- The unexpected ways our lives will change when cars drive themselves (WaPo) "Fewer truckers will be impacted than expected. 'Effectively all current truck drivers will have quit anyway — you won’t replace them, but you won’t necessarily put anyone directly out of work.' Traffic congestion could actually get worse. 'If you reduce congestion, then more people will drive, either taking new trips or switching from public transport, and congestion might rise back to where you started'.' Cars can bear witness to crime. Cars that observe suspicious activity or travel near the scene of a crime could be queried for images and other data. We could buy fewer cigarettes. More than half of cigarette sales in the U.S. occur at gas stations...but electric cars could effectively eliminate that point of purchase. Air bags can be eliminated. There will be no need for air bags, crumple zones, and other safety features currently built into cars. That would reduce the weight and complexity of vehicle design, making cars more energy efficient and less expensive in the process. No more searching for parking. ...that could fundamentally alter our transportation habits and how cities are designed. Cars will become less of a money pit. ...if electric cars run on batteries and self-driving cars avoid accidents, those expenses could dwindle dramatically."
- Detroit Is Stomping Silicon Valley in the Race to Build Self-Driving Cars (Wired) "...it’s the state of the race according to Navigant Research, whose newly released 'leaderboard' report ranks these players not just on their ability to make a car drive itself, but on their ability to bring that car to the mass market. Now, this report comes with a whopper of a caveat: These are early days in a race that will unfold over years, if not decades. Every company listed could shore up its weaknesses with smart partnerships or acquisitions, and jump to the front of the pack."
- Why tiny electric planes and $25 tickets could be the future of regional air travel (WaPo) "The company has some heavyweight investor partners, including Boeing HorizonX and JetBlue Technology Ventures, subsidiaries of their respective companies. It also faces a number of competitors and obstacles, particularly battery limitations. But if successful, it could significantly change regional air travel, where options have shriveled and costs have crept up in recent decades."
- Tesla Has Something Hotter Than Cars to Sell: Its Story (NYT) "...Tesla has ascended into a rarefied realm of so-called story stocks — companies that have so bewitched investors that their stock prices are impervious to any traditional valuation measures because their stories are simply too good not to be true."
BUSINESS:
- Dyson Is the Apple of Appliances (and Just as Secretive) (NYT) "But combining an almost obsessive eye for design and engineering, the privately held Dyson has cornered the nonglamorous market of high-end vacuum cleaners, lights and hair dryers — and in the process bucked the technology truism that companies rarely make money in the difficult arena of hardware. Even as other hardware brands like Samsung, the smartwatch maker Fitbit and the camera designer GoPro have struggled with physical products because of low-priced copycats and thin profit margins, Dyson has shown an uncanny ability to mint money. Its latest robot cleaner, which is selling briskly, exemplifies that and puts Dyson in rarefied company alongside Apple as one of the few tech companies worldwide to consistently profit from consumer gadgets."
CLIMATE CHANGE:
- I Ran George W. Bush’s EPA—and Trump’s Cuts to the Agency Would Endanger Lives (Atlantic) "Beyond the raw numbers, the unprecedented budget cuts to the EPA would pose a great danger to Americans’ lives if enacted. Practically speaking, funding for climate-change research would be axed, public-health programs would be effectively defunded, state environmental programs would be closed, and regional projects would end. Make no mistake: Human health would be endangered."
- The left and right agree: Fox News destroyed EPA chief Scott Pruitt over climate change (WaPo) "Pruitt's performance on the Sunday show earned the rare distinction of being panned by both climate change advocates and skeptics alike. Pruitt received an equally dismal review on Breitbart, which called Trump's new EPA chief out for having 'sweated, stuttered, and floundered' through what ultimately was 'an entirely needless concession to the enemy.'"
CYBER SECURITY:
- Want to Start Using a VPN? Read This First (Wired) Set up a VPN in 10 minutes for free—and yes, Americans urgently need one, thanks to Congress (Quartz)
HEALTH:
- Close to Half of American Adults Infected With HPV, Survey Finds (NYT) "More than 42 percent of Americans between the ages of 18 and 59 are infected with genital human papillomavirus, according to the first survey to look at the prevalence of the virus in the adult population. Two vaccines are effective in preventing sexually transmitted HPV infection, and the researchers stressed that they should be used far more often. 'If we can get 11- and 12-year-olds to get the vaccine, we’ll make some progress,' Dr. McQuillan said. 'You need to give it before kids become sexually active, before they get infected. By the time they’re in their mid-twenties, people are infected and it’s too late. This is a vaccine against cancer — that’s the message.'"
