- Donald Trump Didn’t Want to Win – and Neither Did His Campaign (New Yorker) "Even though the numbers in a few key states had appeared to be changing to Trump’s advantage, neither Conway nor Trump himself nor his son-in-law, Jared Kushner—the effective head of the campaign—wavered in their certainty: Their unexpected adventure would soon be over. Not only would Trump not be president, almost everyone in the campaign agreed, he should probably not be. As the campaign came to an end, Trump himself was sanguine. His ultimate goal, after all, had never been to win. 'I can be the most famous man in the world,' he had told his aide Sam Nunberg at the outset of the race. He would come out of this campaign, Trump assured {Roger} Ailes, with a far more powerful brand and untold opportunities. Shortly after 8 p.m. on Election Night, when the unexpected trend—Trump might actually win—seemed confirmed, Don Jr. told a friend that his father...looked as if he had seen a ghost. Melania was in tears—and not of joy."
- Trump Lawyer Demands Bannon ‘Cease and Desist’ (WSJ - Paywall) "Late Wednesday, an attorney for the president and the Trump campaign sent Mr. Bannon a letter demanding he cease disparaging statements, saying they violate the terms of his employment agreement with the campaign. The rift threatens to widen divisions in the Republican party, says the Journal’s Gerald F. Seib, and undercuts claims by those close to Mr. Trump that the investigation by special sounsel Robert Mueller will fizzle out."
BUSINESS:
- How Spotify solved a $1 billion debt problem that will help it IPO (Recode) "Spotify intends to go public this spring, and it’s taking the unusual, all-but-untested approach of a direct listing — meaning it will be traded as a public company without raising new cash. As part of its preparation for a Q1 IPO, the streaming music company cleared up a sticky $1 billion debt deal with the help of Chinese tech company Tencent." and Spotify has been hit with a $1.6 billion lawsuit from a music publisher that represents titles by Tom Petty, Neil Young and Stevie Nicks (Variety) " Wixen Music Publishing alleges that Spotify is underpaying songwriters and streaming thousands of songs without a proper license."
HEALTH:
- Why You Need the Flu Shot Every Year (NYT) "Measles, pertussis, hepatitis and other viruses we have vaccines for don’t change from year to year, says Dr. Ruth Karron, an epidemiology professor and director of the Center for Immunization Research at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore. So the vaccine doesn’t need to change either. Unfortunately, the influenza virus is a ruthless master of disguise. 'Not only does flu change, but it’s a survival strategy for the virus. Its change is how it makes people so sick,' Dr. Karron explained. Tiny mutations help the virus evade detection, and as it evades detection, it’s more successful at multiplying. 'The vaccines we have target the part of the virus that changes so rapidly, so our vaccines have to evolve along with the virus,' Dr. Karron said. Considering all the influenza virus’s tricks for infecting humans, it’s remarkable we’ve created a vaccine that works at all. And in fact, the vaccine prevents thousands of deaths every year. Most years, the vaccine cuts your chance ofcatching the flu in half, but it’s hard to get much better odds than that from it. But getting the flu vaccine means your body has at least some sense of the viruses out there."
LIFE:
- Two dying memoirists wrote bestsellers about their final days. Then their spouses fell in love (WaPo) "The story of Lucy Kalanithi and John Duberstein is both unlikely and destined, the stuff of a rom-com. It begins, tragically, on a death bed."
NEWS:
- The Republicans’ Fake Investigations (NYT) "Three congressional committees have heard over 21 hours of testimony from our firm, Fusion GPS. In those sessions, we toppled the far right’s conspiracy theories and explained how The Washington Free Beacon and the Clinton campaign — the Republican and Democratic funders of our Trump research — separately came to hire us in the first place. We don’t believe the Steele dossier was the trigger for the F.B.I.’s investigation into Russian meddling. As we told the Senate Judiciary Committee in August, our sources said the dossier was taken so seriously because it corroborated reports the bureau had received from other sources, including one inside the Trump camp."
