But it is the view of Earth from 230,000 miles away, blue and white with a smudge of tan, that made more of a mark on him. “The thing that really surprised me was that it projected an air of fragility,” he said. “And why, I don’t know. I don’t know to this day. I had a feeling it’s tiny, it’s shiny, it’s beautiful, it’s home, and it’s fragile.”
16 July, 2019
A Runaway Train Explosion Killed 47, but Deadly Cargo Still Rides the Rails
The fuel explosion that took 47 lives also destroyed 40 buildings in Lac-Mégantic, a resort and industrial town abutting a scenic lake.
A $150 million decontamination program led to the demolition of another 37 buildings and the removal of 294,000 tons of rubble and soil. Adding to the pain of many survivors, the first thing to be rebuilt at the disaster site were the rail tracks themselves, an important lifeline for the town’s factories.
While new roads now run through the former disaster zone, most of it is barren, filled with underused parking lots.
Driving through the wound that was once downtown remains too painful for many in Lac-Mégantic. In a disaster that killed nearly 1 percent of the town, it’s not a question of if residents knew someone who died, but how many.
Philip Morris Angers Czechs With Tobacco Toll Report
https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2001-aug-05-mn-30831-story.htmlIn its most provocative calculation, the report said that by dying early, smokers saved the Czech government $30 million in 1999 because of reduced costs for health care, pensions and housing for the elderly. That figure reflected “5.23 years of life lost for the average smoker,” it said.
These “indirect positive effects” of smoking on public finances helped ease the much higher costs of smoking, according to the report, which Philip Morris used in a lobbying effort to influence Czech politicians and officials. In 1999, those costs included $296 million in additional health care for smokers and $29.6 million in additional health care for people sickened by secondhand smoke, the report said.
12 July, 2019
Rick Perry: Now that Ross Perot is gone, I can tell this story
This week, the nation remembers Ross Perot for his success in business, his two independent White House bids and his no-nonsense, straight Texas talk. His love of country, larger-than-life personality and generosity are all part of his legacy that will live on. But there is another little-known part of the life of Ross Perot that should be told now that he is gone. He was a tireless, but private, supporter of our wounded veterans.
During my time as governor of this great state, I had the honor and privilege of knowing countless warriors who stepped forward to serve in Iraq and Afghanistan and returned home with horrific wounds of war. U.S. Army Cpl. Alan Babin Jr. is one such hero.
11 July, 2019
I was wrong about spreadsheets, and I’m sorry
I ridiculed the spreadsheet jockey. I dismissed their power. I was an asshole about spreadsheets. I just didn’t get it. I asked why people didn’t “learn to program,” and all the while, I was using tools which were clearly less sophisticated than Excel.
When you want to solve a problem with Excel, here’s what you do:
- Open up Excel
That’s it. From there, you can calculate literally anything, and transmit not only the results of those calculations, but the actual environment itself, to anyone in the world, and expect that if they have a computer, they can replicate your results.
There I was, solving problems with a pile of functional but precarious software, glued together by the trends of the day … and I was judging Excel.
Programming should be more like Excel
10 July, 2019
Some of Putin’s Top Cops Are Mobsters. Even KGB Vets Are Ashamed.
https://www.thedailybeast.com/vladimir-putins-top-cops-some-in-the-fsb-are-mobsters-even-kgb-vets-are-ashamed
There are no checks and balances at FSB management, Gudkov pointed out. “The Soviet KGB was massively repressive, you can blame that service for anything, but not for corruption. The worst we could hear about was a colleague sleeping with somebody’s wife or some secret agent bringing a pair of sneakers for a colleague from abroad—that was already a big enough scandal to write a report,” Gudkov remembered. “Even in our worst nightmare we could not imagine officers stealing millions of dollars, robbing banks. What will we hear next? The Russian Federal Security Service robbing the Kremlin’s treasury or the Central Bank’s reserves?”
There are no checks and balances at FSB management, Gudkov pointed out. “The Soviet KGB was massively repressive, you can blame that service for anything, but not for corruption. The worst we could hear about was a colleague sleeping with somebody’s wife or some secret agent bringing a pair of sneakers for a colleague from abroad—that was already a big enough scandal to write a report,” Gudkov remembered. “Even in our worst nightmare we could not imagine officers stealing millions of dollars, robbing banks. What will we hear next? The Russian Federal Security Service robbing the Kremlin’s treasury or the Central Bank’s reserves?”
08 July, 2019
Destroyer of worlds: the 8chan story
https://members.tortoisemedia.com/2019/06/29/8chan/content.html
It’s mostly lonely people who find themselves in a febrile information ecosystem without precedent in human history. Chan sites like 8chan are something entirely new: organic communities of anonymous participants that have started to behave almost like a new consciousness, separate and more powerful and dangerous than the sum of its parts.
The anger and hate that spews from 8chan is not a conscious extension of the anger and hate of its creator – though he had plenty – but an inevitable byproduct of the dark structure he built. The story of 8chan’s founder, Fredrick Brennan, is a perfect expression of this: born with a profound disability and shuttled in and out of foster care, his creation of the site was born not out of cold calculation or political ambition, but from a need to find community in loneliness.
8chan is a monster, but its creator had no idea what it would become. He was just a kid.
It’s mostly lonely people who find themselves in a febrile information ecosystem without precedent in human history. Chan sites like 8chan are something entirely new: organic communities of anonymous participants that have started to behave almost like a new consciousness, separate and more powerful and dangerous than the sum of its parts.
