Emily Stewart writing for Vox:

The American economy is, in many ways, predicated on winners and losers. We’re told the story that a level of inequality is necessary for growth. The discomfort of some workers — largely at the bottom echelons of the economy — is part of the deal we’re supposed to strike for the comfort of everyone else. Except that people higher up on the economic ladder have increasingly been feeling that discomfort, too.

Part of what’s at play is the ever-increasing costs of housing and college and child care, which have caused upper-middle-class Americans to experience more of a crunch for years. Other issues are more recent, like inflation, which everybody hates.

What this amounts to is people who aren’t used to financial insecurity feeling uneasier than they’re accustomed to. The bottom hasn’t fallen out for them, but the ground is less solid in a way it hasn’t been in the past.

America’s semi-rich are feeling semi-bad, and they do not like it.

In a way this is a blessing in disguise. We just might see policies that will finally help the poor and lower middle class - primarily affordable housing, free public universities, universal healthcare, and affordable childcare.

After all, when the semi-rich and wealthy classes start feeling the crunch, the politicians start to pay attention.

TYT showing American ex-pats who are traumatized from living in America. Everything from gun violence, medical and the penal system. If only more Americans would spend some time in other countries, maybe we would realize just how insane and brutal our country has become.

Also what citizens abroad think about our healthcare, elections and climate policy.

UCLA Health reporting:

Studies have linked PFAS to adverse health effects, including high blood pressure, decreased fertility in women, liver damage, cancer, low birthweight and an increased risk of asthma and thyroid disease.

[…]

Research suggests that people who regularly consume microwave popcorn have markedly higher levels of PFAS in their bodies. A study published in 2019 analyzed a decade of data about the eating habits of 10,000 people, which was collected by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention between 2003 and 2014. Blood samples from the study participants were also collected. The researchers found that people who ate microwave popcorn every day over the course of a year had levels of PFAS that were up to 63% higher than average.

Considering the questions that continue to surround the safety of consuming PFAS, we think it would be reasonable to curtail the daily use of microwave popcorn. Instead, you could save it for an occasional treat. If your kids are flexible, you might switch to a different type of evening snack. Or if it has to be popcorn, you could turn the process of making stovetop popcorn into a family project.

So much for movie night popcorn.

A fascinating article on the origins of coffee:

In the mid-1600’s, coffee was brought to New Amsterdam, later called New York by the British.

Though coffee houses rapidly began to appear, tea continued to be the favored drink in the New World until 1773, when the colonists revolted against a heavy tax on tea imposed by King George III. The revolt, known as the Boston Tea Party, would forever change the American drinking preference to coffee.

A great interview with BYTE Managing Editor Phil Lemmons and the design team for Apple Computer Inc.’s new Macintosh computer in 1983. I think this is the first time I see Steve Jobs really voicing is key insight that has made Apple a 2 trillion dollar tech behemoth - having excellent hardware foundations is just table stakes, its the software / hardware integration that determines greatness.

And there isn’t any company on the planet that is better at exploiting hardware/software today than Apple.

If you read the Apple’s first brochure, the headline was “Simplicity is the Ultimate Sophistication.” What we meant by that was that when you first attack a problem it seems really simple because you don’t understand it. Then when you start to really understand it, you come up with these very complicated solutions because it’s really hairy. Most people stop there. But a few people keep burning the midnight oil and finally understand the underlying principles of the problem and come up with an elegantly simple solution for it. But very few people go the distance to get there.

One of the things we really learned with Lisa and from looking at what Xerox had done at PARC [Palo Alto Research Center] was that we could construct elegant, simple systems based on just a bit map… no character generators…and save tons of chips if we had software fast enough to paint characters on the screen, given the processor. Apple was the first company to figure out how to do that with a microprocessor…and really still is the only company that’s doing it with a microprocessor. That’s what Bill figured out how to do with Quickdraw.

