- Afraid of Smartphones? Your Parents Felt the Same Way About TV (Wired) "Are these new technologies, which are still in their infancy, harming a rising generation and eroding some basic human fabric? Is today’s concern about smartphones any different than other generations’ anxieties about new technology? Do we know enough to make any conclusions? Alarm at the corrosive effects of new technologies is not new. So it should come as no surprise that concerns about children and smartphones have been rising steadily, and media has picked up on that. There appears to be considerable research suggesting an unhealthy link. It’s worth scrutinizing these conclusions. Widespread parental apprehension combined with studies lasting only a few years, with few data points, and few controls do not make an unequivocal case."
BUSINESS:
- How a Group of Computer Geeks and English Majors Transformed Wall Street (NY Mag) "...the quantitative revolution D.E. Shaw helped spawn has become the biggest trend in hedge funds today, capturing some $500 billion of the industry’s more than $3 trillion in assets and dominating the top tier. Seven out of the top ten largest funds are considered 'quants'... Jeff Bezos, who had joined in 1990, was in charge of the online retailing project at D.E. Shaw. He became so enthused about the possibilities that he asked Shaw if he could take the idea and run with it on his own. Shaw agreed, and Amazon was soon born."
ENTERTAINMENT:
- Jordan Peele’s triple nomination was one of several Oscar milestones (Quartz) "The Get Out filmmaker was nominated for best director, best original screenplay, and best picture, for which he received a producer credit. He’s also only the third person in history to receive those three nominations for a debut movie..."
IMMIGRATION:
- Kimberly-Clark to Cut 5,000 Jobs, Close 10 Factories (WSJ-Paywall) "Watching the immigration debate it’s easy to believe that the U.S. is accepting not just a flood of illegals across the Rio Grande who give birth to instant U.S. citizens, but also massive chains of legal families. So where are they? The U.S. population has been growing very slowly, less than a percent per year since 2010. And what little growth there is lately has largely come from births in the U.S. Even at historically low rates, babies born in the U.S. account for almost four times as many net new Americans as do immigrants."
MORE SMOKE:
- Mueller seeks to question Trump about Flynn and Comey departures (WaPo) "Mueller’s interest in the events that led Trump to push out Flynn and Comey indicates that his investigation is intensifying its focus on possible efforts by the president or others to obstruct or blunt the special counsel’s probe."
- Sessions Is Questioned as Russia Inquiry Focuses on Obstruction (NYT) "The meeting marked the first time that investigators for the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, are known to have interviewed a member of Mr. Trump’s cabinet."
- Robert Mueller’s team has questioned Jeff Sessions. Here’s why that matters. (Vox) "Despite Sessions’s recusal from oversight over the Mueller investigation, as attorney general, he still has oversight over the FBI and has been increasingly responsive to President Trump and conservatives’ criticisms of the bureau. And now, this lengthy interview with the special counsel’s team may well have given Sessions a better understanding about just what, exactly, Mueller is looking into — and just how dangerous it may or may not be for President Trump and for Sessions himself."
NEWS:
- Trump’s Midterm Known Unknowns (National Review) "Yet the dilemma is not just that we are ten months out from the election and relative party popularity is already gyrating, but that there are lots of landmark developments in play that we usually do not experience in any midterm election. The first...is Trump and the polls. Anecdotally, most can attest that colleagues and friends still usually look both ways before whispering, 'Wow, Trump is doing great.' Nor does anyone fathom the effect of the booming economy on the midterm election... We have never seen a stock market boom like the present one. Nor has the U.S. experienced all at once record gas and oil production, peacetime unemployment sinking to 4 percent or lower... The new tax code in the ensuing months might ensure more take-home pay for the middle class and fatten further its 401K accounts. ...no one can foresee the ultimate results of the warring investigations by Robert Mueller’s team and by the House Intelligence Committee. Finally, no one knows the exact electoral effect of the rallies, tweets, and leaked broadsides from the mercurial Trump."
- Tensions swell between Sessions and FBI over senior personnel from Comey era (WaPo) "FBI Director Christopher A. Wray has been resisting pressure from Attorney General Jeff Sessions to replace his deputy director Andrew McCabe... As Sessions tried to push Wray to make personnel changes, Wray became increasingly frustrated and conveyed that frustration to the attorney general, these people said."
