Britney runs a marathon, sand wars [2013], morning glory [2010], empire of scents [2014]
Vogue - Your Next Puffer Coat Will Be Filled With Flower Petals, Not Feathers
Market Watch - Cautionary tale this holiday season: Fast shipping may contribute to climate change
Aeon - Religion is about emotion regulation, and it's very good at it
BBC - Crows Could Be the Smartest Animal Other Than Primates
Taste - The Multimillion-Dollar Junkets That Introduced Americans to Olive Oil
fivefightyeight - What Unites Republicans May Be Changing. Same With Democrats.
Bloomberg - Why Cruise Lines Keep Cutting Their Ships in Half
BBC - Why printers add secret tracking dots
Variety - How The Weather Channel Is Pioneering Mixed Reality for Live Television
Scientific American - How to Think about "Implicit Bias"
Bloomberg - The Economics of Dining as a Couple
BBC - A rubbish story: China's mega-dump full 25 years ahead of schedule
Taste - The Tyranny and the Comfort of Government Cheese
Vogue - The $120,000 Art Basel Banana, Explained
The Atlantic - We Are All Accumulating Mountains of Things
"A recent NPR/Marist poll found that nine in 10 consumers rarely or never return stuff they’ve bought online."
"In 2017, Americans spent $240 billion—twice as much as they’d spent in 2002—on goods like jewelry, watches, books, luggage, and telephones and related communication equipment, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis, which adjusted those numbers for inflation. Over that time, the population grew just 13 percent. Spending on personal care products also doubled over that time period. Americans spent, on average, $971.87 on clothes last year, buying nearly 66 garments, according to the American Apparel and Footwear Association. That’s 20 percent more money than they spent in 2000. The average American bought 7.4 pairs of shoes last year, up from 6.6 pairs in 2000."
"But the ability to easily get rid of stuff may be making people feel a little better about buying things they don’t need, and motivating them to buy even more."
Mark Manson - The American Dream is Killing Us
"In fact, economic mobility is lower in the US than almost every other developed country, and somewhere on par with Slovenia and Chile — not exactly the gold standards of economic opportunity in the world"
"But over 25% of Americans have no savings. Zero."
"Here’s a stat that will knock your socks off: 45% of homeless people have a job."
12.11.2019
11.03.2019
november 2019
inside Bill's brain, one child nation, plastic China [2016], the crown season 3, inside the garbage of the world [2016]
read a lot this month since i was kind of snowed in in Tahoe with my parents for thanksgiving weekend.
Quartz - Until I was a man, I had no idea how good men had it at work
The Guardian - Should we stop keeping pets? Why more and more ethicists say yes
The Washington Post - This state requires company boards to include women. A new lawsuit says that’s unconstitutional.
The Guardian - How our home delivery habit reshaped the world
Buzzfeed - Her Amazon Purchases Are Real. The Reviews Are Fake.
Washington Post - When a deep red town’s only grocery closed, city hall opened its own store. Just don’t call it ‘socialism.’
Medium - Big Calculator: How Texas Instruments Monopolized Math Class
Popular Science - What would happen if Earth started to spin faster?
Bloomberg - Nine Secrets I Never Knew About Airports Until I Worked at LAX
The Atlantic - The Great American Eye-Exam Scam
Washington Post - Five Myths about America's Homeless
The Guardian - How Peru's potato museum could stave off world food crisis
Aeon - Think everyone died young in ancient societies? Think again
Mental Floss - 8 Psychological Tricks of Restaurant Menus
"The best menus account for the psychological theory known as the “paradox of choice,” which says that the more options we have, the more anxiety we feel. The golden number? Seven options per food category, tops (seven appetizers, seven entrees, etc.). “When we include over seven items, a guest will be overwhelmed and confused, and when they get confused they’ll typically default to an item they’ve had before..."
Grist - Why Detroit residents pushed back against tree-planting
"However, environmental justice is not just about the distribution of bad stuff, like pollution, or good stuff, like forestry projects across disadvantaged communities. It’s also about the distribution of power among communities that have historically only been the subjects and experiments of power structures."
The Lily - Have you been told not to keep score in your relationship? Here’s why that advice is sexist.
"Despite men taking on more household labor than ever before, there continues to be a litany of excuses for women doing more. Women aren’t always more nurturing or “better” at emotional invisible labor, and telling a woman, “You just have to ask me” still leaves the unseen burden on women to both identify what needs to be done and communicate the need to their partner, when men are perfectly capable of identifying and doing these tasks without being asked."
OneZero - Unraveling the Secret Supply Chain Behind an AmazonBasics Battery
"Amazon operates 75 fulfillment centers and 25 sortation centers across North America — a footprint so large that there’s an Amazon warehouse within 20 miles of half the U.S. population, according to Curbed."
"Amazon has only just begun to track its carbon footprint, a whopping 44.4 million metric tons in 2018, nearly equivalent to the output of Switzerland or Denmark."
read a lot this month since i was kind of snowed in in Tahoe with my parents for thanksgiving weekend.
Quartz - Until I was a man, I had no idea how good men had it at work
The Guardian - Should we stop keeping pets? Why more and more ethicists say yes
The Washington Post - This state requires company boards to include women. A new lawsuit says that’s unconstitutional.
The Guardian - How our home delivery habit reshaped the world
Buzzfeed - Her Amazon Purchases Are Real. The Reviews Are Fake.
Washington Post - When a deep red town’s only grocery closed, city hall opened its own store. Just don’t call it ‘socialism.’
Medium - Big Calculator: How Texas Instruments Monopolized Math Class
Popular Science - What would happen if Earth started to spin faster?
Bloomberg - Nine Secrets I Never Knew About Airports Until I Worked at LAX
The Atlantic - The Great American Eye-Exam Scam
Washington Post - Five Myths about America's Homeless
The Guardian - How Peru's potato museum could stave off world food crisis
Aeon - Think everyone died young in ancient societies? Think again
Mental Floss - 8 Psychological Tricks of Restaurant Menus
"The best menus account for the psychological theory known as the “paradox of choice,” which says that the more options we have, the more anxiety we feel. The golden number? Seven options per food category, tops (seven appetizers, seven entrees, etc.). “When we include over seven items, a guest will be overwhelmed and confused, and when they get confused they’ll typically default to an item they’ve had before..."
