- “Be Normal At Dinner:” On Geniuses, Lovers, and The Asks We Make of Both: This I like so very much.
- Overkill: “An avalanche of unnecessary medical care is harming patients physically and financially. What can we do about it?” Fascinating.
- Here are 5 American sex norms Europeans think are crazy: Conclusion: America needs more hugs, more boobies, and more intact penises. I agree.
- Changing genders at work: Inside the Fortune 500′s quiet transgender revolution: I love how many businesses did this on their own, as a matter of treating their employees well.
- Kareem Abdul-Jabbar: Body Shaming Black Female Athletes Is Not Just About Race: This is excellent.
- Equestrian Cards Against Humanity: These are hysterical!
- 100 Years of Men’s Swimwear in 3 Minutes: For that kind of body, it’s all downhill after the 1970s!
- Romantic kissing is not the norm in most cultures: Here is the definitive proof that cultural relativism is wrong… because kissing is AWESOME.
- The 50 States Of America If They Were Actually People In A Bar: Colorado is perfect: “Colorado is a beautiful, perfectly athletic couple wearing all Patagonia, drinking craft beer talking about their last mountaineering trip, with an air of aloofness.” Yeah, that’s us.
- My Private Shame: Am I Too Much for Other People?: I recognize that I am too much for most other people, and that’s part of why I look for friends among people who are themselves even more than me.
Aug 072015
Jul 172015
- ‘I’ve Never Thanked My Parents for Anything’: A fascinating look at the meaning of “thank you” in India versus America. I try to never say “thank you” in a perfunctory way: actually feeling the gratitude helps make me a more benevolent person.
- I Tried to Sext the Most Famous Male Porn Star and This Is What He Sent Me Back: This is funny and cute and remarkably tame.
- The Great Suspender: All of my problems with Chrome chewing up memory have been solved by this extension, which suspends pages not in use after a certain time period.
- Be Kind: “Being kind is fundamentally about taking responsibility for your impact on the people around you. It requires you be mindful of their feelings and considerate of the way your presence affects them.”
- No, you may not clear my plate: This complaint is odd, because I’d really prefer not to have empty dishes sitting in front of me for 20 minutes while I wait for my slow-eating friends to finish their meal. To me, clearing the empty plates makes me feel like I can relax more comfortably and hence, not secretly wish those friends to be done right the heck now.
- Driving advice from a trauma surgeon: I like a comment that Chris Land made about driving safety at SnowCon, namely that he reminds himself whenever he gets into his car that this is the most dangerous thing he does in any given day. For me, that’s true… and that’s saying something.
- An interview with the Baltimore cop who’s revealing all the horrible things he saw on the job: Well worth a read.
- There’s a single nerve that connects all of your vital organs — and it might just be the future of medicine: Fascinating!
- When an Open Relationship Comes at a Price: This is remarkably good… because the message is more complex than the headline suggests, thank goodness.
- Tell Culture: LIKE LIKE LIKE!
Jun 192015
- Code Words For “Gay” In Classic Films: Um… wow. Oh, and see also Code Words For Lesbianism In Classic Films.
- Millennials Are Destroying Banks, And It’s The Banks’ Fault: I’m pretty excited about the new financial services that we’re seeing out of the tech community.
- These Words Would Knock Your State Out Of the National Spelling Bee: Really, people? Is grey/gray so damn hard to spell?!?
- Friday Food Post: The Fairy Tale of Grandma’s Cooking: True, but not a refutation of an evolutionary perspective on diet and definitely not an excuse for eating a crap diet of PopTarts, HotPockets, and GoGurt.
- Secretariat – Belmont Stakes – 1973: Given the difficulty of the Belmont, this is just an amazing win.
- Love and Joy: The Metamorphosis of a Friendship: A very powerful story abour friendship.
- ‘Primates of Park Avenue,’ Stranger Than Nonfiction: Necessity might not be the mother of invention after all…
- The Day I Pooped My Closet: Awful and hysterical… and just the perfect antidote for self-pity!
- LeBron James’ unfathomable workload: Oh wow, this is a fascinating look into recovery and high-performance sports.
May 292015
- Our Police Union Problem: I’m so glad that these points are being raised.
- The King Of Man Buns Has Been Found: Oh!
- Rider Falls Off And Horse Goes On To Jump SUV: “Hey, it’s just a big table!” said the horse.
- Pamela Geller is a Terrible Poster Child for Free Speech—and Against Islamist Extremism: Cathy Young makes a persuasive case.
- Anatomy Of Error: A surgeon remembers his mistakes: So powerful.
- Fleur De Lis Sticks A One-Leg Landing At Jersey Fresh: WOW. What a save!
- Because we’ve all been there…: And with this, the sport of “horse vaulting” was invented!
- U.S. Supreme Court is asked to shield major donors in California: Wow, this is a super big deal for the Center for Competitive Politics.
