Ron DeSantis's Orwellian Redefinition of Freedom

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Ron DeSantis's Orwellian Redefinition of Freedom   Disney’s lawsuit will put the Florida governor’s understanding of freedom to the constitutional test. And his position will likely shatter.Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has long presented himself as a principled champion of “freedom.” In Congress, he was a founding member of the Freedom Caucus. He refers to himself as “governor of the free state of Florida.” And while laying the groundwork for a possible presidential run, he is promoting a book on his approach that he titled The Courage to Be Free. Continued here

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The Best Organic Mattresses (and Toppers)   You’re going to sleep on mattresses for roughly 23 solid years of your life (on average), so it makes sense to give some careful thought to what you’re lying on. Unfortunately, mattresses often have questionable materials in them. Everything from formaldehyde and TCEP (a flame retardant) to phthalates can end up in nonorganic mattresses. How much these substances impact you isn't scientifically settled, but one way to avoid possible harm is to get a mattress made from natural, organic materials. As a bonus, these mattresses are usually less ecologically harmful. Most eco-friendly mattresses are made of a combination of wool, natural latex, and cotton. The construction is similar to conventional mattresses but without the chemicals.Members of the WIRED Gear team have been testing mattresses for several years, and we have slept on every mattress on this list. We are always testing more, but these are our favorites right now. In general, we recommend hybrid mattresses with a core of individually wrapped springs, because they feel more supportive and have better airflow, so they don't sleep as hot. All of the prices shown are for queen-size models unless specified. Continued here

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10 great ideas in philosophy from the past 50 years, according to one scientist   I am a medical doctor and infectious disease scientist at the University of Washington, but I have long had an interest in philosophy. This goes back to my undergrad days at MIT, 50 years ago, where we were required to study various liberal arts. I ended up getting a minor in philosophy.I have spent much of the past few years studying COVID, so it has been a nice mental break to ponder greater things once again. In this essay, I discuss what I believe to be ten of the most impactful philosophers and their ideas from the past 50 years. Continued here

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A Brilliant Rom-Com Performance   This is an edition of The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. Sign up for it here.Good morning, and welcome back to The Daily’s Sunday culture edition, in which one Atlantic staffer reveals what’s keeping them entertained. Continued here

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The 5 Best Laptops for Linux   Linux will work on just about any PC. I mean that literally. Remember the Intel Pentium 4 processor? It's still supported by Debian Linux. That said, Linux runs better on some laptops than others. These days quite a few big-name PC makers even offer official support for Linux, meaning you have somewhere to turn if things go awry.To help you figure out the best Linux laptop for your perfect rig, I've been installing (or trying to install) Linux on every laptop I've tested for the past three years. Almost all of them worked great, but some were easier to get running than others. More than a few of my favorites come with Linux right out of the box. Continued here

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Shopping for a Router Sucks. Here's What You Need to Know   Everyone wants reliable and fast internet, and a good router can help. The trick is to work out how the complicated mess of standards, confusing acronyms, and sci-fi-sounding features translate to better Wi-Fi in your home. Join us as we tear back the curtain to reveal the pertinent facts about Wi-Fi, routers, mesh systems, and other jargon. Hopefully, you'll be better equipped to buy a router by the end.Updated April 2023: We added information on Ethernet, Wi-Fi 6E, and Wi-Fi 7, updated the latest broadband speeds, upgraded our minimum recommendations, and added an explanation of SSID. Continued here

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Terminal lucidity: Dementia patients "rally" just before death, and scientists want to know why   New research into terminal lucidity — a strange phenomenon in which people with severe dementia suddenly regain their mental faculties right before death — could transform our understanding of dementia, and maybe even point to a way to reverse it.Dementia involves the loss of memory, cognition, and speech. It’s caused by changes in the brain due to injury or disease, such as Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s, and it’s progressive, meaning the symptoms get more severe over time.  Continued here

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3 Signs That Someone Is Interested in Your Pitch Based on Body Language   3 signs of nonverbal behavior that signals if someone is into you. Continued here

