Random stuff worth reading on the internet thread

[Jeff Lebowski]

Cool info graphic type story on the Tulsa race riots:
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/...-massacre.html

Ugh. That is super painful to read.

[Northwestcoug]

Cool info graphic type story on the Tulsa race riots:
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/...-massacre.html

[Pelado]

This is an interesting article that talks about how the Plague might have started a century earlier than we thought.

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/histo...ght-180977331/

Freaking Mongols.

[Bo Diddley]

This is an interesting article that talks about how the Plague might have started a century earlier than we thought.

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/histo...ght-180977331/

[BigFatMeanie]

Wow. That is a long but fascinating read. It's always been common knowledge around the SLC area that the Kingstons are crooked and I try to avoid any known Kingston businesses (often hard to tell), but that fraud with Washakie is a "whole nuther level".

[Lost Student]

The Lion, the Polygamist, and the Biofuel Scam: How a member of a breakaway Mormon sect teamed up with a Lambo-driving, hard-partying tycoon to bilk the government for hundreds of millions of dollars.

Pretty interesting story from the Kingston polys and their biodiesel plant in Plymouth, where they pretended to process a whole lot of fuel.

Despite his misgivings, the Lion apparently kept chasing his prey. In March 2015, Washakie banked $164 million in IRS tax credits. Jacob claims Dermen insisted they up the ante. Early the following year, Washakie filed for credits totaling $644 million. At that point, the company wasn’t producing a single gallon of biodiesel.

[Northwestcoug]

Interesting story about generational business in Japan. Did you know that Japan is home to 40% of all the world’s businesses that are 100 years or older?

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/02/b...companies.html

[swampfrog]

Scholars call for the Pulitzer for an essay to be rescinded. For the silly reason that her premise has no scholarly or historical support....but it was super woke.

https://www.nas.org/blogs/article/pu...ah-jones-prize

Motte-and-bailey

[Art Vandelay]

Scholars call for the Pulitzer for an essay to be rescinded. For the silly reason that her premise has no scholarly or historical support....but it was super woke.


https://www.nas.org/blogs/article/pu...ah-jones-prize

[Northwestcoug]

Really good piece of investigative journalism about evicted D.C. renters. Turns out that a couple of low-lifes who deliver most of the summonses from landlords really don't deliver them, allowing renters to be evicted much quicker than if they went through the normal court process. They took advantage of lax oversight and a gullible court system. And of course, the owners of buildings relied on the fraud to kick out renters to charge higher rents.

https://dcist.com/story/20/10/05/tho...w-up-to-court/

[Scott R Nelson]

Watch out if you like to eat licorice!

https://arstechnica.com/science/2020...massachusetts/

[beefytee]

This article depresses me. Especially the part about the Wonder Years.

https://waitbutwhy.com/2020/01/its-2...5ANpmO7yF4kUAA

I came to the realization of the Wonder Years timeline a few years ago when a short lived TV series came on air. It was called Surviving Jack and came out around 2014. I recognized its similarities to the Wonder Years but thought it was way to soon to be nostalgic for the 90's. But I did the calculations and sure enough, both TV shows go back in time about 20 years.

[USUC]

This article depresses me. Especially the part about the Wonder Years.

https://waitbutwhy.com/2020/01/its-2...5ANpmO7yF4kUAA

[Northwestcoug]

IMO, this article does a great job demonstrating the impasse over the argument of abortion. Both sides have valid moral underpinnings for their beliefs.

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine...t-face/600769/

[Northwestcoug]

This sobering (tee hee!) article documents serious problems with breathalyzers. Not only is the unreliable technology implicating innocent people, the resulting legal challenges are tossing out convictions of really guilty drunk drivers:

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/03/b...athalyzer.html

This is related to issues that laboratory medicine deals with everyday. There is no one perfect test result or analyzer. And a whole host of pre- and post-analytic variables can cause false positives or negatives. We just try to get as close to 'truth' as possible.