Social Media is still in the news. This week, Facebook and Twitter execs testified in congress about foreign interference in US elections (Google declined to send someone), while Trump keeps attacking them for one trumped¹ up reason or another. This time, it’s Google that has raised Trump’s ire, and by accident, he might even have a point, even though it’s not the one he was complaining about: Google keeps its algorithms secret. Bias in algorithm is nothing new, and Google has had to fix its algorithms more  than once. This is a lot of power for a company that has sole discretion about what you’re going to see if you’re searching for something, and what ads it wants to show you. The only thing worse than Google’s secrecy is Twitter’s inability to make basic decisions on how it wants to run its own service.

Fulfilling Your Dreams

One part of the allure of hypercars is their exclusivity. Few people can even think about buying a Ferrari, or a Bugatti. The latter’s current hypercar, the Chiron, costs an easy $2.6 million — if you can even get one of only 500 built, that is. LEGO, on the other hand, might not exactly be cheap, but you can probably afford it. And now LEGO has demonstrated that you can fulfill your hypercar dreams, by building a life-sized replica of the Bugatti Chiron using nothing but LEGO Technic pieces, including a working engine built with over 2000 LEGO motors (!). It even has working lights, doors, spoiler, and speedometer. And while it won’t challenge the original in top speed (it tops out at about 20km/h vs. the 420km/h of the real one), it will definitely turn as many heads as its inspiration.

X-Ray Vision

Nuclear weapons still elicit a morbid fascination for me. For some reason, humans have figured out to smash fissionable elements together in such a way that it creates temperatures higher than the suns for a split second, creating the both iconic and fearsome mushroom clouds we have come to associate with nuclear weapons. And during the 50s and 60s, when the global powers were testing their weapons, they got the “bright” idea to expose young soldiers to those explosions, just to see what would happen. What Does a Nuclear Bomb Explosion Feel Like? (YouTube) (via kottke.org)

An Important Think Piece

This Is a Think Piece you need to read. It is about an important topic. Don’t miss this important update to that Think Piece, which you should read too, unless you want to be a Peter.

Teaching Influence

Teachers generally aren’t paid all that well. So, some of them are now Moonlighting As Instagram Influencers To Make Ends Meet.

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Lalah the climbing kitty at bouldering gym (YouTube)