Here’s this week’s list. Been slightly swamped with work, I’ve put together what I can.
- Do Polygraph Tests Actually Work? - This is from a great blog called Priceonomics, which publishes a daily data-based answer to a question that you might have thought about at some point in your life. This is one I really liked, about whether lie detectors actually work. There’s no hand-waving here (or at least there’s less than what you’ll usually see) and more actual talk.
- What’s It Like To Never Forget? - A man called Nima Veiseh has an autobiographical memory. He can recall every incident in his life with flawless accuracy. How does it feel to be so? Read the original BBC story and this question-answer session on Digg. Lovely.
“What’s the most annoying part of living with this condition?”
“People’s expectations of you. […] For example, a wonderful person once said, “hey if I had your ability, I would totally use it to cheat on this this and this!” Which made me kind of sad, because what they didn’t realize is that cheating or taking the easy way out would get very boring and unsatisfying. I try to use the ability to create and synthesize the world in ways that have never been seen before, to create more new beauty in the world.” - The Craziest Black Market in Russia - This is pretty old, but still brilliant, in a wacky sense of the word. It’s not for oil or guns. It’s for plagiarized dissertations.
Some of the intellectual theft Dissernet has identified is comic in its brazenness and absurdity. Duma member Igor Igoshin allegedly earned his economics degree by turning someone else’s paper on the Russian chocolate industry into a thesis on meat; the dissertation replaced every mention of “chocolate” with “beef,” “dark chocolate” with “home-grown beef,” and “white chocolate” with “imported beef.” All numbers, charts, and analysis were preserved in their original form. - Rigged - A TechCrunch piece on Facebook’s newsfeed.
Facebook didn’t just reflect your views back to you. It magnified and distorted them through the lens of sensational and often falsified stories. And it got away with it by throwing up its hands and claiming, “Hey, we’re not a media organization.”
Also, http://capx.co/should-we-like-what-facebook-is-doing-to-democracy - What I’ve Learned After 50 Years of Running - A writer, Frederick Turner talks about why he’s been running.
By my rough-hewn calculations, I have run well over 31,000 miles. This, to be sure, is a far greater surprise to me than was beginning to run in the first place. I’ve had my subsequent moments of gluttony, but not for punishment, and it wasn’t until I’d reached the half-century mark in my running life that I actually wondered why I’d kept at it so long. It had nothing to do with writing, something I’ve also been doing for almost a half-century. Nor had it anything to do with health, nor with any runner’s high. Instead, it seems to have been something more commonplace: the simple pleasure of noticing where you are. - We Couldn’t Believe Our Eyes’: A Lost World of Shipwrecks Is Found - Incredible archaeological find. Called one of archaeology’s greatest coups, this project discovered over 40 shipwrecks off the coast of Bulgaria. Read on for a detailed account and some lovely pictures.
- The Mammoth Pirates - “Ethical ivory” is demanded world-over now, especially in China. This piece explores the lives of people hunting for mammoth ivory. Powerful and absolutely gorgeous story, with detailed and thorough photography. The story itself is divided into three parts - The Method, The Money, and The Life.
- Sailing around the world for eight years with three kids taught us to live without structure - Very nice piece. Pragmatic, too. Obviously not always rosy, but I found this rather eye-opening.
“I feel like our life is the polar opposite of that,” says Niall. “We are so out there. Everything we do is about NOT being cooped up in our own little world.” - The art of making (and not making) plans - We have so many plans, so many activities, so much to do. Why do it all? Why not just avoid these plans, so that we can do what we like in the moment?
Out of my own personal antipathy to making plans came an ironclad rule: I don’t schedule more than two in a given week. Which means that, yes, I am frequently that person suggesting a date one or two months in advance. But it also means that the majority of my free time is open for spontaneous plans — actually doing what I feel like doing — which most often happen with my closest friends. Like airlines and frequent fliers, I give people who are important to me priority booking. - Inspired by nature: the thrilling new science that could transform medicine - Biomimicry is one way of solving our problems, and a very good one at that. The headline is a bit of a hyperbole, but it’s still a very significant piece. If you’re even a little scientifically oriented, you should read at least a bit of this. Yes, I’m being judgemental.
These are a type of new surgical staples inspired by porcupine quills.
That’s it for this week. Have a great Sunday!