The anger and hate that spews from 8chan is not a conscious extension of the anger and hate of its creator – though he had plenty – but an inevitable byproduct of the dark structure he built. The story of 8chan’s founder, Fredrick Brennan, is a perfect expression of this: born with a profound disability and shuttled in and out of foster care, his creation of the site was born not out of cold calculation or political ambition, but from a need to find community in loneliness.
8chan is a monster, but its creator had no idea what it would become. He was just a kid.
Kris Kobach, who claimed misspelled names indicated voter fraud, misspells own name in Senate race registration
One might expect the more well-known Kris Kobach, who failed in his Republican bid for Kansas governor last year, to hop in the race to replace retiring Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kan.) And sure enough, an hour after registration for "Chris" popped up on the Federal Election Commissions' website, the campaign amended its candidate's name to Kris Kobach, The Daily Beast reports.
The mixup was especially ironic for Kobach, who once headed President Trump's so-called voter fraud commission and dedicated his political career to demanding stricter identification for voters. As part of that fight, Kobach has tried to purgevoter rolls of names that don't match registrants' state IDs, which would've included names that were misspelled during registration.
07 July, 2019
How the Other Fukushima Plant Survived
https://hbr.org/2014/07/how-the-other-fukushima-plant-survived
Less well known is the crisis at Fukushima Daini, a sister plant about 10 kilometers to the south, which also suffered severe damage but escaped Daiichi’s fate. To shed light on how leadership shaped the outcome, we’ve reconstructed that story here—from several firsthand interviews; detailed reports by the Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO), the utility that owns both plants; the Nuclear Energy Institute; and a number of public sources. In so volatile an environment, none of the usual rules for decision making and organizational behavior applied. But the site superintendent, Naohiro Masuda, and the rest of Daini’s 400 employees charted their way through the chaos, and the plant survived without a meltdown or an explosion.
Less well known is the crisis at Fukushima Daini, a sister plant about 10 kilometers to the south, which also suffered severe damage but escaped Daiichi’s fate. To shed light on how leadership shaped the outcome, we’ve reconstructed that story here—from several firsthand interviews; detailed reports by the Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO), the utility that owns both plants; the Nuclear Energy Institute; and a number of public sources. In so volatile an environment, none of the usual rules for decision making and organizational behavior applied. But the site superintendent, Naohiro Masuda, and the rest of Daini’s 400 employees charted their way through the chaos, and the plant survived without a meltdown or an explosion.
04 July, 2019
u/FatSputnik on the situation for some of those detained at the border
https://np.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/c8rjhb/a_doctor_found_malnourished_and_sick_babies_in/esqeegu/
Imagine being 9, your parents giving you willingly to border patrol because ICE told you it'd be 15 minutes, then not seeing them for endless days that stretch on because you have no concept of time in a windowless jail house. They yell at you, wake you up at 2am(but you don't know what time it is, they just switch the lights on after you fall asleep), they give you frozen blocks of microwave meals, and you've been wearing the exact same clothes you've been wearing for the last 2 weeks. You aren't given water outside of your meals and are only allowed to use the washroom once a day- but when you do you swab yourself with toilet paper, to try to clean yourself a bit within 15 minutes. You're freezing cold at every moment, because they keep your cells freezing cold to limit your movement and stop you from moving/making noise, as you try to conserve warmth by holding still, a tactic that's a war crime- illegal to use ever against prisoners of war. Imagine being surrouneded by 100 other children, at every moment. No privacy, and everyone's yelling, crying, screaming, talking, coughing, puking. Everyone smells so bad because nobody else can use the washrooms, change clothes, or bathe. Rotting frozen food is left out if nobody eats it. Imagine being a little 12 year old girl, who gets her period during this time, surrounded by dozens of other kids. Imagine that hell.
Imagine being 9, your parents giving you willingly to border patrol because ICE told you it'd be 15 minutes, then not seeing them for endless days that stretch on because you have no concept of time in a windowless jail house. They yell at you, wake you up at 2am(but you don't know what time it is, they just switch the lights on after you fall asleep), they give you frozen blocks of microwave meals, and you've been wearing the exact same clothes you've been wearing for the last 2 weeks. You aren't given water outside of your meals and are only allowed to use the washroom once a day- but when you do you swab yourself with toilet paper, to try to clean yourself a bit within 15 minutes. You're freezing cold at every moment, because they keep your cells freezing cold to limit your movement and stop you from moving/making noise, as you try to conserve warmth by holding still, a tactic that's a war crime- illegal to use ever against prisoners of war. Imagine being surrouneded by 100 other children, at every moment. No privacy, and everyone's yelling, crying, screaming, talking, coughing, puking. Everyone smells so bad because nobody else can use the washrooms, change clothes, or bathe. Rotting frozen food is left out if nobody eats it. Imagine being a little 12 year old girl, who gets her period during this time, surrounded by dozens of other kids. Imagine that hell.
Imagine being a mom, thinking of your child going through all of this, while you're in a cell as well.
03 July, 2019
No Kings: How Do You Make Good Decisions Efficiently in a Flat Organization?
https://doist.com/blog/decision-making-flat-organization/
If you’re the one raising objections to a solution:
If you’re the one raising objections to a solution:
- Before you object, weigh whether or not your objection reveals a serious issue. It’s okay to make a remark like “I believe there is a better decision and it’s this, but I’m also okay with the current choice.” It’s also okay to suggest improvements to the idea (or the implementation, if you’re discussing a pull request for example) without vetoing the current choice. Make clear what type of objection you’re raising.
