U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials who have used cellphone location data to track people inside the country without a warrant are refusing to tell members of Congress what gives them the legal right to do so, a group of Democratic senators said.
The problem of course, is that it's almost certainly legal without any justification.
In 2015, Jesus Rivera filmed a very unusual science experiment for posterity.
On the asphalt of a sun-soaked parking lot, he placed a mottled black beetle on a pillow of dirt and had a colleague run it over with a Toyota Camry. Twice.
Just about any other bug would have died. This one, a species called Phloeodes diabolicus, did not.
Working with colleagues, [Raman] has developed a thin, mirror-like film engineered to maximize radiative cooling on a molecular level. The film sends heat into space while absorbing almost no radiation, lowering the temperature of objects by more than 10 degrees, even in the midday sun. It can help cool pipes and panels — like a booster rocket for refrigerators and cooling systems. Incorporated into buildings, it may even replace air conditioning. And it requires no electricity, no special fuel — just a clear day and a view of the sky.
A very cool invention (pun intended).
Nearly lost to history and nature, the Ponderosa Way, which spanned from Mount Shasta to Bakersfield, was one of the largest projects of the Depression era. It still holds lessons for a fire-stricken California.
I don't think I laughed as much at anything else in 2020. A must-read.We're trying to think of something nice to say about 2020.
Okay, here goes: Nobody got killed by the murder hornets. As far as we know.
That's pretty much it.
In an internal memo called "The Big Shift", obtained by Big Technology and first reported here, Bosworth called on Facebook employees to prioritize privacy as they built their products, even to the detriment of the user's experience. The public's expectations on privacy were changing, he said, and Facebook's old approach wasn't cutting it anymore.
I'm skeptical.
Millions of Facebook users in Illinois will be receiving about $340 each as Facebook settles a case alleging it broke state law when it collected facial recognition data on users without their consent. The judge hearing the case in federal court in California approved the final settlement on Thursday, six years after legal proceedings began.
Health experts say you should avoid optional trips whenever you can. You probably need a better mask, too.
The title's a bit histrionic for my taste and the article barely addresses that not everyone has the privilege of social distancing, but it does contain lots of good data on what we know about the new variants so far and their danger.
I've been thinking for years about what it would take to make the social web magical in all the right ways — less extreme, less toxic, more true — and I realized only recently that I've been thinking far too narrowly about the problem. I've long wanted Mark Zuckerberg to admit that Facebook is a media company, to take responsibility for the informational environment he created in the same way that the editor of a magazine would. (I pressed him on this once and he laughed.) In recent years, as Facebook's mistakes have compounded and its reputation has tanked, it has become clear that negligence is only part of the problem. No one, not even Mark Zuckerberg, can control the product he made. I've come to realize that Facebook is not a media company. It's a Doomsday Machine.
[The verse] does not say, as Schweitzer misquoted, and as many people seem to think, "For all things, give thanks." Gratitude is not about giving thanks for anything that is evil or unjust. Never for violence, lying, oppression, and suffering. Not for illness, hunger, or abuse. Do not be grateful for these things.
The verse says, "Give thanks in all circumstances." That little Greek word, "en" means in, with, within, and throughout. It locates us, in the here and now. In the past, in the future. In happiness, in despair. In all things. In all times. In all situations.
We shouldn't be grateful for COVID, for the political chaos, for the broken climate, for economic suffering. But we can be grateful through these times, while we are struggling in them.