The Best Webcomic You've Probably Never Heard Of and More Morning #Mustreads

Good morning!

Here’s some of what we’re catching up on at Re/code this morning:

1. Square Lake is a brilliant, irreverent, NSFW-ish and often poignant webcomic that you should be paying attention to. Stylistically similar to other popular webcomics, like Ryan Pequin’s Three Word Phrase, it features a vaguely New Yorker-ish tone and subtle political commentaries. Its author, a University of Illinois grad named Dan Acton, used to publish it in the school paper — but you can now find it on Tumblr. And here’s a backlog of the comic, hosted at Blogspot.
2. When Apple introduced the Apple II in 1977, it revolutionized personal computing. Then, Apple did it again in 2001 with the iPod, and in 2007 with the iPhone. The company’s brand is largely built on selling relatively high-end gadgetry that the middle class can afford, what the Atlantic’s Robinson Meyer terms a “Warhol-inspired egalitarianism.” But things may be different now. Meyer makes a compelling case that the Apple Watch could symbolize a step toward engaging a true luxury market, “that mystical world where whiskeys cost more than minivans.”
3. The Washington Post has a nifty piece up about the size of cities relative to their environmental impact. In particular, there’s a simple, straightforward graphic comparing Barcelona to Atlanta, pointing out how even though the cities have roughly the same number of people, Atlanta emits more than ten times as much transportation-related carbon as Barcelona.
4. On his blog Stratechery, Ben Thompson has a solid rebuttal to the Jacobin piece we linked to yesterday that called out Uber for the ridesharing service’s policy of hiring drivers as independent contractors to avoid giving them benefits and certain workplace protections. Thompson takes a “don’t hate the player, hate the game” approach; he believes the anger shouldn’t be directed at Uber, but at a system through which employers are (sometimes) responsible for providing things like health care.
5. Yesterday, Jezebel published a report by Erin Gloria Ryan detailing how recently crowned Miss America Kira Kazantsev was kicked out of her Hofstra University sorority for hazing. The story is somewhat graphic, but it’s a thoughtful and concise look at the Greek scene at a major university. Ryan would like Kazantsev to take a stand against the “collegiate culture of hazing”, but as John Oliver reminds us, the Miss America pageant may not be the best place to look for a thoughtful stance.

If you see any stories you’d like to send our way (or have any questions/comments about stories we’ve recommended), feel free to shoot an email to noah@recode.net.

This article originally appeared on Recode.net.

Will you support Vox’s explanatory journalism?

Most news outlets make their money through advertising or subscriptions. But when it comes to what we’re trying to do at Vox, there are a couple reasons that we can't rely only on ads and subscriptions to keep the lights on.

First, advertising dollars go up and down with the economy. We often only know a few months out what our advertising revenue will be, which makes it hard to plan ahead.

Second, we’re not in the subscriptions business. Vox is here to help everyone understand the complex issues shaping the world — not just the people who can afford to pay for a subscription. We believe that’s an important part of building a more equal society. We can’t do that if we have a paywall.

That’s why we also turn to you, our readers, to help us keep Vox free. If you also believe that everyone deserves access to trusted high-quality information, will you make a gift to Vox today?

One-Time Monthly Annual

$5/month

$10/month

$25/month

$50/month

Other

$

Yes, I'll give $5/month

Yes, I'll give $5/month

We accept credit card, Apple Pay, and Google Pay. You can also contribute via