Long [-ish] reads
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- grafician0
Unexpected but this was good:
"We have seen a lot this year. After curating and sharing 2,411 links with 358,917 designers all around the world, we have identified a few of the trends our industry has been writing, talking, and thinking about. Here’s what to expect for UX in 2020."
- imbecile0
‘We Kill People Based on Metadata’ (2014)
https://www.nybooks.com/daily/20…
Supporters of the National Security Agency inevitably defend its sweeping collection of phone and Internet records on the ground that it is only collecting so-called “metadata”—who you call, when you call, how long you talk. Since this does not include the actual content of the communications, the threat to privacy is said to be negligible. That argument is profoundly misleading.
- Nairn1
'I see pitchforks'
— Nick Hanauer (early Amazon investor, part of the 0.1%)https://www.politico.com/magazin… (2014)
'You show me a highly unequal society, and I will show you a police state. Or an uprising.'
- imbecile2
Joe Arridy Was the Happiest Man on Death Row
https://www.westword.com/news/jo…
Joe Arridy didn't ask for a last meal. It's doubtful that he even understood the concept. He was 23 years old and had an IQ of 46. He knew about eating and playing and trains, things you could see and smell and experience. But abstractions, like God and justice and evil, eluded him.
- webazoot1
Do You Want To Produce Music Or Run A Tape Machine Museum?
Here at ATA Records we pride ourselves on the methods that we have chosen to make our music, mainly recording analog to tape and pressing up vinyl. Not only are we recording to tape we are using the equipment that sonically best represents the style of music we are recording. This involves a lot of vintage recording equipment and with that comes many hurdles.
- grafician0
"The Greatest Privilege We Never Talk About: Beauty"
"The benefits of being attractive are exorbitant. Beauty might be the single greatest physical advantage you can have in life*. And yet compared to other other privileges that may arise from race, gender, or sexuality, we don’t talk much about it."
https://medium.com/@sfard/the-gr…
"Attractive people are more likely to be seen as competent and be hired for a job (Busetta, 2013). They are perceived as smarter and having more social grace (Kanasawa, 2010). They are perceived to have better personality qualities like trustworthiness (Dewolf 2014). They are perceived as kinder (Snyder, Tanke and Berscheid 1977). They are more persuasive. They are more likely to benefit from acts of kindness from a stranger. They have greater self esteem (Thornton, 1991)."
- grafician0
"Covid Conversations With One of America’s Richest Men
How a pandemic unfolds when you’re a Wall Street billionaire."
- grafician2
The Last Question by Isaac Asimov © 1956
- Nairn1
^
Great wee tale - in a slightly similar vein (in that it's not at all), The Star by Arthur C Clarke:
- grafician-1
"How To Raise An Alien"
"(a short story)
by Byron Quandary
https://medium.com/@byronquandar…
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Lovely short story, found on twitter today...
- noRGB2
This is my favorite thread here in a while. Keep me coming, chaps.
- Bennn1
Really captivating story of a hiker who died on the AT in 2017, he's still unidentified to this day... just start reading the article, its like a true crime series on Netflix
- grafician-1
The Egg
By: Andy Weir
"You were on your way home when you died.
It was a car accident. Nothing particularly remarkable, but fatal nonetheless. You left behind a wife and two children. It was a painless death. The EMTs tried their best to save you, but to no avail. Your body was so utterly shattered you were better off, trust me.
And that’s when you met me.
“What... what happened?” You asked. “Where am I?”
“You died,” I said, matter-of-factly. No point in mincing words.
“There was a... a truck and it was skidding...”
“Yup,” I said.
“I... I died?”
“Yup. But don’t feel bad about it. Everyone dies,” I said.
You looked around. There was nothingness. Just you and me. “What is this place?” You asked. “Is this the afterlife?”
“More or less,” I said.
“Are you god?” You asked.
“Yup,” I replied. “I’m God.”
“My kids... my wife,” you said.
“What about them?”
“Will they be all right?”
“That’s what I like to see,” I said. “You just died and your main concern is for your family. That’s good stuff right there.”
You looked at me with fascination. To you, I didn’t look like God. I just looked like some man. Or possibly a woman. Some vague authority figure, maybe. More of a grammar school teacher than the almighty.