- If you believe the choice has a blocking flaw, try to make your feedback as clear as possible so that the decision-maker can address it properly.
- If you believe the choice has a blocking flaw, try to find enough time and energy to convince opponents. When you differentiate between non-critical feedback and a fundamental flaw and prioritize the latter, you’re able to conserve the time and mental energy for the most important discussions.
If you’re the one deciding:
- Be vigilant and make sure the discussion doesn’t stall on non-critical, “not the best solution” feedback.
- If there is a discussion which cannot converge, ask participants to clarify if objections to a proposal address fundamental flaws or remarks which should be taken in consideration.
- If there is a good enough solution X, don’t ask people what they think about it. Instead, ask everyone if they can live with it and if not, why.
- Don’t feel like you have to default to majority rule.
02 July, 2019
I have never met antisemitism in Britain... until now
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/jun/29/ive-never-met-antisemitism-in-britain-until-now
I’ll call my publicist John as he prefers to remain anonymous. He has also asked me to refrain from identifying the organisations that reacted negatively to my being Jewish. John told me that the final conversations he had with the two event co-ordinators convinced him that they weren’t antisemitic themselves but they feared a backlash – protests by their members and others – if they extended an invitation to a Jewish writer.
After our phone conversation, I was deeply shocked and upset. Facing discrimination is always unpleasant and infuriating and I never expected that my career in the UK would be prejudiced by my being Jewish. It made Britain seem like a place I didn’t know and maybe never knew. Even just asking about my religious affiliation struck me as outrageous. The situation seemed particularly ironic because I have long endeavoured in my novels to give voice to people who have been systematically silenced by prejudice and bigotry.
Never Forget: Life After the Khmer Rouge Genocide
Once upon a time—1975, actually, in Cambodia—there was a regime so evil that it created an antisociety where torture was currency and music, books, and love were abolished. This regime ruled for four years and murdered nearly 2 million of its citizens, a quarter of the population. The perversion was so extreme, the acts so savage, that three decades later, the country still finds itself reeling.
30 June, 2019
What the last Nuremberg prosecutor alive wants the world to know
Benjamin Ferencz: These men would never have been murderers had it not been for the war. These were people who could quote Goethe, who loved Wagner, who were polite--
Lesley Stahl: What turns a man into a savage beast like that?
Benjamin Ferencz: He's not a savage. He's an intelligent, patriotic human being.
Lesley Stahl: He's a savage when he does the murder though.
Benjamin Ferencz: No. He's a patriotic human being acting in the interest of his country, in his mind.
Lesley Stahl: You don't think they turn into savages even for the act?
Benjamin Ferencz: Do you think the man who dropped the nuclear bomb on Hiroshima was a savage? Now I will tell you something very profound, which I have learned after many years. War makes murderers out of otherwise decent people. All wars, and all decent people.
29 June, 2019
I'm 20. I have 32 half-siblings. This is my family portrait.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/06/26/magazine/sperm-donor-siblings.html
When we hung up, I told my parents what I’d learned, and they were equally stunned. I felt both curious and anxious about these people and what they exactly meant to me. The sheer quantity of them gave me a feeling of having been mass-produced.
When we hung up, I told my parents what I’d learned, and they were equally stunned. I felt both curious and anxious about these people and what they exactly meant to me. The sheer quantity of them gave me a feeling of having been mass-produced.
Even as I was trying to take this information in, I was realizing that one way I could maybe make sense of all of this was through photography, a medium I’ve been interested in from a young age. I could use the camera as an excuse to meet each sibling and maybe the process of making pictures would help me find some sort of stability, even as I also recognized that conflict, discomfort and maybe even a kind of love would be part of the experience.
27 June, 2019
The Day the Music Burned
The label’s dominance rests in large part on its roster of current chart toppers — stars like Drake, Taylor Swift and Ariana Grande. But UMG’s reputation is also based on the great swaths of music history it owns, a canon that includes Frank Sinatra, the Beatles, Queen and many more artists and labels whose catalogs came under the UMG umbrella during decades of acquisition and consolidation. A key part of that legacy — the originals of some of the company’s most culturally significant assets — went up in smoke in 2008.
The vault fire was not, as UMG suggested, a minor mishap, a matter of a few tapes stuck in a musty warehouse. It was the biggest disaster in the history of the music business. UMG’s internal assessment of the event stands in contrast to its public statements. In a document prepared for a March 2009 “Vault Loss Meeting,” the company described the damage in apocalyptic terms. “The West Coast Vault perished, in its entirety,” the document read. “Lost in the fire was, undoubtedly, a huge musical heritage.”
26 June, 2019
How Discount Brokerages Make Money
https://www.kalzumeus.com/2019/6/26/how-brokerages-make-money/
So how do discount brokerages make money?
NET INTEREST
Suppose I were to give you $100, in return for your promise to give it back when I wanted it and pay me 0.27% annualized interest in the meanwhile. Suppose you invested this in a virtually riskless bond, perhaps a mortgage-backed security with government backing, offering 2.53% annualized interest. You’d earn $2.26 in net interest in a year.
Suppose I were to give you $200 billion dollars. Now I’m the American middle class and you’re Charles Schwab. You would earn something like $5.8 billion dollars in net interest income. This would entirely pay for your sideline business in running a brokerage. Stocks, bonds, mutual funds, branch offices, call centers, blah blah blah, it all exists to justify the only pricing page that matters, and all the verbiage on the pricing page is about how much you pay the customer.