Grist - Why Detroit residents pushed back against tree-planting
"However, environmental justice is not just about the distribution of bad stuff, like pollution, or good stuff, like forestry projects across disadvantaged communities. It’s also about the distribution of power among communities that have historically only been the subjects and experiments of power structures."
The Lily - Have you been told not to keep score in your relationship? Here’s why that advice is sexist.
"Despite men taking on more household labor than ever before, there continues to be a litany of excuses for women doing more. Women aren’t always more nurturing or “better” at emotional invisible labor, and telling a woman, “You just have to ask me” still leaves the unseen burden on women to both identify what needs to be done and communicate the need to their partner, when men are perfectly capable of identifying and doing these tasks without being asked."
OneZero - Unraveling the Secret Supply Chain Behind an AmazonBasics Battery
"Amazon operates 75 fulfillment centers and 25 sortation centers across North America — a footprint so large that there’s an Amazon warehouse within 20 miles of half the U.S. population, according to Curbed."
"Amazon has only just begun to track its carbon footprint, a whopping 44.4 million metric tons in 2018, nearly equivalent to the output of Switzerland or Denmark."
10.26.2019
october 2019
flew to and from China so a lot of movies this month. thankfully, pocket also works in china! (mostly anyway, couldn't read articles from the NYT but everything else seemed to work)
yesterday, MIB: international, she's the man [2006], stockholm [2018], pride and prejudice [2005], avengers: age of ultron [2015], spider man: homecoming [2017], spider man: far from home [2019] (watched all but the last 30min)
Mental Floss - What Ever Happened To Waterbeds?
ProPublica - Gutting the IRS
Mental Floss - Do Certain Sounds Enrage You? Neurologists May Know Why
Fast Company - Why I hate living in my tiny house
Mental Floss - Dyslexia Doesn't Work the Way We Thought It Did
Narratively - Meet Ladybeard, the Crown Prince of Japan's Strangest Music Scene
Wired - Why Are Rich People So Mean?
NYT - The Rich Really Do Pay Lower Taxes Than You
SF Chronicle - Missing mail: As postcards celebrate 150 years, they're also disappearing
Taste - Do You Eat Dog?
Mukah Pages - Why People Always Tap Two Fingers On The Table While Eating Dim Sum
OC Register - Congestion kills, so why are politicians making it worse?
Child care Canada - The global legacy of Quebec's subsidized child daycare
NYT - As Homelessness Surges in California, So Does a Backlash
CNN - It's only $4.99. But Costco's rotisserie chicken comes at a huge price
The Atlantic - Why Do Americans Smile So Much?
"Last year, I wrote about why some countries seem to smile less than average—and mistrust those who do seem unusually peppy. A country’s level of instability, that study found, might be why people who seem happy for no reason in, say, Russia, are considered foolish... It turns out that countries with lots of immigration have historically relied more on nonverbal communication. Thus, people there might smile more.
Quartz - The strongest predictor of men’s well-being isn’t family or health
"The strongest predictor of men’s happiness and well-being is their job satisfaction, by a large margin—and the strongest predictor of job satisfaction is whether men feel they are making an impact on their companies’ success. This measure, the study finds, is influenced by whether men feel they are using their own unique talents at work, whether they are surrounded by a diverse set of perspectives, how easily and often they can chat with co-workers, whether they feel their opinions are valued, and whether they’re inspired by the people they work with."
The Atlantic - Men Don't Take Their Wife's Last Name at Marriage
"In medieval England, men who married women from wealthier, more prestigious families would sometimes take their wife’s last name, says Stephanie Coontz, a professor of marriage and family history at Evergreen State College. From the 12th to the 15th century, Coontz told me, in many “highly hierarchical societies” in England and France, “class outweighed gender.” It was common during this period for upper-class English families to take the name of their estates. If a bride-to-be was associated with a particularly flashy castle, the man, Coontz says, would want to benefit from the association. “Men dreamed of marrying a princess,” she says. “It wasn’t just women dreaming of marrying a prince.”"
yesterday, MIB: international, she's the man [2006], stockholm [2018], pride and prejudice [2005], avengers: age of ultron [2015], spider man: homecoming [2017], spider man: far from home [2019] (watched all but the last 30min)
Mental Floss - What Ever Happened To Waterbeds?
ProPublica - Gutting the IRS
Mental Floss - Do Certain Sounds Enrage You? Neurologists May Know Why
Fast Company - Why I hate living in my tiny house
Mental Floss - Dyslexia Doesn't Work the Way We Thought It Did
Narratively - Meet Ladybeard, the Crown Prince of Japan's Strangest Music Scene
Wired - Why Are Rich People So Mean?
NYT - The Rich Really Do Pay Lower Taxes Than You
SF Chronicle - Missing mail: As postcards celebrate 150 years, they're also disappearing
Taste - Do You Eat Dog?
Mukah Pages - Why People Always Tap Two Fingers On The Table While Eating Dim Sum
OC Register - Congestion kills, so why are politicians making it worse?
Child care Canada - The global legacy of Quebec's subsidized child daycare
NYT - As Homelessness Surges in California, So Does a Backlash
CNN - It's only $4.99. But Costco's rotisserie chicken comes at a huge price
The Atlantic - Why Do Americans Smile So Much?
"Last year, I wrote about why some countries seem to smile less than average—and mistrust those who do seem unusually peppy. A country’s level of instability, that study found, might be why people who seem happy for no reason in, say, Russia, are considered foolish... It turns out that countries with lots of immigration have historically relied more on nonverbal communication. Thus, people there might smile more.
Quartz - The strongest predictor of men’s well-being isn’t family or health
"The strongest predictor of men’s happiness and well-being is their job satisfaction, by a large margin—and the strongest predictor of job satisfaction is whether men feel they are making an impact on their companies’ success. This measure, the study finds, is influenced by whether men feel they are using their own unique talents at work, whether they are surrounded by a diverse set of perspectives, how easily and often they can chat with co-workers, whether they feel their opinions are valued, and whether they’re inspired by the people they work with."
