On Tuesday, Google CEO Sundar Pichai was interrogated by the House Judiciary Committee over a number of topics including potential bias in the search results it provides users. DuckDuckGo — a privacy-focused search engine company that competes with Google Search — released a study last week that…

Tweet Share Share Mail Share The opening panel of the Stigler Center’s annual antitrust conference discussed the source of digital platforms’ power and what, if anything, can be done to address the numerous challenges their ability to shape opinions and outcomes present. Google CEO Sundar Pichai…

Facebook's year of scandals is driving young users away from the platform, according to a Pew survey . Pew surveyed more than 3,400 U.S. Facebook users in May and June, and found that a whopping 44 percent of those ages 18 to 29 say they've deleted the app from their phone in the last year. Some of…

On Nov. 12, 2016, a group of seven women held a meeting in New York. They had never worked together before—in fact, most of them had never met—but they were brought together by what felt like the shared vision of an emerging mission. There were effectively two different cohorts that day. The first…

We are, almost certainly, the only intelligent life in the universe. But anyone who says they know for sure is full of hot air, argues new research. We simply don’t know enough about what’s out there to come up with a precise answer either way. There are billions and billions of stars and galaxies…

When I became an anarchist I was 18, depressed, anxious, and ready to save the world.

Reports on the Marriott guest data breach have suggested themost probable cause was a result of the technology platform deployed byStarwood under the name “Valhalla.” As the senior vice president of technologysolutions at Starwood Hotels & Resorts from 2001 to 2006, I worked onValhalla and…

F oreign criminals sentenced to deportation are to be banished to a remote island off the coast of Denmark, the country's government has announced. Finance minister Kristian Jensen said the criminals will be detained at a facility on Lindholm, an uninhabited seven-hectare island in the province of…

Photo: Mehdi Taamallah/NurPhoto via Getty Images France’s gilets jaunes protesters, called yellow vests in the English-speaking press, scored one victory earlier this week. President Emmanuel Macron announced that his government will no longer levy the fuel tax that so outraged the country’s middle-…

Children who use screens for seven hours or more a day are showing signs that their brain cortex is thinning prematurely. The findings show that children are at risk of deteriorating memory function, perception skills and cognitive abilities, according to new major US study. The ongoing $300 million…

https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-46502820

By Dec. 10, 2018 11:35 a.m. ET Right: Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari at the U.N. in September 2015. Left: a photo showing the Nigerian president at the U.N. in September 2018. Photo: Associated Press; AFP/Getty Images Is Nigeria’s president really Nigeria’s president? At a news conference this…

Monday morning, the New York Times published a horrifying investigation in which the publication bought an huge, “anonymized” dataset of smartphone location data from a third-party vendor, de-anonymized it, and tracked ordinary people through their day-to-day lives —including sensitive stops at…

Reid Hoffman’s venture complicates plans for a separate data trust project being pushed by the Democratic National Committee. | Phillip Faraone/Getty Images Silicon Valley billionaire Reid Hoffman has teamed up with several former Obama administration officials to create an independent — and likely…

DeepMind’s artificial intelligence programme AlphaZero is now showing signs of human-like intuition and creativity, in what developers have hailed as ‘turning point’ in history. The computer system amazed the world last year when it mastered the game of chess from scratch within just four hours,…

Michelle Obama has raised two apparently successful daughters , maintained an enviable marriage in the face of unbelievably trying circumstances, built her own thriving career before becoming first lady, and recently added the title of best-selling author to her list of accomplishments with the…

https://blog.bufferapp.com/do-twitter-ads-really-jotform-case-study

Georgetown Book Shop One of the most remarkable statements ever made by the CEO of a major corporation generated relatively little notice or pushback. But just a couple of weeks ago, there was Tim Cook, the head of Apple, spitting in the eye of the very economy that made his company the highest…

The "Yellow Jackets" Riots In France Are What Happens When Facebook Gets Involved With Local News The Yellow Jackets movement is what happens when you point Facebook's traffic hose at France's small towns. The question now is: How do you turn it off? Etienne De Malglaive / Getty Images This week,…

Many people were thrilled when they heard that the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics this year went to William Nordhaus of Yale University, a man known for his work on climate change. Finally, the economics profession is giving climate the attention it deserves, just as the world is waking up to the…

Mr Macron and Prime Minister Edouard Philippe’s popularity ratings hit new lows as the “yellow vest” protests gathered speed, according to an Ifop-Fiducial poll. The young centrist has been hit by a wave of popular discontent over a planned eco-tax rise, which quickly morphed into a broader rebuke…

https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-has-last-laugh-on-america-first-after-macron-yellow-vest-u-turn-2018-12

