Court to cop: Someone observing all the laws is not “probable cause” for a search.. By Tim Cushing at Techdirt.
Tim Cushing at Techdirt: Age verification laws are just a path towards a full-on ban on porn, a proponent admits.
Mask bans disenfranchise millions of Americans with disabilities. Medical exemptions are nothing more than Band-aids
Wednesday, August 21, 2024
I’ve been masking consistently in public since 2020, when the Covid-19 pandemic began, because I have a kidney transplant and will take immunosuppressant medication for the rest of my life. Unfortunately, my lifesaving medication also makes me more susceptible to infectious diseases like measles, the flu, and Covid-19. Even when people like me are vaccinated against the virus, we are at higher risk of being infected and are more likely to experience adverse health outcomes, including hospitalization and death.
The legislation in Nassau County and elsewhere primarily targets people who wear masks to hide their identity while committing crimes or during public protests, specifically against the ongoing genocide in Palestine. Masks are defined as any facial covering that disguises the face, and facial coverings worn for religious or health reasons are exempt. But people like me, who wear masks for health reasons, are disproportionally affected by these bans even when they include medical exemptions.
That’s because although the Nassau mask ban contains provisions for people who mask for medical reasons, it is up to the police to determine whether someone has a medical reason for masking if they are out in public. This means that enforcing the ban is subjective and will disproportionally impact Black people and people of color, who are more likely to be stopped by police and are also more likely to wear masks to prevent Covid. This is in part because Black and Latinx Americans are more cautious in their approach to the pandemic, reflecting the higher hospitalization and death rates in these communities. The Nassau mask ban as it is written is reminiscent of a “Stop and Frisk” law, which allows police to temporarily detain, question, and search people without a warrant.
This isn’t just localized to Nassau County; mask bans have been proposed or passed in multiple states, including North Carolina, Ohio, and California.
Mike Masnick at Techdirt: Ad revenue at Twitter is still in free fall two years into Musk’s reign.
Karl Bode at Techdirt: Now that streaming subscriber growth has slowed, streamers are “falling into all of the bad habits that ultimately doomed traditional cable TV.”
Disney’s CFO says the company has “earned” the right to relentless price hikes.
Do you want piracy? Because that’s how you get piracy.
I just saw the GOP referred to as “period-tracking panty-sniffing ghouls” and that is perfect. No notes.
Where are you watching the Democratic National Convention? I’m looking for a TV station or streaming channel where the pundits don’t talk over the speakers.
Professional Dog Walkers Aren’t Sure JD Vance Has Ever Walked—or Even Met—His Dog Before
“Disenshittify or die! How hackers can seize the means of computation and build a new, good internet that is hardened against our asshole bosses’ insatiable horniness for enshittification.” — Cory Doctorow at Pluralistic
What Happened to Getting a Doctor’s Finger in Your Butt?
It’s a rite of passage for men. You’re in your 40s, you’re at your annual checkup, and suddenly you hear the snap of a rubber glove.
Why doctors are no longer doing the digital rectal exam (DRE).
You’ve got to hide your myopia away: John Lennon’s contact lenses
John Lennon’s eyeglasses became iconic, but before 1966 he was seldom seen in public wearing glasses. Instead, he wore rigid contact lenses that frequently fell out.
This is a wild article from the professional/scientific “Journal of the College of Optometrists.” It goes deep on medical terminology, attempting to diagnose Lennon’s prescription and explaining why he had such problems wearing contacts.
Nigel Walley, John’s childhood friend and manager of John’s first band ‘The Quarrymen’ (which evolved into The Beatles) recalled: ‘The thing with John though was that he was as blind as a bat—he had glasses but he would never wear them. He was very vain about that’ ‘He didn’t want to be seen out in them, and kept them in an inside pocket along with his mouth organ. He might slip them on to see something, but he’d whip them off again very quickly’.
In 1980, John himself explained that ‘I was just a suburban kid, imitating the rockers. But it was a big part of one’s life to look tough. I spent the whole of my childhood with shoulders up around the top of me head and me glasses off because glasses were sissy…’.
Paul McCartney recounted a story of John’s spectacle wearing habits from their teenage years in Liverpool. ‘He was pretty short-sighted, and it led to some funny occasions… Normally if there were girls around, he’d whip them off. He was a little bit shy with them, so if he was out and about, he’d just take them off… But he came down to my house, he lived about a mile or so away… We were writing some stuff and we got finished about midnight.
And so… he took off his glasses and walked home. The next day he said “…do you know those people on the corner of Booker Avenue?” I said ‘Yeah’. He said, ‘They’re crazy… at midnight when I left you, they were out on the porch of their house playing cards’. I said, ‘You’re kidding me’. So, I had to investigate. I went around and had a look… it was a nativity scene’.”
Chicago officials have been terrified that Texas Gov. Greg Abbott would inundate the DNC with migrant buses. But the people of Chicago may have already called Abbott’s bluff.
This is not the optimistic article suggested by the headline and description. Today’s broken immigration policies are creating a crisis and misery that will roll on for many, many years.
Quixotic attempts to seal the border, combined with prison camps to hold tens of millions of people, won’t solve the problem. They’ll just accelerate the crisis and make it a million times worse.
“I killed him for money – and for a woman. I didn’t get the money. And I didn’t get the woman.” Roger Ebert reviews “Double Indemnity.”
Matt Stoller: It’s the Land, Stupid: How the Homebuilder Cartel Drives High Housing Prices
The “Memindex Method” was a 1906 precursor to the Bullet Journal, Hipster PDA, GTD and related productivity systems. It preceded Vannevar Bush’s seminal “memex” essay by nearly a half-century.
Here’s something I saw immediately after walking the dog.
11 years old. Still gets zoomies.
Many "ews" were said
Wednesday, August 14, 2024
Last night, Julie went into the pantry to get a snack. She found a pound and a half of sliced deli turkey breast that had gotten lost on the path from the supermarket to the car to the refrigerator.
This explains the unpleasant smell and flies that had been lingering inexplicably in the kitchen for weeks.
Many “ews” were said that night, and the turkey found its way out of the house and into the trash bin. Fortunately, trash pick-up was this morning.
As a pleasant surprise, the smell and flies were gone almost immediately.
Scott Dworkin: The press must cover Trump’s cognitive decline.. Tom Nichols at The Atlantic: “Trump’s “obvious emotional instability is frightening, not funny.”