October 16, 2013: Afternoon
- Liveblogging the debt negotiations as tomorrow morning's default deadline looms.
- Nations with a history of default weigh in on America's debacle.
- Every day the NSA collects an estimated half-million address lists from live-chat services and web-based email.
- The government has kept using Windows XP and Server 2003 despite warnings from the National Security Agency.
- See also: Paul Ford divines the Healthcare.gov moral—transparency won't thrive behind closed doors.
- It's well known that women in tech earn less; it's not as well known that in 1842, Ada Lovelace wrote the first computer program.
- Eight years after spending $5 billion on a new camo pattern, the U.S. Army plans to replace it for another $4 billion.
- See also: The federal government's official color palette—yes, it has one—controls much of what we see.
- The contrast between the constitutionally protected free speech of the USA and the many legal restraints on speech in the UK is really striking.
- After three were charged with rifles at a San Antonio Starbucks, gun advocates plan an open-carry protest at the Alamo.
- A Tunisian pro tennis player's withdrawal from a match with an Israeli isn't over a tender knee, but rather his country's politics.
- Related: Roddick and Blake are headed to the senior circuit—putting it that way is more about snappy headlines than age.
- On their way to becoming entirely spherical, American males are getting heavier and shorter.
- In the early 1960s, BBC Talent Selection Group called Elton John "a wonky singer" and David Bowie tuneless.
- Answering machine recordings set to a nostalgic musical score.
- The recipient of a calligraphy pen turns texting into an art form.
- Nearly two years ago, Xeni Jardin tweeted her breast cancer diagnosis.