Sep 12, 2017“Come six o’clock, I want to go home, I want to have dinner, I want to watch the ballgame. Filmmaking is not [the] end-all be-all of my existence.”
↩︎ The Atlantic
Friday headlines: Can of worms
Testing of dairy items from store shelves in the US shows the bird flu outbreak among cows is more widespread than previously indicated. / STAT
Zeynep Tufekci: "One thing that travels back and forth between cattle farms and chicken farms is human beings." / The New York Times [+]
Comparing the parasite count in decades-old cans of salmon to cans from today shows how ocean health appears to have improved. / Scientific American
The Federal Trade Commission voted yesterday to restore net neutrality. In the nearly seven years since it was killed, a handful of states maintained the regulations. / AP
See also: Following the FTC's ban on non-competes earlier this week, business groups sue, claiming government overreach of their employment overreach. / MSNBC
Demythologizing the "horrible" grizzly, which is smaller in stature and hardly as vicious or predatory as frontier tales popularized. / The Washington Post [+]
See also: Over the next decade, up to seven grizzlies will be released in the North Cascades every summer in order to build a population of 200 bears in the next century. / The Seattle Times
"You can just understand people better." Research shows "disturbing" books threatened by bans help, rather than harm, teens' development. / The Conversation
The big advances go to celebrities, and what else we've learned about the publishing industry from the Penguin antitrust case. / The Elysian
New findings support the theory that the Moon's core is very similar to Earth's, and is likely a solid iron ball. / Science Alert
"Get excited." The Onion has been purchased by Global Tetrahedron, a name that matters in Onion lore and hints at a renewed, bright future for the publication. / Variety
Played this vintage-y game to the point of madness this week: As the crow flies. / vole.wtf
Thursday headlines: Nine inch sails
Over 100 students protesting Israel's war in Gaza are arrested at the University of Texas and the University of Southern California. / Al Jazeera
"It's a consideration to protect your anonymity." Why protesters are wearing masks these days. / Semafor
How many people died from disasters in 2023? Just over 86,000, mostly from earthquakes. / Sustainability by numbers
Spain is becoming "the new Miami" for wealthy Central and South Americans. / Le Monde
The Moulin Rouge windmill's blades fell off overnight. / France 24
In China, there is no TikTok, only Douyin, a cash cow for parent company ByteDance. / The New York Times [+]
A demographics professor warns that everyone in Japan will be named "Sato" by 2531. / Spoon & Tamago
Americans who struggle to afford basic necessities but make too much money to get help are called "ALICEs." / Business Insider
Women are working more, not less, and still getting paid less than men—hence the "tradwife" and "soft life" trends still beckon on social media. / CNBC
See also: "The American Christian right's enthusiasm for sex-negative British feminists may reflect the conservative movement's present challenges." / Vox
"It's possible to have strong, lasting regrets about a life choice while ferociously loving—and caring for—the fruit of that decision." An essay by R.O. Kwan about parents who regret having children. / TIME
Unrelated: A blind tasting of nearly a dozen excellent margarita recipes. / Punch
"I've been called here to wait at least a hundred times." Line-sitters, resellers, and bots make it hard to get a table at trendy restaurants in New York City. / The New Yorker
Wednesday headlines: Fore in 4d
Costa Rica consistently gets more than 99 percent of its electricity from renewables—and "it's still not enough." / The Verge
An orange haze descends over Athens as clouds of dust blow in from the Sahara. / BBC News
Los Angeles earns its 25th-straight F in air quality. / The Los Angeles Times
Congress passes its TikTok "sell-or-ban" bill. An incomplete guide to how TikTok has changed America. / USA Today, The New York Times [+]
Since the overturn of Roe vs. Wade, vasectomies and tubal ligations have increased significantly in Americans ages 18 to 30. / teen Vogue
See also: "The American Christian right's enthusiasm for sex-negative British feminists may reflect the conservative movement's present challenges." / Vox
Meanwhile, empathy among young Americans is rebounding, reaching levels "indistinguishable from the highs of the 1970s." / Vox
A study finds that every generation believes music was "better back in my day." / Stat Significant
Related: "Caught between the streams," a newsletter if you don't want your taste in music to stagnate. / Andrew Womack
