Apple trolls CES with a giant dig at Android and Alexa privacy

There’s a giant ad on the side of a building in Las Vegas, making a wordplay on the classic “what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas” line. Nothing unusual about that, except it’s been set up by Apple just in time for the Consumer Electronics Show’s arrival in town, an event that the iPhone maker traditionally pretends isn’t even happening.
Read more: https://www.theverge.com/2019/1/5/18169781/apple-google-privacy-troll-billboard?source=Snapzu

The Norwegian art of the packed lunch

Could we all learn something from Norway's culture of ‘matpakke’?
Read more: http://www.bbc.com/capital/story/20190103-the-norwegian-art-of-the-packed-lunch?source=Snapzu

Facebook Knows How to Track You Using the Dust on Your Camera Lens

Facebook has long said that it doesn’t use location data to make friend suggestions, but that doesn’t mean it hasn’t thought about using it.
Read more: https://gizmodo.com/facebook-knows-how-to-track-you-using-the-dust-on-your-1821030620?source=Snapzu

Margit Korondi - 1952 Olympics Gymnastics - Beam

Hungarian Margit Korondi, bronze winner at the Helsinki 1952 Olympic Games.
Read more: https://snapzu.com/zanduvid/margit-korondi-1952-olympics-gymnastics-beam?source=Snapzu

Honey Langtree, 60s Female Drummer for The Honeycombs dies aged 75

Anne ‘Honey’ Langtree was unique in music in the 60s. She was a drummer. Honey has died after a battle with breast cancer at the age of 75.
Read more: http://www.noise11.com/news/honey-langtree-60s-female-drummer-for-the-honeycombs-dies-aged-75-20190106?source=Snapzu

Artificial Soil Made from Lava Rock Allows Growing of Food in Space

Fresh greens in space? Recent research has looked into how plants respond to low levels of gravity and a particular hormone which can help plants grow in challenging space conditions. Now, new research has succeeded in growing plants in high-tech planters which use artificial soil made from lava rock.
Read more: https://www.digitaltrends.com/cool-tech/artifical-soil-planters-food-in-space/?source=Snapzu

In A Congress Full Of Firsts, Still No Open Atheists

The 116th Congress is the most diverse in history, with incoming members expanding political representation on a number of fronts. For the first time, Congress now includes Muslim women, Native American women, an openly bisexual senator and the youngest woman ever elected to serve in either chamber. Yet despite that progress, Congress is once again beginning a new session without a single member who openly identifies as atheist, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of the latest CQ Roll Call “Faith on the Hill” survey.
Read more: https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/congress-atheists-representation_us_5c2f9b03e4b0bdd0de588425?source=Snapzu

Something You Should Hear and Think About

something you should hear No matter if youre a king or a street sweeper, we are all going to end up as dust. So with much love and respect, i challenge you to rethink your live, rethink how youre living, rethink your values, rethink your mountaintop. Most people's goals are to pay lousy bills, get by, survive, get
Read more: https://findinggod.site/something-you-should-hear-and-think-about/?source=Snapzu

R.I.P., Judith Rich Harris: The Woman Who Showed Us How Little Parents Matter

Judith Rich Harris once had a job writing psychology textbooks. She’d been kicked out of Harvard before earning a Ph.D. and suffered from chronic health issues, and this was something she could do from home. Then she quit that job, having decided to upend the field rather than “teaching the received gospel to a bunch of credulous college students.”
Read more: https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/r-i-p-judith-rich-harris-the-woman-who-showed-us-how-little-parents-matter/?source=Snapzu

Caroline Lucas urges parliament to 'seriously consider' tax on meat

Parliament must “seriously consider” levying a tax on meat to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and help to render the farming industry carbon neutral, the Green party MP, Caroline Lucas, is urging. She will say on Friday that a meat tax in the UK could be offset for more sustainable meat producers, such as organic livestock farmers, through more money for sustainable agriculture schemes.
Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/jan/04/caroline-lucas-green-mp-meat-tax-oxford-farmers-conference-prioritise-sustainability?source=Snapzu

Will the world embrace Plan S, the radical proposal to mandate open access to science papers?

