A voice-controlled virtual assistant–Siri, Alexa, Cortana, or Google Home–is only as good as the data that powers it. Training these programs to understand what you are saying requires a whole lot of real-world examples of human speech.

That gives existing voice recognition companies a built-in advantage, because they have already amassed giant collections of sample speech data that can be used to train their algorithms. A startup with hopes of competing in this arena would have to acquire its own set of voice audio files, perhaps from an existing archive such as the roughly 300-hour corpus built from TED Talk transcriptions.

Developers generally need access to hundreds or thousands of hours of audio, says Alexander Rudnicky, a research professor at Carnegie Mellon University and director of the Carnegie Mellon Speech Consortium.

Google acknowledged as much on Thursday, in releasing a crowdsourced dataset of global voice recordings. The 65,000 one-second audio clips include people from around the world saying simple command words–yes, no, stop, go and the like. This comes just a couple of weeks after Mozilla, the organization behind the open source Firefox browser, recently introduced a new project called Common Voice. Their goal is to build a freely available, crowdsourced dataset of voice samples from around the world, speaking a wide variety of sample words and sentences.

Google’s recordings were collected as part of the AIY do-it-yourself artificial intelligence program, designed to enable makers to experiment with machine learning. “The infrastructure we used to create the data has been open sourced too, and we hope to see it used by the wider community to create their own versions, especially to cover underserved languages and applications,” wrote software engineer Pete Warden in announcing the release.

In full, it’s more than a gigabyte of sound, but that’s just a tiny fraction of the total amount of voice data Google has collected to train its own AI systems. The company once opened an automated directory assistance service which, it turned out, was primarily a way for them to gather human voice data.

Amazon’s Alexa transmits voice queries from its users to a server, where they’re used to further train the tool. Apple teaches Siri new languages and dialects by hiring speakers to read particular passages of known text, and by having humans transcribe snippets of audio from the service’s speech-to-text dictation mode. Microsoft has reportedly set up simulated apartments around the world to grab audio snippets in a homelike setting to train its Cortana digital assistant.

All of that is privately held, and generally unavailable to academics, researchers, or would-be competitors. That’s why Mozilla decided to launch its Common Voice project.

“As we started on building on these systems, we found that we could build on the works of others in terms of algorithms, and do our own innovative work in terms of algorithms, but for all of these, the data curation, creation and aggregation was a challenge,” says Sean White, Mozilla’s SVP of emerging technology. “if you wanted to do a new speech-recognition system, you couldn’t just go out and find a high-quality data set to use.”

Common Voice invites anyone with an internet connection and a microphone to submit brief recordings of themselves reading particular sentences, all through a couple of clicks or taps on a web browser. That’s similar to how Google’s project works, although Common Voice asks people to submit full sentences while Google asked only for particular words and numbers commonly used as commands. The sentences are a mix of those conversational phrases submitted by contributors–“She gave me back the charger” is one from the project’s GitHub files–and quotes from classic movies like Charade and It’s a Wonderful Life. Mozilla also asks participants to supply some basic demographic information, like age, gender and dialect of English spoken (such as United States English, Canadian English or English from the West Indies and Bermuda).

In its first roughly 57 days, the project collected about 307,000 recordings, each about 3 to 5 seconds long. That makes for between 340 and 520 hours of total audio, says Michael Henretty, a digital strategist working with Mozilla’s open innovation team.

“We’ve already surpassed the TED talks, which is one of the bigger open source data sets that’s out there,” he says.

Mozilla aims to release a version of the dataset later this year and is hoping to have 10,000 hours of audio by that time, the quantity it estimates is enough to train a modern, production-quality system. That’s far bigger than the 18 hours of clips that Google just made available.

One of the key reasons to have a large and wide variety of voice samples is so that the algorithms that are trained on it avoid having an unintended bias. As anyone with a heavy accent who has tried to use a voice assistant can attest, these systems are still better at understanding plain English than anything else.

Rachael Tatman, a data preparation analyst at Google-owned data science platform Kaggle, published a paper earlier this year on how gender and dialect affected accuracy in YouTube’s automated captions. She found YouTube’s captioning was less accurate for women and for speakers from Scotland, but different error patterns can appear in different systems depending on what training data gets used.

“If I’ve seen a lot of speech from women from Virginia, I’m gonna be really accurate on women from Virginia, and less accurate on men from California,” says Tatman.

Existing open source datasets have been found to have their own biases—the so-called Switchboard conversational dataset initially collected by Texas Instruments and now hosted as part of the University of Pennsylvania’s Linguistic Data Consortium has been found to skew Midwestern, for instance. Biased data has been an issue in other areas of artificial intelligence as well–some algorithms have been found to be better at recognizing white faces or to have trouble understanding African-American vernacular English in tweets, for instance–and naturally is a particular concern for tech companies and open source projects looking to serve a diverse audience.

Mozilla also invites everyday users to validate submitted samples, listening and verifying the recordings are the text they’re supposed to be. On a recent day, samples served by the website for validation included correct recordings with accents from all over the English speaking world, along with one inaudible sample and one that was, inexplicably, a tinny snippet of an Elvis Presley song.

The reason most of the companies behind popular voice assistants haven’t made their internal recordings available isn’t entirely about hampering the competition, Tatman says. Since so many queries contain personal information, like internet searches run or text messages sent, it would be a privacy breach to release the data. An individual could potentially be identified by their distinctive voice.

Still, companies are willing to use the data internally: Apple has said in the past that it can retain Siri data, with user identifiers like ID numbers and email addresses stripped, for up to two years to help improve its algorithms. The company didn’t immediately respond for requests per comment on its current Siri audio retention policies.

“Your voice is recognizable,” Tatman says. “it’s considered identifiable information.”

Mozilla is also taking steps to protect user privacy as it collects its open sourced voice data. “We take pains to separate users from recordings such that there’s no personally identifiable information embedded in the clips themselves,” he says.

One advantage of the Mozilla dataset over some existing sets of publicly available recordings like annotated TED talks is that, like sound samples from Siri or Alexa devices, they’re recorded in similar conditions to how people will actually use voice recognition software.

“Basically they’re using a browser to collect the data, which means the data they collect will have various characteristics that are more representative of what their target users are going to be like,” says Rudnicky. “I’m sitting in an office, I have a particular kind of microphone which is likely one that’s to be found in a desktop environment, and so forth.”

Having a deliberately diverse set of speakers and accents, combined with the sheer expected size of the dataset, should make the collected recordings more useful than existing free collections of audio and, perhaps, even competitive with the datasets big companies keep behind closed doors.

“We’re trying to cast as wide a net as possible,” Henretty says.

Spotify just signed a long-term licensing deal with Warner Music Group that helps pave the way for the music streamer to go public. Warner was the last major label to re-sign with Spotify, after Universal and Sony (along with indie label group Merlin) inked new deals with the company earlier this year.