Helen Rosner describes the food that wealthy people eat at lunch. "If it's never quite exciting, at least it's always good." / The New Yorker
A burnt scroll indicates the exact location of Plato's grave—and the fact he was sold into slavery. / LBV Magazine
A lonely man in Vermont rents a billboard to attract women in Texas. / Texas Monthly
Some nice photographs of Spain's El Rocío pilgrimage. And a trailer for a new game that depicts mini-golf in four dimensions. / It's Nice That, YouTube
Tuesday headlines: The worst album of the 2020s
Global defense spending grew 7% to a record $2.4 trillion in 2023, the fastest annual rise since 2009. / Reuters
Related: "We now risk entering a pre-war era that consolidates the battle lines of conflict globally." / Noema
In Myanmar, a new generation joins the rebels who've opposed military dictatorship for decades. / The New York Times [+]
The United States prepares sanctions on Chinese banks, hoping to slow Beijing's support of Russia's military. / The Wall Street Journal [+]
Congress is experiencing a lot of "congressional fluidity" at the moment: dynamic coalitions that are actually making substantive legislation. / Wake Up to Politics
An "exclusive weekly digital salon" hosts off-the-record conversations for anti-Trump legal experts. / Politico Magazine
The UK passes a contentious bill that will send asylum seekers to Rwanda for their claims to be considered. / CNN
"Thousands of years ago, there was a ceremony to bind close friends together as sworn siblings." A new idea for modern friendships. / Goats and Soda
"Life is a phenomenon that occurs at multiple scales." What if our planet is a gigantic living creature? / Vox
In China, 60% of electric vehicles sold last year were less costly than their internal combustion equivalent. / axios
Scientists make new discoveries about almost every aspect of feathers. / Scientific American
Gideon Lewis-Kraus flies a new flying car. "Entirely forgotten was the banality of commuting to work." / The New Yorker
Unrelated/related: Seven movies that are gayer when you're high. / them
Taylor Swift breaks several of Spotify's streaming records across multiple categories in only one day. / Vanity Fair
Related: "Pound for pound, song for song, this is the worst album of the 2020s." / Antiart
Monday headlines: Rock music
Scientists have developed an RNA-based vaccine that targets all strains of a virus, potentially eliminating the need for chasing influenza strains every year. / UC Riverside
As the WHO raises concerns about bird flu's potential to spread among humans, H5N1 has now been detected in raw milk from infected animals. / The Guardian, Barron's
See also: "The outbreak of H5N1 in commercial cows appears to have spurred higher sales of [raw milk] products, despite federal warnings." / PBS
Employees allege that a popular Montana photography ranch houses its exotic animals in squalid conditions. (Content warning) / Rolling Stone
By using topology to map voting deserts, researchers shed light on who has easier access to polling places with shorter wait times. / Quanta Magazine
How inconsistent security protocols allow money launderers to pass their cargo through two of the world's busiest airports. / The Wall Street Journal [+]
Add Walmart to the list of stores that are scaling back plans for self-checkout—whether due to theft, technology malfunctions, or understaffing. / CBS News, Fast Company
The troubled Hipgnosis Songs Fund, which has been scooping up classic artists' song catalogs, appears poised for a takeover by private equity giant Blackstone. / Billboard
"We don't deal with the future as geologists. We only deal with what's preserved in the rock record." Inside the battle over the Anthropocene. / The New Yorker
After experiencing sudden hearing loss, a musician used hearing-aid technology to compose music based on nature's rhythms and tones. Listen to a sample. / BBC, YouTube
Deaths and lawsuits ended the Domino's 30-minute delivery guarantee, but dangers still loom thanks to the gig economy and delivery apps. / The Hustle
"There is talk of opening an international school to teach children in English to accommodate the drugmaker's increasingly international work force." Ozempic is transforming a Danish town. / The New York Times [+]
Saturday headlines: Star crossed
Patagonia faces an existential crisis as it tries to navigate ways to curb the microplastic epidemic while producing apparel that contributes to the epidemic. / InsideHook
"He showed [sharks] were able to 'habituate' to both visual and auditory stimuli and to the presence of humans. And they make friends." The shark whisperer. / Nautilus
