https://flipso.com/ Latest posts on Flipso Flipso en-us https://flipso.com/static/img/favicon_rss.png https://flipso.com/ 144 144 Wed, 20 May 2026 15:40:32 +0000 http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss 0mh6rknf2 https://flipso.com/p/0mh6rknf2?ref=rss Wed, 20 May 2026 15:40:32 GMT Tim Foley argues that the United States does not function as a democracy in any meaningful sense, pointing to structural barriers and elite control. [caitlinjohnst.one] 75j3lrz38 https://flipso.com/p/75j3lrz38?ref=rss Wed, 20 May 2026 15:20:26 GMT A look at the Somerville Circle in New Jersey, tracing how the area changed from a rural crossroads into a car-oriented retail node over the last century. [thedeletedscenes.com] hdvn6cjc6 https://flipso.com/p/hdvn6cjc6?ref=rss Wed, 20 May 2026 15:00:10 GMT A coalition of rights groups says Meta restricted the Facebook and Instagram accounts of independent NGOs, researchers, and civil society figures from being seen in Saudi Arabia and the UAE, following government requests. The statement calls on Meta to restore access, disclose the legal requests and human rights review, and explain how it assessed the restrictions. [alqst.org] kgw6qv37q https://flipso.com/p/kgw6qv37q?ref=rss Wed, 20 May 2026 14:20:31 GMT A 1915-era Brooklyn Bridge postcard raises questions about whether it was hand-painted over a photo, and about the likely vantage point used to make the image. The post also notes period details in the skyline and a sales pitch on the card’s back for the bridge’s length. [oldstructures.com] pnw172v2k https://flipso.com/p/pnw172v2k?ref=rss Wed, 20 May 2026 13:40:29 GMT Ben Southwood traces his shift from hardcore libertarianism to a more moderate, democracy-friendly view, with detours through neoliberalism, anti-car arguments, evolutionary economics, and social norms. [worksinprogress.co] zhv586ev4 https://flipso.com/p/zhv586ev4?ref=rss Wed, 20 May 2026 11:40:09 GMT A postwar policy to plant vast areas of Japan with cedar and cypress has fueled one of the country’s biggest seasonal allergy problems, with pollen from those forests now affecting millions. [bbc.com] 22ed8xshi https://flipso.com/p/22ed8xshi?ref=rss Wed, 20 May 2026 10:40:29 GMT Ruby Tandoh’s updated London ice cream guide is now a print-only pocket guide, with 100 new recommendations across gelato, soft serve, kulfi, booza, bingsu, sheeryakh, bastani, sundaes, and more. [vittlesmagazine.com] iv70ri898 https://flipso.com/p/iv70ri898?ref=rss Wed, 20 May 2026 09:00:32 GMT A photo-led look at women linked to New York organized crime across the 1930s to 1960s, including mob molls, gun molls, and companions tied to figures like Bugsy Siegel and Dutch Schultz. The images and captions highlight arrests, court appearances, alleged criminal roles, and the mix of glamour, danger, and notoriety surrounding their lives. [rarehistoricalphotos.com] rdw7lc941 https://flipso.com/p/rdw7lc941?ref=rss Wed, 20 May 2026 08:00:09 GMT Counterintuitively, businesses, customers, and society prefer having fraud to what they'd need to do to not have it. [bitsaboutmoney.com] ogbboq4iy https://flipso.com/p/ogbboq4iy?ref=rss Wed, 20 May 2026 06:40:27 GMT China’s enthusiasm for AI looks straightforward from the outside, but it sits atop a deeper memory of the 1990s, when market reforms brought both growth and mass layoffs. The result was a society that learned to treat upheaval as something to endure, not stop. [asteriskmag.com] fat0mv5rq https://flipso.com/p/fat0mv5rq?ref=rss Wed, 20 May 2026 05:40:28 GMT A reflective essay on aging, grief, and how death changes the way we remember the people we’ve lost. The author weaves together memories of a father, friends’ parents, and the double meaning of “proud” to explore dignity, decline, and the quiet comfort of the dead remaining present in memory. [theamericanscholar.org] qrs65a9jg https://flipso.com/p/qrs65a9jg?ref=rss Wed, 20 May 2026 05:00:10 GMT Differentiable cellular automata that learn to grow target patterns from a single seed cell, and can sometimes persist or regenerate after damage. [distill.pub] wj9xbtykz https://flipso.com/p/wj9xbtykz?ref=rss Wed, 20 May 2026 04:40:09 GMT A virtual museum of operating systems and standalone applications running under emulation in a preconfigured Linux VM. Includes 1,700+ installs, 570+ distinct OSes, and one-click launchers for QEMU, VirtualBox, and UTM, spanning 1948 to today. [virtualosmuseum.org] bpcezpkwx https://flipso.com/p/bpcezpkwx?ref=rss Wed, 20 May 2026 04:20:09 GMT The Museum Plantin-Moretus says its two oldest wooden printing presses date from around 1600 and are still housed in the former printing workshop. The site explains that Plantin’s print shop was once one of the largest in the world, with multiple presses and more than 50 workers. [museumplantinmoretus.be] ygs9tm593 https://flipso.com/p/ygs9tm593?ref=rss Wed, 20 May 2026 00:40:27 GMT [Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.] Mosul Dam rises 370 feet or 113 meters above the Tigris River in northern Iraq as one of the tallest dams in the Middle East. The dam was built in the 1980s, but, in a way, construction never really stopped. That’s because ever [practical.engineering] 9qmy4zaaf https://flipso.com/p/9qmy4zaaf?ref=rss Tue, 19 May 2026 23:40:09 GMT A Sacramento man in recovery and his former drug counselor accuse each other of