Shaming people to vote

So I voted today, as I always do. However angry I get at the rigged system that is currently in place, I have this unshakeable feeling that I need to go out and vote. But I do understand why some might feel that they cannot in good conscience vote using the lesser-of-two-evils doctrine and I oppose efforts to shame principled non-voters into feeling that they are somehow shirking their civic duty. This is why I never wear the ‘I Voted Today’ sticker that they give me.
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The strengths and dangers of hyperlocal social media

I had never heard of the app Yik Yak. It is a Twitter-like app that uses GPS location sensors to allow people to post their views (“yaks”) anonymously within a highly limited geographical area of 1.5 miles, thus making it a hyper-local social network. This enables people to comment anonymously on matters of purely local interest. You can read how it works here. The app is particularly popular on college campuses where people can share their opinions on what’s going on in and outside of class.
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John Malkovich being other people

John Malkovich is one of the most interesting actors around, willing to take on a wide range of characters, thus ensuring that he is impossible to typecast. In yet another weird departure from the norm, he appears in a series of iconic photographs where his carefully posed image replaces that of the main character in it. Photographer Sandro Miller explains that this project was his way of paying homage to the great photographers who inspired him.
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The sheer joy of reuniting with your dog

Nina Pham, the nurse who contracted Ebola after treating Thomas Eric Duncan in Dallas, was cured of the disease and released from her quarantine. It looks like one of the reasons that US patients seem to be recovering at such high rates is that they receive immediate and extensive treatment, such as IVs and anti-viral drugs, to maintain whatever bodily fluids they lose due to the disease, enabling them to survive long enough to create their own antibodies to the virus.
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Attacking your own advertisers

For some reason, the businesses run by the Koch brothers started advertising on The Daily Show and this gave Jon Stewart the opportunity to launch an attack on them and the way they are using their money to buy politicians. That is an interesting thing to see. Usually broadcasters tend to give the sponsors of their show kid glove treatment, something that businesses know and take advantage of to buy the silence of news organizations, as media watcher Jeff Cohen noted some time ago.
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