Good news for music lovers: @spotify and Warner Music Group have renewed their global partnership. Ole Obermann, Chief Digital Officer, WMG, commented on the renewed partnership with Spotify: “It's taken us a while to get here, but it’s been worth it, as we've arrived at a balanced set of future-focused deal terms. Together with Spotify, we've found inventive ways to reinforce the value of music, create additional benefits for artists, and excite their fans all over the world. Even with the current pace of growth, there’s still so much potential for music subscription to reach new audiences and territories."

A post shared by Warner Music (@warnermusic) on Aug 24, 2017 at 12:45pm PDT

While details are scarce, the general idea behind these new licensing deals is that Spotify gets to pay reduced rates to rights holders in exchange for concessions to the labels, like the freedom to withhold new albums from Spotify’s ad-supported (and far less lucrative) free tier for a certain period of time. Ad-supported streaming has been an annoyance for the music industry, which is finally seeing its revenue grow thanks to paid subscriptions.

The Warner deal clears what is presumed to be Spotify’s last major hurdle before going public through an unconventional direct listing of its stock. The company reportedly met with the SEC earlier this week about its plan. While the label deals square away Spotify’s royalty agreements with labels, the issue of songwriter royalties–and the faulty metadata that keeps getting Spotify sued–is still being ironed out.

The next Apple TV is likely to have 4K HDR support, with Bloombergreporting that Apple will announce the new hardware in September. Apple’s own leaked code has also hinted at a 4K Apple TV, and the company now supports the 4K-friendly HEVC format in iOS and MacOS, paving the way for tvOS to do the same.

But for non-videophiles and folks who don’t own 4K televisions, the bigger deal could be an update to the device’s TV app, which aggregates shows from various streaming sources into a single menu. The app only displays on-demand video currently, but Bloomberg claims that a new version will pull in live programs such as news and sports.

It’s been a tough year for Apple TV. The streaming box has been bleeding market share, according to Parks Associates, and even Apple has admitted that holiday sales declined year-over-year in 2016. At $150, the Apple TV is far more expensive than most other streaming devices, and that’s hard to justify without killer features. A simplified menu for streaming TV could give Apple a much-needed advantage, especially if it works with channel bundles like Sling TV and DirecTV Now.

Hateful people and groups have learned to be subtle when they post online. Not every white supremacist openly advocates lynchings, nor does every radical cleric call for suicide bombings. But they do stoke resentment toward groups of people with content that is offensive and may nudge others toward violence.

That’s what YouTube has concluded after months of consulting with experts on extremism, such as the Anti-Defamation League. And today the video platform has introduced a new way to deal with videos that brush against, but don’t quite cross, the line to merit an outright ban—hiding them behind a warning page, forbidding ads, disabling comments and likes, and keeping them out of “Up next” suggested video lists.

YouTube announced in a blog post on August 1 that these measures were coming, but it just flipped the switch on them today, sources at YouTube confirmed to Fast Company. It’s the social network’s latest crack at pushing down extremist and offensive content without crushing freedom of expression, sources say.

YouTube isn’t announcing what specific users, channels, or videos will get the new treatment, but we’ll be keeping an eye out. YouTube did provide examples of the kinds of videos likely to get flagged, however. Holocaust denial, for instance, is patently false and inherently hateful. But in YouTube’s view, it doesn’t necessarily cross the line into banned actions such as targeting individuals or inciting violence.

Related: Tech’s Swift Reaction To Hate Groups Was Years In The Making

Critics may well disagree with that. “When you look at the material, it’s put in a context that hides, or shrouds itself, under freedom of speech. But basically it’s extreme hate speech that’s tied to a global effort,” says Rabbi Abraham Cooper of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, mentioning Iran’s use of the propaganda.

It seems YouTube decided to err on the side of free expression—which jibes with its decision in May to promote former ACLU attorney Juniper Downs to head of public policy and government relations. (YouTube does ban Holocaust denial in countries like Germany where it is illegal, though.) YouTube, it appears, decided that preaching any kind of supremacy—whites over blacks, Christians over Jews, Muslims over Christians, etc.—isn’t enough on its own to get a ban based on inciting violence or promoting terrorism.

YouTube isn’t making all these calls on its own. Over the years it’s recruited a group of non-government organizations, including the Simon Wiesenthal Center, the Anti-Defamation League, and the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), as well as government agencies such as the U.K.’s Counter Terrorism Internet Referral Unit into a “Trusted Flagger” program. The program had 63 member organizations at the beginning of the year and has taken on more than half of the 50 new members that YouTube says had planned to add in 2017. We pinged a few of the organizations today. Key staffers at the SPLC were out, but the press office sent an email saying, “[W]e have been invited to be a trusted flagger and are very pleased with Google’s new policies.”

“This is a good development that clearly marks content as controversial, but does not limit anyone’s freedom of expression,” wrote Brittan Heller, the ADL’s director of technology and society, in an email. “It places content from extremists where it belongs: in the extreme corners of the platform. We think YouTube has struck the right balance.”

The Wiesenthal Center is less sanguine. “We were approach and agreed and are happy to have that designation [as a Trusted Flagger],” says Cooper, who says that, nevertheless, his organization is “not happy campers.” Cooper criticizes not so much YouTube’s policies as the amount of effort it expends to uphold them.

Many Opinions

YouTube is working from several lists of extremist or hate groups. Some are banned outright, like the 61 on the U.S. State Department’s Foreign Terrorist Organization list (with members including Al Qaeda, Basque Fatherland and Liberty, Hamas, and ISIS). Other lists present judgment calls for YouTube. The SPLC’s current list of 917 hate groups in the U.S. includes some usual suspects, like avowed white supremacists, black separatists, Nazis, and KKK chapters.

But some choices are controversial, such as including reformed Islamist Maajid Nawaz (author of Radical: My Journey Out Of Islamist Extremism) in the SPLC’s Field Guide to Anti-Muslim Extremists. (Also in the Field Guide is activist and author Ayaan Hirsi Ali, who just wrote a stinging critique of the SPLC in a New York Times op-ed.)

Related: The Tech Companies That Have Banned Hate Groups Since Charlottesville

Regardless of what authority flags a video, YouTube says that it will review each one independently, and provide the poster a chance to appeal the decision. Copper, however, is wary of YouTube’s resources to make some of the tough calls and says that the Google-owned internet giant should make better use of its expert collaborators. “We’re not saying that every company should become historians, up on every new symbol of extremist groups left and right, but for the teams of people they put in place, we’re happy to train them.”

