Hello World. Here is today’s list.

• A Life in Google Maps - Delightful evocative piece about personal life and the snapshots that Google Maps takes. You should read this (it’s fiction).

I can see that life, but I can no longer enter it. I can’t get inside your head—I never could—but I can’t get inside mine, either; I can’t zoom in far enough to see if we were happy, or sad, or changing, or lying to ourselves. The images are here but the emotions are lost. Memory has no interior, only facade. Inside Google Maps I stand on the street outside our house, where I still live, but I can’t go in. Outside Google Maps I stand inside, in my mind, and look at my former life, and wonder.

• Of Molecular Machines and Merchants of Dreams - Very nice article about this year’s Nobel in Chemistry, and the history of making a wide variety of molecules and ‘molecular machines’. Fun read even if you’re not a chemistry person.

• What do you do with your life after you’ve already been the world’s youngest dictator - Buzzfeed continues its excellent long form journalism. This is a profile on Valentine Strasser, who was once a 25 year-old ruler of Sierra Leone.

The coup leaders were so unprepared that they hadn’t designated a new leader. Eventually Strasser was chosen, not because of his leadership, or martial authority — but because, as one of the few who’d completed secondary school, his English was good enough to read the junta’s declaration on the radio. If nothing else, they all agreed, a fresh-faced lad could inject youthful optimism into a weary nation.

• 5 Magical Phrases from*The Illustrated Book of Sayings http://www.signature-reads.com/2016/10/5-magical-phrases-from-the-illustrated-book-of-sayings/ - *This was so good! A sample -

• When her best friend died, she used artificial intelligence to keep talking to him - This is very inspiring and warm, but also slightly creepy. Eugenia Kuyda recreated a virtual ‘bot’ version of her friend Roman Mazurenko after he died suddenly in an accident. A good thing to do? Perhaps. Very in-depth writing from The Verge about the bot itself, the ethical concerns etc.

• Trying to solve the LED Quandary- The planned obsolescence that companies followed when making incandescent bulbs kept them in business, but what can one do when making LEDs, which are known to survive for not just years, but decades?

• A Father, a Dying Son, and the Quest to Make the Most Profound Videogame Ever- This is just brilliant. Albeit old (January of this year), this piece is about something very poignant and is extremely well written. A game made by a father as a memorial for his young son who eventually dies of cancer. What’s the game called? That Dragon, Cancer.

• My Son, the Prince of Fashion- Author Michael Chabon talks about minding his son Abe through a week of Paris. Very entertaining!

*I took my son to Paris Fashion Week, and all I got was a profound understanding of who he is, what he wants to do with his life, and how it feels to watch a grown man stride down a runway wearing shaggy yellow Muppet pants.

It was kind of like Disneyland, but instead of a three-minute log flume or roller coaster you got inflatable pants.*

• Jeeves and a Man called The Donald- When Bertie Wooster meets Donald Trump. Had me in splits. The whole piece is amazingly funny!

‘That’s what Tom said. Do you play golf? The Donald is magnificent at golf.’ ‘I’ve been known to hack the mashie,’ I said modestly, ‘but the local course is closed for a tournament this weekend.’ ‘I’ll buy the club and fire the tournament,’ Trump thundered, spitting flecks of kedgeree.

• How Big Data discovered that Othello is a comedy (and other adventures in digital Shakespeare)

• Interesting. Couple this with (at your own risk) Inside the Groan-Inducing World of Pun Competitions.

Have a wonderful Sunday!