Favorites from Sleeper
Subscribe:
Displaying post 1 to 50 of 857
Capitalism and extreme poverty
A global analysis of real wages, human height, and mortality since the long 16th century. twitter summary
Moderation Is Censorship, Sayeth The Fifth Circuit
In a ruling that has left the legal commentariat in confusion and befuddlement, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled in favor of Texas in the lawsuit by NetChoice and other online service providers over the state's new social media law.
HHS investigation into Covid test failure at CDC
Secret Investigation Documents Reveal How The CDC’s First COVID Test Failed In the Pandemic’s Early Days. "Federal investigation records obtained by BuzzFeed News show how one of the most pivotal mistakes of the pandemic fell on an overburdened CDC lab with only three full-time employees." By Dan Vergano.
The 2018 Hugo Finalists
The 2018 Hugo Award Finalists, via mefi's own John Scalzi who is nominated for The Collapsing Empire.
Child slavery is a crime against humanity
Happy Easter: Does Your Chocolate Come From Slaves?
The probably answer is yes. Child Labor and Slavery in the Chocolate Industry.
The boy with the machete is watching us. Behind a bittersweet industry; What will it take to fix the problem?
The probably answer is yes. Child Labor and Slavery in the Chocolate Industry.
The boy with the machete is watching us. Behind a bittersweet industry; What will it take to fix the problem?
"Catholic Alt-Right" organizes online to stifle Jesuit speaker
The Jesuit priest and writer James Martin, S.J., has had three recent talks cancelled after a coordinated campaign by the "Catholic alt-right," because of his recent book on connecting the Catholic church with LGBT Catholics.
As in the secular sphere, web sites, Twitter, and FaceBook groups are being used to organize actions to promote alt-right agendas, as described by the NYT here.
Iraq Lacked Atom Whack
At least four times in the fall of 2002, the president and his advisers invoked the specter of a "mushroom cloud," and some of them, including Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, described Iraq's nuclear ambitions as a threat to the American homeland... Among the closely held internal judgments of the Iraq Survey Group, overseen by David Kay as special representative of CIA Director George J. Tenet, are that Iraq's nuclear weapons scientists did no significant arms-related work after 1991, that facilities with suspicious new construction proved benign, and that equipment of potential use to a nuclear program remained under seal or in civilian industrial use.
So in regards to Iraq's possession of the one weapon we can be certain causes mass destruction: the atomic bomb, as Gregg Easterbrook put it, the verdict is the unsurprising (and unsurprisingly closely held) nope, not, zero, zip, nada...
So in regards to Iraq's possession of the one weapon we can be certain causes mass destruction: the atomic bomb, as Gregg Easterbrook put it, the verdict is the unsurprising (and unsurprisingly closely held) nope, not, zero, zip, nada...
Trip Reports
People's written reports of their psychedelic experiences
based on the level of their trips after ingesting "magic" mushrooms. (level one, two, three, four, or five) The site includes a dosage calculator for anyone tempted to try them.
The Spice Flows
How Mushrooms Became Magic
- "Psilocybin affects us humans because it fits into receptor molecules that typically respond to serotonin—a brain-signaling chemical. Those receptors are ancient ones that insects also share, so it's likely that psilocybin interferes with their nervous system, too. 'We don't have a way to know the subjective experience of an insect', says Slot, and it's hard to say if they trip. But one thing is clear from past experiments: Psilocybin reduces insect appetites. By evolving the ability to make this chemical, which prevents the munchies in insects, perhaps some fungi triumphed over their competitors, and dominated the delicious worlds of dung and rotting wood." (via)
The Troll Taunter
A young Wikipedia editor withstood a decade of online abuse. Now she’s fighting back — on Wikipedia itself.
Emily Temple-Wood's Women Scientists WikiProject. [WARNING: Violent, sexist, and homophobic language]
Emily Temple-Wood's Women Scientists WikiProject. [WARNING: Violent, sexist, and homophobic language]
The Revolutionary War Veterans Who Had Their Pictutures Taken
he Revolutionary War ended in 1783 and photography was invented in the 1820s and 1830s, so most of the veterans of the war didn’t live long enough to have their portraits made. A handful of them did.
In 1864, 81 years after the war, Reverend E. B. Hillard and two photographers embarked on a trip through New England to visit, photograph, and interview the six known surviving veterans, all of whom were over 100 years old. The glass plate photos were printed into a book titled The Last Men of the Revolution.
Meep to Meep Websites
Beaker Browser
is an experimental decentralized browser that lets you create (and fork) websites whichl exist on a peer to peer network insteaqd of a traditional server. "It creates sites on demand, for free, and then shares them from the device. No servers required." Here's a video talking more about it.
The Myth of the Kindly General Lee
The strangest part about the continued personality cult of Robert E. Lee is how few of the qualities his admirers profess to see in him he actually possessed.
