#and had her worst moral moments which still sparks debate today

[thrileikur]

personal fubblegum updates since this tag dies with me when i eventually give up on the franchise:

- i rewatched rattleballs and this is gonna make me sound deranged, but i couldnt believe i forgot that pb was actually starting to enjoy finn trying to make her breakfast for her before he messed it up directly asking for her validation. whole scene is hilarious and dare i say wholesome considering they were nigh unpairable at this point. vid attached

- i had about a post this before but i deleted it because it was crosstagged and i did not want to factor in the heat i couldve possibly gotten from it, but no one told me about the fubblegum shipper (i think it was 2015 and they were…. 15? 14? some fucked up shit) who got a bunch of death threats for drawing them back in the day. i get why, but it really got to me because it explained a lot about how the fandom is today, the people who perpetrated it eventually got what they wanted out of the show and everyone subsequently kinda let that mentality get to them all these years after. this is gonna sound bold, but its really telling of the fanbase today and how… its gotten impeded overtime because now the writers are actively trying to push the main story to adults, yet a bunch of people in the fandom today are still usually younger individuals. through some digging i could find 30, 40 year olds in the early 2010s writing analysis/fic about at, so this is really significant to me. i guess this ties back to the ship because now its beyond obvious why people are so against it, even then, i think its stifled the quality of output we get of them both officially and non-officially these days.

- i am trying day and night to find the drive to start this project about them i really want to kick off. its my fault, i only wrote 4 chapters of 11 on one project and this is far more ambitious. ill say rn its another oneshot collection thats in the works, but if people care enough for me to bring it up i found a couple ideas for another au/individual fic on my phone that i havent transferred elsewhere yet. its a post-canon lore-divergent planned multichapter in which the main themes are envoys and diplomacy, something i feel works really well with their occupations. its one where they meet each other after the finale is set which i know has been done to death before, in my defense, it started off as a meet cute where finn meets bonnie off the coast as one of the migrants from founders’ after the end of cawm, then i wanted to write around the concept after taking in what wouldve changed if he never met her or jake, and the latter saved ooo as depicted all by himself. its still firmly in sandbox mode but this is kinda the thing i would want to be known for if all of my good public ideas are gonna be about their relationship.

- hynden walch and jeremy shada were leaked as being cast in the first episode of f&c s2 a while back and tbh, i dont know what ill do if we dont get a decent interaction out of their characters. i just want them to pick up the pieces from that horrible scene where he shows up in obsidian. couldve written him out of it and nothing wouldve changed, its as if the new crop of writers got his personality from one episode of the og show (and i didnt like pb very much in it either, but its better for me to treat the whole thing as non canon)

[anne-wentworth]

Something About Her

Chapter 4- Better With You

Harvey pulls an all nighter to finish a paper and Donna’s stressed about her audition but things aren’t so bad when they’ve got each other.

Chapter 1 2 and 3

Read on ao3

Harvey was dying.

His head was propped against his hand as the words on the screen of his laptop blurred in front of him. He was about halfway done with his assignment.

But he still had half to finish.

Brimming with frustration, he rested his head against his desk for a few moments. However he quickly sat back up again because he knew if he remained like that he would soon pass out.

His roommate had made himself scare when he realised that Harvey had a paper due in the morning that he hadn’t even started yet.

It was a routine that began after Jeff woke Harvey with his screams when his laptop crashed at two am and the time Harvey took his anger over a shitty Ethics project out on a number of their plates.

Both of them were at their worst during all nighters.

However, on the occasions that the two of them needed to get shit done for the next day, they would take turns making coffee and ensure that the other didn’t succumb to sleep.

But right now Harvey was all alone and that evil voice in the back of his mind was whispering about how amazing his bed was.

Without thinking, he reached for his phone and automatically dialed the one person who would be able to make him feel less miserable.

“This paper is killing me,” he instantly said into the receiver.

“It’s your fault for starting it so last minute,” Donna replied.

Harvey groaned. He knew she was right but that didn’t mean he wanted to hear it.

“What are you doing?” he asked.

“Going over my lines again,” she sighed.

Her audition was tomorrow and she had been stressing about it all day.

“Donna you already know all your lines. There is literally nothing more that you can do.”

“I know I just…feel off my game.”

“You’ll be fine,” Harvey said softly.

“I didn’t realise you could see the future,” Donna grumbled and Harvey’s eyebrows shot up.

He was about to fire back but then she spoke again.

“I’m sorry. I just cannot butcher Portia’s character I will not do that to her or Shakespeare I need to be perfect.”

Harvey thought she was already perfect but he refrained from voicing his opinion out loud. In her current mood she would just fight him on it.

“Which one is Merchant of Venice again?” he asked, deciding to take another route to distract her. “Is that the one She’s The Man is based off?”

