Weekend Reading

Breaking with tradition, here’s a link to a wonderful newsletter. It’s only a few issues old but so far it’s made me pause and think each time.

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Words. Daily. Because finding good words to think on (or use for calligraphy practice or journal pages) takes time and effort. Let me share my time and effort with you.

Disclaimer: I am not getting paid for the above link, I just happen to like it and happen to know the wonderfully talented person who has created it.

  • Alexandra Burke: UK has ‘massive problem’ with confident women
    Alexandra Burke has battled more than her fair share of criticism in the last year – something she says is partly down to the way confidence is perceived in the UK. There’s every reason for Alexandra to feel on top of the world.
    I don’t think this is specific to the UK, but very valid points.

  • Feminist Mug
    Either you run the day or the day runs you. Let everyone know who runs the world with this bold Feminist mug.
    Apropros of nothing. Actually, apropros of EVERYthing.

  • Father cheers on man running 10K race with son’s donated heart
    An Ontario man whose life was saved with a heart transplant ran his first 10-kilometre race over the weekend with the father of the donor cheering him on.
    Well this is just bloody, heartwarmingly, lovely.

  • With these patents, Apple could win the next major platform war
    The next stage of the platform wars may be in health. Despite being one of the most regulated sectors, where change is driven as much by law as by technological advances, the big tech giants are active.
    Apple gets a lot of criticism, but tend to play a longer game and not a reactionary one.

  • How Wikipedia Portrayed Humanity in a Single Photo
    In 1972, Carl Sagan was preparing to send humans into space. The Pioneer missions were unmanned, sure—but NASA had asked Sagan to design a depiction of Earth’s inhabitants for the trip, just in case the spacecraft ran across some aliens.
    File under: Things my privilege hid from me. What single photo would you choose to represent ALL of humanity?

  • Nearly 20% of women inmates in Japan’s prisons are seniors
    Shoplifting has become something of a lifeline for Japan’s elderly population. As Bloomberg reports, nearly one in five women in prison is 65 or older. These elderly women commit minor crimes in order to escape poverty and solitude.
    Sad when it comes to this. Loneliness really is a killer.

  • Green Mountain at Fox Run: The floodlight and the twinkle lights
    In the aforementioned Hungers That Influence Eating Behaviours class, Shiri explained that a binge acts like a floodlight. To quote her blog post: “The truth of the matter is that nothing will do it like food… Eating in that way lights up the pleasure centers of the brain.”
    Another thought inspiring post. Huge thanks to Shauna for sharing these.

  • Home
    THE COFFEE, HE THINKS. THE COFFEE’S A CONCERN. Only one hundred single-serving pouches of instant were allotted for him on Expedition Six, stowed in the galley in a metal drawer with a black net stretched over its mouth to make sure the pouches wouldn’t float away.
    Life in space is never not ordinary (no spoilers, but this is a great read).

  • Dear internet, instead of wearing your tinfoil hat ask intelligent questions
    In so many ways it’s an awful forum for in-depth analysis of Russian geo-politics – although perhaps I’m being a little too generous to label it analysis; it falls far more comfortably into the tinfoil hat conspiracy theory camp.
    Yes. More intelligent questions, less stating of ‘facts’ because you think you know them (you usually don’t. Yes, YOU).

  • The Agony and the Ecstasy of Taking Author Photos
    I walked into the bookstore gripping my debut novel, its cover puckering where my sweaty fingers clutched tight, as if to remind myself: You’ve published a book, you’re not an absolute imposter. What awaited was a lectern and a huddle of sad chairs.
    Ahhh this is REALLY what’s stopping me finishing that novel (2nd draft in progress though)

  • These Are the Most (and Least) Annoying Sounds Ever, …
    Nails on a chalkboard may be the most clichéd of the horrid noises out there, but apparently, it’s not the most annoying.
    I’m sorry. Really I am. I challenge you to not imagine these sounds and… ick ick ick! *shudder*

  • The Bidet’s Revival
    Invented centuries ago in France, the bidet has never taken off in the States. That might be changing. “It’s been completely Americanized!” my host declares proudly.
    Glad to hear this, I love having those little foot bath things when I’m abroad.

  • Romanian court tells man he is not alive
    In a case reminiscent of a Kafka novel, a Romanian court has ruled that a 63-year-old man is dead despite what would appear to be convincing evidence to the contrary: the man himself appearing alive and well in court.
    To the perennially late, this is a warning!

