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October 1, 2018: Douglas Durst and the National Debt Clock

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This week: Douglas Durst, speaking about the National Debt Clock

For more reading:

• Wikipedia on the National Debt Clock

• ‘I support higher taxes’: The billionaire behind the National Debt Clock has had it with Trump, by Heather Long (Washington Post, Sept 17): "The United States hasn’t had this high of a debt level as a percent of GDP since the World War II era, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. It’s expected to grow quickly as Social Security, Medicare and interest payments balloon."

Pledge here for the October fundraiser!

Recent Tech News

• Google's Pichai headed to testify; Musk is out, with a fine, but posts a parting shot; and Facebook got hacked again. Funny how Facebook users continually get hacked, while the genuinely valuable (to Facebook) filtering algorithm never seems to be compromised...

• Gavin Sheridan on the Facebook's hack (Oct 1): "It's the biggest hack of Facebook ever. And is up there with the biggest (if not *the* biggest) hacks of all time... To be clear: if the hack is even half as bad as reports suggest, this could potentially be company-ending level of hack. We need more info from Facebook."

• Scott Galloway on Facebook (Sept 28): "There is something very unhealthy brewing at Facebook Inc. Facebook now feels like the information-age KGB, minus the charm. The KGB has a code, and its agents love their country. Facebook is run by people who appear to have no code or anything resembling honor — no loyalty to country or each other, and no unifying principle (other than let's lie and get much, much richer)."

• Facebook Is Giving Advertisers Access to Your Shadow Contact Information (Sept 26): "Even if you deliberately don't include your mobile number in your Facebook profile, they'll harvest it when you use it for two-factor authentication, and let advertisers target you with it." -Tom Gara

• John Gruber on Facebook (Sept 27): "At this point I consider Facebook a criminal enterprise. Maybe not legally, but morally."

• The parable of the shoe shop, by Morten Rand-Hendriksen (Sept 29): "I walked into a shoe store today and looked at some shoes."

• Ryan Gallagher: "Google compiled a censorship blacklist containing the terms ‘human rights’, ‘student protest’, ‘Nobel Prize’, phrases involving President Xi Jinping & other members of China’s ruling Communist Party regime."

• The Justice Department sues California over its new net neutrality law. What a surprise (LA Times, Oct 1)

And for the Uncanny Valley:

• Travellers refusing digital search now face $5000 Customs fine (Oct 1): "Travellers who refuse to hand over their phone or laptop passwords to Customs officials can now be slapped with a $5,000 fine." Welcome to New Zealand.

...and finally...

Techtonic community news:

• Our friends at the Reanimation Library need a new home! Listen to the show with founder Andrew Beccone.

• Tomorrow (Tuesday, Oct 2), past guest James Bridle speaks at HousingWorks Soho. Thanks to herb.nyc for the pointer.

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