- What men should know about cancer that spreads through oral sex (WaPo) "The number of people diagnosed with HPV-related oropharyngeal cancer, tumors found in the middle of the pharynx or throat including the back of the tongue, soft palate, sides of throat and tonsils — is relatively small — about 12,638 men and 3,100 women in the United States each year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. But these numbers are expected to continue to rise, overtaking incidence of cervical cancer by 2020."
- Meditation's Calming Effects Pinpointed in Brain (Scientific American) "Research suggests the practice has multiple benefits—it induces an overall sense of well-being while reducing anxiety and improved sleep."
NEWS:
- Trump's War on Journalism (LA Times) "Most presidents...have continued to acknowledge...that an independent press plays an essential role in American democracy. Trump doesn’t seem to buy it. ...Trump’s strategy is pretty clear: By branding reporters as liars, he apparently hopes to discredit, disrupt or bully into silence anyone who challenges his version of reality. By undermining trust in news organizations and delegitimizing journalism and muddling the facts so that Americans no longer know who to believe, he can deny and distract and help push his administration’s far-fetched storyline."
- Trump's Authoritarian Vision (LA Times) "'Nobody knows the system better than me, which is why I alone can fix it.' What’s uniquely threatening about Trump’s approach, though, is how many fronts he’s opened in this struggle for power and the vehemence with which he seeks to undermine the institutions that don’t go along. Remember that Trump’s verbal assaults are directed at the public, and are designed to chip away at people’s confidence in these institutions and deprive them of their validity."
- Our Dishonest President (LA Times) "What is most worrisome about Trump is Trump himself. He is a man so unpredictable, so reckless, so petulant, so full of blind self-regard, so untethered to reality that it is impossible to know where his presidency will lead or how much damage he will do to our nation. His obsession with his own fame, wealth and success, his determination to vanquish enemies real and imagined, his craving for adulation — these traits were, of course, at the very heart of his scorched-earth outsider campaign; indeed, some of them helped get him elected. But in a real presidency in which he wields unimaginable power, they are nothing short of disastrous."
- ‘It went off the rails almost immediately’: How Trump’s messy transition led to a chaotic presidency (WaPo) "On Election Day, Trump’s transition advisers presented the president-elect’s inner circle with 30 binders of materials. One binder provided the overview and outlined detailed recommendations for the 73-day presidential transition then commencing. This was to serve as a road map designed to assure, to the extent possible, an orderly start for the new administration. The documents included proposed hour-by-hour schedules for the president-elect as he began the transition; week-by-week transition messaging themes aimed at highlighting Trump’s campaign promises; ambitious timetables for completing congressional action on those promises; drafts of executive orders; policy backgrounders; a lengthy memo analyzing a White House staff structure; and landing teams assigned to key executive branch agencies, most approved by members of Trump’s family. The Partnership for Public Service, in collaboration with The Washington Post, has been tracking 553 key administration positions that require Senate confirmation. To date, just 21 nominees have been confirmed and another 44 await confirmation."
- Trump’s new Russia expert wrote a psychological profile of Vladimir Putin — and it should scare Trump (WaPo) "...underlying everything in this book is a vision of Putin as manipulator — he is 'a master at manipulating information, suppressing information, and creating pseudo-information' — and as extortionist, deploying blackmail against opponents, allies and foreign leaders. 'As he can fully trust only himself,' Hill and Gaddy write, 'Putin applies extortionary methods to everyone else — basically mutually assured incrimination to ensure loyalty.'"
- The Keystone Kops in the White House (New Yorker) "Mike Allen, Axios’s editor-in-chief, reported that one of the officials in the [White House] meeting 'views the Trump White House in terms that could be applied to the iterative process of designing software. It’s a beta White House.' Allen went on, 'The senior official . . . said the White House was operating on similar principles to the Trump campaign: ‘We rode something until it didn’t work any more,’ the official said. ‘We recognized it didn’t work, we changed it, we adjusted it and then we kind of got better . . . [T]his was much more entrepreneurial.’ In the White House, he said, ‘we’re going to keep adjusting until we get it right.’'"
