READ ALL THE LAURIE PENNY: I’m glad to see Uber getting some well-deserved bad press. The gig economy is a scam. Every time we take an Uber we’re spreading its social poison
And not just Uber. All gig economy contributes to job precarity. Ask any musicians in your life about their retirement plan. If we want something like a gig economy to be successful (and I get there are aspects of it that are attractive) we need something like universal health care, and a government-funded universal basic income. If we can bail out the banksters, why can’t we bail out the workers?
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NOURISHMENT: If you’re looking for short stories to distract you from our national clusterfuck, here are some good suggestions. The Best Websites to Read Free (and Good) Science Fiction, Fantasy, & Horror
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BOOKS TO CHECK OUT: A fascinating list from Ann VanderMeer of books she’s blurbed so far in 2017. Ann is a fantastic editor of weird/fantasy/science fiction. I already had the Leonora Carrington book, and the Carmen Machado book on my to-buy list.
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MATILDA EFFECT: “The Matilda effect is the common bias against acknowledging the contribution of woman scientists in research, whose work is often attributed to their male colleagues.”
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BUG DINING: We should be feeding insects to our livestock.
“Grant has produced hundreds of kilos of dried maggots in the last few months as part of an E.U.-funded research project called PROteINSECT. They are now being fed to fish, pigs, and chickens in large trials designed to answer an increasingly urgent question: Are insects the animal feed of the future?”
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THE MOON: Time’s run out for this morning’s post. I’ll wrap up with this image from Van Gogh because it has the moon in the corner.