::: Recommended Podcasts Episodes :::
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Check out LifeKit’s ‘How to tell your own story’
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Particularly enjoyed the last 15-minutes or so of The Gray Area’s episode, “Is the journey to self-discovery pointless?”
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DPLA Launches ‘Geo-targeted’ Banned Book Club via Palace E-book App (Publisher’s Weekly)
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“What it means to be in the Black community is to be hit first and worst.” (Fresh Air, The History of The Crack Era From People Who Lived Through It)
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::: The Arts & The Literary World:::
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Considerations about why no one has written a biography of Bolaño… yet. (LitHub)
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The kind of list guaranteed to piss off, frankly, most of us.
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Is Shein stealing artist’s work?
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Unfortunately, I can’t remember too much from Old English class…
Did we read Beowulf in Old English? Yes, yes we did.
A researcher found an old medieval manuscript and it’s pretty funny
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::: Small Explorations & Deep Dives :::
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Does silence have a sound? Scientists say “Yes!”
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Watch Chipotle's Guacamole Robot Peel and Core 25 lbs of Avocados
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The O.C.’s Ben McKenzie took a deep dive into the debunking crypto scams
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Ryan, I mean, Ben… of course, Ben… joined Planet Money’s The Indicator to discuss the crypto market and his new book. (worth a 10-minute listen)
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Neuroscience Helps Explain Why Warren Buffett's Weird Calendar Habit Is So Effective (INC.)
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Artist builds ‘fantastical’ city by hand in upstate New York woods
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Would you buy fish from an ATM?
Ok… so it’s more of a vending machine. But still…
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Some of the U.S.’s favorite cities in 2023
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Devastating.
A fire killed nearly every animal at a Florida wildlife center
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The workers at the frontlines of the AI revolution
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A third of US deer have had COVID (Ars Technica)
“New study builds on data suggesting white-tailed deer could be a virus reservoir.”
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2023 is apparently the 50th anniversary of (at least some version of) mobile phones. Yikes.
We all know when things really started to get ugly though…
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“Invasive” (but CUTE!) rabbit takeover!
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Caribbean Bats Would Need 8 Million Years to Recover from Extinctions
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This list is frankly shocking…
I disagree in many ways…
Americans continue to disappoint…
“Every State’s Favorite American Tourist Attraction, Based on Millions of Reviews”
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“There are other countries that have a healthier relationship to the narrative of progress; there are countries where they have much healthier attitudes toward work than we have in the U.S.
[from] “We Have Built a Giant Treadmill That We Can’t Get Off”: Sci-Fi Prophet Ted Chiang on How to Best Think About AI” (Vanity Fair)
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Bloomberg projects half the world’s buses will be battery-powered by 2032.
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But imagine if people did?
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West Virginia ranks first as the deadliest state
Sadly… not a surprise at all.
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Do Conservatives or Liberals complain more in service situations? (PsyPost)
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Who cares if it’s Made in America (or China)?
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This is wrong:
A mom owed nearly $102000 for her son's stay in a state mental health hospital
We urgently need to fix our broken healthcare (which includes mental healthcare) system.
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I lost my job to ChatGPT and was made obsolete
The fear.
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Singapore's passport gives the most access
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Haptic suits give deaf people a new way to feel live music
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In terrifying & dystopian news…
Amazon’s palm-scanning payment technology is coming to all 500+ Whole Foods
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It’s a brave new world.
Belief in Five Spiritual Entities Edges Down to New Lows
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“We were grabbing the white flakes, and putting it all over ourselves, pressing it on our faces,” Kent said. “But the strange thing, instead of being cold like snow, it was hot. And we all thought, ‘Well, the reason it’s hot is because it’s summer.’ We were only thirteen; we didn’t know any better.” (Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists)
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“Why should a developer care if there is street life? I turn left and walk under a highway overpass and approach the rangy back edge of our neighborhood CVS. What does CVS stand for? No one seems to know. Everything you might want to buy there is now locked up, and you have to press what feels like a panic button to get access to the shelves.”
“Remember how outraged everyone was to discover that the author JT LeRoy, supposedly an ethereal rent boy/lot lizard, was actually a middle-aged woman? They acted like this was the ultimate con, something ugly and counterfeit masquerading as something genuine and tragic and hot. Meanwhile, Elena Ferrante is purporting to be a middle-aged woman. What if she’s a teen boy turning tricks in parking lots? I think, as I turn out of the lot and go right on Sunset.”
“I think I know eighteen Joshes. No offense to any of them; I too have a common name and would wager the Josh could have been called the Rachel in the blink of an eye.”
– Rachel Kushner (Street Life, Harper’s)
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Is Fashion Nova Fast Fashion? Why This Brand Is An Ethical And Environmental Disaster (The Zillennial Zine)
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What is a microtrend?
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795,000 Americans a year die or are permanently disabled after being misdiagnosed
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