to set a mood • • •
Enough collusion talk. It’s time to focus on Trump’s corruption.
If there is a silver lining to the confusion and disappointment of Russiagate, it is that we can now pay attention to the real fleecing.
‘Real malfeasance is boring and obvious: sleaze your way into power and line your pockets while you have it. The Trump family is perfectly capable of that.’
It’s a fortunate thing for Donald Trump that the Democrats, and much of the media, spent the past two years focused on the narrow question of whether his 2016 campaign actively colluded with Russian agents to hack his opponents’ emails. Were it not for this singular obsession, we might have come to appreciate the full scope of graft, influence peddling and petty theft that has made this the most crooked administration in US history.
One doesn’t have to go to Moscow to see it; pick almost any country in the world. Take my former home, Panama, famous for its canal and secret banks. Towering over the Panama City skyline is a 70 story hotel-casino shaped like a sailboat formerly known as the Trump Ocean Club. Trump had gifted it to his daughter Ivanka as her first real estate deal, which court records show earned Trump between $30m and $50m. Ivanka Trump put in charge of its sales a Brazilian financier, whom a Reuters investigation identified as an admitted money launderer with ties to Russian organized crime, who would later be arrested for fraud and forgery.
A Global Witness report turned up evidence the hotel project was being used to launder “proceeds from Colombian cartels’ narcotics trafficking”. When the hotel’s owners decided the Trump name was bad, even for business this shady, and ended their contract with his organization, Trump’s lawyers asked Panamanian president Juan Carlos Varela to intervene on Trump’s behalf.
In an erratic first term characterized by organizational chaos and constant turnover, the most consistent feature of the Trump presidency has been his use of office for personal enrichment. The Argentinian press reported that Trump asked President Mauricio Macri to resolve construction delays for a Trump building in Buenos Aires; both presidents denied the report, but construction resumed within days their call. …
US intelligence wants to use your face to train AI systems
YOUR STREET, OUR ALSO
Coming to the street.
The US government research unit serving intelligence agencies is looking to expand its ability to monitor thousands of people at once, with a new request for companies, cities, and the academic sector to help compile a massive video dataset.
The Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity (IARPA) team, which falls under the purview of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), posted the solicitation to a federal contracting database.
Artificial-intelligence algorithms like the ones the government wants to train require large amounts of data to be accurate.
“Further research in the area of computer vision within multi-camera networks may support post-event crime scene reconstruction, protection of critical infrastructure and transportation facilities, military force protection, and in the operations of National Special Security Events,” the IARPA posting explains.
click to embiggen
IARPA seeks partners who can provide at least 960 hours of video footage collected over the course of four days. Camera networks should cover an area measuring 10,000 sq meters—about the size of a city block—utilize a minimum of 20 cameras, and capture a minimum of 5,000 pedestrians who are unaware they are being filmed. IARPA is also asking for at least 200 volunteers to imitate pedestrians and perform specific movements or tasks in the coverage area. This footage would be labelled in specific ways to make it easy for AI algorithms to analyze. …
A CLEVER NEW STRATEGY FOR TREATING CANCER, THANKS TO DARWIN
Most advanced-stage cancers mutate, resisting drugs meant to kill them. Now doctors are harnessing the principles of evolution to thwart that lethal adaptation.
IN OCTOBER 1854, a government entomologist was inspecting some farmland outside the town of Ottawa, in northern Illinois, when he came upon a disturbing scene in a cabbage patch.
The larger outer leaves of the vegetables were “literally riddled with holes, more than half their substance being eaten away.” With each step he took around the ravaged cabbages, tiny swarms of little ash-gray moths rose from the ground and flitted away. This was, it appears, the first record in the United States of the diamondback moth, an invasive pest that in its larval form shows a fondness for cruciferous vegetables. By the late 1800s the moths were chewing through the leaves of cabbages, brussels sprouts, collards, and kale from Florida to Colorado.
To fight this invasion, farmers started bombarding their fields with primitive pesticides. This worked. Or seemed to. It killed most of the moths, but those that survived the poison reproduced, and the population bounced back stronger than ever. For decades, one pesticide after another failed as the moths evolved to withstand it. Even the grievously toxic DDT was no match for the diamondback. Beginning in the late 1950s, agriculture experts started to abandon the idea of eradication and adopted a new strategy. Farmers would leave the moths alone until their numbers exceeded a certain threshold, and only then would they deploy pesticides. Remarkably, this helped. The moths did not die out, but the pest could be managed and crop damage held in check.
