, April 7, 2014
Daily Bafflements
(This man pictured may or may not be on the market, may or may not be a billionaire. It wouldn’t hurt to ask.) / Photo by Alfvan Beem
• “Two years after Chicago moved to reform its marijuana laws, a two-tiered system of justice remains firmly in place: while low-level pot possession has essentially been decriminalized for residents of affluent neighborhoods, others are routinely stopped and cuffed in an ongoing crackdown in poor, minority areas.” A great piece in the Chicago Reader on the “racial grass gap.”
• Microsoft has announced it will change its privacy policy—it will no longer search through its customers’ email accounts, says the Electronic Privacy Information Center. Progress?
• The Vatican is digitizing 41 million pages of ancient manuscripts. “When all is said and done, you’ll be able to read the Psalms handwritten across 13th-century vellum on your iPhone,” says Hyperallergic. We’re trying to picture the narrow Venn-diagram-slice of people who might actually do that, but, an interesting development nonetheless. (Via Electric Literature.)
• Here are “The World’s 10 Most Eligible Billionaire Bachelors.” The Forbes list includes Twitter founder Jack Dorsey and “a castle-dwelling, race car-driving royal, Albert von Thurn und Taxis,” among others. Hello!