃𝚑𝚎 "𝙳𝚒𝚐𝚒𝚝𝚊𝚕 𝙽𝚘𝚖𝚊𝚍"

The pandemic has upended the normal way of working for millions of people, with many now opting to work from home, if they can.

But some people are taking remote-working one step further, and are now working from anywhere as the pandemic accelerated a trend that had been slowly gaining traction in the 2010s — the idea of being a "digital nomad".

A digital nomad is someone who can work fully remotely thanks to the internet, and often travels from city to city or even country to country, and it’s an idea that’s been growing and growing. There are now more than 1 million members on the forum r/digitalnomad on social media site reddit.

𝙲𝚑𝚊𝚛𝚝𝚛 | 𝙳𝚊𝚝𝚊 𝚂𝚝𝚘𝚛𝚢𝚝𝚎𝚕𝚕𝚒𝚗𝚐 Open / Comment

2022-01-16 10:00:01 𝚄𝚂 𝙿𝚞𝚋𝚕𝚒𝚌 𝙾𝚙𝚒𝚗𝚒𝚘𝚗 𝙾𝚏 𝙲𝚑𝚒𝚗𝚊 𝙷𝚊𝚜 𝙲𝚑𝚊𝚗𝚐𝚎𝚍 𝙰 𝙻𝚘𝚝 𝚂𝚒𝚗𝚌𝚎 𝟸𝟶𝟷𝟽

In May 2021 the United States' top diplomat, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, strongly rejected the idea that the US and China were entering a "cold war".

Whether Blinken was right or not, US-China relations were stretched further this year along multiple lines. Tech policy, trade restrictions and Taiwan were among the flash points that raised tensions throughout the year.

With China’s economy likely to become the world’s largest in the next decade or so, China's role as a global superpower for the rest of the 21st Century seems almost guaranteed, and it means the US-China relationship is arguably the most important of any two countries in the world.

Data from YouGov reveals that in 2017 only roughly 10% of respondents polled would identify China as an "enemy" of the US. In 2021 that number was closer to 35%.

𝙲𝚑𝚊𝚛𝚝𝚛 | 𝙳𝚊𝚝𝚊 𝚂𝚝𝚘𝚛𝚢𝚝𝚎𝚕𝚕𝚒𝚗𝚐 Open / Comment

2022-01-15 10:00:02 𝚃𝚑𝚘𝚞𝚜𝚊𝚗𝚍𝚜 𝚃𝚞𝚛𝚗 𝚃𝚘 𝚆𝚒𝚔𝚒𝚙𝚎𝚍𝚒𝚊 𝚃𝚘 𝚁𝚎𝚊𝚍 𝚄𝚙 𝙾𝚗 𝙸𝚜𝚛𝚊𝚎𝚕-𝙿𝚊𝚕𝚎𝚜𝚝𝚒𝚗𝚎

In May 2021 tensions between Israel and Palestine spilled over into intense violence for 11 days.

Instinctively that led thousands of people to turn to Wikipedia to read up on the history and context of the crisis.

The situation was a good reminder of why Wikipedia's core feature — that anyone can theoretically edit its content, can also be a weakness. In important and contentious issues, such as Israel-Palestine, bad actors or propagandists on both sides have strong reasons to misrepresent, change or misreport events.

Wikipedia’s role as a non-profit, and its efforts in transparency over who is editing what (and why) has helped it navigate some of those problems, but for topics like Israel-Palestine, its process is tested to the limit. Often daily.

𝙲𝚑𝚊𝚛𝚝𝚛 | 𝙳𝚊𝚝𝚊 𝚂𝚝𝚘𝚛𝚢𝚝𝚎𝚕𝚕𝚒𝚗𝚐 Open / Comment

2022-01-14 10:00:01 𝚂𝚘𝚌𝚒𝚊𝚕 𝙰𝚞𝚍𝚒𝚘 𝙰𝚙𝚙 𝙲𝚕𝚞𝚋𝚑𝚘𝚞𝚜𝚎 𝙷𝚊𝚜 𝚂𝚎𝚎𝚗 𝙳𝚘𝚠𝚗𝚕𝚘𝚊𝚍𝚜 𝚂𝚕𝚘𝚠 𝙰𝚐𝚊𝚒𝚗

A few weeks after GameStop mania last year, came Clubhouse mania, as the biggest names in tech started to join impromptu audio conversations on Clubhouse, the invite-only app launched during the pandemic.