A visit to United Record Pressing to watch how vinyl albums are made in 2024. / The Washington Post [+]
According to a Harris Poll, belief in astrology is waning among younger Americans. / Cosmopolitan
Long derided as elitist, classical music is fading out of popular culture; to save it, enthusiasts of the form must stop being apologists. / The Critic
With the rise of interest rates, the streaming gold rush is over—as a result, platforms are no longer willing to take risks, and creators are paying the price. / Harper's Magazine
A new volume of Emily Dickinson's letters shows she wasn't the recluse people tend to think, but "very often funny and used a prodigious number of exclamation points." / Poetry Foundation
The life of Daniel Webster Wallace, who was born into bondage, and later became a respected rancher, building a personal fortune of what today would be around $22 million. / Texas Monthly
Used in the original Star Trek series, the first model of the USS Enterprise went missing in the 1970s—after popping up on eBay, it's now been returned to the Roddenberry family. / Ars Technica
"Because [Civil War is] not an explainer movie, there's no 'lore' connecting political conflict in 2024 to the scenes of violence and cruelty." / Read Max
Well this is awful: Chris Pratt and Katherine Schwarzenegger razed a midcentury gem in Brentwood to make room for a 15,000-square-foot mansion. / The Guardian
See also: Squatters at a Gordon Ramsay pub in London say they've reached an agreement with the owner—not Ramsay—to stay and work as security. / The Independent
Friday headlines: Hell caesar
The limited nature of Israel's counterattack on Iran suggests both sides want to avoid escalation. / The New York Times [+]
Most of the US military aid approved for Ukraine is being spent in the US—and specifically in these congressional districts. / The Washington Post [+]
Tracking AI-generated election content around the world. / Rest of World
GLP-1 drugs like Ozempic are resulting in pregnancies, leading some doctors to use the medications to treat PCOS, but without the data to back it up. / National Post
Wastewater testing has proved essential for tracking and isolating Covid outbreaks, and could expand to other health threats. / Nature
"What this means is that there may be lots more hominin bones in people's floors and showers." On discovering a human-like mandible in travertine tile. / John Hawks
For the first time, archaeologists have evidence humans lived in lava tubes; tunnels below the deserts of northern Saudi Arabia were inhabited for thousands of years. / NewScientist
"We are living through an age of unchecked Caesar-salad fraud." / MSN
See also: Why don't rich people eat anymore? / Dazed
Responding to Germany considering limiting hunting trophy imports, Botswana's president threatens to send 20,000 elephants, citing overpopulation concerns. / The Guardian
"How ethical can forced identification be?" Current-day surveillance tech has roots in a 19th-century system of measuring bodies for criminal identification. / Eurozine
The NFL is the only North American sports organization that isn't open to institutional investment, but that may change next month—and private equity is gearing up. / Financial Times [+]
See also: Backed by private equity, a group has been buying up Minor League Baseball teams, and now owns a quarter of the league. / InsideHook
Thursday headlines: Poet common denominator
The amount of homicides in major American cities is falling at its quickest rate in decades. / axios
Mass shootings in the United States are said to be down 30% from this time last year. / X
Funding for US-based "creator" startups more than doubled in the first three months of 2024. / The Information
A new spy service scrapes more than ten thousand Discord servers and sells the data for as little as $5. / 404 Media
See also: Hand-embroidered surveillance footage. / designboom
The era of big data and now artificial intelligence has led to an entrenched, maturing partnership between the Pentagon and Silicon Valley. / Forever Wars
"Delve" is overused by ChatGPT because it's popular in Nigeria—and that's where the AI was trained. / The Guardian
Meanwhile: "It takes 20 times more water to have a ChatGPT conversation than to run a Google search." / The South China Morning Post
Nearly 300 gems were stolen from the British Museum over a 25-year period. / The Art Newspaper
A study finds Arabica coffee developed more than 600,000 years ago. / Phys.org
The "Mariko Aoki phenomenon" is when you enter a cafe or bookstore and immediately want to use the toilet. / Sprudge
Actual poets weigh in on Taylor Swift's new Tortured Poets Department. "I think a part of writing poetry is observing things and being honest. Can you do that if you have billions of dollars?" / The Cut
