Literally:
- Inside The Great Poop Emoji Feud (BuzzFeed) "Their argument centers around 'Frowning Pile Of Poo,' one of the emojis under consideration for the June 2018 class. In an Oct. 22 memo to the Unicode Technical Committee, Everson tore into the committee over the submission calling it 'damaging ... to the Unicode standard.'"
- Energy Secretary Rick Perry says fossil fuels can prevent sexual assault (NBS News) "'But also from the standpoint of sexual assault, when the lights are on, when you have light that shines, the righteousness, if you will, on those types of acts,' Perry said. 'So from the standpoint of how you really affect people's lives, fossil fuels is going to play a role in that. I happen to think it's going to play a positive role.'"
- Google Limits Access to Airfare Data, Risking Antitrust Concerns (Wired) "In 2010, When Google paid $700 million to acquire airline-data company ITA Software, the Department of Justice scrutinized the deal for antitrust issues. The deal was ultimately approved, but one condition of the approval required Google to allow others to access the data for five years. Now, seven years later, Google is cutting off access to ITA data for some companies that rely on it. Google has not been shy about its ambitions to win in online travel booking."
- Billionaire CEO Joe Ricketts shuts down DNAinfo and Gothamist (LA Times) "There are 116 employees overall between DNA and Gothamist. Last week, the New York newsroom of DNAinfo and Gothamist voted to join the Writers Guild of America East. On Thursday, the journalists learned they would be out of a job. 'The decision by the NY editorial team to unionize is simply another competitive obstacle making it harder for the business to be financially successful,' a DNA spokesperson said in an email. While the company isn’t disclosing specific financial information, DNAinfo has lost money since its launch."
CLIMATE CHANGE:
- Massive Government Report Says Climate Is Warming And Humans Are The Cause (NPR) "The report states that the global climate will continue to warm. How much, it says, 'will depend primarily on the amount of greenhouse gases (especially carbon dioxide) emitted globally.' Without major reductions in emissions, it says, the increase in annual average global temperature could reach 9 degrees Fahrenheit. Efforts to reduce emissions, it says, would slow the rate of warming. 'This is good, solid climate science,' says Richard Alley, a geoscientist at Penn State University who says he made minor contributions to the report's conclusions on sea level rise. 'This has been reviewed so many times in so many ways, and it's taking what we know from ... a couple of centuries of climate science and applying it to the U.S.'"
NEWS:
- The War on the Left Is Getting Nasty (New Yorker) "Greenberg and other prominent Democrats still furious about last year’s Clinton campaign think it’s entirely possible [that Trump gets reelected], unless the Party figures out, and fast, a way to tackle the problem that sealed Clinton’s fate in 2016: how to appeal to the disaffected white working-class voters who provided Trump’s unlikely win a year ago."
- The Balfour Declaration Century (New Yorker) "'His Majesty’s government,' the Balfour Declaration read, 'view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.'"
- “A Different Level of Cazy”: Is Civil War Breaking Out In the Wall Street Journal Over The Editorial Board's Coverage of Mueller? (Vanity Fair) "While the paper has long been a leading bastion of conservative thinking, its editorial writers are known to take positions that are more extreme than many of their colleagues in the newsroom can stomach. In recent days, of course, the opinion coverage has produced controversial commentary on Robert Mueller’s Trump-Russia investigation, often flying in the face of the Journal’s own news reporting. Former high-ranking Journal editor Bill Grueskin spoke for many when he tweeted, 'WSJ edit page has gone full bats--t.' Members of a group of prominent conservatives pushing congressional Republicans to support the Mueller investigation told The Washington Post they were worried that the influence of Fox, the Post, and the Journal would encourage Trump to fire Mueller and 'spark a constitutional crisis...'"
- Inside Hillary Clinton’s Secret Takeover of the DNC (Politico) "As Hillary’s campaign gained momentum, she resolved the party’s debt and put it on a starvation diet. It had become dependent on her campaign for survival, for which she expected to wield control of its operations."
- Defense Department: The War On Terror Has Cost $250 Million A Day For 16 Years (International Business Times) "The report’s costs include only direct war-related expenses such as operating and maintaining bases, procuring equipment, and paying for and feeding troops. It most notably does not include the expense of veteran’s benefits for troops who serve in these wars or the intelligence community’s expenses related to Global War on Terror. According to the Veterans’ Benefits Administration’s 2016 annual benefits report , 1,060,408 veterans are receiving service-related benefits, averaging $15,907 a year. The total annual benefits for Global War on Terror veterans’ benefits are currently $16.8 billion per year, which over the next 40 years would total $674 billion..."
- The Danger of President Pence (New Yorker) "Pence’s odds of becoming President are long but not prohibitive. Trump campaigned as an unorthodox outsider, but Pence is a doctrinaire ideologue. ...Pence has the political experience, the connections, the discipline, and the ideological mooring that Trump lacks. He also has a close relationship with the conservative billionaire donors who have captured the Republican Party’s agenda in recent years. Pence is the inside man of the conservative money machine. 'If Pence were to become President for any reason, the government would be run by the Koch brothers—period. He’s been their tool for years,' he [Senator Sheldon Whitehouse] said. Many Americans have debated whether the country would be better off with Pence as President. From a purely partisan viewpoint, Harold Ickes...argues that—putting aside the fear that Trump might start a nuclear war—'Democrats should hope Trump stays in office,' because he makes a better foil, and because Pence might work more effectively with Congress and be more successful at advancing the far right’s agenda."
SPORTS:
- Want to See Some Curling? Ticket Sales Tepid for Pyeongchang Olympics (NYT) "'Koreans are known to be last-minute buyers,' said Nancy Park, a spokeswoman for the group that is responsible for organizing the Pyeongchang Games, in response to questions about why only 341,327 of 1.07 million tickets had been sold so far. The numbers for the Paralympics, which will take place in Pyeongchang from March 9 to 18, were even worse. According to the organizing committee, only 8,902 tickets had been sold as of Oct. 24, with the vast majority purchased as part of group packages. Only 499 individual tickets had been sold."
- How Moneyball Tactics Built a Basketball Juggernaut (Wired) "Having spent decades investing in experimental technologies, Lacob was one of the first NBA execs to see potential in SportVU, a motion-capture camera system. Another company, MOCAP Analytics, used AI and machine learning to turn the raw SportVU data into play simulations. Like big-data-obsessed startups, the Warriors began quantifying everything, from players’ sleep schedules to their shooting accuracy."
TECHNOLOGY:
- How to Use Plex to Build a Seamless Media Library (Wired) "...with Plex, you can turn any computer into a media share you can access anywhere. Best of all? Plex is free... If you just want to experiment, feel free to download Plex and run it on the computer you already own. Simply set up a Plex account, install the server software, and tell Plex where your media is on your hard disk."
TODAY'S SONG:
- Over and Over (Goo Goo Dolls - Remix by Redone and T.I. Jakke)
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