The un-celebrity president: Jimmy Carter shuns riches, lives modestly in his Georgia hometown
Jimmy Carter finishes his Saturday night dinner, salmon and broccoli casserole on a paper plate, flashes his famous toothy grin and calls playfully to his wife of 72 years, Rosalynn: “C’mon, kid.” She laughs and takes his hand, and they walk carefully through a neighbor’s kitchen filled with 1976 campaign buttons, photos of world leaders and a couple of unopened cans of Billy Beer, then out the back door, where three Secret Service agents wait. They do this just about every weekend in this tiny town where they were born — he almost 94 years ago, she almost 91. Dinner at their friend Jill Stuckey’s house, with plastic Solo cups of ice water and one glass each of bargain-brand chardonnay, then the half-mile walk home to the ranch house they built in 1961.

The Islamic fundamentalist Jeremy Corbyn should be ashamed of himself – if only he’d behaved more like Margaret Thatcher | The Independent
Corbyn supported every gay rights campaign at a time when it was considered extremist to do so. And the way he managed to be an extremist Islamic fundamentalist and an extremist gay rights fanatic at the same time only shows how dangerous he is — "I suppose it may just be possible that the wreath he laid at an event organised to mark the bombing of civilians in 1985 was actually put there to mark the bombing of civilians in 1985.

But it’s much more likely that secretly, Jeremy Corbyn supports Palestinian terrorists who murder athletes. "

Home | Charticulator
Ziet er echt zeer leutig uit — Interactive Construction of Bespoke Chart Layouts

The Corbyn wreath ‘scandal’ is just an exercise in hypocrisy | Owen Jones | Opinion | The Guardian
let’s take the case of Ariel Sharon. In 1982, up to 3,500 Palestinian and Lebanese refugees were massacred by Israel’s Phalangist allies in the Sabra and Shatila camps. An Israeli commission later found Sharon to have been personally responsible” for the massacre. Among those attending his funeral in 2014 was Tony Blair: and yes, he laid a wreath. Who cried scandal then?

Trump has to be reminded of different time zones when calling world leaders – Business Insider
President Donald Trump reportedly has to be reminded of differences in time zones on a "constant basis" as he impulsively attempts to call other world leaders, a diplomatic source told Politico.  Trump apparently isn't "great at recognizing" that an older world leader might not be awake "or in the right place at 10:30 or 11 p.m. their time." Trump has a particularly "bizarre" interest in French President Emmanuel Macron, one former official said, and randomly calls him for no apparent reason.

What Caused the Dinosaur Extinction? – The Atlantic
A Princeton geologist has endured decades of ridicule for arguing that the fifth extinction was caused not by an asteroid but by a series of colossal volcanic eruptions. But she’s reopened that debate.

Jeremy Corbyn for U.K. prime minister – Opinion – Israel News | Haaretz.com
Anyone who wants to see the world take action against the Israeli occupation should dream of Corbyn. Corbyn has been declared the next enemy of the Jews. Viktor Orban is a righteous among the nations; the American alt-right is the rock of Israel and its savior; Rodrigo Duterte, the Philippines’ leader who called to kill millions “like Hitler,” is a welcome guest in Israel – and Corbyn is the enemy of the people. The Jewish establishment in Britain and Israeli propaganda have taken out a contract on him, to foil his election: He’s an anti-Semite, Labor is anti-Semitic, Jewish life in Britain is in “existential danger,” no less, as three British Jewish newspapers cried out in a joint editorial.

Why decentralized social networking never makes it — ever heard of Crossing the Chasm? – Upon 2020
decentralized social networking will never amount to anything unless it solves at least one real, burning problem much better than the centralized alternatives

She’s the world’s top empathy researcher. But colleagues say she bullied and intimidated them | Science | AAAS
Tania Singer, a celebrated neuroscientist and director at the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences in Leipzig, Germany, is known as one of the world’s foremost experts on empathy. In her research, she has sought to demonstrate that meditation can make people more kind and caring. The title of a profile of Singer written by this reporter in 2013 summed up her public image: Concentrating on Kindness. But inside her lab, it was a very different story, eight former and current colleagues say in interviews with Science. The researchers, all but one of whom insisted on remaining anonymous because they feared for their careers, describe a group gripped by fear of their boss. “Whenever anyone had a meeting with her there was at least an even chance they would come out in tears,” one colleague says.

The World’s Newest, Most Gloriously Designed Maps – Atlas Obscura
Calling all map enthusiasts: the North American Cartographic Information Society will soon be releasing the 2018 Atlas of Design, its latest compendium of the world’s newest and best maps.

How Facebook, Twitter, YouTube have taken a new job as content cops – Axios
Together, the moderation disputes and privacy debates point to a future in which Facebook and its peers face a tough choice: Get good, fast, at being quasi-governments themselves — or hand the mess back to real governments and return to writing code and making money.

Anatomy of Tik Tok: The viral video app from Bytedance | FactorDaily
Tik Tok is a crazy place. Every time I open the app, time flies. Full of bite-sized videos, it is immensely entertaining. You can find Parkour athletes doing gravity-defying stuff, creators making magic, comedians, dancers, models and more. All of this led Tik Tok to get more iOS downloads than Instagram in Q1 2018 – that’s huge! How did this happen?