The Atlantic - Men Don't Take Their Wife's Last Name at Marriage
"In medieval England, men who married women from wealthier, more prestigious families would sometimes take their wife’s last name, says Stephanie Coontz, a professor of marriage and family history at Evergreen State College. From the 12th to the 15th century, Coontz told me, in many “highly hierarchical societies” in England and France, “class outweighed gender.” It was common during this period for upper-class English families to take the name of their estates. If a bride-to-be was associated with a particularly flashy castle, the man, Coontz says, would want to benefit from the association. “Men dreamed of marrying a princess,” she says. “It wasn’t just women dreaming of marrying a prince.”"
9.13.2019
September 2019
making a conscious effort to read less twitter, and more news articles. I get maybe 15 articles emailed to me a day from Pocket and Flipboard, so intend to actually read more rather than saving to read later. now if only I could find an app where I could share the articles I find most interesting. I used to use google+ but that's no longer a thing so instead I list them here. it's pretty unwieldy tho, especially if I add quotations. =\
Late night, once upon a time in Hollywood, welcome to marwen [2018], sustainable [2016], nacho libre [2006]
Yello - How 2020 Democrats could rewrite the rules of political typography
Buzzfeed News - America’s Orthodox Jews Are Selling A Ton Of The Products You Buy On Amazon
Saveur - Meet Switzerland's Breakaway Cheesemakers
Fast Company - This company hired anyone who applied. Now it’s starting a movement
Nautilus - The Girl Who Smelled Pink
Gizmodo - When a Stranger Decides to Destroy Your Life
Mental Floss - The Book So Big It Needed Its Own Furniture
Fast Company - There's a $218 billion design problem sitting in your fridge right now
Mental Floss - Home Sweet Homer: The Strange Saga of the Real-Life Simpsons House in Nevada
Harper's Bazaar - Why Fur Should Never Be Banned
US News - Extinct Bird Re-Evolved Itself Back Into Existence
Mental Floss - 19 Things You Might Not Know Were Invented by Women
Wall Street Journal - Dating Apps Are Making Marriages Stronger
Atlas Obscura - How Fish and Chips Migrated to Great Britain
The Atlantic - Amazon Ruined Online Shopping
AP News - Many US women say 1st sexual experience was forced in teens
"“Our culture teaches people not to be raped instead of teaching people not to rape,” he said."
"Almost 7 percent of women surveyed said their first sexual intercourse experience was involuntary; it happened at age 15 on average and the man was often several years older."
"Almost half of those women who said intercourse was involuntary said they were held down and slightly more than half of them said they were verbally pressured to have sex against their will."
The Guardian - California bans private prisons – including Ice detention centers
"As recently as 2016, private prisons locked up approximately 7,000 Californians, about 5% of the state’s total prison population, according to the federal Bureau of Justice Statistics."
Atlas Obscura - The Forgotten History of New York's Bagel Famines
"In the 1950s, the Times often assumed that readers were unfamiliar with bagels; the paper offered pronunciation guides (“baygle”) and described it as “a form of Jewish baked goods sometimes described as a doughnut with rigor mortis.”
Mental Floss - 25 Things You Might Not Know About the Birds in Your Backyard
8. BASSIAN THRUSHES USE FARTS TO HUNT PREY.
Birds may not find toots as funny as humans do, but they still make use of them. The Australian Bassian thrush farts toward the ground, with the noxious smell helping to unearth worms and other insect prey.
25. THEY’LL NEVER BE MOVIE STARS.
American migratory bird species are hardly ever depicted in movies thanks to the Migratory Bird Treaty Act that prevents domestic birds from being bought or sold for commercial purposes. If you spot a backyard bird in film or on a show, it’s either an imported species or a computer effect. To see a jaybird, you’ll have to turn off the TV and look out a window.
The Guardian - Behemoth, bully, thief: how the English language is taking over the planet
"The quest to master English in Korea is often called the yeongeo yeolpung or “English frenzy”. Although mostly confined to a mania for instruction and immersion, occasionally this “frenzy” spills over into medical intervention. As Sung-Yul Park relates: “An increasing number of parents in South Korea have their children undergo a form of surgery that snips off a thin band of tissue under the tongue … Most parents pay for this surgery because they believe it will make their children speak English better; the surgery supposedly enables the child to pronounce the English retroflex consonant with ease, a sound that is considered to be particularly difficult for Koreans.” There is no evidence to suggest that this surgery in any way improves English pronunciation. The willingness to engage in this useless surgical procedure strikes me, though, as a potent metaphor for English’s peculiar status in the modern world. It is no longer simply a tool suited to a particular task or set of tasks, as it was in the days of the Royal Navy or the International Commission for Air Navigation. It is now seen as the access code to the global elite. If you want your children to get ahead, then they better have English in their toolkit."
"Since publishing Decolonising the Mind, Ngũgĩ has worked to put its dictates into practice. He renounced his baptismal name, James, and with it Christianity, and ceased to write fiction in English. Since the 1980s, he has written all his novels and plays in his native Gikuyu, only using English (and occasionally Kiswahili) for essays and polemics. This last decision is one that many people still question. As he said in a recent interview: “If I meet an English person, and he says, ‘I write in English,’ I don’t ask him, ‘Why are you writing in English?’ If I meet a French writer, I don’t ask him, ‘Why don’t you write in Vietnamese?’ But I am asked over and over again, ‘Why do you write in Gikuyu?’ For Africans, the view is there is something wrong about writing in an African language.”"
"Today it is estimated that the world loses a language every two weeks. Linguists have predicted that between 50 and 90% of the world’s 6,000 or so languages will go extinct in the coming century. For even a fraction of these to survive, we’re going to have to start thinking of smaller languages not as endangered species worth saving, but as equals worth learning."
Outside - This Is the Beginning of the End of the Beef Industry
"It takes 36,000 calories of feed to produce 1,000 calories of beef. In the process, it uses more than 430 gallons of water and 1,500 square feet of land, and it generates nearly ten kilograms of greenhouse-gas emissions. In comparison, an Impossible Burger uses 87 percent less water, 96 percent less land, and produces 89 percent fewer greenhouse-gas emissions. Beyond Meat’s footprint is similarly svelte."
