Weekend Reading

I start my new job in a week or so, not sure if that means the number of links in these posts will increase or decrease, part of me is interested to see what happens, part of me isn’t bothered, and part of me wonders why I’m telling you this.

  • People who worry incessantly about failure could be better off than those who don’t
    For everyone who’s ever been told that they worry too much—here’s some deeply satisfying news for you. Worrying may be a good thing.
    Read: http://ift.tt/1HtzBhJ
    I’m worried how much time I’m spending compiling these posts, that’s a good thing, right?
  • Meet one of the world’s most groundbreaking scientists
    As the dish of steamed chicken feet clattered onto the table, an impish toddler drummed with her chop sticks. Nobody in the noisy restaurant in Boston’s Chinatown gave a second glance at the man dressed in a polo shirt and jeans enjoying dim sum with his little girl, wife, and mother.
    Read: http://ift.tt/1SvUhfg
  • Why Nick Hornby is Turning Other People’s Books Into Movies Instead of Writing His Own
    The High Fidelity writer finds making movies, like Brooklyn, more satisfying than spending years alone in a room writing a book. Nick Hornby is a culture hero. His 1990s novels High Fidelity and About a Boy were era-defining bestsellers that became cult-adored films.
    Read: http://ift.tt/1L6SKGm
  • What It’s Really Like To ‘Walk’ In Space
    Astronauts Scott Kelly and Kjell Lindgren left the International Space Station on Friday for their second spacewalk in less than two weeks. Their assignment was to configure a vent door on the port side ammonia tank.
    Read: http://ift.tt/1kDuE0q
  • Cookies must be enabled.
    Enabling cookies In order to see the content of this page, you will need to enable your cookies by following these steps: iPhone • Open Settings • Touch on Safari • Touch on Accept Cookies • Select Always Android • Press the MENU button • Tap on More • Tap on Settings • Check the
    Read: http://ift.tt/1kIzOs7
  • Unmasked! The Mexico City superhero wrestling for pedestrians’ rights
    The traffic light turns red at the corner of Avenida Juárez and Eje Central, the busiest pedestrian crossing in Mexico City, used by around 9,000 people every hour. Tonight, a driver stops his grey Peugeot exactly on the crossing where the masses are trying to pass.
    Read: http://ift.tt/1XYttr6
  • David Mitchell: separating literary and genre fiction is act of ‘self-mutilation’
    Author David Mitchell has let loose the latest salvo in the perennial “literary vs genre” war by saying that those who dismiss fantasy and science fiction are committing a “bizarre act of self-mutilation”. Mitchell is one of the handful of authors with a foot in both camps.
    Read: http://ift.tt/1iPTRDQ
  • How U.S. Drinking Laws Created the Fake ID Market
    Detail of a hologram on a German ID card. (Photo: Public Domain/WikiCommons) True story—a couple weeks ago, a restaurant attempted to deny me service because they thought I had a fake ID.
    Read: http://ift.tt/1HFvQWt
  • Exit Interview: I Spent 20 Years Behind the Wheel of a Big Rig
    Long-haul trucking isn’t the sort of job where you can go to work, space out, and come home at night. Driving a truck means living a different type of day-to-day existence, roaming far and wide, sleeping on the road and, sometimes, exploring places that you’d never have gone otherwise.
    Read: http://ift.tt/1MnFen0
  • Cephalopod Science is Even Weirder and More Mysterious Than You Imagined
    This cute little guy may be the future of medicinal technology. (Courtesy of Joshua Rosenthal/Used with Permission)
    Read: http://ift.tt/1RBIOdr
  • Bob Dylan and the “Hot Hand”
    For decades, there’s been a running academic debate about the question of “the hot hand”—the notion, in basketball, say, that a player has a statistically better chance of scoring from downtown if he’s been shooting that night with unusual accuracy.
    Read: http://ift.tt/1XZUKcH
  • Sony is finally killing Betamax
    Of all Sony’s failed proprietary formats, Betamax has to be the most iconic — the videotape format’s eventual vanquishment by VHS set the stage for countless media wars down the subsequent decades. It is probably news to you, then, that Beta cassettes are still a thing you can buy.