“Oh my god Harvey are you serious? No that is Twelfth Night I can’t believe you even asked that.”

She sounded absolutely appalled and he couldn’t help but grin.

“Well I’m not much of a Shakespeare fan,” he said.

Which was true. He had to read Romeo and Juliet in high school and every time he picked it up he fell asleep. That was the most history he had with old William.

“That’s it. I’m revoking my friendship,” Donna declared.

“Come on! You can teach me all about Shakespeare until I’m up to your standards.”

“And what’s in it for me?”

“Me,” Harvey smirked.

He didn’t need to see her to know she was rolling her eyes.

“I already have that and…well it’s not that great,” she responded without missing a beat.

“Oh you haven’t seen all of me yet.”

“And when will I see all of you?” she inquired in a low voice that made his heart race.

Over the past few weeks, flirting with Donna Paulsen had become his new favorite pastime.

“When you teach me Shakespeare,” he replied as seductively as possible.

Her laughter echoed in his ear and sparks erupted in his chest.

Another thing he had learned was that Donna’s laugh had become his new favorite sound.

“You should probably get back to your paper,” she said after a few moments of comfortable silence.

Harvey grunted in response and she let out a quiet giggle.

“Go on. You can do it. Be strong.”

“I don’t have any strength left.”

“Yes you do. You’re Harvey Specter.”

He smiled at that.

“Fine,” he said but the warmth coursing through his veins muted any bitterness he still felt.

“Good luck!”

“You too.”

“Thanks,” she responded softly and he could tell that some of her aggravation had melted away too.

He hung up and stared at his phone for a second before turning back to his laptop with a burst of rejuvenation.

Just like that, everything didn’t seem so shitty anymore.

Harvey walked out of his classroom to find Donna sitting on one of the benches nearby.

She had a cup of coffee in one hand and a copy of Merchant of Venice in the other as she looked over her lines for what Harvey supposed was the millionth time.

“What are you doing here?” he asked after walking over to her.

Surprise crossed over her features as she stared up at him, breaking out of her Shakespeare induced trance.

“Told you I was gonna start spending more time in the Law faculty,” she replied, echoing her words from that first day they spent together.

A smile immediately plastered itself on his face.

“True but usually I’m the one meeting you.”

“Well I decided to change that today.”

“So are you ready?” he inquired as he sat down next to her.

“No!” she exclaimed just as he expected. “And I had two extra weeks to prepare because they postponed it and I’m still in shit.”

“You’re not,” Harvey stated with a glare. “You’re gonna do great.”

“And how do you know that?”

“Because you’re Donna,” Harvey answered simply. “And you’re awesome.”

She grinned, leaning her head against his shoulder and a part of him damn near melted.

“You’re right.”

“I always am.”

“That’s debatable.”

Donna straightened before taking a sip of her coffee while Harvey looked on longingly.

“I could use another one of those.”

“This is my fourth for the morning,” she said as if it was the most normal thing in the world.

“Fourth?!” Harvey exclaimed.

“I was up all night,” she shrugged as if that was a perfect explanation.

“So was I. Donna that is not healthy.”

“Says the guy who frequently consumes triple cheese bacon burgers,” she instantly quipped, shooting him a look of her own.

“Okay we’re talking about your unhealthy habits right now not mine.”

She all but ignored him as she rose from her seat and held a hand out in his direction.

“Come on. I don’t want to be late.”

Harvey grasped her hand as he stood up, loosely throwing his arm around her shoulder as they headed to the other side of campus.

It wasn’t long before they reached their destination and Donna took a deep breath before entering the auditorium.

“You’re gonna be amazing,” Harvey reassured and she nodded.

“Here,” she said, handing him her copy of the play. “We both know I don’t need this.”

He instantly smiled at the return of that confidence that he knew and loved.

“Break a leg,” he said, just the tiniest bit proud of himself for the use of theatre lingo.

Donna’s expression however said he was an idiot but he didn’t miss the way she bit back a smile.

The corners of her mouth remained upturned as she walked through the doors and something in him automatically lit up.

Plopping down on the stairs, Harvey pulled his laptop out of his bag. He had a case briefing to type up for the next day and he didn’t plan on pulling another goddamn all nighter.

He was so lost in his work he didn’t even notice when Donna came out of the room.

“I got it!” she squealed, running to stand in front of him. “I got the part! I mean it still has to be officially posted but Morales said it’s basically mine. I did it!”

“I told you I’m always right,” he grinned as he stood up and pulled her into a hug.

His eyes fluttered shut for the briefest of moments as he held her. Her hair smelled like flowers and he was pretty sure he had a new favorite scent now too.

God he was in so much trouble.

“You were right about one thing,” Donna told him after pulling away.