This is an exaggeration, but not much of one. 57% of Schwab’s revenues are from net interest. The firm could literally give away every other service; discount the mutual fund fees to zero, do away with commissions, etc etc, and they would still be profitable.
[...]
Did anything useful come out of this research project?
Three things that I believe much more strongly than I did previously:
Commissions in discount brokerages will go to zero. Like most repricing, it will continue to be slow until it happens all at once. Interactive Brokers will likely still continue charging them, as it is least similar in character to the rest of the industry.
Roboadvisors are a bad business below scale. I have really liked the model as a user, but I am glad I’m an investor using a roboadvisor rather than an investor in a roboadvisor. The discount brokerage industry works because you can make decisions which are bad for users and lucrative for you (“Ahh you have entrusted me with cash money; let me park it safely and pay you 50 bps while keeping the next 150 bps for me, rather than parking it in the equally safe place any of my product managers could have implemented if they wanted to be fired instantly”); roboadvisors depend on making decisions which are good for users (“Let me minimize that cash drag for you”) and then being very explicit about costs which are anchored very low. (Again, hate to belabor a point, but Wealthfront charges 25 bps all-in (on top of the underlying ETFs) and every customer knows it; Schwab charges 18 bps for cash management alone and virtually no customer has ever even thought there could be a number there.)
Some technologists I am acquainted with should know one esoteric thing about equities markets. If you own a material amount of a publicly traded stock, and the supply of that stock is constrained, and some population of sophisticated people want to short it, maybe you should Charge More rather than letting your broker get that service from you for free. Speak to your trusted advisor, this can have fairly toothy consequences, etc etc.
20 June, 2019
The $44 Million Verdict Against Oberlin
Oberlin College just got hit again with a jury judgment that could cripple the college financially. Last Friday, the jury found the college guilty of libel and returned a verdict award of $11.2 million to Gibson’s, a local store and its proprietors. Today, the jury added $33 million in punitive damages – a clear sign that jurors were sending a strong message. The total of $44 million is likely to be pared back since Ohio State law caps punitive awards at twice the amount of the verdict award. The jurors also added the cost of the plaintiff’s legal fees to the total.
The story, by now, is well-known. A few days after Donald Trump’s election, an underage black Oberlin student attempted to purchase a bottle of wine. The white proprietor of a local store, Gibson’s, refused to sell the wine, prompting the student to try and shoplift it. He and two friends fled the store with the proprietor in pursuit. The arrests of the students prompted protests by other Oberlin students suggesting that the shoplifters were innocent (they weren’t) and that Gibson was racist (it wasn’t).
A senior Oberlin administrator, Vice President and Dean of Students Meredith Raimondo, joined in the protests. The college ceased purchasing goods and services from Gibson’s—causing the victims of a crime economic harm. And after the college refused to apologize or release a statement denying Gibson’s racist intent, the store, and its owners sued.
19 June, 2019
Your Professional Decline Is Coming (Much) Sooner Than You Think
Call it the Principle of Psychoprofessional Gravitation: the idea that the agony of professional oblivion is directly related to the height of professional prestige previously achieved, and to one’s emotional attachment to that prestige. Problems related to achieving professional success might appear to be a pretty good species of problem to have; even raising this issue risks seeming precious. But if you reach professional heights and are deeply invested in being high up, you can suffer mightily when you inevitably fall. That’s the man on the plane. Maybe that will be you, too. And, without significant intervention, I suspect it will be me.
BODIES IN SEATS
https://www.theverge.com/2019/6/19/18681845/facebook-moderator-interviews-video-trauma-ptsd-cognizant-tampa
Cognizant received a two-year, $200 million contract from Facebook to do the work, according to a former employee familiar with the matter. But in return for policing the boundaries of free expression on one of the internet’s largest platforms, individual contractors in North America make as little as $28,800 a year. They receive two 15-minute breaks and a 30-minute lunch each day, along with nine minutes per day of “wellness” time that they can use when they feel overwhelmed by the emotional toll of the job. After regular exposure to graphic violence and child exploitation, many workers are subsequently diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder and related conditions.
Cognizant received a two-year, $200 million contract from Facebook to do the work, according to a former employee familiar with the matter. But in return for policing the boundaries of free expression on one of the internet’s largest platforms, individual contractors in North America make as little as $28,800 a year. They receive two 15-minute breaks and a 30-minute lunch each day, along with nine minutes per day of “wellness” time that they can use when they feel overwhelmed by the emotional toll of the job. After regular exposure to graphic violence and child exploitation, many workers are subsequently diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder and related conditions.
18 June, 2019
Chernobyl Scripts
https://johnaugust.com/library
The acclaimed HBO/Sky miniseries written, created and produced by Scriptnotes co-host Craig Mazin debuted May 6, 2019. As promised, here are Craig’s scripts for the five episodes.
The acclaimed HBO/Sky miniseries written, created and produced by Scriptnotes co-host Craig Mazin debuted May 6, 2019. As promised, here are Craig’s scripts for the five episodes.
You should also listen to the excellent companion podcast co-hosted by Peter Sagal.
17 June, 2019
What Really Happened to Malaysia’s Missing Airplane
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/07/mh370-malaysia-airlines/590653/
A Boeing 777 is meant to be electronically accessible at all times. The disappearance of the airplane has provoked a host of theories. Many are preposterous. All are given life by the fact that, in this age, commercial airplanes don’t just vanish.
This one did, and more than five years later its precise whereabouts remain unknown. Even so, a great deal about the disappearance of MH370 has come into clearer view, and reconstructing much of what happened that night is possible. The cockpit voice recorder and the flight-data recorder may never be recovered, but what we still need to know is unlikely to come from the black boxes. Instead, it will have to come from Malaysia.
