GOOD

Sourcemap: Map Where Stuff Comes From

Andrew Price
01.22.10
Sourcemap is a new tool from the clever folks at the MIT Media Lab that's meant to help you track the origins of all the components of basically anything. Here's their intro video:[vimeo]http://www.vimeo.com/5133927[/vimeo]So you might be a little disappointed to find out that you can't just enter the name of a product and get a ready-made map. As an open-source project it's going to be users who build out a library of good maps (or don't). Only a handful-like this one for an IKEA bed-exist at this point.But imagine that this does get built out with a few thousand common consumer products and then gets combined with a more sophisticated version of Google Goggles. You'd be able to source things with your phone from the store.If there's a way to incentivize companies to create accurate sourcemaps for their own products, that could really get this thing going.Via PSFK
Articles

California to finally apologize for the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II

via Library of Congress

In the months after the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor in 1941, President Franklin D. Roosevelt authorized the military to move Japanese-Americans into internment camps to defend the West Coats from spies.

From 1942 to 1946, an estimated 120,000 Japanese Americans, of which a vast majority were second- and third-generation citizens, were taken in their homes and forced to live in camps surrounded by armed military and barbed wire.

After the war, the decision was seen as a cruel act of racist paranoia by the American government against its own citizens.

The interment caused most of the Japanese-Americans to lose their money and homes.

Keep Reading
japanese internment california assembly george takei ronald reagan california apologizes for japanese internment
Communities

Concerned federal judges call an 'unprecedented' emergency meeting to discuss Trump's DOJ interference

via Michael Belanger / Flickr

The head of the 1,100-member Federal Judges Association on Monday called an emergency meeting amid concerns over President Donald Trump and Attorney General William Barr's use of the power of the Justice Department for political purposes, such as protecting a long-time friend and confidant of the president.

Keep Reading
trump william barr roger stone. michael flynn department of justice federal judges emergency meeting
Politics

A man who escaped from a North Korean concentration camp just shared what life is like there

North Korea remains arguably the most mysterious place on Earth. Its people and modern day customs are shrouded behind a digital and physical wall of propaganda. Many people in the United States feel that North Korea is our "enemy" but almost none of us have had the opportunity to interact with an actual person who lives in, or has lived under, the country's totalitarian regime.

Even more elusive is what life is like in one of North Korea's notorious prison camps. It's been reported that millions live in horrific conditions, facing the real possibility of torture and death on a daily basis. That's what makes this question and answer session with an escaped North Korean prisoner all the more incredible to read.

Keep Reading
north korea life in north korea king jong un concentration camp trump south korea kang chol-hwan
Communities