First Derivative [28]
A pretty wide ranging week. If your time is limited I recommend reading the top two articles (and if you can, the original Coates piece that the first article is responding to). Enjoy!
The Birthmark of Damnation: Ta-Nehisi Coates and the Black Body
Liza Bramlett was a slave. She lived on a cotton plantation in the Mississippi Delta, during the 19th century. White men raped her repeatedly throughout her life. They traded her…
This is a response to the recent Coates piece in The Atlantic which I also recommend you read. I've always found Coates to be as problematic as he is eloquent. I think this piece does a fair job at communicating why.—TK
You Are the Product: It Zucks!
Also amazing: as Facebook has grown, its users' reliance on it has also grown. The increase in numbers is not, as one might expect, accompanied by a lower level of engagement. More does not mean worse – or worse, at least, from Facebook's…
Strongly recommended read. H/t GJB—TK
AI that can determine a person's sexuality from photos shows the dark side of the data age
We count on machine learning systems for everything from creating playlists to driving cars, but like any tool, they can be bent towards dangerous and unethical purposes as well. Today's illustration of this fact is a new paper from Stanford…
Scary. Imagine this being used in Russia—TK
The Risk of Nuclear War with North Korea
The United States has no diplomatic relations with North Korea, so there is no embassy in Washington, but for years the two countries have relied on the “ New York channel,” an office inside North Korea's mission to the United…
Why the Republican Party Will Come to Regret Rolling Back DACA
I've followed the politics and reality of immigration for a long time. In the mid-1980s, I traveled around the country for several months on a big reporting project for The Atlantic about that era's new migrants. I went and learned about the…
Pro DACA, pro increased immigration, anti open borders, anti low-skilled immigration—TK
Artificial Intelligence Fuels New Global Arms Race
For many Russian students, the academic year started last Friday with tips on planetary domination from President Vladimir Putin. “Artificial intelligence is the future, not only for Russia, but for all humankind,” he said, via live…
Down $240 Million on His Seven-Year Short, a China Bear Gives In
Mark Hart spent seven years and $240 million waiting on a crash in China's currency. He lost sleep. He lost clients. He damn near lost his sanity. And now he's lost his conviction: Hart, who called for a more than 50 percent yuan…
interesting data point—TK
The Smartphone's Future: It's All About the Camera
We all know the drill. For the last decade, smartphones have gotten thinner and faster and thinner and faster and, well, you get the picture. But it's too soon to write off our smartphones as boring. The gadgets are still…
Why the Equifax breach is very possibly the worst leak of personal info ever
It's a sad reality in 2017 that a data breach affecting 143 million people is dwarfed by other recent hacks—for instance, the ones hitting Yahoo in 2013 and 2014, which exposed personal details for 1 billion and 500 million users…
Ma Soe Yein is the largest Buddhist monastery in Mandalay, Myanmar. A dreary sprawl of dormitories and classrooms, it is located in the western half of the city, and accommodates some 2,500 monks. The atmosphere inside is one of quiet industry.