When Robert Gatenby heard this history of the diamondback moth in 2008, he immediately latched onto it. Gatenby is not a farmer nor an agronomist nor a fan of cruciferous vegetables—in fact, he deeply loathes brussels sprouts. He is a radiologist by training and heads the radiology department at the H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center in Tampa, Florida. But unlike your typical doctor, he is also obsessed with the evolutionary principles put forth more than 150 years ago by Charles Darwin. The story of the diamondback moth appealed to Gatenby as a useful metaphor for his own project—one concerned not with crops but with cancer. …
5 Popular Weight Loss Methods That Apparently Don’t Work
Nobody has the magic bullet for losing weight, including me. However, I can tell you about some popular weight-loss techniques which science has found apparently don’t do shit. At the very least, that may save you some time and money.
5. Wearable Fitness Devices Are No Match For Human Psychology
Remember Fitbits? That was a funny weekend in 2015. Everyone and their uncle thought that a pedometer would change the world for the healthier, or at least give us scientific proof that binging Netflix for 14 hours doesn’t involve a lot of stepping. I think I still have one in the box somewhere, eagerly awaiting the day it feels a step and/or a pulse. Dare to dream, little fella!
In the last few years, wearable fitness devices have fallen on hard times. Lower sales and less overall enthusiasm have killed off a few products, and the problem with them seems to be a two-pronged kick to the nuts. The right nut is getting hit with the sharp-toed shoe of improper and inconsistent data tracking, while the left nut gets an open-toed shoe displaying the gross toes of human psychology.
A Stanford study showed that while a device like a Fitbit is pretty accurate at monitoring your heart rate, its ability to measure your energy output is way off. So they’ve mastered decades-old technology that will prove you’re still alive, but when it comes to what you’re actually doing with that life, they’re clueless.
The other problem is the same one you get with literally every fitness gadget ever made, from exercise machines to juicers: The device can’t actually force you to change your habits. In the case of fitness trackers, they can make working out more stressful. In one recent study, using a fitness tracker actually made it harder to lose weight. After enough weeks of the gadget reminding you of your failures, you’ll remember that you can just take the little fucker off. …
Before you try to fast-track that weight loss resolution.
AGAINST ALL ODDS, A NEW MUSEUM HAS MADE IT FUN TO VISIT OLD DOG PAINTINGS AND FIGURINES
OLD DOGS, NEW TRICKS
Digging it.
Only the Queen of England has more dog paintings than the American Kennel Club. Comprised of watercolors, oil portraits, figurines, photographs, and sketches, the AKC’s large art collection has languished in relative obscurity inside a niche museum in St. Louis, Missouri for the past 30 years.
In a bid to invigorate the Museum of the Dog, the 134-year-old institution moved the entire collection to New York City earlier this year. Now displayed in an inviting two-level space near Grand Central Terminal, the collection has drawn hundreds of daily visitors since it opened in February.
The Museum of the Dog’s new space at 101 Park Avenue.
Adding an interactive tech layer was essential, explain Gensler principal designers John Bricker and EJ Lee, who gave Quartz a tour of the space. “Museums today are not just about seeing art,” Bricker says. “They’re competing against theater, film, and other activities. To capture attention, there needs to be a compelling reason to come.” Indeed, paying $15 to stare at 19th-century dog portraits is a purist’s pursuit.
Face time.
Among the museum’s popular new attractions is Find Your Match, a kiosk that uses facial recognition technology to pair visitors with their look-alike dog breed, much like the classical-art doppelgänger selfie app from Google Arts and Culture. Young visitors also love the Train a Dog interactive on the second floor, where they can give commands to a cartoon service dog through the magic of motion sensors and 3D cameras. …
Dante’s Divine Comedy may have been a conceptual blueprint for a theme park commissioned by the Church.
— Fake Atlas Obscura (@notatlasobscura) January 7, 2019
Solved: The 35-Year-Old Mystery of the Garfield Phones on a French Beach
A storm, a secret cave, and an ocean full of plastic.