Since the September 2018 launch of the Europe-backed program to mandate immediate open access (OA) to scientific literature, 16 funders in 13 countries have signed on. That's still far shy of Plan S's ambition: to convince the world's major research funders to require immediate OA to all published papers stemming from their grants.
Read more: https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2019/01/will-world-embrace-plan-s-radical-proposal-mandate-open-access-science-papers?source=Snapzu

Turkey’s magical hangover cure

Pickles are an integral staple of Turkish cuisine, and a glass of pickle juice is famed as a quick, tasty and natural cure for even the fiercest of headaches.
Read more: http://www.bbc.com/travel/story/20181218-turkeys-magical-hangover-cure?source=Snapzu

Word of the Year 2018 is...

The Oxford Word of the Year 2018 is… toxic. The adjective toxic is defined as ‘poisonous’ and first appeared in English in the mid-seventeenth century from the medieval Latin toxicus, meaning ‘poisoned’ or ‘imbued with poison’. But the word’s deadly history doesn’t start there. The medieval Latin term was in turn borrowed from the Latin toxicum, meaning ‘poison’, which has its origins in the Greek toxikon pharmakon – lethal poison used by the ancient Greeks for smearing on the points of their arrows.
Read more: https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/word-of-the-year/word-of-the-year-2018?source=Snapzu

J.R.R. Tolkien on Fairy Tales, Language, the Psychology of Fantasy, and Why There’s No Such Thing as Writing “For Children”

“I do not believe that I have ever written a children’s book,” the great Maurice Sendak once said in an interview. “I don’t write for children,” he told Colbert. “I write — and somebody says, ‘That’s for children!’” This sentiment — the idea that designating certain types of literature as “children’s” is a choice entirely arbitrary and entirely made by adults — has since been eloquently echoed by Neil Gaiman, but isn’t, in fact, a new idea.
Read more: https://www.brainpickings.org/2013/12/05/j-r-r-tolkien-on-fairy-stories/?source=Snapzu

Christians and Jews overrepresented in new U.S. Congress — nonreligious most underrepresented

More than 6 percent of the new Congress is Jewish, with 34 Jews among the total of 535 lawmakers in the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate. Jews make up 2 percent of the U.S. population, so Congress as a whole is more than thrice as Jewish as the country in general, according to a new study by the Pew Research Center on religion in the new Congress, which was inaugurated Thursday.
Read more: https://www.haaretz.com/us-news/christians-and-jews-overrepresented-in-new-u-s-congress-1.6808102?source=Snapzu

Corona beer to replace plastic packaging with biodegradable alternative

Mexican lager brand Corona is launching a pilot program to replace it’s plastic 6-pack ring packaging with a biodegradable alternative. The new packaging is 100% plastic-free and made from plant-based biodegradable fibres, with a mix of by-product waste and compostable materials.
Read more: https://www.adventurelifestylenetwork.com/environment/corona-beer-replace-plastic-packaging-biodegradable-alternative/?source=Snapzu

New food guide to encourage Canadians to eat more plant-based protein

A draft document of Canada's upcoming food guide emphasizes plant-based sources of protein.
Read more: https://globalnews.ca/news/4816615/new-food-guide-plant-protein/?source=Snapzu

Why You Should Start A Blog In 2019

The independent blog has been in decline for years. It doesn’t have to be that way. Here’s why you should start a blog in 2019—and host it yourself.
Read more: https://tedium.co/2019/01/01/2019-independent-blogging-trends/?source=Snapzu

Where to Download All the Books That Just Entered the Public Domain

Starting at midnight on January 1, tens of thousands of books (as well as movies, songs, and cartoons) entered the public domain, meaning that people can download, share, or repurpose these works for free and without retribution under US copyright law. Per the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act of 1998, “corporate” creations (like Mickey Mouse) can be restricted under copyright law for 120 years. But per an amendment to the act, works published between 1923 and 1977 can enter the public domain 95 years after their creation. This means that this is the first year since 1998 that a large number of works have entered the public domain.
Read more: https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/qvq99b/how-to-download-the-books-that-just-entered-the-public-domain?source=Snapzu

What Will Writing Look Like in 2019?