15 June, 2019
Amanda Knox, Tearful and Angry, Speaks in Italy, Years After Murder Acquittal
“I was never a defendant, innocent until proven guilty,” she said of the public’s perception. “I was sly, a psychopath, dirty, a slut, guilty until proven otherwise.”
This warped version of her entered into the courtroom, compromising the result of the trial, she said.
The most important lesson she had learned, she said, was that it was easy for the public to distort defendants into monsters. “It’s easy to see what we want to see,” Ms. Knox added, reducing criminal cases to “black and white stories populated by demons and saints.”
Double Mystery
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1995/08/07/double-mystery
Recent studies of twinship have challenged our most entrenched views of human development and have capsized cherished beliefs about human nature—in particular, the bedrock notion that character is created by experience. But then twins have been confounding humanity from the earliest times—almost as if they were a divine prank designed to undermine our sense of individuality and specialness in the world. Twins are both an unsettling presence, because they sabotage our sense of personal uniqueness, and a score-settling presence, because their mere existence allows us to pose questions we might not have thought to ask if we lived in a world without them.
Recent studies of twinship have challenged our most entrenched views of human development and have capsized cherished beliefs about human nature—in particular, the bedrock notion that character is created by experience. But then twins have been confounding humanity from the earliest times—almost as if they were a divine prank designed to undermine our sense of individuality and specialness in the world. Twins are both an unsettling presence, because they sabotage our sense of personal uniqueness, and a score-settling presence, because their mere existence allows us to pose questions we might not have thought to ask if we lived in a world without them.
14 June, 2019
Inside the Cultish Dreamworld of Augusta National
Augusta National is sometimes likened to Oz. For one thing, it’s a Technicolor fantasyland embedded in an otherwise ordinary tract of American sprawl. Washington Road, the main approach to the club, is a forlorn strip of Waffle Houses, pool-supply stores, and cheap-except-during-the-Masters hotels. In the Hooters parking lot during tournament week, fans line up for selfies with John Daly, the dissolute pro and avatar of mid-round cigarettes and booze. But step through the club’s metal detectors and badge scanners, and you enter a lush, high-rent realm, where you are not allowed to run, talk loudly, or cheer a player’s mistakes. Order is maintained by security guards, who for decades were provided by the Pinkerton detective agency. (Though Pinkerton was acquired by a Swedish company called Securitas, in 1999, many patrons still refer to the guards as Pinkertons.) In 2012, a fan who stole onto a fairway to take a cup of bunker sand was thrown in jail.
11 June, 2019
Better Schools Won’t Fix America
Like many rich Americans, I used to think educational investment could heal the country’s ills—but I was wrong. Fighting inequality must come first.
09 June, 2019
Apollo’s brain: The computer that guided man to the Moon
https://newatlas.com/apollo-11-guidance-computer/59766/
One thing to bear in mind when looking at the AGC is that it was both cutting-edge in design and very old-fashioned in how it was built – both of which presented their own challenges. Unlike modern computers, the AGCs were all handmade in a slow, laborious process that even partial automation and new testing methods did little to speed up or make easier. In all, it took 2,000 man-years to build the computers.
My White Friend Asked Me on Facebook to Explain White Privilege. I Decided to Be Honest
As to you “being part of the problem,” trust me, nobody is mad at you for being white. Nobody. Just like nobody should be mad at me for being black. Or female. Or whatever. But what IS being asked of you is to acknowledge that white privilege DOES exist and not only to treat people of races that differ from yours “with respect and humor,” but also to stand up for fair treatment and justice, not to let “jokes” or “off-color” comments by friends, co-workers, or family slide by without challenge, and to continually make an effort to put yourself in someone else’s shoes, so we may all cherish and respect our unique and special contributions to society as much as we do our common ground.
07 June, 2019
05 June, 2019
04 June, 2019
How Chernobyl Became HBO’s Surprise Monday-Night Hit
A miniseries about a 1980s nuclear disaster could easily have proved radioactive to viewers. Instead, HBO’s Chernobyl has turned into an unlikely ratings hit. The network says its five-part miniseries, which wrapped Monday night, has to date attracted a cumulative audience of more than 6 million viewers across all HBO platforms. In a sign of strong word-of-mouth, the critically lauded series also saw its linear ratings tick up between each of its broadcasts last month, an exceedingly rare occurrence in the current TV environment. Once final streaming and on-demand numbers get tallied later this month, Chernobylcould even end up reaching roughly as many viewers as last year’s Amy Adams–led Sharp Objects.
HBO’s Chernobyl is a terrific miniseries. Its writer hopes you don’t think it’s the whole truth.
Comedy, in particular, is like stage magic. You have complete control, you know exactly what you’re doing, and you’re pulling tricks. You’re misdirecting, and you’re setting things up and paying them off, and moving them back around and surprising people, and then they laugh. And if you’re making a horror film, they shriek.
It’s dangerous. I don’t know how else to describe it. I think it’s dangerous. It’s not dangerous if it’s done just for thrills or laughs. But what’s happened is everybody has caught on. So politics is now nothing but weaponized narrative. That’s all it is.
And advertising figured out how to use narrative to sell you things you didn’t need. My favorite example is the engagement ring. I don’t know about you, but when I was a kid, there was an engagement ring, and it was a diamond. I heard that story and thought, well, that’s just the way it’s been. But no! The De Beers Company invented the diamond ring as part of an advertising campaign in the 1920s. Diamonds were kind of shitty and useless before then; nobody cared about them, and they’re not even rare.
