Good thinking
How to Bail Out Kanye West: The Creator of the ‘Bowie Bond’ on ’Ye’s $53M Debt Problem
On that subject, could someone print this on a t-shirt for me?
Good writing
In Conversation: John Oliver
Good for a number of reasons, the first being that it's John Oliver, but the second is less obvious. His repeated refusal to describe his show as anything more than comedy is interesting and, to me at least, kind of absurd.
Separately, as a little bonus but also because you can only read it with a subscription to The Times, Why Business Leaders Make Lousy Politicians is well worth a read and follows on neatly from a question in the John Oliver interview about Trump (whom he likens to The Wizard Of Oz).
Mmm Technology
Bad With Names? Just Google Your Brain
"Imagine you’re calling a friend you haven’t talked to recently. From the dial tone or your wrist movement, the cognitive assistant tracks the number that you dialed. From there, it figures out who you’re calling, and crosschecks its database for previous conversations, calendars and photos related to that person."
Robot Lawyer Successfully Appeals $3 Million Dollars Worth of Parking Tickets
Somehow this manages to be amazing and obvious. Similarly, Lex Machina (mentioned in the article) mines judges' records in order to make predictions about future decisions. Think about the vast, sprawling body of English case law that could be used to train an algorithm... distant future... robot judges... Oh and then there's this:
"He's programming the bot to handle more complicated legal issues too, including asylum for Syrian refugees. The language barrier is a coding challenge, since the robot needs to understand Arabic but produce a legal document in English. This bot will likely launch by summer — at no cost."
Grown-up news
The Great Alcohol Cover-Up: How Public Health Hid The Truth About Drinking
"...the risk of death declines substantially at low levels of alcohol consumption and then rises, but it does not reach the level of a teetotaller until the person is consuming somewhere between 40 and 60 grams of alcohol a day, which is to say between 35 and 50 units a week."
Bastards.