Greg's Newsletter is a Cheetos Burrito [No. 046]
Don't worry, only 99 days until the election.
I'm pleased as punch to be able to help kick your week off with a smattering of good stuff from all around the internet.
I'm terrified as hell at how long we still have until November 8. Send help.
Craigslist ads are the best kind of writing on the internet.
Absolutely not.
David Cross eats increasingly hot wings while being interviewed. I really wish I came up with this concept.
Taco Bell is testing Cheetos burritos and what is life.
Donald Trump boasted about receiving a gift from Putin and meeting his advisers.
Trump is hiring a whole bunch of foreign workers at one of his resorts.
The Baylor football program needs to be shut down.
GOOD STUFF
So, what's a president to do after he's done?
Historically, most presidents have died shortly after leaving office. Having multiple ex-presidents alive at the same time (and a few relatively younger ones, at that) is a new phenomenon. I'm actually kind of excited to see what Obama actually does, beyond writing a few more books and doing the speaking-circuit thing.
Maybe he could do something off the beaten trail. For example:
Build houses. Jimmy Carter did quite a bit of this as part of his work with Habitat for Humanity.
Chief Justice of the United States. Only one example, William Howard Taft. Among his accomplishments: He got the Court a building of its own.
Start your own political party. Theodore Roosevelt’s example may look pretty good to some this year.
Teach law at Stanford. Benjamin Harrison did this for a while, and I expect any ex-President with a law degree can find a spot at some university.
Run for Congress. There is one example for each house: Andrew Johnson was a Senator after his term, John Quincy Adams served in the House.
Start a University. Actually, Millard Fillmore started the University of Buffalo before he was President, but continued to be chancellor while Vice President and President, and returned to that role after leaving office. Thomas Jefferson famously founded the University of Virginia.
Farm. John Adams, John Tyler and Andrew Jackson all took farming seriously after leaving office.
Start a distillery. Washington is best known for his plantation, but it was a pretty marginal farm. Among the additional businesses was a distillery.
I want Obama to be a mid-major college basketball coach that turns his squad into a perpetual top-25 team capable of making a Final Four run every five-or-so years. And graduates 100% of its players, obviously.
Could Facebook Live change the way courts think about privacy law?
People have been filming and recently, with Diamond Reaynolds's Facebook Live video of the moments after Philandro Castile was shot by police, livestreaming incredibly important moments as they happen.
Among the many questions raised by this moment: How will the rise of streaming mobile video, which won’t be restricted to cases like those above, challenge or complicate the law of privacy? How will we—lawmakers, courts, and the general public—respond? And aside from privacy, are there other potential sources of legal liability for streaming video users?
Facebook Live has, perhaps, ushered in a new era of "privacy." Legislators and judges, among others, are going to have to figure out how to balance the right to livestream and the right to be let alone.
Nations that make autonomous driving a a priority could win the race
It might seem self-evident that countries that prioritize autonomous driving will end up benefiting the most from it, but there's always this tension between private industry, government, and the public good that has to be addressed when a new or disruptive technology/industry arises.
In the case of autonomous driving, it's sort of assumed that laws and policy will develop much slower than the technology. And yeah, that's kind of true, but governments may soon place an even greater emphasis on it, similar to the space race in the 1960s. That, in turn, might help their autonomous vehicle industry win.
Also, entire cities my flip from drivers to driverless - at once. A bit of a utopian vision, perhaps, but an interesting one to think about. Says venture capitalist Chris Dixon:
It would be kind of like an ad hoc subway system. They would automatically follow each other. I think it would be very safe ... One of my guesses is that this will happen in a few cities, it will be awesome, and people will be like, 'This is paradise.' You just push a button and a car pop ups and takes you wherever you want to go. You have more pedestrian space, and the air smells better. If that happens in a few cities and it works really well, it could spread virally from there.
The end result could be more efficient travel, a cleaner environment, more parks, open spaces... the list goes on and on.
Most people focus on the benefits of autonomous driving. I would like to see a big list of the drawbacks.
Coach K, Let Team USA Be Great
Coach K is telling this year's Team USA that they're been having just a little "too much fun out there" during its pre-Rio exhibition wins.
Coach K needs to not be a crotchety old white dude:
Coach K is chasing excellence with buttoned-up decorum; the players on his roster are chasing immortality. With Olympic gold still theirs to lose, the Americans have a chance at that kind of legendary status — and they have the opportunity to have fun while pursuing it.
So, “tone that down”? Nah, B. Tone that shit all the way up.
Yeah.