- Trump’s failing presidency has the GOP in a free fall (WaPo) "So a party at the peak of its political fortunes is utterly paralyzed. A caucus in control of everything is itself uncontrollable. This is a pretty bad combination: empty, easily distracted, vindictive, shallow, impatient, incompetent and morally small. This is not the profile of a governing party."
- Detroit Can Teach Us All a Lesson About Making a Comeback (Ozy) "Detroit’s progress is driven by a spirit of partnership and pragmatism that we see at work in each of Detroit’s steps forward. Instead of ideology, Detroit’s leaders — across sectors and political parties — have tried new ideas. Instead of claiming credit, they have created impact. Instead of toeing the party line, they have talked with people about what matters."
SOCIALIZED MEDICINE:
- Insurers Stem Losses, and May Soon Profit, From Obamacare Plans (NYT) "The analysis, by Standard & Poor’s, looked at the performance of many Blue Cross plans in nearly three dozen states since President Barack Obama’s health care law took effect three years ago. It shows the insurers significantly reduced their losses last year, are likely to break even this year and that most could profit — albeit some in the single-digits — in 2018. The insurers cover more than five million people in the individual market. The latest monthly Kaiser health tracking poll by the Kaiser Family Foundation showed that more than half of Americans now believe that the president and Republicans own the health care issue and may shoulder the blame for any failings. The survey reported that more than half now support the Obama health care law."
- Detroit Is Stomping Silicon Valley in the Race to Build Self-Driving Cars (Wired) "...it’s the state of the race according to Navigant Research, whose newly released 'leaderboard' report ranks these players not just on their ability to make a car drive itself, but on their ability to bring that car to the mass market. Now, this report comes with a whopper of a caveat: These are early days in a race that will unfold over years, if not decades. Every company listed could shore up its weaknesses with smart partnerships or acquisitions, and jump to the front of the pack."
- Why tiny electric planes and $25 tickets could be the future of regional air travel (WaPo) "The company has some heavyweight investor partners, including Boeing HorizonX and JetBlue Technology Ventures, subsidiaries of their respective companies. It also faces a number of competitors and obstacles, particularly battery limitations. But if successful, it could significantly change regional air travel, where options have shriveled and costs have crept up in recent decades."
- Tesla Has Something Hotter Than Cars to Sell: Its Story (NYT) "...Tesla has ascended into a rarefied realm of so-called story stocks — companies that have so bewitched investors that their stock prices are impervious to any traditional valuation measures because their stories are simply too good not to be true."
BUSINESS:
- Dyson Is the Apple of Appliances (and Just as Secretive) (NYT) "But combining an almost obsessive eye for design and engineering, the privately held Dyson has cornered the nonglamorous market of high-end vacuum cleaners, lights and hair dryers — and in the process bucked the technology truism that companies rarely make money in the difficult arena of hardware. Even as other hardware brands like Samsung, the smartwatch maker Fitbit and the camera designer GoPro have struggled with physical products because of low-priced copycats and thin profit margins, Dyson has shown an uncanny ability to mint money. Its latest robot cleaner, which is selling briskly, exemplifies that and puts Dyson in rarefied company alongside Apple as one of the few tech companies worldwide to consistently profit from consumer gadgets."
CLIMATE CHANGE:
- I Ran George W. Bush’s EPA—and Trump’s Cuts to the Agency Would Endanger Lives (Atlantic) "Beyond the raw numbers, the unprecedented budget cuts to the EPA would pose a great danger to Americans’ lives if enacted. Practically speaking, funding for climate-change research would be axed, public-health programs would be effectively defunded, state environmental programs would be closed, and regional projects would end. Make no mistake: Human health would be endangered."
- The left and right agree: Fox News destroyed EPA chief Scott Pruitt over climate change (WaPo) "Pruitt's performance on the Sunday show earned the rare distinction of being panned by both climate change advocates and skeptics alike. Pruitt received an equally dismal review on Breitbart, which called Trump's new EPA chief out for having 'sweated, stuttered, and floundered' through what ultimately was 'an entirely needless concession to the enemy.'"
