Weekend Reading

A quieter week, but hopefully a few things that might pique your interest!

  • The Almost Perfect World War II Plot To Bomb Japan With Bats
    Mexican Free-tailed bats spill out of Bracken Cave in Texas. (Photo: US Fish and Wildlife Service) Imagine: a quiet, tense night in the middle of wartime. A plane rips through the air above your city, rupturing the stillness. The bay doors open, and out whistles a bomb. It drops and drops.
    Read: http://ift.tt/1IXaAB9
  • Places You Can No Longer Go: The Love Shack
    Join one of our regional event announcement lists for first crack at upcoming explorations near you. 100% spam free, we promise.
    Read: http://ift.tt/1hn3YzK
  • Book Club of California
    For over a hundred years the Book Club of California has been heralding the artistry of Western writers and printers, and their public clubhouse has become a bastion where print will never die. The Book Club of California has been in San Francisco for over 100 years.
    Read: http://ift.tt/1PatJ1o
  • Clive Thompson, “The Pencil and the Keyboard : How…
    My friend Clive talks about his research into when you should write by hand and when you should type on a keyboard. Handwriting is great for note taking and big picture thinking. So, when you’re at lectures, in meetings, or you’re brainstorming ideas, scribble or doodle in your notebook.
    Read: http://ift.tt/1FuYM3g
  • Could the Oculus Rift help give Second Life a second life?
    Second Life—the online world once considered the hottest destination on the internet—never got much past a million users. But its creators think virtual-reality headsets could help give it a new lease of life.
    Read: http://ift.tt/1gcL2mr
  • Out of the Woods
    Several years ago, David Withers, a zoologist with the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation, was digging for crayfish in some creek beds on the edge of DeKalb County, in an area that can plausibly be described as nowhere at all, when he spotted an unmarked road.
    Read: http://ift.tt/1EfE6up
  • Life
    Someone tried to make Meryl Streep stand in a place she did not want to stand in for a photograph recently. She smiled her Meryl smile and simply said that this would not be happening. This is why Meryl Streep is Meryl Streep and the rest of us, to put it bluntly, can kiss her glorious hem.
    Read: http://ift.tt/1KYXJi8
  • How should we talk about mental health?
    Mental health suffers from a major image problem. One in every four people experiences mental health issues — yet more than 40 percent of countries worldwide have no mental health policy. Across the board it seems like we have no idea how to talk about it respectfully and responsibly.
    Read: http://ift.tt/1A6rveD
  • My life without gender: ‘Strangers are desperate to know what genitalia I have’
    This morning, I got out of bed, put on a yellow vinyl miniskirt with a tight black-and-white striped crop top and posted a picture of myself on Instagram.
    Read: http://ift.tt/1JQTjZo
  • A Little Kelp From My Friends
    This story starts on the seashore off the rocky Sonoma Coast of California, a mile or so north of a town called Jenner.
    Read: http://ift.tt/1gUJ2QH
  • The Science of Sleep: Dreaming, Depression, and How REM Sleep Regulates Negative Emotions
    “Memory is never a precise duplicate of the original… it is a continuing act of creation. Dream images are the product of that creation.” For the past half-century, sleep researcher Rosalind D.
    Read: http://ift.tt/1BeJgEY
  • A Ghost in the Family
    Early on the morning I went to see the San Francisco artists Barry McGee and Clare Rojas at their weekend place, in Marin County, a robin redbreast began hurling itself at a window in their living room. “It won’t stop,” Rojas said.
    Read: http://ift.tt/1hftZRq
  • Study Examines What Marathon Runners Think About
    For the study, researchers outfitted 10 people who were training for either marathons or half-marathons with microphones and small recorders that attach to their belts. They then asked them to say their thoughts out loud to themselves while on runs of seven miles or longer.
    Read: http://ift.tt/1MkQwcL
  • How to stop to-do lists ruining your life
    It’s funny how to-do lists take on the characteristics of their owners. Illegible handwriting and multiple crossings-out? Looks as though life is spilling over at the edges. Neatly written on a pristine piece of paper? A vision of self-control and restraint.
    Read: http://ift.tt/1IF7igl
  • 10 Things You Need to Stop Saying Right Now
    As new verbal memes bubble up on the Internet, one has to decide what to make of them and whether to embrace the language of the moment. You’ve no doubt been barraged with BEST sign-offs in e-mails for years now, and maybe you’re even an offender. Etiquette experts have decided it’s in poor form.
    Read: http://ift.tt/1MiffwA
  • Faster Than a Speeding Bullet, You Will Learn The Actual Speed Of Cliched Idioms
    We use a lot of stock phrases to imply quickness: From “before the ink is dry” to “at the drop of a hat” to “at full throttle.
    Read: http://ift.tt/1Mmqu8Z
  • The Irish love stilettos: The most popular shoe styles around the world
    Mexican women love wedges, Germans are fans of brogue stitching, and Americans and Canadians are pretty much the only people who like newspaper print fabric. Australian startup Shoes of Prey is used by people all over the world to design women’s shoes to their exact taste.
    Read: http://ift.tt/1L4xJiw
  • What Will Happen If I Don’t Take My Phone Out Right Now
    19 things that will definitely happen.
    “5. Someone will send me an e-mail marked “URGENT” and it will, for once, actually be quite urgent (probably about free food), and I won’t see it until it’s too late (all the free food is gone).”
    Read: http://ift.tt/1IHyopu