Stream of Reading (Prepare to be Forwarded) – An Archive of What I'm Reading
In April 2016, at the height of the deadliest drug epidemic in U.S. history, Congress effectively stripped the Drug Enforcement Administration of its most potent weapon against large drug companies suspected of spilling prescription narcotics onto the nation’s streets. By then, the opioid war had claimed 200,000 lives, more than three times the number of…
I was in the Grand Central Station Apple Store for a third time in a year, watching a progress bar slowly creep across my computer’s black screen as my Genius multi-tasked helping another customer with her iPad. My computer was getting its third diagnostic test in 45 minutes. The problem was not that its logic…
Some of the world’s biggest brands were ripped off by a digital fraud scheme that used a network of websites connected to US advertising industry insiders to steal what experts say could be millions of dollars, a BuzzFeed News investigation has found. Approximately 40 websites used special code that triggered an avalanche of fraudulent views…
About 8 percent of U.S. adults earn money by doing contract work through so-called “gig economy” employers like Uber, Favor, or Amazon Mechanical Turk, according to the Pew Research Center; if the trend continues, one-third of Americans will support themselves this way by 2027. The gig economy is growing rapidly, but it’s also changing how…
After episode 4, I’m no longer sure that Discovery‘s heart is in the right place. War and moral ambiguity are nothing new to Star Trek, but Discovery is unnecessarily cold and brutal. No one in the U.S.S. Discovery’s crew seems to like each other, and the show gives no screentime to the casual side of their…
It’s hard to love a character who harms animals, which is part of why last week’s episode felt so dispiriting. Captain Lorca is ruthless enough use a living creature as spaceship fuel, but it’s sad to see Burnham and Saru follow his lead. By using the captured tardigrade to pilot Discovery’s spore drive, they ignore…
Credit: Illustration by Nicholas Little When BuzzFeed announced with fanfare last week that it is coming out with two bold new ad products that, in part, translate TV ads to GIFs for social and mobile, Jarrod Dicker, VP of commercial product and innovation at The Washington Post, couldn’t resist taking the bait. “The @washingtonpost RED…
Editor’s note: This story is revised from the print editionA funny thing happened this year as investors dove into esports, chasing eight-figure franchises in the Overwatch League and the “League of Legends” League Championship Series: A new game came out of nowhere to win the hearts and minds of fans. Launched in beta mode by…
“You will never be able to understand any of what I’ve created. I am Albert F***ing Einstein and you are all monkeys scrabbling in the dirt.” And so our resident genius, our Dr. Jekyll, explosively completed his transformation into Mr. Hyde. He declared this in front of the product design team, developers, management, and pre-launch customers. One…
“This week, we’ve seen examples of powerful men at the highest levels of entertainment and politics, from Harvey Weinstein to Donald Trump, abusing their power to silence, bully, or coerce. And it’s a reminder that our toxic culture of male entitlement is still very much intact.” I agree with that statement, but I never expected…