CYBER SECURITY:
- Want to Start Using a VPN? Read This First (Wired) Set up a VPN in 10 minutes for free—and yes, Americans urgently need one, thanks to Congress (Quartz)
HEALTH:
- Close to Half of American Adults Infected With HPV, Survey Finds (NYT) "More than 42 percent of Americans between the ages of 18 and 59 are infected with genital human papillomavirus, according to the first survey to look at the prevalence of the virus in the adult population. Two vaccines are effective in preventing sexually transmitted HPV infection, and the researchers stressed that they should be used far more often. 'If we can get 11- and 12-year-olds to get the vaccine, we’ll make some progress,' Dr. McQuillan said. 'You need to give it before kids become sexually active, before they get infected. By the time they’re in their mid-twenties, people are infected and it’s too late. This is a vaccine against cancer — that’s the message.'"
- What men should know about cancer that spreads through oral sex (WaPo) "The number of people diagnosed with HPV-related oropharyngeal cancer, tumors found in the middle of the pharynx or throat including the back of the tongue, soft palate, sides of throat and tonsils — is relatively small — about 12,638 men and 3,100 women in the United States each year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. But these numbers are expected to continue to rise, overtaking incidence of cervical cancer by 2020."
- Meditation's Calming Effects Pinpointed in Brain (Scientific American) "Research suggests the practice has multiple benefits—it induces an overall sense of well-being while reducing anxiety and improved sleep."
NEWS:
- Trump's War on Journalism (LA Times) "Most presidents...have continued to acknowledge...that an independent press plays an essential role in American democracy. Trump doesn’t seem to buy it. ...Trump’s strategy is pretty clear: By branding reporters as liars, he apparently hopes to discredit, disrupt or bully into silence anyone who challenges his version of reality. By undermining trust in news organizations and delegitimizing journalism and muddling the facts so that Americans no longer know who to believe, he can deny and distract and help push his administration’s far-fetched storyline."
- Trump's Authoritarian Vision (LA Times) "'Nobody knows the system better than me, which is why I alone can fix it.' What’s uniquely threatening about Trump’s approach, though, is how many fronts he’s opened in this struggle for power and the vehemence with which he seeks to undermine the institutions that don’t go along. Remember that Trump’s verbal assaults are directed at the public, and are designed to chip away at people’s confidence in these institutions and deprive them of their validity."
- Our Dishonest President (LA Times) "What is most worrisome about Trump is Trump himself. He is a man so unpredictable, so reckless, so petulant, so full of blind self-regard, so untethered to reality that it is impossible to know where his presidency will lead or how much damage he will do to our nation. His obsession with his own fame, wealth and success, his determination to vanquish enemies real and imagined, his craving for adulation — these traits were, of course, at the very heart of his scorched-earth outsider campaign; indeed, some of them helped get him elected. But in a real presidency in which he wields unimaginable power, they are nothing short of disastrous."
- ‘It went off the rails almost immediately’: How Trump’s messy transition led to a chaotic presidency (WaPo) "On Election Day, Trump’s transition advisers presented the president-elect’s inner circle with 30 binders of materials. One binder provided the overview and outlined detailed recommendations for the 73-day presidential transition then commencing. This was to serve as a road map designed to assure, to the extent possible, an orderly start for the new administration. The documents included proposed hour-by-hour schedules for the president-elect as he began the transition; week-by-week transition messaging themes aimed at highlighting Trump’s campaign promises; ambitious timetables for completing congressional action on those promises; drafts of executive orders; policy backgrounders; a lengthy memo analyzing a White House staff structure; and landing teams assigned to key executive branch agencies, most approved by members of Trump’s family. The Partnership for Public Service, in collaboration with The Washington Post, has been tracking 553 key administration positions that require Senate confirmation. To date, just 21 nominees have been confirmed and another 44 await confirmation."
- Trump’s new Russia expert wrote a psychological profile of Vladimir Putin — and it should scare Trump (WaPo) "...underlying everything in this book is a vision of Putin as manipulator — he is 'a master at manipulating information, suppressing information, and creating pseudo-information' — and as extortionist, deploying blackmail against opponents, allies and foreign leaders. 'As he can fully trust only himself,' Hill and Gaddy write, 'Putin applies extortionary methods to everyone else — basically mutually assured incrimination to ensure loyalty.'"