"But the core of each formula is very different. Beyond uses pea protein, while Impossible uses soy. Beyond gets its bloody color from beet juice; Impossible uses heme—the same molecule that makes our blood red—to achieve its meaty color and flavor. This is its killer app. Beef gets its beefiness from heme. When you cook heme, it produces the distinctive savory, metallic flavor of meat. Since heme is normally found in blood, no veggie concoction has ever used it. Soy plants do make microscopic amounts of it, but not enough to ever use. Impossible Foods’ breakthrough was to genetically engineer yeast to produce soy heme in a tank, like beer. This GMO process is a deal breaker for some people, but it makes all the difference. The Impossible Burger is incredible, the Beyond Burger merely passable."
The Guardian - Dark crystals: the brutal reality behind a booming wellness craze
"While a few large mining companies operate in Madagascar, more than 80% of crystals are mined “artisanally” – meaning by small groups and families, without regulation, who are paid rock-bottom prices."
"Would crystal consumers really be willing to pay more to guarantee safer, child labour-free mines, or a fair wage for miners? Schoen compared it to the organic food movement: if enough people wanted assurance of their products’ provenance, the supply systems would develop."
"Meanwhile, the $4.2tn wellness industry rolls on, bolstered by profits from cheap crystals and a generation looking for alternative modes of healing. Bajoras was confident his stones had healing power. After all, he said, if uranium could kill you, why shouldn’t lithium quartz be able to help cure your depression? And when you broke it down to an elemental level, he said, people are mostly minerals and water anyway. “You’re hydrated mineral powder,” he told me. “You are! You’re like Kool-Aid.”"
Late night, once upon a time in Hollywood, welcome to marwen [2018], sustainable [2016], nacho libre [2006]
Yello - How 2020 Democrats could rewrite the rules of political typography
Buzzfeed News - America’s Orthodox Jews Are Selling A Ton Of The Products You Buy On Amazon
Saveur - Meet Switzerland's Breakaway Cheesemakers
Fast Company - This company hired anyone who applied. Now it’s starting a movement
Nautilus - The Girl Who Smelled Pink
Gizmodo - When a Stranger Decides to Destroy Your Life
Mental Floss - The Book So Big It Needed Its Own Furniture
Fast Company - There's a $218 billion design problem sitting in your fridge right now
Mental Floss - Home Sweet Homer: The Strange Saga of the Real-Life Simpsons House in Nevada
Harper's Bazaar - Why Fur Should Never Be Banned
US News - Extinct Bird Re-Evolved Itself Back Into Existence
Mental Floss - 19 Things You Might Not Know Were Invented by Women
Wall Street Journal - Dating Apps Are Making Marriages Stronger
Atlas Obscura - How Fish and Chips Migrated to Great Britain
The Atlantic - Amazon Ruined Online Shopping
AP News - Many US women say 1st sexual experience was forced in teens
"“Our culture teaches people not to be raped instead of teaching people not to rape,” he said."
"Almost 7 percent of women surveyed said their first sexual intercourse experience was involuntary; it happened at age 15 on average and the man was often several years older."
"Almost half of those women who said intercourse was involuntary said they were held down and slightly more than half of them said they were verbally pressured to have sex against their will."
The Guardian - California bans private prisons – including Ice detention centers
"As recently as 2016, private prisons locked up approximately 7,000 Californians, about 5% of the state’s total prison population, according to the federal Bureau of Justice Statistics."
Atlas Obscura - The Forgotten History of New York's Bagel Famines
"In the 1950s, the Times often assumed that readers were unfamiliar with bagels; the paper offered pronunciation guides (“baygle”) and described it as “a form of Jewish baked goods sometimes described as a doughnut with rigor mortis.”
Mental Floss - 25 Things You Might Not Know About the Birds in Your Backyard
8. BASSIAN THRUSHES USE FARTS TO HUNT PREY.
Birds may not find toots as funny as humans do, but they still make use of them. The Australian Bassian thrush farts toward the ground, with the noxious smell helping to unearth worms and other insect prey.
25. THEY’LL NEVER BE MOVIE STARS.
American migratory bird species are hardly ever depicted in movies thanks to the Migratory Bird Treaty Act that prevents domestic birds from being bought or sold for commercial purposes. If you spot a backyard bird in film or on a show, it’s either an imported species or a computer effect. To see a jaybird, you’ll have to turn off the TV and look out a window.
The Guardian - Behemoth, bully, thief: how the English language is taking over the planet
"The quest to master English in Korea is often called the yeongeo yeolpung or “English frenzy”. Although mostly confined to a mania for instruction and immersion, occasionally this “frenzy” spills over into medical intervention. As Sung-Yul Park relates: “An increasing number of parents in South Korea have their children undergo a form of surgery that snips off a thin band of tissue under the tongue … Most parents pay for this surgery because they believe it will make their children speak English better; the surgery supposedly enables the child to pronounce the English retroflex consonant with ease, a sound that is considered to be particularly difficult for Koreans.” There is no evidence to suggest that this surgery in any way improves English pronunciation. The willingness to engage in this useless surgical procedure strikes me, though, as a potent metaphor for English’s peculiar status in the modern world. It is no longer simply a tool suited to a particular task or set of tasks, as it was in the days of the Royal Navy or the International Commission for Air Navigation. It is now seen as the access code to the global elite. If you want your children to get ahead, then they better have English in their toolkit."
"Since publishing Decolonising the Mind, Ngũgĩ has worked to put its dictates into practice. He renounced his baptismal name, James, and with it Christianity, and ceased to write fiction in English. Since the 1980s, he has written all his novels and plays in his native Gikuyu, only using English (and occasionally Kiswahili) for essays and polemics. This last decision is one that many people still question. As he said in a recent interview: “If I meet an English person, and he says, ‘I write in English,’ I don’t ask him, ‘Why are you writing in English?’ If I meet a French writer, I don’t ask him, ‘Why don’t you write in Vietnamese?’ But I am asked over and over again, ‘Why do you write in Gikuyu?’ For Africans, the view is there is something wrong about writing in an African language.”"
