Stream of Reading (Prepare to be Forwarded) – An Archive of What I'm Reading
Walt Thompson’s voice breaks when he explains why he’s here. We’re standing in a parking lot across from the Alumni Coliseum on the campus of Eastern Kentucky University in Richmond, Kentucky, on a gray Saturday last October. It’s midafternoon, and the campus is nearly empty for autumn break, except for the several thousand Trump supporters…
Last May, an elderly man was admitted to the Brooklyn branch of Mount Sinai Hospital for abdominal surgery. A blood test revealed that he was infected with a newly discovered germ as deadly as it was mysterious. Doctors swiftly isolated him in the intensive care unit. The germ, a fungus called Candida auris, preys on…
Eleven days have passed since Attorney General William Barr fired off a surprisingly brief letter outlining what he asserted were the key takeaways from a highly anticipated report two years in the making. During that time, we’ve learned much more about Barr than we have about Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s Trump-Russia probe. We’ve learned, for…
The battle against Thanos begins once more. GIF: Avengers: Endgame (Marvel Studios) Trailer FrenzyA special place to find the newest trailers for movies and TV shows you’re craving. Earth’s mightiest heroes—what’s left of them, at least—stand united, for one last fight. Marvel just dropped another surprise new Avengers: Endgame teaser out of nowhere, and…
The International Space Station Image: NASA/Roscosmos India’s first successful test of an anti-satellite weapon has produced an orbiting debris field consisting of at least 400 pieces, according to NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine. This debris now threatens the ISS, he said, calling India’s actions “not compatible with the future of human spaceflight.” Bridenstine made the comments…
More than a year after announcing Facebook would feature less news, Mark Zuckerberg says he has a new idea: He wants to create a section of his social network that would be devoted to “high-quality news,” and may pay publishers that share their stuff there. Zuckerberg floated the idea in a conversation with Axel Springer…
There’s a chance you’ve seen Collin Hayslett’s dad’s face floating around Twitter. His dad, you see, is, in a word, hot. He’s got a hot dad. Collin’s dad, Clint, is a hot 45-year-old who decided he was at a good age to try his hand — his face? — at modeling. Hayslett, a junior at…
Jeff Fager. Photo: AP/REX/Shutterstock The afternoon of March 7, 2018, was go time, or so we believed. Inside a glass huddle room at the Washington Post, its walls covered with headlines from journalistic coups of the past, we began dialing numbers on a speakerphone and pressing send on carefully drafted, bullet-pointed emails. For nearly four…
Ad tech has had another casualty. The news of Sizmek’s bankruptcy filing has shaken digital ad executives, who regarded the company’s ad server business as an important contender to Google’s. But the company’s vision of becoming a fully integrated buy-side tech stack was built on a crumbling foundation, according to ad tech sources. What didn’t help…
At the Atlantic earlier this week, Sidney Fussell reported on Airbnb’s policies toward hosts installing cameras to observe their customers and the platform’s apparent ambivalence about enforcing them. As Fussell notes, Airbnb hosts are permitted to have cameras installed in living rooms, common areas, and outdoor spaces, but not bathrooms and sleeping areas. They are…