Pieces of these phones have been washing up on a Brittany beach for more than 30 years.
FOR DECADES, A SINGULARLY STRANGE thing has been washing up on a particular stretch of the Brittany coast in France. Bright orange pieces of plastic—telephones in the shape of Garfield the cat.
“I have friends who tell me their memories of when they were little kids, they were already finding telephones,” says Claire Simonin-Le Meur, the 40-year-old president of the volunteer association Ar Viltansoù. The group, whose name means “the kids” in the regional language Breton, clears trash from the beaches once a month.
Mostly they find fishing debris, with markings that show that it comes from as far away as Florida. But every time they go out, the volunteers find pieces of these telephones. They had started to appear some 30 years ago, and still, in 2018 alone, the volunteers counted more than 200 fragments. They appear remarkably intact after presumably decades in the water, retaining the cartoon lines and stripes, and sometimes attached bits of internal wiring and electronics. The association keeps all of them and they have become a local symbol of the global problem of plastic pollution.
The model was sold by the American toy company Tyco.* Garfield’s eyes opened when the receivers were lifted and shut when the phone was hung up. Presumably they love lasagna and hate Mondays.
A local farmer remembered the storm in the 1980s that caused the phones to appear.
Contradictory rumors about their origin had always circulated locally, mostly that the phones came from a shipping container that had been lost overboard in the 1980s. Earlier this year, the French news outlet FranceInfo ran a story about the mysterious telephone parts. Shortly afterward, Simonin-Le Meur ran into a man, René Morvan, while they were removing a group of dolphins beached on the coast. …
Thomas Edison’s first automobile design featured a powered ejection seat, grappling hook, and animatronic hood ornament.
— Fake Atlas Obscura (@notatlasobscura) January 3, 2019
Video Goodnesses
and not-so-goodnesses
and not-so-goodnesses
Bill recaps the top stories of the week, including President Trump’s quest for revenge in the wake of the Mueller report.
South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg joins Bill to discuss his potential candidacy for President of the United States.
In his editorial New Rule, Bill argues that socialism can work wonders when used as a supplement to capitalism.
THANKS to HBO and Real Time with Bill Maher for making this program available on YouTube.
Today’s parents will do anything to make sure their kids don’t face any sort of adversity whatsoever.
THANKS to Comedy Central and The Daily Show with Trevor Noah for making this program available on YouTube.
FINALLY . . .
What’s that next dollar worth to you, and what are you giving up to get it?
SAY WHEN
Would you rather be chasing the next dollar, or the next wave?
Imagine leaving on a long vacation during the month of August to go surfing. Longer than the two weeks Americans usually reserve for their honeymoons. Longer than the European summer vacation norm of the entire month. Yes, imagine leaving in August only to return in January.
Every year, Clee Roy does just that. Once his bank account reaches a certain balance, Roy grabs his surfboard and calls it quits for the rest year. He’s not a trust-fund baby, nor a billionaire—he’s an accountant and business consultant in a tiny town on Vancouver Island. What Roy has uncovered is a tiny insight that gives him the freedom to upend the age-old dilemma of work-life balance. He knows how much money is enough.
Roy has calculated how much profit his business needs to generate in a year to cover his living expenses and fund his personal investments. Anything beyond that amount has negligible impact on his life and happiness. As soon as he’s earned that amount, he packs up. Instead of chasing the next dollar, he’s chasing the next wave.
You’ll find Roy’s story, and more about the self-employment philosophy he represents, in Paul Jarvis’ new book, Company of One: Why Staying Small is the Next Big Thing For Business. Jarvis is a veteran internet creator whose work encompasses writing, design, engineering, and creating online courses, including a popular class on how to use Mailchimp. He is himself a company of one, a “solopreneur” who works for himself, and by himself.
Jarvis argues that we’ve walked ourselves into a trap by holding onto two sacrosanct beliefs: 1) bigger is better and 2) growth at all costs. Our insatiable desire for more income may keep us motivated to work longer or to work harder, but it misses a bigger question: What is that next dollar worth to you? And when the answer becomes, “not much,” then why shouldn’t you take a three-month vacation? …
Ed. More tomorrow? Possibly. Maybe. Probably Not. Probably it’ll be Groundhog Day.