Portside

An artificial-intelligence technique called deep learning has now been used to model spatial navigation. The system develops a representation of space similar to that of the grid cells found in the mammalian brain.

As other cities and states have moved to ban using solitary confinement as punishment for teens, the practice has increased at one of the largest juvenile jails in the country.

In this study, we analyze data on recent young college graduates (ages 21–24) to learn about the Class of 2018’s economic prospects as they start their careers.

The French president has proposed a controversial higher education reform at a particularly inopportune moment, sparking major protests.

The government’s proposed railway reforms will force yet more traffic onto the country’s overcrowded roads, even as people in the provinces and regions lose mobility, convenience, and time.

Capitalism treats blue-collar and white-collar wage earners differently than salary earners. Since the 1980s, anybody who has a non-bullshit job, who is doing actual work, has seen their work downsized, sped up and Taylorized.

This study isn’t the only one to show the positive impacts of sugary beverage taxes. This study on Berkeley’s soda tax found a whopping 21 percent decrease in sugary beverage consumption. At Harvard, researchers predicted that Philadelphia’s sugary beverage tax, which went into effect this year, could prevent 36,000 cases of obesity over 10 years, prevent more than 2,000 cases of diabetes in the first year after the tax reaches its full effect, and save $200 million.

(Fair warning: some of these are fairly wonky, so if you’re not the type that gets excited by telecom law, you can always skip to the part where you call your senators and representative and tell them not to repeal the FCC’s ISP privacy rules—because if we raise our voices together, we can stop Congress before it’s too late.)

Raising consciousness about capitalism’s predations, even in beer, could encourage a movement to socialize brewing. In a democratically managed economic system, the freewheeling ethos of the microbrew movement would be free to flourish without being blackballed out of the market by the majors, or bought out if they manage to succeed. Now that would be a happy hour!

There’s the Women’s March, the Women’s Strike, the Day Without a Woman, International Women’s Day, U.S. Soccer with Equal Play Equal Pay. All of that has been going on in the last couple of months and we’re now playing a role in that as the women’s hockey team.