Why Is Jordan Peterson So Popular? – The Atlantic
When the poetry editors of The Nation virtuously publish an amateurish but super-woke poem, only to discover that the poem stumbled across several trip wires of political correctness; when these editors (one of them a full professor in the Harvard English department) then jointly write a letter oozing bathos and career anxiety and begging forgiveness from their critics; when the poet himself publishes a statement of his own—a missive falling somewhere between an apology, a Hail Mary pass, and a suicide note; and when all of this is accepted in the houses of the holy as one of the regrettable but minor incidents that take place along the path toward greater justice, something is dying. When the top man at The New York Times publishes a sober statement about a meeting he had with the president in which he describes instructing Trump about the problem of his “deeply troubling anti-press rhetoric,” and then three days later the paper announces that it has hired a writer who has tweeted about her hatred of white people, of Republicans, of cops, of the president, of the need to stop certain female writers and journalists from “existing,” and when this new hire will not be a beat reporter, but will sit on the paper’s editorial board—having a hand in shaping the opinions the paper presents to the world—then it is no mystery that a parallel culture of ideas has emerged to replace a corrupted system.

#QAnon, the pro-Trump conspiracy theory, explained – Vox
The Russia investigation is a sham. It’s actually a cover story for special counsel Robert Mueller and Donald Trump working together to expose thousands of pedophiles hidden in plain sight — including Hillary Clinton (and Bill Clinton, and Barack Obama), who will soon be under arrest.

Joods Forum heeft bedenkingen bij nieuwe CD&V-kandidate Frie… – De Standaard
Ah well. "Toen deze krant vroeg wat ze over onverdoofd slachten vond, zei ze dat ‘alle dieren goed moeten worden behandeld. Als de wet zegt dat het slachten verdoofd moet gebeuren, dan is dat zo.’ Die laatste uitspraak vindt Raphael Werner, voorzitter van het Joods Forum, bijzonder jammer, zo zegt hij op de site van Joods Actueel.

It’s Nice That | Adobe has added 665 new Monotype fonts to Creative Cloud
Typographers of the creative world rejoice! Christmas has, sort of, come early this year: Adobe and Montoype have just snuck down the chimney, glugged the port, polished off Rudloph’s carrot, and deposited 665 new fonts from 41 type families under the tree. It’ll be like unwrapping a shiny new Playstation 2 all over again. Remember how good that felt? Being 10? Not having any real understanding of the full and crushing weight of the anxieties and stresses that were soon to wash all over you, day in, day out? Today’s like that, all over again.

Sex, Beer, and Coding: Inside Facebook’s Wild Early Days in Palo Alto
When the young Mark Zuckerberg moved to Palo Alto in 2004, he and his buddies built a corporate proto-culture that continues to influence the company today.

Why SETI Relies On Us Accepting Our Mediocrity
Why we downplay Fermi’s paradox.

Websites not available in the EU because of GDPR – data.verifiedjoseph.com

Are Facebook and YouTube quasi-governmental actors? – Infowars
The media platforms’ banishment of Alex Jones, a conspiracy theorist, raises difficult questions about constitutional standards

How I gained commit access to Homebrew in 30 minutes
If I were a malicious actor, I could have made a small, likely unnoticed change to the openssl formulae, placing a backdoor on any machine that installed it. If I can gain access to commit in 30 minutes, what could a nation state with dedicated resources achieve against a team of 17 volunteers? How many private company networks could be accessed? How many of these could be used to escalate to large scale data breaches? What other package management systems have similar weaknesses?

BBC – Culture – Is horror the most disrespected genre?
Whenever a horror movie makes a splash… there is invariably an article calling it ‘smart’ or ‘elevated’ or ‘art house’ horror. They hate horror SO MUCH they have to frame its hits as something else.

Patrick Stewart cast in new Star Trek TV show | EW.com
“With overwhelming joy, it’s a privilege to welcome Sir Patrick Stewart back to the Star Trek fold. For over 20 years, fans have hoped for the return of Captain Jean-Luc Picard and that day is finally here. We can’t wait to forge new ground, surprise people, and honor generations both new and old.”

‘You’re getting nothing’: Steve Jobs’ daughter wrote a heartbreaking memoir about their often brutal relationship | Business Insider India
In one telling detail, Brennan-Jobs outlines how Jobs' lawyers insisted on finalising child support payouts and other payments on December 8, 1980. Four days later, Apple would IPO and Jobs would become immensely wealthy. She also recalled believing that her father replaced his Porsche every time it had a scratch, and asking if she could have his current model when he got rid of it. "You're not getting anything," he responded. "You understand? Nothing. You're getting nothing." Brennan-Jobs added that her father had not been "generous with money, or food, or words."

How-To | The Nation
"In the end, this decision means that we need to step back and look at not only our editing process, but at ourselves as editors." Ja inderdaad. En niét wegens het publiceren van het gedicht.