YouTube has to walk a line not only between free speech and hate speech, but between different definitions of what qualifies as hate speech—and a perpetrator of hate. One thing that is clear: Like many tech companies, YouTube is upping its efforts in responding to an online explosion of both terror and hate speech. Whether it’s doing enough is debatable and still too early to tell. But Cooper, whose organization issues an annual report card for tech companies (YouTube currently earns a B- for terrorism and a D for hate), offers a way to judge success. “When we see the bad actors leaving YouTube for other ways of getting their videos up, then we’ll know that they deserve a stellar grade.”

The past two weeks of music releases have been overwhelming. There seems to be no structure anymore, and everyone is just doing drops eclipsing each other. Lets begin . . .

Track 1. Death From Above–“Never Swim Alone”

The noise rock duo Death From Above have announced a new album Outrage! Is Now, which comes out September 8, 2017. The official first single is “Never Swim Alone,” although the standalone track, “Freeze Me,” that dropped randomly back in June will be included on the album. This is a band known for blending the sounds of pop melodies and noisy-hardcore distortions to make mixed-media for the ears.

Track 2. Brand New–“451”

One of the biggest and best surprises was the release tactic of Brand New’s just-announced comeback album, Science Fiction. One of the best tracks is “451.”

Track 3. Vindata, NSTASIA, and Skrillex–“Favor”

Skrillex, the creator of the most aggressive dubstep sounds, has been going for a more mellow EDM sound recently. His latest collab with Vindata and vocalist NSTASIA is another step in his evolution. Tune in and chill out with this track.

Track 4. A$AP Mob–“Feels So Good”

A$AP Mob has released a follow-up to the 2016 masterpiece Cozy Tapes vol. 1 (Friends). Just like Vol. 1 where all the songs are secret earworms, this new track may stay with you for some time.

Track 5. Kesha, and the Eagles of Death Metal–“Let Em’ Talk”

Kesha’s entire new album, Rainbow, is a classic and a recommended listen. This track, though, blends the worlds of pop music and the rawer sound of The Eagles of Death Metal, making an awesome and fun power anthem.

Track 6. Shigeto–“Detroit Part II”

Shigeto performs as a single musician, sits on stage surrounded by a drum set, keyboards, and an x-amount of electronic pedal rigs. He is locked into this space he has crafted around himself for the entirety of his set time, just multitasking and impressing anyone watching with a finely tuned blend of hip-hop and EDM. This latest release throws some jazz into the mix.

Track 7. The Fever 333–“We’re Coming In”

The fever is a-rising. This band is currently set up as a three-piece fronted by Jason Aalon Butler, guitarist Stephen Harrison, and back-flip acrobat/drummer Aric Improta. Their debut was a performance/art display in the parking lot of the infamous Randy Donut’s Shop in Los Angeles. Fans of Glassjaw, Stray from the Path, Letlive, and the Chariot will love it.

Track 8. Moses Sumney–“Quarrel”

This next track is placed after an aggressive song to give the ears a break. Moses Sumney’s latest release, “Quarrel,” provides a lot on a single track. It is an easy R&B track that turns into a smooth medley of space atmosphere and a jazz instrumental. Sumney’s vocal range alone is required listening.

Track 9. Queens Of The Stone Age–“The Evil Has Landed”

“The Evil Has Landed” . . . has landed as the second single off the upcoming Queens of the Stone Age LP Villains.

Track 10. Leikeli47–“2nd fiddle”

I have mentioned Leikeli47 before, and I am 100% sure she will be coming up again and again. No word or confirmation is available to identify the features on this record, but the harmony and sounds are reminiscent of Anderson.Paak, and the music video confirms it is NOT him. If you know who the features are, hit me up on Twitter, @dissatk.

Bonus Thing. Taylor Swift–Reputation

Taylor Swift . . . where do we begin with this latest release announcement? As previously mentioned, the eclipse had an effect on people and even their marketing schemes. Sometime last week, the singer swiftly removed all her past-lives statements and dealings from all of her social media. She then timed her first new social media post to be released on the day of the 2017 eclipse. A good move would have been to do the drop during the eclipse, but instead we got an announcement and album title release. Swift’s sixth album release will bare the name Reputation in a gothic font. The packaging and the word styling and repetition give a very Nas and Kanye feel. The new track is out now, have a listen to it.

The Productivity Playlist is below, make sure you are following it on Spotify so you can take it with you. Happy listening.

The Guardian’s interview with James Cameron, which posted online yesterday, was already in Titanic-level troubled waters. He had begun to air out his thoughts on women, in the context of his past relationships with director Kathryn Bigelow and actor Linda Hamilton.

“Being attracted to strong independent women has the downside that they’re strong independent women – they inherently don’t need you!”

Things only went further south from there, however. After discussing some of the tough female leads in his past films–including Hamilton in Terminator 2 and Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio in The Abyss–interviewer Hadley Freeman pressed the director for his thoughts about this year’s superhero smash, Wonder Woman. Then, this happened:

“All of the self-congratulatory back-patting Hollywood’s been doing over Wonder Woman has been so misguided. She’s an objectified icon, and it’s just male Hollywood doing the same old thing! I’m not saying I didn’t like the movie but, to me, it’s a step backwards. Sarah Connor was not a beauty icon. She was strong, she was troubled, she was a terrible mother, and she earned the respect of the audience through pure grit. And to me, [the benefit of characters like Sarah] is so obvious. I mean, half the audience is female!”

This quote spurred a lot of women to vent their frustrations with Cameron and defend Wonder Woman online. Perhaps the most eloquent statement on the matter, however, came from that film’s director, Patty Jenkins, who tweeted this response late last night:

pic.twitter.com/8zkJXHLCJW

— Patty Jenkins (@PattyJenks) August 25, 2017

It’s a sterling example of how to shut down insulting criticism with class.

Exciting news in the world of dystopian TV: Netflix has announced the fourth season of Charlie Brooker’s deliciously technophobic series, Black Mirror. The streaming company today dropped the names, cast details, and a trailer for six new episodes. If you’ve seen the previous seasons, you know that the show—often set in near-future settings where technology runs amok—has proven amazingly prophetic. The most notable example is probably the episode that featured a nihilistic CGI bear who runs for elected office, a scenario some say predicted the Trump phenomenon. Then there was that time in April when Facebook rolled out a beta version of its VR interface Facebook Spaces, which ended up reminded people of a Black Mirror episode where everyone interacted with super-creepy avatars.

So while I’m excited that the show is coming back, I have to admit I’m worried: Given that all these nightmare scenarios on Black Mirror tend to eventually happen in real life, are we really sure we want to bring another season into the world? I mean, are we just asking for trouble at this point? This is worth pondering as we head into another weekend of fake news, conspiracies, social media outrage, and Elon Musk’s warnings about AI.

