May 7, 2019
In which Stefani Germanotta schools the New York glitterati about camp
Reverse Engineering a Xinjiang Police Mass Surveillance App
Last week Human Rights Watch released a comprehensive report (3-dozen-paragraph summary, full report) based on a tear-down of the government phone app used by Chinese state security forces in Xinjiang provice in the far West of the country, where ethnic Uyghur Muslims are being rounded up into camps by the millions and oppressed based on their ethnicity and religion in many other ways (previously 1, 2, 3.) The examination revealed details of how mass surveillance works in China and specific types of information sought on individuals. [more inside]
Jean Vanier, founder of L'Arche, has died
He once said: “I had no plan, I just met people and people with disabilities awoke my heart.” Jean Vanier, founder of L'Arche, whose charity work helped improve conditions for the developmentally disabled in Canada and around the world, has died at 90.
In his Becoming Human Massey Lectures he imagines a society in which the gifts of all, particularly those of the weak and the powerless, are an equal, common heritage.
Nope, fully on the creepy, terrifying side of the line
You May Have Forgotten Foursquare, But It Didn’t Forget You (Wired): You might think you don’t use Foursquare, but chances are you do. Foursquare’s technology powers the geofilters in Snapchat, tagged tweets on Twitter; it’s in Uber, Apple Maps, Airbnb, WeChat, and Samsung phones, to name a few. ¶ In 2014, Foursquare launched Pilgrim, a piece of code that passively tracks where your phone goes using Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, GPS, and GSM [...] Today, Pilgrim and the company’s Places API are an integral part of tens of thousands of apps, sites, and interfaces. As Foursquare’s website says, “If it tells you where, it's probably built on Foursquare.” [more inside]
Default is the new Basic
...in the realm of Fortnite, there is nothing worse that having a standard character, otherwise known as a “default.”
It might be a sign you don't fit in
What it's like to be queer and an astrology skeptic: Not all queer people believe in astrology — and those who don't often feel alienated from the LGBTQ+ community at large.
Georgia Just Criminalized Abortion
Women Who Terminate Their Pregnancies Would Receive Life in Prison. On Tuesday, Georgia Republican Gov. Brian Kemp signed a “fetal heartbeat” bill that seeks to outlaw abortion after about six weeks. The measure, HB 481, is the most extreme abortion ban in the country—not just because it would impose severe limitations on women’s reproductive rights, but also because it would subject women who get illegal abortions to life imprisonment and the death penalty. [more inside]
“Mothers shouldn’t be grateful for their husbands’ help”
Most of them did the lion’s share of the work and were angry with their partner. Yet many of them told me they were “grateful.” [more inside]
“...but what’s Jiggypuff supposed to be? We just don’t know.”
The Celestial Emporium of Benevolent Pokémon [Fanbyte] Jorge Luis Borges’s New and Improved Pokémon Type System
“In his 1942 essay “The Analytic Language of John Wilkins,” Jorge Luis Borges brought a certain taxonomy to the attention of the world. Allegedly derived from an ancient Chinese encyclopedia called the Celestial Emporium of Benevolent Knowledge translated from the original by Franz Kuhn, it divides all animals into 14 categories. Due to the consistent and intuitive nature of these types, I believe it’s the ideal candidate for a new classification of Pokémon. To demonstrate, I will reclassify the original 151 Pokémon by these new types, and I’m sure you’ll have no trouble figuring out where the rest fit. Such is the nature of the Emporium. Categories are presented in the order in which they appear in the original text.”[more inside]
AirPods Are a Tragedy
Apple claims that AirPods are building a “wireless future.” Many people think they're a symbol of disposable wealth. The truth is bleaker. [more inside]
Stay Away, Fools
Cedric and I spent uncountable hours peering into the gloom, and just as I was about to lose all hope, at the side of the road, a faded sign shewed forth:
SHACK OF INDULGENCE
15 MILES
H.P. Loveshack
By John Peck at McSweeney's.
SHACK OF INDULGENCE
15 MILES
H.P. Loveshack
By John Peck at McSweeney's.
A new theme for the early risers
If you're the kind of person that wakes up to a radio alarm clock, you may have noticed something a little different this week. [more inside]
A wealth of Cretaceous fossils from Burmese amber in Myanmar
The 3D reconstruction of a 99-million-year-old millipede discovered in Burmese amber allowed for the description of an entirely new suborder (Eurekalert), and is just one of the many exciting discoveries in Burmese amber. Burmese amber, mostly coming from the Hukawng Valley (Wikipedia) in Kachin State, northern Myanmar (formerly Burma), is valuable not only for understanding of the Myriapoda fossil record and historical biogeography (ZooKeys, open paper), but also including fantastic fossils of frogs (Nature Science Reports, open paper), bone and feathers from theropod wings (Nature Communications, open paper), a whole bird trapped in amber (National Geographic), and the previously discussed feathered tip of a dinosaur tail. [more inside]
"Now the rogue will either mend his ways or I will deal with him,"
Why Budapest, Warsaw, and Lithuania split themselves in two
On January 1, 2018, Hungary split the region of Central Hungary, or Közép-Magyarország in Hungarian, into two new regions: the Budapest region (containing the capital of the same name) and the surrounding region of Pest. This decision was made to increase the amount of funding received from the European Union, which dedicates a third of its budget (50 billion euros) to less economically developed regions for investments in infrastructure, such as schools and hospitals.
What It’s Like to Travel When You Have a “Bad” Passport
I am a Kenyan, an African, someone from the ‘global south.’ It is my job to prove I deserve to travel. It doesn’t matter how talented or smart or wealthy I or others like me are; we need a good passport.
this is what test anxiety feels like
Kahoot, a phone-based trivia games engine mainly used in the classroom, has also inspired The Kids to come up with remixes and mashups based on its music. Some examples: Sweet Dreams (with the tempo fixed), All Star, The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, The Real Slim Shady, the Jeopardy theme, a Trap remix, and a Dubstep remix.
What happened after my 13 year old son joined the alt-right
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