October 18, 2012: Morning
- Reality of war pervades daily life in Damascus with a sense of inevitability.
- Apparently there's no limit to idiotic, would-be jihadis prepared to be fooled by FBI stings.
- Presidential eating habits.
- Pursuits of the idle: Bush makes pet portraits, Napoleon played chess.
- Bloomberg starts super PAC to support politicians who favor gun control, stronger schools, same-sex marriage.
- Fashion blogger recounts the day that Wes Anderson asked if he could borrow a pair of boots.
- Fascinating obituary for Norodom Sihanouk, intermittently a monarch.
- Short documentary about Madron FC, one of Britain's worst soccer teams.
- Vehicles left in airport parking lots to be offered up for short-term loans.
- Mapping Elliott Smith's Brooklyn.
- Modern maps turn the user into the center of the world; the only place to get lost is in Google Maps HQ.
- Google publishes photographs of its colorful data centers.
- Tutorial on how to comprehend vastness, and why you don't measure your height in billions of nanometers.
- Kickstarter of the week: "Sorry, We're Closed," Marshall Sokoloff's journey to photograph disappearing America.
- See also: Pictures of deserted zones around Palm Springs.
- Notes on the invention of satirical photography.