Purdue Pharma has settled a lawsuit with the state of Oklahoma for $270 million, a larger figure than two other cases the company has settled with other states. In doing so, the company also avoided a televised trial in May at a time when there's been growing public pressure on Purdue and its owners, the Sackler family, amid allegations that they misled the public about the dangers of OxyContin.
Back in 2017, Bob spoke with Barry Meier about how public discourse about chronic pain and treatment have been shaped by companies like Purdue with help from physicians, consultants, and the media. Meier is a former reporter for The New York Times and author of Pain Killer: A "Wonder" Drug's Trail of Addiction and Death.
Bob also interviewed journalist Anna Clark about her reporting for the Columbia Journalism Review on opioid-related death notices. Sites like Legacy.com, she explained, have often chronicled the crisis' individual human toll.
Reads, Listens
Playlist of posts listened to, or scrobbled
👓 XFN Brainstorming | microformats.org
This page is for brainstorming about various uses and details of XFN, as well as collecting input for potential extensions.
🎧 Hating In Plain Sight | On the Media | WNYC Studios
In the aftermath of white supremacist attacks in New Zealand, there's a tension between reporting on the shooter's motivations and not amplifying his message. This week, On the Media examines how the press can navigate that persistent dilemma. Plus, the debate over whether online archives of jihadi terrorist propaganda should be open to the public.
1. Joan Donovan [@BostonJoan] describes the way the press has evolved in its responses to far-right terrorism, and argues for continued caution in coverage of white supremacists. Listen.
2. Kathleen Belew [@kathleen_belew] describes the White Power roots of the Christchurch attack, and argues that to effectively fight this hate, we must understand the movement in which it grows. Listen.
3. Dan Feidt [@HongPong] of Unicorn Riot [@UR_Ninja] on what alt-right groups are discussing in their secret online chatrooms, and what we learn by reading them. Listen.
4. Charlie Winter [@charliewinter], Rukmini Callimachi [@rcallimachi], Ali Fisher [@WandrenPD], Amarnath Amarasingam [@AmarAmarasingam], Pieter Van Ostaeyen [@p_vanostaeyen], and Seamus Hughes [@SeamusHughes] on the debate over whether online archives of jihadi terrorist propaganda should be open to the public. Listen.
There was a spark of recognition on my part as I was listening to the Unicorn Riot segment, but I couldn’t put my finger on it until I looked at the episode notes just after. The interviewee is Dan Feidt (aka HongPong) a member of the IndieWeb community whose Drupal work relating to webmention I’ve always been a big fan of. His work here is far more interesting and valuable however (and that’s really saying something because I LOVE webmention).
Way to go Dan!
👓 The former lead designer of Gmail just fixed Gmail on his own | Fast Company
The free Chrome extension Simplify will give you the Gmail you want.
👓 Jack Dorsey’s TED Interview and the End of an Era | New Yorker
The C.E.O. of Twitter no longer seems capable of controlling the system he’s created.
👓 Genevieve | Wikipedia
Saint Genevieve (French: Sainte Geneviève; Latin: Sancta Genovefa, Genoveva; from Gaullish geno "race, lineage" and uida "sage") (Nanterre, c. 419/422 AD – Paris 502/512 AD), is the patron saint of Paris in the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox traditions. Her feast day is kept on January the 3rd.
She was born in Nanterre and moved to Paris after encountering Germanus of Auxerre and Lupus of Troyes and dedicated herself to a Christian life.[2] In 451 she led a "prayer marathon" that was said to have saved Paris by diverting Attila's Huns away from the city. When the Germanic king Childeric I besieged the city in 464, she acted as an intermediary between the city and its besiegers, collecting food and convincing Childeric to release his prisoners.
Her following and her status as patron saint of Paris were promoted by Clotilde, who may have commissioned the writing of her vita. This was most likely written in Tours, where Clotilde retired after her husband's death, as evidenced also by the importance of Martin of Tours as a saintly model.
👓 Recap of the Kids Event Working Group Chat | Thursday 25 April 2019 | Make WordPress Communities
Attending: @sunsand187 @melindahelt Start: We Covered Updates from VolunteersNeed for Research Translations/Editing Updates from Volunteers @sunsand187 Worked on researching laws for Missouri Kids…
👓 IndieAuth for WordPress Question | David Shanske
Thinking about the necessity of maintaining IndieAuth code in the Micropub plugin and now the Yarns Microsub plugin for WordPress. I wanted to put out to any WordPress user for some input. The IndieAuth plugin creates an IndieAuth endpoint inside your WordPress installation. This means that you logi...
👓 Why you should say HTML classes, CSS class selectors, or CSS pseudo-classes, but not CSS classes | Tantek
Search the web for "CSS classes" and you'll find numerous well intentioned references which are imprecise at best, and misleading or incorrect at worst. There are no such things as "CSS classes". Here's why you should refer to HTML classes, CSS class selectors, or even CSS pseudo-classes, but not "C...
👓 'A Clockwork Orange' Follow-Up Found in Burgess Archives | Smithsonian Magazine
'The Clockwork Condition' was intended to be a philosophical examination of themes raised in his most popular and problematic novel
👓 Stanford community outraged at SU Press defunding, over 1,000 sign petitions | Stanford Daily
A flurry of critical letters, petitions and tweets came in the wake of the announcement of the University’s decision to discontinue funding for Stanford University Press, the primary printing ope...
And, yes, shame on Stanford.
👓 ‘Overwork’ kills 270 Indonesia poll staff | BBC News
Scores of election workers have died, mostly of fatigue-related illnesses, an official says.
👓 How a University Can Sell Its Soul: HASTAC's Stanford Origins and the University's Current Decision on Stanford University Press | HASTAC
“Austerity” When You Are Wealthier Than Just About Anyone
👓 Diagram showing how areas of math relate to each other | John Cook
In my previous post, I discussed how number theory and topology relate to other areas of math. Part of that was to show a couple diagrams from Jean Dieudonné’s book Panorama of Pure Mathematics, as seen by N. Bourbaki. That book has only small star-shaped diagrams considering one area of math at a time. I’ve created a diagram that pastes these local views into one grand diagram. Along the way I’ve done a little editing because the original diagrams were not entirely consistent.
Here’s a condensed view of the graph. You can find the full image here.
👓 Mathematical balance of trade: how areas of math connect | John D. Cook
Areas of math all draw on and contribute to each other. But there’s a sort of trade imbalance between areas. Some, like analytic number theory, are net importers. Others, like topology, are net exporters.