March 8th – The Day’s Most Fascinating News

Women's Day, why search results are more fake than news, and how to tell if your TV is listening.

“Being out here for even five minutes is empowering. It’s self-care.” Women across the world are striking from work, marching in the streets, wearing red, and blanketing social media with issues related to women’s rights. Buzzfeed is providing live updates from several events. Some of the day’s most striking images include The Fearless Girl, a statue by Kristen Visbal, placed opposite the Wall Street bull; and a Cleveland bookstore that is displaying all books by men backwards. Here are some more photos from around the world, courtesy of The Guardian.

+ “I’m exhausted from navigating daily discrimination, overt and subtle. I’ll be striking from: My job, fake smiles, apologetic speech.” Some women are even striking from smiling.

+ “What’s it going to take to get to a 5050 world — not just politics and board rooms, but truly shifting the gender balance to be better for everyone.” It’s good day to watch Tiffany Shlain’s short film, 5050.

+ “The thing about watching 9 to 5 today is that you realize the American workplace of 2015 is nowhere near as progressive as Miss Doralee Rhodes and company were way back in 1980.” Looking back at the movie 9 to 5 which hit the screens more than 36 years ago, and still packs a pretty timely punch.

2

One True Baud

“Many of Google’s direct answers are correct. Ask Google if vaccines cause autism, and it will tell you they do not. Ask it if jet fuel melts steel beams, and it will pull an answer from a Popular Mechanics article debunking the famous 9/11 conspiracy theory. But it’s easy to find examples of Google grabbing quick answers from shady places.” We talk a lot about fake news, but but fake search results might be a bigger problem. The Outline on why Google’s featured snippets are worse than fake news.

+ “Obama’s planning a coup? Women are evil? Several presidents were in the KKK? Republicans are Nazis?” Danny Sullivan (who knows search as as well as anyone) explains how the problem is directly tied to Google’s migration from being a search engine to being a place that provides one true answer. “It’s a problem because sometimes these answers are terribly wrong.”

+ Buzzfeed: “Welcome to the corner of the internet that’s hell-bent on convincing you that GMOs are poisonous, vaccines cause autism, and climate change is a government-sponsored hoax. The message is traveling far and wide.” Inside the anti-science forces of the Internet. (We always thought the internet would bring us together and make facts and truth more accessible. How’s that going so far?)

3

Tools, Gold

“When these tools get out it proliferates among those who want to attack. They will be taken and modified and used by others who want to attack.” Why some intel officials say the latest Wikileaks data dump is worse that the Snowden docs.

+ Quincy Larson: The CIA just lost control of its hacking arsenal. Here’s what you need to know.

+ Michael Calore: Worried the CIA Hacked Your Samsung TV? Here’s How to Tell. (It’s a dead giveaway if you turn it off and still hear laughter in the background.)

4

Repeal and Reward

So far, the health plan to replace Obamacare has been met with opposition from “a stream of medical and health advocacy groups, as well as AARP, has come out against it. Supporters of the bill so far are largely limited to those who would most directly benefit from its passage — groups that represent industries and individuals whose taxes would be cut.” Even conservatives are lining up against the bill. But work on the repeal and replace bill continues.

+ The first political fight will be over what to call the bill.

+ “What if the department suggested that surgeons limit prescriptions of narcotic pain pills to a specific number for different kinds of operations?” That seems like an overly simple way to address the overprescription of opiates. And like many overly simple solutions, it seems to be working.

5

Wiretrapped

“No, that’s above my pay grade” … “No comment” … “I don’t know anything about it.” Those were some of the responses reporters got when they asked administration officials what they thought of the president’s claim that his predecessor wiretapped Trump Tower. Yet, by all accounts, Trump is sticking by the claim and the issue is being kicked to Congress for an investigation.

+ Was he irked, exasperated, or livid? However it was described by various news outlets, President Obama was not pleased with the accusation. And the two men have not spoken since Inauguration Day.

+ “As U.S. candymakers descended on South Florida for their industry conference this week, they were scheduled to plot lobbying strategy in the ‘Ivanka Trump ballroom.’ A dessert networking event was planned for the ‘Donald J. Trump grand patio.’ Between meetings, attendees were eligible to enjoy outings on a Trump-owned golf course and massages at a Trump spa.” From WaPo: Big Candy is lobbying the Trump administration. It’s also holding events at Trump hotels. (He even branded the patio…)

6

Local Focal

“More strikingly still, later experiments showed this enhanced focus also seemed to be reflected in their ability to hold their attention and ignore distraction: when they were asked to quickly search for shapes in a grid, for instance, they were less easily distracted by the movements of other objects on the screen. In fact, they appeared to be the most focused of any groups previously studied.” From BBC: The astonishing vision and focus of Namibia’s nomads. (It’s worth noting that they don’t have access to most tech or any connected devices.)

+ NYT: Why We Can’t Look Away From Our Screens. (Even on days when NextDraft is not published…)

7

An Extra Spring in Your Step

There’s a race to get someone to complete a marathon in less than two hours. But it’s not a race between runners or coaches. It’s a race between shoe manufacturers. From Outside: The Race to Design the World’s Fastest Running Shoe.

+ “There has been growing speculation about Nike footwear over the past year, with the former Nike Oregon Project member Steve Magness and the sports scientist Ross Tucker questioning whether springs were used in the shoes worn by the Ethiopian Kenenisa Bekele at the Dubai marathon last month.” Are the new shoes too good?

8

Wacky Tobacky

“Front and center on the home page, a freshly fashioned statement of purpose now greets visitors: Designing a smoke-free future. It’s a curious ambition to claim for a company that last year sold more than $26 billion in tobacco products. On the home page, there are no images of its familiar top sellers, no Marlboros or Virginia Slims. Instead, the page displays a provocative, open-ended question: How long will the world’s leading cigarette company be in the cigarette business?” Bloomberg on how big tobacco caught startup fever. (Here’s a tip from someone who’s been working with startups for a couple decades. It’s easier to vest if you’re alive.)

9

On the Lighter Side

“Paul Mason used to weigh close to 1,000 pounds. Now that he’s shed almost all of it, freeing himself from his tomb of a body, he’s facing a question that’s heavy in its own right: How should he spend the rest of his life?” From GQ: How the World’s Heaviest Man Lost It All.

10

Bottom of the News

We’re divided in every other way, so why not this: How pancakes and waffles divide the nation… The Continental Breakfast Divide.

+ Tinder Select is a secret, members-only version of the app.

+ 19 Famous Things Invented in Canada.

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