"Today it is estimated that the world loses a language every two weeks. Linguists have predicted that between 50 and 90% of the world’s 6,000 or so languages will go extinct in the coming century. For even a fraction of these to survive, we’re going to have to start thinking of smaller languages not as endangered species worth saving, but as equals worth learning."
Outside - This Is the Beginning of the End of the Beef Industry
"It takes 36,000 calories of feed to produce 1,000 calories of beef. In the process, it uses more than 430 gallons of water and 1,500 square feet of land, and it generates nearly ten kilograms of greenhouse-gas emissions. In comparison, an Impossible Burger uses 87 percent less water, 96 percent less land, and produces 89 percent fewer greenhouse-gas emissions. Beyond Meat’s footprint is similarly svelte."
"But the core of each formula is very different. Beyond uses pea protein, while Impossible uses soy. Beyond gets its bloody color from beet juice; Impossible uses heme—the same molecule that makes our blood red—to achieve its meaty color and flavor. This is its killer app. Beef gets its beefiness from heme. When you cook heme, it produces the distinctive savory, metallic flavor of meat. Since heme is normally found in blood, no veggie concoction has ever used it. Soy plants do make microscopic amounts of it, but not enough to ever use. Impossible Foods’ breakthrough was to genetically engineer yeast to produce soy heme in a tank, like beer. This GMO process is a deal breaker for some people, but it makes all the difference. The Impossible Burger is incredible, the Beyond Burger merely passable."
The Guardian - Dark crystals: the brutal reality behind a booming wellness craze
"While a few large mining companies operate in Madagascar, more than 80% of crystals are mined “artisanally” – meaning by small groups and families, without regulation, who are paid rock-bottom prices."
"Would crystal consumers really be willing to pay more to guarantee safer, child labour-free mines, or a fair wage for miners? Schoen compared it to the organic food movement: if enough people wanted assurance of their products’ provenance, the supply systems would develop."
"Meanwhile, the $4.2tn wellness industry rolls on, bolstered by profits from cheap crystals and a generation looking for alternative modes of healing. Bajoras was confident his stones had healing power. After all, he said, if uranium could kill you, why shouldn’t lithium quartz be able to help cure your depression? And when you broke it down to an elemental level, he said, people are mostly minerals and water anyway. “You’re hydrated mineral powder,” he told me. “You are! You’re like Kool-Aid.”"
8.18.2019
August 2019
the farewell, annihilation [2018], the dawn wall [2017], Mao's last dancer [2009], angel of Nanjing [2015]
Atlas Obscura - The Illegal Ramen Vendors of Postwar Tokyo
The Cut - I’m Not Saving 90 Percent of My Income for Myself
Mental Floss - 25 Words That Are Their Own Opposites
The Guardian - No flights, a four-day week and living off-grid: what climate scientists do at home to save the planet
Mental Floss - How the Neighborhoods of Manhattan Got Their Names
The Washington Post - The Crane Who Fell In Love With a Human
NY Times - Things People Say to Their Dogs
The Atlantic - Death-Cap Mushrooms Are Spreading Across North America
Variety - How America's Biggest Theater Chains Are Exploiting Their Janitors
Popular Science - One-fifth of Americans are responsible for half the country's food-based emissions
"46% of the total emissions from food came from the diets of just one-fifth of the population."
Atlas Obscura - The Illegal Ramen Vendors of Postwar Tokyo
The Cut - I’m Not Saving 90 Percent of My Income for Myself
Mental Floss - 25 Words That Are Their Own Opposites
The Guardian - No flights, a four-day week and living off-grid: what climate scientists do at home to save the planet
Mental Floss - How the Neighborhoods of Manhattan Got Their Names
The Washington Post - The Crane Who Fell In Love With a Human
NY Times - Things People Say to Their Dogs
The Atlantic - Death-Cap Mushrooms Are Spreading Across North America
Variety - How America's Biggest Theater Chains Are Exploiting Their Janitors
Popular Science - One-fifth of Americans are responsible for half the country's food-based emissions
"46% of the total emissions from food came from the diets of just one-fifth of the population."
7.08.2019
July 2019
death zone [2018]
CNN Business - America's addiction to absurdly fast shipping has a hidden cost
Wired - The Secret Life of the Aluminum Can, a Feat of Engineering
Nautilus - How Will Our Religions Handle the Discovery of Alien Life?
Ideas.Ted - Would you drink desalinated seawater? Recycled sewage water? Get ready to find out
Atlas Obscura - Toys Are Taking Vacations and Seeing the World (Without Their Owners)
The Atlantic - Americans Are Going Bankrupt From Getting Sick
Refinery 29 - This Is What Periods Look Like For Women Around The World
cow pats. women use COW PATS. wow. had no idea that stuff was liquid absorptive.
The Atlantic - Millennial Burnout Is Being Televised
"Which brings us back to the perfectionism study. Millennials, born during the Reagan, Bush Sr., and Clinton presidencies, are the first real babies spawned by neoliberalism and its overarching message of competitive individualism. Curran and Hill wanted to establish whether growing up amid these ideologies made Millennials more likely to be perfectionists, and therefore more likely to be depressed, anxious, unhappy, and dissatisfied with themselves."
"Even as they’re poorer, Millennials are more materialistic: 81 percent of Americans born during the 1980s say that accruing wealth is among their significant life goals, more than 20 percent higher than previous generations. As a national belief in the collective has given way to an emphasis on the individual, Millennials have had to become less inhibited about the pursuit of self-gain, and more shrewd about how they define themselves."
"Even as they’re poorer, Millennials are more materialistic: 81 percent of Americans born during the 1980s say that accruing wealth is among their significant life goals, more than 20 percent higher than previous generations. As a national belief in the collective has given way to an emphasis on the individual, Millennials have had to become less inhibited about the pursuit of self-gain, and more shrewd about how they define themselves."
CNN Business - America's addiction to absurdly fast shipping has a hidden cost
Wired - The Secret Life of the Aluminum Can, a Feat of Engineering
Nautilus - How Will Our Religions Handle the Discovery of Alien Life?
Ideas.Ted - Would you drink desalinated seawater? Recycled sewage water? Get ready to find out
Atlas Obscura - Toys Are Taking Vacations and Seeing the World (Without Their Owners)
The Atlantic - Americans Are Going Bankrupt From Getting Sick
Refinery 29 - This Is What Periods Look Like For Women Around The World
cow pats. women use COW PATS. wow. had no idea that stuff was liquid absorptive.