Identifying change is a difficult thing when you’re looking through a microscope at a sliver in time. But if you think back to five or…
Read more: https://www.grammarly.com/blog/2019-predictions/?source=Snapzu

Year of the vegan? Record numbers sign up for Veganuary

As the hangovers kick in and promises are made at the end of the festive season, more and more people are committing to making a lifestyle change that may require stronger willpower than, say, going to the gym more than once in the first month of the year. Record numbers have signed up to “Veganuary” and will try living on a plant-based diet, at least for a few weeks. With vegan options becoming cheaper, and more widespread and convenient, organisers of the initiative believe 2019 will be the year of the vegan.
Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2018/dec/31/year-of-the-vegan-record-numbers-sign-up-for-veganuary?source=Snapzu

Bill Hader Cries in an Interview: I Saw My Kids 5 Times Last Summer

Like most single parents, Bill Hader feels he could be doing more. The 40-year-old Barry actor, who graces the cover of Variety's annual Golden Globes issue, admits the demands of his career often put a strain on his 12-year marriage to filmmaker Maggie Carey. "When I was on SNL, I was a bit of a basket case," Hader tells the magazine. "It could not have been easy on my wife at the time. I was so consumed with work and anxiety."
Read more: https://www.eonline.com/ap/news/1001100/bill-hader-cries-in-an-interview-i-saw-my-kids-5-times-last-summer?source=Snapzu

USB Type-C Authentication Program launched to protect your devices

​With the arrival of USB-C a few years back, plugging into laptops, tablets and smartphones became even easier than before. But there are potential security risks. The USB Type-C Authentication Program launched today aims to address such issues.​
Read more: https://newatlas.com/usb-c-authentication-program/57844/?source=Snapzu

Seeking inner peace in a violent, unequal world is not a selfish act

That is, so long as you don’t ignore the outside world, like the Twitter CEO who blithely tweeted from a meditation retreat in Myanmar, says Holly Rigby, a teacher and union activist.
Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/dec/31/inner-peace-twitter-yoga-retreat?source=Snapzu

Is Organic Food Over?

As corporations rush in to make a buck, some farmers are pushing back — and fighting for the soul of organic food
Read more: https://www.eater.com/2019/1/3/18165140/organic-food-definition-natural-gmo-controversy?source=Snapzu

Why we are fascinated by miniature books

It is known as the “fly’s eye Dante”: an 1878 edition of the Divine Comedy which is so small – just 11/4 by 13/4 inches – that it is said to have taken 11 years to print, and to have damaged the eyes of both its compositor and corrector. Bound in red leather embossed with gold, the world’s smallest edition of Dante’s classic poem, which was printed by the Salmin Brothers in Padua, is one of almost 50 officially designated miniature books housed in the London Library.
Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/jan/03/why-we-are-fascinated-by-miniature-books?source=Snapzu

Los Angeles Accuses Weather Channel App of Covertly Mining User Data

In a lawsuit on Thursday, the city attorney said tracking was used not just for local forecasts but also for commercial purposes like targeted marketing.
Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/03/technology/weather-channel-app-lawsuit.html?source=Snapzu

Watch - cheese infested with live maggots is a delicacy

The residents of Sardinia go for casu marzu, a festering pile of rotten pecorino cheese teeming with squirming fly larvae.
Read more: https://boingboing.net/2019/01/03/watch-cheese-infested-with-l.html?source=Snapzu

California Forces Pet Stores to Sell Only Dogs and Cats From Shelters

A law that took effect on Tuesday makes California the first state to bar the sale of dogs, cats and rabbits that do not come from shelters or rescue organizations.
Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/02/us/california-pet-store-rescue-law.html?source=Snapzu