Love, all my friends
Photographs from four days in a Ukrainian trench with soldiers from an international legion. / The New York Times [+]
"Be honest and vulnerable." Activists explain how they keep calm in a world full of crises. / Goats and Soda
Spencer Ackerman: A world with exceptions to international law is one in which the least powerful suffer the most. / The New York Times [+]
Caitlin Clark's base salary in the WNBA will be $76,535. Why the pay gap with the NBA? Partly because of a much worse bargaining agreement. / Vox, Just Women's Sports
Gen Z is richer at this stage in their lives than Millenials or Baby Boomers were at their age. / The Economist
Profiles of people who work from "secretive" ships, repairing deep-sea internet infrastructure. / The Verge
"Resurrecting" the dead is a popular use of generative AI in China. / rest of world
Meta thinks it'll be a good idea for teachers and students to wear its headsets in class. / axios
"Rewilding is a positive vision for the networks we want to live inside." A manifesto for rewilding the web? / Noema
To combat overtourism, locals in Barcelona get a favorite bus route removed from Google and Apple maps. /
See also: Some maps from the 18th century that were a "picture of time itself." / Humanities
Handsome photographs of specialized tools used by contemporary artisans. / The Rake
Young straight men who tell their guy friends "I love you" find they sometimes receive weird looks in public. / Inside Hook
Tavi Gevinson goes long and meta in a zine of sorts about Taylor Swift. / mirrorball
Tuesday headlines: Go pouch, go
In China, companies making fentanyl precursors and analogues can apply for state tax rebates. / NPR
Nearly 200 US colleges and universities hold contracts with Chinese businesses, valued at $2.32 billion. / The Wall Street Journal [+]
Argentina experiences a 2,153% increase in Dengue cases. / The Guardian
From February, some good news about recent progress against dengue fever. / Science
If you're an organ donor in the United States, "there's a 25% chance your kidney ends up in the trash." / Statecraft
A researcher who studies American sexual behavior says there's been a rapid rise of "rough sex" among college students, particularly sexual strangulation. / The New York Times [+]
The amount of American adults who've had coffee in the past day has increased by 37% since 2004, a 20-year high. / Sprudge
See also: McDonald's introduces billboards that smell like French fries. / Business Insider
Why are cats getting more screen time in movies recently? Professional cat training for films "has greatly evolved in recent years." / The Hollywood Reporter
Remembering that once upon a time, schools, towns, states and even the Senate passed rules against beepers. / Pessimists Archive
Jessa Crispin: Once again, the intellectual media sends an elite writer on a cruise, only to discover the guy hates everyone. / The Culture We Deserve
Some notes on how a mechanical watch works. Also, how the Berlin Wall worked. / Bartosz Ciechanowski, Open Culture
Three men are rescued after spelling out "help" with palm leaves on a small Pacific island. / BBC News
Related: A former Special Forces soldier explains what he packs in his "go-pouch." / Why Is This Interesting
Monday headlines: Keep it like a secret
Following Israel's thwarting of Iran's aerial attack, world leaders urge Netanyahu not to retaliate, and Biden says the US won't support an Israeli counterattack. / AP, Axios
A mission to capture space junk has now rendezvoused with a second-stage rocket that's been orbiting Earth since 2009. / Gizmodo
Tinnitus sufferers are finding relief with a new FDA-approved device that electronically stimulates the tongue—it works by distracting the brain. / NPR
Researchers have identified a link between car exhaust and signs and symptoms consistent with Alzheimer's disease. / University of Technology Sydney
Just as there are people who have an innate sense of navigation, others do not, and GPS appears to diminish people's wayfinding skills. / Ars Technica
See also: "At some point, I'm going to pick up a paper map." What it's like to switch to a circa-2011 BlackBerry in the year 2023. / Stephen's Site
In online chats, Amazon drivers often refer to a dispatcher named "Wayne," an imaginary nemesis who's apparently based on a real person. / 404 Media
"The majority of what we are and who we are is kept private inside." Twenty years of PostSecret. / Hazlitt
John Warner: There are values core to higher education that shouldn't be handed over to generative AI—but that's exactly what's happening now. / Inside Higher Ed
