👋 As we emerge from a year of despair and daily reminders of the fragility of life, this may be the right moment to step back. A new course from Forge will help you answer big questions about your career.

We’ll drop highlights from the course in this thread. 🧵 Balance your time with a “one for them, one for me” approach. “I always try to balance every case of high-intensity client-led work with a project that pays next to nothing, but is dictated entirely by me, for me.” — @MarieElvey, brand designer

read.medium.com/SJob1NC

1/ Political figures have taken to Medium to share their reactions to this week's attempted coup at the U.S. Capitol — as well as their demands for what must be done to protect the future of our democracy. Their thoughts here: ⬇️ 2/ Former president @BarackObama: "History will rightly remember [violence] at the Capitol as a moment of great dishonor and shame for our nation. But we’d be kidding ourselves if we treated it as a total surprise." read.medium.com/PFJQFzk

1/ Around the world, people are adjusting to their new "normal"—whatever that means. From an ER physician diagnosed with #Covid19, to an Italian monastery providing live updates from quarantine, these are the stories of life during a global pandemic. 2/ Italy's death toll has overtaken China's, and their lockdown measures have been some of the most extreme in the world. Writing from Northern Italy, Greg Hopkins says "the psychological effect is disturbing:" read.medium.com/wOVoyEk

Stuck inside this weekend? Here are a bunch of our favorite #longreads to help you pass the time. You'll find wild yarns 🧵, inspirational profiles ✨, and fresh perspectives 🧠. Stay healthy, and read on. Writer Chloe Caldwell wasn't a big fan of organized vacation tours. Turns out, a tour is much better than a sudden arrest. Read her unbelievable vacation story, via @humanparts: read.medium.com/f44XmK3

This year, Medium has launched seven in-house publications, with topics ranging from tech and science, to health and wellness, to the lived experiences of women of color—and more.

These are some of the standout stories of 2019, as chosen by each publication’s editors. 👇👇 From @ForgeMag, a publication about personal development.

https://twitter.com/ForgeMag/status/1209218087389675520

In the 2010s, the internet grew up — and we grew up with it. Medium launched in 2012 and @HumanParts was founded one year later, so, to mark the end of this decade in tabs, they're taking you back into the archives. read.medium.com/ylxH74u This is The Internet Time Machine, (almost) ten years of writing on our corner of the Internet. For years, people have been writing moving essays, poems, comics, and stories about being a human online. read.medium.com/ylxH74u

1/ Artificial intelligence is changing everything from how we are selected for jobs to whether or not we are given bank loans.

It’s exciting—and worrisome. That’s because the people building A.I. systems don’t reflect the diversity of the people they will likely represent

https://twitter.com/zoramag/status/1138088698057281538

2/ Take Google, for instance. The company lists 893 people working on machine learning.

Only one is a black woman. read.medium.com/hDKr9MN

1/ This is the story of the monumental legal effort underway to hold pharmaceutical companies—and drug distributors—responsible for the opioid epidemic. read.medium.com/uAS823R 2/ By the numbers, the opioid crisis is staggering. In 2012, health care providers wrote enough painkiller prescriptions for every American adult to have a bottle of pills. cdc.gov/vitalsigns/pdf…

1/ The sharing economy is dead. read.medium.com/KNDOA9K 2/ To understand how we got here, let’s take a step back and travel to the early aughts. It was around this time that the concept of the sharing economy burst onto the scene.

An addict bestowed with an earth-moving kindness. A devastated father. A trans woman taking others under her wing. In Prison Stories, currently and recently incarcerated writers talk about life inside the U.S. prison system. read.medium.com/NLW9KJz She saved a life in the mental health hall—a woman, clearly addicted to something. A woman, looking for her next fix. In a prison system all too willing to give it to her. Ladrina Johnson on the abuse of prescription drugs in prison: read.medium.com/hDRZF5u