Did a million years of rain jump-start dinosaur evolution?
2 by sohkamyung | 0 comments on Hacker News.
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Kim Jong-un: fragile and under pressure but he won’t give up
The Observer The North Korean leader’s surprise freeze of his nuclear programme is less a genuine move than a diplomatic manoeuvre,...
Tuesday, 3 December 2019
Vox Sentences: Uh-oh, NATO
Ludovic Marin/Pool/AFP/Getty Images
NATO hosts an unpleasant exchange; Indians demand justice for a murdered sexual assault victim.
Vox Sentences is your daily digest for what’s happening in the world. Sign up for the Vox Sentences newsletter, delivered straight to your inbox Monday through Friday, or view the Vox Sentences archive for past editions.
Trump vs. Macron
- As the 70th anniversary of NATO began this week, a spat between President Donald Trump and French President Emmanuel Macron set an unpleasant tone for the celebration. [New York Times / Katie Rogers and Annie Karni]
- During an interview with the Economist magazine last week, Macron lamented the “brain death” of NATO due to America’s unwillingness to work with its allies. In response, Trump called Macron’s comments “nasty” and “disrespectful” during a press conference with NATO’s secretary general. [Washington Post / Ashley Parker, Philip Rucker, and Michael Birnbaum]
- Trump even claimed to be a great champion of the alliance — despite his threats about potentially leaving NATO if partners don’t pay up. [Vox / Alex Ward]
- Curious about how much each member spends on NATO? Here’s a graph of all the member’s contributions as a percent of their total GDP. [CNBC / Amanda Macias and Nate Rattner]
- Macron refused to recant his statements. [CNN / Maegan Vazquez and Allie Malloy]
- While the riff made headlines, Trump-centered worries are not the only ones plaguing the alliance. Division and disagreements between the member states also greatly threaten the effectiveness of NATO. [NBC News / Alexander Smith]
- Here’s a breakdown of the factions among the 29 member countries — sorted by disagreements on China, Russia, terrorism, and more. [Politico / Ryan Heath]
Protests in India demand justice for killed rape victim
- New Delhi, Mumbai, and several other Indian cities saw crowds take to the streets to call for justice in the case of a young woman raped and murdered last week. [AP / Sheikh Saaliq]
- Police believe that four men deflated the tires of a 27-year-old veterinarian, pretending to offer her assistance before raping and murdering her. Her body was found burned in a wooded area the next day. The four men have been arrested, having made full confessions. [NPR / Lauren Frayer]
- Violence against women has received increased attention in India since 2012, after a brutal gang-rape and murder of a woman on a bus in New Delhi. Subsequent protests and outrage have resulted in several legislations to protect women. [Bloomberg]
- Some women say that city safety measures won’t be enough, that there needs to be larger reform in attitudes about women in India. “We have got used to fear. Let’s fix attitudes instead of trying to blame cities,” said Samyukta, a local woman. [BBC]
Miscellaneous
- As evident in his resurgence in pop culture, Mister Rogers is still teaching us about how to get along— even across generations. [Vulture / Jen Chaney]
- Despite Trump granting states the mandate to ban refugees, one historically conservative state is asking for more of them. [Washington Post / Griff Witte]
- “Horrified and ashamed”: A woman says she was forced to sleep with British Prince Andrew while on a business trip with her boss Jeffrey Epstein. [CBS News]
- Alex Ward shines some light on the most important American foreign policy officials you’ve never heard of: Brian Hook. [Vox / Alex Ward]
- Internet sensation Lil Bub died Sunday, and we still haven’t gotten over it. [BuzzFeed News / Julia Reinstein]
Verbatim
“What the Chinese government is doing should be a warning to everybody who kind of goes along happily thinking, ‘How could anyone be worried about these technologies?’” [Pilar Ossorio, a professor of law and bioethics at the University of Wisconsin Madison on China’s use of DNA in mapping faces and discriminating against Uighurs]
Watch this: The trick that made animation realistic
An invention that combined real motion with drawings changed animation forever. [YouTube / Phil Edwards]
Read more
Peloton’s terrifying new ad is the best horror movie in recent memory
The future of sex ed has arrived. Is America ready?
A whistleblower movie isn’t an obvious fit for Todd Haynes. That’s why he made Dark Waters.
The debate over whether to ban “virginity testing,” explained
The most damning sentence in the House Intelligence Committee’s impeachment report
from Vox - All https://www.vox.com/vox-sentences/2019/12/3/20994347/nato-macron-trump-india-rape
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New top story on Hacker News: Show HN: Adventurekeep – A Toolkit for D&D
Show HN: Adventurekeep – A Toolkit for D&D
15 by montagh451 | 7 comments on Hacker News.
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15 by montagh451 | 7 comments on Hacker News.
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World's carbon emissions grew in 2019 to their highest levels ever
Civilization's carbon emissions — like Earth's temperature, sea level, and the rate of ice sheet melting in Greenland — are still going up.
