Weekend Reading

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Coffee in a blue cup
  • The Last Conversation You’ll Ever Need to Have About Eating Right
    It’s beyond strange that so many humans are clueless about how they should feed themselves. Every wild species on the planet knows how to do it; presumably ours did, too, before our oversized brains found new ways to complicate things.
    So many diets, so many foods to eat, to avoid… this pretty much nails it all. (for now at least).

  • Lift your way to strength – and help your body stay young
    Weightlifting isn’t just the preserve of musclebound hulks. Now women of all ages are increasingly turning to barbells as a way of staying healthy and warding off the effects of getting older Any woman can be strong.
    Hand in hand with the previous link. If you are in Glasgow, my gym embodies all of this.

  • Experience: I’ve played a game of tag for 23 years
    As teenagers, a group of friends and I spent every spare moment at school playing tag. The game developed into more than just chasing each other round the playground; it involved strategy and cunning.
    An oldie (that I’ve read before) but a goodie, cropped again this week for some reason but still worth revisiting.

  • If Meditation Stresses You Out, Try This
    I have a bad habit of trying to meditate, getting distracted, and immediately giving up, just to try it again six months later.
    If you’ve EVER tried to meditate but it didn’t click, this might be why.

  • Daughter Finds Box With 30,000 Never-Before-Seen Negatives In Attic, Her Jaw Drops When She Develops Them
    This is lovely.

  • Mark Zuckerberg Thinks We’re Idiots.
    Reacting to the Cambridge Analytica scandal, Facebook’s founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg hasn’t been as confrontational as Steve Jobs (“You’re holding it wrong”) or Sun Microsystems’ CEO Scott McNealy (“Get over it. You have no privacy”).
    I’ll just leave this here.

  • How Activists Turned Empty London Property into a Thriving Homeless Shelter
    This is good. WHY it has come to this is bad.

  • What is my dog?
    Everyone thinks my dog is a puppy. His large, wide-set eyes; small, soft body and playful demeanor belie his maturity and emotional depth — attributes that become obvious once you get to know him.
    I bloody love this. Of not real note but worth a read.

  • 6 Minutes and 20 Seconds
    When I was sixteen, I spent a couple wondrous summer weeks at a place called Governor’s School in North Carolina. It was here that country mouse me met all manner of bright and misfit kids, in social and academic pursuits. We started the term in shy quietude and ended it in tearful embrace.
    Powerful and moving.

  • The Extraordinary Inclusiveness of the March for Our Lives
    Maybe what was most extraordinary about the March for Our Lives, in Washington, D.C., on Saturday, was not its size, though that was impressive—likely hundreds of thousands of people in a long, dense ribbon winding down Pennsylvania Avenue.
    These are the kids that will run the world, I can’t wait for them to take over.

  • Having Your Smartphone Nearby Takes a Toll on Your Thinking
    “Put your phone away” has become a commonplace phrase that is just as often dismissed. Despite wanting to be in the moment, we often do everything within our power to the contrary.
    My phone is right next to me, yet I can still come up with witty remarks for … ummm.. the thing… of… what?

  • The People Who Can Control Their Goose Bumps
    How is this even possible? The “it” in this case was goose bumps, which Palejko, a 34-year-old tech worker in Argentina, says he can control at will.
    What the WHAT?

  • Heart Rate Variability (HRV): What is it, and why does the Apple Watch track it?
    Amidst the many improvements to Apple’s heart rate measurements with iOS 11 and Apple Watch, Apple also introduced a new measurement called an HRV (Heart Rate Variability) average.
    FINALLY! I’ve been trying to figure this out for ages.

  • Too Much Seep May Be Just as Harmful as Too Little
    Work was brutal this week, and as a result you got less than five hours of sleep every night. Finally, the weekend is here and you’re ready to earn those lost hours back with luxurious, back-to-back nights of 10-hour sleeping marathons. Well, science is here to tell you to reconsider that plan.
    Tomorrow, science says 4 hrs sleep is all we need. Next week on science, 10 hrs sleep a night!

  • What Are Screens Doing to Our Eyes—And Our Ability to See?
    The eyes are unwell. Their childhood suppleness is lost. The lenses, as we log hours on this earth, thicken, stiffen, even calcify. The eyes are no longer windows on souls. They’re closer to teeth.
    Yikes *turns off computer*

  • Exclusive: This is the most dexterous robot ever created
    It might not look that special, but the robot above is, according to a new measure, the most dexterous one ever created. Among other tricks, it could sort through your junk drawer with unrivaled speed and skill. The key to its dexterity is not in its mechanical grippers but in its brain.
    Item 4938 in ‘When our Robot Overlords ….’ ohhh you get the picture.

  • How One Writer Is Using Thrillers to Explore Misogyny
    Vladimir Nabokov once described the thriller as a “fond tradition” in which “the villain is generally punished, and the strong silent man wins the weak babbling girl.” We all know the kind of novel he means.
    More books to add to the reading list.

  • Utah’s ‘free-range parenting’ law said to be first in the nation
    It all started when Lenore Skenazy let her 9-year-old ride the subway home alone. She gave him a map, a MetroCard, a $20 bill and — just in case — some quarters for a pay phone call. Then she left him in the handbag section in New York’s original Bloomingdale’s. It was all his idea.
    I can hear the commentators now… “when I was growing up…”

  • How Europe’s new privacy rule is reshaping the internet
    If you’ve been looking for it, you may have seen a lot of privacy policies change in the past few months. From Google to Slack, companies are quietly updating terms, rewriting contracts, and rolling out new personal data tools in preparation for a massive shift in the legal landscape.
    GDPR fun! Remember, you have the ‘right to be forgotten’! (is ANYONE STILL READING THIS??)

  • An Essay by Vincent Gallo – Unfiltered and Unedited
    My name is Vincent Gallo. If you by chance know who I am, I hope that you don’t feel any negativity towards me. I don’t like to be called Vince. Please call me Vincent, Gallo, Vinnie Gallo, or Mister. Those are your choices. And I was not born Vincent Vito Gallo Jr.
    Uncommented by me. This is, startling.

  • Easter egg truthers: the annual religious row over chocolate
    It’s an annual row that seems to come round earlier and earlier every year – the great Easter egg debate.
    This fuckin country…

  • Adnan Syed, made famous in the podcast “Serial,” is getting a new trial
    If you didn’t listen to this podcast, now would be a good time to start.

  • Scientists have spent 60 years agonizing over how our knuckles crack
    Knuckle-cracking. Aside from worrying about whether it leads to arthritis (it doesn’t), most of us do it mindlessly to get ourselves in the mood to start a project—or while we fret about it.
    Snap crackle and pop indeed.

  • Those 2-Minute Walk Breaks? They Add Up
    Walk for two minutes. Repeat 15 times. Or walk for 10 minutes, thrice. The benefits for longevity appear to be almost exactly the same, according to an inspiring new study of physical activity patterns and life spans. It finds that exercise does not have to be prolonged in order to be beneficial.
    This is good news!