Weekend Reading

A long week, or so it felt, as the lurgy caught me. Not so much reading, a lot of sleeping!

  • 12 Struggles Of Having An Outgoing Personality But An Anxious Mind
    Outgoing people with anxious minds – or minds that overthink – tend to feel anxiety the most intensely, often because we don’t talk about it. And by “often” I mean never. Our anxiety is a contrast to our big, bold personalities. Strangers would never guess it.
    I manage to keep most of my anxiety squashed down, not always though. Never presume you know someone from the
  • A Neuroscientist on the Calming Powers of the To-Do List
    1. Those who make lists.
    2. Those who don’t.
    And, as one scientist recently argued, those who fall into the former group might hold the secret to being more productive individuals.
    You DON’T make lists? You weirdo.
  • The case of the missing “u”s in American English
    When my American editor asked me to research why Brits spell their words with so many extra ‘u’s, I immediately knew he had it all wrong.
    I donut knuw whut thuy muan abouut extrua ‘uu’s…
  • It’s surprisingly difficult to play guitar in space
    There are so many simple activities we take for granted thanks to gravity. Things like going to the bathroom, eating dinner, and getting some sleep don’t require an undue amount of strategic planning. But in space, even the most basic activities are a challenge.
    Only one man could’ve written this…
  • Tire Inflation 101 — Liss is More
    My father was a mechanic for Buick for a few years long before he even met my mother. Despite still wrenching on his cars to this day, I’ve inherited distressingly little of his mechanical prowess. Basic car maintenance is all I can handle. Changing my oil, for example.
    Yes, it’s American but the principles are worth learning
  • Dead Certainty
    Argosy began in 1882 as a magazine for children and ceased publication ninety-six years later as soft-core porn for men, but for ten years in between it was the home of a true-crime column by Erle Stanley Gardner, the man who gave the world Perry Mason.
    Good writing prevails.
  • Where Nobody Knows Your Name
    Gary Portnoy, the guy who wrote the theme song to Cheers, discussing with Marketplace the financial windfall he got from writing and performing one of the most famous theme songs of the 1980s. Long story short: It was all on the backend, and he gets paid every time the show plays.
    I stood outside that bar in Boston once, didn’t go in though.
  • The 80/20 Rule
    A few years ago, when I was single and desperate to find a boyfriend, I asked my friend Amy if she thought my blog made me undatable. She didn’t have an answer, but she did share an anecdote.
    I have always presumed my blog made me MORE like to get a date.
  • Stephen Hawking: Humanity will only survive by colonizing other planets
    That’s the grim warning by professor Stephen Hawking, who is giving this year’s Reith Lectures at the BBC. While most of his lectures will focus on what Hawking is best known for—research into black holes—he still took the time to make his latest doomsday warning:
    Cheery stuff? Well he also reckons that humanity will pull through eventually (but we should really get the finger out)
  • David Bowie now has a lightning-bolt-shaped constellation named after him
    The Belgian radio station Studio Brussel and the public astronomy observatory MIRA have teamed up to register seven stars—appropriately located near Mars—as a unique celestial constellation in memory of singer David Bowie, who passed away on Jan. 10.
    Appropriate.
  • A Story of a Fuck Off Fund
    You’re telling your own story: You graduated college and you’re a grown-ass woman now. Tina Fey is your spirit animal; Beyoncé, your preacher. You know how to take care of you. You’ve learned self-defense. If any man ever hit you, you’d rip his eyes out.
    The type of thing I read and hate that it had to exist, but applaud that it does.
  • Gossip Isn’t a Flaw—It’s a Necessary Social Skill
    Let’s face it: gossips get a bad rap. Smugly looking down from a moral high ground—and secure in the knowledge that we don’t share their character flaw—we often dismiss those who are obsessed with the doings of others as shallow.
    Did I tell you about what happened at the office party?
  • Researchers have developed an extremely effective “sarcasm detector”
    Sarcasm might be all over the internet, but it’s still hard to recognize. Researchers want to change that. A new research paper from two professors—David Bamman from UC Berkeley and Noah A.
    Sarcasm? Hard to recognise? As if!
  • Tech’s ‘Frightful 5’ Will Dominate Digital Life for Foreseeable Future
    There’s a little parlor game that people in Silicon Valley like to play. Let’s call it, Who’s Losing? There are currently four undisputed rulers of the consumer technology industry: Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google, now a unit of a parent company called Alphabet.
    Main point from this article, none of them are losing.
  • The white man pathology: inside the fandom of Sanders and Trump
    You feel your whiteness properly at the American border. Most of the time being white is an absence of problems. The police don’t bother you so you don’t notice the police not bothering you. You get the job so you don’t notice not getting it. Your children are not confused with criminals.
    Given the current hype, a must read.
  • Building Tower Bridge
    In the late 1800s, London was faced with the task of building a new span across the Thames, downstream of London Bridge. In order to allow tall-masted sailing ships to pass through to the Thames’ port facilities, the new bridge could not be a typical street-level, fixed crossing.
    An iconic construction, amazing photos.

Written By

Long time blogger, Father of Jack, geek of many things, random photographer and writer of nonsense.

Doing my best to find a balance.

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