San Francisco Is First US City to Ban Facial Recognition
Black Bears in TX Need an Open Border ; 'How to Grow a Human' ; and More Picks
Black Bears in TX Need an Open Border ; 'How to Grow a Human' ; and More Picks 5/15
To Survive in Texas, Black Bears Need an Open Border (Chris)
From the Revelator: “Decades after being wiped out in the Lone Star State, black bears are slowly returning. Experts fear that a border wall between the United States and Mexico would end that recovery.”
How Money Flows From Amazon to Racist Troll Haven 8chan (Chris)
The author writes, “8chan differs from other hate sites in that it has a relatively stable presence online. … What’s 8chan’s secret? It can all be traced back to its owner, Jim Watkins and his company NT Technologies. Watkins has created a mostly self-contained system where he hosts the 8chan domain without the help of third parties.”
WaPo Must Acknowledge CIA Role in Pakistan Polio Crisis (Gerry)
The author writes, “If the last three years have taught us anything, it’s that it’s much easier to blame ‘fake news’ than to look in the mirror and see how one’s own country, and their powerful institutions, may bear responsibility for a social ill. This jingoistic narcissism is on full display in a Washington Post editorial (5/10/19) that blamed a recent upsurge in polio in Pakistan on ‘guns, fear and fake news’ — while ignoring the CIA’s central role in the crisis entirely.”
How Silicon Valley’s Successes Are Fueled by an Underclass of ‘Ghost Workers’ (Mili)
From the Verge: “Who are the people, often invisible, who pick up the tasks necessary for … platforms to run? Why do they do this work, and why do they leave? What are their working conditions?”
Book Review: ‘How to Grow a Human’ (Mili)
The author writes, “Ostensibly, How to Grow a Human examines how scientific advances from genomics to assisted reproduction influence human identity. [The author] starts by introducing us to his ‘mini-brain’; a collection of signalling neurons grown from his own reprogrammed skin cells by researchers at University College London. His observation of ‘part of himself’ in a Petri dish begins a journey that spans centuries, giving context to a not-so-distant future in which organs are grown to order and gene editing steers human evolution.”