The Atlantic - Millennial Burnout Is Being Televised
"Which brings us back to the perfectionism study. Millennials, born during the Reagan, Bush Sr., and Clinton presidencies, are the first real babies spawned by neoliberalism and its overarching message of competitive individualism. Curran and Hill wanted to establish whether growing up amid these ideologies made Millennials more likely to be perfectionists, and therefore more likely to be depressed, anxious, unhappy, and dissatisfied with themselves."
"Even as they’re poorer, Millennials are more materialistic: 81 percent of Americans born during the 1980s say that accruing wealth is among their significant life goals, more than 20 percent higher than previous generations. As a national belief in the collective has given way to an emphasis on the individual, Millennials have had to become less inhibited about the pursuit of self-gain, and more shrewd about how they define themselves."
"Even as they’re poorer, Millennials are more materialistic: 81 percent of Americans born during the 1980s say that accruing wealth is among their significant life goals, more than 20 percent higher than previous generations. As a national belief in the collective has given way to an emphasis on the individual, Millennials have had to become less inhibited about the pursuit of self-gain, and more shrewd about how they define themselves."
6.06.2019
june 2019
always be my maybe [2019], wicker park [2004], do i sound gay? [2014], 50/50 [2011], rocket man
BBC - how your looks shape your personality
Atlas Obscura - The Grave of Florence Irene Ford
Greenville News - TAKEN: How police departments make millions by seizing property
The Atlantic - The 5 Years That Changed Dating
The Atlantic - Why It Was Easier to Be Skinny in the 1980s
Atlas Obscura - When the Soviet Union Paid Pepsi in Warships
Atlas Obscura - Why Are There Palm Trees in Los Angeles?
The Guardian - Banned bread: why does the US allow additives that Europe says are unsafe?
Gizmodo - The Ruthless Reality of Amazon's One-Day Shipping"“Jeff Bezos wants Amazon to be the core infrastructure on which everyone depends, and then use this power to exclude competitors and privilege his own businesses,” said Matthew Stoller, a fellow at the anti-monopoly non-profit Open Markets Institute, on Amazon’s business model. “He doesn’t seek to run a business, but to govern all commerce.”
BBC - how your looks shape your personality
Atlas Obscura - The Grave of Florence Irene Ford
Greenville News - TAKEN: How police departments make millions by seizing property
The Atlantic - The 5 Years That Changed Dating
The Atlantic - Why It Was Easier to Be Skinny in the 1980s
Atlas Obscura - When the Soviet Union Paid Pepsi in Warships
Atlas Obscura - Why Are There Palm Trees in Los Angeles?
The Guardian - Banned bread: why does the US allow additives that Europe says are unsafe?
Gizmodo - The Ruthless Reality of Amazon's One-Day Shipping"“Jeff Bezos wants Amazon to be the core infrastructure on which everyone depends, and then use this power to exclude competitors and privilege his own businesses,” said Matthew Stoller, a fellow at the anti-monopoly non-profit Open Markets Institute, on Amazon’s business model. “He doesn’t seek to run a business, but to govern all commerce.”
5.04.2019
may 2019
three identical strangers [2018], i, tonya [2018], ocean's 8 [2018], knock down the house, john wick 3, the heat: a kitchen (r)evolution, losing sight of shore [2017]
Eater - Instagram Food Is a Sad, Sparkly Lie
South China Morning Post - History of pad Thai: how the stir-fried noodle dish was invented by the Thai government
Refinery 29 - Why The Asian-American Food Movement Complicates What We Think About Authenticity
Patheos - The ‘biblical view’ that’s younger than the Happy Meal [about abortion]
Atlas Obscura - ‘Botanical Sexism’ Could Be Behind Your Seasonal Allergies
Mental Floss - The Bizarre Story of Britain's Last Great Auk
Punch - Diagnosing the Tiki Psyche
“It all comes down to the punch formula,” says Berry, referencing the classic Planter’s Punch, a West Indies staple since the colonial era, the components of which are immortalized in a well-trod-out rhyme: one of sou r, two of sweet, three of strong and four of weak. Tiki takes this baseline recipe and fractures each requisite component into multiples of each. It is, as Berry concludes, “a Caribbean drink squared, or cubed.”
New York - How Many Bones Would You Break to Get Laid? “Incels” are going under the knife to reshape their faces, and their dating prospects.
women learn that if you can't get laid, it's your own fault. you're too fat, ugly, desperate, whatever. for men who can't get laid, it's also women's fault. they're too shallow, too much of a gold digger, too haughty, etc. all that being said. this stuff is sad.. incels are sad. whoever's fault, even no one's. it's sad they are so frustrated and are willing to go so far to try to get approval and validation from others.
Medium - Men Cause 100% of Unwanted Pregnancies
Eater - Instagram Food Is a Sad, Sparkly Lie
South China Morning Post - History of pad Thai: how the stir-fried noodle dish was invented by the Thai government
Refinery 29 - Why The Asian-American Food Movement Complicates What We Think About Authenticity
Patheos - The ‘biblical view’ that’s younger than the Happy Meal [about abortion]
Atlas Obscura - ‘Botanical Sexism’ Could Be Behind Your Seasonal Allergies
Mental Floss - The Bizarre Story of Britain's Last Great Auk
Punch - Diagnosing the Tiki Psyche
“It all comes down to the punch formula,” says Berry, referencing the classic Planter’s Punch, a West Indies staple since the colonial era, the components of which are immortalized in a well-trod-out rhyme: one of sou r, two of sweet, three of strong and four of weak. Tiki takes this baseline recipe and fractures each requisite component into multiples of each. It is, as Berry concludes, “a Caribbean drink squared, or cubed.”
New York - How Many Bones Would You Break to Get Laid? “Incels” are going under the knife to reshape their faces, and their dating prospects.
women learn that if you can't get laid, it's your own fault. you're too fat, ugly, desperate, whatever. for men who can't get laid, it's also women's fault. they're too shallow, too much of a gold digger, too haughty, etc. all that being said. this stuff is sad.. incels are sad. whoever's fault, even no one's. it's sad they are so frustrated and are willing to go so far to try to get approval and validation from others.
