The New Top Guns: Inside America’s Drone Program. Here’s What We’re Reading Today
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Here’s what we’re reading today.
1. Canadian killed by terrorists in the Phillipines
John Risdel, a 68-year-old expat in the Phillipines, was kidnapped last September. He was held for ransom by Abu Sayyaf, a terrorist organization in the country, and beheaded after the deadline passed. “This was an act of cold-blooded murder and responsibility rests squarely with the terrorist group who took him hostage,” Prime Minister Justin Trudeau told reporters in Kananaskis today.
2. Drone Wars
When her daughter Bianca asks her what she does for work, Crystal has reason to watch her words.”‘She knows when she sees the Reapers in the sky that that’s what we fly,’ Crystal says. ‘She knows that we’re not pilots, that we control the camera. She knows that we’ve been in the war.'”
Crystal is a sensor operator working on America’s secretive and highly controversial drone program. Read FastCompany’s in-depth take on America’s drone training program.
3. Global trade may never reach pre-crisis levels, BoC governor warns
“The long-awaited rebound in global trade isn’t just delayed. It may never come. Trade growth around the world is unlikely to regain the torrid pace of the years before the global financial crisis, Bank of Canada Governor Stephen Poloz warned Tuesday in New York.”
Poloz blamed the slowdown in part on structural issues in the global economy, namely China’s shift towards slower, consumer-driven growth.
4. The future of advertising is emojis
“We, the people of the internet, love emoji. We use them to joke. We express how we feel. We chide. And the ways we use those emoji—which ones, when, why, how—say a lot about us. As such, our beloved emoji have become a new universal language. So of course, brands want to get in on the fun.” Wired breaks down just why exactly brands want you to download their emoji keyboard.
5. Why so many smart people aren’t happy
“There are three things, once one’s basic needs are satisfied, that academic literature points to as the ingredients for happiness: having meaningful social relationships, being good at whatever it is one spends one’s days doing, and having the freedom to make life decisions independently.
“But research into happiness has also yielded something a little less obvious: Being better educated, richer, or more accomplished doesn’t do much to predict whether someone will be happy. In fact, it might mean someone is less likely to be satisfied with life.”