Researchers at the Center for International Climate and Environmental Research (CICERO) in Oslo, Norway spend each year tediously compiling the amount of heat-trapping greenhouse gases humanity expels into the planet's atmosphere. This year, their Global Carbon Budget Report projects that carbon dioxide emissions continued growing in 2019, though by a lower-than-usual amount of around 0.6 percent, reaching a new record high.
Compared to the huge carbon emission numbers in the early 2000s, when emissions jumped by some three percent each year, this is a small increase. But, critically, the 2019 emissions trend illustrates that global society's carbon emissions aren't falling, haven't even peaked, and certainly don't bode well for meeting the U.N.'s hugely ambitious target for curbing Earth's warming at 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) above pre-Industrial Revolution temperatures, agreed upon at the historic Paris climate accords. Read more...
More about Science, Global Warming, Climate Change, Carbon Emissions, and Sciencefrom Mashable https://mashable.com/article/carbon-emissions-grow-2019-climate-change/
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Trump Arrives at the NATO Summit—and Talks About Impeachment
Amy Davidson Sorkin on President Donald Trump’s comments at the NATO summit, in London, where he seemed preoccupied with the domestic drama of his ongoing impeachment hearings.
from Everything https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/trump-arrives-at-the-nato-summitand-talks-about-impeachment
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from Everything https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/trump-arrives-at-the-nato-summitand-talks-about-impeachment
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Kamala Harris’s Early Exit from the Presidential Campaign
Eric Lach writes about Kamala Harris’s announcement on Tuesday that she will be suspending her Presidential campaign.
from Everything https://www.newyorker.com/news/campaign-chronicles/kamala-harris-early-exit-from-the-presidential-campaign
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from Everything https://www.newyorker.com/news/campaign-chronicles/kamala-harris-early-exit-from-the-presidential-campaign
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Monday, 2 December 2019
John Mulaney thinks mistletoe deserves to be cancelled
On Monday's episode of The Tonight Show starring Jimmy Fallon, the host invited tall child John Mulaney to give his knee-jerk opinions on a series of seasonal subjects, including Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, fingerless gloves, and mistletoe.
"Mistletoe. If any decoration needs to be Me Too'ed..." declared Mulaney on the "perverted garnish."
His strong reaction surprised and delighted Fallon, who said he'd never heard his guest raise his voice before. "It's an upsetting garnish," Mulaney insisted, which is fair.
The high-waisted man also summed up the horrible trashfire goblin decade that was the 2010s with an incredibly apt airport anecdote, in which he saw a passenger and TSA agent arguing. Read more...
More about The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, Jimmy Fallon, 2010 S, Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer, and John Mulaneyfrom Mashable https://mashable.com/video/john-mulaney-jimmy-fallon-wheel-of-opinions-mistletoe/
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Your data is encrypted and unreadable with Private Internet Access
TL;DR: A one-year subscription to Private Internet Access is on sale for £2.58 a month, saving you 67% on list price.
One thing that most of the best VPN deals have in common is that they tie you down for long contracts, and that can be off-putting.
Private Internet Access stands out from the competition by offering its best deal on a one-year plan. With this contract you get the flexibility of shorter term, alongside the features that make the service one of the most popular on the market.
Private Internet Access works like a lot of other VPNs, in that it uses military grade encryption, provides access to thousands of servers around the world, and posts fast connection speeds. A one-year plan is now on sale for just £2.58 per month. This is down by 67% on list price, saving you over £60 in total. Read more...
More about Vpn, Mashable Shopping, Shopping Uk, Uk Deals, and Cyber Weekfrom Mashable https://mashable.com/uk/shopping/best-deal-private-internet-access-cyber-week-dec-3/
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Apple unveils the most popular iPhone apps of 2019
Braces yourselves. The "best of" everything end-of-year lists are here.
With 2019 coming to a close, Apple released its list for this year's most downloaded iPhone apps. And ... it's not very different from last year. Taking the number one spot for the second year in a row is YouTube. Meanwhile, second and third place is again occupied by Instagram and Snapchat, respectively.
While the list isn't as extensive as 2018's — in fact, it's been cut down by half — here are the top ten free iPhone apps downloaded in 2019, according to Apple:
1. YouTube
2. Instagram
3. Snapchat
4. TikTok
5. Messenger Read more...
More about Apple, Iphone, Apps, App Store, and Best Offrom Mashable https://mashable.com/article/apple-most-popular-iphone-apps-2019/
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Facebook made a bot to help employees talk about company scandals
This holiday season, let's all take a moment and remember the poor, poor Facebook employees. It's not easy, after all, working for a company that's widely blamed for everything from poisoning political discourse to enabling the spread of hate speech that fanned the flames of genocide.
None of these things make for very nice small talk, especially around the holidays when pesky relatives start to ask uncomfortable questions.