And while you’re pondering that, check out the trailer below:

Two federal agencies are currently in open dispute over whether the 1964 Civil Rights Act protects LGBT Americans from discrimination. In recent years, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has said it does. In July, the Justice Department, helmed by Attorney General Jeff Sessions, declared that it doesn’t.

That discrepancy is already causing confusion for the 30 U.S. states that haven’t enshrined sexual orientation and gender identity as protected categories in non-discrimination statutes covering both the public and private sectors.

On Tuesday, I emailed Florida Governor Rick Scott’s office for a story I’m working on, to ask whether the DOJ’s new stance had changed anything since June, when I reported on the state’s stalled progress on LGBT rights a year after the Pulse massacre.

“In accordance with federal guidelines, Florida state agencies do not discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation,” a spokesperson for Scott wrote back, linking to two EEOC webpages, one reproducing the language of Title VII and the other reflecting the agency’s interpretation of it.

But when I pointed out that the DOJ has explicitly rejected that interpretation, the spokesperson said only that “the guidelines Florida agencies rely on [have] not changed,” but declined to address the potential impact of the DOJ’s new position. A spokesperson for Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi did not respond to multiple requests for comment about how the state intends to handle LGBT discrimination claims.

The lack of clarity is Florida’s–and particularly Scott’s–own fault. The governor has refused to back a bipartisan bill with overwhelming support from the business community to enact LGBT non-discrimination protections statewide. But Congress is also to blame. For over 20 years, legislators have been trying to amend Title VII to expressly prohibit discrimination against gay and trans Americans nationwide. Until it does, that community will remain vulnerable to callous or bigoted employers, governors, attorneys general, and even presidents.

This week, we learned what brain training techniques are backed by science (and which aren’t), how to wind down your mind for a good night’s sleep, and one simple trick to make yourself more useful in every meeting.

These are the stories you loved in Leadership for the week of August 21:

1. This Is What Your Overactive Brain Needs To Get A Good Night’s Sleep

Stop scrolling through Instagram before bed. That bad habit primes your brain to stay up–but it’s not the only thing that does. What you eat and drink before you snooze can also have a huge impact on your sleep quality. Among them: winding down with a glass of wine might feel relaxing, but you’ll probably find yourself tossing and turning and waking up several hours later.

2. This Is The Only Type Of Brain Training That Works, According To Science

There’s no dearth of brain training exercises out there, but not all of them actually optimize your cognitive abilities. This week Fast Company‘s Michael Grothaus spoke to scientists to find out which ones work and why. Here’s why changes of scenery and new surroundings really can make a difference, among other things.

3. How To Turn Your Five-Figure Freelance Career Into A Six-Figure Startup

Freelancers have the luxury of being their own bosses, choosing their clients, and working their own hours. The hustle can be grueling, but many make a comfortable living out of it. However, there may come a time when they want to turn those lifestyles into full-fledged businesses. This week Fast Company contributor Christina Nicholson explains what it takes to make the transition from solo consultant to startup CEO.

4. The Insanely Simple Way I Learned To Be Useful In Every Meeting

For most people, a big part of their working life will include a lot of meetings, discussing topics they know a lot about and topics they don’t know anything about. That’s fine–just as long as you don’t try to bluff your way through it. As one advertising professional discovered, ignorance can be an asset. Here’s his take on gaining leverage in meetings just by saying, “I don’t know.”

5. Seven Skills Managers Will Need By 2025

The workforce is changing fast, which means that those in managerial positions will need to rethink how they work. From keeping up with tech platforms to improving transparency, here’s a look at ahead at what the managers of 2025 will need to thrive.

It’s been a long summer, in a way that seems temporally impossible. Next month will see the return of Saturday Night Live, with host Ryan Gosling and musical guest Jay Z. If the vast expanse of time between now and the season finale back in late-May has made our collective memory a little fuzzy on how the show handles Trumpian sketches, though, last night served as a not-incredibly-flattering reminder.

Weekend Update: Summer Edition started with a sketch that would’ve no doubt been the cold open on SNL proper. Alec Baldwin recreated Trump’s chilling rally in Phoenix Tuesday night, the source of much controversy throughout the week. The actor-turned-professional-Trump-impersonator went through the major beats of the rally, in the manner of someone ticking off items on a to-do list. Just how funny viewers found it likely depended on how raw their anger remained about the actual rally.

People mildly upset might have enjoyed moments such as Baldwin’s Trump pulling out a list of his prior remarks on Charlottesville, and accidentally reciting the Access Hollywood tape transcript. But for anyone who saw in Trump’s Phoenix rally further support for white supremacists, an escalation of his attack on the media, and a threat of government shutdown if his unpopular border wall is not funded–those people required more reason to laugh than just a satirical play-by-play.

A lot of things happened over this long, grueling summer. Millions of Americans were inches away from losing healthcare, the president announced a ban on transgender military personnel, and the conversation on Russia first heated up to a boiling point and then suddenly seemed less important when the president offered unambiguous support for the “very fine people” marching with Nazis and KKK in Charlottesville. All of that doesn’t mean SNL shouldn’t make topical comedy. By all means, bring it on. We’ve entered a new phase, though, and we need new strains of comedy to go along with it.

Being reactive to news by slavishly recreating it works sometimes, obviously. Melissa McCarthy’s take on Sean Spicer was thrilling because of the performance and because the writers came up with some brash, absurdist ideas for heightening the source material. (Using puppets as props, for example, and the mobile podium.) If there’s no clear way to innovate on the news at hand, though, perhaps it’s time to abandon the news and take what’s jarring about it in an unexpected direction.

Here's more proof that the greatest minds think alike. pic.twitter.com/BaWgVAT83N

— The President Show (@PresidentShow) August 24, 2017

Instead of reacting to the news, the show should predict it. Anthony Atamanuik has had a lot of success with The President Showin that regard. For instance, The President Show filmed a sketch in which Trump defiantly looks right into the eclipse and half-blinds himself… three weeks before the eclipse. Weekend Update: Summer Edition started with Baldwin’s Trump wearing dark glasses as he wobbles to the podium, after enough time and craziness had passed that viewers were less likely to even remember Trump actually did look into the eclipse on Monday.

To be fair, SNL truly was innovative many times last season, during a time when late night comedy shows were thrust into uncharted territory, along with the rest of the world. They will likely do so again this season. But if this particular sketch is a hint of what SNL has in store for fall, it’s going to fall flat.

