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Daily Bafflements

drone

drone

Wi-fi password: DRONE / Photo by Gabriel Garcia Marengo

• “The Social Security Administration announced Monday that it will immediately cease efforts to collect on taxpayers’ debts to the government that are more than 10 years old,” reports the Washington Post.

• Hey, neat, multi-tasking! DARPA is turning drones into Wi-fi hotspots, reports Ars Technica.

Kill Screen’s Jon Irwin describes the latest project by artist Toni Dove, a “robotic dress” that captures the movements of passersby and then imitates those movements, walking empty down the street. The invention “both celebrates the widespread emergence of wearable computing while questioning its effects. The idea came about while ‘looking at the explosion of obsessive body-tracking that’s going on in all these devices…and thinking of it as this slightly horrific marriage of narcissism and commodification.’ Dove’s title for her work? The Dress that Eats Souls.”

• A study has found that “consumers don’t like to be told what they like.” According to new research published in the Journal of Consumer Research, “when a person’s sense of ownership and freedom is threatened they are less likely to respond positively to identity marketing campaigns.” But you already knew that; you’re smart, you subscribe to The Baffler.