Hello everyone! I have a few special/themed editions in the works; those should start coming out from next week onwards as individual emails of their own. If you have any suggestions, those would be welcome. Here’s this week’s list.
- Inside Einstein’s Love Affair With ‘Lina’—His Cherished Violin - Einstein has said (maybe multiple times) that if he weren’t to have been a physicist, he would’ve been a musician. He may not have been as gifted on the violin as he was in the sciences, but he was deeply moved by the pieces he played.
- What Cats Can Teach Us About How To Live - Aren’t many of us altogether envious of cats and how they seem to be content and prosperous alone, without any company whatsoever? This is an interesting piece from New Statesman.
A house cat is not really a fur baby, but it is something altogether more remarkable: a tiny conquistador with the whole planet at its feet. House cats would not exist without humans, but we didn’t really create them, nor do we control them now. Our relationship is less about ownership than aiding and abetting. - Polar Bears’ Path to Decline Runs Through Alaskan Village - “The bears that come here are climate refugees, on land because the sea ice they rely on for hunting seals is receding.” This is part 8 of an NYT series that’s called Carbon’s Casualties, which overall is pretty great.
- One Man’s Daring Escape from Mao’s Darkest Prison - “In 1958, thousands of Chinese citizens were sent to brutal labor camps where life was hell and leaving was impossible—but that didn’t stop one man from trying. Half a century later, his long lost story is finally told.” This escape story has enough drama and twists to make more than one movie. Intriguing.
- Rogue Scientists Race to Save Climate Data from Trump - As the world learnt that the Trump administration was going to revamp the entire EPA process, a group of scientists engaged in an endeavour to download as much data as they possibly could from the website. This wasn’t the noble pursuit of scientific truth, but rather the running of bots and scripts that could pull as much useful data from the EPA and related websites as possible. The data is now on DataRefuge.org, if any of you want to have a look.
- The Rapid Evolution of Emoji, a Wordless Tongue - This is a fun article. It’s from all the way back in 2014, so maybe you want to read and see how accurate it’s turned out to be? I thought that perhaps I’d correspond with everyone digitally via emoji for a week, but writing one issue of Kat’s Kable with no words; well.
- Inside the Macedonian Fake-News Complex - Nice longform from Wired about the human side of the fake news phenomenon that is the rage these days.
These Macedonians on Facebook didn’t care if Trump won or lost the White House. They only wanted pocket money to pay for things—a car, watches, better cell phones, more drinks at the bar. This is the arrhythmic, disturbing heart of the affair: that the internet made it so simple for these young men to finance their material whims and that their actions helped deliver such momentous consequences. - A Brief History of Fake Blood - This was written just before Halloween last year, and Slate does a great job of giving us a thorough history of fake blood, because what can be more important, right? I’d rather movies had stayed black-and-white; if I’d been around a set, I would have pilfered more than one bottle of Hershey’s syrup.
- Total Recall: The People Who Never Forget - How scary would it be if you had HSAM, or highly superior autobiographical memory? It would mean that you could remember every February the 19th of your life; what you did then, what was on the news, how you felt etc. I’d personally be very disconcerted by the whole thing. Guardian writes a nice feature on people with HSAM.
- Psychologists Think They Found the Purpose of Depression - Depression is a major thing. Although shrugged off by many, it is a medical condition and it quite serious. This is a thought-provoking piece about depression, which makes the point that depression may be “an adaptation for analyzing complex problems.”
That’s it for this week; have a great one ahead. :)