Clubhouse’s user base had exploded and the company quickly hit an eye-watering $4bn valuation. In fact, so quick was its success that it prompted a lot of big tech to explore the audio room feature for themselves. Twitter launched Twitter Spaces. Facebook launched audio rooms. So did LinkedIn. Slack made something called Huddles.

Since then, things have cooled for Clubhouse. A much-hyped Android launch rekindled things briefly, but recent downloads are now running at just over a million a month, way down on the ~9 million at the app's peak.

𝙲𝚑𝚊𝚛𝚝𝚛 | 𝙳𝚊𝚝𝚊 𝚂𝚝𝚘𝚛𝚢𝚝𝚎𝚕𝚕𝚒𝚗𝚐 Open / Comment

2022-01-13 10:00:01 𝚃𝚑𝚎 𝚁𝚘𝚋𝚒𝚗𝚑𝚘𝚘𝚍 𝚃𝚛𝚊𝚍𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝙰𝚙𝚙 𝙸𝚜 𝙶𝚎𝚝𝚝𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝙷𝚊𝚖𝚖𝚎𝚛𝚎𝚍 𝙸𝚗 𝙽𝚎𝚠 𝚁𝚎𝚟𝚒𝚎𝚠𝚜

The GameStop story took a turn when trading platform Robinhood - which was the app of choice for many of reddit’s traders - briefly restricted buying on a few key shares, including GameStop.

That anger spilled outward and eventually into the App Store, with mostly positive reviews turning into a torrent of negative reviews almost overnight, hurting Robinhood’s reputation ahead of its own upcoming IPO (which it completed in July).

CEO Vlad Tenev ended up writing a blog post outlining why the real culprit of the entire saga was actually the US two-day trade settlement period, known as T+2. True or not, Robinhood’s reputation had taken a hit.

𝙲𝚑𝚊𝚛𝚝𝚛 | 𝙳𝚊𝚝𝚊 𝚂𝚝𝚘𝚛𝚢𝚝𝚎𝚕𝚕𝚒𝚗𝚐 Open / Comment

2022-01-12 10:00:02 𝙼𝙾𝚁𝙴 𝙳𝙰𝚃𝙰

1) Bruce Springsteen has sold the rights to his music catalog for $500m.

2) The Bank of England has raised interest rates from the historic low of 0.1% to 0.25%, in a bid to combat rising inflation. Separately, the UK recorded its highest number of COVID-19 cases since the start of the pandemic.

3) HBO seems to get the best bang for its content buck, spending the least money per Emmy win.

4) Tired of all the bad news? Wired found 21 things to celebrate in 2021.

𝙲𝚑𝚊𝚛𝚝𝚛 | 𝙳𝚊𝚝𝚊 𝚂𝚝𝚘𝚛𝚢𝚝𝚎𝚕𝚕𝚒𝚗𝚐 Open / Comment

2022-01-12 09:00:02 Which country, is the only European country in top10 in the world by rape incidents? Open / Comment

2022-01-11 10:00:01 𝙶𝚊𝚖𝚎𝚂𝚝𝚘𝚙: 𝙰 𝚂𝚝𝚘𝚛𝚢 𝚒𝚗 𝟺 𝙲𝚑𝚊𝚛𝚝𝚜

Stock markets had a fascinating year of 2021, but no story eclipsed what happened in late January, when reddit’s r/wallstreetbets forum exploded into the mainstream, organizing a short-squeeze of hedge fund investors who were betting against beloved retailer GameStop.

Today r/wallstreetbets has more than 11 million members, but nothing since has gotten the r/wallstreetbets community as excited as GameStop did, with chatter on the forum way down on Jan / Feb levels.

As for GameStop itself, the company’s equity has held onto many of the gains, and is currently worth roughly $12bn, more than 10x what it was worth the year before.

𝙲𝚑𝚊𝚛𝚝𝚛 | 𝙳𝚊𝚝𝚊 𝚂𝚝𝚘𝚛𝚢𝚝𝚎𝚕𝚕𝚒𝚗𝚐 Open / Comment

2022-01-11 09:00:02 What gets searched on Google more? Open / Comment