Hurricane Harvey is bearing down on the Texas coast and people are battening their hatches, looking for flashlight batteries, and stockpiling supplies. If you want to track the hurricane, these apps are your best bet:

• • Hurricane Pro. One of the earliest hurricane-tracking apps created, it’s still one of the best. It’s good meteorologically with satellite images and NOAA reports, has Twitter integration (which can be the best source of real-time intel during a storm), historical storm data, and includes push notifications. $2.99
  • Hurricane Tracker. This app’s sole purpose is to track hurricanes, so it was designed with the job in mind. It offers detailed storm and threat level maps, National Hurricane Center info, real-time updates, and push alerts. $3.99
  • WSVN’s Hurricane Tracker. This app from a local Miami news channel (which knows a thing or two about hurricanes) provides hurricane-tracking intel as well as updated evacuation orders, shelter information, and lists stores and offices that are open or closed. It’s free so can’t hurt to test it out.
  • NOAA Hurricane Center. Get your news straight from the source. This data-filled app offers localized push notifications (“you, in the green Camaro on Lincoln Ave.—run!”) and the best meteorological data around. It’s $1.99 While you’re downloading stuff, grab NOAA Now, which is not hurricane specific, but full of useful information whatever the weather.
  • My Radar. This app integrates NOAA weather data, high-definition Doppler radar, animated radar predictions, and more. It’s simple to use and very accessible. Free.
  • Max Mayfield’s Hurricane Tracker. Max Mayfield may look like an affable khaki-wearing golf player, but he is all that and more. Mayfield is the former director of the National Hurricane Center and has seen things, which makes his app very useful. Lots of information with interactive maps. Free.
  • iHurricane. This hurricane and typhoon monitoring app is available for iOs or Android. It collates date from over 22,000 weather stations around the world to provide tracking intel, satellite images, models and more. $1.99
  • Hurricane Hound. This Android app uses Google Maps to track the storm, includes National Weather Service forecasting information, satellite imagery, public advisories, and points out areas the National Weather Service is watching.
  • Red Cross Hurricane.Fast Company readers suggested this app back in 2012 when a Frankenstorm was bearing down on the East Coast. The app doesn’t have the best meteorological data, but can be a literal lifesaver by keeping communication going even when the power is out and letting people know you are safe or really need help. One word of caution: the reviews for the latest update are not great. Maybe download the app and a back up app and an extra gallon of milk while you’re at it.

If you prefer to peruse the weather on the web, insiders tell us the Space City Weather site is the preferred hurricane tracking site for Texas Gulf Coast residents.

August 26 is Women’s Equality Day, which traditionally celebrates the 1920 ratification of the 19th Amendment that granted women the right to vote. This year, a handful of irreverent ads will begin circulating on social media, paying homage to that achievement, but pointing out that the battle for gender equality has strangely stopped short.

One black and white poster modifies with the word “women,” to read “woMEN” in an extra large font. Another does that same thing with “she”; each letter is capitalized but faded in a way that makes only “HE” visible. Both of those share the same message in smaller print: “Today is Women’s Equality Day, but the U.S. Constitution still doesn’t guarantee equal rights for women. #PassTheERA.”

That hashtag refers to the Equal Rights Amendment, a constitutional fix proposed as far back as 1923, which would guarantee women the same rights as men under state and federal law. In order to become official, an amendment needs to win a two-thirds majority in both houses of Congress, and then be ratified by 75% of the states (38, in total). The ERA finally passed federal approval in 1972, but with an arbitrary clause limiting states to a 10-year period to ratify it. A decade later, the ERA was stalled, with only 35 states’ approval, effectively killing the legislation.

According to a recent poll, 80% of Americans don’t know that women aren’t afforded specific equal protection under the law. That perception is far from the legal reality, which in many cases affords protection from sex discrimination only through precedents set by case laws when women who are victimized by things like gender-based violence, wage inequality, and pregnancy discrimination have sued and won.

Women who make future legal complaints have to follow these narrow legal pathways, rather than proactively asking for the sort of preventative social and judicial reforms that a universal ruling might enable.

The ERA Coalition, a nonprofit advocacy group, hopes to change that by raising awareness of what’s missing and to push for Congress to again take up the ERA. “Really this is not that controversial,” says ERA Coalition President Jessica Neuwirth. “Women are not second-class citizens.” And misogyny is hopefully not what it once was either: “Maybe when the Constitution was written they were intentionally left out, but it’s time to put them in with more than just the right to vote.”

Enso began with a series of polls to gauge public awareness and sentiment. The agency found that most people don’t understand the legal necessity of the ERA, and that 94% of people (of both parties) would support the amendment. Next, Enso held a hackathon-style event in Los Angeles, gathering dozens of other designers and creatives to create catchy images, GIFs, and tweets that might go viral.

Some of the results–which you can find in a shareable format on the ERA Coalition’s web page–rolled out around Independence Day as part of a social media rally that reached 13 million people on Twitter and many more across Facebook and Instagram.

The goal now is to raise enough public awareness to push for new movement: The amendment continues to be proposed in Congress, so it could be passed and sent to states to approve again, this time without a time limit. Or states could ratify the old amendment even though it’s past deadline, which might lead a renewed federal push to modify the time clause in that old legislation. (The argument being that getting the few remaining states aboard might be faster and justify that action.)

In March, Nevada became the first state to ratify the old amendment since the deadline expired in 1982. A Change.org petition started by Patricia Arquette is just 20,000 signatures away from its the 150,000 goal, at which point it will be delivered to various state and federal officials. The ERA Coalition’s site also has a map of contested states and suggested tweets and phone call scripts for those looking to contact officials.

There’s plenty more content for people to share this weekend, too. As another of the ready-made ads featuring a pink message over blurry fireworks puts it: “Um . . . Happy Women’s Equality Day?”

A major hurricane–defined as at least Category 3–hasn’t made landfall in the U.S. in more than a decade. That unusual streak could end this weekend, providing the first big test of the Trump administration’s ability to respond to natural disaster at a time when it is proposing significant budget cuts to the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

The National Hurricane Center forecasts that Hurricane Harvey will hit the Texas coast with possible 110-mph winds and could bring life-threatening storm surge as high as 12 feet. Days of rain, up to 3 feet in some areas, may cause disastrous widespread flooding if the storm’s movement stalls over the region. This is the first hurricane to hit Texas since Ike, which slammed the state’s coast in 2008 (and it had dropped to Category 2 by the time it reached Galveston).

FEMA has a crucial role in aiding states’ response to large disasters and has already mobilized for Harvey. But the agency has only had an administrator since June, when Brock Long was confirmed by the Senate (this was already several weeks into the hurricane season). And two key deputy spots are still unfilled at the agency.

Related: Here are the best hurricane-tracking weather apps for Harvey

Experts say they have faith in Long’s ability to weather the emergency. He previously served as the top emergency manager in Alabama and in FEMA’s regional offices. His nomination received overwhelming bipartisan support.

“I’ve seen him in action, and I know he is very good and well experienced. I couldn’t think of anyone right now who would be better,” said Lew Fincher, a hurricane consultant and historian. On the phone from his home in Friendswood, Texas, on Thursday, he was boarding up his windows as he awaited word whether there would be evacuation orders. Voluntary and mandatory evacuation orders have already been put in place for some areas.