Harvey was too busy trying to get his heartbeat back to its regular pace to respond.

“We need to celebrate,” she said, her eyes shining brighter than any star he had ever seen.

Fuck his case briefing.

He bent down to put away his laptop and grab his bag.

“Lead the way,” he said, holding out his arm.

Still wearing a huge grin, Donna hooked her arm in his as she took him to the little cafe right next to the Faculty of Engineering that sold her favorite milkshakes.

And in a little booth slurping milkshakes, laughing about the stupidest things with Donna, Harvey realised he had never been happier.

[nigeiadigitalmarketingcompany]

2:00PM Water Cooler 8/5/2019

Digital Elixir 2:00PM Water Cooler 8/5/2019

By Lambert Strether of Corrente

Trade

“Trade Wars Escalate” [Tim Duy’s Fed Watch]. “The big news everyone will wake up to is the latest escalation in the trade wars between the U.S. and China. The situation is obviously a clear net negative for the economy that will keep the Fed biased toward easing again in September. The Fed will remain under pressure to help President Trump fight his trade wars with lower interest rates in the months ahead.” • If the Fed takes away the punchbowl, the worst might happen: A Sanders win.

Politics

“But what is government itself, but the greatest of all reflections on human nature?” –James Madison, Federalist 51

“They had one weapon left and both knew it: treachery.” –Frank Herbert, Dune

“2020 Democratic Presidential Nomination” [RealClearPolitics] (average of five polls). As of August 1: Biden fluctuates to 32.2% (32.0), Sanders up to 16.5% (16.4%), Warren down at 14.0% (14.8%), Buttigieg flat at 5.5% (5.6%), Harris down at 10.3% (11.0%), Beto separating himself from the bottom feeders, interestingly. others Brownian motion. If these trends continue in the next release, Sanders will the only winner of both debates.

* * *

2020

Buttigieg (D)(1): “Buttigieg’s New Hampshire Director Leaves Team: Campaign Update” [Yahoo News]. “The Pete Buttigieg campaign has parted ways with its New Hampshire state director Michael Ceraso. The move comes days after the second round of Democratic debates — in which Buttigieg had no breakout moments — and two weeks after the campaign brought on Jess O’Connell as a senior adviser. O’Connell was chief executive officer of the Democratic National Committee in 2017 and has served as executive director of EMILY’s List. Ceraso departs just as she was seeking changes to make the campaign more competitive in key states, and ahead of New Hampshire’s state convention in September, the campaign said, adding that it will soon announce several other staffing changes.” • Yes, “chief executive officer of the Democratic National Committee” is the line on the resumé I want to see…

Gabbard (D)(1): “Tulsi Gabbard Thinks We’re Doomed” [New York Times]. “‘Tracking metrics of Russian state propaganda on Twitter, she was by far the most favored candidate,’ said Clinton Watts, a former F.B.I. agent and senior fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute. ‘She’s the Kremlin’s preferred Democrat. She is such a useful agent of influence for them. Whether she knows it’s happening or not, they love what she’s saying.’” • Presented without comment from the, er, reporter.

Harris (D)(1):

BREAKING:

In a major ethics violation, Kamala Harris’ iconic and memorable rainbow sequin coat she wore to San Francisco Pride was sewn together by truancy convicts in a California prison work camp, sources report. pic.twitter.com/MqliI2RD8D

— MSDNC (@MSDNCNews) August 4, 2019

Check source before recirculating…

Sanders (D)(1): “Mike Gravel to Formally Endorse Bernie Sanders’ Campaign” [The Daily Beast]. “[Gravel,] who was cajoled into running an almost exclusively online campaign by teenagers David Oks and Henry Williams, filmed an endorsement video for Sanders on Sunday. Gravel spoke with Sanders’ campaign manager Faiz Shakir before coming to the decision to make a formal endorsement and is planning to speak with Sanders himself in the coming days.”

Sanders (D)(2): “Bernie Sanders explains why it’s his time to win Nevada” [Las Vegas Review-Journal]. “‘We’ve got Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, Nevada and California,’ Sanders said. ‘And my guess is that any candidate who does particularly well in those five states is going to be the nominee and the next president of the United States.’… Sanders told the crowd that all of these issues — low pay, high-interest loans, medical bills — are intertwined in a web that keeps half of Americans living paycheck to paycheck.” • That last sentence is interesting, because it’s not Sanders’ language; the reporter was actually listening and thing.

Warren (D)(1):

.@SenWarren has been publicly critical of Wall Street in the past. Can she convince the finance industry that she’s the right candidate to lead the Democrat campaign in 2020? https://t.co/AOu1nwojaZ

— The Economist (@TheEconomist) August 4, 2019

Oh, I hope not!

