Daily Reads-62 (Level-2)

Reading Suggestion-1

Article Name:The Real side of Fake news
Author Name: Steven Rosenbaum
Source: Project Syndicate
Category: Culture and Society

Summary for this article :

The article throws light to the fake news infrastructure. The social media has become one of the major platforms that attract the public to the daily happenings around the world and yet much of what comes through these digital platforms are fake news.

The fake news platform gives full freedom to the anonymous political hobbyists and social hackers to disseminate fake news. One of the examples the author describes is the Reddit, which is the fourth visited website in the USA and eighth in the world as of this month, and has around 300 million monthly users globally.

The reddit has become a dumping ground for anonymous postings where misogyny and hate speech has continued to flow free. While online platform like Facebook is very keen and is taking steps to avoid the dissemination of fake news, platforms like reddit remainunshaken.

The author concludes by saying that the news consumers should push back against such fake news by demanding media outlets to avoid hosting their content on anonymous sites like reddit. The companies owning the sites that publish anonymous writings should take responsibility for what happens in their sites. The pseudonym concept of addressing oneself while sharing information is not to be vouched for by any of the digital platforms

Words to learn from this article :

Savvy: Someone who is knows a lot – sharp witted and knowledgeable
Dystopia (opposite of Utopia): Dystopia means an imaginary place where the conditions are miserable and humans live in a fearful and a pathetic state.
Cesspool: An underground container through which sewage and flows through
Hoax: Tricking or deceiving someone; playing a practical joke against someone
Masquerade: Not being oneself i.e. pretending to be someone else and hiding one’s own identity

Reading Suggestion-1: Click to read full article

Reading Suggestion-2

Article Name: Cash is dying. But what are we losing along with it?
Author name: Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett
Source: The Guardian
Category: Society ad Culture

Summary for this article:

In this article, the author talks about the closing of an end of the cash era. Today the society is rapidly moving towards a cashless generation where swiping cards sound easier and simple than searching through changes in one’s handbag.

While there are so many pros to this shift towards a cashless generation – from not being able to dodge tax payment to being safer, quicker and more efficient; the author also sadly sighs stating its cons – the older generation who are lonely and whose only source of conversation could be the cashier are flustered to be quicker and get going when the payment is made via cash as payments made by cards are much quicker and hence the cashier is used to being impatient, the credit card tips left at the food chains never reach the serving staff and there is also the possibility of overspending for why would a swipe come in the way of one’s expenditure?

The author dreads the end of the society where transactions are made via cash and not the debit cards.

Words to learn from this article:

Vagrancy: A wanderer who has no permanent shelter to live, homeless
Euphemistically: A word that sounds mild and less harsh substituted for a an offensive and a harsh sounding word
Lugging: To carry, lift or drag usually a huge or a bulky object with great effort
Lethal: Something that’s deadly or fatal
Flustered: When someone is flustered they are embarrassed or upset or agitated

Reading Suggestion-2: Click to read full article

Reading Suggestion-3

Article Name: Mathematics World Mourns Maryam Mirzakhani, Only Woman to Win Fields Medal

Author name:Evelyn Lamb
Source: Scientific American
Category: Mathematics

Summary for this article:

Evelyn Lamb, talks about the great Mathematician, Maryam Mirzakhani , the first woman and the first Iranian to win the fields medal which is described as a rough equivalent to the Nobel Prize for mathematics. Maryam had been a professor at Stanford University since 2008 and died recently on July 14th of metastatic breast cancer at a young age of 40.

Her loss has shaken the women mathematicians around the world.”Mirzakhani worked on a variety of problems related to hyperbolic geometry”

People have always found this great mathematician humble, ambitious and fearless. She was the first women to lead the International Mathematical Union. She is survived by her husband and their daughter.

Words to learn from this article:

Dissonant: Something that is not in harmony
Glean: To acquire information from various sources in small amounts and often with difficulty
Cranny: A small, narrow opening
Incisive: (adjective) describing something that is sharp, decisive and direct