Hello everyone, and welcome back. Here’s another list of ten good reads for this week, as always.
- 5 Takeaways From the Greatest Commencement Speech of All Time - If you haven’t read the transcript of this speech by David Foster Wallace, do it. To me, it is the best commencement speech ever.
The capital-T Truth is about life before death. It is about the real value of a real education, which has almost nothing to do with knowledge, and everything to do with simple awareness; awareness of what is so real and essential, so hidden in plain sight all around us, all the time, that we have to keep reminding ourselves over and over: “This is water.” “This is water.” - Andre Agassi: ‘One Day Your Entire Way Of Life Ends. It’s a Kind of Death’ - Very nice Guardian feature about Andre Agassi, who discusses tennis, retirement, and his current life. What’s inspiring is that he has mobilised enough money to build close to 80 schools for underprivileged children across the USA.
- The Swiss Invasion - In Roads & Kingdoms, Milan Gagnon tells the stories of Kreuzlingen, Switzerland, and Konstanz, Germany - each weekend the residents of the Swiss city pour into the German one in search of good deals and good exchange rates, leaving one city full of empty storefronts and the other full of empty souls. When Switzerland’s Saturday rush comes, Elisabeth Grübel will often head in the other direction. To save cash, she’ll pack a lunch and a thermos full of tea, and take the train right through Kreuzlingen, to the nature that is Switzerland’s most affordable draw.
- Who Killed The Smart Gun? - ‘Smart guns’ are those that must be user-authenticated to be used. They are child-proof because the gun either needs to register the fingerprint of the user to be used, or needs some object in contact to function, like a ring. Why aren’t all guns kept domestically smart guns? Purists say that guns don’t remain as perfectly functional as they must be.
- Inside Costco: The Magic In The Warehouse - Costco is a huge player in the retail space in the US, and this is a very fascinating read about their business model, offering a nice look into how this company works. Incredulously high employee retention rates and very good competency among all executives seem to be stacking up well against the online onslaught that they are facing. Fun fact - Costco moved 116 million pounds of strawberries last year and accounted for 13% of the world’s blueberries.
- There’s a Psychological Explanation for Why Tetris Is So Addicting - Nice read.
- How The Tasmanian Devil Has Responded to Infectious Cancers - Tasmanian devils have very similar genetic compositions, so it is rather easy for a single cancer to devastate their population. However, they have evolved techniques to combat this, such as breeding earlier in their lifetime. Fascinating battle taking place.
- A Tale Of Two Artists, Separated By War - Firas takes photos in Syria. Miream paints her homeland while exiled in Australia. Facebook brought their lives — and their art — together.
- The International Society for Men Who Love Being Boring - From sock collections to having a documentary made about them called ‘Born to the Mild’, this sounds wildly exciting. It’s called the Dull Men’s Club.
Members’ interests include collecting airsickness bags, appreciating apostrophes and sitting on benches. On the Dull Men’s Facebook group, which has more than 500 members, a man from Cincinnati, Ohio recently posted a photo of his feet with the caption, “The glorious feeling of new socks!” Another member from Edinburgh, Scotland shared a black-and-white image of a tall steel electric line tower. “I love them,” he wrote, “Who is with me?” - How Statistics Lost Their Power - This is an old article but one I just got around to reading. It’s fascinating and raises valid points. Statistics are suppose to be unbiased, rational, and to be trusted without any controversy. But that isn’t what’s happening. We’re now in a world that is creating and consuming more data than ever; is it a crisis if we can’t trust our own numbers?
See you next week! (Or maybe this Wednesday, I might have something planned)