Medium - Men Cause 100% of Unwanted Pregnancies
4.02.2019
April 2019
blackkklansman [2018], period, end of a sentence [2018], crazy rich asians [2018]
First We Eat - How L.A. Became A Powerhouse for Chinese Food
Bazaar - Men Think They Can't Get a Date Because of Feminism
Market Watch - Ecoanxiety is now a thing -- and it's ruining your sex life
Guardian - Cadbury Dairy Milk: why rounded chunks of chocolate taste sweeter
Pacific Standard - Why Atheists Terrify Believers
Taste - A Bowl of Cut Fruits Is How Asian Moms Say: I Love You
wow, how much extra did nicole's mom love her? peeled grapes?!
InStyle - My Neighbor Told Me to Stop Breastfeeding — Because Her Husband Was Watching
I need to stop feeding my baby the best food I can provide because your husband is a fucking pervert?!
BBC - Why are single women still mistaken for prostitutes?
I have only like once eaten alone in a real restaurant in america. i don't do it because i feel extremely self conscious. why? i really don't know. i see other people eating alone and i either think nothing of it, or i think "wow, that's so awesome; they're so brave." but, SHIT, to be mistaken for a prostitute. if that's not sexism i don't know what is.
Eater - Yelp Reviewers’ Authenticity Fetish Is White Supremacy in Action
when i think authentic, i think flavors. and, honestly, i only feel qualified to rate (other than socal american food) szechuanese food as authentic or not. i've been there to the region a half dozen times, eaten high to low (mostly medium to low, lol), had snacks and meals, altho i've never eaten at a home, so there's that, ha. but seriously, what to most americans, or most people from anywhere, know about what makes food authentic? have you been to that place a lot? did you grow up there? or is most of what you know of that culture and food taken from tv, movies, and tourist ridden vacation spots? i don't think authenticity should be on a rating scale. it practically promotes cultural generalizations and therefore racism.
New York - The Secrets I Keep From My Spouse
“I’ve always stolen small amounts of cash from my husband and hidden it. I once got up to $1,300 and bought a couch.” —Laurel, 65, married 40 years
take this quiz to see what current political candidates you most align with!
https://www.isidewith.com/
First We Eat - How L.A. Became A Powerhouse for Chinese Food
Bazaar - Men Think They Can't Get a Date Because of Feminism
Market Watch - Ecoanxiety is now a thing -- and it's ruining your sex life
Guardian - Cadbury Dairy Milk: why rounded chunks of chocolate taste sweeter
Pacific Standard - Why Atheists Terrify Believers
Taste - A Bowl of Cut Fruits Is How Asian Moms Say: I Love You
wow, how much extra did nicole's mom love her? peeled grapes?!
InStyle - My Neighbor Told Me to Stop Breastfeeding — Because Her Husband Was Watching
I need to stop feeding my baby the best food I can provide because your husband is a fucking pervert?!
BBC - Why are single women still mistaken for prostitutes?
I have only like once eaten alone in a real restaurant in america. i don't do it because i feel extremely self conscious. why? i really don't know. i see other people eating alone and i either think nothing of it, or i think "wow, that's so awesome; they're so brave." but, SHIT, to be mistaken for a prostitute. if that's not sexism i don't know what is.
Eater - Yelp Reviewers’ Authenticity Fetish Is White Supremacy in Action
when i think authentic, i think flavors. and, honestly, i only feel qualified to rate (other than socal american food) szechuanese food as authentic or not. i've been there to the region a half dozen times, eaten high to low (mostly medium to low, lol), had snacks and meals, altho i've never eaten at a home, so there's that, ha. but seriously, what to most americans, or most people from anywhere, know about what makes food authentic? have you been to that place a lot? did you grow up there? or is most of what you know of that culture and food taken from tv, movies, and tourist ridden vacation spots? i don't think authenticity should be on a rating scale. it practically promotes cultural generalizations and therefore racism.
New York - The Secrets I Keep From My Spouse
“I’ve always stolen small amounts of cash from my husband and hidden it. I once got up to $1,300 and bought a couch.” —Laurel, 65, married 40 years
take this quiz to see what current political candidates you most align with!
https://www.isidewith.com/
3.04.2019
march 2019
Lorena [Bobbitt documentary] [2019], Legion [2010]
not much book reading this month; I tried to get thru my article reading list:
Eater - How Influencers on WeChat Are Driving NYC’s Restaurant Scene
City Lab - There’s a Tile Theft Epidemic in Lisbon
The Atlantic - The Murky Ethics of the Ugly-Produce Business
Field Mag - How Social Media Perpetuates Cliché Photography
Good - A 'barefoot runner' complained about acorns in the neighborhood. It did not go over well.
Grub Street - Why Tips Won They’re outdated. They’re discriminatory. And they aren’t going anywhere.
New York Times - How a 9-Year-Old Boy’s Statistic Shaped a Debate on Straws
CNN - Where does fake movie money come from?
NPR - Misophonia: When Life's Noises Drive You Mad (I totally have this. mouth noises, especially from my parents drive me absolutely crazy. I'm not just disgusted; I'm infuriated.)
The Guardian - White gold: the unstoppable rise of alternative milks
"Even so, neo-Nazis continue to push the theory that soya milk is a liberal conspiracy to emasculate men, and drink cow’s milk at rallies to demonstrate “digestive superiority”."
"Many plant milk brands add calcium carbonate – chalk – to make the liquid whiter and more opaque (the calcium content is a happy bonus) but the colouring in these plant milks, Camilla assured me, was natural."
"One issue is environmental: it takes 4.5 litres of water to grow a single almond (technically not a nut, but a seed). In California, which grows eight in 10 of the world’s almond crop, almond growing consumes an estimated 10% of the entire water supply – a controversial issue in a state often afflicted by drought.
"Consumers have also caught on that the actual almond content of most almond milks is minuscule. Both Silk and Alpro contain just 2% almonds. “It’s actually a water-based emulsion that you’re adding oils, a lot of sugar and gums to, and then just adding a couple of nuts on top,” Elmhurst’s Cheryl Mitchell said. “As a business model, it’s great – any time you can sell water, right? That’s essentially what they’re doing.” The industry insiders I spoke to agreed that almond’s moment is over. Right now the real growth is in coconut, and in oat."