The real reason that we chose originally to use the 68000 was so we could pick up Quickdraw. Macintosh uses the exact same graphic structure and package, the exact same code, as Lisa does. So, by paying a little more for the microprocessor, not only were we able to give the customer an infinitely more powerful chip than, say, an 8-bit chip or one of Intel’s baby micros, but we were able to pick up this amazing software, and that allowed us to throw tons of chips out of this thing. We didn’t have to get special custom text or graphics chips. We just simplified the system down to where it’s just a bit map on the screen, just Bill’s amazing software and Burrell’s amazing hardware, then in between that the other amazing software that we have. We tried to do that in every single way, with the disk and with the I/O …rather than slots.

When we first started off with Apple II, the variability— how you customize your machine— was with hardware; you plugged in a card. And because we didn’t have any idea what these computers were going to be used for, that variability was very important. But now we have a much greater understanding of what people are using these products for. And the customization really is mostly software now. The way I customize my machine to do what I want is by sticking in a disk more than anything else.

Betsy Reed, in an editorial in The Guardian:

A massive operation is under way to find and save a stricken vessel and its passengers. As time passes, anxious families and friends wait with growing fear. The US coastguard, Canadian armed forces and commercial vessels are all hunting for the Titan submersible, which has gone missing with five aboard on a dive to the wreck of the Titanic in the north Atlantic. The UK’s Ministry of Defence is also monitoring the situation.

It is hard to think of a starker contrast with the response to a fishing boat which sank in the Mediterranean last week with an estimated 750 people, including children, packed onboard. Only about 100 survived, making this one of the deadliest disasters in the Mediterranean.

The incredible 24-7 coverage 5 white rich thrill seekers received, not to mention the millions of tax payer money spent on their rescue, while the 600+ immigrants who died barely got any mentioned in the media.

Such a sad commentary on our collective priorities.

Phil Edwards explores the question of why all pop music radio stations in the US sound the same. You should watch the video for a detailed analysis, but the quick answer is - as it is for most thing in the US - consolidation caused by deregulation.

Over the weekend, the United States experienced a staggering sixteen mass shooting events. There have been a total of 246 mass shootings recorded so far this year, averaging more than one per day. Since the Uvalde school shooting in Texas, there have been an additional 33 incidents, resulting in 191 injuries and 34 fatalities. The Gun Violence Archive defines a mass shooting as an event that causes the injury or death of four or more people.

To put that into perspective, the highest number of U.S. soldier casualties in a single weekend during the U.S. war in Afghanistan occurred on August 6-7, 2011. During that time, 30 U.S. service members were killed. The United States today is more dangerous than anytime during the US - Afghanistan war.

Yet we as a country still do not do anything to controll the amount of guns in our country or pass any laws to limit gun violence. We are a sick country.

John Gramlich reporting:

The gun death rate among children and teens – a measure that adjusts for changes in the nation’s population – rose from 2.4 fatalities per 100,000 minor residents in 2019 to 3.5 per 100,000 two years later, a 46% increase.

Both the number and rate of children and teens killed by gunfire in 2021 were higher than at any point since at least 1999, the earliest year for which information about those younger than 18 is available in the CDC’s mortality database.

The rise in gun deaths among children and teens is part of a broader recent increase in firearm deaths among Americans overall. In 2021, there were 48,830 gun deaths among Americans of all ages – by far the highest yearly total on record and up 23% from the 39,707 recorded in 2019, before the pandemic.

With approximately 120.5 guns per 100 residents, the United States has the highest rate of gun ownership per capita anywhere in the world. The next country is Yemen with approximately 52.8 guns per 100 residents. Is it really surprising that America resembles a war zone?

CNBC on Google’s updated hybrid work policy:

Last week, Google updated its hybrid three-day-a-week office policy to include badge tracking and noted attendance will be included in performance reviews. Additionally, employees who already received approval for remote work may now have that status reevaluated.

As expected, this is not going over well with the workforce.

