Hello lovely email friends. I hope wherever you are the gift of sunshine far outweighs the snag of pollen. I tend to steer well clear of ‘current affairs’ here since there are many better places for them. So where possible I’ve tended not to bring up, y’know, all that has been happening.
But I particularly enjoyed reading Linus Torvalds, the noted Finnish computer scientist, head-on tackling an anti-vax conspiracy theorist on a mailing list discussing the operating system Torvalds founded. It is bristling, as internet-based discussions often are, but it is also the best plain-English explanation of the vaccine I have found.
We’re all going to need to get good at explaining how this stuff works, and Torvalds’ explanation is a good basis. Just as, say, road safety isn’t left solely to vehicle designers, we shouldn’t leave it up to virologists to keep the lunatics at bay. And to that end, here’s A history of FLICC: the 5 techniques of science denial.
🍿 The 25 Most Influential Movie Scenes of the Last 25 Years: Vanity Fair’s film critics pinpointed 25 film scenes since 1995 that changed the industry, the art form, and even the culture, and spoke to the performers and filmmakers who made them happen.
😶 Why Russians do not smile: Cultural differences create a lot of misunderstanding in communications between Westerners and Russians. This mini-ethnography presents the main differences in perception of the smile in Russia and in the West.
⏱ Our Favourite Uses of Typography in Watches: A lovely study of watch-face type; a vital, yet subtle, aspect of how we experience and feel about a timepiece.
🚻 A Guide to Understanding Gender Identity and Pronouns: Proper use of gender identity terms, including pronouns, is a crucial way to signal courtesy and acceptance, comparable to pronouncing a name correctly. NPR has put together a glossary of terms relating to gender identity, with the goal of helping people communicate accurately and respectfully with one another.
🎳 One Man’s Amazing Journey to the Center of the Bowling Ball: Maurice “Mo” Pinel, a star ball designer for the sporting-goods giant AMF, spent a career reshaping the ball’s inner core to harness the power of physics. He revolutionised the sport—and spared no critics along the way.
🐾 Benji Is One Down Dog: Adriene Mishler is YouTube’s best-known yoga teacher. Her silent partner, a blue heeler named Benji, is a very good dog and is now accidentally famous enough to be profiled.
🗺 GeoWizard is a YouTube channel that introduced me to the idea of trying to cross a country in a dead-straight line. Now I’m obsessed with it. Why do humans like straight lines so much?
🎧 Revisiting Marvin Gaye’s “What’s Goin’ On,” and the Album That Opened R&B to Resistance: There’s been many references to the recent 50th anniversary of this album being released, but none I’ve enjoyed more than this. Gaye’s polished public persona was a false front behind which lurked depression and addiction.
📊 Good Slides Reduce Complexity: Having sat through thousands of terrible presentations and committed many hours to the pursuit of not adding any more, a plain-English guide to how to construct a presentation made for a welcome read.
📻 Stewart Lee: Unreliable Narrator: Having Stewart Lee examine the nature of truth has been welcome listening this week, as I lie in a darkened room keeping cool. Of particular note is the tension between our our pursuit for absolute truth and our desire for stories.
🗿 ComputerWorld.Inc is the website of London-based artist Alex Robinson, who has Autistic Spectrum Disorder and uses his art as a form of escapism. If you watched Grayson Perry’s Art Club, you too may have been captivated by Robinson’s imaginative and vivid modelling-clay characters, some of which are available to buy.
🧑🍳 A good thread of hardworking vegetarian cookbooks: I try not to link to Twitter but this is a thread that warrants suspending that rule.
👩🚀 How astronauts handle menstruation: And if I’m going to break my own Twitter embargo then here’s another blinding thread.