Kickoff For August 5, 2019
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, I’ll leave you with this piece of wisdom:
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:
Science
Why We Should Think Twice About Colonizing Space, wherein Phil Torres argues that humanity shouldn’t venture out into the stars, and discusses why doing that could lead to our destruction rather than our salvation.
The Earth’s magnetic north pole is shifting rapidly – so what will happen to the northern lights?, wherein we learn about the magnetic north pole and the effects of it shifting on scientists.
Phage therapy: curing infections in the era of antibiotic resistance, wherein we learn about drugs, made from some really disgusting stuff, that may be the key to beating diseases that fight back against our best antibiotics.
Crime
Drugs, guns and politics collided in the small town of Port Richey. Two mayors went to jail, wherein we get a detailed look into the decline and fall of a former mayor of a small city in Florida, and what happened to his successor.
Joe Exotic: A Dark Journey Into the World of a Man Gone Wild, wherein Leif Reigstad regales us the tale of a man whose dreams (and life) crumbled amid personal misfortune, bad business decisions, and accusations of planning a murder.
The mobster in our midst, wherein we learn about John Franzese Jr., whose testimony put his mobster father in prison, his downward spiral, and how he’s been trying to reconcile his past.
Technology
Before Netscape: The forgotten Web browsers of the early 1990s, wherein we discover (and some of us old enough to remember those days, rediscover) the diversity of web browsers that came and went in the web’s infancy.
Technology Is as Biased as Its Makers, wherein Lizzie O’Shea argues that tech firms need to be more accountable for their creations, and examines the havoc those creations sow.
The global internet is disintegrating. What comes next?, wherein we get a look at how some countries are trying to stop the internet at their borders, and how they’re trying to push that idea, and the tech behind it, elsewhere.
And that’s it for this Monday. Come back in seven days for another set of links to start off your week.