Hello! Here is this week’s list.
- Leonard Cohen Makes It Darker - Superb, superb profile of Leonard Cohen. Which actually leads me to think that if Dylan could receive a Nobel, could Cohen too? (he won’t, don’t get aggravated)
- Update the Nobel Prizes. This is just not because Dylan won it, but because there are a ton of things that ideally could change. Watch this - In Performance at The White House Bob Dylan, because this is one of his best performances ever. Happy 75th: a letter to Bob Dylan on his birthdayâ this because it’s always a refreshing read. Personally am delighted that Dylan won the Nobel because what is literature and poetry other than the emotion it generates in the audience?
- The Impossibly Complex Art Of Designing Eyes - Found this very interesting, game and video designers have come so far, but there remains work to be done with eye design.
- Generation Adderall - Crazy. An entire generation of students, many of which became addicted to this drug that’s startlingly close to amphetamines.
It was fitting: This was sublime, these afternoons I spent in untrammeled focus, absorbing the complicated ideas in the texts in front of me, mastering them, covering their every surface with my razor-like comprehension, devouring them, making them a part of myself. Or rather, of what I now thought of as my self, which is to say, the steely, undistractable person whom I vastly preferred to the lazier, glitchier person I knew my actual self to be, the one who was subject to fits of lassitude and a tendency to eat too many Swedish Fish. - What Will Break People’s Addictions to Their Phones? - Interesting take on the whole addiction issue where the author says that Silicon Valley is to blame (partly) for our recent smartphone addiction because of the way they design apps. Good and relevant read.
- Should Airplanes Be Flying Themselves? - A very haunting account of the crash of the Air France 447 coupled with a detailed report on how pilots now have become incompetent and over reliant on automated systems. Also, it talks about how issues outside of flying cause accidents. Not technical faults, but other things like an autocratic hierarchy in the cockpit where the juniors cannot speak up to their seniors.
- Have I Got a Car for You! - Kurt Vonnegut being his brilliant self when he tells the world why he won’t get a Nobel prize.
- [Video] Planet Earth II: Trailer - BBC One - Yay! Watch! The Best Show on Earth will resume.
- How Bugs Bunny and ‘Kill the Wabbit’ Inspired a Generation of Opera Stars
“He’s mournful,” says Ms. Barton. “He picks up the wabbit and he thinks, ‘Oh, no, I’ve actually killed it.’…This is the wonderful thing about opera. It’s the musical embodiment of the whirlwind of emotions of human beings, right?” - Bluebeard: By protecting her privacy, Elena Ferrante protected ours - It’s tragic how Elena Ferrante has said she might not write again after her real identity was unmasked by nosy reporters. This is a nice read on why writers needn’t reveal everything. After all, they aren’t politicians.
- How to Cut Cake Fairly and Finally Eat It Too - Umm, we did it. We have an algorithm. The comments section for this piece is pretty entertaining.
Have a good Sunday.