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Why Banks Keep Failing   Three previously solid, medium-size banks suddenly faced annihilation. The blame lies with the system itself.In March, Silicon Valley Bank, once the envy of the nation’s tech elite with more than $200 billion in assets, went down the tubes in a flash—pretty much 36 hours from start (rumors of its insolvency) to finish (the announcement of a takeover by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation). It was the second-largest bank failure in American history. Only the failure of Washington Mutual, which had more than $300 billion in assets when it went under in September 2008, was larger. Two days after the SVB disaster, the little-known Signature Bank, which had about $100 billion in assets, also failed. That was the third-largest bank failure in American history. Continued here

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How to Use Shortcuts on Your iPhone, iPad, or Mac   You might have seen the Apple Shortcuts app installed on your iPhone, iPad, or Mac, but it might not be immediately clear what it is or how to use it. This app can streamline your routines and free up a precious few seconds on repetitive tasks. A shortcut is simply a way to get something done with your apps via a single tap or word to Siri. You can create a simple shortcut to browse the top news stories of the day, for example, or a chain of actions to close your smart blinds, play sleep sounds, and turn off the lights at bedtime.The Shortcuts app arrived with iOS 12 in 2018. It grew from an automation tool for iPhones called Workflow that Apple had acquired the previous year. It's supposed to make everyday tasks a little easier, but understanding how to get the most from it can be challenging. That’s why we've compiled this handy guide on how to use the Shortcuts app. Continued here

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20 Years Ago, Steve Jobs Taught a Masterclass in Emotional   "Sell the benefit, not the feature." Continued here

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Are certain languages intrinsically beautiful?   It’s often said that French is silky, German is brutish, Italian is sexy, and Mandarin is angry. But do those stereotypes of these diverse languages hold empirically across cultures? Are some languages intrinsically beautiful?To find out, a trio of researchers from Lund University in Sweden and the Russian Academy of Sciences recruited 820 participants from the research subject site Prolific to listen to 50 spoken recordings randomly selected from 228 languages. The audio clips were taken from the film Jesus, which has been translated into more than 2,000 languages. For this reason, it is commonly used in linguistics research. Continued here

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11 Best Deals on Coffee Gear, Games, and Sex Toys   Since this is the last weekend of April, let's just go ahead and say what we're all thinking: It's gonna be May. And May means Mother's Day, flowers, and tons of deals. We have a smattering of great deals for you, everything from coffee gear to video games to sex toys, to get the new month started right. Looking for more deals? We rounded up discounts on our favorite hair tools earlier this week. Special offer for Gear readers: Get a 1-Year Subscription to WIRED for $5 ($25 off). This includes unlimited access to WIRED.com and our print magazine (if you'd like). Subscriptions help fund the work we do every day. Continued here

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26 Mother's Day Gift Ideas for the Superhero in Your Life   If you buy something using links in our stories, we may earn a commission. This helps support our journalism. Learn more. Please also consider subscribing to WIREDSpeaking as a mom myself, I know that the best gift you can give your mother is you. Vaccines, effective N95 masks, and at-home Covid-19 tests are now widely available, so traveling to see your parents and loved ones in person is feasible (though flying is more of a pain than ever). But if you'd rather not arrive empty-handed, you'd better hop on it, because Mother's Day is approaching soon, on May 14. Scrambling for ideas? We've got a bunch of gift recommendations below. Continued here

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Emotionally Intelligent People Use This Brilliant 5-Word Phrase to Say No With Confidence (and Stop Talking)   Reduce stress and anxiety--in yourself and others--by learning how to say no without over-explaining. Continued here

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What Separates Successful People From the Pack Boils   One simple word that will also help you to experience less stress and burnout. Continued here

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Glass or plastic: which is better for the environment?   Dating back to between 325 and 350 AD, the Speyer wine bottle is thought to be the world's oldest bottle of wine. Now held in the Wine Museum in the German city of Speyer, where it was rediscovered in 1867, an analysis of its contents revealed that it holds an ethanol-based liquid. But the glass bottle remains unopened and the vintage unknown. Any prospective wine tasters should be wary – preserved historic beverages can be pungent, to say the least.The widespread use of glass as a storage vessel throughout history highlights the material's resilience and functionality. Glass is a useful material for everything from preserving food to carrying the signals that power the internet. So essential is glass to human development that the United Nations named 2022 the International Year of Glass to celebrate its contribution to cultural and scientific development. Continued here