New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker, one of only four senators to vote against Long’s nomination, did so because Long supported FEMA cuts being proposed by the White House. “While recognizing that Mr. Long is an experienced emergency management professional, Senator Booker could not vote in favor of a nominee who supports a reckless budget that undermines the capabilities of the very agency he was asked to lead,” said Booker’s press secretary, Thomas Pietrykoski.

David Paulison, a Democrat who led FEMA under President Bush after the agency infamously botched its Hurricane Katrina response, also felt confidence in the leadership in place at the agency. “I’m comforted also by the military presence in the White House itself,”  he said, referring to Trump’s chief of staff, John Kelly.

Under Paulison’s watch in 2005, Hurricane Wilma was the last Category 3 storm to hit the U.S., just months after the federal government’s slow response to Katrina sent Bush’s approval rating to new lows. Former FEMA chief Michael Brown, who was known for heading the International Arabian Horse Association until appointed by Bush, had just resigned.

Reforms put in place since Katrina, Paulison said, ensure professional leadership and better lines of communication between the White House, FEMA, and local responders on the ground. Under President Obama in 2012, the agency was applauded for its capable handling of Hurricane Sandy, which was the nation’s second most-costly storm and led to more than 200 deaths.

[Photo: Flickr user NASA Goddard]

Yet if there’s one place where the communication response has the potential to get botched, it’s right at the top. In the face of criticism or pressure, Trump has a habit of taking to Twitter to place blame or send confusing signals. On Friday morning, at least, his tweeting so far about the approaching storm was on message.

“In a disaster, it’s so important that everyone follows the plan that we have tested,” says Jonathan Rhodes, executive director for the Louisiana Civil Justice Center, which provides legal assistance to disaster-affected populations.

“We rely on clear direction from FEMA, and we have specific contracts with FEMA…that govern our response. We’ll be expecting to follow those, and independent tweets or direction from the president could potentially be confusing to the established lines of communication.”

Hurricane Harvey could also prove a challenge to some of Trump’s budget-cutting promises. Under the White House 2018 budget blueprint, FEMA’s budget could be cut by $667 million, potentially hurting grant programs including one designed for pre-disaster preparedness.

As the number of disasters, and the costs incurred by them, has increased since FEMA was created nearly 40 years ago, the administration has argued that larger reforms are needed to put more of the burden at the local and state level. Even more drastic cuts to FEMA have also been pushed by the Heritage Foundation, an influential conservative think tank in Washington.

Since Trump took office, he has denied federal disaster aid to states in a number of smaller-scale emergencies, including major snowstorms in Oregon and Pennsylvania, tornadoes in Louisiana, and the Montana wildfire, to the general outcry of state leaders. The administration approved less than one percent of the $929 million in aid requested by North Carolina for longer-term rebuilding after Hurricane Matthew last year, which Gov. Roy Cooper called an “incredible failure.”

“There has been significant discussion on ways to reduce federal disaster costs,” she said (these started during the Obama administration). “We need a long-term sustainable solution; not a quick fix and shift.”

Less clear is how much a priority any extreme weather preparedness will be in an administration that doesn’t recognize accepted climate science. For example, a recent White House executive order rolled back Obama-era standards that required sea-level rise be considered when building new infrastructure. In an interview with Bloomberg in August, FEMA’s Long wouldn’t acknowledge that humans are warming the planet and said the cause of disasters didn’t matter to his mission of preparing for and responding to emergencies.

Meanwhile, in Texas, Fincher said that he expected a major mobilization over the next few days as Harvey makes landfall either Friday night or Saturday morning. “This is as serious as going to war, except we are going to war against nature. You can tweet all you want, that hurricane doesn’t care. It’s going to do what it wants to do,” he said.

“I left a job on bad terms, and am worried about being asked about it during the interview. Is it okay to leave it off the resume?”

First things first: You are under zero obligation to list every position you’ve ever held. The resume is a marketing document, not a legal one. Its purpose is to make you look like an absolute rock star, and if omitting a role helps accomplish that, you should certainly consider it.

But there’s an important caveat.

Your credibility as a candidate is all-important. And if your choice undercuts that credibility, you are now dealing with a far larger problem than a job that simply didn’t end well–because a hiring manager that doesn’t trust you will never tap you for the role.

Related:The One Word You Really Need To Add To Your Resume

Here are my recommendations on how to handle the most common situations:

Do leave a job off if:

1. It Won’t Cause A Large Gap In Your Work History

If the job lasted six months or less, then you should be able to easily remove it from the resume without negative repercussions. Be sure to convert all of the dates listed for jobs to year only (ex. 2012-2014). This is a simple and highly effective way to cover up short-term gaps like this.

2. It Makes You Come Across As A Job Hopper

Personally, I love coming across people with diverse backgrounds–they usually have the best stories to tell! Having said that, totally random positions that don’t in any way support your current aspirations can make employers question your level of commitment. In these types of situations, it’s best to leave it off.

3. It’s In the Distant Past

Employers place the most emphasis on the last five to 10 years of your work history. If the job in question falls outside of that period, don’t give deleting it a second thought.

Related:How To Embrace The Most Embarrassing Parts Of Your Resume

4. The Company Has A Toxic Reputation

Let’s say a previous employer makes headlines for all the wrong reasons: cheating investors, running afoul of the government, a high-profile bankruptcy. Assuming your stint there was a short one, I would seriously consider leaving this role off. Why? Brand association. Like it or not, we all have a strong tendency to transfer our perception of a company onto the shoulders of the person who worked there. If that perception has become a burden, cast it off.

Don’t leave a job off if:

1. You Spent A Year Or Longer There

It’s very difficult to hide a gap in your career that’s longer than a year in length. If you’re in this situation, then a better approach would be to (briefly) include it within the resume, and have an interview story ready to go about how this was a crucial learning experience. Remember: Sharing details about a hard situation that you successfully navigated can be a powerful way to impress employers.

2. It’s The Only Way To Show Experience In A Certain Area

It’s vitally important to be able to credibly back up any skills you list within your resume. So if for example having CRM implementation experience is very important to the role you’re after, and the ONLY position where you gained this was in the role that ended badly, then you should include it within the resume.

3. You Racked Up Solid Accomplishments There

Leaving a job on bad terms does not necessarily outweigh the work you did there. Concrete, powerful accomplishments are the true currency of resumes. If you’ve accrued several of them at the role, including it may be the best option.

4. You’re Applying For A Job With A Security Clearance

In this case, being meticulous about listing every position is a must.

Remember: Your resume is an opportunity to tell the story of your career on your terms. Don’t be afraid to cut out the fluff . . . just make sure you’re not throwing out valuable details in the process!

