Instapaper

George Takei to Clarence Thomas: Denying our rights denies our dignity

The recent case granting marriage equality across the United States – Obergefell v. Hodges – contains four separate dissents from the conservatives on the court. I was struck in particular by the dissent of Justice Clarence Thomas, who focused his argument on the notion that the Constitution does…

Jul 2, 2015

How One Man Poisoned a City’s Water Supply (and Saved Millions of Children’s Lives in the Process) :: How We Get To Next

howwegettonext.com

Steven Johnson’s new series How We Got To Now starts on BBC2 at 7.35pm on Saturday 14th Feb . Here he tells us more about a story featured in the first episode. The book accompanying the series is available now from Penguin . In 1897, a deadly outbreak of typhoid erupted in the town of Maidstone, in…

Jul 2, 2015

This Haunting Animation Maps the Journeys of 15,790 Slave Ships in Two Minutes

slate.com

For the full interactive version, use a larger device. Interactive by Andrew Kahn. Background image by Tim Jones . Usually, when we say “American slavery” or the “American slave trade,” we mean the American colonies or, later, the United States. But as we discussed in Episode 2 of Slate ’s History…

Jul 2, 2015

A Dutch city is giving money away to test the “basic income” theory

qz.com

Some people in the Dutch city of Utrecht might soon get a windfall of extra cash, as part of a daring new experiment with the idea of “basic income.” Basic income is an unconditional and regular payment meant to provide enough money to cover a person’s basic living cost. In January of 2016, the…

Jul 2, 2015

U.S.-Cuba deal to restore ties to be unveiled

reuters.com

WASHINGTON/HAVANA (Reuters) - The United States and Cuba have reached an agreement to reopen embassies and restore diplomatic ties severed more than five decades ago, and the historic deal will be unveiled on Wednesday, U.S. officials said on Tuesday. Nearly 6-1/2 months after U.S. President Barack…

Jul 2, 2015

Report: Anti-immigrant groups collude with homeland security employees | Al Jazeera America

america.aljazeera.com

Some Department of Homeland Security (DHS) employees and union leaders have been colluding with white nationalist, anti-immigrant groups, lending credibility to hate groups and giving them an outsized influence on federal immigration policy, according to a report released Monday. Many of the same…

Jul 2, 2015

US walrus protections may derail Shell's plan for Arctic drilling

theguardian.com

Members of Greenpeace put a banner over the company logo at a Shell gas station during a protest in Zurich this week.Photograph: ARND WIEGMANN/REUTERS The Obama administration dealt a setback to Royal Dutch Shell’s Arctic oil exploration plans on Tuesday, saying established walrus and polar bear…

Jul 2, 2015

State Department Resumes Arms Sales to Bahrain

firstlook.org

The State Department announced it will lift its freeze on arms sales to the repressive government of Bahrain on Monday, despite the country’s myriad human rights abuses in recent years , including arbitrary detention of children, torture, restrictions for journalists and a brutal government…

Jul 2, 2015

How Video Games Changed Popular Music - The New Yorker

newyorker.com

A new book argues that Super Mario Bros. marked a milestone in the relationship between pop music and video-game soundtracks. There was a time when video games, much like the tiny computers that powered them, seemed like a passing fad. In the late seventies, millions of young people flocked to…

Jul 2, 2015

Rosetta Found Sinkholes on the Surface of Its Comet | WIRED

wired.com

The more information astronomers gain about comets, the more mystifying and wonderful the ancient icy dust balls prove to be. And these days, they're learning a lot. The European Space Agency's Rosetta orbiter , traveling around comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko halfway between the orbits of Earth and…

Jul 2, 2015

Leave Your Screens Behind (Mostly) at Rare Book School

atlasobscura.com

Nineteenth-century bindings from the RBS teaching collection displayed for a session of “Introduction to the History of Bookbinding.” (All photos: Rare Book School) When summer rolls around, thoughts turn to how to spend the limpid months: Umbrella drinks by the pool? Backpacking through pristine…

Jul 2, 2015

The Samsung Group Is Doing a Cozy Merger

bloombergview.com

Bloomberg Need help? Contact us We've detected unusual activity from your computer network To continue, please click the box below to let us know you're not a robot. Why did this happen? Please make sure your browser supports JavaScript and cookies and that you are not blocking them from loading.…

Jul 2, 2015

Greek Debt Crisis: How Goldman Sachs Helped Greece to Mask its True Debt - SPIEGEL ONLINE

spiegel.de

dpa Greek Finance Minister George Papaconstantinou speaking at a conference in January. Goldman Sachs helped the Greek government to mask the true extent of its deficit with the help of a derivatives deal that legally circumvented the EU Maastricht deficit rules. At some point the so-called cross…