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Why Are Your Employees Really Leaving? Because of 1 Simple Reason   Pay is important but it's not the only reason your employees want to leave. Continued here

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This Simple Practice Can Make You Happy and More Resilient in as Little as a Minute a Day   Here's how to get started. Continued here

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3 Things Elon Musk Just Said in an Interview with Bill Maher That Should Worry Everyone   When you start to realize how Musk thinks about the world, there is something missing. Continued here

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Why high-ranking leaders should be psych tested   George Washington famously didn’t want to become the president of the United States, but he accepted the job and performed it well. That’s how people should feel about important leadership positions, according to how political scientist Brian Klaas thinks about the role of power in society.Klaas says that power should be a burden on people because leaders have to make decisions that will ultimately have negative consequences for many people. One problem: some humans don’t care about those consequences. And, according to Klaas, our institutions don’t do a very good job of screening these people out of important leadership spots. Continued here

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Meet the Founder: The Nourish Spot's Dawn Kelly    The Nourish Spot founder Dawn Kelly on her "exhilarating" entrepreneurial journey and efforts to follow in the footsteps of iconic Black entrepreneurs. Continued here

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'Succession' Just Dropped Its Most Terrifying Episode Yet   The human machine is designed for planned obsolescence. The hardware ages at predictable rates. The software degrades on cue. The system may have its reasons, but the experience, for the end user, is decidedly suboptimal. Fortunately, the children of Logan Roy have a solution. They found the killer app. It’s the one that will stave off death.Tonight’s episode of Succession finds the people in Logan’s orbit still reeling from his passing—and preparing for the launch of Waystar Royco’s latest attempt to combat its own obsolescence. Living+, a Waystar-branded retirement community, will expand the company’s current portfolio of news and entertainment—“hate speech and roller coasters”—to include real estate. Viewers learn about Living+ from Logan: In the episode’s first scene, he looms from a wall-mounted television, snapping at staff like a Lazarus with anger-management issues. He is being filmed, presumably just before his death, to add his endorsement to the project: “I’m convinced that the Living+ real-estate brand can bring the cruise-ship experience to dry land,” he says. Later, we’ll learn one of the new brand’s taglines: “Gated communities. Infinite freedom.” Continued here

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First Republic Bank Hurtles Toward Receivership, as Fed Report Teases New   The Federal Reserve has made clear that changes are en route for the banking system after the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank. Continued here

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The Preemptive Republican Surrender to Trump   Donald Trump inspires an uncommon devotion among his most ardent followers, which can obscure a surprising fact about his present political position: Many, if not most, Republicans do not want him to be their party’s next nominee for president. As of today, according to the polling averages of both FiveThirtyEight and RealClearPolitics, Trump has consolidated only half of the Republican primary vote, with the rest split among Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley, and a handful of other alternatives. The numbers suggest that despite the former president’s best efforts, half of his own party’s voters want to move on. What they can’t agree on is who should displace Trump as their standard-bearer.If this sounds familiar, it should. In 2016, Trump was repeatedly outpolled by the field of Republican candidates, and hovered around 35 percent on the eve of the Iowa caucuses in February, which he then lost to Senator Ted Cruz. But as the campaign wore on, Trump’s devoted following of a third of GOP primary voters was enough to propel him to victory over a divided group of opponents. He was greatly helped by their tactics—or lack thereof. Instead of attacking Trump as the front-runner, his rivals assailed one another, hoping that Trump would collapse of his own accord and they would inherit his supporters. Rather than consolidate behind a single alternative to Trump, the other contenders fought onward in state after state. This infighting enabled Trump to scoop up the most delegates, even though he never won a state with more than 50 percent of the vote until New York’s primary, on April 19. Soon, Trump’s opponents were out of money and he was the presumptive nominee. Continued here

