Just articles, posts and thoughts that I’ve found interesting
Crooks’ Mistaken Bet on Encrypted Phones (New Yorker) – How European police have cracked “safe” encrypted phones often used by criminals, and the wealth of data it’s provided. Come for the tech story and stay for insight into why cocaine is huge in Europe, how smuggling logistics work, and the slang used to describe murder.
The Dangerous Rise of ‘Front-Yard Politics’ (The Atlantic) – Derek Thompson on why obsessing over slogans and words (and the performative display of them), is further distracting us from getting stuff done and creating artificial conflict.
Why the US Can’t Have Nice Thing – a Rant on Bus Stops (Chris Arnade) – Our continue slide into incompetence, as demonstrated by a Los Angeles bus stop project.
“To get big-brained about it, something like La Sombrita could only happen in a high-regulation/low-trust society like the US. In every other variation (low regulation/high trust, high regulation/high trust, low regulation/low trust) you get either larger public works without fear of vandalism or misuse (a proper bus shelter), or like in Quito (a lower regulation society) you get natural ad hoc bottom-up solutions.”