Williamson (D)(1): “Marianne Williamson: Holy Fool” [The American Conservative]. “[L]et’s not fool ourselves: Trump, like Sharpton and his identity-politics-besotted enablers in the Democratic Party and the left-wing establishments, are trafficking in “dark psychic forces.” For years in this space, I have warned that leftist identity politics are summoning demons. So is Donald Trump…. Dark psychic force? You’d have to be a fool not to see it. And you’d have to be completely self-deceived to think that only one side has a monopoly on it…. I believe the capacity for this kind of hatred exists within every human heart. What we are losing is the sense that it is a destructive passion to be resisted.”

TX: Suburban Republicans:

People grossly oversold GOP vulnerability in TX pre-Trump and are grossly underselling it now. Texas is an overwhelmingly urban/suburban state, so GOP weakening in the suburbs is felt disproportionately in TX. It could go blue, quickly, under this current configuration

— Sean T at RCP (@SeanTrende) August 5, 2019

2019

“Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s chief of staff, spokesman leave her office” [The Intercept]. • Looks to me like Nancy won. I hope AOC is taking care of her district.

The Debates

“Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders Stood Together on Radical Progressive Ideas in the Democratic Debate” [Teen Vogue]. “Despite being jointly labeled as the party’s progressive standard-bearers, Sanders and Warren appeal to very different supporters. As explained by Politico, polling indicates that Warren appeals more to women, to better-educated voters, and to older voters; Sanders, on the other hand, is favored by the less educated, by men, by younger voters, and by those with lower incomes. The fact that the two candidates are running on similar platforms but have such divergent bases of support speaks to the broad appeal of progressive policies. Which, in part, is why it’s confusing to see so many Democrats so eager to attack these progressives.” • What’s confusing about it?

Impeachment

“Should we impeach Donald Trump?” [Patheos]. “For those like me with a more conservative inclination, we are getting a reputation for blindly tying ourselves to one political party without regard to things we have said in the past about how political leaders ought to behave publicly. To use my own crowd as an example, in 1998 while the Clinton impeachment was going on the Southern Baptist Convention passed a ‘Resolution on the Moral Character of Public Officials,’ but you’ll have to work hard to hear that document being cited by certain prominent Southern Baptists these days. We ought to hold elected officials that we like to the same standard as those we don’t. That doesn’t mean we should automatically be in favor of impeachment, but it does mean that if we were charging at Bill Clinton for his moral failings, we should be at least as critical as Donald Trump without rationalizing it away ‘because the other side is worse.’”

RussiaGate

“DNI Nominee Intent on Getting to Bottom of Russiagate” [Ray McGovern, Consortium News]. “Shortly before President Donald Trump announced he had nominated Rep. John Ratcliffe (R-TX) to replace Dan Coats as director of national intelligence, Ratcliffe made it clear he intends to hit the deck running on the ‘crimes’ behind Russiagate. ‘What I do know as a former federal prosecutor is it does appear that there were crimes committed during the Obama administration,’ Ratcliffe told Fox News’ Maria Bartiromo. Mincing few words, he claimed the Democrats ‘accused Donald Trump of a crime and then tried to reverse engineer a process to justify that accusation.’ It’s an extravagant claim. But it is also true, and the proof is in the pudding of which we should have a steady diet in the months to come.” • This was written before Ratcliffe was unceremoniously heaved over the side, presumanbly after The Blob said “not on your Nellie.”

El Paso Shooting

Readers, I’ll have an El Paso Water Cooler Special tomorrow; I’m still gathering my thoughts.

“After the El Paso Massacre, the Choice Is Green Socialism or Eco-Fascism” [The Nation]. “Writing in New York magazine in March, Eric Levitz predicted that the climate emergency could easily spark two wildly divergent paths away from the current unsustainable model of economic growth: a Green New Deal vision of the future where socialist policies are used to remake the American and global economy to be more ecologically sustainable—or an extreme-right model based on immigration restriction and opposition to economic growth in the Global South.” • The mental health frame is not especially useful, I think.

“El Paso Terrorism Suspect’s Alleged Manifesto Highlights Eco-Fascism’s Revival” [HuffPo]. “Titled ‘The Inconvenient Truth,’ an allusion to Al Gore’s landmark climate change documentary, the ranting four-page document appeared on the extremist forum 8chan shortly before the shooting. Authorities have yet to confirm whether Patrick Crusius, the 21-year-old Dallas-area white man arrested in connection with the shooting that left at least 22 dead, is the author. ‘The environment is getting worse by the year,’ the manifesto reads. ‘Most of y’all are just too stubborn to change your lifestyle. So the next logical step is to decrease the number of people in America using resources. If we can get rid of enough people, then our way of life can become more sustainable.’ • Well, life expectancy is falling, and the birth rate is falling….