On Friday, YouTube held its own all-hands meeting with employees about the office policy update. At the event, executives presented the plans virtually, a paradox that didn’t go unnoticed.

Afterward, a popular meme showed an image of “The Big Bang Theory” TV show character Leonard Hofstadter saying, “What are you looking at? You’ve never seen a hypocrite before?”

The insanity of the tech industry never ceases to amaze me.

From Axios:

This survey is the result of a partnership between Axios and Harris Poll to gauge the reputation of the most visible brands in America, based on 20 years of Harris Poll research.

Here are the top 10 brands with the best reputation:

1. Patagonia
2. Costco
3. John Deere
4. Trader Joe’s
5. Check-fil-A
6. Toyota Motor Corporation
7. Samsung
8. Amazon.com
9. USAA
10. Apple

Nothing too surprising - although I am surprise Apple makes up the bottom of this list. The real interesting ones are the 10 worst (listed in reverse order from 100 to 91):

1. The Trump “Organization”
2. FTX
3. Fox Corporation
4. Twitter
5. Meta
6. Spirit Airlines
7. TikTok
8. Bitcoin
9. BP
10. Balenciaga

The poll nailed the worst companies I would have picked and the exact order I would have placed them.

While the world has largely moved past the Covid-19 epidemic, an analysis by The Economist reveals that approximately 3 million people globally are still dying each year due to Covid-19.

At current rates, it would kill more people in the next eight years than in the past three.

This statistic is sobering, highlighting the ongoing impact of the pandemic on global health.

Anyone who knows me knows of my willful ignorance when it comes to all things rap and hip hop. However, I have always been curious about the origins of the ‘lowrider bounce’ phenomenon, as seen in the video above. This fad originated in California in the late 1950s.

Mike Johnston over at The Online Photographer has the full story:

So basically a modification to allow you to drive a lowered car on the street, that got out of hand and turned into a thing of its own.

As the meida celebrates Henry Kissinger, David Corn writing for Mother Jones:

Kissinger is routinely lambasted by his critics as a “war criminal,” though has never been held accountable for his misdeeds. He has made millions as a consultant, author, and commentator in the decades since he left government. I once heard of a Manhattan cocktail reception where he scoffed at the “war criminal” label and referred to it almost as a badge of honor. (“Bill Clinton does not have the spine to be a war criminal,” he joshed.) Kissinger has expressed few, if any, regrets about the cruel and deadly results of his moves on the global chessboard. When Koppel gently nudged him about the secret bombing in Cambodia, Kissinger took enormous umbrage and shot back: “This program you’re doing because I’m going to be 100 years old. And you are picking a topic of something that happened 60 years ago? You have to know it was a necessary step.” As for those who still protest him for that and other acts, he huffed, “Now the younger generation feels if they can raise their emotions, they don’t have to think.”

As he enters his second century, there will be no apologies coming from Kissinger. But the rest of us will owe history—and the thousands dead because of his gamesmanship—an apology, if we do not consider the man in full. Whatever his accomplishments, his legacy includes an enormous pile of corpses. This is a birthday that warrants no celebration.

Adam Satariano, for The New York Times:

Meta on Monday was fined a record 1.2 billion euros ($1.3 billion) and ordered to stop transferring data collected from Facebook users in Europe to the United States, in a major ruling against the social media company for violating European Union data protection rules.

The penalty, announced by Ireland’s Data Protection Commission, is potentially one of the most consequential in the five years since the European Union enacted the landmark data privacy law known as the General Data Protection Regulation. Regulators said the company failed to comply with a 2020 decision by the European Union’s highest court that Facebook data shipped across the Atlantic was not sufficiently protected from American spy agencies.

But it remains unclear if or when Meta will ever need to cordon off the data of Facebook users in Europe. Meta said it would appeal the decision, setting up a potentially lengthy legal process.

I don’t care how big you are - $1.3 Billion dollars is going to hurt.