- Trump asked the acting FBI director how he voted during Oval Office meeting (WaPo) "McCabe said he didn't vote... Trump, the officials said, also vented his anger at McCabe over the several hundred thousand dollars in donations that his wife, a Democrat, received for her failed 2015 Virginia state Senate bid from a political action committee controlled by a close friend of Hillary Clinton."
TECHNOLOGY:
- The NSA’s voice-recognition system raises hard questions for Echo and Google Home (The Verge) "If you can get all the voice commands sent back to Google or Amazon servers, you’re guaranteed a full profile of the device owner’s voice, and you might even get an errant houseguest in the background. And because speech-to-text algorithms are still relatively new, both Google and Amazon keep audio files in the cloud as a way to catalog transcription errors. It’s a lot of data... So far, there’s been little transparency about how much data agencies are getting from personal voice assistants, if any. Amazon has been noticeably shifty about listing requests for Echo data in its transparency report. Google treats the voice recordings as general user data, and doesn’t break out requests that are specific to Google Home."
WINTER OLYMPICS:
- Under Armour's Olympic Speed Skating Suit Looks to Defeat Physics (Wired) "In a sport where a thousandth of a second can determine who gets a medal and who doesn’t, athletes rely on technology to give them an edge. Speed skaters wage a battle with physics every time they race. The key to winning (against physics and humans alike) is to reduce the amount of air resistance a body produces."
BOTTOM OF THE NEWS:
- Finally, You Can Buy Beer With A Biodegradable Six-Pack Ring (Fast Company) "Plastic six-pack rings are known for trapping and strangling wildlife or being mistaken for food. The new ring, which is biodegradable and compostable, will eventually break down if it’s littered outside or in the water. If an animal eats it, the material won’t harm its digestive system. The current version is made from wheat and barley."
- Doughnut-eating contest winner arrested again after doughnut shop robbery (PilotOnline) "Hardison, 27, of Elizabeth City, was charged Thursday with felony breaking and entering, felony safe cracking and felony larceny of Dunkin’ Donuts on Nov. 21, according to a news release from the Elizabeth City Police Department. In 2014 he won a doughnut eating contest at the Elizabeth City Police Department National Night Out Against Crime event. He devoured eight glazed doughnuts in two minutes, according to reports at the time."
TODAY'S SONG:
- Places (Martin Solveig, ft Ina Wroldsen)
Share Top of the News with someone you think would enjoy it.
TECHNOLOGY:
- The NSA’s voice-recognition system raises hard questions for Echo and Google Home (The Verge) "If you can get all the voice commands sent back to Google or Amazon servers, you’re guaranteed a full profile of the device owner’s voice, and you might even get an errant houseguest in the background. And because speech-to-text algorithms are still relatively new, both Google and Amazon keep audio files in the cloud as a way to catalog transcription errors. It’s a lot of data... So far, there’s been little transparency about how much data agencies are getting from personal voice assistants, if any. Amazon has been noticeably shifty about listing requests for Echo data in its transparency report. Google treats the voice recordings as general user data, and doesn’t break out requests that are specific to Google Home."
WINTER OLYMPICS:
- Under Armour's Olympic Speed Skating Suit Looks to Defeat Physics (Wired) "In a sport where a thousandth of a second can determine who gets a medal and who doesn’t, athletes rely on technology to give them an edge. Speed skaters wage a battle with physics every time they race. The key to winning (against physics and humans alike) is to reduce the amount of air resistance a body produces."
BOTTOM OF THE NEWS:
- Finally, You Can Buy Beer With A Biodegradable Six-Pack Ring (Fast Company) "Plastic six-pack rings are known for trapping and strangling wildlife or being mistaken for food. The new ring, which is biodegradable and compostable, will eventually break down if it’s littered outside or in the water. If an animal eats it, the material won’t harm its digestive system. The current version is made from wheat and barley."
- Doughnut-eating contest winner arrested again after doughnut shop robbery (PilotOnline) "Hardison, 27, of Elizabeth City, was charged Thursday with felony breaking and entering, felony safe cracking and felony larceny of Dunkin’ Donuts on Nov. 21, according to a news release from the Elizabeth City Police Department. In 2014 he won a doughnut eating contest at the Elizabeth City Police Department National Night Out Against Crime event. He devoured eight glazed doughnuts in two minutes, according to reports at the time."
TODAY'S SONG:
- Places (Martin Solveig, ft Ina Wroldsen)
Share Top of the News with someone you think would enjoy it.
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