Events

The Justice Department announced today that it's ending private prisons because, it turns out, they suck: In making the decision, Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates cited new findings by the Justice Department's inspector general, who concluded earlier this month that a pool of 14 privately contracted prisons reported more incidents of inmate contraband, higher rates of assaults and more uses of force than facilities run by the Federal Bureau of Prisons. "They simply do not provide the same level of...

Courtesy of Scott Hanselman. I actually learned a few things.

Via Bruce Schneier, the NSA lost control of a crap-ton of hacking tools sometime before 2013, and managed to stop the bleeding only after discovering Edward Snowden's leak: The exploits themselves appear to target Fortinet, Cisco, Shaanxi Networkcloud Information Technology (sxnc.com.cn) Firewalls, and similar network security systems. I will leave it to others to analyze the reliability, versions supported, and other details. But nothing I've found in either the exploits or elsewhere is newer than...

So says New Republic writer Bill McKibben: We’re used to war as metaphor: the war on poverty, the war on drugs, the war on cancer. Usually this is just a rhetorical device, a way of saying, “We need to focus our attention and marshal our forces to fix something we don’t like.” But this is no metaphor. By most of the ways we measure wars, climate change is the real deal: Carbon and methane are seizing physical territory, sowing havoc and panic, racking up casualties, and even destabilizing governments....

Via Babylon 5 actress Patricia Tallman's Facebook feed:

I haven't had time yet to go through all my photos from this weekend, complicated by my refusal to pay $13 for Internet service at my hotel. So until I get some free time, here's one photo from Saturday's game:

I exaggerate. I'm going to Minneapolis, which has cooler temperatures than Chicago but should not require a heavy coat this time of year. Eight years ago I visited Turner Field in Atlanta, the 14th park on the 30-Park Geas. Target Field, where I'm heading tonight, will be 27th. After this, only five remain, including the anti-Wrigley in St. Louis. Going into tonight, the last-place Twins (46-70) will face the third-place Royals (56-59), who, interestingly, bracket the fourth-place White Sox (55-60). So...

Amazon this month launched the first of what it plans to comprise a fleet of 40 cargo planes to support its Prime delivery service. From their blog: Now, we see the same opportunity to innovate in transportation. I'm very excited to introduce Amazon One, a Boeing 767-300 that is our first ever Amazon branded plane which will serve customers by adding capacity to support one and two day package delivery in the US. Adding capacity for Prime members by developing a dedicated air cargo network ensures there...

Sometimes, when I'm really busy, I click on articles I want to read. Right now I have a lot tabs open: Business Insider cites a (dubious) study that says smart people are more likely to stay up late and take illegal drugs. The Washington Post thinks airline frequent-flyer programs are about to get regulated. The Chicago Sun-Times reports that O'Hare runway 9C/27C, which began construction this week and will open in 2020, is a tremendous win for the mayor. Josh Marshall does the math and shows that, with...