A look back at the rise of the photocopier and its implications for copyright. / NEWART
"It is equally unsustainable to write about music as it is to write and perform music for a living." After Pitchfork, what's next for music criticism? / Boston Review
A pair of music archivists are unearthing lost recordings from major artists, and putting them back in the right hands. / The New York Times [+]
See also: A look inside George Martin's Montserrat recording studio, which is currently crumbling into ruins. / Atlas Obscura
Saturday headlines: Don’t look in the basement
Following Israel's attack on Iran's consulate in Syria, Iranian forces have seized an "Israeli-linked" container ship near the Strait of Hormuz. / Al Jazeera
See also: "The conventional wisdom in Washington and elsewhere has often held that Iran has become contained, even isolated. But this was never true." / Foreign Affairs
Google blocks California news outlets in retaliation over proposed legislation that would force it to pay publishers in the state for content. / Gizmodo
State and city mandates for CO2 reductions are working in the Bay Area, where vehicle emission rates are falling around 2.6% annually. / Berkeley News
"I remember thinking, 'Why did it take them three years to build a three-story building?'" The town that kept its nuclear bunker a secret for three decades. / Smithsonian
OJ Simpson handed over only $133,000 of the $33.5 million he was ordered to pay in the deaths of Nicole Brown and Ron Goldman. / Rolling Stone
US border arrests typically surge in spring; however, for the first time since 2017, March arrests fell, month over month—due to increased immigration enforcement in Mexico. / NPR
AI summaries won't replace social media anytime soon, both because the technology isn't there yet, and because people don't want that. / Read Max
Inside a horror-themed gym in Pittsburgh. / Neatorama
After scanning more than 500 sauropod bones during Covid lockdown, an Australian paleobiologist identified 12 new dinosaurs. / ABC
"For years, I have been telling people that if they love podcasts and want to support podcast creators—especially independent ones—they shouldn't listen to podcasts on Spotify." / Defector
This is wonderful: 15 notes played at 0.2 bpm time differences. / YouTube
Spend a minute at a park. / One Minute Park
Friday headlines: What’s new is old again
Bird flu outbreaks typically go away after culling poultry, but over the past three years the virus hasn't died down, and in fact is increasing. / WIRED
Moira Donegan: How society's failure to help an obvious victim of domestic violence led to Nicole Brown's death. / The Guardian
Traffic data on the day of eclipse shows how people flocked to the path of totality. / The New York Times [+]
An advocacy group in Mexico is using deepfakes of missing people in efforts to coerce the government to help locate the individuals. / The Daily Beast
This week, Apple notified iPhone users in 92 countries that they were "being targeted by a mercenary spyware attack," at first calling the attack "state-sponsored." / TechCrunch
The only thing Humane's AI Pin does reliably is tell the time; two years later, the crank-based Playdate gaming console has only grown in relevance. / The Verge, Engadget
A new excavation at Pompeii has unearthed stunning frescos as well as a mosaic floor with more than a million white tiles. / BBC
Jessa Crispin: "You are having a midlife crisis. It's fine." / The Culture We Deserve
Setting the retirement age at 65 was politically motivated—it was a way to get Social Security legislation passed when life expectancy was far lower. / Money
"In an attempt to banish Western cultural influences, authorities in the Republic of Chechnya are banning music they deem too fast or too slow." / Hyperallergic
How attitudes toward "selling out" have changed among musicians over the past two decades—as to why, the answer has a lot to do with Napster. / Can't Get Much Higher
"Pelicans will eat anything they can fit into their mouths." / Boing Boing
Thursday headlines: Expungables
The February heatwave in West Africa was made 10 times more likely by climate change. / CarbonBrief
British farmers say this year's record rainfall suggests an ongoing emergency. / The Guardian
A round-up of superlatives, senior yearbook style, for "the most surprising, actionable, and fun solutions" to the climate crisis. / Grist
Lionel Barber: We already live in a "Trump 1.5" world, but Japan is more worried than most about Trump 2.0. / Politico Magazine
See also: Fake pictures of Donald Trump with historical figures. / X
Despite a decade of federal oversight, Albuquerque cops kill people at a higher rate than any other police force in the United States. / Searchlight New Mexico
