Epicene Cyborg

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September 10, 2017

US forecast models have been pretty terrible during Hurricane Irma. NOAA’s best weather model seems to be getting worse with hurricanes, not better.

In a Summer of Wildfires and Hurricanes, My Son Asks “Why Is Everything Going Wrong?” The catastrophic results of climate change that even many “liberals” assured us wasn’t gonna happen is happening.

Researchers find secret, warm oasis beneath Antarctica’s ice that could be home to undiscovered species.

Clinton and Blair and Brown re-launched the left, or murdered it, depending on your point of view, with their new idea. Leave wealth with the wealthy and give the poor debt. Free the financial world from silly FDR-era restraints and irksome, stupid regulations and allow a rising tide of debt to float all boats.

Equifax Lobbied To Kill Rule Protecting Victims Of Data Breaches.

Equifax Screwed Up Its Data Breach From Nearly Every Angle.

How can you go about finding ‘who you really are’ if the whole idea of the one true self is a big fabrication?

As Planet Rages With Fires and Storms, Ire Aimed at Murderous Climate Denialism.

The Bad Science Behind Campus Response to Sexual Assault. Assertions about how trauma physiologically impedes the ability to resist or coherently remember assault have greatly undermined defense against assault allegations. But science offers little support for these claims.

September 9, 2017

The Department of Justice Is Overseeing the Resegregation of American Schools.

We inhale up to 10 billion mold spores daily; here’s why you haven’t died yet.

Cassini, Römer and the Velocity of Light.

Massive genetic study shows how humans are evolving.

Hackers send silent commands to speech recognition systems with ultrasound.

The evolution of women in stock photos.

FDA slams EpiPen maker for doing nothing while hundreds failed, people died. Sell for obscene prices a product that doesn’t even work. It’s the American way!

Prague says top EU court verdict will not change country’s stand on migrant quotas.

When I used the word “affluent” in an email to a stay-at-home mom with a $2.5 million household income, a house in the Hamptons and a child in private school, she almost canceled the interview, she told me later. Real affluence, she said, belonged to her friends who traveled on a private plane.

September 8, 2017

The essence of capitalism.

NASA Is Facing a Climate Change Countdown.

Highest-resolution color images of any part of Saturn’s rings.

Clinton Already Working On Follow-Up Book Casting Blame For Failures Of First Book.

The end of a world of nation-states may be upon us.

The empire doesn’t care who is president.

Twin megastorms have scientists fearing this may be the new normal.

The debt trap: how the student loan industry betrays young Americans.

The effects of climate change are already upon us. Here’s what the 2020s and 2030s will look like if we fail to change things. When we fail.

September 7, 2017

New York City unveils universal free lunch in time for the first day of school.

Judge dismisses Shiva “I Invented EMAIL” Ayyadurai’s libel lawsuit against Techdirt.

Just like you didn’t realize the weird quirks and nuances of your family until you left and spent time with others, the same is true for country and culture.

Internet Censorship Bill Would Spell Disaster for Speech and Innovation. Content industry using mostly-bogus bugaboo of sex trafficking to get something they’ve long wanted.

Experiment reveals evidence for a previously unseen behaviour of light.

The Walled-In Wild.

Weather creates storms. It’s people who turn them into disasters.

The anti-monopoly case against Google.

We like to think of creative works as unique – set down by the artist once and for all time. But a surprising amount of art has more than one form of existence.

Wild dog packs “vote” on whether to start hunting. But the Russians keep meddling in the vote, as they are wont to do.

The Quest to Restore American Elms: Nearing the Finish Line.

September 6, 2017

Hillary: I Lost Because Bernie Promised Everyone a Pony.

Hillary Clinton Is Not a Movement. Perhaps a bowel movement, for the world of shit she left this country in.

Men better at Scrabble as women won’t waste time practising useless skills, finds study.

Creator of Opera Says Google Deliberately Undermined His New Vivaldi Web Browser. Suspect the nerfing of Firefox also due to Google money/influence.

Rent is due and many Harvey survivors have no way to pay it.

Demon-Haunted World.

After Hurricane Harvey, Trump and one of the most right-wing state governments in history get to “rebuild” an area of more than 7 million people.

European Court Limits Employers’ Right to Monitor Workers’ Email.

No rupees left behind.

The Trophy Woman of Ready Player One. Fuck Ready Player One and everything to do with that hot, nostalgia-infected garbage.