02 June, 2019
Mike Bloomberg Addresses 2019 Harvard Business School Graduates as Class Day Speaker
“Billy treated everyone the same – from senior partners to the custodial staff. No one was better than anyone else. And Billy believed if you were lucky enough to make some money, you had an obligation to give a percentage of it away to help others. In fact, he didn't ask you what the percentage should be, he told you and you did it.
“I've been very lucky in my career. But my luckiest break wasn't getting fired – although that was pretty lucky it turned out. My luckiest break was taking a job where I got to see the ethics I learned growing up put into practice in the workplace. And I'd like to think the principles that I learned at Salomon have guided my life ever since.
“But when we look at today's world, it’s not clear that everyone with a degree in business has those principles. And that's one reason, I believe, that this great country of ours is suffering from an ethical crisis that is corroding our society.
01 June, 2019
The only metric of success that really matters is the one we ignore
This was community. And what I would come to learn, slowly, is that community is about a series of small choices and everyday actions: how to spend a Saturday, what to do when a neighbor falls ill, how to make time when there is none. Knowing others and being known; investing in somewhere instead of trying to be everywhere. Communities are built, like Legos, one brick at a time. There’s no hack.
28 May, 2019
Want to fix big tech? Change what classes are required for a computer science degree
Rather, computer science programs produce people with blind spots; people who excel at writing code, but who aren’t equipped to assess how that code might intersect with human behavior, privacy, safety, vulnerability, equality, and many other factors. As the entrepreneur Anil Dash recently wrote, “Tech is often built with surprising ignorance about its users.” Too few people follow the advice of legal scholar Salome Viljoen to honor all expertise when writing code and building technology.
This blind spot plays a major role in the tech controversies we see every day. It’s one of the reasons we end up with recommendation algorithms that can predict our television preferences to a tee–but also spread anti-vaccine rhetoric at gigabit speeds. And encounter targeted pregnancy advertisements that spoil the surprise, or far worse, continue to appear after a stillbirth. The computer scientists that built Facebook’s newsfeed algorithm, or Google’s search ranking algorithm, didn’t fully anticipate how or why bad actors could hijack their technology–an oversight that a more complete understanding of sociology might have helped mitigate.
Allison on Memorial Day
I never know what to say on Memorial Day.
One thing I've learned over the last few years is that there isn't a "right" thing to say. It doesn't need to be eloquently phrased. It will never be perfect. It will never be enough.
One thing I've learned over the last few years is that there isn't a "right" thing to say. It doesn't need to be eloquently phrased. It will never be perfect. It will never be enough.
Thank you to everyone actively serving. Thank you to all the veterans who have served. Thank you to those who continue their battle here at home. Thank you to those who never made it home. Thank you to everyone who has sacrificed in ways I cannot begin to imagine. Thank you to the families who have lost someone. You are all in my heart.
To my dear friends who observe this day in memory of your loves, I am honored to know you. I love you.
27 May, 2019
WHY I (STILL) LOVE TECH: IN DEFENSE OF A DIFFICULT INDUSTRY
I’ve made a mistake, a lifelong one, correlating advancements in technology with progress. Progress is the opening of doors and the leveling of opportunity, the augmentation of the whole human species and the protection of other species besides. Progress is cheerfully facing the truth, whether flooding coastlines or falling teen pregnancy rates, and thinking of ways to preserve the processes that work and mitigate the risks. Progress is seeing calmly, accepting, and thinking of others.
It’s not that technology doesn’t matter here. It does. We can enable humans to achieve progress. We make tools that humans use. But it might not be our place to lead.
19 May, 2019
In the end, Game of Thrones needed better writers
If Martin’s fault was to spend too long developing the story, Weiss and Benioff charge through it as if they have a train to catch. They have not learned that it is better to cut a subplot in its entirety than leave it in half-cooked. One minute Jaime Lannister and Brienne of Tarth are having an affair. The next they are not. They cannot build. The final series turns on the fight against Cersei, but she is barely seen until the massacre at King’s Landing. They cannot get their story to make sense. In one episode, three dragons cannot defeat Cersei’s forces. In the next, one can.
When and if Martin finishes the novels, Game of Thrones may stand alongside Tolkien and Rowling. But the TV series demonstrates there is no substitute for an individual writer’s creative vision. And for that we should applaud it.
He voted for Trump. Now he and his wife raise their son from opposite sides of the border
Sometimes Jason feels like an outlier in the nation’s polarized immigration debate. After 16 months apart from Cecilia, he has yet to meet another U.S. citizen who is married to an immigrant in the country illegally.
“We’re a very small demographic,” he said. “Usually, illegals are married to illegals.”
But Jason’s story is not uncommon. About 1.2 million immigrants who lack legal status — more than 1 in 10 — are married to a U.S. citizen, according to the Migration Policy Institute. Nearly a third have a child under 18 who is a U.S. citizen.
Still, Jason has struggled to win sympathy across the echo chambers of social media.
18 May, 2019
Deere blames Trump's trade war for lower earnings, plans to scale back production 20% at major plants
https://qctimes.com/business/deere-blames-trump-s-trade-war-for-lower-earnings-plans/article_f784b65f-da49-581d-b94e-5d2a91ec1dbb.html
The revised forecast is another indicator that farmers, and those in the Midwest in particular, are suffering the brunt of the Trump administration's trade battles. On Friday, the president sought to ease fears over the escalating trade confrontations by lifting tariffs on industrial metals with Mexico and Canada, and he has pledged another aid package for farmers hurt by tariffs.
