The Third Slip: Issue 62 - We’ve NOT updated our privacy policy
Hello, Slippers! Welcome to The Third Slip, the weekly newsletter that commands such a wide audience that we have not even bothered to have a privacy policy in place. Hell, we are not even sure if it’s pronounced Pry-vu-see or Pre-vu-see. It’s just as well that TTS is in writing because we have the faces for the radio and voices for a newsletter. But we do love the sound of our own voices. Picture an ugly Narcissus and multiply by two, and you have us.
Oh, while we are on the subject of Greek mythology, did you know that Pandora’s Box is not a box but a jar? No, really. We know of it as a box because of a 16th-century mistranslation of pithos (jar) to pyxis (box). And we know that when she opened it, all evils escaped from the container and only Elpis (hope) was left behind. So for once, we’ll think inside the box and start with the things that really should matter to you and me and not some random politician somewhere.
Hope
Health - Nipah it in the bud: A little-known virus called Nipah with an extremely high death rate claimed the lives of over 10 people in Kerala. The fact that doctors from the state were able to arrive at this extremely rare differential diagnosis at remarkable speed (if you want SI units of the speed of diagnosis this was about 5 minutes of a House, M.D. episode) is truly commendable, and then the state’s well-oiled health machinery helped cap its spread. What wonders can be achieved if only we focussed on science instead of pseudopatriotic chest thumping bunkum like AYUSH.
Education - We’re on board with this: The class XII board exam results are out and Delhi government schools have outperformed private schools(!!) and even their own stellar performance from last year to reach a 90.68% pass percentage. You will remember that the Delhi government with its focus on important things like education irked the centre so much that they had voided the advisor of education Atishi Marlena’s post in April this year. Fun fact, the best-performing government schools ahead of Delhi are in Thiruvananthapuram at 99.11%. Granted that humans are pattern-seeking creatures and prone to biases, but how does one ignore the trend here?
Human Rights - Abort Turn!: Ireland is historically infamous for its stringent reliance on the Catholic church and its primitive dictates, but in recent times it has witnessed massive change. Last year, Leo Varadkar took charge as the country’s first (and worlds’ fourth) openly gay Taoiseach (pronounced Tee-sha, meaning Prime Minister). This week they’re Dublin down with a referendum that has swept aside an extremely regressive and restrictive abortion ban. #Win. We look forward to the account of Leo’s time in office, which will surely be called ‘Memoirs of a Taoiseach’.
Privacy no evil: The GDPR went into effect in Europe. You know this because you got a ton of emails from suddenly concerned companies. The upshot: If you’re in Europe (hi, one reader!), you can speak (or yell) to companies to treat your data better, opt out of follow-around-the-web ads and all that. Other countries could start, including India, a company who takes privacy *achooooaadhaarooooo* seriously. Anyway, FB and Google were hit with close to $9b of lawsuits on Day 1 - what fun!
Rest of Pandora’s Box
India
Capitalism to death: If you’re a corporation that makes political donations to whichever party is in power, they will come together to amend laws that scrutinises political funding and, you apparently get police officials who will shoot and kill their own citizens. 13 people were killed by cops for protesting against Sterlite over pollution in Thoothukudi in Tamil Nadu. As you read this in your air-conditioned cubicle, you should at least cringe in your ergonomic chair and put out one social media post to express your outrage, before you go back to your “let them eat cake” routine.
Paid Piper: Paid Media (not to be confused with MaidPedia - the world’s comprehensive encyclopedia on house help) was a phrase that was always bandied about, but now the good folks at Cobrapost have stung most major news channels. TL;DR: 25 out of 27 media channels are willing to push the hindutva agenda and promote disharmony for money (black money also welcome, we will tell you how to funnel it). Also, PayTM sold their data to a political party on instruction of the PMO. And, none of your mainstream news outlets covered this. Yay to a vibrant democracy.
Social-eyes: Oh, look - the government wants to make frenship. Sort of. They want to monitor your social media. So think of a world where you have the surveillance of China, along with the cheerful way in which the BJP deals with dissidents. Take that insurance policy, now!
Carrying Coalition to New Castle?: Jeepers, the only actual threat to BJP in 2019 is all parties coming together. While that might work arithmetically, there are very few times that mixing so many distinct elements might make something that works - Avial (the dish, not the band) being one. Still, the show of strength at Kumaraswamy’s swearing in, finally gives us hope that there is, in fact, an opposition.
