Today in Tabs: Point / Counterpoint
Shana, they bought their tickets, they knew what they were getting into.
Today, in the spirit of healthy debate,1 I would like to present the Tabs in a “Point / Counterpoint” format. Ready? Let’s begin.
Point: Today the New York Times “takes a step into virtual reality… to simulate richly immersive scenes from across the globe.”
Counterpoint: The New Yorker did it first.
Point: According to Stephanie McNeal at Buzzfeed, “A state trooper from Georgia… gave four children a memorable Halloween instead of informing them their parents had died in an accident.”
Counterpoint: Gawker’s Grendan O’Connor observed that “presenting this as a feel-good story is both repulsive and stupid.”
Point: GOP front-runner Ben Carson apparently believes that Joseph (you know, from the Bible?) built the Egyptian pyramids to store grain. According to The Guardian, he also believes they are pointy for anti-blimp reasons, and he used to have a Livejournal(!!!!). Carson confirmed to CBS that this is still his belief, and that his mood is “determined: 
.”
Counterpoint: These are probably not the strangest things Ben Carson believes.
G.O.P.oint: Marco & Jeb ❤︎ Things
Point: Author of software industry fanfic “The Cathedral and the Bazaar” and well-known lunatic Eric S. Raymond claimed that the Ada Initiative was secretly an effort to honey-trap Linus Torvalds with sexual assault charges in order “to smear and de-legitimize the Linux community (and, by extension, the entire open-source community).”
Counterpoint: NYMag’s Jesse Singal asked the rare Betteridge’s Law-defying question “Is This Crazy Anti-Feminist Rumor the Platonic Ideal of the Men’s-Rights Internet?” Yes it is. Also ESR smells like weird meat.2
esr thinks SJWs wanted to honeypot Linus, emacs is getting a code of conduct, and Perl6 will ship, the cathedral is fucking bizarre.
— Paul Ford (@ftrain) November 5, 2015
Point: “Design Swarm brings hack-a-thon mentality to homeless crisis” —KING 5, Seattle
Counterpoint: “These people need help, not Apple Watches.” —Jennifer Daniel, “Design is Capitalism”
Additional Talking Point: While you’re watching talks, “BoJack Horseman” designer Lisa Hanawalt’s XOXO talk is on Youtube and you should watch it unless you hate things that are both funny and inspiring.
Point: Tabs intern emeritus and noted Canadian Karen K. Ho wrote about Justin Trudeau’s cabinet and the lie of “Meritocracy” for Canada’s prestigious marine-mammal themed magazine The Walrus:
A Chinese-Canadian woman, no matter how educated, “well-spoken,” and successful will never stop being asked where she is really from.
Counterpoint: Monday, in The New Republic, Cecilia Hyunjung Mo investigated why Asian-Americans are fleeing the Republican Party:
When Joseph Choe, an Asian American college student, stood up to ask a question about South Korea, Donald Trump cut him off and wondered aloud: “Are you from South Korea?”
Ok, so it’s not so much a counterpoint as supporting evidence.
Additional Canadian Intern Point: Another of Tabs’s surprisingly numerous Canadian interns emeritus, Vicky Mochama, has just launched her own weekly newsletter Not Sorry with Canadaland. It will be “an unapologetic look at the week’s news and media” and comes out tomorrow so subscribe today.
Pod: This week’s Reply All is about taking LSD at work and it is spectacular.
Counterpod: That doesn’t even make any sense. This is not “counter” to Reply All in any way but another great podcast you should listen to is Jazmine Hughes on Longform which goes from zero to menstruation faster than you could possibly believe.
Today’s Song: Frank Ocean, “Pyramids“
~Thus Joseph stored up tabs in great abundance like the sand of the sea, until he stopped measuring them, for they were beyond measure.~
Today in Tabs is grateful to Laura Olin, from whose excellent newsletter “Everything Changes” I stole the section dividers today. Point: Fast Company. Counterpoint: Subscribe.
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