A great and depressing read about the history of OxyContin and the Sackler family. The daughter of one of my family friends had fought an addiction to Oxy, and later heroin, and fortunate for her, she was able to overcome her addiction. As this article describes, many are not as fortunate.

David Juurlink, the Toronto doctor, told me that opioids are problematic even for users who don’t succumb to addiction. “Opioids really do afford pain relief—initially,” he said. “But that relief tends to diminish over time. That’s, in part, why people increase the dose. They are chasing pain relief from a drug that has failed. I see all these people who are convinced they are one of the ‘legitimate’ pain patients. They’re on a massive dose of opioids, and they’re telling me they need this medication, which is clearly doing them harm. For many of them, the primary benefit of therapy, at this point, is not going into withdrawal.”

Even if you believe that the American broadband market is sufficiently competitive — it isn’t — that ISPs can be trusted to not discriminate against some forms of traffic once given the freedom to — doubtful — and that existing regulatory structures will allow any problems to be fixed on a case-by-case basis, it still seems far more efficient to prevent it in the first place. There’s an opportunity to treat internet service as a fundamental utility; let’s keep it that way, whether that’s through Title II classification or an equivalent replacement.

Though the Razzos hadn’t known it, the burden of proof had been on them to demonstrate to a drone watching them from above that they were civilians — guilty until proved innocent.

Heart breaking to read Basim’s story.

Good, comprehensive list. If it was my list, the Zach Snyder Superman films and the X-Men and Wolverine sequels (with the exception of Logan) would rank near the bottom or fall-off the list completely. Near the bottom would be the Joel Schumacher Batman films. In the top 25, I would add to the list Batman: Mask of the Phantasm and The Incredibles.

Does Unbreakable (2000) count as a superhero movie? If so, it’s in my top 25.

My Top 3:

3. Batman (1989)
I don’t believe that this film gets enough credit for kicking-off or revitalizing the comic book super hero as a full-feature film franchise. Some might argue that the Christopher Reeves Superman films of the 70’s and 80’s were the origin, but I don’t believe those films ever took themselves seriously. Not in the way that most modern day comic book movies do. I believe Tim Burton took the Batman franchise seriously. His vision and direction for Batman was pitch perfect. I still love Batman and Batman Returns. It’s a shame that Burton didn’t get to do a third.

The way in which they made Batman and the effects they were able to pull-off–scale models, live-action stunts and sequences, very-little CGI or green screen (that I can tell)–still holds up well to this day. When you re-watch the Superman films of the 70’s and 80’s, the same tools they used to make Batman existed, but were not effectively utilized and the attention to detail was lacking.

Michael Keaton doesn’t gets enough credit for his portrayal of Bruce Wayne/Batman. He’s my favorite Batman. At the time, Jack Nicholson was a huge ‘get’ for the role of the Joker. Until Heath Ledger’s performance, Jack Nicholson was the Joker.

2. Iron Man (2008)
This is arguably the best comic book movie ever told. The origin story respects the comic and the plot and script is tight. The casting and acting was perfect. It holds up extremely well and is easily re-watchable. Easily a future classic.

1. The Dark Knight (2008)
I love the description of: Heat with capes. Even if you removed the costumes and the make up, the movie still works extremely well as a crime drama. This is the pinnacle of super hero movies.

Fun story and great reporting.

I’m a terrible, terrible, terrible contact lens wearer.

From the article, here are the most common bad habits, according to the CDC:

Sleeping or napping while wearing lenses

I’m guilty of napping with my contacts in once per quarter. Never overnight.

Swimming while wearing lenses

Never.

Not replacing lenses as often as prescribed

Depending on which eye doctor I get, one says my contacts are good for up to a month, the other says change them every two weeks (the product website says every two weeks, too). I usually wear them until I start to notice irritation on my eye or fuzziness in my vision, which is typically right at the month or month and a half mark. This is bad behavior.

Not regularly replacing storage cases

I change my storage case once per year. I wash it, with soap, once every two weeks. But as the article points out, water has germs and this is bad.

Topping off contact lens solution in the storage case

Sometimes when the solution is low and not dirty, otherwise I clean (with soap and water) and then re-fill.

Storing lenses in tap water

Never.

Not visiting an eye doctor at least once a year

I always visit once per year. Twice a year when my contact lens decides to randomly roll-up into a little ball and lodge itself in my eyelid.

Emma Perrier was deceived by an older man on the internet–a hoax that turned into an unbelievable love story.

Fun story. I’m looking forward to seeing this as a Hollywood rom-com in a couple of years.

The title of the article is misleading. It should read: Dark chocolate is not a health food and not healthy in any way. Here’s how Big Chocolate made that happen.

“This man in the Oval Office is a soulless coward who thinks that he can only become large by belittling others. This has of course been a common practice of his, but to do it in this manner—and to lie about how previous presidents responded to the deaths of soldiers—is as low as it gets. We have a pathological liar in the White House, unfit intellectually, emotionally, and psychologically to hold this office, and the whole world knows it, especially those around him every day. The people who work with this president should be ashamed, because they know better than anyone just how unfit he is, and yet they choose to do nothing about it. This is their shame most of all.”

A story of how some prison inmates re-assembled recycled computer parts, tucked away a computer in a ceiling, and hacked a network to run some illegal activities and how they were caught.

Reminds me of a time about 20 years ago, back in high school, where my best friend and I convinced one of our favorite teachers to allow us to piece together a Linux server using recycled computer parts, tuck the server away in the back corner of the library, give us access to the school’s T1 lines, and run our own file, FTP, HTTP, IRC bot(s), and Quake server.