SCOTUS conservatives go negative on affirmative action; India and Pakistan slightly reduce odds of the world blowing itself up; who is Satoshi Nakamoto?
The Supreme Court heard oral arguments today in Fisher v. University of Texas, a case about whether it's appropriate for officials at public colleges and universities to consider race in the admissions process.
This is the second time the Court's heard the case in three years. In 2013, they sent it back to the circuit court for more clarity about how, exactly, UT uses race in its admissions process.
UT argues that it's important to generate diversity for its own sake. Court conservatives were unconvinced; Chief Justice Roberts asked how a nonwhite student would improve a physics class.
Justice Scalia, meanwhile, argued that minority students suffer when they get into more selective schools than they otherwise would — a theory called "mismatch" that is not supported by the academic literature.
At this point, the case is purely about precedent. The student in question, Abby Fisher, has graduated from another school. And there's evidence she wouldn't have gotten into UT even if she weren't white.
India and Pakistan are resuming their on-again, off-again bilateral talks — in the hopes of defusing tensions over Kashmir and over Pakistan's role in terrorism in India.
Pakistan would rather discuss Kashmir; India wants to talk terrorism. So, like previous versions of the talks, they'll be discussing both at once in separate working groups.
The talks were broken off in 2008 after the Mumbai terror attacks, restarted in 2011, then broken off again in 2013 after the killing of some Indian soldiers by Pakistani special forces.
In a gesture of goodwill, Pakistan has promised an "early conclusion" to its trials of the Mumbai attack suspects as part of the groundwork for the new talks.
The India/Pakistan dispute is a big deal globally because both participants have nuclear weapons. Some analysts call the prospect of Indian/Pakistani nuclear war a "pink flamingo" — a horrible possibility that's hiding in plain sight but ignored.
The virtual currency Bitcoin was invented by a mysterious human or collecrtion of humans using the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto. This week — not for the first time — the media claimed it had figured out who Nakamoto is.
Both Gizmodo and Wired ran articles yesterday claiming — based on what looked like pretty extensive evidence dating back to 2009 — that Satoshi Nakamoto is an Australian man named Craig Steven Wright.
Wired's article (and subsequent reporting), however, made it clear that some of the evidence had been altered after 2013 — in other words, Wright wanted to make it look like he was Nakamoto. Other evidence has been technologically debunked.
Thickening the plot, the Australian federal police raided Wright's home and office for a tax investigation. They claimed it wasn't about the news stories, but that doesn't mean it wasn't about Bitcoin — there's been a long dispute in Australia over the tax status of the currency.
It looks like would-be sleuths will have to go back to the drawing board — or check out existing possibilities. This list, for example, includes 9 other people (and one US National Security Agency) who might be Satoshi Nakamoto.
This isn't just a game, though. Nakamoto's unmasking — and what the real Nakamoto does next — could have big implications for the value of bitcoin, which has fluctuated drastically over the last few years.
Futurists have been predicting the future of food for centuries. The predictions don't really hold up. (See also: Dippin' Dots, the "ice cream of the future," est. 1987)
The drug-information clearinghouse Erowid is run by a California couple who sound so charming I (Dara) would like to crash with them for a long weekend.
"Do you know how many guests at amusement parks drown per year from sentient forcep killings? No, we don’t either. Those statistics often go unreported."
"RZA emailed a statement to Bloomberg claiming Shkreli purchased the album before anyone knew he was a terrible human, and that the group donated 'a significant portion' of the album's proceeds to charity."
"Once a month, on the first night of the new moon, the Beast comes to Parliament House and chooses one employee of the Australian government to drag back to its lair … Now that I stop to think about it, I don’t know why we don’t just work from home on the first night of the new moon."
"Every time I play The Sims, I start my family with a painting goblin. I make him/her morbidly obese with green skin. I make sure to give him the following traits: likes to be alone, likes art, hates the outdoors. The first thing I do, once I have enough money, is build a small room in the basement, send him down there, and then remove the stairs … Eventually his paintings become very good and worth a lot of money. Every few minutes I go downstairs and sell whatever painting he has finished, and then I return to playing the game. My family always ends up feeling blessed because of their fortune, and they never find out about the horrible secret living beneath their home."