    Read: http://ift.tt/1HsIihn
  • Shia LaBeouf Launches Bizarre Public Performance Art Piece
    Shia LaBeouf is now an art installation, open to the general public. Following his head-scratching red-carpet appearance at the Berlin Film Festival where he sported a paper bag on his head, the Nymphomaniac star is setting up shop for one week at a gallery on Beverly Boulevard in Los Angeles.
    Read: http://ift.tt/1bT23g5
  • David Cameron hasn’t the faintest idea how deep his cuts go. This letter proves it
    It’s like the crucial moment in Graham Greene’s novel The Quiet American. The US agent stares at the blood on his shoes, unable to make the connection between the explosion he commissioned and the bodies scattered across the public square in Saigon.
    Read: http://ift.tt/1GWAmoN
  • BlackBerry Priv Review: BlackBerry May Win You Back With Android
    I don’t know anyone who owns a BlackBerry anymore. Not a single person. Had BlackBerry’s new Priv been released five years ago, things could be different. I’d own one. You’d own one. Obviously bankers, lawyers and salespeople would have them.
    Read: http://ift.tt/1Q7OzSy
  • Worth the Risk?
    IN THE MONTHS AFTER HER SIXTH CHILD WAS BORN, Amy Reed didn’t bounce back the way she had in the past. She continued to bleed, heavily, to the point where she had to plan her days around it. She became anemic and even climbing stairs was difficult.
    Read: http://ift.tt/1RNxLxV
  • Caged: What Drives Ronda Rousey to Wake Up and Fight
    “When are we going to see women in the UFC, dude?” – TMZ cameraman”Never.
    Read: http://ift.tt/1QsVDZf
  • When People Say ‘You Look Tired’
    I don’t know if there’s ever a day I don’t hear that phrase at least once. Sometimes I hear it multiple times a day. You look tired. It used to offend me, but now I just respond with one simple answer: “I am tired.” You see, I don’t just look tired, I am tired.
    Read: http://ift.tt/1PEj1C4
  • The Asteroid Hunters
    On August 18, 2015, an otherwise unexceptional summer Tuesday, NASA issued a press release titled “There is No Asteroid Threatening Earth.
    Read: http://ift.tt/1kNwXOL
  • This is about the time I chose not to die. — Medium
    I’ve waited two years to write this story. I also waited until the people surrounding me now have a good sense of what a healthy me is like. And for myself, I needed to wait until I was sure I had both some distance and some victories under my belt.
    Read: http://ift.tt/1MEDk1A
  • Why Psychopaths Are Immune to Contagious Yawning
    You are sitting at home, watching TV. You yawn. Your partner tries to resist, but can’t, and soon he or she yawns, too. It’s not just in your head: Yawning is contagious, not just in humans but in many species. It’s even contagious between us and our dogs.
    Read: http://ift.tt/20GvHxv
    Luther was right!
  • “People I Want To Punch In The Face” Notebook
    There’s nothing like a pocket-sized notebook to keep track of what really matters. With Rude Notebook’s handmade “People I Want To Punch In The Face” journal, it’s really all in the name.
    Read: http://ift.tt/1MojreZ
  • TIME Magazine Charleston Shooting Cover Story
    On the night of June 17, a gunman opened fire in a church basement in Charleston. Nine people died. Five survived. Survivors and families tell their stories of faith and forgiveness He did not kiss her goodbye that day.
    Read: http://ift.tt/1RQGvmS
  • Charlie Brown Never Found His Little Red-Haired Girl, but We Did
    Donna Johnson Wold’s hair, which was once, in her own words, “violently red,” has long since faded to the white you’d expect of an 86-year-old grandmother.
    Read: http://ift.tt/1Mga9OO
  • The Second Most Famous Thing to Happen to Hiroshima
    It starts with a thwack, the sharp crack of hard plastic against a hot metal surface. When the ladle rolls over, it deposits a pale-yellow puddle of batter onto the griddle. A gentle sizzle, as the back of the ladle spackles a mixture of eggs, flour, water, and milk across the silver surface.
    Read: http://ift.tt/1jNSS8y
  • Non-Binary Feminism: The personal is still political
    Content Note: There’s mention in this article of the heated debates around feminism and trans, of societal gender inequalities, and of gender-related bullying in schools. I’m using non-binary and genderqueer interchangeably here to mean genders outside of the male/female binary.
    Read: http://ift.tt/1WQrLep