Dostoevsky’s (And Our) Struggle With Faith

 Skywriter takes Bluesky threads and makes webpages out of them

The truth behind Adolescence, the new series exploring incels and Andrew-Tate-style misogyny

Adolescence: What's the song at the end of the series? And what does it mean?

WSJ Op-Ed: Dostoevsky’s (And Our) Struggle With Faith

Poland’s Previous Government Pushed Museums To The Right. This New Museum Is Pushing Only To The Middle.

Under the Law and Justice Party, officials fired many museum directors, replacing them with conservatives whose exhibitions promoted traditional social and artistic values. The current ruling coalition is working on reversing the politicization, and the director of Warsaw’s Museum of Modern Art says she’s aiming straight for the center. - The New York Times

A Fully-Funded BBC World Service Is The Only Way To Counter Disinformation, Argue BBC Execs

“Amid concerns about the scale of state-backed content after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, senior BBC figures believe it is ‘undeniable’ that the government should shoulder the costs of championing ‘western values’ via the financially strained World Service.” - The Guardian

How On Earth Did Reddit Become One Of The Nicest Places On The Internet?

For its first decade, Reddit was widely considered just a notch above 4chan: full of rage-filled prejudice, vicious verbal abuse and creepy sex stuff. Now Reddit's full of (mostly) civil discussion, advice and support on topics from popular to extremely niche to silly. And there are good reasons for that. - The Atlantic (MSN)

‘It’s a Heist’: Real Federal Auditors Are Horrified by DOGE

“WIRED [ublocked] talked to actual federal auditors about how government auditing works—and how DOGE is doing the opposite. Elon Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) has spent the first six weeks of the new Trump administration turning the federal government upside down. It has moved from agency to agency, accessing sensitive data and payment systems, all on a supposed crusade to audit the government and stop fraud, waste, and abuse. DOGE has posted some of its “findings” on its website, many of which have been revealed to be errors.

But two federal auditors with years of experience, who have both worked on financial and technical audits for the government, say that DOGE’s actions are the furthest thing from what an actual audit looks like. Both asked to speak on the condition of anonymity because they weren’t permitted to speak to the press. “Honestly, comparing real auditing to what DOGE is doing, there’s no comparison,” says one of the auditors who spoke to WIRED. “None of them are auditors.”…

“An audit that follows Generally Accepted Government Auditing Standards (GAGAS), also known as a Yellow Book audit, is conducted in accordance with the standards issued by the US Government Accountability Office,” says the first auditor. Audits can focus on the finances, compliance, or performance of an agency. “That is the gold standard for how you audit the government.”

There are generally five phases of a GAGAS audit, the auditors tell WIRED: planning, evidence gathering, evaluation, reporting, and follow up. Auditors work to define the scope of an audit, identify all the applicable laws and standards, and come up with an audit plan. Next, auditors conduct interviews with staff, review financial records, and comb through data, reports, and transactions, documenting all the way. From there, auditors will assess that information against policies or procedures to figure out if there’s been some kind of alleged waste, fraud, or abuse and issue a report detailing their findings and offering recommendations. Often, those reports are made available to the public. After an audit, the auditors can follow up with the agency to ensure changes are being made…”