April 3, 2017

Federal criminal law is so vast, it’s easy to unwittingly violate it. Encrypting your email is the cautious choice. / New York Times

Ahead of this week’s meeting with Xi Jinping, Trump says the US may tackle North Korea alone without China’s help. / The Guardian

Another fallout from Brexit: Britons may get a blue passport again, rather than a “humiliating” pink one. / Euronews

“You think maybe it’s off limits, and then extra off limits. But I really feel any subject is O.K., it’s just how it’s done. You never know how something is going to be until it’s done.” From “Why Dana Schutz painted Emmett Till,” a timely Calvin Tomkins profile that started before the controversy. / The New Yorker

A defense of northern New Jersey as a nice place to live. “The rest of the country could learn a thing or two.” / Marginal Revolution

Seattle is now home to the world’s two richest people. / The Stranger

Neural networks can learn the “style” of one photo and transfer it onto another. (And the code’s on Github.) / The Verge

A badger buries a cow by itself in Utah’s Grassy Mountains last January. From a report on the study: / The Guardian

Bald eagles are dirty, scrappy scavengers. What it’s like to live amongst them in Alaska. / California Sunday Magazine

“If a human had an eye implanted on their back connected to their spinal cord, would the human be able to see out of that eye? My guess is probably yes.” With help from migraine drugs, blind tadpoles learn to see from eyes transplanted onto their tails. / The New Scientist

The case for an efficiency tax: As shopping gets too easy, “the forgone benefits of hassle go largely unrecognized.” / The Economist

“One Nubian family gently restored me to health after I ran out of water in the Sahara and collapsed, vomiting and delirious, on their doorstep: the lowest point of the trip, and the only time I experienced true panic.” A breezy account of how to ride a bicycle alone across the Middle East, particularly as a female journalist, no matter that “the enduring impression was a region in crisis, stretched hopelessly between tyranny and terror.” / BBC Magazine

Belinda Baggs, surf icon and longboard specialist, on how to be a surfing mom. / Vimeo

A brief account of catching California’s (equally brief) poppy bloom. / The New Yorker

Portugal’s socialist party bucked austerity by increasing spending in the face of a deficit. It’s working. / Economist

“From Tree to Tipoff”—the numbers behind the wooden floor for tonight’s men’s basketball championship. / ESPN the Magazine

“While I don’t want it to seem like the task of satisfying women’s demands and expectations is impossible, it actually is impossible.” A guide for brands that recently discovered that women exist. / McSweeney’s

Biologists are concerned mosquitoes are adapting to bed nets by biting people outside and earlier in the day. / PBS