Deere said it lowered its forecasts because farmers aren't buying as much equipment. Farmers are worried about plummeting crop prices, international trade disputes and extreme weather events that have delayed planting, including here in Iowa.
The revised forecast is another indicator that farmers, and those in the Midwest in particular, are suffering the brunt of the Trump administration's trade battles. On Friday, the president sought to ease fears over the escalating trade confrontations by lifting tariffs on industrial metals with Mexico and Canada, and he has pledged another aid package for farmers hurt by tariffs.
Deere said it lowered its forecasts because farmers aren't buying as much equipment. Farmers are worried about plummeting crop prices, international trade disputes and extreme weather events that have delayed planting, including here in Iowa.
16 May, 2019
Heartbeat: My Involuntary Miscarriage and ‘Voluntary Abortion’ in Ohio
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/heartbeat-involuntary-miscarriage-and-voluntary-abortion-in-ohio_b_2050888
I waited. I overheard the technician as she looked at the screen with the doctor, “this is bad, this is really bad.” He wasn’t my doctor, but he had a soft voice with a southern kick that I liked. He saw me, gestured for me to come to his office, and referred to the ailing life in my belly as a baby. “This isn’t good,” he whispered. “It’s really not. Let me show you.” He was kind but clear. “The organs are not inside the baby’s body. The hands and feet are curled, actually one limb seems to be stunted or missing. The neck isn’t right. This really doesn’t look good.” I looked at the expanded sonogram on his desk. I saw the hands turned in, the area that he referred to as the organs, the dead space where there should be a limb. Minutes ago, I had looked at this same image and smiled. “I don’t understand,” I replied. “What do I do now?” “Why don’t you wait a week,” he offered. “I don’t understand,” I repeated, “can the baby survive? Can these problems be solved? I don’t understand exactly what you are telling me.” “No, I don’t think so,” he said finally, “but there are always miracles.”
I waited. I overheard the technician as she looked at the screen with the doctor, “this is bad, this is really bad.” He wasn’t my doctor, but he had a soft voice with a southern kick that I liked. He saw me, gestured for me to come to his office, and referred to the ailing life in my belly as a baby. “This isn’t good,” he whispered. “It’s really not. Let me show you.” He was kind but clear. “The organs are not inside the baby’s body. The hands and feet are curled, actually one limb seems to be stunted or missing. The neck isn’t right. This really doesn’t look good.” I looked at the expanded sonogram on his desk. I saw the hands turned in, the area that he referred to as the organs, the dead space where there should be a limb. Minutes ago, I had looked at this same image and smiled. “I don’t understand,” I replied. “What do I do now?” “Why don’t you wait a week,” he offered. “I don’t understand,” I repeated, “can the baby survive? Can these problems be solved? I don’t understand exactly what you are telling me.” “No, I don’t think so,” he said finally, “but there are always miracles.”
13 May, 2019
‘Who’s going to take care of these people?’
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/national/wp/2019/05/11/feature/whos-going-to-take-care-of-these-people/
The hospital had already transferred out most of its patients and lost half its staff when the CEO called a meeting to take inventory of what was left. Employees crammed into Tina Steele’s office at Fairfax Community Hospital, where the air conditioning was no longer working and the computer software had just been shut off for nonpayment.
The hospital had already transferred out most of its patients and lost half its staff when the CEO called a meeting to take inventory of what was left. Employees crammed into Tina Steele’s office at Fairfax Community Hospital, where the air conditioning was no longer working and the computer software had just been shut off for nonpayment.
12 May, 2019
I’m the Longest-Serving Republican in the Iowa Legislature, and I’m Switching Parties
The legislature is considerably more partisan and regimented than it used to be. I believe the increased partisanship often stands in the way of good legislation, and I’m also deeply concerned by the growing influence that big money exerts on the legislative process.
I also found a very changed Republican caucus. While I have great respect and personal regard for my Republican colleagues, I found myself more and more uncomfortable with the stance of my party on the majority of high-profile issues, such as gutting Iowa’s collective-bargaining law and politicizing our method of selecting judges. I worked for changes to improve legislation that I had concerns about, but also voted against many of these priorities.
HOMESCHOOL CONFIDENTIAL: LEAVING GENERATION JOSHUA
It is the story of a generation, overwhelmed and frightened by the 1960’s and 70’s, that wanted to create an isolated bubble in which to raise kids untouched by the chaos and depravity of the American world. It is the story of a generation that partied so hard that, ashamed of its doings, wanted its progeny to not do the things it did. It is a story of how you can so easily throw the proverbial baby out with the bath water — or, put another way, how babies always grow up and have to make their own decisions, no matter how hard their parents try to avoid that day.
08 May, 2019
What Happened After My 13-Year-Old Son Joined the Alt-Right
https://www.washingtonian.com/2019/05/05/what-happened-after-my-13-year-old-son-joined-the-alt-right/
“I liked them because they were adults and they thought I was an adult. I was one of them,” he said. “I was participating in a conversation. They took me seriously. No one ever took me seriously—not you, not my teachers, no one. If I expressed an opinion, you thought I was just a dumbass kid trying to find my voice. I already had my voice.”
I had no idea he’d felt that way. I couldn’t think of anything to say.
“All I wanted was for people to take me seriously,” he repeated matter-of-factly. “They treated me like a rational human being, and they never laughed at me. I saw the way you and Dad looked at each other and tried not to smile when I said something. I could hear you both in your room at night, laughing at me.”
