Hello, welcome to another edition of Kat’s Kable. No further ado; here’s the list.

1.
Inside The Chaotic Battle To Be The Top Reply To A Trump Tweet

Very intense story about why the top reply to a Donald Trump tweet is a coveted position.

Most importantly, the top reply to a Trump tweet is guaranteed to get in front of hundreds of thousands of eyes. That’s likes and retweets, not to mention profile views, replies, and new followers. In January, Mike Elgan, a technology writer, replied to a Trump tweet within 10 seconds and watched the tweet rack up 800,000 impressions and 24,000 engagements in just a few hours. Within 24 hours, Elgan’s account grew by 300 followers — proof that mere proximity to a 6:00 a.m. presidential diatribe is among the most reliable ways to boost one’s Twitter account. Engaging with the president of the United States is Twitter’s weirdest growth hack.

2.
The Faceless Boss: A Look Into The Uber Driver Workplace

I’ve been reading up a decent bit on what is currently wrong with the whole Uber culture. The company has grown so rapidly that it just hasn’t had the time or care to think about things holistically. They actually had to hire someone to get a driver support call centre set up. An Uber driver is only his own boss in name; his/her hours aren’t as flexible as the company makes it. Also, if you haven’t read it yet, you should read Susan Fowler’s blog post on sexism in Uber; this is what kickstarted the whole movement to oust Travis Kalanick.

What a dreary start to this week’s list. I promise it gets better.

3.
How to End a Life

A story of the newly introduced MAID provision in Canada - a provision that legalises euthanasia. It’s a nice read. Everyone has to adapt; patients, doctors, family members, nurses, hospital staff.

4.
Hunting for Antibiotics in the World’s Dirtiest Places

This is very important. Antibiotic resistance is a problem that is problematic now, but will be crippling in the future. We need to keep finding new antibiotics, and scientists hope that with sophisticated (and globally coordinated) antibiotic rotations, we can use a variety of antibiotics to prevent resistance to any of them. Adam Roberts, a London researcher, picks up dirt and dust from places around the country and beyond to find new antibiotics. I’m surprised he’s only one of few doing this work.

5.
Why Hotel Giant Marriott Is on an Expansion Binge as It Fends Off Airbnb

I really liked this piece because of what I learnt about the hospitality business’ attitude towards millennials.Marriott as a firm has done well with its acquisitions and smart growth strategy that requires much lesser capital investment than if it built all its properties by itself.

6.
The Personal-Essay Boom is Over

I liked reading this essay because it talks about how personal, first-person essays have turned to platforms like TinyLetter and aren’t found in as much profusion as earlier in online media. It’s a little relevant to the structure of the Kable itself, albeit in a tangential manner. Oh, but this isn’t a personal essay haha. On a more serious note, the essays actually started booming just after the recession, when publishing houses wanted good content that people would read, and they wanted it cheap. People writing about their life story were happy for a relatively small payment.

7.
How Venezuela Stumbled to the Brink of Collapse

Why did this incredibly rich and endowed country, which even had a democracy, collapse in the manner in which it did? This is a review of the history and people involved, and is a good instructive read. Especially if you are running a country and need to know how to not mess up.

8.
Leaked Recording: Inside Apple’s Global War on Leakers

“Former NSA agents, secrecy members on product teams, and a screening apparatus bigger than the TSA.”

Rice compares Apple’s work of screening factory employees to that of the TSA. “Their peak volume is 1.8 million a day. Ours, for just 40 factories in China, is 2.7 million a day.” That number surges to 3 million when Apple ramps up production, he adds, and all of these people need to be checked every time they enter and exit the factory.

9.
The Lunar Sea

This is a beautiful feature with great pictures from Hakai Magazine about how the Moon influences life in the seas and oceans of the world. Surprisingly, the lunar body’s influence is not limited to tides, its (rather meagre) light also plays an important role.


10.
The Thoughts of a Spiderweb

This is a very interesting science article about the distribution of cognitive abilities to external organs, such as a spider distributing computing tasks to its web. I was very very fascinated by the research that’s happening in this field. Crickets, as well, perform an initial processing of incoming sound in their legs before it is sent to their brains.

Woo, we’re done. I’m on vacation and having a fun time, hope you are too.