The resignation of the former acting chief of the Federal Railroad Administration comes while Democrats are blocking a vote on a permanent leader — and as train-related deaths climb.
Reads, Listens, Watches
Reading list of books, magazines, newspaper articles, other physical documents, or online posts
Playlist of posts listened to, or scrobbled
Playlist of watched movies, television shows, online videos, and other visual-based events
Playlist of posts listened to, or scrobbled
Playlist of watched movies, television shows, online videos, and other visual-based events
👓 Let’s Ban Porn | New York Times
An immodest proposal for the era of #MeToo.
👓 Gillibrand: If Trump wants due process, we’ll have hearings on allegations against him | The Hill
Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) went after President Trump on Saturday for his tweet questioning a lack of "due process" in abuse claims, saying that Congress could hold hearings about sexual misconduct allegations against him if he wanted due process. “The President has shown through words and actions that he doesn’t value women. It’s not surprising that he doesn’t believe survivors or understand the national conversation that is happening,” Gillibrand tweeted.
👓 Can’t Get Your News From Facebook Anymore? Try These 6 Apps | Wired
Now that the social network is changing what shows up in your feed, you’ll have to go elsewhere for current news.
I’ll particularly agree with how good I find Nuzzel to be, though I will say that I do take heavy advantage of a variety of highly curated Twitter lists which I’m sure helps the algorithm for the quality of news I get back out of the system.
I would prefer more transparency about how those that use algorithms are doing so.
Some of these don’t amount to much more than glorified RSS feed readers, and I’m shocked that the state of the art of the area isn’t much further along than it was a decade ago.
👓 Flu Vaccines and the Math of Herd Immunity | Quanta Magazine
Simple math shows how widespread vaccination can disrupt the exponential spread of disease and prevent epidemics.
This is a very clear and lucid article with some very basic math that shows the value of vaccines. I highly recommend it to everyone.
👓 Which problems make good research problems? | Back Reaction
Sabine Hossenfelder (Back Reaction)Scientists solve problems; that’s their job. But which problems are promising topics of research? This is the question I set out to answer in Lost in Math at least concerning the foundations of physics. A first, rough, classification of research problems can be made using Thomas Kuhn’s cycle of scientific theories. Kuhn’s cycle consists of a phase of “normal science” followed by “crisis” leading to a paradigm change, after which a new phase of “normal science” begins. This grossly oversimplifies reality, but it will be good enough for what follows.
A nice little article on a question many of us should be asking ourselves more often. This one has some additional nice overview of bits of physics in addition, but circling back around to the original question is always very valuable.
I’m going to have to track down a copy of Sabine Hossenfelder’s book Lost in Math: How Beauty Leads Physics Astray.
👓 As Other Aides Face Trump’s Ire Over Rob Porter’s Departure, Hope Hicks Is Praised | New York Times
The president dismissed an idea circulated by some aides and allies that he’d been unhappy with the role of Hope Hicks in workshopping an initial forceful defense of Mr. Porter.
👓 What Amazon does to wages | The Economist
WHEN Amazon announced in 2010 that it would build a distribution centre in Lexington County, South Carolina, the decision was hailed as a victory for the Palmetto State. Today the e-commerce giant employs thousands of workers at the centre. Just 3.5% of the local workforce is out of work.
It would be nice to have some additional data on some of the subtleties. Lack of rising wages has also been recently noted to be the result of companies giving one time bonuses as well, and this particularly in response to the recent tax incentives. Sadly a one time bonus is not worth nearly as much as an annual raise in the long run.
👓 L.L. Bean ends legendary lifetime return policy, and of course social media is to blame | Mashable
Thanks, internet, for ruining another great thing.
Bad actors will ruin things all the time. Some of their tactics were egregiously bad. The company should have just put the onus back on the bad actors instead of giving up altogether, though I suspect they’ll probably do right by those “playing by the rules.”
👓 American Spies Paid $100,000 to Russian Who Wanted to Sell Material on Trump | New York Times
After months of negotiations, the Russian insisted on including information about the president as part of a deal involving stolen hacking tools.
👓 All Followers Are Fake Followers | The Atlantic
A New York Times exposé of a “black market” for online fame diagnoses the symptom of social-media despair, but misses its cause.
This aptly picks up where the NYT article left off… though of course they go on even further than this article admits.
👓 Newsonomics: Inside Tronc’s sale of the L.A. Times (and all the new questions to come) | Nieman Lab
Tronc is getting a big premium for its flagship asset, and the Times is getting a return to private, local ownership. But a lot of questions remain about where Patrick Soon-Shiong will take his new prize.
An interesting recap on the goings on at the LA Times over the past few years.
👓 Quincy Jones on the Secret Michael Jackson and the Problem With Modern Pop | Vulture
Music legend Quincy Jones on who he thinks killed JFK, the secret Michael Jackson, his relationship with the Trumps, and the problem with modern pop.
I’ve known many older “Hollywood” executives like this. You have to take what they say with a heavy grain of salt, though some of their stories can have some grains of truth to them.
👓 How Hard Do Professors Actually Work? | The Atlantic
A recent Twitter battle revealed that faculty members themselves can’t agree on an answer.
👓 The need for speed: Google dedicates engineering team to accelerate development of WordPress ecosystem | Search Engine Land
Michelle Robbins (Search Engine Land)Google's partnership with WordPress aims to jump-start the platform's support of the latest web technologies -- particularly those involving performance & mobile experience. And they're hiring WordPress experts.
Contributing back to the community is an interesting way to go, though I’m curious how readily the community will pull the pieces back, particularly into core. This is certainly a better modus operandi than attempting to press forward on AMP technology.