This man was seen carrying an assault rifle across the street from a neighborhood school bus stop. He was posing with an AK-47, the same type of gun that has been used in the majority of school shootings.

What is wrong with Americans? How is this even legal? The police had to “talk him into leaving.” This mentally unstable individual needs to have his AK-47 confiscated and be taken into custody pending a psychological evaluation. It is individuals like this who eventually snap and cause harm.

It’s disheartening that our country prioritizes guns over the safety of our children.

John Herrman writing for the Intelligencer:

The metaverse was another supreme executive fantasy. Most broadly, it offered the prospect of a new frontier, the likes of which Zuckerberg hasn’t seen since, well, his conquest of the last one. More immediately, it was a way to make remote work more like in-office work for everyone, but especially for bosses, who understood it as a way to regain control and authority over their newly WFHing employees. It was a theoretical solution to the suddenly pressing problem of expensive and empty real estate — replacing a finite resource with an infinite one. (Meta has long talked about being a remote-work-friendly company but pays for millions of square feet of office space around the world.) From one executive to an audience of other executives, the metaverse — at least Zuck’s take on it — offered a vision of the future in which everything was different but also pretty much the same: a disruptive technology that maintained the basic order of things, and where you once again knew what your employees were up to, even if they were just avatars.

The ‘metaverse’ was idiotic from the get-go, an out-of-touch vision from an executive class disconnected from reality. Furthermore, wasn’t a comparable concept already explored in the 2000s with Second Life?

How is it that Zuckerberg still holds a leadership role at Facebook?

Edit: Looks like Second Life is very much still afloat.

Joshua Kaplan, Justin Elliott, and Alex Mierjeski, reporting:

In 2008, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas decided to send his teenage grandnephew to Hidden Lake Academy, a private boarding school in the foothills of northern Georgia. The boy, Mark Martin, was far from home. For the previous decade, he had lived with the justice and his wife in the suburbs of Washington, D.C. Thomas had taken legal custody of Martin when he was 6 years old and had recently told an interviewer he was “raising him as a son.”

Tuition at the boarding school ran more than $6,000 a month. But Thomas did not cover the bill. A bank statement for the school from July 2009, buried in unrelated court filings, shows the source of Martin’s tuition payment for that month: the company of billionaire real estate magnate Harlan Crow. […]

“You can’t be having secret financial arrangements,” said Mark W. Bennett, a retired federal judge appointed by President Bill Clinton. Bennett said he was friendly with Thomas and declined to comment for the record about the specifics of Thomas’ actions. But he said that when he was on the bench, he wouldn’t let his lawyer friends buy him lunch. […]

“This is way outside the norm. This is way in excess of anything I’ve seen,” said Richard Painter, former chief White House ethics lawyer for President George W. Bush, referring to the cascade of gifts over the years.

Painter said that when he was at the White House, an official who’d taken what Thomas had would have been fired: “This amount of undisclosed gifts? You’d want to get them out of the government.”

Time for Thomas to go.

A virtual tour of the 3D rendered bridges of every iteration of the Starship Enterprise from Star Trek. Really amazing to see the evolution of bridge throughout the series.

Bono, the Edge and the Duke Ellington School of the Arts Choir peform four songs at NPR for their Tiny Desk Concert series. Amazing stripped down performance letting you really appreciate the masterful song writing of U2.

This is my new favorite Tiny Desk Concert.

From the description:

Traveling without bassist Adam Clayton or drummer Larry Mullen Jr., Bono and The Edge made the trip from Ireland to the States specifically for the Tiny Desk, arriving in D.C. after five days of rehearsals at Bono’s New York apartment. When they settled in for the performance, they treated the office to four songs, including a deeply emotional version of “Stuck in a Moment You Can’t Get Out Of,” written for the late INXS singer Michael Hutchence, and a reworked version of “Walk On,” which Bono said was inspired by and dedicated to the people of Ukraine.