Links

This is a list of highlights and monthly posts of interesting links. Go back to the main Links page for the static directory of links by section.

Highlights and roundups

The Great Regression

2019-12-29

This is less nostalgia than simply hearkening back to a tonier iteration of Saturday dinner at the country club. And that sort of reaching backward worries me, because the past few years have made clear the perilous line between the glow of nostalgia and the myopia of Making America Great Again. But more saliently, the restaurant industry has endured a reckoning in the past two years, forced to confront the Mario Batalis and Ken Friedmans of the world—revealed as serial harassers and ejected, somewhat forcibly, from their restaurant empires. It has finally started wrestling with its deep issues of inequality: a look at any recent lineup of top restaurants and chefs will show a sudden influx of women and chefs of color into the culinary conversation. In other words, if you feel the desire to play with nostalgia, you’d better be careful about how you use it.

The Great Regression, Jon Bonné in Taste Cooking

Finland's Media Literacy

2019-12-18

Examples of good news stories about information warfare are rare. Here’s a story about Finland’s quick and comprehensive response to Russian information warfare and interference in western elections.

The Finns introduced programs for schools, businesses, government workers and more to address the problem.

The initiative is just one layer of a multi-pronged, cross-sector approach the country is taking to prepare citizens of all ages for the complex digital landscape of today – and tomorrow. The Nordic country, which shares an 832-mile border with Russia, is acutely aware of what’s at stake if it doesn’t.

Screen Protectors

2019-12-18

There were a couple of articles this week about people behind screens undertaking pain-staking work to protect vulnerable children.

Firstly, there’s this article from The Verge about poorly treated contractors reviewing imagery depicting violence and child abuse for large platforms like Google and Facebook.

Secondly, there’s this investigation by Bellingcat that takes a collection of anonymised images from Europol and finds the precise location and date range in which they were taken through increasingly complex methods.

Tying it all together, I just finished Tinfoil Butterfly this week. From the synopsis:

Tinfoil Butterfly is a seductively scary, chilling exploration of evil—how it sneaks in under your skin, flaring up when you least expect it, how it throttles you and won’t let go.