“Don’t worry,” I said. “They’ll be fine. Your kids will remember you as perfect in every way. They didn’t have time to grow contempt for you. Your wife will cry on the outside, but will be secretly relieved. To be fair, your marriage was falling apart. If it’s any consolation, she’ll feel very guilty for feeling relieved.”
“Oh,” you said. “So what happens now? Do I go to heaven or hell or something?”
“Neither,” I said. “You’ll be reincarnated.”
“Ah,” you said. “So the Hindus were right,”
“All religions are right in their own way,” I said. “Walk with me.”
You followed along as we strode through the void. “Where are we going?”
“Nowhere in particular,” I said. “It’s just nice to walk while we talk.”
“So what’s the point, then?” You asked. “When I get reborn, I’ll just be a blank slate, right? A baby. So all my experiences and everything I did in this life won’t matter.”
“Not so!” I said. “You have within you all the knowledge and experiences of all your past lives. You just don’t remember them right now.”
I stopped walking and took you by the shoulders. “Your soul is more magnificent, beautiful, and gigantic than you can possibly imagine. A human mind can only contain a tiny fraction of what you are. It’s like sticking your finger in a glass of water to see if it’s hot or cold. You put a tiny part of yourself into the vessel, and when you bring it back out, you’ve gained all the experiences it had.
“You’ve been in a human for the last 48 years, so you haven’t stretched out yet and felt the rest of your immense consciousness. If we hung out here for long enough, you’d start remembering everything. But there’s no point to doing that between each life.”
“How many times have I been reincarnated, then?”
“Oh lots. Lots and lots. An in to lots of different lives.” I said. “This time around, you’ll be a Chinese peasant girl in 540 AD.”
“Wait, what?” You stammered. “You’re sending me back in time?”
“Well, I guess technically. Time, as you know it, only exists in your universe. Things are different where I come from.”
“Where you come from?” You said.
“Oh sure,” I explained “I come from somewhere. Somewhere else. And there are others like me. I know you’ll want to know what it’s like there, but honestly you wouldn’t understand.”
“Oh,” you said, a little let down. “But wait. If I get reincarnated to other places in time, I could have interacted with myself at some point.”
“Sure. Happens all the time. And with both lives only aware of their own lifespan you don’t even know it’s happening.”
“So what’s the point of it all?”
“Seriously?” I asked. “Seriously? You’re asking me for the meaning of life? Isn’t that a little stereotypical?”
“Well it’s a reasonable question,” you persisted.
I looked you in the eye. “The meaning of life, the reason I made this whole universe, is for you to mature.”
“You mean mankind? You want us to mature?”
“No, just you. I made this whole universe for you. With each new life you grow and mature and become a larger and greater intellect.”
“Just me? What about everyone else?”
“There is no one else,” I said. “In this universe, there’s just you and me.”
You stared blankly at me. “But all the people on earth...”
“All you. Different incarnations of you.”
“Wait. I’m everyone!?”
“Now you’re getting it,” I said, with a congratulatory slap on the back.
“I’m every human being who ever lived?”
“Or who will ever live, yes.”
“I’m Abraham Lincoln?”
“And you’re John Wilkes Booth, too,” I added.
“I’m Hitler?” You said, appalled.
“And you’re the millions he killed.”
“I’m Jesus?”
“And you’re everyone who followed him.”
You fell silent.
“Every time you victimized someone,” I said, “you were victimizing yourself. Every act of kindness you’ve done, you’ve done to yourself. Every happy and sad moment ever experienced by any human was, or will be, experienced by you.”
You thought for a long time.
“Why?” You asked me. “Why do all this?”
“Because someday, you will become like me. Because that’s what you are. You’re one of my kind. You’re my child.”
“Whoa,” you said, incredulous. “You mean I’m a god?”
“No. Not yet. You’re a fetus. You’re still growing. Once you’ve lived every human life throughout all time, you will have grown enough to be born.”
“So the whole universe,” you said, “it’s just...”
“An egg.” I answered. “Now it’s time for you to move on to your next life.”
And I sent you on your way."
- dkoblesky0
McKay Coppins is one of my favorite writers. Everything he writes is a pleasure to read.
- renderedred0
67 Years of Lego Sets
- renderedred0
Gulf slave society
The glittering city-states of the Persian Gulf fit the classicist Moses Finley’s criteria of genuine slave societies- Do you read HackerNews, rendererered?Nairn
- sometimes, yes.renderedred
- but i do follow a few fairly obscure link-longs for interesting articlesrenderedred