January 10, 2017

“We can pretty much do whatever we want to right now.” A Republican Kentucky state representative exemplifies the mindset of many conservative policymakers after the November elections turned America’s statehouses and governor’s mansions further red. / ProPublica

But they’re now using it to create financial instruments and hedge funds, even “smart contracts” that basically create businesses entirely composed of software—no employees required. / Wired

“His GPA did not warrant it, his SAT scores did not warrant it. We thought for sure, there was no way this was going to happen.” In case it really needs saying, Kushner is a little rich kid whose daddy bought him everything (including admission to Harvard)—like Trump. / ProPublica

“Thank you Jared for using something sacred and special to the descendants of Joe and Rae Kushner to validate the sloppy manner in which you’ve handled this campaign. Please don’t invoke our grandparents in vain just so you can sleep better at night. It is self-serving and disgusting.” Kushner’s relatives were none too appreciative when he used his grandparents’ status as Holocaust survivors to deflect criticisms of Trump’s playful back-and-forth with anti-semitic tropes / Esquire

“It was a lot of construction and a lot of evictions, but the communities now look great, and the outcome has been phenomenal.” In 2012, Kushner blithely described his company’s tactic of buying up distressed old properties in Rust Belt cities. / Multifamily Executive

“[Peter] Kaplan told friends that Kushner’s favorite book was The Count of Monte Cristo, the story of a wronged man who escapes prison, becomes rich, and uses his wealth to stealthily visit vengeance upon his unsuspecting enemies.” As Andrew Rice points out, Kushner’s taste in literature—and the impact of his family’s diminished name due to his father’s imprisonment at the hands of his siblings and Chris Christie—paint a quietly terrifying picture for the future. / New York

“Every Observer writer wants to be a novelist, but we need to be deliberate about when we are short and when we are long.” In case you forgot, in a previous life, Jared Kushner ran (and ruined?) the New York Observer. / New York

“I would go as far as to say not a single human has touched the edge of the truth of Go.” An anonymous player trounced the world’s Go master with seemingly haphazard play. The player turned out to be Google. / Wall Street Journal

As you suspected: it’s impossible to peel an orange cleanly. / Science

Architect Liang Sicheng and poet Lin Huiyin returned to China after studying at Ivy League schools with a singular vision: to study and characterize Chinese art and architecture not based on scriptural study, as tradition dictated, but through firsthand observation. / Smithsonian

LA’s desmogification came at the hands of a man named Dr. Haagen-Smit, who was able to distill raw LA air to a few “vile-smelling” droplets and analyze their contents. / luckypeach.com

In space, the future is female—at least according to US moviegoers. Variety reports that Hidden Figures, a biopic about three female African-American mathemeticians who made and checked the calculations needed to safely send John Glenn into orbit—and get him home again—knocked Star Wars sponoff Rogue One, which is about a young woman who leads a courageous and diverse band of misfits on a dangerous mission to change the fate of the galaxy, out of first place at the box office this weekend. / Variety

In 2017, biologists will try to use CRISPR to grow plastic, switch off Alzheimer’s, kill viruses, enhance plants, untangle evolution, and more. / Vox

“This was 11 minutes after al-Sharif had been shot by other soldiers and was left disabled on the ground, bleeding. He was bleeding on the ground as the ambulance staff attended to the Israeli soldier who had minor wounds.” 65% of Israelis support a self-defense pardon—which Netanyahu is campaigning for—in case of soldier who shot Palestinian captive point blank. / Al-Jazeera

“A medium as the internet, which absolutely establishes and shows us that we are living in total fragmentation.” When a BBC interviewer blew off the notion that the web could have major impacts on society, David Bowie nailed the future of the internet two decades ago. / Gizmodo