Obama Legacy

“The Democratic party’s quiet abandonment of Barack Obama” [Financial Times]. “As he surveys today’s wreckage, Mr Obama can draw on one other consolation: at least he merits the occasional mention. Bill Clinton, by contrast, has vanished. In the age of #Metoo, America’s 42nd president is persona non grata. Democrats are busy purging the past. Given the mood, it would be a surprise were Mr Biden to make it to the finishing line.” • The key word is “quiet.” The liberal Democrat hive mind operates rather like the Great Soviet Encyclopedia. Deprecated figures in photographs are retouched away — with no explanation and no accountability.

“Obama Reportedly Unfazed By Criticism From 2020 Candidates” [The Onion]. • A survey.

“How Barack Obama Failed Black Americans” [Sandy Darity, The Atlantic]. From 2016, still germane: “The “acting white” libel is symptomatic of a more general perspective—a perspective that argues that an important factor explaining racial economic disparities is self-defeating or dysfunctional behavior on the part of blacks themselves. And Barack Obama continuously has trafficked in this perspective. Of course, there are some black folk who engage in habits that undermine their potential accomplishments, but there are some white folk who engage in habits that undermine their potential accomplishments as well. And there is no evidence to demonstrate that are proportionately more blacks who behave in ways that undercut achievement, especially since it is clear that blacks do more with less. Nevertheless, Obama consistently has trafficked heavily in the tropes of black dysfunction. Either he is unfamiliar with or uninterested in the evidence that undercuts the black behavioral deficiency narrative. These tropes, in my view, do malicious work.”

Realignment and Legitimacy

“The Idiocy of Ballot Bouncing” [Harold Meyerson, TAP]. “The California statute [on Presidential candidates’ tax returns] may just prompt Republican-controlled states to require every presidential nominee to, say, support the ongoing criminalization of undocumented border crossings, or call for the repeal of Roe v. Wade, to get their name on the states’ ballots. If the Democratic nominee’s name were not put before voters in Alabama, it wouldn’t really matter, since Alabama is bound to go for Trump. Then again, California is just as bound to go for the Democrat, no matter who it be. But what about Republican-controlled swing states like Georgia and Florida—or, for that matter, Arizona and Texas? Should the courts rule that states have the legal right to engage in ballot-bouncing, the Democratic nominee may be bounced to far greater, and more disastrous effect, than Trump.” • My example was “No Presidential candidate shall have used a private email server for public business.” NOTE I was wrong to assert that Lincoln was on the ballot in the slave states. He was not. All the more reason for California not to emulate them.

Why there should never be a digital intermediary between marking the ballot and counting it:

1989: Brian Fox introduced code into Bash, later released as version 1.03, which included the first of the Shellshock vulnerabilities publicly reported 9,169 days later. That’s 25 years, 1 month, and 13 days of exploitability.

Takeaway? You’re always running exploitable code. pic.twitter.com/wqE3cTQFwZ

— Today In Infosec (@todayininfosec) August 5, 2019

“You are always running exploitable code.” And the author of Bash is a highly competent programmer, unlike the voting machine vendors.

Stats Watch

Purchasing Managers’ Services Index, July 2019: “‘Robust’ — both domestic and foreign — is Markit Economics’ description of US service sector demand in July which, however, is not confirmed by the no more than moderate-to-solid diffusion score” [Econoday]. However, “hiring was ‘only moderate’…, inflationary pressures ‘historically subdued’, [and] optimism in the outlook slipping for a sixth month in a row.”

Institute For Supply Management Non-Manufacturing Index, July 2019: “ISM non-manufacturing has consistently reported very solid rates of growth but it too is at a multi-year low” [Econoday]. “Yet rates of growth, though moderating, are still respectable…. Though it does fit in with the general slowing underway in global diffusion reports, this isn’t a bad report and is a reminder that domestic demand in the second-quarter… was very strong.”

Retail: “Inside the conflict at Walmart that’s threatening its high-stakes race with Amazon” [Vox]. “The company’s US online sales increased 40 percent last year, buoyed by a successful expansion of an online grocery business; the digital-first brands and digital-first talent it has acquired have breathed new life into its portfolio; and it has shed at least part of its reputation for being a digital dinosaur…. But it’s still far behind Amazon, and inside Walmart, tensions are rising. Multiple sources tell Recode that the company is projecting losses of more than $1 billion for its US e-commerce division this year, on revenue of between $21 billion and $22 billion. Walmart does not disclose these figures publicly and declined to comment. That size loss is an eye-popping figure for a company that is used to printing cash and that prides itself on its profitable operations; the overall Walmart business brought in nearly $7 billion in profits during the last fiscal year…. The problem is that building the online version of the Everything Store requires millions more products, and that means two things that Walmart’s current infrastructure does not support: dozens more e-commerce warehouses and a lot more merchants and brands selling through Walmart.com.” • Well worth a read. Almost makes you feel sorry for Walmart. • And then there’s this: “Walmart has not secured the same trust — and long leash — from Wall Street investors that Amazon has.” In other words, Amazon has and has had the privilege of running its operation at a loss for years.