- Poor Little Rich Women: WOAH.
May 082015
- Few Conservatives Take Police Abuses Seriously: Conor Friedersdorf pens yet another excellent article… conservatives, take note!
- How successful people work less—and get more done: This article has some really excellent suggestions.
- Jeremy Renner sings about his Hawkeye feelings on The Tonight Show: Hysterical! I love Jeremy Renner. See The Hurt Locker if you haven’t already!
- I’m Too Good For You, And Other Lies: A good article on the value of experts teaching beginners… and not just for riding horses.
- Map: The strange things people Google in every state: Uh, so not surprised by Colorado… or California… or many of the others…
- Debunking the Myth of the 10,000-Hours Rule: What It Actually Takes to Reach Genius-Level Excellence: This concept of “deliberate practice” make such a huge difference in the development of (horse) riding skills, and I’m glad that’s something that Martha Deeds and Eric Horgan emphasize in their training. Personally, I’ve found that I can make remarkably good progress in matters like my body position without doing serious work in the ring, so long as I work on it consistently while supposedly relaxing out on hacks. (The same applies to Lila too: I can’t just let her plod along.) But if I’m careless about such things, we’re in trouble in short order.
- South Carolina Prosecutors Say Stand Your Ground Doesn’t Apply To Victims Of Domestic Violence: Wow, this is a place where feminists and gun rights advocates need to come together.
- I Thought Legalizing Pot Would Be a Disaster. But It Turned Out To Be Wonderful: Hear, Hear!
- When violence and lawlessness are acceptable: Radley Balko talks about the evil of tolerating violence and lawlessness by cops.
- The Not-To-Do List: 9 Habits to Stop Now: As it happens, I do a bunch of these things on the list, but that’s because I’ve already established that they don’t screw with my productivity or peace of mind. Still, it’s a good list.
May 012015
- Physician Specialty Google Autocomplete: These are so perfect!
- Can 80 Yelpers be wrong?: “The garlic-cream sauce draped over flabby, overcooked cheese ravioli was chunky and lukewarm; if there was garlic in the sauce, only a beagle could detect it. The gnocchi was a mountain of gluey pasta covered in a meat sauce many degrees shy of hot; the gnocchi sat on the plate, solid and immovable, as if molded from clay. The lobster ravioli came stuffed with a stringy mixture speckled with tiny dices of the advertised crustacean but tasting more like crab sticks.”
- 10 Uncommon Habits of Extraordinarily Productive People: Some good suggestions here!
- Behind The Photo That Changed The Boston Marathon Forever: What a story… and what a woman! Thank goodness that the world has changed!
- Jason Warnock Identified as Mystery Man Who Rescued Driver From Cliff’s Edge: WOW.
- The Ellen Show: The Unbelievably Hilarious Amy Schumer: Hysterical.
- Economist Deirdre McCloskey: playing both sides of the street: “Some time after her gender change McCloskey was in a meeting of economists — all men except for her — and made a point that everyone ignored. “Two minutes later a guy named George made an identical point and all the men turned to him and said “That’s a great point George, you ought to write an article about that” and I said to myself “Yes! They are treating me like a woman. It was the first, and I should say the last, time I enjoyed that experience.” She sounds like a pretty interesting woman.
- An “easy” answer to the infamous Monty Hall problem: I’ve been thinking and reading about the Monty Hall problem lately… and I’ve been unsatisfied with the standard explanations. I like Sasha’s take here.
- The Book of Nature: It’s an 1861 manual on sex and procreation… which is fascinating.
Apr 242015
- 22 Things You Never Knew You Needed To Know: Fun “how stuff works” animated gifs!
- Cruz’s Constant References to Jesus Drive Millions to Atheism: Andy Borowitz strikes again!
- 7 Tips on Dating an Equestrian: These are all pretty hilarious (and true!) but this takes the cake: “You may think based on all the research and Instagram posts on Equestrians you follow that riding is exclusively a summer sport. To which I say HA! You’re sadly mistaken. Prepare yourself with proper footwear, jackets/sweaters and even your best friend’s scooby doo blanket that was left in the back of your car. Bonus tip, if someone hands you a cooler off their horse, WEAR IT. It might stink and be full of hair but if you’re cold, wearing one of those does the trick.” Seriously, that’s good advice!
- Apocalyptic Schadenfreude: This is a fascinating article on the causes of the water crisis in California. Hint: “California is running through its water supply because, for complicated historical and climatological reasons, it has taken on the burden of feeding the rest of the country.”
- Right Side of the Law: Eugene Volokh’s Global Influence: Wow, what a great article on Eugene Volokh!
- The 21 Most (and Least) Trusted Companies in the US: It’s interesting to see whole industries dominating the top and the bottom. Methinks government involvement has something to do with that.
