Finland just launched an experiment giving 2,000 people free money until 2019 - 0 views
The Youth Group That Launched a Movement at Standing Rock - The New York Times - 0 views
Plastic Watch: First Ocean Cleanup Array to Launch Tomorrow | naked capitalism - 0 views
It's not all Pepes and trollfaces - memes can be a force for good - The Verge - 0 views
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"How the 'emotional contagion' of memes makes them the internet's moral conscience By Allie Volpe Aug 27, 2018, 11:30am EDT Illustration by Alex Castro & Keegan Larwin SHARE Newly single, Jason Donahoe was perusing Tinder for the first time since it started integrating users' Instagram feeds. Suddenly, he had an idea: follow the Instagram accounts of some of the women he'd been interested in but didn't match with on the dating service. A few days later, he considered taking it a step further and direct messaging one of the women on Instagram. After all, the new interface of the dating app seemed to encourage users to explore other areas of potential matches' online lives, so why not take the initiative to reach out? Before he had a chance, however, he came across the profile of another woman whose Tinder photo spread featured a meme with Parks and Recreation character Jean-Ralphio Saperstein (Ben Schwartz) leaning into the face of Ben Wyatt (Adam Scott) with the caption: hey I saw you on Tinder but we didn't match so I found your Instagram you're so beautiful you don't need to wear all that makeup ahah I bet you get a lot of creepy dm's but I'm not like all those other guys message me back beautiful btw what's your snap "I was like, 'Oh shit, wow,'" Donahoe says. Seeing his potential jerk move laid out so plainly as a neatly generalized joke, he saw it in a new light. "I knew a) to be aware of that, and b) to cut that shit out … It prompted self-reflection on my part." THE MOST SUCCESSFUL MEMES STRIKE A CULTURAL CHORD AND CAN GUIDE AND EVEN INFLUENCE BEHAVIOR Donahoe says memes have resonated with him particularly when they depict a "worse, extreme version" of himself. For Donahoe, the most successful memes are more than just jokes. They "strike a societal, cultural chord" and can be a potent cocktail for self-reflection as tools that can guide and even influence behavior. In the months leading up to the 2016 US
Sainsbury's launches £1.50 edible insect range in UK supermarket first - 0 views
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"We're on a mission to show the West that as well as having very strong sustainability and environmental credentials, they are also seriously tasty and shouldn't be overlooked as a great snack or recipe ingredient."Sainsbury's and EatGrub say insects are more popular than might be expected, with a survey finding that 10% of Britons have tried them and more than half of those have enjoyed them.
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Eat Grub says dried crickets contain more protein per gram than beef, chicken or pork - with 68g of protein per 100g, compared to 31g of protein in beef.Edible insects are also said to be more sustainable than other meat, taking up less land and requiring less animal feed than livestock.
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Food policy manager at WWF Duncan Williamson said edible insects could help reduce shoppers' carbon footprint.He said: "As the population increases, we urgently need to look at alternative protein sources to make the most of land available for food production."
Amazon Is Finally Helping Developers Turn Alexa Skills Into Money - 0 views
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Amazon is announcing general availability in the U.S. for in-skill purchasing, which allows the creator of a skill to sell content to an Alexa user–both one-off purchases and monthly or yearly subscriptions, with the entire transaction handled inside the skill via voice on a device such as an Echo or a third-party Alexa-compatible gadget. (As with mobile app stores, developers get 70% of the price paid by users, and Amazon collects 30% as its reward for facilitating the transaction.) In addition, the company is opening up the ability for sellers of real-world goods and services to receive payment via Alexa using the Amazon Pay service; early adopters include 1-800-Flowers, TGI Friday’s, and Atom Tickets.
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With Alexa’s new monetization features just reaching broad availability, it’s too early to gauge their long-term impact on the platform. But for the moment, at least, they give developers an incentive to devote even more resources to Amazon’s voice service rather than divert attention to its most formidable rival, Google Assistant. Google just launched a fund to invest in Google Assistant-centric startups–reminiscent of the Alexa Fund that Amazon established back in 2015–but it hasn’t yet given Assistant commerce features like the ones Alexa is adding.