Gay/bi black men in the US have the highest rate of HIV in the world
Why? (SLNYT)
Last year, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, using the first comprehensive national estimates of lifetime risk of H.I.V. for several key populations, predicted that if current rates continue, one in two African-American gay and bisexual men will be infected with the virus. That compares with a lifetime risk of one in 99 for all Americans and one in 11 for white gay and bisexual men. To offer more perspective: Swaziland, a tiny African nation, has the world’s highest rate of H.I.V., at 28.8 percent of the population. If gay and bisexual African-American men made up a country, its rate would surpass that of this impoverished African nation — and all other nations.
In Oregon, A Struggling County Just Shut Down Its Last Public Library
On May 31, the last public library in Oregon's Douglas County closed and locked the doors indefinitely.
In November, voters rejected a tax measure – which would have cost the median home in the county a little less than $6 a month – to keep the libraries open. Smaller library branches shut down throughout the spring.
This is the latest in a series of cuts to government services in the county fueled by residents who reject all taxes on principle. The sheriff's department no longer answers emergency calls 24 hours a day, and the county clerk is concerned about the county's ability to conduct elections.
“Ah, now you make sense!”
As the Trump-Russia scandal continues to unravel, no one blinked when former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper said, “It is in [the Russian people’s] genes to be opposed, diametrically opposed to US and western democracies.” Excuse me? I had no idea that my DNA depended on an outdated, racist clash of civilizations. Tell me, sir: as a Russian-American Jew, will medical tests show trace amounts of Fifth Column in my blood?American Russophobia is real — and it’s helping Putin.
Small Country - Big Problem
Qatar in the Cross-Hairs - How Bad Can it get.
The extraordinary propaganda offensive against Qatar which has been raging in sections of the Arab media for the last couple of weeks shifted from words to deeds when Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain and Egypt in effect placed Qatar under siege.
For the Trump administration, the 'terrorist' label is little more than a foreign policy tool of the US and its allies.
Turkey sees an opportunity; Al-Jazeera has an update page
The extraordinary propaganda offensive against Qatar which has been raging in sections of the Arab media for the last couple of weeks shifted from words to deeds when Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain and Egypt in effect placed Qatar under siege.
For the Trump administration, the 'terrorist' label is little more than a foreign policy tool of the US and its allies.
Turkey sees an opportunity; Al-Jazeera has an update page
A half-hour dose of science, technology and inexhaustible energy.
On May 15th, NPR launched their first podcast for kids: Wow in the World. Hosted by Guy Raz and Mindy Thomas, the show is aimed at kids ages 5-12 and explores the "wonders of science, technology, discovery and inventions."
Try
Mandy Harvey, who lost her hearing at 18, performs on America's Got Talent, and proceeds to the next round.
Comics for the blind. "There's only one voice: the voice in your head."
"On the Blind Panels podcast, we hold a Conversation in which a blind person and a sighted person talk about the same comic book that they’ve both read. These Conversations are fascinating and are often an excuse to delve into deeper things." a project from Comics Empower. Here's a short clip where you can hear what a described audio comic sounds like while Colleen from Blind Inspiration Cast listens in. Vice did an interview with Guy Hasson, the creator of the site, (via)
"The most heavily tabooed of all English words"
An appreciation and exploration of the history, usage and context of the four-letter word beginning with C.
NSFW.
The hijack was so complete that the bank wasn’t even able to send email
Researchers at the security firm Kaspersky on Tuesday described an unprecedented case of wholesale bank fraud, one that essentially hijacked a bank’s entire internet footprint.
Hugos 2017: a tale of puppies.
The 2017 Hugo Finalists and Campbell Award Finalists have been announced, for works in science fiction and fantasy. For the first time since 2013, there was no clear Sad Puppies slate/list of recommendations (context). The Rabid Puppies slate, lead by extreme right-wing author and editor Vox Day, was largely successful in its (limited) slate, and File 770 has a breakdown of how many "Rabid Puppy" works made it to the final slate.
"I'm Good"
Calvin County is Bill Watterson and Berkeley Breathed collaborating on a comic. Posted yesterday, with collaborating NYT article.
Gene-mapping Dreamtime
Over the last decade, bearing out what archeological evidence already implied, several DNA studies (previously) have established that Australian Aboriginal peoples belonged to a single migrant group who departed Africa around 72,000 years ago, arriving in Sahul about twenty millenia later. Now a new study of mitochondrial DNA maps out the philogeography of this first peopling of Australia, showing the group rapidly encircling the continent - and then essentially staying put, each subgroup in their area... for fifty thousand years.
Did you see the politics? It made me angry.
The President and his party continued their path of destruction, announcing a new travel ban, suspending new visas for citizens of six majority-Muslim countries and all refugees, along with a poorly-received new health-care plan, amid a string of unforced errors, including the President's explosive no-evidence wiretapping tweets (which we shouldn't take too literally), his staff's scramble to try to defend their boss's latest mess, and the continuing efforts to investigate Russia's role in the campaign and Attorney General Jeff Sessions for providing false testimony.
We should check for traps again.
Sue The T-Rex Is Running A D&D Game On Twitter & It Is Freaking Amazing.
Come for the brigands. Stay for the dinosaur facts.
RTFA
Norwegian public broadcaster NRK is testing out a novel way to civilize its online comment sections: a multiple-choice quiz about the content.
