This Week:
1.12.16

NY TimesNY Times

  • 52 Places to Go in 2016

  • Netflix Secret Categories - A directory of all the secret” Netflix categories.

  • The Search for the Killer Bot - But in the fall of 2013 Brown chose to write a bot — a simple piece of software that, when sent a message, returned a single lunch option from among the 20 or so restaurants and food trucks that Brown entered into its database. Lunchbot, as Brown called it, was a simple technology that soon grew more sophisticated. Other employees added restaurants to the program; later, an updated version accounted for places the team had recently ordered from, preventing consecutive visits to Torchy’s.”

January 13, 2016

The Best Things I’ve Read This Week:
10.7.15

  • The Martian - After a dust storm nearly kills him and forces his crew to evacuate while thinking him dead, Mark finds himself stranded and completely alone with no way to even signal Earth that he’s alive—and even if he could get word out, his supplies would be gone long before a rescue could arrive.”

  • The Night They Drove the Price of Electricity Down - In the wee hours of the morning on Sunday, the mighty state of Texas was asleep. The honky-tonks in Austin were shuttered, the air-conditioned office towers of Houston were powered down, and the wind whistled through the dogwood trees and live oaks on the gracious lawns of Preston Hollow. Out in the desolate flats of West Texas, the same wind was turning hundreds of wind turbines, producing tons of electricity at a time when comparatively little supply was needed.”

  • What Refugees Bring When They Run for Their Lives - Refugees travel light, for their trek is as dangerous as it is arduous. They are detained, shot at, hungry. Smugglers routinely exploit them, promising safety for a price, only to squeeze them like sardines into tiny boats. Most have no option but to shed whatever meager belongings they may have salvaged from their journeys. Those allowed to bring extra baggage aboard often toss it overboard, frantically dumping extra weight as the leaky boats take on water.”

  • The Big Meh - Remember Douglas Adams’s 1979 novel The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy”? It began with some technology snark, dismissing Earth as a planet whose life-forms are so amazingly primitive that they still think digital watches are a pretty neat idea.” But that was then, in the early stages of the information technology revolution.

Since then we’ve moved on to much more significant things, so much so that the big technology idea of 2015, so far, is a digital watch. But this one tells you to stand up if you’ve been sitting too long!”

October 7, 2015

The Best Things I’ve Read This Week:
6.15.15

  • You Remind Me of Me - You Remind Me of Me begins with a series of separate incidents: In 1977, a little boy is savagely attacked by his mother’s pet Doberman; in 1997 another little boy disappears from his grandmother’s backyard on a sunny summer morning; in 1966, a pregnant teenager admits herself to a maternity home, with the intention of giving her child up for adoption; in 1991, a young man drifts toward a career as a drug dealer, even as he hopes for something better.”

  • Digital Darth Vader’ Charles C. Johnson on Manipulating Politics and Media - I’m not sure when I first became aware of Charles C. Johnson. It may have been from a few tweets he directed at me. It might have been from one of the numerous controversial profiles of him in the New York Times, Politico, Gawker and other places. I do specifically recall being tagged in a tweet for a $500 bounty he’d put on anyone who could get an advertiser to pull out of Al Sharpton’s TV show.”

  • A bad job is harder on your mental health than unemployment - Although employment is associated with health benefits over unemployment, the psychosocial characteristics of work also influence health. We used longitudinal data to investigate whether the benefits of having a job depend on its psychosocial quality (levels of control, demands and complexity, job insecurity, and unfair pay), and whether poor quality jobs are associated with better mental health than unemployment.”

  • Can Reading Make You Happier? - We draw on the same brain networks when we’re reading stories and when we’re trying to guess at another person’s feelings.”

June 15, 2015

The Best Things I’ve Read This Week:
5.17.15

May 17, 2015

13 Things:

  1. Do something now.
  2. Start working and do not wait for perfect circumstances.
  3. Believe in your abilities.
  4. Believe in your interests.
  5. You’re the average of the 5 people you spend the most time with.”
  6. Have a strong image for why you want to be successful.
  7. Set specific goals.
  8. Aim for the best.
  9. Be persistent…try again.
  10. See failures as lessons.
  11. Nothing will ever replace experiences.
  12. Concentrate on your weaknesses. Make them stronger.
  13. Do something now.

May 4, 2015

The Best Things I’ve Read This Week:
4.26.15

  • A Visit From The Goon Squad - Bennie is an aging former punk rocker and record executive. Sasha is the passionate, troubled young woman he employs. Here Jennifer Egan brilliantly reveals their pasts, along with the inner lives of a host of other characters whose paths intersect with theirs. With music pulsing on every page, A Visit from the Goon Squad is a startling, exhilarating novel of self-destruction and redemption.”

  • How to live large in a tiny house - A look into the tiny house movement.”

  • Why do pub TVs have a pint glass in the corner? - When I watch football in the pub, why is there a pint glass in the bottom corner of the screen and why is it sometimes full, sometimes empty and sometimes in between?”

  • Google got it wrong. The open-office trend is destroying the workplace. - Workplaces need more walls, not fewer.”

  • The hacked Sony emails show how Silicon Valley dealmaking really works - Sony Pictures’ thousands of hacked executive emails, published yesterday on Wikileaks, have already highlighted significant drama at the studio. But now that they are more easily searchable, typing a few simple keywords—names, companies, internet domains—reveals a fascinating trove of communication. These discussions include financial negotiations and personal (and professional) favors; the messages range from the mundane to the regrettable.”

April 27, 2015