If you ever find yourself in need of an organ replacement, you're going to need to get lucky. "But there is a chance that your lucky day will never come — that you'll become one of the 20 Americans who die each day waiting for an organ. Indeed, forces that improve American health in other ways threaten to make the shortage of transplant organs even more acute: Safer vehicles cut into supply; longer life spans exacerbate demand. Even though 58 percent of adults in the United States have registered as donors, demand still outpaces supply and most likely always will." That said, there is one trend working in your favor. According to the NYT Magazine: Thanks to genetically engineered pigs, the donor-organ shortage could soon be a thing of the past. Of course, we've been hearing about the promise of this science for years. Is this time different? Here's Parsia Vagefi, the chief of surgical transplantation at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas: "The joke about xenotransplantation is that it's always just around the corner, and it always will be. But recent progress has been so remarkable that for first time it feels like we're on the verge of a definitive solution to the organ crisis." (If this works, it could trigger a bacon shortage, but nothing is perfect...)

Matt Simon in Wired: "In Morocco grows a cactus-like plant that's so hot, I have to insist that the next few sentences aren't hyperbole. On the Scoville Scale of hotness, its active ingredient, resiniferatoxin, clocks in at 16 billion units. That's 10,000 times hotter than the Carolina reaper, the world's hottest pepper, and 45,000 times hotter than the hottest of habaneros, and 4.5 million times hotter than a piddling little jalapeno. Euphorbia resinifera, aka the resin spurge, is not to be eaten. Just to be safe, you probably shouldn't even look at it." So yes, the heat can hurt you. But it can also burn nerve endings that trigger pain.

"Perhaps the furor over Amazon's regional offices will blow over. But it's hard not to feel today as if the company misread the room — overestimating the public's appetite for a billion-dollar giveaway to one of the world's biggest companies, and underestimating the public's ability to raise hell on- and offline." Casey Newton on the fallout from Amazon's HQ2 announcement.

+ Robert Reich: What Amazon HQ2 tells us about America's great divide. "Tomorrow's technologies are flocking to hubs of innovation on the east and west coasts, while everyone else is left being left behind."

+ "One of every two dollars Americans spend online now goes to Amazon. But to think of Amazon as a retailer is to miss the true nature of this company." Stacy Mitchell on Amazon's unfair advantage.

+ "They have that engineer's mindset: 'We solve one problem and let the chips fall where they may.' Which is cool when you're a startup with a hundred guys but when you get a little bigger, not so cool." Tim Wu, who nailed the timing for his new book, The Curse of Bigness, discusses How Enforcing Competition Law Could Have Stopped Big Tech. (Big tech companies are becoming such monopolies, I wouldn't have been surprised if Amazon split HQ2 between Boardwalk and Park Place...)

"At one booth, two gray-haired men were selling a 300-pound ballistic whiteboard — adorned with adorable animal illustrations and pocked with five bullet holes ... 'What we want to do is just to give the kids, the teachers, a chance' ... 'So they can buy a few minutes.'" WaPo: Armored school doors, bulletproof whiteboards and secret snipers. Billions are being spent to protect children from school shootings. Does any of it work?

"It was, by any historical standard, a blue wave." That's the view from the analysts at FiveThirtyEight. But it's taken them a week to get to that headline because many of the races took a long time to be decided. And several still haven't been. Here are the 2018 midterm races that still aren't over.

+ "Supervisor Susan Bucher said Tuesday night that the 11-year-old machines began having problems on Monday as early voting ballots were being counted. When the numbers were crunched on Tuesday, they didn't match. WPTV says a mechanic was flown in to fix the issues, but Bucher says 'we don't have a lot of assurances.'" (The only assurance you get in Florida elections is that things will be nuts.) NBC News: Palm Beach vote machines overheat, botching recount in Florida Senate race.

"10 years after the Shenzhen trip, Venezuela is rolling out a new, smart-card ID known as the 'carnet de la patria,' or 'fatherland card.' The ID transmits data about cardholders to computer servers. The card is increasingly linked by the government to subsidized food, health and other social programs most Venezuelans rely on to survive. And ZTE, whose role in the fatherland project is detailed here for the first time, is at the heart of the program." Reuters: How ZTE helps Venezuela create China-style social control. (This is not your father's internet...)

"Nearly a year after the tax cut, economic growth has accelerated. Wage growth has not. Companies are buying back stock and business investment is a mixed bag." The NYT with some very interesting analysis of what the tax cuts did and didn't do. Trump's Tax Cut Was Supposed to Change Corporate Behavior. Here's What Happened.

"Secret Service passes for working White House journalists should never be weaponized. While we don't condone the growing antagonistic tone by both the President and the press at recent media avails, we do support a free press, access and open exchanges for the American people." Support for Jim Acosta and CNN in their legal battle against The White House is coming from some unexpected places. Including Fox News.

+ Trump argues in court filing that he can limit journalists' access to White House. (It turns out that being remarkably off-putting wasn't enough to keep them away of their own volition...)

"Teddy bears that connect to the internet. Smart speakers that listen to commands. Great gifts—unless they spy on you. We created this guide to help you buy safe, secure products this holiday season." My fearless sponsor Mozilla has your back again this holiday season. Before you buy a new tech product, check the creepy meter.

According to a recent study, "people whose mothers have been married multiple times or have lived with multiple romantic partners are more likely to do so themselves ... The longer people are exposed to their mother's cohabitation, the more sexual partners they tend to have." (By reverse deduction, I can surmise that my mom didn't score all that much...)

+ "While there exists some research on pubic hair preferences, there is very little to be found on its purpose." NY Mag: What are pubes actually for?

+ Related: It's National Pickle Day. Here are ten pickle facts to savor.