Can America's abandoned malls be turned into housing? Zoning rules say probably not. / Vox
Consumer Reports asks the USDA to take Lunchables off school lunch menus due to high amounts of sodium and heavy metals. / NPR
A French court says veggie burgers can be called "steaks." / Le Monde
Indie food brands cry foul over Trader Joe's executives' "blatant and aggressive" copycat tactics. / Taste
Biohackers go all in on so-called cellular-health treatments, despite science not exactly supporting them. / GQ
"'The most basic questions about sleep still lack definite answers." Increasing evidence finds sleep disorders to have a genetic component. / The London Review of Books
Wednesday headlines: Greeks’ herring gifts
Ed Conway: Elon Musk isn't going to be the Henry Ford of the electric car—China is. / Material World
Jon Lee Anderson embeds with a Brazilian special-forces unit that fights illegal miners in the Amazon. / The New Yorker
Researchers estimate that the best land for growing coffee will shrink by more than half by 2050. / Grist
Swapping red meat for forage fish—e.g., herring and sardines—could prevent 750,000 deaths a year. / The Guardian
In Michigan, two parents are convicted over the deaths caused by their child in a mass shooting. / The New York Times [+]
Abortions will soon be outlawed in Arizona except in cases where a pregnant person's life is at risk. / NPR
Eclipse travelers spent an estimated $1.6 billion on lodging, activities, food, and gas. / Business Insider
For $20 million, you can buy Kelly Slater's Hawaiian compound. / Uncrate
"Mark Twain should not erase Stendhal." Europe fears artificial intelligence will erase its languages. / Politico EU
The physics community mourns Peter Higgs, who proposed the Higgs boson. / Metafilter
Mattel debuts a less competitive version of Scrabble for Gen Z, or anybody who finds word games intimidating. / BBC News
See also: Tracking several hundred teenagers over 24 years. / The Pudding
A social history of New York City told through its restaurants. "At midnight, Taylor emerged." / Grub Street
Tuesday headlines: Candle me this
From February: Gaza and the dilemmas of genocide scholars. / Al Jazeera
The Moscow terror attack causes a backlash against labor migrants in Russia. / Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
See also: Republican lawmakers warn that their colleagues are repeating Moscow's propaganda "on the House floor." / Semafor
Veterinarians warn that private equity's entry into their industry may increase prices and slash services. / Iowa Capital Dispatch
A study finds about half of cancer drugs that win accelerated approvals don't improve patient survival or quality of life. / STAT
One in five new colorectal cancer patients in the United States is under 55, nearly twice the rate in 1995. / Vox
Why are new shows often deliberately blurry? Welcome to streaming's "era of the anamorphic lens." / The Ringer
Related: "Critics can't decide if Andrew Scott's Ripley is mesmerizing or charmless." / The Conversation
Pencils are the new status symbol in elementary schools. Also, examples from a year of making one unique "woven drawing" each day. / The Wall Street Journal [+], Jessie Mordine Young
Virginia Woolf describes a solar eclipse in 1927: "There was no colour. The earth was dead." / The Rest Is Noise
Unrelated: How a 19th-century poet linked a row of candles together so he could write all night long. / Futility Closet
Monday headlines: Real friends, fake likes
Pankaj Mishra: The more remote the Shoah has grown, the more fiercely its memory has been possessed by Jewish Americans. / The London Review of Books
Who is Portugal for? Possibly "your retired, your landlords, your slouching techies yearning to feel free." / Palladium Magazine
Martin Gurri: The mafia in Cuba is indistinguishable from the regime itself. / Discourse
During today's solar eclipse, the Purkinje effect explains why colors may look different. (Here are some vintage eclipse glasses.) / CNN, Kottke
In women's basketball, South Carolina defeats Iowa to cap its perfect season. / ESPN
Mac Crane on what it's like to play basketball with men. "It's the queerness of yearning, of loving a sport that doesn't always love me back." / The Sun
"It was a romanticized journey of self-destruction." What it's like to operate a bookstore in Kuwait. / Lithub
See also: What it's like to fail on a climbing expedition in Greeland. / The Clean Line
Giving up on something can be thought of as a gift—"to wonder exactly what has been given up, to whom, and for what." / The Baffler
An AI-enabled compass of sorts will guide you on walks without your phone. / dezeen
A new social media app will generate fake likes from your real friends. / Engadget
