Google knows what shops you've been to, and gets paid by advertisers if you go one of their shops after seeing an ad...
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Loads of interesting titbits on here (I'll be reposting some individual ones that catch my eye)
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More on the use of cell-site simulators, this time by the UK government
"Signs of IMSI catchers — also known as stingrays or cell-site simulators — were found at several locations in the British capital, including UK parliament, a peaceful anti-austerity protest, and the Ecuadorian embassy. "
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The cost of solar power is falling so rapidly it is now the cheapest way to produce electricity in sunny locations. Expect this trend to continue...
"The solar bid in Abu Dhabi is not just the cheapest solar power contract ever signed – it’s the cheapest contract for electricity ever signed, anywhere on planet earth, using any technology."
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Twitter can afford to keep making a loss for a looooong time
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"As you might expect for a song contest held in the late seventies, Intervision didn’t allow its viewers to vote by text message. Instead, those watching at home had to turn their lights on when they liked a song and off when they didn’t, with data from the electricity network then being used to allocate points. The strange thing about this (well, one of the strange things) is that it’s a far more democratic system than the one used by Eurovision which, until 1997, relied solely on panels of music professionals for its judging." Insure and Go (!)
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"For decades the model for understanding PTSD has been “fear conditioning”: quite literally the lasting psychological ramifications of mortal terror. But a term now gaining wider acceptance is “moral injury.” It represents a tectonic realignment, a shift from a focusing on the violence that has been done to a person in wartime toward his feelings about what he has done to others—or what he’s failed to do for them." GQ
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"Taken as a whole, then, the picture in the UK is one where women still face epidemic levels of violence, but lack the support of a state which at best enables and at worst perpetrates it. It’s time to move beyond an understanding of violence against women as a personal issue between individuals, and see it as a strategy built into our institutions and society in order to maintain a status quo where women – particularly the most marginalised – are subordinated." Guardian
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"I knew, without looking, that none of the victims would be CEOs. When I did look it up, because this story has taken over my life, I saw the victims were a student, a chef, an artist and a forklift truck driver. I also saw that one of them was an escort, and one of them was a migrant. Employees and artists and prostitutes and foreigners — bad gays. Good gays, the rich homos with the good teeth and the second car, the police wouldn’t let their murderers get so far. A man who poisoned and raped a ‘good gay’ wouldn’t have a chance to accrue 22 separate charges of poisoning with intent." Gay Star News
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I was given grief for being a vegan the other day on the grounds that "rainforests are cleared to grow soybeans". While that is true, it has basically nothing to do with tofu and lots to do with meat production.
"About 85 percent of the world’s soybean crop is processed into meal and vegetable oil, and virtually all of that meal is used in animal feed. Some two percent of the soybean meal is further processed into soy flours and proteins for food use... Approximately six percent of soybeans are used directly as human food, mostly in Asia."
(Incidentally, the person in question was trying to convince me to eat crickets - which are indeed LESS environmentally harmful than conventional meat but, you know, still raised on soy-containing feed and so considerably more environmentally destructive than just eating the soy directly. (That's leaving aside the ethics of killing any animal for food, though I agree that the issue is obviously less clear-cut for insects than it is for mammals))
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Cuba's low infant mortality rates may actually be systematic misreporting of data
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"Sometimes—often—a leader with authoritarian tendencies will lie in order to make others repeat his lie both as a way to demonstrate and strengthen his power over them... Being made to repeat an obvious lie makes it clear that you’re powerless; it also makes you complicit. You’re morally compromised. Your ability to stand on your own moral two feet and resist or denounce is lost. Part of this is a general tool for making people part of immoral groups. One child makes a second abuse a third. The second then can’t think he’s any better than the first, the bully, and can’t inform. In a gang or the Mafia, your first kill makes you trustworthy, because you’re now dependent on the group to keep your secrets, and can’t credibly claim to be superior to them." Niskanen Center
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Amazing, a great victory for the Standing Rock Sioux, their allies and supporters, and the environment!
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