- The Keystone Kops in the White House (New Yorker) "Mike Allen, Axios’s editor-in-chief, reported that one of the officials in the [White House] meeting 'views the Trump White House in terms that could be applied to the iterative process of designing software. It’s a beta White House.' Allen went on, 'The senior official . . . said the White House was operating on similar principles to the Trump campaign: ‘We rode something until it didn’t work any more,’ the official said. ‘We recognized it didn’t work, we changed it, we adjusted it and then we kind of got better . . . [T]his was much more entrepreneurial.’ In the White House, he said, ‘we’re going to keep adjusting until we get it right.’'"
- Trump’s failing presidency has the GOP in a free fall (WaPo) "So a party at the peak of its political fortunes is utterly paralyzed. A caucus in control of everything is itself uncontrollable. This is a pretty bad combination: empty, easily distracted, vindictive, shallow, impatient, incompetent and morally small. This is not the profile of a governing party."
- Detroit Can Teach Us All a Lesson About Making a Comeback (Ozy) "Detroit’s progress is driven by a spirit of partnership and pragmatism that we see at work in each of Detroit’s steps forward. Instead of ideology, Detroit’s leaders — across sectors and political parties — have tried new ideas. Instead of claiming credit, they have created impact. Instead of toeing the party line, they have talked with people about what matters."
SOCIALIZED MEDICINE:
- Insurers Stem Losses, and May Soon Profit, From Obamacare Plans (NYT) "The analysis, by Standard & Poor’s, looked at the performance of many Blue Cross plans in nearly three dozen states since President Barack Obama’s health care law took effect three years ago. It shows the insurers significantly reduced their losses last year, are likely to break even this year and that most could profit — albeit some in the single-digits — in 2018. The insurers cover more than five million people in the individual market. The latest monthly Kaiser health tracking poll by the Kaiser Family Foundation showed that more than half of Americans now believe that the president and Republicans own the health care issue and may shoulder the blame for any failings. The survey reported that more than half now support the Obama health care law."
SPORTS:
- Will This Startup Change the Way We Watch Sports? (Ozy) "...SportsCastr allows fans to broadcast games and provide commentary on social media or choose their own professional broadcasters for customized viewing pleasure."
TECHNOLOGY:
- The secret weapon that will make your next computer super fast (Mashable) "...Optane, a memory module that can change the data game. It takes the speed and fluidity of RAM and combines it with the storage capabilities of Flash memory."
BOTTOM OF THE NEWS:
- An Augusta green jacket was found at a Canadian thrift store and it can be yours (WaPo) "However, only the Masters champion may take their green jacket off the grounds of the club, and then only for their one year on the throne. And so the mystery of this particular green jacket deepens: How on Earth did it get from Augusta National to a thrift store in Ontario, where it was purchased for $5 by an avid golfer who was rummaging through a pile of jackets and knew exactly what he was getting."
TODAY'S SONG:
- Will This Startup Change the Way We Watch Sports? (Ozy) "...SportsCastr allows fans to broadcast games and provide commentary on social media or choose their own professional broadcasters for customized viewing pleasure."
TECHNOLOGY:
- The secret weapon that will make your next computer super fast (Mashable) "...Optane, a memory module that can change the data game. It takes the speed and fluidity of RAM and combines it with the storage capabilities of Flash memory."
BOTTOM OF THE NEWS:
- An Augusta green jacket was found at a Canadian thrift store and it can be yours (WaPo) "However, only the Masters champion may take their green jacket off the grounds of the club, and then only for their one year on the throne. And so the mystery of this particular green jacket deepens: How on Earth did it get from Augusta National to a thrift store in Ontario, where it was purchased for $5 by an avid golfer who was rummaging through a pile of jackets and knew exactly what he was getting."
TODAY'S SONG:
- Exactly Like You (Greg Holden) "I wrote this song from the perspective of an immigrant, or refugee. I wanted to consider how it must feel to be here right now, without your family, without familiarity, and while half of the country is turning on you." Greg Holden
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