Adam D’Angelo, Quora’s chief executive, in 2011. “It is our responsibility to make sure things like this don’t happen, and we failed to meet that responsibility,” he said of the data breach. Credit Matthew Staver/Bloomberg Users of Quora, the question-and-answer site, are asking today: Did my…

Traffic on a polluted day in Beijing on Sunday. The world’s largest emitter, China, produces 27 percent of global carbon emissions. Credit Wu Hong/EPA, via Shutterstock Want climate news in your inbox? Sign up here for Climate Fwd: , our email newsletter. The world’s greenhouse gas emissions are…

The Milky Way galaxy has 200 billion stars and perhaps 100 billion planets. If even a small fraction of those planets harbored life, and even if only a pathetic scattering of those planets had lifeforms which became intelligent, our galaxy would be teeming with alien civilizations, some of whom…

Chief Product Officer at Adobe, Scott Belsky, discusses his beliefs on creating the first mile of your product. His immediate suggestion is to focus on your newest customers. Why? You can learn the most about what problem your product solves or value it provides. Once you understand the core value…

https://www.brainpickings.org/2012/11/19/joan-didion-on-keeping-a-notebook/

Once, I read an essay written by someone who was struggling with depression. He didn’t want to work out, do anything productive, or even write the story. He just wanted to lay on the couch and stare into space. “Despite this,” he said, “I’m going to go to my basement in ten minutes and lift. It will…

Find a good spot in your home or apartment, ideally where there isn’t too much clutter and you can find some quiet. Leave the lights on or sit in natural light. You can even sit outside if you like, but choose a place with little distraction. At the outset, it helps to set an amount of time you’re…

Seven global insurance companies — including the world's largest primary insurers and reinsurers — have now stopped or limited insuring coal projects . These moves come at a time when the costs of climate-related impacts continue to grow. Why it matters: The insurance industry is a key and often…

On the morning of November 11, just before 9:30 UT, a mysterious rumble rolled around the world . The seismic waves began roughly 15 miles off the shores of Mayotte, a French island sandwiched between Africa and the northern tip of Madagascar. The waves buzzed across Africa, ringing sensors in…

It’s the spring of 2043, and Gina is graduating college with the rest of her class. She had a relatively stable childhood. Her parents availed themselves of some of the year of paid family leave they were entitled to, and after that she was dropped off at a free child care program. Pre-K and K-12…

Center pivot irrigation at work northeast of Adams, Nebraska. Craig Chandler / University of Nebraska–Lincoln Communications Corn farmers in eastern Nebraska have long claimed weather patterns are changing, but in an unexpected way. “It’s something I’ve talked about with my dad and grandad many…

5:29 p.m. 5:45 p.m. 7:00 p.m. 7:15 p.m. 7:30 p.m. 7:45 p.m. 8:00 p.m. 8:15 p.m. The inside story of death and survival as the Carr Fire's tornado of flames stormed Redding — and changed firefighting in a warming California By Death blew east on a savage wind, driving flames over foothills and across…

Fed Chairman Jerome Powell grapples with a rare occurrence in consumer sentiment. Photographer: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images North America Photographer: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images North America If data dependency is the name of the game, then Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell has his work…

The Strand bookstore in Manhattan, one of the world’s largest bookstores, has become a cultural landmark since it opened in 1927. Credit Tony Cenicola/The New York Times Since it opened in 1927, the Strand bookstore has managed to survive by beating back the many challenges — soaring rents, book…

This essay draws in part on the authors’ new book Population Bombed! Exploding the Link Between Overpopulation and Climate Change (Global Warming Policy Foundation, 2018). The Pull of Environmental Narratives In his critique of Hans Rosling’s optimistic take on the human condition (which Rosling…

Why did the scarecrow win a prize? Because he stood alone in his field! He stood there for years, rotting, until he was forgotten. - - - I tell my kids, you’re allowed to watch the TV all you want… Just don’t turn it on! This way they will begin to understand the futility of all things. - - - A…

Nothing gives me the feeling of having been born several decades too late quite like the modern "literary" best seller. Give me a time-tested masterpiece or what critics patronizingly call a fun read— Sister Carrie or just plain Carrie . Give me anything, in fact, as long as it doesn't have a recent…

byBrian Dunning Filed under Environment, General Science, Logic & Persuasion Skeptoid Podcast#549 December 13, 2016 Podcast transcript | Download | Subscribe Listen: I encourage everyone to listen to this episode, or to read and share its transcript online. Today I'm going to talk about some simple…