Retail slash Internet of Shit:

As a tech critic, there is a lot of stuff that I think of as “Slavoj Zizek on easy mode”—labor-saving devices for the nihilist contrarian with a conference talk deadline. The Amazon dash buttons were in this rare category and I will be sad to see them go https://t.co/qF1WPGDczq

— Pinboard (@Pinboard) August 3, 2019

The Bezzle: “Autopilot failed to keep Tesla from sliding under semitruck at 68 mph, lawsuit claims” [Orlando Sun-Sentinel]. “About 10 seconds before the crash, Banner engaged the Autopilot system, according to a preliminary report from the National Transportation Safety Board.” • So I’m not sure about the case, but at the end of the article there’s this: “The NTSB, in a 2017 report, wrote that design limitations of the Autopilot system played a major role in the fatality, the first known one in which a vehicle operated on a highway under semi-autonomous control systems. The agency said that Tesla told Model S owners that Autopilot should be used only on limited-access highways, primarily interstates. The report said that despite upgrades to the system, Tesla did not incorporate protections against use of the system on other types of roads.” • Because of course they didn’t. Could be that determining whether you’re on a limited-access highway is a hard problem for robot cars, just like turning left?

The Bezzle: “Finnish Tesla Model 3 Inspection Reveals Soft, Thin, Under-Spec Paint” [The Drive]. “A Finnish condition inspection of a Tesla Model 3’s paint has returned extremely poor readings for both thickness and hardness, validating growing owner concerns about easily-worn paint on the firm’s cars. These results come as Tesla negotiates the settlement of some 19 air quality violations at its Fremont, California factory paint shop, raising questions about the possibility of a connection between those compliance challenges and the thin, soft paint found on Tesla’s cars. Paint issues were one of several factors that contributed to the Model 3 losing its Consumer Reports recommendation this year.” • Oops.

The Bezzle: “Uber and Lyft Investors Are Looking for Signs of a Détente” [Bloomberg]. • Would a cartel between two firms whose business models doom them to unprofitability be unique in human history?

Tech: “AMD Ryzen 7 3700X is such a hit it almost outsold Intel’s entire CPU range” [TechRadar]. “In June, AMD’s overall market share was 68% at Mindfactory, so the increase to 79% represents a big jump, and the highest proportion of sales achieved by the company this year by a long way. To put this in a plainer fashion, for every single processor sold by Intel, AMD sold four.” • I’m used to the idea of Intel dominating everything. Oops.

Tech: “Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp went down (again)” [Engadget]. “Numerous reports have surfaced of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp being unavailable to various degrees on the morning of August 4th. The failure doesn’t appear to have been as dramatic as it was in July, when image services were out for several hours (we had at least some success visiting them ourselves). Still, it likely wasn’t what you were hoping for if you wanted to catch up on your social feeds on a lazy Sunday morning…. There has been a string of problems across the services in recent months, with roots in everything from server configurations to the previously mentioned media services. It’s not clear why they’ve picked up after a long period of relative stability.”

Intellectual Property: “Fact check: What you may have heard about the dispute between UC and Elsevier” [Office of Scholarly Communications, University of California]. “Elsevier’s offer to increase open access publishing “five-fold” would have resulted in only 30 percent of UC’s research, all of which is supported by public funding, being freely available to the public. Under the past Elsevier contract, which required UC authors to pay an additional charge for open access (after the libraries already paid Elsevier for subscriptions), only 6 percent of UC authors made that second payment — making the majority of UC research published in Elsevier journals inaccessible to the public who helped fund it.” • Elsevier, it is safe to say, is not greatly loved.

Intellectual Property: “Elsevier: “It’s illegal to Sci-Hub.” Also Elsevier: ‘We link to Sci-Hub all the time.’” [Boing Boing]. “Yesterday, I wrote about science publishing profiteer Elsevier’s legal threats against Citationsy, in which the company claimed that the mere act of linking to Sci-Hub (an illegal open-access portal) was itself illegal. You’ll never guess what happens next. Elsevier’s own journals turn out to be full of links to Sci-Hub. It’s also not hard to understand this. You see, the researchers who write the papers that Elsevier publishes are scientists, not private-equity-backed looter/profiteers, so they are more interested in science and scholarship than ensuring that Elsevier continues to rake in billions. And since Elsevier doesn’t pay for any of the work it publishes, it’s hard for them to exert pressure to end this practice.”