September 5, 2017

A New Bill of Rights for Workers: 10 Demands the Labor Movement Can Fight for and Win.

How the Amazon triggers its own rainy season.

Why Blue Is the World’s Favorite Color.

Why the Trump dynasty will last sixteen years.

Everything bagel.

Subsidizing massive tech companies isn’t paying off for workers.

The Biggest Misconception About Today’s College Students.

Women say they quit Google because of racial discrimination: ‘I was invisible.’

How the Word “Centrism” Became an Insult (And Why It Should Be).

Deeper Than Deep. David Reich’s genetics lab unveils our prehistoric past.

There Has Never Been a Middle Class Without Strong Unions.

September 4, 2017

America’s Superstar Companies Are a Drag on Growth. Lack of competition lets them gouge consumers, underpay workers and invest too little.

To Understand Rising Inequality, Consider the Janitors at Two Top Companies, Then and Now.

Don’t tape our teachers! We’ve all gotten accustomed to the loss of privacy. But even in the digital age, the classroom should be protected. Most people have gotten accustomed to it, but I have not and never will.

Google’s comment-ranking system will be a hit with the alt-right. The company’s API for scoring toxicity in online discussions already behaves like a racist hand dryer.

The Looming Decline of the Public Research University.

Stop trying to kill the headphone jack.

‘The S-word’: how young Americans fell in love with socialism.

What happened in the 70s? I think immigration is part of the story, but also that in the late 70s people started to take power who didn’t remember the Great Depression (voters too).

The Best Era for Working Women Was 20 Years Ago.

I was born in poverty in Appalachia. ‘Hillbilly Elegy’ doesn’t speak for me.

Time Traveler by Merriam-Webster: Search Words by First Known Use Date.

Intelligence of apes misunderstood because of bias and bad science.

September 3, 2017

What Two Years of Living in America Taught Me.

Have you ever witnessed one of those crazy customer explosions where someone is screaming at a minimum-wage worker because of an expired coupon or something? Let those assholes yell at robots.

The 2020 Census may be wildly inaccurate—and it matters more than you think.

Yes, You Should Be Concerned With Consumer Debt.

Waiting for a Perfect Protest? Well-intended moderates have used unrealistic standards to judge anti-racism activism. But this is nothing new — just ask Martin Luther King Jr. They are neither well-intentioned nor moderate.

In 1.3 Million Years, the Solar System Will Briefly Contain Two Stars.

The Myth of American Universities as Inequality-Fighters.

The Case for a Millionaire Tax.

The present findings reveal the lack of strong supporting empirical evidence for the effectiveness of psychological treatments for pain management.

An anti-government stance made Hurricane Harvey’s impact worse. Can big government now make things better?

September 2, 2017

Characterizations of the carnage by the National Weather Service as “historic,” “unprecedented” or “beyond anything experienced” should not be conflated with the spurious claim that the devastation wrought by Harvey is “unpreventable” or “unexpected.”

This grim map shows all the places working-class Americans can’t afford to live.

The Left Has Made Medicare for All a Mainstream, Democratic Policy. Much to the consternation of the centrist “nothing is possible, ever” crowd.

People finally seeing Google for what it is: a power-hungry monopoly and not a benevolent giver of free stuff. But I was assured on another site (full of idiots) that cute widdle Google just cared about my safety and security….

House flippers triggered the US housing market crash, not poor subprime borrowers, a new study shows.

People sleeping on streets shows how easily progress is undone.

Researchers find an enzyme that harvests light to make hydrocarbons.

Some Thoughts on the Chosen One.

I’m Sick Of Busting My Ass Doing Neo-Nazi Stuff Only To Have Some Masked Antifa Dweebs Get Credit As The Real Fascists.

New thinking about causal mechanisms.

Video Shows Cop Violently Dragging Sobbing Nurse Away for Doing Her Job. Disband all police.

Why Most of Harvey Insurance Claims Will Likely Be Denied.

September 1, 2017

It’s Time To Ditch The Concept Of ‘100-Year Floods.’

Police Support White Supremacists. Given that the US police developed out of slave patrols, this is not surprising.

A century ago, workers went on strike to demand better conditions. Today, start-up “hustlers” celebrate their own exploitation.

Hubble Observations Suggest Water May Be Abundant on Outer TRAPPIST-1 Planets.

Food for thought: reconstructing the diet of Napoleon’s Grand Army.

We Said Google Was Dangerously Powerful, Then Google Proved Us Right.

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