This article originally appeared on Glassdoor and is reprinted with permission. 

Qantas Airways wants to fly from London to Sydney, nonstop. The only thing holding them back is technology. Now, the airline just threw down the gauntlet to both Boeing and Airbus to create a plane capable of making the 20-hour flight by 2022, the Seattle Times reports.

“This is a last frontier in global aviation, the antidote to the tyranny of distance, and a revolution for air travel in Australia,” said Qantas CEO Alan Joyce at what sounds like a rather rabble-rousing news conference in Sydney on Friday morning. (Hopefully they played the national anthem while he was speaking).

Qantas wants a plane that can go at least 10,400 miles, and since their current fleet is a combination of Airbus and Boeing jetliners, their loyalties only lie with whichever company can pull off the technological marvel. “Both manufacturers are developing aircraft that can almost do the job—the Boeing 777X and the Airbus A350ULR. We believe advances in the next few years will close the gap,” Joyce said, per the Seattle Times.

Currently, the longest flights commercial planes can manage before needing to refuel is less than 10,000 miles, when flying with a full passenger load. However, it’s a complicated algorithm of fuel needs, passenger and cargo weight, and the plane’s physical and operational costs that will ultimately make the decision. Whoever does manage the feat, the nonstop flight would be a godsend for anyone who travels between the U.K. and Australia and, of course, agoraphobes.

Solange’s masterpiece A Seat at the Table continues its evolution in exploring the intersection of being black and being a woman with a digital piece at London’s Tate Modern.

Earlier this year, students at Wake Forest University fashioned a syllabus from A Seat at the Table, and now Tate has asked Solange to bless its current exhibit Soul of a Nation: Art in the Age of Black Power with her brand of black girl magic.

Solange’s piece Seventy States pulls inspiration from assemblage artist Betye Saar, using her Grammy winning track “Cranes in the Sky” as an anchor for her graphically structured poem and images.

Check out the online version of Seventy Stateshere.

The young-adult novel Handbook for Mortals by Lani Sarem pulled off the impressive feat of debuting at No. 1 on the New York Times Young Adult Hardcover best-seller chart. It then pulled off the equally impressive feat of getting yanked almost immediately for what a Times rep told Vulture were “inconsistencies in the most recent reporting cycle.”

The Times seems to have been tipped off to those “inconsistencies” by YA author Phil Stamper, writer, and publishing industry insider Jeremy West, and the blog Pajiba, who were highly skeptical of how a book Stamper described as “a book no one has heard of” had landed the coveted spot.

A book that no one has heard of except for the two niche blogs that covered the GN press release. Sells ~5,000 in the first week? Ok.

— Phil Stamper (@stampepk) August 24, 2017

The book was from a newbie author, a newbie publisher (GeekNation, a pop culture website branching out into publishing), and seemingly had generated no buzz among the YA community. As West told Publishers Weekly:“As soon as I saw the list yesterday, it didn’t make sense to me. The lack of social media buzz [for the book], the fact that no one in the young adult community was talking about it or had even heard of it … it all sounded fishy.”

Stamper, West, and Pajiba started questioning the book’s sales numbers on Twitter. A book typically needs to sell about 5,000 copies to crack the NYT list, but the Guardian notes that Nielsen Bookscan recorded a whopping 18,597 sales of the book in just one weekend. That’s a difficult feat to pull off, but one made infinitely more difficult when the book is out of stock on Amazon and unavailable at most bookstores. Pajiba put together a fascinating investigation into Handbook for Mortals‘ sketchy numbers, asking if the book had bought its way onto the NYT list—and it’s pretty compelling stuff.

Soon, the self-appointed Scooby squad started to get tips that someone (the publisher? a particularly enterprising agent?) were able to inflate sales numbers by ordering large, but not too large, numbers of books from stores that report their sales to the Times. While the Times flags large corporate orders and excludes them from their calculations, the orders for Handbook were just shy of that margin, so the Times didn’t notice.

Well this clears things up… (they asked for their name to be redacted) pic.twitter.com/WkzUynUwsB

— Phil Stamper (@stampepk) August 24, 2017

Soon other booksellers were anonymously weighing in that they, too, had received calls from people placing bulk orders for Handbook. Publishers Weekly reported that a customer ordered 87 copies of the book after learning the shop reported sales to the NYT.

The YA community’s spotlight led the Times to do its own investigation, and it eventually opted to correct its best-seller list, returning Angie Thomas’s riveting The Hate U Give to No. 1 on the Young Adult list.

The author has denied the accusations: “Because some people in the YA community weren’t aware of it doesn’t mean that there weren’t plenty of people out there that were excited about it,” she told the Hollywood Reporter. She also claims she had been doing a lot of publicity for the book by promoting it smaller conventions, and buying books to distribute at those conventions. The YA community isn’t buying it, though. The Mortal Instruments author Cassandra Clare—one of YA’s recent success stories—tweeted at the online detectives, “They would’ve gotten away with it if it wasn’t for you pesky kids.”

A new housing development in the small U.K. town of Neath won’t look much different from the buildings around it. But the new homes will generate, store, and release their own energy, and if the pilot is successful, the design could be rolled out on a mass scale, helping avoid the need to build new power plants.

“We call it ‘buildings as power stations,'” says Kevin Bygate, chief executive of Specific, a U.K. innovation center based at Swansea University in Wales that was set up to help close the gap between energy innovation and implementation. The houses will be developed by the Pobl Group, which provides social housing.

While all of the technology used is commercially available now, the homes attempt to combine it in a way that’s cost-effective to roll out at scale. The buildings in the new development–a mix of 16 one, two, and three-bedroom houses and one-bedroom apartments–are laid out to maximize the solar power they can generate through solar roofs and solar collectors on walls. Wrapping around the top of the homes, a perforated steel skin creates a pocket of heated air as the sun shines on it, which can be drawn into the homes for heat. Shared battery storage holds excess electricity until it’s needed in the homes or to charge electric cars.

“You would reduce the need for central energy generating stations by around three gigawatts, which is equivalent to a large nuclear power station,” Bygate says. “In a sense, what that means is you could get a nuclear power station for free. Essentially, the argument is in the U.K. we’re going to build lots more buildings anyway, and we’re going to finance them anyway. If you build them in a smart way and they’re energy positive, then actually you reduce the demand for central power stations. That’s worth at least £11 billion [$14 billion] in the U.K., and maybe more.”

While the U.K., like other countries, is also building large-scale renewable power plants–including the largest offshore wind farm in the world, where 640-foot wind turbines generate enough power for 230,000 homes–Bygate argues that it’s most efficient to produce power directly on houses.

“If you make energy for free at the point you need it, that should be the best, most economical answer, because there’s no transmission losses,” he says. “If you produce something in a power station and transmit it from there to somewhere else, it costs you money to do that transporting–the grid doesn’t come for free.”

