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Tech NewsNewsGig Workers in California Petition Supreme Court to Overturn Prop 22
The fight to bring full employment protections to gig workers in California seemed all but doomed by November’s passage of Proposition 22—a historically expensive ballot measure funded by Uber, Lyft, and others, which rolled back hard-won rights for app workers in the state. Today, workers revealed they had one last Hail Mary left. A motley … Continued
By Avery Ellis -
Tech NewsNewsLet’s Talk About the Peloton Guy’s Whole Water Thing
John Foley, the founder and CEO of expensive treadmill company Peloton, is not someone I know much about. Or knew, rather, since I received a crash course into the man’s psyche via New York Times profile this morning. What have a learned? That Foley is a “big dimmer guy” whose downstairs has at least 14 … Continued
By Avery Ellis -
Tech NewsPoliticsScrew It, We Asked a Neural Network to Predict the Election
Flip on the TV today and you’re liable to encounter someone running their mouth about the presidential election. Partisan people howling about why their candidate is better. Supposedly non-partisan people trying to earn their paychecks by interpreting statistics. People, people, people. Who cares! Historically, the success rate of prognostication for people skews heavily towards Doing … Continued
By Avery Ellis -
Tech NewsPoliticsTake a Guess Who Anthony Scaramucci Voted For, and Also: Remember Anthony Scaramucci???
Before swiftly deleting the tweet, Anthony Scaramucci informed the world of his decision to cast his vote in favor of Joseph Biden and Kamala Harris, on New York’s Working Families ticket. Neat! Luckily a Daniel Marans of the Huffington Post grabbed a screenshot before it disappeared from Scaramucci’s feed. New York is expected to be … Continued
By Avery Ellis -
Tech NewsPoliticsSo We’re Finally Muting the Mics
Just days out from the last ordained shouting match of the 2020 election, the Commission on Presidential Debates has declared new guidance for Joe Biden and Donald Trump’s final matchup. That’s right folk, we’re cutting the mics! Trump frequently interrupted his opponent during the first debate—a situation anyone could have foreseen—while moderator Chris Wallace did … Continued
By Avery Ellis -
Tech NewsPoliticsTrump’s Free Pass on Twitter Could End January 20, 2021
In the past three years and change, it seems as though the entire world has learned to revolve around our very special boy in chief, Donald Trump, in ways big and small. Hardly the most consequential of these: Twitter—by far his favorite platform for whipping his base into a frenzy—was forced to create an entirely … Continued
By Avery Ellis -
Tech NewsPoliticsPhotoshop Contest: What’s Amy Coney Barrett Doodling?
Here we are on day two of the largely foregone conclusion that is the Senate confirmation process of Judge Amy Coney Barrett. What a fucking nightmare. There have been several objections to Republicans rushing Barrett onto the Supreme Court less than a month after the death of liberal Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, specifically that her … Continued
By Avery Ellis -
Tech NewsHere Are the 18 Congressional Representatives Who Refused to Condemn QAnon
House Resolution 1154 is a simple bill that barely fills five pages in Congressional formatting, and which passed the House of Representatives easily this afternoon with 370 votes in favor. Why this even remotely matters is that the bill—the entire purpose of which was to call for the condemnation of the QAnon conspiracy strictly within … Continued
By Avery Ellis -
Tech NewsShipt’s ‘Effort-Based’ Pay Model Decided a 1,400-Item Order Was Worth About $20
Target-owned personal shopping platform Shipt—which competes with the likes of Instacart—has been transitioning its markets to what it calls an “effort-based” wage system, dubbed V2. We, and the contractors who work for Shipt, have no idea how the new model determines pay. But a very unusual order sent to Gizmodo gives a good indication of … Continued
By Avery Ellis -
io9BooksFantasyWho Is the Lord of the Rings, Exactly?
It’s been a little while so it’s possible my memory isn’t as fresh on the subject of Middle-earth as it once was. But a thought occurred to me this weekend that I cannot shake: Did J.R.R. Tolkien name the Lord of the Rings trilogy after the bad guy? Let me cover my ass a little … Continued
By Avery Ellis -
Tech NewsFacebookIt’s Safe to Delete Your Facebook Now
“It’s the worst, but I just can’t delete Facebook,” the increasingly common refrain goes—at which point the person in question will make a melodramatic show of how successfully the no good, very bad company has successfully allowed them to offload their social responsibilities. Chief among these? Remembering birthdays. Most of us were, at some point, … Continued
By Avery Ellis -
Tech NewsAre You Also Having the Mask Dream?
On the days where enough has gone right in my tiny sliver of our grim shared reality to dredge up the now-nostalgic emotion of insouciance, I’ll make it a block or two from my apartment before realizing, oh right, the pandemic didn’t end, and I forgot a mask. I run back, embarrassed and deflated. This … Continued
By Avery Ellis -
Tech NewsBetter Names for Pepsi’s Sleep Beverage, Ranked
PepsiCo will bring into production a drink to help people ease stress and sleep better during These Uncertain Times, the company announced today. They’ve decided to name this “enhanced water beverage” Driftwell. While my colleague Matt Novak described the name as indicative of “the dystopia we were promised,” I find it uninspiring—a sort of over-focus-grouped … Continued
By Avery Ellis -
Tech NewsPoliticsBill Barr Is About to Blow Up the Antitrust Case Against Google: Report
Several interested parties in the U.S. government have been looking to put Google’s head on a spike, and while undoubtedly there’s been some degree of jockeying between them for which will ultimately get the credit, they’ve been proceeding with care and caution in the interest of building an ironclad case against a particularly canny opponent. … Continued
By Avery Ellis -
Tech NewsSick DaysI Could Not Even Take My Dog Down for a Walk Without Getting Arrested
Are you a frontline worker dealing with new stresses or irresponsible management? Is working (or not working) from home starting to take a psychological toll? Submit a story using this Google form or send me an email with the subject line “My Covid Story” and provide as much detail as you’re comfortable with. Authors’ identities have … Continued
By Avery Ellis -
Tech NewsAmazonAmazon Is Openly Hiring Union-Busters
Jeff Bezos obviously doesn’t want a union in his company. Amazon’s increasingly flippant statements about protest activity have made that clear, as have years of leaks in the press that detail the sort of anti-labor reeducation workers are subjected to, how company brass discuss labor leaders, and the sheer resources involved in making sure individual … Continued
By Avery Ellis -
Tech NewsMicrosoftHappy Birthday, Windows 95
As of today, Windows 95—the first of the “modern” Microsoft OSes—is a quarter-century old. Happy birthday old friend. We could, of course, take this opportunity to recount the myriad features of 95 that would become staples of Windowses to come: the huge graphical improvements over 3.1, the start button and task bar, file shortcuts, plug-and-play … Continued
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Tech NewsSick DaysAt Least I Can Get Pot Delivered
Are you a frontline worker dealing with new stresses or irresponsible management? Is working (or not working) from home starting to take a psychological toll? How are you coping with reopening? Submit a story using this Google form or send me an email with the subject line “My Covid Story” and provide as much detail as … Continued
By Avery Ellis -
Tech NewsThe Ghost in the Ice Cream Machine
I thought that I hated Mister Softee. Not what his trucks sell, to be clear. While soft serve might not meet the strictest definition of “ice cream,” I respect the frozen treat as a separate, undeniably delicious beast. (Swirl cone with chocolate sprinkles, please.) No, what drives me to madness about Mister Softee is the … Continued
By Avery Ellis
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