Stream of Reading (Prepare to be Forwarded) – An Archive of What I'm Reading
Photo: Brendan Smialowski/AFP/Getty Images Bill and Hillary Clinton have decided to attend the inauguration of Donald Trump as the 45th President of the United States, according to two sources with knowledge of their plans. The Clintons will join former Presidents George W. Bush and Jimmy Carter, who have also announced that they will attend. George…
tl;dr: An insurance-related startup named EverQuote was accused of misleading consumers. Mattermark investigates. When money is at stake and transacting parties have asymmetric information, there’s opportunity for exploitation. Companies can take advantage of in-the-dark investors, just as investors can pull a fast one on companies. Hence the phrase “vulture capitalists.” Recently, a fast-growing startup’s misleading advertising campaign, timed…
Born to a man who can’t possibly understand, and the woman who chose him over her magic. Born to take care of two brothers who have powers they must, at all costs, hide. Born to leadership. Born to duty. Minerva. Prefect, Head Girl, winner of Transfiguration Today’s Most Promising Newcomer award. Minerva McGonagall is born…
What if, a recent piece of speculative fiction in Vanity Fair wonders aloud, Megyn Kelly isn’t a poisonous bigot and shameless cable news demagogue, but a complex, flawed icon of modern feminism? Like most science fiction, this is a pack of lies meant for babies. Megyn Kelly is just as racist—or cynically willing to play…
Photo: Vice/HBO It’s a fairly paralyzing time to be a guilty white American liberal. With Donald Trump elected on the basis of one of the race-baitiest presidential campaigns in modern American history, Republicans firmly in power, and mounting evidence that progress toward racial equality has been stalled out for years if not decades, it feels…
Image by Jim Cooke Last week, I asked people who voted for Donald Trump to write in and explain why they made that choice. They did! We got dozens of emails from Trump supporters telling us why they voted the way they did, and I have grouped selections of them into general categories…
The central, overarching conflict of the first six Star Wars movies is that a democratic republic devolves into an authoritarian dictatorship. A key part of that political coup is Anakin Skywalker turning to the dark side and becoming Darth Vader. The way the story is told implies that the fall of the Republic and…
A bout two years ago, while Vine was healthy — before the internet celebrities it germinated outgrew it and ultimately turned against it — three of the bigger names on the platform teamed up with some better-known YouTube personalities for a rap battle to determine which crew’s content reigned superior. Meant as a tongue-in-cheek, real-recognize-real…
SAN FRANCISCO — Last month, Federico Viticci, who runs MacStories, a news site devoted to Apple and its products, made a change in how the site publishes articles for mobile gadgets. MacStories, he declared, would no longer support a Google-backed method for faster loading of mobile web pages, called AMP. Mr. Viticci said MacStories’s pages…
CHAPPAQUA, N.Y. — The other day, Carol Meyer and her friend Ellen went walking in the woods of Chappaqua. For all they knew, they might see a coyote or some rare mushrooms or Hillary Clinton. “I just have a sense — ” said Ellen, putting on her gloves. “You think so?” said Carol, adjusting her…