Jul 2, 2015

18 Years Later, Why Are People Still Playing Ultima Online?

rockpapershotgun.com

Later this year, Ultima Online [ official site ] will turn 18 years old. In the genre of MMOs, that makes the game positively ancient – and it’s even more remarkable when you consider that it’s still funded via a subscription model. I’ve never played an Ultima game, much less one that’s nearly my…

Jul 2, 2015

Leaked: What’s in Obama’s trade deal

politico.com

A recent draft of the Trans-Pacific Partnership free-trade deal would give U.S. pharmaceutical firms unprecedented protections against competition from cheaper generic drugs, possibly transcending the patent protections in U.S. law. POLITICO has obtained a draft copy of TPP’s intellectual property…

Jul 2, 2015

In 1900, Los Angeles had a bike highway — and the US was a world leader in bike lanes - Vox

vox.com

Los Angeles' partially-completed California Cycleway, in 1900. (Pasadena Museum of History) Copenhagen is one of the world's best cities for biking, with more than 200 miles of bike lanes and two of just a handful of bike superhighways built worldwide. Meanwhile, of the top 20 most bike-friendly…

Jul 2, 2015

Breathing Is the Key to Persuasive Public Speaking

hbr.org

Loading... Managing yourself COMMENT 8.95 BUY COPIES Loading... Have you ever wondered why two people can say exactly the same thing in a meeting, but only one of them gets credit for it? Many times it’s the way we sound that makes the difference between whether or not we are actually heard .…

Jun 30, 2015

U.S. Chamber of Commerce Works Globally to Fight Antismoking Measures

nytimes.com

A demonstration against World No Tobacco Day in Jakarta, Indonesia, in 2013. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and its foreign affiliates have joined efforts to fight antismoking laws around the world. KIEV, Ukraine — A parliamentary hearing was convened here in March to consider an odd remnant of…

Jun 30, 2015

AOL Takes Over Majority of Microsoft’s Ad Business, Swaps Google Search For Bing

blogs.wsj.com

PICHI CHUANG/REUTERS Microsoft Corp. is stepping back from the advertising business in a big way. AOL struck a deal with the tech giant to take over responsibility for sales of display, mobile and video ads on Microsoft properties in the U.S. and eight other markets. All of Microsoft's roughly 1,200…

Jun 30, 2015

Introducing the ‘right to eavesdrop on your things’

politico.com

Peter Greenwood for POLITICO I was once put in charge of one of the firstCoca-Cola machines on the Internet. This was the late 20th century at MIT,where we thought it was pretty awesome that you could, in theory, make themachine dispense a Coke from your desktop computer without having to walk…

Jun 30, 2015

Test Pilot Admits the F-35 Can’t Dogfight — War Is Boring — Medium

medium.com

New stealth fighter is dead meat in an air battle David Axe Jun 29, 2015 by DAVID AXE A test pilot has some very, very bad news about the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. The pricey new stealth jet can’t turn or climb fast enough to hit an enemy plane during a dogfight or to dodge the enemy’s own gunfire,…

Jun 30, 2015

New WikiLeaks Documents Reveal NSA Spied On Top French Companies

social.techcrunch.com

Following last week’s eavesdropping reports , WikiLeaks shared new documents with Libération and Mediapart . This time, the new documents reveal that the NSA was spying on France’s best performing companies for economic intelligence purposes. In addition to eavesdropping French Economy Ministers…

Jun 29, 2015

Chimps and the Zen of Falling Water - Facts So Romantic - Nautilus

nautil.us

T here is a waterfall in Tanzania’s Gombe National Park. Maybe 12 feet high, it’s fairly modestly sized, though even a modest waterfall is quite a magical thing. And it’s here that chimpanzees come to dance. You can watch a video online , narrated by the great primatologist Jane Goodall, who, as…

Jun 29, 2015

The Lonely End - Roads & Kingdoms

roadsandkingdoms.com

In aging Japan, thousands die alone and unnoticed every year. Toru Koremura is there to clean up what they leave behind. Three months ago in an apartment on the outskirts of Osaka, Japan, Haruki Watanabe died alone. For weeks his body slowly decomposed, slouched in its own fluids and surrounded by…

Jun 29, 2015

Mystery Man Moving Japan Made More Than 1 Million Trades

bloomberg.com

It was six minutes after the opening bell on Feb. 4, and dozens of big-name stocks were still untraded in Tokyo. Telecommunications giant SoftBank Corp. was among those that hadn’t budged. The offer price fell 5 percent, then more, and still there were no takers. Then an order was filled: 300,000…

Jun 29, 2015

Nearly 500 injured in explosion at Taiwan water park - CNN.com

cnn.com

Story highlights Organizer, hardware engineer questioned, released on bail, agency says Premier announces a ban on color powder events until substance is proved safe Video shows a fireball erupting, followed by people running through flames (CNN) Taiwan's Ministry of Health and Welfare put out a…

Jun 29, 2015