Today’s Fear & Greed Index: 23 Fear (previous close: 36, Fear) [CNN]. One week ago: 58 (Greed). (0 is Extreme Fear; 100 is Extreme Greed). Last updated Aug 5 at 12:49pm. • Restored at reader request. Note that the index is not always updated daily, sadly.

Rapture Index: Closes up one on Crime Rate. “America’s 8th deadliest mass shooting occurred in El Paso.” [Rapture Ready]. Record High, October 10, 2016: 189. Current: 184. Remember that bringing on the rapture is a good thing.

The Biosphere

“When Tree Planting Actually Damages Ecosystems” [The Wire]. “Tree planting has been widely promoted as a solution to climate change, because plants absorb the climate-warming gases from Earth’s atmosphere as they grow…. Many of those trees could be planted in tropical grassy biomes according to the report. These are the savannas and grasslands that cover large swathes of the globe and have a grassy ground layer and variable tree cover. Like forests, these ecosystems play a major role in the global carbon balance. Studies have estimated that grasslands store up to 30% of the world’s carbon that’s tied up in soil. Covering 20% of Earth’s land surface, they contain huge reserves of biodiversity, comparable in areas to tropical forest…. Savannas and grasslands are home to nearly one billion people, many of whom raise livestock and grow crops… Calls for global tree planting programmes to cool the climate need to think carefully about the real implications for all of Earth’s ecosystems. The right trees need to be planted in the right places. Otherwise, we risk a situation where we miss the savanna for the trees, and these ancient grassy ecosystems are lost forever.”

“‘This is the beginning’: new study warns climate crisis may have been pivotal in rise of drug-resistant superbug” [Monthly Review]. “A new analysis warns that ‘global warming may have played a pivotal role’ in the recent rise of a multidrug-resistant fungal superbug, sparking questions and concerns about the emerging public health threats of the human-caused climate crisis…. ‘The argument that we are making based on comparison to other close relative fungi is that as the climate has gotten warmer, some of these organisms, including Candida auris, have adapted to the higher temperature, and as they adapt, they break through human’s protective temperatures,” lead author Arturo Casadevall, chair of molecular microbiology and immunology at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, said in a statement.”

“By separating life stages, metamorphosis may circumvent harmful evolutionary tradeoffs” [PNAS]. • I’m only leaving this here in case there’s an evolutionary biologist in the house who can explain it.

Health Care

“What the Measles Epidemic Really Says About America” [The Atlantic]. “Bright-blue counties in Northern California, Washington State, and Oregon have some of the lowest vaccination rates in the country.” • There’s the lead, buried fourteen paragraphs down.

Games

“Fame and ‘Fortnite’ — inside the global gaming phenomenon” [Financial Times]. “Fortnite is technically a video game, and one with a simple premise. At the start, players drop on to an island and shoot each other until only one person is left standing. Each match lasts about 20 minutes and slowly, the numbers whittle down. A storm approaches, making the map smaller and smaller. If you jump off the island you die. Antoine Griezmann, the French football star, said playing Fortnite makes him more stressed than professional football.” • Truly a game for the neoliberal era….

Guillotine Watch

Class Warfare

But everywhere in chains (MA):

I am VERY RARELY able to access toilets while away from home in San Francisco. I am white, English-speaking, able-bodied and might be perceived as professional.

An experience last night really cemented the cruelty of San Francisco and the gig economy it has shaped. #thread

— Hans Lindahl (@hiHelloHans) August 2, 2019

(Similar case; different reaction.) So Uber has turned cab-driving into an Amazon warehouse. Here is one response to the thread above:

This is going to sound silly, but maybe this could work. There should be an app where you could summon a truck mounted port a potty to come wherever you are. Making it credit card based would keep out the messy customers. Like Uber, but for pooping.

— Jim Maruschak

(@JimMaruschak) August 3, 2019

“Make it credit-card based….” I wonder if the repellently infantile word “poop” has suddenly achieved ubiquity because our symbol manipulators are seeing more of it?

“Disaggregating data by race allows for more accurate research” [Nature]. “The term ‘women of colour’ was introduced as a symbol of political solidarity, but its evolution to a biological term encompassing all non-white women has resulted in aggregation of data from diverse ethnic groups. Breaking out statistics by race, ethnicity and gender is therefore crucial for researchers who are committed to inclusion.” • Nothing on income. Superb class erasure!

