ISSUE 2.9

⇐ see more issues

Inequal Apocalypse

NSA knows what you sound like, a "dream" job, income inequality in a nuclear apocalypse, and more.

Hi there! Here, have this wonderful track: Wankelmut & Emma Louise - My Head Is A Jungle (Extended Vocal Mix). I love it because this so often sums up how I feel with that simple little verse, and it's a lovely, brooding, long song that you can move your head to all sexy like. OK! Articles!

[theintercept.com]

Finding Your Voice

"Forget About Siri and Alexa — When It Comes to Voice Identification, the 'NSA Reigns Supreme'". Here's a grim article about the immense power and reach of the NSA to recognize you, solely by voice. They've had this tech since at least 2006. I wasn't aware I had a "voiceprint" which could be used to "connect individuals to their past utterances, even when they had used unknown phone numbers, secret code words, or multiple languages."

[motherboard.vice.com]

Dream Job

Have some near-future Black Mirror-esque fiction-maybe-not-fiction about a world where contractors can sell their sleep time to other, richer dreamers so that they can have more dream time. Plausible? Probably not (at least I hope not). Interesting, dark, fiction? Yes.

[wired.com]

It's the (Democracy-Poisoning) Golden Age of Free Speech

This is nothing new to most of us who've been reading (or cyberpunk paranoia-ing) for a while, but it's a fantastic recap of just how the big algorithm companies manage to control discourse and divert attention--and just how difficult of a problem it is to know anything when everyone can tell you everything.

Sorry if you’re tired of me, but here’s more makeup I did today!

I liked this one so much I took the time to transcode it from an .mp4 into a GIF. you're welcome!!

[newrepublic.com]

Income Inequality Will Survive the Nuclear Apocalypse

When I was really on this whole "let's get really rich" idea it was mostly to make sure that me and mine could escape to a bunker, deserted island, or Atlas Shrugged-style-paradise-dome-hidden-from-the-world and fuck off for the rest of our miserable lives in the case of nuclear war or complete and total breakdown of humanity. Since then, I've become fairly more in touch with my inevitable death (sooner or later, right? BTW, I turn 27 in August--wish me luck), and a more likely role in trying to rebuild civilization, but this time with radiation. And maybe we'll eat the rich? (Oh shit. What if that Black Mirror episode about the evil robot murder dogs actually had the rich deploying the evil robot murder dogs? That would be no good.)

[reddit.com]

Facebook 2017 Year in Review - highlighting the top ways people are being exploited on Facebook

Oh man! Do you hate Facebook? I do, despite the fact that I use it constantly. I know it drains my battery (well, before I deleted the app from my phone--the mobile app works fine), surveils all of my information, gathers psychometrics data about me, and performs social sentiment experiments on me, but hey--I gotta stay in touch with all my friends and business opportunities, right? Fascinatingly, despite Facebook being a massive organism, somehow I'm not the parasite in the relationship. Is there a term for huge monstrous organisms that leech the life out of smaller, less empowered ones? Anyways, here's a big list of tons of awful things that Facebook has done to exploit people. (Unrelated: here's a video of a guy rapping about giving his cat a bath.)

[nypost.com]

Complaining about low pay online ‘destroyed my life’

Do you remember that "Open Letter to Yelp CEO" letter by Talia Jane two years ago? (Holy shit, has it already been two years?) Turns out that it more or less ruined her life--further evidence that no good deed goes unpunished. Meanwhile, a woman who ripped her apart for being an "entitled millennial" made her entire career from that article. Oooh, you'll see, older generations who are also shitty! (This is to acknowledge the cool olds. Thank you.) The point at the end, though, is that her article actually ended up having positive benefits at Yelp--increasing minimum wage, giving paid vacations, and increasing PTO days. That's great. Also, if you have an opportunity for Talia, you should email her.