Afternoon Tea 9.8.21 - Avian Fools

Mexico decriminalized abortion, Britney’s Dad signed off on giving up his conservatorship, NYPD gun crime “experts” were wrong (we were right), TikTok overtook YouTube for watch-time in the US & UK, your LED lights can be hacked to be turned into microphones, and a duck yelled profanity in English, at its mate. It’s Wednesday, September 8th 2021, and this is the Tea. Today's vibe is brought to you by Kidnap. Previously Kidnap Kid, his soothing deep house reworking of Submotion Orchestra creates perfection to bury the summer with.

Mexico’s Top Court Decriminalizes Abortion in Sweeping Case (Bloomberg) How do you say “reading between the lines” and “medical tourism” in Spanish? Texas should (but won’t ever) be ashamed of themselves. Mesquite-flavored proto-Gilead-ass state.

NYC summer less bloody than experts predicted as shootings decline (NY Post) Last year, we talked about the NYPD’s categorical inability to parse y-o-y statistics, and this is exactly why. The “experts” weren’t even looking at 5-10 year trends, much less presenting any hard evidence for their findings, just fear mongering.

The disastrous voyage of Satoshi, the world’s first cryptocurrency cruise ship (The Guardian) Seasteading will never work until you can farm, hunt, and generate power continuously, on a boat. Until then, we’re just looking at piracy or Lord of the Flies at sea, in a few more steps.

‘Forever Changed’: CEOs Are Dooming Business Travel - Maybe for Good (Bloomberg) Given the insane pricing of Biz/1st Class, we can only hope that the complete destruction of an entire sub-sector of travel might bring some of those luxury ticket prices back into reach.

TikTok overtakes YouTube for average watch time in US and UK (BBC News) While this isn’t a technology focused newsletter, this is a pretty huge milestone for the short-form app. As recent converts, we totally understand why Zuckerberg is quaking in his boots and why YT is doing everything it can to push that “Shorts” product as hard as algorithmically possible. Maybe they can catch up to TikTok streaming…farmers eating fruit? 

New “Glowworm attack” recovers audio from devices’ power LEDs (Ars Technica) Hackers have proven they can parse and recreate audio from variations in the power levels of LED lights in the room where people are speaking. The future is fucked up and extremely insecure.

Britney Spears's Father Files to End Court Conservatorship After 13 Years (Bloomberg) Judge better not fuck this up. If anyone deserves a good end to 2021, it’s Britney.

Speaking Freely Has Never Been Easier (Gawker) Every single word of this is true. Anyone pretending they’re canceled with a weekly column, a seat in Congress, or several million followers, is doing just that. Pretending.

Beat This Dentist At Smash Bros., Get A Free Teeth Cleaning (Kotaku) A curious story that combines everyone’s favorite party game and a few hundred bucks in savings, potentially. Anyone want to give it a shot?

‘You bloody fool’: Duck mimics human sound during mating display (CNN World) I love how we teach the animal kingdom how to use tools and how to use curse words.

Poem of the Tea: Still repping the wonderful curation over at @poetryisnotaluxury on Instagram, today’s “A Poem of Friendship” comes to us from Nikki Giovanni.

Yours,