Weekend Reading (late)

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No Weekend Reading next week as I’ll be standing in a muddy field in Somerset, I hear there might be some bands there too.

Looks like this didn’t post! Oh well, here it is now anyway

  • Parents are worried the Amazon Echo is conditioning their kids to be rude
    Alexa will put up with just about anything. She has a remarkable tolerance for annoying behavior, and she certainly doesn’t care if you forget your please and thank yous.
    I dunno, kids these days, disrespectful little cu…tipies?
  • 7 reasons you should date someone with tattoos
    Swiping through Tinder gives you a rough breakdown of some of the stereotypical suitors out there looking for love – you’ve got the urban fishing fans, the lads who think they’ll catch the girls of their dreams by having a car as a profile picture…
    Just saying 🙂
  • Who Gets to Be Angry?
    I AM an opinionated woman so I am often accused of being angry. This accusation is made because a woman, a black woman who is angry, is making trouble. She is daring to be dissatisfied with the status quo. She is daring to be heard.
    Do you have the right to be angry? About what? Are you sure?
  • One of the most annoying things about the iPhone is finally about to change
    Apple announced countless updates to its software platforms today at its annual Worldwide Developers Conference, but one of the biggest pieces of news seems to have slipped through the cracks of the keynote speech.
    Smart to leave this ‘annoyance’ out of the keynote. Not worth focussing on ‘why now’, but something many people want.
  • The Apple Watch finally looks useful
    I’ve been a skeptic on the Apple Watch, but I’m thinking about changing my tune. Apple didn’t announce a single piece of new hardware during the June 13 kickoff to its annual Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco, but it announced a boatload of software updates.
    I second this, watchOS 3 suddenly makes the Apple Watch look very appealing. And I’ve already got one!
  • Robots have been about to take all the jobs for more than 200 years
    Technology has always triggered fears of mass unemployment. In 1811 it was the Luddites, who assumed they were done for. In the 1930s, it was vaunted economist John Maynard Keynes, who implicated technology as one reason for the unemployment of the Great Depression.
    Robots produce these summary posts, mostly (well, an app but that’s sort of a robot, right?)
  • Donald Trump’s Exploitation of Orlando
    In the rhetoric of Donald Trump, mendacity and cynicism compete for equal time.
    Is there ANYTHING good about this vile idiot?
  • Just The Good Stuff From Apple’s WWDC Keynote
    To kick off the first day of Apple’s 27th Worldwide Developers Conference, the tech giant hosted a keynote presentation on the future of, well, their operating systems. So what went down? Well, iOS 10 is going to be a huge release with a lot of small refinements and a few redesigns.
    A nice summary of all the new things that Apple fanboys will now spend another three months blogging about.
  • Steph Curry Literally Sees the World Differently Than You Do
    In the third quarter of game two of this year’s Western Conference finals, the Golden State Warriors were ahead of the Oklahoma City Thunder by ten points.
    The word outlier has rarely been better applied than to this guy. Even if you aren’t a sports/basketball junkie, worth a read.
  • The Orlando-Shooting Victims Who May Have Been Outed by the Attacks
    I’m a son of immigrants, and a gay man who grew up in Orlando in the ’80s and ’90s. My earliest visits to gay clubs in the city were clandestine operations, and let me tell you, it is difficult to be undercover-gay while dressing appropriately for a night out with the boys.
    Horrible events, rippling aftermath. Too much hate in the world.
  • Celery: Why?
    Celery, the mild-mannered straight man of the vegetable world, packs a puny six calories per stalk and — in my opinion — about as much flavor as a desk lamp. Yet despite its limitations, the fibrous plant has featured in Mediterranean and East Asian civilizations for thousands of years.
    I think the title says it. Why, celery, WHHYYYY!!
  • A 22-pound lump of butter from 2,000 years ago has been discovered in Ireland
    Two weeks ago, an Irish farmer found a massive hunk of ancient butter buried in his local bog. It’s been sitting there for about 2,000 years, but experts say it’s technically still edible. The lump of “bog butter” weighs about 10 kilograms, or 22 pounds.
    Mmmmm butter.
  • Hiding In Plain Sight: Mysterious Monumental Structure Discovered At Petra
    Using Google Earth, satellite imagery, and drones, researchers detected a structure the size of an Olympic-size pool “hiding in plain sight” just “south of the city center, and archaeologists have missed this for 150, 200 years,” according to researcher Sarah Parcak.
    So much about the world we STILL don’t know, amazing.
  • What the President Actually Thinks About Radical Islam
    The president does not suffer illusions about the pathologies afflicting the broader Muslim world.
    I sincerely hope that President Obama goes on to be an influential world figure. We need more smart thinkers, smart collaborators, and empathetic leaders.
  • Can Netflix Survive in the New World It Created?
    One night in early January, a little after 9 o’clock, a dozen Netflix employees gathered in the cavernous Palazzo ballroom of the Venetian in Las Vegas.
    How much is too much streaming? And why does that sound slightly rude. Netflix and… never mind.
  • A Day of Infamy
    Events have a multiplier effect. And when they come in bunches the effect can be overpowering. This was already a sad and demeaning day, even before we heard the ghastly news a Labour MP, Jo Cox, had been murdered outside her constituency surgery in Yorkshire.
    And yet some people who started this rolling stone, many many months ago, will not even realise that are partly to blame. Horrible.
  • Grandmother of Orlando victim going to funeral receives stunning show of support from passengers
    One of the youngest victims in Orlando’s deadly shooting was Luis Omar Ocasio-Capo. Known as Omar to friends, he was a dancer and barista.
    Restoring some faith in humanity.
  • Earth’s New ‘Quasi’ Moon Will Stick Around for Centuries
    Astronomers have detected a small asteroid that doesn’t seem to want to go away. Called a quasi-satellite, this new companion circles around the Earth as it orbits the sun—and it’s going to stay that way for the next few hundred years.
    Quasi-moon! He shall be my quasi and we shall call him quasi!
  • It’s happening: A robot escaped a lab in Russia and made a dash for freedom
    With every passing day, it feels like the robot uprising is getting a little closer. Robots are being beaten down by their human overlords, even as we teach them to get stronger. Now, they’re starting to break free.
    Well, it was nice knowing you all.