“How the Other Half Matriculates” [Inside Higher Ed]. “As a community college administrator, it was hard not to notice the sheer wealth of the university…. After the orientation, we spent a couple of days at Virginia Beach to make it feel like a vacation. At one point, the young woman behind the counter at the hotel asked me about the Brookdale Summer Shakespeare Festival t-shirt I was wearing. She mentioned that she had never seen a Shakespeare play. I suggested that the local community college might be a good place to look. She seemed satisfied with that answer. When I mentioned that outdoor community college summer productions are often free, she seemed especially happy with that. Economic reality has a way of creeping in, no matter how pretty the bubble. Back to reality…”

“The Appeal and Limits of Andrea Dworkin” [Jacobin]. “Not coincidentally, Dworkin’s influence grew as the backlash against feminism took hold in the eighties, when the utopian visions of the whirlwind period lost their persuasive power. Her dystopian vision of a women’s experience dominated at all times by male violence, or the fear of it, could feel like a bold stance against feel-good corporate feminism, especially in the absence of a dynamic left…. Particularly prescient, and often ignored in reconsiderations of her work, was Dworkin’s analysis of the Right and its appeal to women — perhaps including herself — in Right Wing Women, written in the early years of the Reagan administration. Dworkin showed how conservative women, far from denying, ignoring, or even embracing sexism, made what often looked like rational trade-offs: in exchange for the promise of what she termed ‘enforceable restraints on male aggression,’ women received relative degrees of safety, economic security, and respect. Dworkin also offered an indictment, highly relevant today, of liberal feminism and its unwillingness to view the women it failed to reach as anything other than dupes.”

News of the Wired

“The 11-step guide to running effective meetings” [Nature]. “1. Do you need a meeting?” • Excellent!

“Recursive language and modern imagination were acquired simultaneously 70,000 years ago” [Phys.org]. “Numerous archeological and genetic evidence have already convinced most paleoanthropologists that the speech apparatus has reached essentially modern configurations before the human line split from the Neanderthal line 600,000 years ago…. On the other hand, artifacts signifying modern imagination, such as composite figurative arts, elaborate burials, bone needles with an eye, and construction of dwellings arose not earlier than 70,000 years ago…. While studying acquisition of imagination in children, Dr. Vyshedskiy and his colleagues discovered a temporal limit for the development of a particular component of imagination. It became apparent that modern children who have not been exposed to full language in early childhood never acquire the type of active constructive imagination essential for juxtaposition of mental objects, known as Prefrontal Synthesis (PFS)…. Thus, the existence of a strong critical period for PFS acquisition creates a cultural evolutionary barrier for acquisition of recursive language…. The second predicted evolutionary barrier was a faster PFC maturation rate and, consequently, a shorter critical period…. An evolutionary mathematical model, developed by Dr. Vyshedskiy, predicts that humans had to jump both evolutionary barriers within several generations since the “PFC delay” mutation that is found in all modern humans, but not in Neanderthals, is deleterious and is expected to be lost in a population without an associated acquisition of PFS and recursive language. Thus, the model suggests that the ‘PFC delay’ mutation triggered simultaneous synergistic acquisition of PFS and recursive language…. Such an invention of a new recursive language has been observed in contemporary children, for example among deaf children in Nicaragua.” • Culture ignites! Fascinating stuff. I’ve quoted the set-up, but check the last few paragraphs for the summary.

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Readers, feel free to contact me at lambert [UNDERSCORE] strether [DOT] corrente [AT] yahoo [DOT] com, with (a) links, and even better (b) sources I should curate regularly, (c) how to send me a check if you are allergic to PayPal, and (d) to find out how to send me images of plants. Vegetables are fine! Fungi are deemed to be honorary plants! If you want your handle to appear as a credit, please place it at the start of your mail in parentheses: (thus). Otherwise, I will anonymize by using your initials. See the previous Water Cooler (with plant) here. Today’s plant (JN):

What a lovely wooded brook!

Bonus plantidote (Re Silc):

Re Silc writes: “My first mobile build.” We have our own Calder! This is more plant-adjacent than plant, but it looks like a really interesting project? I wonder if other readers have done similar things? If so, send in your pictures!

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Readers: Water Cooler is a standalone entity not covered by the annual NC fundraiser. So do feel free to make a contribution today or any day. Here is why: Regular positive feedback both makes me feel good and lets me know I’m on the right track with coverage. When I get no donations for five or ten days I get worried. More tangibly, a constant trickle of donations helps me with expenses, and I factor in that trickle when setting fundraising goals:

Here is the screen that will appear, which I have helpfully annotated.

Readers, thank you very much. The mix of one-time contributions to smaller, monthly subscriptions is now more like what is was, and hence the total I budget for is back to normal as well. Remember, a tip jar is for tipping! So if you see a link you especially like, or an item you wouldn’t see anywhere else, please do not hesitate to express your appreciation in tangible form…

If you hate PayPal, you can email me at lambert [UNDERSCORE] strether [DOT] corrente [AT] yahoo [DOT] com, and I will give you directions on how to send a check. Thank you!

2:00PM Water Cooler 8/5/2019

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