» 2018 » November Epicene Cyborg

How the falling cost of solar panels can teach us to make new tech affordable. I was chastised and banned from a forum in the late 1990s for suggesting that solar panels could get much cheaper. The price I thought they could get down to is now 5 times what they actually are.

The Depravity of Climate-Change Denial.

When Blue Chip Companies Pile on Debt, It’s Time to Worry. Fueled by cheap credit, American corporations have been gorging on acquisitions. The party may soon be over.

The Insect Apocalypse Is Here. What does it mean for the rest of life on Earth? Bad things, man. Bad things.

Not all Gifts are Good: The Potential Practical Costs of Motivated Gifts.

The Prevalence of Overfat Adults and Children in the US.

Drilling on US public lands causes 24 percent of the nation’s CO2 emissions.

Bad news for renters: Apartments are shrinking and getting more expensive.

I still miss my headphone jack, and I want it back. I will never buy a phone without a headphone jack.

How Surveillance Inhibits Freedom of Expression.

Children mirror weight gain and losses of their mothers but not fathers.

Effect of Exercise Intervention on Functional Decline in Very Elderly Patients During Acute Hospitalization. A Randomized Clinical Trial.

Warning: Telling a Lame Joke in an Elevator can Endanger Your Career. This is why I avoid nearly all joking in a public or work setting. Some people are just primed to be offended.

When we think “gig economy,” we tend to picture an Uber driver or a TaskRabbit tasker rather than a lawyer or a doctor, but in reality, this scrappy economic model — grubbing around for work, all big dreams and bad health insurance — will soon catch up with the bulk of America’s middle class.

The Radicalism of Taylor Swift. Time and again, she’s stood up for labor in her industry.

Why Free Public Higher Education Is Not a Sop to the Upper Middle Class.

If you love research, academia may not be for you. I do more research than many academics simply because I have more time to do so, and can research whatever I want (right now it’s efficiency of electrical power grids in various countries).

The EU Army.

Let Bezos fend for himself and forgive student debt instead.

What If Amazon.com Actually…Is A Horrible Website? How does a powerful, innovative behemoth megacorporation repeatedly fail at its most basic task: running a website? Up until 2004 or 2005, Amazon’s site was fine. Now it’s garbage. Search doesn’t work. Product descriptions are terrible or non-existent, etc.

How U.S. Politics Have Become Paramilitarized.

The Monopolization of America. In one industry after another, big companies have become more dominant over the past 15 years, new data show.

Chinese scientists are creating CRISPR babies.

Herbicide Is What’s for Dinner. How the biggest farming practice you’ve never heard of is changing your food.

DHS wants to use credit scores to determine who gets to be a legal U.S. resident.

Airglow.

The German Federal Office for Information Security, BSI (Bundesamt für Sicherheit in der Informationstechnik) published a detailed Windows 10 Telemetry analysis on November 20, 2018. Morons who believe Windows 10 is not a full-on spying op should read this.

India-Based Zapr Has Developed Tech That Listens To Ambient Sounds Around Users To Build Targeted Ad Profiles, Several Popular Local Services Use Its Tech.

‘The Academy Is Largely Itself Responsible for Its Own Peril.’