Granta - On High Heels and Lotus Feet
"Susan Sontag, writing on women and sickness, noted that frailty and vulnerability had increasingly become an ideal look for women. But this only holds true if the woman can maintain her charms – that is, if she can suffer and be made frail without complaining about it. Women are expected to suffer, must expect suffering, and yet must not speak of it."
not much book reading this month; I tried to get thru my article reading list:
Eater - How Influencers on WeChat Are Driving NYC’s Restaurant Scene
City Lab - There’s a Tile Theft Epidemic in Lisbon
The Atlantic - The Murky Ethics of the Ugly-Produce Business
Field Mag - How Social Media Perpetuates Cliché Photography
Good - A 'barefoot runner' complained about acorns in the neighborhood. It did not go over well.
Grub Street - Why Tips Won They’re outdated. They’re discriminatory. And they aren’t going anywhere.
New York Times - How a 9-Year-Old Boy’s Statistic Shaped a Debate on Straws
CNN - Where does fake movie money come from?
NPR - Misophonia: When Life's Noises Drive You Mad (I totally have this. mouth noises, especially from my parents drive me absolutely crazy. I'm not just disgusted; I'm infuriated.)
The Guardian - White gold: the unstoppable rise of alternative milks
"Even so, neo-Nazis continue to push the theory that soya milk is a liberal conspiracy to emasculate men, and drink cow’s milk at rallies to demonstrate “digestive superiority”."
"Many plant milk brands add calcium carbonate – chalk – to make the liquid whiter and more opaque (the calcium content is a happy bonus) but the colouring in these plant milks, Camilla assured me, was natural."
"One issue is environmental: it takes 4.5 litres of water to grow a single almond (technically not a nut, but a seed). In California, which grows eight in 10 of the world’s almond crop, almond growing consumes an estimated 10% of the entire water supply – a controversial issue in a state often afflicted by drought.
"Consumers have also caught on that the actual almond content of most almond milks is minuscule. Both Silk and Alpro contain just 2% almonds. “It’s actually a water-based emulsion that you’re adding oils, a lot of sugar and gums to, and then just adding a couple of nuts on top,” Elmhurst’s Cheryl Mitchell said. “As a business model, it’s great – any time you can sell water, right? That’s essentially what they’re doing.” The industry insiders I spoke to agreed that almond’s moment is over. Right now the real growth is in coconut, and in oat."
Granta - On High Heels and Lotus Feet
"Susan Sontag, writing on women and sickness, noted that frailty and vulnerability had increasingly become an ideal look for women. But this only holds true if the woman can maintain her charms – that is, if she can suffer and be made frail without complaining about it. Women are expected to suffer, must expect suffering, and yet must not speak of it."
february 2019
no books. Mexico, moving, pops youth summit, etc.
won't you be my neighbor [mr rogers documentary] [2018]
The Atlantic - The ‘g’ in Google’s Old Logo Is Really Weird
The Atlantic - Americans Are Weirdly Obsessed With Paper Towels
City Lab - The Amazing Psychology of Japanese Train Stations
The Guardian - 'Would you be willing?': words to turn a conversation around (and those to avoid)
NY Times - The Itsy-Bitsy, Teenie-Weenie, Very Litigious Bikini
The Guardian - The deadly truth about a world built for men – from stab vests to car crashes
The Atlantic - The Bored Sex
New Yorker - The Best Facts I Learned from Books in 2018
The Atlantic - How to Trick People Into Saving Money
"Americans spent $70 billion on lottery tickets in 2014—an average of about 300 per adult."
won't you be my neighbor [mr rogers documentary] [2018]
The Atlantic - The ‘g’ in Google’s Old Logo Is Really Weird
The Atlantic - Americans Are Weirdly Obsessed With Paper Towels
City Lab - The Amazing Psychology of Japanese Train Stations
The Guardian - 'Would you be willing?': words to turn a conversation around (and those to avoid)
NY Times - The Itsy-Bitsy, Teenie-Weenie, Very Litigious Bikini
The Guardian - The deadly truth about a world built for men – from stab vests to car crashes
The Atlantic - The Bored Sex
New Yorker - The Best Facts I Learned from Books in 2018
The Atlantic - How to Trick People Into Saving Money
"Americans spent $70 billion on lottery tickets in 2014—an average of about 300 per adult."
1.11.2019
january 2019
finished Last Man On Earth series
finished - Christine Kenneally - The Invisible History of the Human Race: How DNA and History Shape Our Identities and Our Futures
Outside - Stop Tossing Your Banana Peel on the Trail
Refinery 29 - Why Married Couples Are Into Cuckolding
New York Times - How ‘Baby, It’s Cold Outside’ Went From Parlor Act to Problematic
CR Fashion Book - Faux Fur is the Latest Runway Fad, But is the Trend Hurting More Than it Helps?
The Atlantic - The Way American Parents Think About Chores Is Bizarre
Taste - Dishwasher Logic
I think we don't use ours because it takes more than a day's meals to fill the machine and of course we only run the machine when full so it seems more sanitary to wash dishes by hand and use the machine as a drying rack. for parties tho, we generally use the machine. we also run it once a month so the water doesn't build up.
finished - Christine Kenneally - The Invisible History of the Human Race: How DNA and History Shape Our Identities and Our Futures
Outside - Stop Tossing Your Banana Peel on the Trail
Refinery 29 - Why Married Couples Are Into Cuckolding
New York Times - How ‘Baby, It’s Cold Outside’ Went From Parlor Act to Problematic
CR Fashion Book - Faux Fur is the Latest Runway Fad, But is the Trend Hurting More Than it Helps?
The Atlantic - The Way American Parents Think About Chores Is Bizarre
Taste - Dishwasher Logic
I think we don't use ours because it takes more than a day's meals to fill the machine and of course we only run the machine when full so it seems more sanitary to wash dishes by hand and use the machine as a drying rack. for parties tho, we generally use the machine. we also run it once a month so the water doesn't build up.
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