Friday headlines: Nobel rejections
With the Wall Street Journal's Evan Gershkovich now detained in Russia for a year, other journalists explain how they survived imprisonment. / The Wall Street Journal [+]
A Kremlin spokesman says talks for a deal to release Gershkovich "must be carried out in absolute silence." / Reuters
Sam Bankman-Fried gets 25 years in prison for conspiracy and fraud. / The Verge
A Michigan nuclear power station will be the first in the United States to reopen after being fully closed. / Semafor
"Wi-Fi" turns out not to be an abbreviated version of wireless fidelity—it's a name invented by the same marketing company that came up with "Prozac." / Gizmodo
Why do identical businesses open side by side in African cities? Because it generates an informal welfare system. / The Conversation
A quarter of Paris residents live in government housing—an aggressive effort "to keep middle- and lower-income residents and small-business owners in the heart of the city." / The New York Times [+]
Hotels are shifting away from providing room service to providing easier ways to receive takeout. / The Wall Street Journal [+]
"Higher thread counts mean higher tensile strength." One reason to buy expensive sheets? In case you need to escape. / The Art of Manliness
A round-up of contemporary painters reviving Impressionism. / artsy
A review of rejection letters written by Toni Morrison when she was a book editor. "It simply wasn't interesting enough." / The Los Angeles Review of Books
See also: Publishers put fake Van Goghs on their book covers. The Donald Judd Foundation sues Kim Kardashian for "false endorsement." / The Art Newspaper, dezeen
Today's the championship match in the Tournament of Books, presented by Field Notes—find out who took home the Rooster! / Field Notes, The ToB
Thursday headlines: Pachabel’s salmon
Right-wing Israelis question whether the country relies too much on the United States. / The Wall Street Journal [+]
Dominic Tierney: Israelis are likely to look back on the war as a costly campaign and a missed opportunity—and perhaps as a major defeat. / Foreign Affairs
China donates 1,500 tons of drinking water from Tibetan glaciers to help the Maldives with a water crisis. / The Economic Times
Pictures of signs in Hong Kong warning people about falling fruit. / CCA
A woman names herself after a London train station after falling in love with it. / Metro
Homeowners in California can hire a "squatter hunter" to move in and make life unbearable for people on their property. / CBS News
The Arabic word "shaheed," which translates roughly to "martyr," is responsible for more content removals than any other single word on Facebook. / rest of world
It may seem like people aren't swearing more than they used to, but they're probably not. Instead, "they are swearing differently than they used to." / Vox
Richard Serra, known for his large-scale steel artworks, dies from pneumonia at 85. / artsy
From February, instructions on how to send fan mail—on paper—to "the Mona Lisa." / Bohemizm
Anna Kornbluh: We have lost the future and instead of playing with the past, our dominant aesthetic style magnifies the present. / Jacobin
Joanna Kavenna: I've always loved salmon because salmon jump and no one knows why. / The Paris Review
Wednesday headlines: StairDisaster
The ship that hit the Baltimore Key Bridge yesterday was also involved in a collision while leaving Antwerp, Belgium, in 2016. / The Guardian
See also: "The Baltimore bridge collapse is only the latest—and least—of global shipping's problems." / Vox
Switzerland becomes a model for "a highly effective, evidence-based policy response to a drug epidemic" by making methadone easy to obtain. / STAT
Donald Trump begins selling "God Bless the USA Bibles" as he faces four criminal indictments plus a series of civil charges. / The Associated Press
Unrelated: North Korea censors a BBC gardening presenter's trousers. / BBC News
A deep dive into the contradictions between the public and private lives of Andrew Huberman, "the world's biggest pop neuroscientist." / New York Magazine
Why does the New York Times "Connections" game make people angry? Because its editor's job "is to trick you." / Vox
Social media challenges inspire thousands of teenagers to "take over" California malls. / Patch
See also: Sharon Olds's poem "My Son the Man." / Poetry Magazine
Your Wednesday long read is about how the threat of divine punishment shaped human civilization. / The Garden of Forking Paths
Watch: Person after person tries to fly over a set of 25 stairs in France. / YouTube
"Bach decides to win every which way." Some praise for Bach's cello suites with examples of what makes them great. / A Year of Bach