September 12, 2016

“When Facebook is a gatekeeper for content, the model for online publishing stops being a no-standards free-for-all and becomes something more like the Big Three television networks. Mass audiences must be handled delicately, tastefully, appropriately. PG-13, at the worst.” Tom Scocca in 2015 on Facebook’s Instant Articles proves eerily prescient. / Gawker

Insurance vendors in China “scramble” to raise funds in order to pay people who took out so-called “breakup policies” on Taylor Swift’s latest romance. / sixthtone.com

MIT researchers develop a new computational imaging method can read through a closed book: by identifying letters printed on first nine pages of a stack of paper. / YouTube

The movie One More Time With Feeling, which opened Sept. 8 (trailer), began production as a behind-the-scenes look at the creation of Nick Cave’s new album, until Cave’s 15-year-old son Arthur unexpectedly died, and then it suddenly became a chronicle of grief. / nickcave.com, YouTube, The Guardian, factmag.com

Economists hate rent control for being unfair—in a 2012 survey, 81% didn’t believe it’s done much for New York or San Francisco—but that won’t stop it catching on around the Bay Area. / igmchicago.org, San Francisco Chronicle

“Grandmother may not always give you what you want, but she’ll give you what you need.” How ayahuasca, an ancient Amazonian hallucinogenic brew—often referred to as Grandmother by users—became the latest trend in Brooklyn and Silicon Valley. / The New Yorker

In light of architects designing a 40-story building in Stockholm made from wood, the case for wooden skyscrapers isn’t completely insane. / The Economist

From our favorite new Tumblr, Gluten Free Museum, in which gluten is removed from classic works of art. / Gluten Free Museum

Scientists from Harvard Medical School and the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology have created a simple way to see how bacteria evolve as they become impervious to drugs—and it will cause you to lose sleep tonight, sorry/not sorry. / YouTube

Welcome to the new TMN. This is the second time we’ve tried to say that in as many years, but you wouldn’t have noticed—we discarded the previous new TMN after it was designed and coded, only a few weeks ahead of launch. We’ll have a lot more to announce in the weeks and months ahead. Until then, thank you for reading, and a very special thanks to those who have been reading us for so many years. Thank you also to all of our editors, as well as our development team at Vector Media Group: Matt Weinberg, Rene Merino, Julian Fann, and James Turnley. / vectormediagroup.com

“Trump correctly says that Putin respects strength. But of course Putin prefers weakness, which is what Trump offers. As Putin understands perfectly well, the president of the United States has standing in Russia, and enjoys far superior power to the president of Russia, only insofar as he or she mobilizes the moral and political resources of a rule-of-law state. It is precisely Trump’s pose of strength that reveals his crucial vulnerability.” Trump is too dim to see that Putin is playing him like the two-bit third-world ego-driven strongman he is, Timothy Snyder presciently wrote back in April. / The New York Review of Books

SCUD ER by JamesMartinCNS on Sketchfab / sketchfab.com

“The UN may call for new sanctions, but unless the Chinese cut off airspace and ports, close the border, stop the North Koreans from using the Chinese financial system… the sanctions aren’t going to work.” Victor Cha, a Korea expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, says North Korea’s tests are signaling a “sales pitch” to other rogue states for nuclear missiles. / Quartz

Legally blind man builds observatory, gives astronomy tours because “he can see objects in the night sky with remarkable clarity.” / CBC

Aid organizations allowed to operate in North Korea are making public pleas for international assistance after at least 100,000 people were left homeless by floods brought on by Typhoon Lionrock near the border with China. / The Washington Post

With most young men in Syria at war or seeking work abroad, polygamy is popping up, with some divorcees having little choice but to become a second wife. / alaraby.co.uk

Syrian President Assad appeared the day of the ceasefire in Daraya, a suburb suffocating under the heel of a four-month government siege that left some citizens surviving on grass. / HuffPost, Associated Press

The ceasefire coincides with Eid al-Adha, a holiday during which Muslims celebrate Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice his son, traditionally with the sacrifice of a halal animal. The feasting means payday in Somaliland, which exports massive numbers of sheep and goats to nearby Muslim nations. / Al Jazeera