Friday, October 30, 2015

Link roundup

1. "With business weak, cargo vessels are happy to carry tourists, too."
Shipping companies like the dollars passengers such as McGuffick can bring aboard. In a slowing global economy, freight prices have fallen so far that hauling a person from Shanghai to Rotterdam brings in at least 10 times more revenue than a 20-foot container full of flat-packed furniture.
2. On ESPN ending Grantland:
"Look, guys, this is a business. And our business is miserable idiots trolling people with hot takes they don't even believe."
3. "Kind of extraordinary how much big scifi in past few years is about getting friendzoned by A.I.'s (Her, Halo 5, Tomorrowland, Ex Machina)."

4. "The placement of these telescopes—and a plan to build a new, mega-telescope—is the source of enormous tension in Hawaii, where Mauna Kea is at the center of an intense cultural and political debate."
Astronomers want to move forward with plans to build their $1 billion observatory, known as the Thirty Meter Telescope, or TMT, near the mountain’s summit, while local protesters are rallying against the project in an attempt to reclaim a unique and sacred place for the Hawaiian people.