Market power lies behind many economic ills. Time to restore competition
👓 Colombia’s biggest corruption scandal gets more complicated | The Economist
The magnate, the attorney-general and two strange deaths
👓 Hackers Are Stealing Influencer Instagram Accounts By Promising Lucrative Brand Deals | The Atlantic
In the Wild West of “influencer” marketing, there are few protections and plenty of easy marks.
It’s not mentioned here, but the fact that there are businesses built around the idea of “link in bio” means that Instagram really isn’t innovating on their platform.
Is Instagram really so deaf to the needs of their userbase?
👓 Why celebrity gossip blogs refuse to abandon Livejournal | The Verge
The unchanging aesthetic of Crazy Days and Nights and DListed is a form of time travel
📺 “The West Wing” A Proportional Response | Netflix
Directed by Marc Buckland. With Rob Lowe, Moira Kelly, Dulé Hill, Allison Janney. After being offered "a proportional response" to the Syrian military's downing of a U.S. military plane on a medical mission (and carrying his newly named personal physician), the president demands an option that will have greater impact. Leo gradually must talk him down, while Bartlet snipes at everyone, including Abby. The president ultimately agrees to the initial option, but is not happy ...
🎧 Our Daily Bread Episode 19: The Bread that Ate the World | Eat This Podcast
Small bakers couldn’t compete with the giants created by Allied Bakeries, so they turned to science. That produced the Chorleywood bread process, which gave them a quicker, cheaper loaf. Unfortunately, the giant bakeries gobbled up the new method too. More and more small bakeries went out of business as a loaf of bread became cheaper and cheaper. Was it worth it? You tell me.
Photo of Beaumont House, former HQ of the British Baking Industries Research Association, where the Chorleywood Bread Process was invented, by Diamond Geezer. It is now a care home.
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🎧 Our Daily Bread Episode 18: Allied forever | Eat This Podcast
Size brings benefits to bakeries as much as to flour mills. The episode tells a small part of the story of how George Weston turned a bakery route in Toronto into one of the biggest food companies in the world, responsible for more brands of bread than you can imagine. And not just the bread, but many of the ingredients that make megabakeries possible.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 5:58 — 4.9MB)
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🎧 Our Daily Bread Episode 17: Rollin’ rollin’ rollin’ | Eat This Podcast
Stone mills served us well in the business of turning grain into flour for thousands of years, but they couldn’t keep up with either population growth or new and better wheat. The roller mill came about through a succession of small inventions and the deep pockets of a few visionary entrepreneurs. They turned Minneapolis into the flour capital of the world.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 7:34 — 6.2MB)
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👓 Usernames on Micro.blog | Manton Reece
Micro.blog now has 3 distinct styles of usernames to make the platform more compatible with other services: Micro.blog usernames, e.g. @you. These are simple usernames for @-mentioning someone else in the Micro.blog community. Mastodon usernames, e.g. @you@yourdomain.com. When you search Micro.blog ...
Subscribed to Buried Truths | NPR via WABE 90.1
In 1948, three black farmers decided they'd had enough. They were going to vote in rural South Georgia, where white supremacists held power by suppressing the black vote. Pulitzer-Prize winning author, journalist and Emory University professor Hank Klibanoff explores the mysteries and injustices of history through civil rights cases that few have seen. How far would white supremacists go — on the streets, in the courtrooms, in the legislatures — to preserve their racial dominance? And, most importantly, why? Who were we back then? The truth is restless, relevant and revealed in Buried Truths.
👓 William Goldman Dies; Oscar Winning Writer Of ‘Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid’ Was 87 | Deadline
I have been informed by friends of the family that William Goldman died last night. He was 87. Goldman, who twice won screenwriting Oscars for All The President’s Men and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, passed away last night in his Manhattan home, surrounded by family and friends. His health had been failing for some time, and over the summer his condition deteriorated.
👓 Kim Kardashian’s Private Firefighters Expose America’s Fault Lines | The Atlantic
“Rich people don’t get their own ‘better’ firefighters, or at least they aren’t supposed to.”