The Reading List, Second Half of 2011 Edition
I won’t explain why this took so long, but let’s just say i’m in the process of catching up with lots of stuff i wanted to post here but never came around to.
First step: Catching up on The Reading List, a (supposedly) monthly collection of articles i particularly enjoyed reading that month. Except this time around, it’s stuff i particularly enjoyed reading in the second half of 2011:
- Spacesuit: An Interview with Nicholas De Monchaux. On the history of the spacesuit, by Geoff Manaugh. One of the best pieces of tech writing in 2011. Not to be missed.
- Getting Bin Laden – What happened that night in Abbottabad: A thrilling account of the mission to kill Osama Bin Laden.
- The History of Dialogue: Other People’s Papers. Fascinating dialogue between a university lecturer and a ghostwriter who’s written over 100 papers for pay.
- Looking for Someone – Sex, love, and loneliness on the Internet: The New Yorker examines the state (and state-of-the-art) of online dating.
- Dead is just dead: Sean Bonner recounts his suicide attempt as a twelve years old.
- Cities in Fact and Fiction: Scientific American interviews William Gibson.
- If Your Website’s Full of Assholes, It’s Your Fault: Anil Dash on the responsibility of website operators to maintain a civilized ground for discussion and community.
- Big Brother isn’t watching you: Russell Brand on the London riots in August 2011. Shame on me, i had almost forgotten about those by now.
- The Possibilian – What a brush with death taught David Eagleman about the mysteries of time and the brain: David Eagleman researches our perception of time.
- Health Now: A Provocation. A critical look at the common obsession with health as an end in itself.
- The Age of Mechanical Reproduction: Paul Ford shares the story of conceiving their child through in-vitro fertilization. He’s a terrific writer.
- The Insidious Evils of ‘Like’ Culture: Seems almost unbelievable today that Facebook introduced its like-buttons only in 2009.
- The Year of Wonders: Alex Shakar shares the story of how his first novel, The Savage Girl, bombed despite critical accolade. Maybe i’m a little slow, but i didn’t see that end coming…
- Rebuild: Regarding Clones. Northway Games discusses the seemingly growing problem of game clones, with many interesting examples.
- The Psychology of Nakedness: How a little nakedness changes our perception of other people.
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