Category: Reading

Reading time: 5 mins

What Was Inside the Glowing Briefcase in Pulp Fiction? Before I started making my own web pages, I spent a not-insignificant amount of my time on the Internet trawling the alt.fan.tarantino newsgroup for bits of knowledge about Quentin Tarantino, Pulp Fiction, and Reservoir Dogs. Fascinating! (well not really, but still v.cool) iPad Pro (2018) Impressions…

Reading time: 3 mins

12 Insider Secrets from Restaurant Kitchens (That You Can Use at Home) When it comes to top-notch restaurants, head chefs often rack up the attention and acclaim. But ask anyone who has worked behind the scenes in restaurants and they’ll tell you: The cooks are the ones who make the kitchen run. A couple I…

Reading time: 4 mins

Meet Alexa: inside the mind of a digital native Alexa was choosing a dress for a party. It was taking a while. This always happens, she gets carried away with every little thing. Not THAT Alexa… Social Media, Online Accountability, and the Meaning of an Apology Still so much to learn about how to ‘be’…

Reading time: 3 mins

“Automated Customer Service” A short story. This day is coming, mark my words! The Simple Joy of “No Phones Allowed” A few nights ago I saw Jack White in concert. It was a wonderful night, and a big part of that was due to a new rule he has imposed on all his tour dates:…

Reading time: 4 mins

I’m Meditating (I’m Just Not Sitting Down) For a while, it seemed like everyone was talking about how meditation changed their lives—friends, acquaintances, podcast interviewees and interviewers, authors, even the baristas at the coffee shops I went to. Someone told me about the Headspace app, so I downloaded it. Other apps are available – I…

Reading time: 3 mins

Meditation in the Time of Disruption When I was 8 or 9, I became preoccupied with death. It wasn’t that I was afraid; I just like to be prepared. Meditation. Good for you? Or just another big business cashing in? Why do some people hurt more than others? Anyone who came of age in the…

Reading time: 3 mins

The banana is dying. The race is on to reinvent it before it’s too late During the summer of 1989, Randy Ploetz was in his laboratory just south of Miami, when he received a package from Taiwan. I can’t imagine NOT having bananas. That Time Coca-Cola Released a New Soda Just to Spite Pepsi Few…

Reading time: 2 mins

This Is Your Brain on Nature When you head out to the desert, David Strayer is the kind of man you want behind the wheel. He never texts or talks on the phone while driving. He doesn’t even approve of eating in the car. “Everything is Waiting for You” by David Whyte Alertness is the…

Reading time: 4 mins

Kitchen machismo off the menu as female chefs blaze a trail in Scotland Julie Lin MacLeod worked in male-led kitchens for years, and her experiences there – inappropriate sexual advances among them – served as motivation to open her own place, one that would be run by women. Some of the best eateries in Glasgow…

Reading time: 5 mins

The outrageous plan to haul icebergs to Africa If towing icebergs to hot, water-stressed regions sounds totally crazy to you, then consider this: the volume of water that breaks off Antarctica as icebergs each year is greater than the total global consumption of freshwater. And that stat doesn’t even include Arctic ice. Given the state…

Reading time: 4 mins

Ditch the almond milk: why everything you know about sustainable eating is probably wrong In food and drink, we all want to do the right thing. We want to shop and eat sustainably. But, sometimes, it is easier said than done. Our willingness to jump on the latest eco-trends and unquestioningly accept reassuring labelling can…

Reading time: 5 mins

Innocent people with dirty-sounding last names face the “Scunthorpe problem” Sitting through roll call in school is already bad enough if you have a last name like Weiner, Butts, Cummings, Medick, Dickman, or Suconcock. But if that sounds rough, just try getting past the first stage of an online registration process. Seymour? Is there a Seymour…

Reading time: 3 mins

New No’s by Paul Chan After the 2016 election, artist and writer Paul Chan wrote the following poem that he called “New No’s”. I ran across this several times at The Whitney; it’s part of their great exhibition An Incomplete History of Protest. Print and put up in every school and workplace! If you want…

Reading time: 3 mins

Robot says: Whatever In Henry James’s intriguing novella The Beast in the Jungle (1903), a young man called John Marcher believes that he is marked out from everyone else in some prodigious way. The problem is that he can’t pinpoint the nature of this difference. Next week: We’ve made a robot that cares! From Death…