The feature, introduced last month, seems to be successful at keeping the trolls at bay and improving the quality of conversation in the comments section of the site.
You know there's no point, but you do it out of love
The state of the State Department
The once bustling halls of the U.S. State Department are now quiet, as staff find themselves cut out of the loop and without direction.
One man shining a light on the alt-right
Since 2000, Daryle Jenkins has been tracking the activities of white supremacy groups and individuals linked to white supremacy. Jenkins' organization, One People's Project, has a mission to illuminate the players and activities involved in racist activities in the United States. His slogan: Hate has Consequences.
Fleeing the hermit kingdom just isn’t what it used to be
Erik Thurman's Leaving North Korea, a long-form comic about how difficult it is to escape the Hermit Nation.
The End of the Olympics As We Know It
Only a handful of cities can afford the two-week-long, über-expensive bonanza that is the Olympic Games. Unless something changes, angry citizens who don’t want to pay for a bunch of useless stadiums are going to force the IOC to decide on a semi-permanent set of hosts.
Explore Your Life in History
Tell us your birthday, and we’ll show you how the world has changed during your lifetime. The Atlantic has released a tool that highlights generational experiences by walking through world events that shaped the thoughts and memories of Americans worldwide. All you need is a birthday.
blacks swans, the dragon king, and the power law
How Dragon Kings Could Trump Black Swans, MIT Technology Review, 4 AUG 2009.
Sornette goes on to identify a number of data sets showing power laws with outliers that he says are the result of positive feedback mechanisms that make them much larger than their peers. He calls these events dragon kings. What’s interesting about them is that they are entirely unaccounted for by a current understanding of power laws, from which Nassim Nicholas Taleb built the idea of black swans.
It's Constituent Work Week!
It's Constituent Work Week, a time when, traditionally, members of Congress return to their districts and hold in-person townhall meetings. This year, however, more than 200 Republicans are skipping townhalls, despite calls from their constituents to hold them.
“Perseverance and spirit have done wonders in all ages.”
17 Great Books About American Presidents for Presidents’ Day Weekend [The New York Times]
“There’s nothing like a big juicy presidential biography when you’re looking for guidance about history’s long and hard lessons. We’ve selected some of our favorites by and about presidents from the past few decades — and including one that reaches back into the 19th century. Here’s to an inspiring Presidents’ Day weekend.”
The Rise of the Weaponized AI Propaganda Machine
There’s a new automated propaganda machine driving global politics.
How it works and what it will mean for the future of democracy.
Giving the magic away
Many of Pixar's films can seem like magic,
and while much of that relies on storytelling, the art of animation has many, many, many skills in it. Pixar has partnered with the Khan Academy to provide a free practical introduction to how the best-of-the-best do their job.
Because who doesn't want to understand how you simulate hair?
4chan: The Skeleton Key to the Rise of Trump
In which Dale Beran traces the rise of 4chan and how a bunch of lulz-loving guys in their parents' basements seized on the loser-winner Trump as the ultimate prank on an outside world they had long abandoned.
Long, but full of insights and well-worth the read. Ends with a challenge and note of hope for the left.
I vant to suck your blood: vampire finches, vampire moths and oxpeckers
Vampirism — piercing or cutting animal skin to suck or lap up blood — is known throughout the animal kingdom. Mosquitoes come to mind, plus ticks, mites, vampire bats, and the vampire finch of the Galapagos Islands. But … vampire moths? Wait, let's take a step back, did you say the vampire finch of the Galapagos Islands? Yes. They're a subspecies of the sharp-beaked ground finch that outnumber every other finch species on all of the islands combined. While they don't seem to bother the adult Boobies whose blood they drink, they may be fatal to chicks* and even crack open eggs. Right, what of those vampire moths?
The AI threat isn't Skynet, it's the death of the middle class
“I am less concerned with Terminator scenarios,” MIT economist Andrew McAfee said on the first day at Asilomar. “If current trends continue, people are going to rise up well before the machines do.” McAfee pointed to newly collected data that shows a sharp decline in middle class job creation since the 1980s. Now, most new jobs are either at the very low end of the pay scale or the very high end. He also argued that these trends are reversible, that improved education and a greater emphasis on entrepreneurship and research can help feed new engines of growth, that economies have overcome the rise of new technologies before. But after his talk, in the hallways at Asilomar, so many of the researchers warned him that the coming revolution in AI would eliminate far more jobs far more quickly than he expected. [Wired]
Fighting Gerrymandering with Mathematics
A 5-day summer school will be offered at Tufts University from August 7-11, 2017, with the principal purpose of training mathematicians to be expert witnesses for court cases on redistricting and gerrymandering. How gerrymandered is your congressional district, anyway? You can use geometry as a proxy: compare the perimeter of your district to the perimeter of a circle with the same area. The Washington Post suggests what non-gerrymandered districts might look like.
Previouslies, especially compactness
Serial Killers Should Fear This Algorithm
Building software to find killers
Data analyst Thomas Hargrove believes each major city has a "few" serial killers.