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How to Become a Board Member Early in Your Career   Joining a board as a young professional can be a career-shaping opportunity. It can help you hone your leadership skills, learn how to influence people, and forge strong connections. You can also create lasting impact through the insights, ideas, and strategies you share while in this role. But what does it really mean to serve on a board of directors, and how can you land one of these coveted seats? Continued here

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How Magnetic Fields Control Galactic Growth   The Milky Way's rotating disk of gas and dust gives rise to graceful spiral arms, which make up the galaxy's most active star formation sites. Now researchers using an airplane-borne telescope high in Earth's atmosphere have found a mechanism for how magnetic fields shape star birth in the dense filaments, or “bones,” that wind their way through these arms.The new work describes how galaxy-scale magnetic fields, based on their orientation and strength, can both funnel material from one area to another and prevent the dust and gas that make up the densest regions from collapsing under gravity. These processes dampen star formation; without them, we'd have a much brighter night sky than we see today. Continued here

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Steve Jobs Said This Is the Number 1 Sign of   Here's a hint: Jobs felt memory, while important, had relatively little to do with exceptional intelligence. Continued here

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9 Toxic Phrases Emotionally Intelligent People Learn to Ignore (and Why)   Somebody needs to tell you ... Continued here

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Ooni's First Electric Oven Is a Pizza Sensation   If you buy something using links in our stories, we may earn a commission. This helps support our journalism. Learn more. Please also consider subscribing to WIREDI’ve reviewed pizza ovens for several years now, and at this point it’s not an overstatement to say that Ooni has revolutionized the art of the home wood-fired pizza. If you craved a Neopolitan-style pie before Ooni, you had to build an enormous brick oven in your backyard, or jury-rig your home oven or charcoal grill with slate tiles or crazy high-heat contraptions. Continued here

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Everyone With Blue Eyes May Descend From a Single Human Ancestor   In 2008, a study led by Hans Eiberg from the University of Copenhagen claimed that all blue eyes link back to a single ancestor who lived between 6,000 and 10,000 years ago. The concept has continually cropped up in news stories and social media posts over the 15 years since the paper was released. Simply put, we remain enamored.Every eye color links directly to the volume of melanin in the iris. Green eyes, even more rare than blue, marks a reduced level of melanin, thought not as reduced as blue eyes. It only takes a miniscule change to shift from brown to blue. "From this we can conclude that all blue-eyed individuals are linked to the same ancestor," Eiberg says. "They have all inherited the same switch at exactly the same spot in their DNA." Continued here

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Want More Happiness and Productivity? Cancel 4 of Every 5 Meetings, Study Shows   Companies that tried it saw productivity rise 74 percent. Continued here

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The Renovation   I didn’t know by what accident the builders had managed it, but instead of a remodeled bathroom attached to my bedroom, they had installed Silivri Prison. No mistaking it. After the laborers had packed up their tools and cleaned up their mess (they had almost superstitiously prevented me from checking on their progress), I threw open the door and stepped to where my shower should be, but instead found a cell with a guard walking by. I asked him where I was in Italian. Confused, he asked me in Turkish what I wanted.“That’s not right. This is supposed to be a grand shower with two heads and massaging jets and a marble bench.” Continued here

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Curious about screen-based fitness machines? Here are the best we've found   A home gym makes working out convenient, which will ideally lead to consistency, the key to any exercise regimen. There are a few key points to setting up a home gym that will engage you and fit your space. Mirror- and screen-based fitness devices aim to roll these solutions into one device that delivers diverse, engaging training. Continued here

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A violent theory explains why most people are right-handed   Nine out of every ten humans are right-handed, an imbalance that researchers for decades have attempted to explain, without definitive success.One of the ideas considered is the fighting hypothesis, which suggests that left-handedness provides an advantage in combat, albeit with an overall hit to physical health that keeps lefties rare in the population. Indeed, males — who historically have competed most strongly for resources and mates — are left-handed at slightly higher rates than females. Moreover, studies suggest that lefties tend to outperform right-handed people in fighting sports as well as in sports that require hand-eye coordination like tennis, baseball, and volleyball. This is likely because players are unaccustomed to competing against lefties as they are rarer. Continued here