A debate has been raging over the last month about the benefits of mass deworming projects. Hugely popular with the UN and charities, the evidence behind the practice has come under attack. Are the criticisms justified? We hear from the different sides ? both economists and epidemiologists and their approach to the numbers.
Football predictions
How useful are football predictions and should we always trust the so called experts? The More or Less team look into the idea that predicting where sides will finish in the English football Premier League is best based on how they performed in previous seasons.
When Howard Zinn published A People’s History of the United States in 1980, Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz was thrilled. “I used it as a text immediately,” she remembers. Comrades in the movement anti-war movement, Zinn and Dunbar-Ortiz shared a belief that a radically different kind of history, freed from patriotic bluster, was desperately needed.
But Dunbar-Ortiz was also concerned by Zinn’s narrative. While the opening chapters on the genocide of Indigenous people were “like no other general U.S. history book,” Native Americans largely fell out of the story until the Red Power movements of the 1960s and 70s. “I kept saying to Howard, ‘What happened to the Indians? Why did they disappear until Alcatraz in 1969?'” Dunbar-Ortiz recounts. “He would say, ‘You have to write that book.'”
And so last year, Dunbar-Ortiz published An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States (Beacon Press, 2014). Covering several centuries in a brisk and moving narrative, this is a deeply unsettling tale. Dunbar-Ortiz lays bear a process of genocidal colonization and Indigenous resistance, the genesis of a American way of war born from frontier counterinsurgency and premised on annihilation, and how powerful origin myths continue to obscure the real history of this continent.
Microsoft certainly got millions of people excited a while ago when they announced that their latest version of Windows would be free. However, Windows users in most of Africa have begun to balk at the "not-so-free" implications of this recent innovation-- which by the way, is essentially a compulsory upgrade.
Internet access is still relatively limited in most parts of the continent, and there's plenty of data showing that most people primarily connect to the web via mobile networks which deliver data at a premium. In this week's discussion, Tefo Mohapi and Andile Masuku talk about how it appears tech companies like Microsoft seem unmoved by how forced software upgrades will negatively impact African consumers who must pay dearly for the privilege of staying up to date.
Also in this episode of the African Tech Round-up-- all the week's biggest digital, tech and innovation news:
-- Find out why two of Vodafone's biggest subsidiaries in Africa are in hot water for two very different reasons,
-- Discover how the Hacking Team security breach has inspired advocacy group Paradigm Initiative Nigeria to write a strong letter to Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari,
-- Learn how South African JSE-listed giant Naspers is plotting to pre-empt Netflix's imminent entry into the South African market with a video on demand service of its own,
-- Get the low-low on which South African travel crowdfunding startup is calling it a day, and
-- Hear all about how the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) Africa project is desperately seeking data scientists.
Music Credits:
Music by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Music licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0
creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/
Here we are for the nth installment of the Portable Atheist! This time it’s time to learn about John Stuart Mill and the thinkers who contributed to his upbringing. Very interesting stuff!
Mike Pesca has no plans to stop singing on the podcast. For this special episode of The Gist, we bring in vocal coach Dr. Jan Douglas to help him find the key. Will he declare our host a lost cause? For the Spiel, the tart-tongued Buckeye John Kasich.
Join Slate Plus! Members get bonus segments, exclusive member-only podcasts, and more. Sign up for a free trial today at slate.com/gistplus.
Google restructures. Shake Shack slips. And Warren Buffett makes a big buy. Our analysts discuss those stories and share some stocks on their radar. And Motley Fool Asset Management portfolio manager Bill Mann talks about what the volatility in China means for investors.
Migrant Crisis
There is a "swarm" of migrants coming into Europe according to the Prime Minister. Where are they coming from and how many are coming to Calais to try to get into Britain? Are 70 percent of migrants in Calais making it to the UK, as claimed in the Daily Mail? We scrutinise the numbers.
Worm wars
A debate has been raging over the last month about the benefits of mass deworming projects. Hugely popular with the UN and charities, the evidence behind the practice has come under attack. Are the criticisms justified? We hear from the different sides ? both economists and epidemiologists.
Football
How useful are football predictions and should we always trust the so called experts? The More or Less team look into the idea that predicting where sides will finish in the Premier League is best based on how they performed in previous seasons. Also, why is Leicester City the most watched Premier League team in the Outer Hebrides?
Generations
Loyal Listener Neil asks: So much is currently reported as the best, worst, least certain 'in a generation' - but just how long is that?
We find out..
In the 1980s, a mysterious organization terrorized candy companies in Japan - then disappeared. What was the Monster with 21 Faces, and what happened to it? Are any members alive today?
The Founding Era was a violent one, and yet the Framers of the Constitution took great pains to constrain the government's war power. Christopher A. Preble discusses modern rejoinders to the fear of an executive branch empowered to make war.
