Favorites May 5 2021

Signal @signalapp

We wanted to use Instagram ads to highlight how ad tech invades your privacy. Instead, Facebook shut our account down: signal.org/blog/the-insta…

This is an interesting test case, I wonder how they designed the campaign. It would be crazy if Instagram literally lets you insert targeting terms into the ad automatically, so they probably just created tons of variations of this image and targeted them all to match. Signal didn’t give a ton of detail on what they did, I wouldn’t be surprised if Instagram doesn’t *actually* let you target this specifically.

Matthew Yglesias @mattyglesias

Free preschool has done great things for DC

Voters really want the government to spend money asap I guess.

Angus Johnston @studentactivism

Remember that the three-fifths compromise wasn't a compromise about the rights of enslaved people—enslaved people were considered zero fifths of a person under it, not three. It was about how much extra power slaveowners would be given compared to OTHER WHITE PEOPLE.

This is an interesting framing I hadn't thought of previously.

Roberto Aram Ferdman @robferdman

The Onion either has impeccable timing or remarkable speed

Don't worry, I only include posts from people with at least 10 followers.

Aaron E. Carroll @aaronecarroll

As someone who has written a gazillion words on how we pay too much for "me-too" drugs and things that barely work, I wish we'd spend a little less time arguing that companies shouldn't earn a profit for creating miracles. Sometimes good things cost money. That's ok.

I'm a fan of Carroll's work by the way, he's got good health explainers on Youtube

Erin justice breyer please retire Ryan @morninggloria

people are upset about this but being shot by several guns simultaneously probably brings a quicker and less horrifying death than the lethal injection method states currently use, which is another reason we should abolish the death penalty entirely; it's barbaric.

The Associated Press @AP

The South Carolina House has voted to add the firing squad to the state's execution methods amid a lack of lethal-injection drugs. The bill now goes to Republican Gov. Henry McMaster, who has said he'll sign it. https://t.co/JmhwZYlDHq

Trying to make execution look like an out-patient procedure is pretty disgusting

llama | twitch.tv/llamainatux @LlamaInaTux

Guy who invented the clock: there will be 12 numbers on it Friend: so the day will be divided into 12 segments? Inventor: no, 24 Friend: so will the day start at 1 Inventor: the day will start at the 12, which is at night Friend: Inventor: the 6 means 30

Wyoming, 2019