- VIRGINIA'S $40 TOLL ROAD BETTER BE THE FUTURE OF DRIVING (Wired) "The nice thing about congestion charges isn't just that they can encourage people to take public transit, or at least to carpool, but that they make drivers pay for their role in creating traffic and spewing greenhouse gases. The Virginia Department of Transportation did not respond to requests for comment, but the agency would probably like me to note here that the $40 price lasted only six minutes before dropping to a slightly less bananas price, and that the average tolls for Monday's eastbound morning and westbound evening commutes were $10.70 and $3.80, respectively. And perhaps most importantly, traffic got better. Travel times in the area dropped by five to 20 minutes compared to the same time last year."
- Graphic For Thought
READ THIS:
- Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future (Ashlee Vance) "Elon Musk spotlights the technology and vision of Elon Musk, the renowned entrepreneur and innovator behind SpaceX, Tesla, and SolarCity, who sold one of his internet companies, PayPal, for $1.5 billion. Ashlee Vance captures the full spectacle and arc of the genius’s life and work, from his tumultuous upbringing in South Africa and flight to the United States to his dramatic technical innovations and entrepreneurial pursuits."
- Leonardo Da Vinci (Walter Isaacson) "Isaacson’s empathetic and deeply researched portrait illustrates how he willed himself to genius through endless curiosity and a creativity that sometimes crossed over into fantasy. ...da Vinci was a polymath-- he was passionate about art, science, nature, and technology, and he never stopped questioning, practicing, or experimenting."
TECHNOLOGY:
- Massive chip flaw not limited to Intel (Axios) "The issue, which has to do with how modern chips speculatively execute code, leaves a wide range of processors vulnerable to attack. For now the solution appears to be rewriting devices' operating systems, meaning lots of work for Microsoft, Google, Apple and others. An already big problem is actually even bigger than previously thought. Already believed to impact nearly all computers, servers and cloud operating systems, it could impact cell phones and other devices as well. However, Intel says that contrary to early reports, the performance impact shouldn't be major for most users."
- Want to See a World Without Net Neutrality? Look at These Old Cellphone Plans (WSJ - Paywall) "In 2014, Virgin Mobile USA, a unit of Sprint Corp., offered a wireless plan that cost $12, but users were only allowed to access one website: either Facebook, Twitter, Instagram or Pinterest. If they wanted all four, it was $10 more a month. Experts believe such practices will become even more commonplace and more elaborate as rules surrounding net neutrality are lifted. They are concerned that the open internet could be warped into something that looks more like cable TV, where consumers must pay for access to bundles of content."
- As Artificial Intelligence Advances, Here Are Five Tough Projects for 2018 (Wired) "The meaning of our words. One strand of that work aims to give machines the kind of grounding in common sense and the physical world that underpins our own thinking. The reality gap impeding the robot revolution. Getting a robot to do anything requires specific programming for a particular task. They can learn operations like grasping objects from repeated trials (and errors). But the process is relatively slow. Guarding against AI hacking. There’s evidence that the complexity of machine-learning software introduces new avenues of attack. Graduating beyond boardgames. They [boardgames] are a good match for computers’ ability to rapidly spool through many possible future positions. But most situations and problems in life are not so neatly structured. Teaching AI to distinguish right from wrong. The next year should see tech companies put forward ideas for how to keep AI on the right side of humanity."
- 10 ways tech will shape your life in 2018, for better and worse (WaPo) "As I look into my crystal ball at what new technologies are most likely to shape our lives in the next 12 months, I see science-fiction dreams coming to life: glasses that mix reality and imagination, an electric car in my driveway and gadgets that charge without plugs. But coming out of a year where most Americans were hacked and Silicon Valley got scolded by Congress, there’s plenty to worry about. How many ways will artificial intelligence make decisions without us? And how long should we remain panicked about cybersecurity lapses?"
TRUMPTEL:
- President Trump ends controversial voter fraud commission (LA Times) "The Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity, created by executive order in May with the stated goal of restoring confidence and integrity in the electoral process, has faced a barrage of lawsuits in recent months over privacy concerns, as the commission sought personal data on voters across the country. Most analysts have said that there has been little or no evidence of voter fraud in U.S. elections."
BOTTOM OF THE NEWS:
- Beers Americans no longer drink (USAToday) "...shifts in consumer tastes forces can have major implications for beer makers, and some of the industry’s largest brands are losing market share year after year. For many of the beer industry’s most iconic brands — such as Budweiser, Bud Light, and Miller High Life — the best days may be in the past."
TODAY'S SONG:
- Doomsday (Ryan Adams)
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