Angry Robot

Toronto’s 50 most dangerous intersections for cyclists

Bloor, Queen, Dupont and Avenue show up a lot. See the data here.

Witnesses to History, 50 Years Later

Remembering the March on Washington (via)

Bradley Manning and the Two Americas

(via)

Syria: Will Killing of Hundreds with Sarin Gas force Obama's Hand?

Apparently needs independent confirmation. Doesn’t sound like a fun job, doing that.

App Annie & IDC Portable Gaming Report Q2 2013: iOS & Google Play Game Revenue 4x Higher Than Gaming-Optimized Handhelds

Wow.

Why a convicted drug dealer burst into Rob Ford's home demanding money

I guess I missed this one last week! More Elmore Leonard-worthy back story re: our mayor.

Coroner, family link Michael Hastings to drug use at time of death

Epic Magazine

New mag dedicated to long form journamalism.

Appreciating Elmore Leonard

RIP.

A Television Adjustment Act for Viewers Who Can’t Keep Up

“The Television Adjustment Act of 2013 would solve this problem [the glut of quality TV shows] by paying the people who make television to stop making it.” Or, you could send them to Canada. We don’t seem to have the same problem.

Groklaw – Forced Exposure

Legal blog Groklaw shuts down because of NSA illegal surveillance. (via)

Butterick’s Practical Typography

free ebook (via)

Has the bubble burst? Is that why camera sales in N. America are down by 43%?

That’s a big drop.

Egypt's Transition Has Failed: New Age of Military Dictatorship in Wake of Massacre

Juan Cole

Police probe Mayor Rob Ford friends who sought crack video

A big one in The Star, also see this in the Globe.

The Best Places to Live in the City: A (Mostly) Scientific Ranking of All 140 Neighbourhoods in Toronto

People haven’t realized that Toronto Life is just a giant nest of trolls. I really shouldn’t link to them, but they’re kind of adorable.

The Safer Sex: Are women safer cyclists?

Yes, they are. Safer drivers and walkers, too. Contains other interesting stuff: cycling injuries in Ontario dropped 64% between 1998 and 2009; cycling is one of the safest physical activities out there. Think about that next time you plan to canoe or badminton to work.

Tipless restaurants: why abolishing tipping makes service better

Fascinating!

Studies have shown that tipping is not an effective incentive for performance in servers. It also creates an environment in which people of color, young people, old people, women, and foreigners tend to get worse service than white males. In a tip-based system, nonwhite servers make less than their white peers for equal work. Consider also the power imbalance between tippers, who are typically male, and servers, 70 percent of whom are female, and consider that the restaurant industry generates five times the average number of sexual harassment claims per worker. And that in many instances employers have allegedly misused tip credits, which let owners pay servers less than minimum wage if tipping makes up the difference.

Note that this is not a reason to NOT tip; abolishing tipping has to be done at the restaurant level at the least.

The NSA is Commandeering the Internet

Bruce Schneier again. (via)

The Public-Private Surveillance Partnership

Bruce Schneier

On The Future of iOS and Android

A little tech-jargony but interesting, especially the part about the new Bluetooth stuff coming in iOS 7 and what it will mean for mobile payment.

Patricia Lockwood, “Rape Joke”

Elysium: What Went Wrong?

Argues that most sci-fi movies are “anti-sci-fi” because technology is the antagonist in them. Interesting idea, but I think it’s slightly misguided. There are a couple things going on:

1. Sci-fi has been appropriated as the window dressing of choice for Hollywood summer tentpole films, but the real genre of these films is action. They are only sci-fi because it can be flashy, gives the writers more leeway and a lot of the content the films are based on is sci-fi.

  <p>2. If sci-fi is a story in which fictional technology appears, and stories tend to have conflict, odds are the tech will wind up having some negative aspects to it. It’s a gross simplification to call 2001 dystopian just because it contains a killer robot. It also contains a space hotel and benevolent aliens guiding human evolution! The story itself doesn’t have to love all technology in order to qualify as sci-fi.

Scarborough subway: Council reduces transit planning to a shambles

Planner Jack Diamond gives the definitive case against the great Scarborough subway adventure

Bring Back the Dome

It’ll always be the Dome to me.