2018 Worldwide Box Office Hits Record as Disney Dominates

2018’s movie business hit all-time benchmarks of $11.9 billion in North America and $41.7 billion globally, with Disney taking in nearly a fifth of that figure.
Read more: https://variety.com/2019/film/news/box-office-record-disney-dominates-1203098075/?source=Snapzu

That Time a Heineken Distributor Convinced the Masses That Corona Contained Human Urine

For many beer aficionados “tastes like warm piss” is perhaps the most withering insult one can hurl in the general direction of a given beer. While you wouldn’t begrudge a member of the public making such a claim about a particular beer, you’d think brewers themselves would have a little more decorum.
Read more: http://www.todayifoundout.com/index.php/2019/01/that-time-a-heineken-distributor-convinced-the-masses-that-corona-contained-human-urine/?source=Snapzu

Jailed, Raped, Deported—and Desperate to Return Home to America

The tragic story of a family ravaged by the U.S. immigration system.
Read more: https://newrepublic.com/article/152690/jailed-raped-deported-robbed-tragic-story-undocumented-immigrant?source=Snapzu

WWE interviewer 'Mean' Gene Okerlund dead at 76

"Mean" Gene Okerlund, one of the voices synonymous with professional wrestling as a host, in-ring announcer and interviewer since the mid-1980s, has died at the age of 76.
Read more: http://www.espn.com/wwe/story/_/id/25667972/mean-gene-okerlund-iconic-interviewer-professional-wrestling-dies-76?source=Snapzu

Deaths: Actor Bob Einstein, 'Super Dave Osborne' and Marty Funkhouser on ‘Curb Your Enthusiasm’

Deaths: Actor Bob Einstein, 'Super Dave Osborne' and Marty Funkhouser on ‘Curb Your Enthusiasm’
Read more: https://boingboing.net/2019/01/02/deaths-actor-bob-einstein-ak.html?source=Snapzu

Religious freedom applies to atheists, too

In April of 2017, the Iowa House of Representatives respected my religious rights when I delivered the first atheistic invocation in that body’s history. The Iowa Senate, however, has denied my repeated requests to perform a similar invocation. In so doing, not only is the Senate directly discriminating against me, it is violating the Constitution, which protects all faiths equally. In its upcoming session, the Senate faces a stark choice: Continue to limit religious freedom or protect it for all Iowans.
Read more: https://exmuslim1.wordpress.com/2019/01/01/religious-freedom-applies-to-atheists-too/?source=Snapzu

Inside Computer Stores of the 70s and 80s

Rare scenes from the early days of personal computer shopping.
Read more: https://www.pcmag.com/feature/338749/inside-computer-stores-of-the-70s-and-80s?source=Snapzu

Drawing is the best videogame

A 2019 New Year's Eve letter for TCI about drawing and videogames, by artist Jeffrey Alan Scudder.
Read more: https://thecreativeindependent.com/weekends/drawing-is-the-best-videogame-by-jeffrey-alan-scudder/?source=Snapzu

Cafe opens in Tokyo staffed by robots controlled by paralyzed people

Dawn is an inspirational marriage of technology and humanity.
Read more: https://soranews24.com/2018/11/29/cafe-opens-in-tokyo-staffed-by-robots-controlled-by-paralyzed-people/?fbclid=IwAR2cSlCn1HLw-E-hjq-d6RW--JeXbMdPh6EM55YQvYbKA7PGS-Xj7LNBC1Y?source=Snapzu

Average 10-year-old has eaten 18 years' worth of sugar

Public Health England aims to persuade parents to reduce sugar in children’s diets
Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2019/jan/02/average-10-year-old-18-years-worth-of-sugar-public-health-england?source=Snapzu

Death is no leveller if some live much longer than others

Death was the great leveller, but new life-extension technologies will widen the gap between the haves and havenots
Read more: https://aeon.co/ideas/death-is-no-leveller-if-some-live-much-longer-than-others?source=Snapzu

Russian Billionaire Demolishes Trump's Former $95M Palm Beach Mansion (PHOTOS)