stalking, exposing a tangled case of texts, restraining orders and competing claims about who was harassing whom. [sfchronicle.com] vkftiuj4a https://flipso.com/p/vkftiuj4a?ref=rss Tue, 19 May 2026 23:20:09 GMT A Salvadoran teenager who cooperated with police and the FBI to help crack MS-13 on Long Island found himself targeted for deportation, exposing the clash between local law enforcement and federal immigration enforcement. [features.propublica.org] e98xbxjjv https://flipso.com/p/e98xbxjjv?ref=rss Tue, 19 May 2026 22:40:08 GMT Minnesota became the first U.S. state to explicitly outlaw prediction markets, after Gov. Tim Walz signed a public safety bill that targets platforms like Kalshi and Polymarket. The move sets up a legal fight over whether states can restrict event-contract markets or whether federal regulators have exclusive authority. [npr.org] 97jsp2d0x https://flipso.com/p/97jsp2d0x?ref=rss Tue, 19 May 2026 22:00:09 GMT A Texas drainage district says it discovered an unrecognized pipe discharging dark wastewater from Tesla’s Robstown lithium refinery into a ditch it manages. State regulators found no permit violation in their initial review, but an independent sample commissioned by the district reportedly detected elevated metals, including lithium, plus other industrial pollutants. Tesla says it is complying with its wastewater permit and disputes the sampling method. [autonocion.com] 85brsyzi4 https://flipso.com/p/85brsyzi4?ref=rss Tue, 19 May 2026 21:20:29 GMT Allen Downey analyzes General Social Survey responses on confidence in Congress, the executive branch, the Supreme Court, the military, banks, labor, education, religion, television, and the press, separating period and cohort effects to explain long-term declines and differences across institutions. [allendowney.com] 869aa980m https://flipso.com/p/869aa980m?ref=rss Tue, 19 May 2026 20:40:28 GMT AI specs tend to accumulate stale implementation detail unless they’re actively maintained. A practical way to keep them clean is to separate stable goals and principles from changing code-level details, using Marr’s three levels to decide what belongs in the spec and what belongs in the codebase. [edge.ceo] 2ycb2pu26 https://flipso.com/p/2ycb2pu26?ref=rss Tue, 19 May 2026 20:20:31 GMT A reflection on suffering, moral responsibility, and the distinction between genuine misfortune and the consequences of our own choices. Using Job and the problem of evil, it argues that self-reproach, repentance, and hope are not the same as despair or harsh judgment of others. [ofb.biz] r5kfwwmy1 https://flipso.com/p/r5kfwwmy1?ref=rss Tue, 19 May 2026 20:00:30 GMT New research links illicit gold mining in Yanomami territory to a fourfold rise in malaria cases, with heavier mining areas seeing the sharpest increase. The study points to mosquito breeding pools left by mining, miners bringing in infection, and mercury contamination that may weaken health. [e360.yale.edu] jg5lkm1dx https://flipso.com/p/jg5lkm1dx?ref=rss Tue, 19 May 2026 19:20:08 GMT A life-size silver automaton made in 1773, the Silver Swan features 2,000 moving parts and was bought by the Bowes Museum in 1873. After conservation work, it is back in daily performance at the museum. [thebowesmuseum.org.uk] leqconv6m https://flipso.com/p/leqconv6m?ref=rss Tue, 19 May 2026 17:40:10 GMT Annotated slides from Simon Willison’s five-minute PyCon US 2026 lightning talk, summarizing the main LLM shifts of the past six months: coding agents becoming genuinely useful and local models exceeding expectations. [simonwillison.net] m7jg7oqlt https://flipso.com/p/m7jg7oqlt?ref=rss Tue, 19 May 2026 17:20:22 GMT Scientists have identified new ice phases under extreme pressure, including ice XXI and a more complex ice XXII. The findings hint that water may have many more exotic crystalline forms, some predicted only in simulations, and shed light on how phase transitions can unfold in steps. [quantamagazine.org] v0d1a99yh https://flipso.com/p/v0d1a99yh?ref=rss Tue, 19 May 2026 17:00:09 GMT A close-up 3D capture of a strawberry, shot from 90 perspectives with 88 focus-stacked images each. Created with a Nikon Z8, Laowa 180mm macro lens, LED lighting, and bluescreen, then trained with slang-splat. [superspl.at] irzum5zpx https://flipso.com/p/irzum5zpx?ref=rss Tue, 19 May 2026 15:40:36 GMT In 1781, the crew of the slave ship Zong threw more than 120 enslaved people overboard during a desperate voyage, then pursued insurance payment for the lost cargo. The ensuing court case exposed how enslaved people were treated as property under British law and helped galvanize the abolition movement. [lflank.wordpress.com] m8uuj0pv6 https://flipso.com/p/m8uuj0pv6?ref=rss Tue, 19 May 2026 14:00:10 GMT Vietnam’s Bia hơi cốc has endured for decades as a hand-blown, blue-green glass tied to Hanoi’s subsidy era, local drinking culture, and a surviving village craft. [sundaylongread.com] 0fg1mnt0j https://flipso.com/p/0fg1mnt0j?ref=rss Tue, 19 May 2026 13:20:09 GMT Proposals for human settlements on Venus, with ideas ranging from floating habitats in the upper atmosphere to eventual surface colonization after terraforming. The page covers the planet’s advantages for settlement, the severe challenges posed by heat and pressure, and concepts such as aerostat habitats and NASA’s HAVOC study. [en.wikipedia.org]