My weekly collection–running a little late this week–of the provocative, intriguing, or curious, in a world where the house is falling down. The contextual, the cultural, and other things that catch my eye.
Photo by Thomas Hawk via Creative Commons (CC BY-NC 2.0)
- Narratives shape the way we understand events. But a narrative isn’t just a story. It involves values. Related: Bullshit is more toxic for politics than lying.
- We still put up with bad bosses. Maybe we need to start calling them out. (Part of a whole week of articles on this theme.)
- A good starter guide to biohacking. DIY experiments on your own body might not be to everyone’s taste.
- It’s time for planet-friendly fashion. But the fashion industry will have tochange its worldview first.
- Cars are getting safer. But the number of crashes is increasing. Guess what? The people who get hurt aren’t the car drivers.
- November 2019 is the month in which the original Blade Runner film was set. The Radio 3 podcast The Essay marked the occasion with a set of five short talks. I’d start with the one that riffs off the replicants to talk about robots and ethics. (14 minutes)
- Terry O’Neill spent 50 years photographing cultural glamour and political power. Some of the photos in this gallery are just stunning.
Housekeeping: The full length versions of the East German punk songs in the podcast mentioned last week can be heard here. (Thanks to Peter Curry)
“The whole world’s at sixes and sevens, and why the house hasn’t fallen down about our ears long ago is a miracle to me.” (Thornton Wilder)
the next wave