Weekend Reading

  • Remove the legend to become one
    When I started my first job at Amazon.com, as the first analyst in the strategic planning department, I inherited the work of producing the Analytics Package.
    From little acorns, mighty rainforests are borne.

  • Have you tried making yourself a more interesting person?
    Another passed-down tale: a student getting her story back from Barry, with the honest criticism on it: This just isn’t interesting. As I understand it, the student, a whiner, complained, What can I do to make it be interesting?
    Chimes with some ideas from the book The Charisma Myth (worth a look as well).

  • THIS → Social media is keeping us stuck in the moment
    The next time you look at social media, I want you pay attention to a subtle detail on each post: the timestamp.
    ALLLLLL the thoughts about this one, social media blackouts might be a thing for me next year.

  • 20 Authors I Don’t Have to Read Because I’ve Dated Men for 16 Years
    Certain writers — or artists, or film-makers, etc.— are so embedded into their particular cultures that one doesn’t need to have consumed their work in order to understand its impact.
    More ugh (but well written ugh so, go read it!)

  • RIP Every Frame a Painting
    Sad but expected news: Tony Zhou and Taylor Ramos have shut down their excellent video series on film, Every Frame a Painting. They wrote about their decision in the form of the script for a final episode that never got made:
    Stopping for the right reasons but UGH I loved these little documentary videos on film making. If you’ve never seen any, STOP AND GO WATCH! A Salute to Every Frame a Painting: Watch All 28 Episodes of the Now Concluded Video Essay Series on Cinema

  • The White Envelope
    As told by Nancy W. Gavin. It’s just a small, white envelope stuck among the branches of our Christmas tree. No name, no identification, no inscription. It has peeked through the branches of our tree for the past ten years or so.
    No YOU’RE crying etc etc, this is bloody lovely.

  • The Tianjin Binhai Library
    The Tianjin Binhai Library, a 33,700m2 cultural centre, features a luminous spherical auditorium around which floor-to-ceiling bookcases cascade.
    That thudding noise you heard was my jaw hitting the floor. Wow.

  • I Was Mauled by the Same Bear Twice in One Day
    This article originally appeared on VICE UK. Having a shitty Monday? Hey, at least you haven’t been attacked by a bear, made a lucky escape from that bear, and then once again been attacked by that same bear.
    File under: Funny (not funny)

  • How Mercedes got caught trashing a rental Tesla Model X
    Within the automotive industry, it’s common practice for companies to purchase competitors’ cars and benchmark or reverse-engineer them to learn precisely what they are up against. General Motor’s has an entire Teardown Lab for dismantling and scrutinizing other vehicles.
    What the actual fuck?

  • John Oliver grills Dustin Hoffman about sexual harassment allegations
    HBO host John Oliver hammered Dustin Hoffman about allegations of sexual harassment and the actor fired back with a ferocious defense, as a seemingly benign screening became an explosive conversation about Hollywood sexual misconduct on Monday night.
    Hoffman’s reactions more telling than the questions. UGH!!

  • The making of Burial’s Untrue
    Ten years ago, electronic musician Burial released his second album, Untrue, which went on to be quite influential.
    I’ve not read this article. My brain keeps stopping at the first three words… TEN FRICKIN YEARS WHAT!!??!!

  • All the Ways Learning English Will Destroy Your Brain
    “Read” rhymes with “lead”, and “lead” rhymes with “read”, but “read” doesn’t rhyme with “lead” and “lead” doesn’t rhyme with “read”. Following along? Then chances are you speak English pretty well — and you also know why so many people have such a hard time with it.
    I bloody love English (the language).

  • The Silence Breakers
    Movie stars are supposedly nothing like you and me. They’re svelte, glamorous, self-­possessed. They wear dresses we can’t afford and live in houses we can only dream of. Yet it turns out that—in the most painful and personal ways—movie stars are more like you and me than we ever knew.
    You’ve seen it linked no doubt, couldn’t NOT include it this week.

  • Portugal’s radical drugs policy is working. Why hasn’t the world copied it?
    When the drugs came, they hit all at once. It was the 80s, and by the time one in 10 people had slipped into the depths of heroin use – bankers, university students, carpenters, socialites, miners – Portugal was in a state of panic. The crisis began in the south.
    HOLD THE FRONT PAGE! Government in ‘applying science and common sense’ shocker!!

  • I Made My Shed the Top Rated Restaurant On TripAdvisor
    Once upon a time, long before I began selling my face by the acre for features on VICE dot com, I worked other jobs. There was one in particular that really had an impact on me: writing fake reviews on TripAdvisor.
    In actual bits. This is genius.

  • The Consumerist Church of Fitness Classes
    Gyms provide ritual and community, serving as a sort of religion. They also promote values American culture already worships—capitalism and overwork. You pay a regular tithe to support the community. In public, you wear symbols that identify you as one of the faithful.
    As a recent convert I can attest to this, and apologies if I’ve been a bit preachy!

  • Sonic Tonic
    When Cale Holmes moved from Virginia to New York City for grad school, he started to have trouble sleeping.
    Dunno about you, but a ‘burbling brook’ just makes me have to pee at 3am (or maybe that’s my age… SHUT UP!)