Quarterfinals of the 2019 Tournament of Books

The Rooster is alive! It's the quarterfinals in the 2019 Tournament of Books, presented by Field Notes.

The Morning News
It's March! It's madness! It's the 2019 Tournament of Books, presented by Field Notes!
↩︎ The Tournament of Books 6d
Over two million people in Mozambique, Malawi, and Zimbabwe are affected by Cyclone Idai. Satellite images show the damage.
↩︎ European Space Agency 16h
After Rep. Devin Nunes sued @DevinCow, the parody account utterly surpassed the lawmaker in followers.
↩︎ The Daily Beast 16h
"Every type of coin from around the world" gets tested (not really) to see which are magnetic.
↩︎ Final Boss Form 16h
An Instagram feed for slime mold fans.
↩︎ marin_mushrooms / Instagram 16h
People who believe that vaccines are unsafe are more likely to believe nonvaccine conspiracy theories.
↩︎ American Psychological Association 16h

“That’s one of the consequences of the internet. Formerly these people felt isolated and alone, but now they find their mates, they find their people.”

The web fosters communities of aggrieved entitlement, where people heighten “each other’s feelings of group-based grievance.”
↩︎ The Interpreter / The New York Times
16h
Your weekly white paper: Discussing an issue with like-minded people makes people hold more extreme views about it.
↩︎ University of Chicago Law School 16h

Try to imagine George W. Bush ripping into the husband of Karen Hughes, who played a role similar to Kellaynne in his White House. Or Barack Obama mocking George McGovern after he died in 2012. It’s inconceivable.

Trump’s politics are TMZ politics, and he likes it.
↩︎ The Daily 202 / The Washington Post
16h
A new gender-neutral voice for AI is based on two dozen people who identify as male, female, transgender, and non-binary.
↩︎ The Next Web 1d

For the Christchurch terrorist, dreams of being a cryptocurrency millionaire were probably just another cold joke.

Bitcoin ideology is not a neo-Nazi ideology. But sometimes it bears repeating.
↩︎ Foreign Policy
1d
Within baseball, it's believed that Mike Trout is "vastly underpaid"—at $430 million—relative to his performance value.
↩︎ The Washington Post 1d
A recent favorite website: Terrible Things Happening in Cold Places, which is pretty much exactly what it sounds like.
↩︎ Terrible Things Happening in Cold Places 1d

A bill calling for the federal government to “study and consider” how to provide reparations to African Americans for slavery has been introduced into every session of the US Congress for the last thirty years.

The promise and the failure of reparation in the 1860s “should animate a return to reparations now.”
↩︎ The New York Review of Books
1d
Amazon removes some books publishing false information about vaccines. Civic responsibility or censorship?
↩︎ The Washington Post 1d
Europe gets its first underwater restaurant, where guests eat alongside marine wildlife in the Norwegian Sea.
↩︎ designboom 1d
A group of new city apps are good "for making yourself either more aware of your surroundings or just extremely paranoid."
↩︎ The New York Times 1d

“As with all regular service providers,” says Post, “you should consider your regular delivery person during your holiday thank-yous.”

Emily Post’s great-great-granddaughter publishes a book of “higher etiquette” for cannabis-related concerns.
↩︎ Quartzy
1d
A new Amnesty International report says US air strikes in Somalia—ramped up and ongoing—are killing civilians.
↩︎ The Intercept 1d
"Custom cancer vaccines." "Robot dexterity." Bill Gates chooses 10 breakthrough technologies to improve the world.
↩︎ MIT Technology Review 1d