Weekend Reads 2/29/20

Coronavirus, Saturday Night Live, And White Hysteria

We can and should do the best we can to stay healthy. Hysteria is not healthy. If somehow the coronavirus becomes a global pandemic that kills millions of people, it will not be because there wasn’t enough hysteria to stop it.

FBI recommends passphrases over password complexity

Even if hackers steal your encrypted password from a hacked company, they won't have the computing power and time needed to crack the password.

Academic research published in 2015 supports this argument, explaining that "the effect of increasing the length dwarfs the effect of extending the alphabet [adding complexity]."

The South Carolina primary is a critical springboard for Super Tuesday

South Carolina, unlike Iowa and New Hampshire, has an incredibly diverse Democratic electorate: Sixty percent of the state’s Democratic voters are African American, compared to less than 5 percent in the first two states. That could mean good news for Biden, who enjoys strong support among older African Americans, but the pressure is on.

A peanut butter brand has put its spoon into the GIF pronunciation debate

And if neither Obama nor Trebek can swing the momentum at this point, we're not sure who can. Or, as Solomon points out, "I highly doubt that people who pronounce GIF with a soft G are going to suddenly switch to a hard G because of a limited-edition design of a peanut butter jar."