Dmitry Rybolovlev has followed through with his plans of demolishing a massive Palm Beach mansion previously owned by Donald Trump. Rybolovlev purchased the 6.26 acre estate in 2008 for a record breaking $95,000,000. His plans changed with the discovery of mold, making the oceanfront home one of the nation’s most expensive tear downs. Donald Trump purchased the property in 2004 from Abe Gosman for $41,400,000.
Read more: http://www.priceypads.com/russian-billionaire-demolishes-trumps-former-95m-palm-beach-mansion-photos/?source=Snapzu

Church rapidly disappearing from Dutch lives

The Dutch population is rapidly losing interest in going to church, according to social and cultural planning office SCP. The decline of the Christian faith also continues in the Netherlands. "Churches are losing in authority, binding power and popularity", the SCP said in a new report, RTL Nieuws reports.
Read more: https://nltimes.nl/2018/12/19/church-rapidly-disappearing-dutch-lives?source=Snapzu

The 5 Things Top-Paid Writers Will Be Doing in 2019

In the past 12 months, I’ve gained about 25,000+ new email subscribers. I average about 150,000+ views/month.
Read more: https://writingcooperative.com/the-5-things-top-paid-writers-will-be-doing-in-2019-c34bc62a9e88?source=Snapzu

The surprising habits of original thinkers

How do creative people come up with great ideas? Organizational psychologist Adam Grant studies "originals": thinkers who dream up new ideas and take action to put them into the world. In this talk, learn three unexpected habits of originals — including embracing failure. "The greatest originals are the ones who fail the most, because they're the ones who try the most," Grant says. "You need a lot of bad ideas in order to get a few good ones."
Read more: https://snapzu.com/RXCKSTXR/the-surprising-habits-of-original-thinkers?source=Snapzu

Mickey Mouse and Batman will soon be public domain—here’s what that means

The Internet stopped another copyright extension without firing a shot.
Read more: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2019/01/a-whole-years-worth-of-works-just-fell-into-the-public-domain/?source=Snapzu

Overlooked No More: Yamei Kin, the Chinese Doctor Who Introduced Tofu to the West

In 1917 Yamei Kin, a Chinese-born doctor then living in New York, visited her homeland to study a crop that was virtually unknown to Americans: the soybean. By that point she had become something of a celebrity dietitian. For years before the mission to China she had been telling women’s clubs that tofu and other soy products were nutritious alternatives to meat, and that they required fewer resources to produce. She liked to say that they tasted “a little like brains and a little like sweetbreads.”
Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/17/obituaries/yamei-kin-overlooked.html?source=Snapzu

Kitty Flanagan’s 488 Rules for Life

In answer to Canadian clinical psychologist Jordan Peterson's new self-help book, '12 Rules for Life', in this satire Australian Kitty Flanagan counters with her own book, '488 Rules for Life' on video. Published by 'The Weekly' on August 8, 2018.
Read more: https://www.oshonews.com/2018/08/27/kitty-flanagans-rules-for-life/?source=Snapzu

How World War Z will pick up where Left 4 Dead left us stranded

Left 4 Dead fans aren’t getting much fan out of Valve. But have no fear. Saber Interactive is picking up the mantle with World War Z, a co-op shooter coming in 2019 to the PC and consoles. World War Z doesn’t feature Brad Pitt, but it does carry the license from the popular Paramount Pictures property, which featured swarms of terrifying and fast zombies. Saber Interactive CEO Matt Karch runs the 450-person studio, which has been making the game for the past three years. He takes inspiration from the World War Z book, but he also wants to make sure that fans of the movie get their fill.
Read more: https://venturebeat.com/2018/12/26/how-world-war-z-will-pick-up-where-left-4-dead-left-us-stranded/view-all/?source=Snapzu

A Brief And Bitter History Of Being Atheist In Modern Egypt

Egyptian society simply doesn't recognize the reality of atheism, and often punishes anyone who declares it publicly.
Read more: https://www.worldcrunch.com/culture-society/a-brief-and-bitter-history-of-being-atheist-in-modern-egypt?source=Snapzu