The mystery of Peter Thiel and Donald Trump

Larry Lessig was as puzzled as I was by Peter Thiel’s endorsement of Donald Trump. But Larry points out something interesting about Thiel’s speech to the GOP Convention:

What’s striking about this speech — except for its references to Trump — is how obviously true it is. Something has gone wrong in America. Growth is not spread broadly. Technical innovation is not spread broadly. We were a nation that tackled real and important problems. We have become a nation where — at least among politicians — too much time is spent arguing over the petty. “Who cares?” about which bathroom someone uses — which coming from a gay libertarian must mean, “it’s not of your business.” The wars of the last generation were stupid. We need to focus on building a “bright future” that all of America can share in.

What’s puzzling about this speech is how this brilliant innovator could predicate these words of a Donald Trump presidency. Maybe the excuse is that they were written before the true insanity of that man became unavoidably obvious. Who knows.

Yep. Who knows?

Links for 14.08.2016

“Why I can’t bank on Lloyds any more” – nice elegiac piece by Victoria Coren on closure of a local bank branch.

Nate Silver’s daily updated forecast of how the Trump/Clinton contest is likely to play out.

Trump is seeking volunteer election observers to stop Clinton ‘stealing’ the election.

“Think Amazon’s Drone Delivery Idea is a Gimmick? Think Again” – insightful piece on Amazon’s lack of faith in America’s crumbling transport infrastructure.

Facebook won’t allow desktop users to deploy ad-blockers – they can, you know. But to make a real difference they will have to do the same to mobile users.

Does the BBC really have a licence to snoop?

This morning’s Observer column:

My eye was caught by an interesting “scoop” in last Saturday’s Daily Telegraph: “BBC to deploy detection vans to snoop on internet users,” screamed the headline. “The BBC is to spy on internet users in their homes,” the report began, “by deploying a new generation of Wi-Fi detection vans to identify those illicitly watching its programmes online. The Telegraph can disclose that from next month, the BBC vans will fan out across the country capturing information from private Wi-Fi networks in homes to ‘sniff out’ those who have not paid the licence fee.”

Scary, eh? Before you reach for your tinfoil hat, though, some background might be helpful…

Read on