Kickoff For September 3, 2018
Welcome to this week’s edition of the Monday Kickoff, a collection of what I’ve found interesting, informative, and insightful on the web over the last seven days.
Instead of me prattling on with one of my insipid trains of thought, here’s a bit of wisdom I encountered last week:
The new world is struggling to be born, carrying passive repercussions of the past and facing active opposition from the old. The future is in place, and waiting, but we have yet to discover it. Our present position is the bridge between. This position is hazardous, because we are building the bridge while crossing it.
Let’s get this Monday started with these links:
Crime
That Night, It Never Ends: A Story of Life With or Without Parole, wherein we’re introduced to some of the people, and to the politics, involved in granting parole to those who committed capital crimes as teens, and to the struggles of everyone touched by those crimes.
How Ex-Cop Rigged McDonald’s Monopoly Game and Made Millions, wherein we hear the strange and sordid tale of Jerry Jacobsen, a seemingly honest ex cop who allied himself with a motley cast of characters and defrauded a fast-food giant of millions by cheating one of its best-known promotions.
The SIM Hijackers, wherein we dive into the dark art of SIM card swapping, by which crackers get control of your mobile phone number and your digital life.
Ideas
How Librarians Survive on the Frontlines of Fake News, wherein just how they do that: by doing their jobs. By providing information that goes beyond the usual Twitter eyeball bytes, information which can help people become better informed.
Who owns the moon? A space lawyer answers, wherein we’re introduced to the intricacies of the 1967 Outer Space Treaty, and how interpretations of the treaty can open doors to legal battles over the moon and other bodies in our solar system.
Smooth Spaces, Fuzzy Lives, wherein Rachel Andrews explores the physical border between the two Irelands, and how borders (both real and imaginary) divide peoples and divide us within ourselves.
Science
The Bugs Are Winning, wherein we learn how and why bacteria become resistant to antibiotics, the dangers of that resistance, and hear some proposals to slow the process down to save lives.
To Remember, the Brain Must Actively Forget, wherein we learn about the role some researchers believe forgetting plays in forming memories, and discover a bit about the nature of remembering and forgetting.
The Poetry of Victorian Science, wherein we read about the work of Victorian natural philosopher Robert Hunt who melded and connected poetry and science to better describe the wonders of our world.
And that’s it for this Monday. Come back in seven days for another set of links to start off your week.