Kaash mir: If ignorance is bliss, Great Leader must be a truly happy man. This week, he went to Kashmir to cut ribbons and dispense gyaan about how kids must carry laptops, not stones. A little bit like telling a refugee fleeing from Syria that what he’s eating isn’t keto compliant.
The World
Et Tu Brute: Yaar, Morgan Freeman, not you too :(
Harvey’s dent: But hey, at least Weinstein got arrested. He is out on bail, but has a tracking bracelet on his foot, thus creating the world’s first IOT-connected sexual predator.
VenezuelastTimeYouFollowedTheirPolitics?: Nicolás Maduro, a guy who looks like an evil version of the useless guy from Deadpool 2, got re-elected as a struggling Venezuela’s president. He doesn’t have an easy job ahead, and sanctions aren’t making his life easy.
Not Berlusconi: Italy also has a new PM - some populist dude with no political experience (wait, that sounds familiar), who will lead a very iffy coalition.
OttawaTF: By the way, ‘Alt-right Canada’ is sadly a term that now has Google Search results.
Birthright: Chinese kids are coming! The country might do away with birth limits (yes, that’s still a thing out there).
Let’s see if you can get this right:The missile that shot down the Malaysian Airlines plane over Ukraine in 2014 killing 298 people originated in… a) Russia b) Malaysia c) Pakistan d) Mars
The TTS Skip Ad Section AKA Trumpland!
First up - a Federal judge has ruled that Trump’s blocking of critical Twitter users amounts to a violation of the first amendment. Hahahaha!
Ok, moving on. The much-anticipated Trump-Kim meet won’t happen because the former stopped taking the latter’s calls, and well, really didn’t want to give up its nukes (“But we destroyed our nuke site let’s plz be friends!” - NK).
How do you make an operation involving Trump, Russians, fake news, porn star payoffs, real estate dealings and propaganda even shadier? Add the terms ‘Arab princes’ to it. At this point, the whole thing just feels like Jeffrey Archer didn’t have faith in any one of his novels and just decided to put every plotline in one book.
But onto the best news of the week: The White House has a growing sinkhole. No, that’s not a reference to leaks or anything. Actual hole.
Tech
New Feed: Ok, so Facebook is really serious about tackling fake news: from machine learning to hiring people, to giving academics access to studying the news feed, to making sure everyone who uses the platform becomes vigilant. Less clickbait, yay.
News Seed: Do you get all your news via TTS? Boy, you should worry. Thankfully, Google’s new News App uses AI to give you not just great news, but opposing points of view to get you out of your confirmation bias bubble.
No RAMs for arms: Some Google employees are not happy that the company has to help the US Military out with AI which will, eventually, kill people. So they’re resigning or refusing to interview people for the post.
The fastest way to your heart: Tinder is launching a location based feature called places which will now allow you to hookup with people who frequent the same pub, park, temple (hey, you never know) as you.
sit.com: When you can’t tell if it’s Silicon Valley (the show) or Silicon Valley (the place): Yahoo made a finance app and shut it down in 5 months. Nobody knew.
Echo Chamber: Alexa recorded a couple’s private conversation and sent it their employee. Amazon claims it was a series of crazy coincidences. We don’t think it’ll be the last.
Business
iDasAuto: Apple teams up with VW to make self-driving cars
To pee or not to pee: It’s official. You can now go to a Starbucks and just camp there and head to the loo. Without buying anything.
Michelle n stars: The Obamas signed a deal to create content with Netflix.
LinkedOut
There’s been tons of humour around the GDPR (Wondering why you’ve got 50 emails from sites you stopped using in 2000, saying they’ve updated their privacy policy?)
An in-depth look at Virat Kohli’s bizarre and fascinating life outside cricket.
You heard about the Anti-Sterlite protests and the unconscionable shootings. But how did it come to be?
It was a tale of so close yet so far for Liverpool in the Champions League. But, at least it produced this lovely piece of writing.
Ravish Kumar has been a shining beacon of light in an otherwise insipid TV news era. Just in case you missed it, here he is on Shut Up Ya Kunal! (video).
That’s it for this week. If you feel patriotic and would like to surveil our social media activity, here’s where you can find us on Twitter (Tony | Chuck). We’d love to hear from you. On just about anything. Even if it’s just to say you are receiving our transmission. Mail us here. Until next week, may you randomly end up on a beach with an old friend with a less-than innocuously mixed bottle of Thums Up and bask in some glorious sunshine. Bye!