  • How To Change Your Facebook Settings To Opt Out of Platform API Sharing
    You shouldn’t have to do this. You shouldn’t have to wade through complicated privacy settings in order to ensure that the companies with which you’ve entrusted your personal information are making reasonable, legal efforts to protect it.
    I’ll just leave this here.

  • 143 Million People May Soon Become Climate Migrants
    Climate change will transform more than 143 million people into “climate migrants” escaping crop failure, water scarcity, and sea-level rise, a new World Bank report concludes.
    Anyone in the UK, given the last couple of months of weather that we clearly are not used to, still deny climate change?

  • Reasons to Believe
    In the good old days, the arrival of UFOs on the front page of America’s paper of record might have seemed like a loose-thread tear right through the fabric of reality — the closest that secular, space-race America could have gotten to a Second Coming.
    Ach, why not. If you can believe in a ‘being’ based on the stories made up thousands of years ago, why not UFOs?

  • How to Balance Your Media Diet
    In fact, ideas might be even more powerful drivers than food since we are willing to forgo food just because of entirely abstract ideas we hold. Our hunger predates our current condition.
    Following on from my Switching Off

  • I Got a Story to Tell
    My man Sam Cassell took me out the night before my very first NBA game. We were playing the Bucks down in Houston and he knew I was about to take his ass to the cleaners. But Sam is from Baltimore, and I’m from D.C.
    Yes, it’s about NBA basketball players, but it’s about so much more than that. Everyone has a story.

  • Small b blogging
    There’s an idea that starting a blog is harder than it used to be. That there used to be a way to write a few words, slap it online and wait for the traffic to roll in. I call BS. It’s not that it’s not true exactly – but that kind of thinking is living in the shadow of the Digg homepage.
    Yes to this. Ohhh hang on, I’ve been small b blogging for 19yrs FFS! Welcome back to the party!! (it was getting kinda lonely tbh)

  • One Decade to Rock, No Matter the Roll
    Obvious statement alert: The Beatles were an incredible band. But to me, the most incredible thing about them was that they released all of their albums — all the songs we all know and love — over an eight year span (from 1963’s Please Please Me to 1970’s Let It Be).
    This fact never really landed with me. It is utterly incredible (like them or not, the change in sound and approach is startling in such a short space of time)

  • Bill Murray Reads the Poetry of Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Wallace Stevens, Emily Dickinson, Billy Collins, Lorine Niedecker, Lucille Clifton & More
    Who among us wouldn’t want the ineffably mellow, witty, and wise Bill Murray to crash their party, wedding, or White House press briefing room? Maybe you’re one of the few who could resist his comic charms.
    Because Bill Murray.

  • What Exactly Does a Librarian Do? Everything.
    Growing up, I liked to imagine what it would be like to work in a library. What little I knew about them was what I’d gleaned from movies and TV because my conservative parents never took us to any and only let me read books they purchased from the Bible Book Store.
    Who knew! Librarians are awesome.

  • 12 Things Everyone Should Understand About Tech
    Technology isn’t an industry, it’s a method of transforming the culture and economics of existing systems and institutions. That can be a little bit hard to understand if we only judge tech as a set of consumer products that we purchase.
    In light of the current Facebook news, this is a timely article, well worth a read.

  • The decades-long quest to end drought (and feed millions) by taking the salt out of seawater
    In October 2017, Charlie Paton was driving across the parched plains of northwestern Somaliland when he passed a seemingly endless queue of rumbling trucks. Each was piled high with containers of grain – 47,000 tonnes in all – to be distributed as food aid across Somalia and Ethiopia.
    Sounds straight forward enough.

  • Sony world photography awards 2018 – in pictures
    Belching volcanoes, a boy cuddling his goat, an upside-down car … here are some of the winners in the national and open competition categories of the world’s largest photography competition.
    Some breathtaking stuff here.

  • Stunt pilot restarts his single engine in the nick of time
    I always feel a little silly when I click through to watch videos with titles like “Plane Miraculously Flies To Safety After Sudden Engine Failure”, like I’m indulging in clickbait, a sugary online snack when I’m supposed to be consuming healthier fare.
    Take 5 mins to watch this. I guarantee it will raise your heart-rate!!

  • Omnisexual, gynosexual, demisexual: What’s behind the surge in sexual identities?
    In 1987, the French philosopher Michel Foucault made the meticulously researched case that sexuality is a social construct used as a form of control. In the 40 years since, society has been busy constructing sexualities.
    For those struggling to keep up with the terminology, a tip. Don’t worry about the terminology, just don’t be a dick if someone calls you on it!