Weekend Reading

  • The ‘Shazam’ For Plants Will Identify Any Plant From A Picture
    An estimated 400,000 flowering plant species exist in the world, and, understandably, it can be difficult to keep track. The vast majority of us can only recognize and name a handful of plants, even if we would like it to be otherwise.
    This’ll be one of those apps I forget about until I need. And by then I’ll already have asked my mate Graeme…

  • Strong language: swearing makes you stronger, psychologists confirm
    It isn’t big and it isn’t clever. But the benefits, known to anyone who has moved home, climbed a mountain, or pushed a broken-down car, have finally been confirmed: according to psychologists, swearing makes you stronger.
    Bet you are expecting me to do a swear here.

  • What it’s like to have a surprise dinner with Mark Zuckerberg
    About two weeks ago, Daniel Moore received a cryptic phone call. “I thought it was a prank phone call,” Moore told Business Insider during a recent interview. “I almost hung up.”
    Fuckin Zuckerberg huh…

  • We’ve Got a Mediocre White Guy in Charge: So Now What?
    This weekend, a group of us stood in line in our requested “cocktail” attire, and waited in line to be checked in to the “Not the White House Correspondents’ Dinner,” the brain child of Full Frontal host Samantha Bee and her Executive Producer/Show runner Jo Miller.
    More of this please. (nb. Trump related, indirectly)

  • Sorting 2 Metric Tons of Lego · Jacques Mattheij
    One of my uncles cursed me with the LEGO bug, when I was 6 he gave me his collection because he was going to university. My uncle and I are relatively close in age, my dad was the eldest of 8 children and he is the youngest.
    I really hope he’s patented that. Genius level geekery.

  • The great British Brexit robbery: how our democracy was hijacked
    “It’s not MI6’s job to warn of internal threats. It was a very strange speech.”
    REMEMBER TO VOTE!

  • Doughnuts Are on a Global Rampage, and They Must Be Stopped
    Donuts, you have gone too far. Not long ago, we were your biggest champions. We cheered when you evolved into the scrumptious, flakey cronut, and when you multiplied up and down the West Coast through the Blue Star chain, which brought slick, beautiful rings from Portland, Ore.
    Nice double spelling there… also, yes, doughnuts have gone too far. Also, Krispy Kreme? Meh!

  • Why Everything We Know About Salt May Be Wrong
    The salt equation taught to doctors for more than 200 years is not hard to understand. The body relies on this essential mineral for a variety of functions, including blood pressure and the transmission of nerve impulses. Sodium levels in the blood must be carefully maintained.
    In other news, salt will cool down hot food (or so I used to believe when I was 6)

  • Why Would Aliens Even Bother with Earth?
    As an astrobiologist I spend a lot of my time working in the lab with samples from some of the most extreme places on Earth, investigating how life might survive on other worlds in our solar system and what signs of their existence we could detect.
    Screw the science, if they’ve half a brain they’ll shoot straight past us, I have my towel ready!

  • The Lost Art of Getting Lost
    I have two pieces of major travel cred, neither particularly deserved.
    Guess what I’m doing this weekend!

  • My Weekend at a Conference for the Super-Happy
    The inaugural World Happiness Summit in Miami, Florida, convened in mid-March inside the Ice Palace Film Studios, a 1923 fortresslike building surrounded by high hedges and palm trees. Its white walls seemed to glow under the sun.
    I really want to think this is awesome. Super awesome. But….

  • This Is What Channing Tatum Wants His Daughter to Grow Up to Do
    In honor of the launch of Magic Mike Live in Las Vegas, my friends at Cosmo generously invited me to write something for you. The more I thought about this, the more I thought about my daughter reading this article someday.
    Advice for all young women. Great stuff. (I’ll post the rebuttal article that says this is shit, next week!)

  • The Illustrated Guide to the KonMari Method
    Here in the states, minimalism isn’t exactly a point of pride (we like stuff, and lots of it), so it’s especially remarkable that Japanese tidying expert Marie Kondo’s brutally strict approach to de-cluttering took off here.
    Yes, I’ve tried this. Yes, I may have adopted a couple of these. Shut up. It works!

  • On Murakami’s Men Without Women, and Silent But Pervading Loneliness
    A new silent killer has been making headlines all over the world, and it’s not heart disease, carbon monoxide, or cancer. It’s loneliness. According to a 2010 study, the incidence of loneliness among adults in the United States has doubled since the 1980s, to 40 percent.
    *adds to reading list*

  • Which Tech Giant Would You Drop?
    Apple, Amazon, Facebook, Alphabet (Google).
    Facebook. Simples. Except it’s not, is it.

  • The Girls’ Soccer Team That Joined a Boys’ League, and Won It
    The ponytailed forward cut through the rain and the defense and drove a low shot past the outstretched arm of the goalkeeper. The pinpoint strike — her 38th of the season — confirmed Andrea Gómez as the top scorer for her championship team.
    These girls can! And did!

  • Is an Open Marriage a Happier Marriage?
    When Daniel and Elizabeth married in 1993, they found it was easy enough to choose a ring for her, but there were far fewer choices for him.
    Long article. tl;dr – depends (cos, people).