On Slate Star Codex (previously), Scott Alexander breaks down Invisible Designers: Brain Evolution Through the Lens of Parasite Manipulation, Marco Del Giudice's Quarterly Review of Biology paper that examines the… Read the rest of the article: A deep dive into how parasites hijack our behavior and how we evolved to resist them
After the EU Copyright Directive passed with a slim majority that only carried because some MEPs got confused and pressed the wrong button, the government of Poland filed a legal… Read the rest of the article: First detailed look at Poland's challenge to the EU Copyright Directive
As tech began to concentrate, two dominant strategies emerged: Google's (instrument the whole internet for surveillance, which means that you don't have to lock people in in order to spy… Read the rest of the article: From search-engine to walled garden: majority of Google searches do not result in a click
After Deadspin's Laura Wagner published an incredible, brave, detailed look at how her new private equity masters — Jim Spanfeller/Great Hill Partners — were running Gawker now that they'd acquired… Read the rest of the article: Gawker's new owners demand right to search journalists, ban encrypted email and institute dress code
The term "meritocracy" was coined in Michael Young's satirical 1958 novel, "The Rise of Meritocracy," where it described a kind of self-delusion in which rich people convinced themselves that their… Read the rest of the article: How "meritocracy" went from a joke to a dogma, and destroyed the lives of everyone it touched
Last weekend, Jeanette Ng won the John W Campbell Award for Best New Writer at the 2019 Hugo Awards at the Dublin Worldcon; Ng's acceptance speech calls Campbell, one of… Read the rest of the article: Read: Jeannette Ng's Campbell Award acceptance speech, in which she correctly identifies Campbell as a fascist and expresses solidarity with Hong Kong protesters
In my latest podcast (MP3), I read my essay "A Cycle of Renewal, Broken: How Big Tech and Big Media Abuse Copyright Law to Slay Competition", published today on EFF's… Read the rest of the article: Podcast: A cycle of renewal, broken: How Big Tech and Big Media abuse copyright law to slay competition
New Hampshire's Supreme Court has ruled that calling someone a "patent troll" is not defamatory because "patent troll" is a statement of opinion and can neither be factually proved nor… Read the rest of the article: New Hampshire court to patent troll: it's not libel when someone calls you a "patent troll"
Samuel R "Chip" Delany is a science fiction pioneer: a brilliant literary stylist with dazzling ideas who was one of the field's first openly queer writers, and one of the… Read the rest of the article: An appreciation for Samuel Delany
The American ransomware epidemic shows no signs of slowing, as the confluence of underinvestment in IT and information security and the NSA's reckless stockpiling of computer vulnerabilities means that petty… Read the rest of the article: More than 20 Texas cities and towns have been taken hostage by ransomware
Like many large US cities, Phoenix has a housing shortage and like many US cities, that crisis is worsened by the conversion of much of its housing stock into unlicensed… Read the rest of the article: Owner of Phoenix apartment building serves eviction notices to every tenant so he can turn their homes into unlicensed hotel rooms
It's easy to think of climate denial as a right-wing phenomenon, but a growing and ultra-violent strain of white-nationalism also embraces climate science, in the worst way possible.
As long we've had electronic mass media, audiences and creators have benefited from periods of technological upheaval that force old gatekeepers to compete with brash newcomers with new ideas about… Read the rest of the article: A cycle of renewal, broken: How Big Tech and Big Media abuse copyright law to slay competition
Last Mother's Day, grandmother Rhonda Mengert was subjected to a pat-down search at Tulsa airport, wherein a TSA agent felt a panty-liner in her underwear; she was then forced to… Read the rest of the article: The TSA strip searched a grandmother on Mother's Day and now says that she's overreacting because it's no different from a locker room
The 2019 World Science Fiction Convention is being held in Dublin, and tonight, the con presented the annual Hugo Awards, voted on by the attendees and supporters of this year's… Read the rest of the article: Congrats to the winners of the 2019 Hugo! Kowal, Wells, Cho, Harrow, Chambers, AO3, Liu, Dozois, Wolfe, and more!
The Koch brothers are quite an enigma: on the one hand, they owe their vast fortune to extremely long-range planning: Charles Koch is famously contemptuous of entrepreneurs who take their… Read the rest of the article: A new biography reveals the Koch brothers' very early role in creating organized climate denial
Phil Torrone from Adafruit told us about Consumers Should Immediately…: "This uses a live data feed from The United States Consumer Product Safety Commission (USCPSC) to randomly display thousands of… Read the rest of the article: Turning a recalled children's unicorn boot into a display for endless product recall notices
Dan Gillmor and the ASU News Co/Lab: "An honest admission of an error is transparency. It's not just the right thing to do. It can enhance trust when done right.… Read the rest of the article: Towards a better practice of online news-corrections
McMansion Hell (previously) continues to tear through America's most affluent ZIP codes with trenchant commentary on realtors' listings for terrible monster homes; in the current edition, critic Kate Wagner visits… Read the rest of the article: McMansion Hell: the Campbell County, Wyoming edition
Update: Justin Reese from Abstractions writes, "policy changes were implemented last night and additional changes were made this morning." He adds, "The article was also inaccurate from the start by… Read the rest of the article: Tech conference changes policy, rescinds requirement for chipped, unremovable bracelets for attendees