The Men Who Left Were White
https://gawker.com/the-men-who-left-were-white-1562473547
I don't know. I can only guess, because the only knowledge we have is in the missing spaces. Men who are missing from birth certificates, who never laid eyes on their child.
I don't know. I can only guess, because the only knowledge we have is in the missing spaces. Men who are missing from birth certificates, who never laid eyes on their child.
There's no love there, no romance, no babies made with care and devotion. My history tells the story of white men who raped, white men who coerced, white men who had black children, and then white men who disappeared.
07 May, 2019
Georgia mayor under fire for alleged remarks about black job candidate
https://www.ajc.com/news/local-govt--politics/georgia-mayor-under-fire-for-alleged-remarks-about-black-job-candidate/Qr403ZLnF5VuB8CzpngLjP/amp.html
The mayor of Hoschton, a nearly all-white community 50 miles northeast of Atlanta, allegedly withheld a job candidate from consideration for city administrator because he was black, an AJC investigation has found.
The mayor of Hoschton, a nearly all-white community 50 miles northeast of Atlanta, allegedly withheld a job candidate from consideration for city administrator because he was black, an AJC investigation has found.
06 May, 2019
The Radically Inclusive Christianity of Rachel Held Evans
https://www.newyorker.com/news/postscript/the-radically-inclusive-christianity-of-rachel-held-evans
Rachel Held Evans, or R.H.E., as she was known, was one of the most formidable figures in contemporary Christianity. Raised in an evangelical household, she spent much of her adult life challenging the harmful role that conservative American culture plays in Christianity. In her four popular books, her talks, and her frequent presence on Twitter, she called for an intersectional approach to Christianity that embraced people of color, L.G.B.T.Q. people, and women in all roles in the church. This wasn’t a question of politics for Held Evans, who’d begun attending an Episcopal church in order to leave the culture wars behind; it was a matter of religious doctrine. She fiercely insisted that God’s love included everyone, and she attempted to offer those who’d been shunned by the church a way to return.
Rachel Held Evans, or R.H.E., as she was known, was one of the most formidable figures in contemporary Christianity. Raised in an evangelical household, she spent much of her adult life challenging the harmful role that conservative American culture plays in Christianity. In her four popular books, her talks, and her frequent presence on Twitter, she called for an intersectional approach to Christianity that embraced people of color, L.G.B.T.Q. people, and women in all roles in the church. This wasn’t a question of politics for Held Evans, who’d begun attending an Episcopal church in order to leave the culture wars behind; it was a matter of religious doctrine. She fiercely insisted that God’s love included everyone, and she attempted to offer those who’d been shunned by the church a way to return.
02 May, 2019
Chinese Media Warn WeChat Group Admins: “You Can Be Arrested for What Happens in Your Group Chat”
https://www.whatsonweibo.com/chinese-media-warn-wechat-group-admins-you-can-be-arrested-for-what-happens-in-your-group-chat/
Chinese media are reminding group admins this week that managing a group chat is “not a joke.” Cautionary headlines read: “Who sets up a group is responsible for it! Many group leaders have already been detained.”
Chinese media are reminding group admins this week that managing a group chat is “not a joke.” Cautionary headlines read: “Who sets up a group is responsible for it! Many group leaders have already been detained.”
A woman's reflection on her first child and the morality of abortion
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/late-term-abortion-rape_n_5c630b8de4b0a8731aeabbd6
I was raped when I was 17 years old. I had a baby when I was 18 years old. My baby died when I was 19 years old.
Rituals of Honor in Hospital Hallways
The double doors of the surgical intensive care unit opened into a hallway crowded with dozens of hospital employees. A hospital bed emerged, and we all fell silent.
Most beds roll out of the I.C.U. briskly, en route to radiology or an operating room, whirring with the beeps and blinks of monitors and the quick conversation of busy nurses.
This bed was different. It moved at a stately pace, and the team that accompanied it was changed as well. Nurses steered, but there was no chitchat this time. A tall anesthesiologist leaned over the head of the bed to squeeze a bag valve oxygen mask with clocklike regularity.
People in street clothes trailed close behind the bed, unsure of where to look. These were the parents of the young woman in the bed, the one we had all come to honor.
Drug resistance could kill 10M people per year by 2050, experts say
By the numbers: Currently, at least 700,000 people die each year due to drug-resistant diseases, including 230,000 people from multidrug-resistant tuberculosis, per the UN. Common diseases — like respiratory infections, STDs and urinary tract infections — are increasingly untreatable as the pathogens develop resistance to current medications.
- The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says AMR causes more than 23,000 deaths and 2 million illnesses in the U.S. annually.
- "In India, the CDC estimates that more than 58,000 babies under the age of 1 die every year of a drug-resistant pathogen," Mathers points out.
What needs to be done: Jasarevic says the economic and health systems of all nations must be considered, and targets made to increase investment in new medicines, diagnostic tools, vaccines and other interventions.
01 May, 2019
Riley Howell tried to stop UNC Charlotte gunman. He saved lives and died a hero, police say.
Riley Howell was likely the second fatality in the UNC Charlotte shooting, but not before he attempted to stop the gunman — and in the process, saved lives, said Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department Chief Kerr Putney.
Putney said he promised Howell's father he would not give many details on the incident, but said multiple times that the 2016 T.C. Roberson High School graduate prevented other deaths.
Howell's decision to fight may have helped police disarm the gunman, identified by law enforcement as ex-UNCC student Trystan Andrew Terrell.
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