- SMBC on Tech Support for Analytical Engines: Ah, I feel his pain.
- Why I Wear the Exact Same Thing to Work Every Day: I’ve been thinking about radically simplifying my life of late, and this is very appealing to me.
- The 29 Most Awkward Breakups To Go Down On Facebook: These are terrible, and I’m a terrible person for finding so many of them hysterical.
Apr 032015
- 49 Maps That Explain The USA: Some of these are pretty cool!
- Terrible Guitarist Mistreats His Cat, Is Repaid with a Flower Pot to the Head: Sweet justice!
- Store owner forgets to lock up, customers respond in the most Canadian way: I particularly like the person who put up the closed sign.
- The Will to Walk Away: THIS. Even at the lowest levels, the horse has to really want to go XC. If your horse isn’t eager to go, that’s because either (1) his temperament is just not suited to the discipline, (2) he’s been trained in such a way that all the joy (and initiative) has been sucked out of XC for him, (3) he’s not comfortable and confident at this level, or (4) ???. Whatever the reason, it’s time to rethink what you’re doing, whatever level you’re at.
- Fox Village In Japan Is Probably The Cutest Place On Earth: Some of these pictures are fabulous.
- We’re asking the wrong question about police shootings: Radley Balko scores again.
- When You Are Tightly Wound: It’s not just about parenting, although wow, kids are hard.
- Someone Combined the Two Worst Fonts in Existence: Comic Papyrus!
- Martha Stewart Is a Beast at Roasting: OMG, this is amazing. So perfect.
- The Top Killers For Each Season Of ‘The Walking Dead’: Yikes!
Mar 272015
- Terence Tao: the Mozart of maths: I love that Terry Tao is crazy brilliant, yet very normal and well-grounded. (Pathological genius is just so sad to me.)
- Wikimedia Foundation and 8 other organizations sue NSA and DOJ over mass surveillance: YES!
- When Your Punctuation Says It All (!): I have my own ever-evolving style, and I wonder if I could tease out its meaning properly.
- How to Parent Like a German: Some of these suggestions are excellent!
- What Happened When I Yelled Back at the “Christians” Calling My Wife a Murderer: Very powerful.
- CEO’s Near-Death Experience: After watching this video, I think that Blake Scholl needs a shirt that says “I do my own stunts.” Now that I think about it, I need such a shirt too. :-)
- The Next Time You Want to Unload Your Problems, Think About This: Take a moment to consider: you have a choice of what kind of person to be…
- Ayn Rand Haters Will Hate: This is shockingly good for HuffPo.
- If Neil Patrick Harris Is a “Parent from Hell” I Guess We All Are: I just looked at the pictures of NPH… and heaven forbid, he’s positively glowering at those poor innocent children!!! All of my illusions are now shattered!!! THE HORROR!!
Mar 062015
- Darwin’s Kids Doodled All Over His “Origin of Species” Manuscript: “We may have Charles Darwin’s children to thank for the surviving handwritten pages of the naturalist’s “On the Origin of Species” manuscript. Most of the original 600 pages are lost, and of the 45 pages that exist today, many were repurposed by Darwin’s brood of 10 children as art supplies.” Wonderful!
- Why women leave men they love – What every man needs to know: The roles are often reversed here, so people of any sex might want to take a read.
- ‘Guy Took My Spot … So I Put the Snow Back’: Ah, sweet justice!
- “I Got The Swimsuit Issue Cover By Making It Look Like I’m About To Show You My Pussy,” An Interview with Hannah Davis: Best satire I’ve read in a loooong time!
- Veteran on ‘American Sniper’: The Lies Chris Kyle Told Are Less Dangerous Than the Lies He Believed: I saw “American Sniper” recently, and while I enjoyed the movie quite a bit, I have some serious qualms about its portrayal of the war, its soldiers, etc. Some of those are well-articulated in this article.
- How Uber’s Autonomous Cars Will Destroy 10 Million Jobs And Reshape The Economy by 2025: This is pretty exciting, and I’d love nothing better than a self-driving car. However, I’m amused by how often city people tend to forget that lots of people don’t live in cities. It’s not just that people in rural areas live far enough apart to make things like car sharing and taxis wholly impracticable… it’s that rural people often have uses for vehicles that city people don’t — in my case, towing horses in a horse trailer, transporting hay and grain, etc. Also, I’ve yet to see any discussions of the potential impacts of driverless vehicles on commercial trucking, but that could be quite interesting.
- Guardians of the Galaxy Director James Gunn Reacts To The Oscars’ Superhero Shaming: Wonderful.
- Danish “Archer” Demonstrates Gullibility of Audience: Perhaps that video that I posted two weeks ago wasn’t quite so interesting after all…
- Coke, Nutella, Mentos And A Condom Make For One Exciting Experiment: I’m really pretty impressed by the durability of the condom, I have to say.