Susan Crawford, one of America's leading scholars of monopolism, competition and the tech industry, has an outstanding article in Wired laying out the principled case for killing the AT&T/Time-Warner merger,… Read the rest of the article: Why we should cheer the DoJ's lawsuit to block the AT&T/Time-Warner merger
One of my touchstones is the idea that "every pirate wants to be an admiral": that is, everyone is all in favor of disruption, rule-breaking and tearing down the old… Read the rest of the article: Breitbart is too dumb to survive the net neutrality apocalypse
UCSF researchers have published an important paper in PLOS Biology that draws on internal documents from the US sugar industry lobby that shows that the industry deliberately suppressed research on… Read the rest of the article: For more than half a century, the sugar industry has used Big Tobacco tactics to suppress sugar/cancer link and to confuse the science
Leo Lech is suing the police in Greenwood, Colorado for storming his house with a 50-person SWAT team because they mistakenly believed that a man who ran into his house… Read the rest of the article: Cops chase innocent shoplifting suspect into stranger's house, then storm it with 50-person SWAT team and blow up every room except one
Gary Cohn is one of the gators Trump brought in to fill the swamp, a delusional, big-mouthed, ex-Goldman Sachs banker who gets to regulate Goldman Sachs.
This short interview with Homer Venters from Physicians for Human Rights, recorded in May at the the Right to Protest conference in Buenas Aires, is a succinct and important summary… Read the rest of the article: "Less lethal" is a deceptive term to describe the weapons that routinely kill and maim peaceful protesters
Massive income inequality, combined with Republican attacks on the taxation of the wealthiest, has produced a situation in which the state increasingly depends on extracting fines, interest and debt service… Read the rest of the article: States suspend your driver's license over inability to pay court fines, costing you your job and any ability to repay
The project of making planes secure from terrorist attacks is an inescapable nonsense: nonsense because there's no way to screen millions of people to prevent a few dedicated ones from… Read the rest of the article: Behold! The astonishing mental gymnastics of TSA apologists explaining why rich people don't need to be screened
Uber's Chief Security Officer Joe Sullivan and his top aide have both been forced out of the company in an act of penance for the revelation that the company suffered… Read the rest of the article: Uber admits it breached 57,000,000 accounts, then bribed the hackers to cover it up, now they're paying a top ex-NSA lawyer to teach them transparency
The DC-based transparency group Property of the People successfully sued the White House to force it to disclose its visitor logs; now, in collaboration with Propublica, those logs are online… Read the rest of the article: After a Freedom of Information lawsuit, the White House visitor logs are now available online as a free searchable database
Within science fiction, Jo Walton (previously) is legendary for hosting small, intimate gatherings of outstanding conversation and comradeship.
Starchitect-designed Tianjin Binhai Library is a viral sensation; the Dutch firm MVRDV incorporated a soaring, six-storey spherical atrium with undulating floor-to-ceiling shelves served by striking, irregular white stairs.
Beijing's subway system now includes some experimental cars decorated to look like fanciful, book-lined rooms; scan the QR codes and you get free audiobook downloads for popular Chinese novels.
FCC Chairman Ajit Pai (previously) is planning to make good on his promise to kill net neutrality this weekend, under cover of the holidays, ushering in an era in which… Read the rest of the article: The FCC will move to kill net neutrality over Thanksgiving and it thinks that we'll all be too busy eating and shopping to notice
Paul Ryan says his tax plan will be great for the poorest and most vulnerable people in America, and he tweeted a hypothetical to help you understand how that works:… Read the rest of the article: Paul Ryan imagines "Cindy," a hypothetical beneficiary of his tax plan, doesn't realize she and her child are starving to death
I am serious about sleepwear, and will not pass on a chance to change into jammies (I travel with them, wear them on long-haul flights, etc), and there's a universe… Read the rest of the article: Your next pajamas could be Star Trek: TNG onesie with removable feet
Mark writes, "Nothing marks the holidays like the predictability of a formulaic chestnut featuring '90s stars, magical religious holidays, SFW romance, good hair, and reliable stable camera work. For all… Read the rest of the article: A twitterbot that generates hypothetical Hallmark holiday movies
The yoga pants are $42, and the swim shorts are $45; either one will turn you into a Renaissance hunk. (Thanks, Fipi Lele!)
Retired Mythbuster and maker extraordinaire Adam Savage (previously) gave up on finding a bag to carry everything he needed and designed his own, a white, Gladstone-style toolbag that costs $225… Read the rest of the article: Adam Savage made a limited-edition "everyday carry" toolbag out of old sailcloth, with room for everything
There has never been a more urgent moment to merge ethics and technology: this shared spreadsheet of 57 (and counting) university courses on ethics and tech includes links to syllabi,… Read the rest of the article: More than 50 tech ethics courses, with links to syllabi
