— Pär Lagerkvist, born in 1891
Richard III, Macbeth, Lear, Mark Antony: Shakespeare's tyrantscan tell us much about the puzzling psychology and spectacle of villainy
The New York Times: “Facebook has data-sharing partnerships with at least four Chinese electronics companies, including a manufacturing giant that has a close relationship with China’s government, the social media company said on Tuesday.The agreements, which date to at least 2010, gave private access to some user data to Huawei, a telecommunications equipment company that has been flagged by American intelligence officials as a national security threat, as well as to Lenovo, Oppo and TCL. The four partnerships remain in effect, but Facebook officials said in an interview that the company would wind down the Huawei deal by the end of the week. Facebook gave access to the Chinese device makers along with other manufacturers — including Amazon, Apple, BlackBerry and Samsung — whose agreements were disclosed by The New York Times on Sunday. The deals were part of an effort to push more mobile users onto the social network starting in 2007, before stand-alone Facebook apps worked well on phones. The agreements allowed device makers to offer some Facebook features, such as address books, “like” buttons and status updates…”
`A Secret, a Loose Word, a Wanton Jest'
“You cannot force people to laugh: you cannot give a reason why they should laugh; — they must laugh of themselves, or not at all.”
First Known When Lost: A Life
And that’s the beauty of laughter. It can’t be regulated, sanctioned, market-tested or convincingly feigned. It’s impolite, subversive, celebratory, cruel and as distinctive as DNA. It’s also mercifully resistant to theorizing. Vivisectionists kill it.
The MEdia Dragon blogger and researcher who became a stand-up comic
When Senator John F. Kennedy Tried to Get a Young Reporter Named Tom Wolfe Fired
Instapundit — BESTSELLING AUTHOR ERIC METAXAS: The Media Is ‘In Love With Being Unable to Understand’ Trump
The word is still out on Google’s restaurant reservation, but tech demos are almost never real
↩︎ Gizmodo
Russian spy poisoning: How the Skripals were saved BBC. OregonCharles:
Columbia Journalism Review: “Given the seemingly never-ending litany of transgressions we find all around us on social-media platforms—whether it’s Facebook giving up data toCambridge Analytica and being manipulated by Russian trolls, or Twitter’s complicity in racism and online harassment—it’s difficult to imagine a case being made that social media in general is anything but a looming danger to society and democracy. Despite this, however, Ethan Zuckerman—who runs the Center for Civic Media at MIT and teaches at MIT’s Media Lab—did his best to put together a list of the ways in which social media can or should help democracy and society, in a post he published Wednesday on his blog and at Medium. Whether his argument ultimately succeeds or not is hard to say, but it’s a worthwhile question. As Zuckerman puts it:
I’m interested in what social media should do for us as citizens in a democracy. We talk about social media as a digital public sphere, invoking Habermas and coffeehouses frequented by the bourgeoisie. Before we ask whether the internet succeeds as a public sphere, we ought to ask whether that’s actually what we want it to be.
Zuckerman uses as his template an essay that Columbia journalism professor (and CJR board member) Michael Schudson wrote as part of his 2008 book Why Democracies Need an Unlovable Press, in which he argues that good journalism can accomplish a number of things that are worthwhile for society—including informing the public, investigating important issues, analyzing complex topics and serving as a tool for social empathy…” [h/t Pete Weiss]
Russian spy poisoning: How the Skripals were saved BBC. OregonCharles:
FWIW, the hospital is here confirming that they were treated for nerve agent poisoning, under the direction of Porton Downs. That was something I wondered about before. I keep remembering that the hospital is a government agency, as is the BBC. The pictures are of some interest; Julia looks pretty healthy, it’s harder to tell with him because he’s older and was sicker. There are videos, which I didn’t watch.
Yulia Skripal and the Salisbury WUT Craig Murray
In all likelihood, regardless of how careful you are and how many email addresses you employ, all of them have been compromised many times over as a result of a multitude of breaches of sites and services that range from Tickefly to Adobe. You may want to check in with Have I Been Pwned (HIBP) on a regular basis and follow the site owner’s expert advise on steps to secure your email accounts.
In all likelihood, regardless of how careful you are and how many email addresses you employ, all of them have been compromised many times over as a result of a multitude of breaches of sites and services that range from Tickefly to Adobe. You may want to check in with Have I Been Pwned (HIBP) on a regular basis and follow the site owner’s expert advise on steps to secure your email accounts.
