Psychedelics, Swedish biohackers, Google's ghosting, failure, and CODE2040

1. The resurgence of psychedelics as psychological treatments gets the big New Yorker treatment.

“‘I don’t want to use the word ‘mind-blowing,’’ Griffiths told me, ‘but, as a scientific phenomenon, if you can create conditions in which seventy per cent of people will say they have had one of the five most meaningful experiences of their lives? To a scientist, that’s just incredible.'”

2. Swedish biohackers are offering RFID chip implants to office workers.

“Felicio de Costa, whose company is one of the tenants, arrives at the front door and holds his hand against it to gain entry. Inside he does the same thing to get into the office space he rents, and he can also wave his hand to operate the photocopier. That’s all because he has a tiny RFID (radio-frequency identification) chip, about the size of a grain of rice, implanted in his hand. Soon, others among the 700 people expected to occupy the complex will also be offered the chance to be chipped. Along with access to doors and photocopiers, they’re promised further services in the longer run, including the ability to pay in the cafe with a touch of a hand.”

3. Google seems to have ghosted on librarians.

“The last issue of the Google Librarian Newsletter in April 2009 directed people to the Inside Google Books blog. We saw Jodi around there until 2010. That blog hasn’t been updated since August 2012. Its last post, by a Google Play Operations Specialist, directs readers to the general Google Search blog. We know when we are getting the runaround. Sometime in 2014 between August and October, Google removed the Librarian Central blog entirely, took down all the posts and memory-holed it. Maybe it was because of the comment spam. You can still read the posts from the blog through the Internet Archive. Sure, the Archive is not as flashy, but they get the work done and they’re always there for you.”

4. The first packet sent over the precursor of the modern Internet failed.

“This is part of a series of bugs that I have known and loved… What you won’t read is that this packet failed and it failed, it crashed one of the systems, and the reason it failed was one of the systems was expecting carriage-return line feed and the other system was expecting EOL as a line terminator. So this bug has been with us since the very first Internet packet and it still bugs lots of systems today.”

5. CODE2040 has become a potent force for good in the technology industry.

“Google is giving a boost to a nonprofit that provides mentorship to minorities entering the tech workforce. CODE2040 said Monday it received $775,000 in grants from the tech giant to support the launch of free training programs for more than 5,000 black and Latino college engineering students over the next two years. The grants will also help the nonprofit expand its efforts into Austin, Texas; Durham, N.C.; and Chicago.”

Today’s 1957 American English Language Tip

depositary, -tory, are properly applied, -tary to the person or authority to whom something is entrusted, & -tory to the place or receptacle in which something is stored; & the distinction is worth preserving, though in some contexts (a diary as the depositary of one’s secrets; the Church as the depository of moral principles) either may be used indifferently.

The Credits: 1. newyorker.com / @wineandbowties 2. bbc.com 3. medium.com / @jessamyn 4. youtube.com 5. wsj.com / @laurawp