But now, Facebook employees have a new tool at their disposal: a messaging bot filled with PR talking points to help them figure out how to talk about the many scandals surrounding the company. Read more...
More about Tech, Facebook, Social Media Companies, Tech, and Social Media Companiesfrom Mashable https://mashable.com/article/facebook-employee-chatbot-liam/
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Dictionary.com's Word of the Year for 2019 is 'existential', and same
Dictionary.com announced its 2019 Word of the Year today, and it is a big mood.
The website has chosen the word "existential", as in "existential crisis" or "existential dread" — two things the vast majority of us are likely intimately familiar with regardless of whether we've ever used either phrase before.
Dictionary.com gives two definitions of "existential": "of or relating to existence" and "of, relating to, or characteristic of philosophical existentialism; concerned with the nature of human existence as determined by the individual's freely made choices."
According to the site, a lot of people were concerned with the nature of human existence this year. Read more...
More about Words, Word Of The Year, Definition, Existentialism, and Dictionary.Comfrom Mashable https://mashable.com/article/dictionary-com-word-of-the-year-2019-existential/
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Vox Sentences: Gun control in the crosshairs
Doug Mills-Pool/Getty Images
Gun rights question reaches the Supreme Court; Iraqi parliament accepts prime minister’s resignation.
Vox Sentences is your daily digest for what’s happening in the world. Sign up for the Vox Sentences newsletter, delivered straight to your inbox Monday through Friday, or view the Vox Sentences archive for past editions.
A gun case at SCOTUS
- The Supreme Court heard its first gun case since 2010 on Monday — and one of the big questions is whether a decision was necessary at all since the regulations in question have already been rescinded. [Washington Post / Robert Barnes]
- The case, New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. City of New York, was a challenge to the city’s ban on gun owners transporting guns outside of their homes, a ban that seemed unlikely to be upheld. [SCOTUSblog / Amy Howe]
- But while the case worked its way up to the high court, New York changed the rules, seemingly to try to avoid the Supreme Court ruling on the matter at all. [US News and World Report / Claire Hansen]
- Based on the day’s oral arguments, a majority of the Court may be inclined to dismiss the case. But that won’t be the end of the larger issue. [Vox / Ian Millhiser]
- The last Second Amendment case the Court heard was in 2010, in McDonald v. Chicago, which affirmed the landmark 2008 District of Columbia v. Heller ruling on the individual right to own a gun. [CNBC / Tucker Higgins]
- Liberal Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sonia Sotomayor were outspoken about dismissing the case while their conservative counterparts remained largely silent. “You are asking us to take a case where the other side has thrown in the towel,” remarked Sotomayor. [CNN / Ariane de Vogue]
Iraq’s prime minister resigns but protests continue
- Iraqi Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi’s resignation was approved by parliament on Sunday. [Al Jazeera / Arwa Ibrahim]
- Mahdi announced his plan to resign on Friday as anti-government protests against corruption continue to rage in the streets since October. He will stay on in an advisory capacity until new elections bring in his successor. [Vox / Catherine Kim]
- The estimated death toll hovers around 400 and another 8,100 injured due to Iraqi security force attempts to put down protests about the condition of public services, unemployment, and foreign influence across the country. [BBC]
- However, Mahdi’s resignation did not satisfy protesters, who continue to take to the streets on Sunday and demand greater reforms. [NPR / Jenny Gathright]
Miscellaneous
- Trump wants South Korea to pay more for American military presence. Here’s what the demands are doing to US-South Korean relations. [The Hill / Michael O’Hanlon]
- An Australian woman survived while stranded for nearly two weeks after crashing her car in a riverbed in the outback. [BBC]
- How California is looking to fix batteries’ emissions problem. [Vox / David Roberts]
- The lives of an Ohio high school graduating class of 2000 illustrates the pervasive and devastating effects of the opioid crisis. [New York Times / Dan Levin]
- Illinois’s Metropolitan Planning Council released a new report aimed at evaluating the accessibility of the state’s public transit. [Chicago Tribune / Mary Wisniewski]
Verbatim
“France, Germany and the United Kingdom warmly welcome the decision taken by the governments of Belgium, Denmark, Finland, the Netherlands, Norway and Sweden, to join Instex as shareholders.” [Joint statement from Paris, London, and Berlin about six new European countries joining their plan to uphold the commitments of the Iran nuclear deal]
Listen to this: The tech behind ankle monitors
E-carceration: how a tech solution to overcrowded prisons actually impacts the lives of wearers. [Spotify]
Read more
Trump lawyers refuse to participate in the House Judiciary Committee’s first impeachment hearing
This goofy bird vs. the fossil fuel industry
Star Wars, Cats, Little Women, and more: 12 movies to see this December
Instagram is broken. It also broke us.
Trump just started a new trade war with … Brazil and Argentina?
from Vox - All https://www.vox.com/vox-sentences/2019/12/2/20992726/gun-control-supreme-court
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