The homes would still be connected to the grid so excess energy could also be sent to it. The study calculated that residents would save a minimum of 60% on energy bills, but if the houses also earn money by selling extra power to the grid, that savings could increase to around 85%. While the houses produce excess energy over the course of a year, they would still occasionally need to pull power from the grid, particularly on cold days for heat; as technology improves, however, that may not be necessary. The researchers have tested a system that can affordably store heat in the summer for use in the winter, for example. In cold climates like Wales, the largest carbon footprint from energy use comes from heating, rather than electricity.

The study calculated that one million homes using the technology would reduce CO2 emissions by nearly 80 million tonnes over 40 years. While the project team is focused locally, they say the same system could be used anywhere around the world, particularly places that don’t have Britain’s gloomy weather. “We thought if we can get it working in the U.K., we should be able to get it working anywhere,” says Bygate. “Lots of places in the world should have twice the solar radiation that we have here.” In developing countries, similar homes might be able to exist without an electrical grid. In the most polluting countries, the design–which could also be retrofitted to existing houses–could help dramatically cut climate pollution.

“The biggest single user of energy is buildings,” says Bygate. “If you can get buildings generating, storing, and releasing their own energy, then that is a game-changer.”

In early July, Google announced that it will expand its commercially available cloud computing services to include quantum computing. A similar service has been available from IBM since May. These aren’t services most regular people will have a lot of reason to use yet. But making quantum computers more accessible will help government, academic, and corporate research groups around the world continue their study of the capabilities of quantum computing.

Understanding how these systems work requires exploring a different area of physics than most people are familiar with. From everyday experience we are familiar with what physicists call “classical mechanics,” which governs most of the world we can see with our own eyes, such as what happens when a car hits a building, what path a ball takes when it’s thrown, and why it’s hard to drag a cooler across a sandy beach.

Quantum models, however, describe the subatomic realm—the behavior of protons, electrons, and photons. The laws of quantum mechanics are very different from those of classical mechanics and can lead to some unexpected and counterintuitive results, such as the idea that an object can have negative mass.

Physicists around the world—in government, academic, and corporate research groups—continue to explore real-world deployments of technologies based on quantum mechanics. And computer scientists, including me, are looking to understand how these technologies can be used to advance computing and cryptography.

A Brief Introduction To Quantum Physics

In our regular lives, we are used to things existing in a well-defined state: A lightbulb is either on or off, for example. But in the quantum world, objects can exist in a what is called a superposition of states: A hypothetical atomic-level lightbulb could simultaneously be both on and off. This strange feature has important ramifications for computing.

The smallest unit of information in classical mechanics—and, therefore, classical computers—is the bit, which can hold a value of either 0 or 1, but never both at the same time. As a result, each bit can hold just one piece of information. Such bits, which can be represented as electrical impulses, changes in magnetic fields, or even a physical on-off switch, form the basis for all calculations, storage, and communication in today’s computers and information networks.

Qubits—quantum bits—are the quantum equivalent of classical bits. One fundamental difference is that, due to superposition, qubits can simultaneously hold values of both 0 and 1. Physical realizations of qubits must inherently be at an atomic scale: for example, in the spin of an electron or the polarization of a photon.

Here’s one video explanation of quantum mechanics, in terms of how well you remember someone’s name when you see them:

Computing With Qubits

Another difference is that classical bits can be operated on independently of each other: Flipping a bit in one location has no effect on bits in other locations. Qubits, however, can be set up using a quantum-mechanical property called entanglement so that they are dependent on each other—even when they are far apart. This means that operations performed on one qubit by a quantum computer can affect multiple other qubits simultaneously. This property—akin to, but not the same as, parallel processing—can make quantum computation much faster than in classical systems.

Large-scale quantum computers—that is, quantum computers with hundreds of qubits—do not yet exist, and are challenging to build because they require operations and measurements to be done on a atomic scale. IBM’s quantum computer, for example, currently has 16 qubits, and Google is promising a 49-qubit quantum computer—which would be an astounding advance—by the end of the year. (In contrast, laptops currently have multiple gigabytes of RAM, with a gigabyte being eight billion classical bits.)

A Powerful Tool

Notwithstanding the difficulty of building working quantum computers, theorists continue to explore their potential. In 1994, Peter Shor showed that quantum computers could quickly solve the complicated math problems that underlie all commonly used public-key cryptography systems, like the ones that provide secure connections for web browsers. A large-scale quantum computer would completely compromise the security of the internet as we know it. Cryptographers are actively exploring new public-key approaches that would be “quantum-resistant,” at least as far as they currently know.

Interestingly, the laws of quantum mechanics can also be used to design cryptosystems that are, in some senses, more secure than their classical analogs. For example, quantum key distribution allows two parties to share a secret no eavesdropper can recover using either classical or quantum computers. Those systems—and others based on quantum computers—may become useful in the future, either widely or in more niche applications. But a key challenge is getting them working in the real world, and over large distances.

Jonathan Katz is director of the Maryland Cybersecurity Center and professor of Computer Science at University of Maryland. This article first appeared at The Conversation.

Related: Instagram’s Head Engineer Is Using Quantum Mechanics To Manage His Team

Earlier today, the Times of London came out with a shocking report about human traffickers using Facebook to broadcast videos of migrant torture and abuse as a way to elicit ransoms from migrants’ families. “Footage that has remained on the social media site for months shows Libyan gangmasters threatening the lives of migrants who have fled their homelands, often in the hope of reaching Europe,” writes the Times.

Horrible as this it, it’s not a new problem–in fact it’s something Facebook has been dealing with for quite a long time. A Reuters article from last June cites the same videos as well as the the same UN organization trying to shed light on the issue: The International Organization for Migration.

Despite being actively vocal about the subject, the IOM tells Fast Company that it never heard from Facebook about the issue.“We’ve not heard from them,” says spokesman Leonard Doyle, who adds that his organizations have spent months trying to get the company’s attention.

He adds that someone may have reached out today following this Times article, but nothing before that. “I guess they’re pretty busy,” says Doyle.

We reached out to Facebook for comment and will update if we hear back.

Update: A Facebook spokesperson provided Fast Company with this comment: “Offering services to take part in, support or promote people smuggling on Facebook is against our Community Standards. However, we also believe it is important that Facebook continues to be a place where people can raise awareness of important, and sometimes controversial issues.”

In regards to the video abuse video cited in the Times, the spokesperson said: “This specific video was posted to condemn smuggling and raise aware of the issue, so we would not consider it a violation of our policies. We realize the video is disturbing so we have added a warning screen and the video’s distribution will be limited to those aged 18 and over.”

Facebook adds that it has, in the past, been in touch with IOM and will be reaching out again about this issue.