Daily Bafflements

• The private takeover of public spaces continues: Portland will soon allow the company’s utility cabinets for its Google Fiber project in the middle of the city’s sidewalks. But don’t worry; they’ll be painted with funky designs for “artistic flair.” (Via Mike Rogoway.)

• It turns out that the very hip “This is what a feminist looks like” T-shirts that have recently been spotted on several celebrities “were made by underpaid women in Mauritius—to the tune of 62 pence, or roughly one dollar, per hour,” reports Mail on Sunday. (Via New York.)

• Harvard has apparently been secretly photographing classes in ten of its lecture halls, many students are surprised to learn. “The cameras snapped an image every minute, and a computer program scanned the images to count how many seats were empty and how many were filled during lectures,” reports the Boston Globe. “Harvard did not disclose the names of the classes that were monitored, and the students whose images were captured had not yet been notified as of Wednesday afternoon.” (Via Dan Froomkin.)

• We’re going to start to collect the most odious, obnoxious, and otherwise objectionable TED talks of all time. Fun! If you’d like to contribute to the list, please send them our way at @thebafflermag on Twitter or by email to newsletter@thebaffler.com. (In our opinion, the best kind of TED talk is a fake TED talk.)