Today I learned MetaFilter is still a thing and it’s still very good.
A court in Dresden, Germany, sentenced two men to prison for copyright infringement – on Usenet Yes, Usenet is still a thing. [The Register]
Matt Yglesias and Jenny Schuetz solve the housing crisis
Vox journalist Matt Yglesias talks with Jenny Scheutz, housing economist and fellow at the Brookings Institution to untangle the US housing crisis.
Some threads: Exclusionary zoning is a big part of the problem; people in affluent neighborhoods don’t want to see more housing built. Rent control tends to exacerbate problems by discouraging rental property. Tying up so much American middle-class wealth in housing makes it hard to drive down prices; if your entire retirement is tied up in your house, as it is for many Americans, you’re going to fight to keep prices as high as possible, which hurts the poor, lower-middle-class and young adults.
![mp-photo-alt[]=mp-photo-alt[]=mp-photo-alt[]=](https://MitchWagner.micro.blog/uploads/2019/1c0357be3e.jpg)
Oh, lovely, a bipartisan election hack alert law bill for Mitch McConnell to feed into the shredder
“Two US lawmakers are pushing a bipartisan bill that would force the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to alert the public of hacking attempts on election computer systems.” The Republican Party opposes election reform because it knows it can only win crooked elections. On The Register.
Rural America Might See More 5G With FCC's New 2.5GHz Order
But the plan draws criticism. Mike Dano reports on Light Reading:
“Today’s vote doubles down on the same auction-driven spectrum policies that have left rural America unserved and low-income students forced to do their homework on WiFi in McDonald’s parking lots,” added John Schwartz, president and founder of Voqal, a company that acts as a middleman between schools that want to lease EBS spectrum and companies like Sprint that want access to that spectrum. “Instead of updating EBS and expanding on the strong track record of licensees such as Voqal – which is proud of our record of serving schools and low-income communities – the Commission has voted to commercialize a vital public asset.”
Metallica to publish children’s book, The ABCs of Metallica [Ben Beaumont-Thomas/The Guardian] Never too early to start the youngsters on metal, death and desolation.
Instagrammers Love This Turquoise Lake, But It’s Actually A Toxic Dump [Salvador Hernandez/Buzzfeed News]
I’m a bad person for laughing at this story.
Beautiful photos tho.
People are actually going into the lake to get better pictures. Instagram makes people stupid.
Microsoft Teams overtakes Slack with 13 million daily users. [Tom Warren/The Verge] We use Teams and I’ve used Slack too. I don’t see any significant difference, other than that Teams is a Microsoft service, which will be a plus for Microsoft shops and a negative for others.
Shoelace is Google's new social network
A new project from Google’s in-house incubator, Area 120, aims to help people find things to do and others who share your same interests. Through a new app called Shoelace — a name designed to make you think of tying things together — users can browse through a set of hand-picked activities, or add their own to a map. For example, someone who wanted to connect with fellow dog owners could start an activity for a doggie playdate at the park, then start a group chat to coordinate the details and make new friends.
The end result feels a bit like a mashup of Facebook Events with a WhatsApp group chat, perhaps. But it’s wrapped in a clean, modern design that appeals more to the millennial or Gen Z user.
I’d rather use Facebook, WhatsApp, Meetup or some other service that’s likely to still be here in a year.
I see Google is starting yet another social network.
Google+, Google Reader, Google Buzz, Google Wave, Orkut, and Dodgeball weren’t enough for them.
If this new one seems interesting to you, enjoy it, but don’t expect it to be around in three years.
Weirdly, Google is actually one of the two most successful social media companies in the world. But nobody thinks of them that way. And other than that one spectacular hit, Google has been an utter disaster at social media.
You’re just embarrassing yourself, Google – stay home.
Novelist Stephen McCauley explores sexuality and relationships in “My Ex-Life." His novel “is a comedy about a couple whose marriage ended years ago when the husband came out as gay.” The woman contacts her ex-husband decades later when she has family troubles.
McCauley gives a lively interview on the Fresh Air podcast.
Recycling: People should stop thinking of recycling as a virtue, and start considering whether individual recycling programs are actually doing good. On the 50 Things That Made the Modern Economy podcast.
Can You Hear It? Sonic Devices Play High-Pitched Noises To Repel Teens
Philadelphia is putting a gadget in 30 parks and recreation centers that blares a constant, high-pitched ringing noise that only teens and young adults can hear, all night long. Some 20 parks departments around the country are implementing the youth-repellent devices. But the devices are also extremely annoying to some older adults with sensitive ears. And critics say the campaigns are just prejudice, and wrong.
“In a city that is trying to address gun violence and safe spaces for young people,” Philadelphia City Council member Helen Gym tells NPR, “how dare we come up with ideas that are funded by taxpayer dollars to turn young people away from the very places that were created for them?”
Gym is right. Ban behavior, not people.
Anti-“marihuana” ad, 1930s. reddit.com/r/vintage…
I don’t think “dope peddlers” are giving weed away. I don’t think that’s how it works.
Elementary Education Has Gone Terribly Wrong
In the early grades, U.S. schools value reading-comprehension skills over knowledge. The results are devastating, especially for poor kids….
What if the best way to boost reading comprehension is not to drill kids on discrete skills but to teach them, as early as possible, the very things we’ve marginalized—including history, science, and other content that could build the knowledge and vocabulary they need to understand both written texts and the world around them?
www.theatlantic.com/magazine/…
Jibes with my own experiences as a child. Reading comprehension books bored me. I learned to read in school but taught myself to get good at it at home, with books I found interesting, generally science fiction.
They finally built a better ketchup bottle. And soon it’s going to be everywhere. www.washingtonpost.com/business/…
The bottle will be everywhere. Not the ketchup.
I don’t use much ketchup anymore, but it will be a happy day when they start using this for Gulden’s Spicy Brown Mustard and Sriracha sauce.
IBM: We Won’t ‘Bluewash’ Red Hat: IBM executives say they’d be fools to compromise Red Hat’s independence, following the $34 billion acquisition that closed this week. By me on Light Reading. www.lightreading.com/cloud/ibm…
ONAP ‘Dublin’ Lightens Network Orchestration: The latest release of the Open Network Automation Platform (ONAP) sports enhancements designed to get the software up and running faster, so carriers can get on with sexy innovation. www.lightreading.com/open-sour…