[nonostantement #70] - tinder and russian authorities / trump's digital campaign for 2020 / drivers manipulating uber
Welcome to nonostantement: a random newsletter that gives you personal recommendations of cool stuff.
The $500m smiley face business
"Nearly 50 years ago, one man ‘invented’ the modern smiley face. Then, another man halfway across the world made it into a multimillion-dollar cash cow."When Grown-Ups Get Caught in Teens’ AirDrop Crossfire
"Anytime young people get together, the pics start flowing."A Million People Live in These Underground Nuclear Bunkers
"Beneath the streets of Beijing, people live in an underground universe constructed during the Cold War era."This Vancouver market is handing out embarrassing plastic bags to customers
"In an attempt to discourage people from using single-use plastics, plastic bags being handed out at a Vancouver market are printed with large embarrassing designs."Russia says Tinder must share user data, private messages
"Russian authorities add Tinder to database that requires company to share user data with the government."Quick Fix
"Quick Fix in an interactive installation. The artwork makes it possible to buy followers or likes in just a few seconds. For a few euros you already have 200 of likes on Instagram."[Video] - Rare 60s-80s Skateboard Collection | SkateHoarders: Steve Caballero
"[...] a tour of OG Bones Brigader (and TWS' first cover boy), Steve Caballero's house to get a look at everything from his insane vintage skateboard collection to his vintage pinball and arcade games and, well, literally everything in between! "Trump’s Digital Campaign for 2020 Is Already Soaring
"While Democrats painstakingly sort through 23 candidates, the Trump campaign is sharpening the digital tools that it thinks will make them win in 2020. This is happening right before our eyes at an unprecedented scale."Behavioral Ad Targeting Not Paying Off for Publishers, Study Suggests
"A new study suggests suggest publishers only get about 4% more revenue for an ad impression that has a cookie enabled than for one that doesn’t"Uber, Lyft drivers manipulate fares at Reagan National causing artificial price surges
"Every night, several times a night, Uber and Lyft drivers at Reagan National Airport simultaneously turn off their ride share apps for a minute or two to trick the app into thinking there are no drivers available---creating a price surge. When the fare goes high enough, the drivers turn their apps back on and lock into the higher fare."Forget Seamless: The best Chinese food in NYC is on Yunbanbao
"Every day, around lunchtime, outside banks, department stores, and university campuses in Manhattan, you’ll see lines of young Chinese holding their phones, waiting to pick up their meals. They are not waiting for individual deliveries from Seamless, UberEATS, DoorDash, or other delivery services. More likely than not, they’ve all used Yunbanbao (云板报), translated literally as 'cloud information board,' a 'mini-program' found within the all-everything app WeChat, which every Chinese person has."[Video] Terminator 2 starring Sylvester Stallone [DeepFake]
"Deepfake technology, which involves the AI-assisted superimposition of images and videos onto others to create the impression that a public figure or celebrity has said or done something that they did not do, has been around for a couple years, but is just now starting to be taken to frighteningly-realistic new levels."[In Italian] - Il più grande incontro di sempre
"«Eravamo io, De Niro, Ali, Leone e Garcia Marquez» con Minà, da “Checco er carrettiere” nel 1982 a Trastevere, Roma."Human Contact Is Now a Luxury Good
"Screens used to be for the elite. Now avoiding them is a status symbol."[In Italian] - Cosa resta di Napster, 20 anni dopo
"Alla fine di maggio del 1999, Shawn Fanning e Sean Parker lanciavano la piattaforma pirata che ha cambiato per sempre l'industria musicale, il copyright e la condivisione online"
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