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“We’re at this inflection point with Alexa,” Rabuchin says. “We’ve laid the foundation for the voice economy, and now, by opening up all these monetization capabilities, we think it’s going to really take off in the next year.” The idea that an epoch-shifting phenomenon like Alexa hasn’t yet taken off is a bit of a mind-bender–but whatever happens next, it’s clearly entering a new phase.
Investigation launched after Galileo satellite services blocked for six days - 0 views
My Part in an Origin Story: The Launching of the Santa Fe Institute-Stephen Wolfram Blog - 0 views
Psephology in Free Fall | Sam Kriss - 0 views
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"Our word for the science of elections is psephology. The word is quite new; it was coined in 1948 by the British historian R. B. McCallum, otherwise chiefly remembered for his aphoristic dictum for democracy-watchers: "Find immortality in the footnotes of others." One of McCallum's colleagues, David Butler, later remarked, "Actually I regret having launched the word. It implies there is some occult expertise about the subject.""
Why a 400-Year Program of Modernist Thinking is Exploding | naked capitalism - 0 views
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" Fearless commentary on finance, economics, politics and power Follow yvessmith on Twitter Feedburner RSS Feed RSS Feed for Comments Subscribe via Email SUBSCRIBE Recent Items Links 3/11/17 - 03/11/2017 - Yves Smith Deutsche Bank Tries to Stay Alive - 03/11/2017 - Yves Smith John Helmer: Australian Government Trips Up Ukrainian Court Claim of MH17 as Terrorism - 03/11/2017 - Yves Smith 2:00PM Water Cooler 3/10/2017 - 03/10/2017 - Lambert Strether Why a 400-Year Program of Modernist Thinking is Exploding - 03/10/2017 - Yves Smith Links 3/10/17 - 03/10/2017 - Yves Smith Why It Will Take a Lot More Than a Smartphone to Get the Sharing Economy Started - 03/10/2017 - Yves Smith CalPERS' General Counsel Railroads Board on Fiduciary Counsel Selection - 03/10/2017 - Yves Smith Another Somalian Famine - 03/10/2017 - Yves Smith Trade now with TradeStation - Highest rated for frequent traders Why a 400-Year Program of Modernist Thinking is Exploding Posted on March 10, 2017 by Yves Smith By Lynn Parramore, Senior Research Analyst at the Institute for New Economic Thinking. Originally published at the Institute for New Economic Thinking website Across the globe, a collective freak-out spanning the whole political system is picking up steam with every new "surprise" election, rush of tormented souls across borders, and tweet from the star of America's great unreality show, Donald Trump. But what exactly is the force that seems to be pushing us towards Armageddon? Is it capitalism gone wild? Globalization? Political corruption? Techno-nightmares? Rajani Kanth, a political economist, social thinker, and poet, goes beyond any of these explanations for the answer. In his view, what's throwing most of us off kilter - whether we think of ourselves as on the left or right, capitalist or socialist -was birthed 400 years ago during the period of the Enlightenment. It's a set of assumptions, a particular way of looking at the world that pushed out previous modes o
Analysis | Republicans' health-care plan could launch some ugly political battles in st... - 0 views
New Zealand launches into space race with 3D-printed rocket - 0 views
Ford Carrier is a Failure With Huge Radar, Elevator, Launch and Landing Problems - Next... - 0 views
Lighting up a megacity at night will lead to night solar farm lighting - NextBigFuture.com - 0 views
Are You Creditworthy? The Algorithm Will Decide. - 0 views
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The decisions made by algorithmic credit scoring applications are not only said to be more accurate in predicting risk than traditional scoring methods; its champions argue they are also fairer because the algorithm is unswayed by the racial, gender, and socioeconomic biases that have skewed access to credit in the past.
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Algorithmic credit scores might seem futuristic, but these practices do have roots in credit scoring practices of yore. Early credit agencies, for example, hired human reporters to dig into their customers’ credit histories. The reports were largely compiled from local gossip and colored by the speculations of the predominantly white, male middle class reporters. Remarks about race and class, asides about housekeeping, and speculations about sexual orientation all abounded.
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By 1935, whole neighborhoods in the U.S. were classified according to their credit characteristics. A map from that year of Greater Atlanta comes color-coded in shades of blue (desirable), yellow (definitely declining) and red (hazardous). The legend recalls a time when an individual’s chances of receiving a mortgage were shaped by their geographic status.
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The Company That Wants to Fling Rockets Into Space With a Giant Centrifuge - 0 views
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