Five Things: Smartphone, Climate Science, Snap, Originalism, Skydiving
Hi and welcome back to Five Things! If you don’t remember why you subscribed or just somehow got here: my name is Nico Lumma, I read a lot online and I like to share the five most interesting articles with you, my esteemed readers. If you haven’t subscribed yet or if you finally decided to go paid, please do so now!
There’s one tradition at my family that I tried to pass on from my mother and it somehow worked, at least a little. My mother always made marble cake for my brother’s and my birthdays. I made marble cake for my family a few times, but neither my kids nor my wife seemed to be too thrilled about it. So when I turned 52 on Wednesday, I got a marble cake from my wife and one of my daughters and we all ate it. What a wonderful tradition, I’m happy that it stays in the family.
My wife and I also embarked on an expedition again, which has been a tradition in our family for over two decades now. We tried to buy sandals for our youngest daughter just before summer starts. Like we also try to buy winter clothes just before winter starts. AND NOT 3 MONTHS EARLIER WHEN THE STORES HAVE THEM IN STOCK! I will never forget that one winter when all of a sudden the temperatures dropped and we had snow and a real winter and all that and all the snow pants were sold out in stores and online. It was so bizarre. Why did people buy snowpants during fall? Just to stash them away for a few months? The crappy warm April weather with lots of rain and storm is supposed to be over and we need to get some sandals. I spent my Saturday zigzagging across town to find something that our daughter likes and that my wife approves of. This is complicated enough as it is, but when there’s hardly any sandals anymore to find in her size, it’s an impossible task. Soon we will have winterboots in the stores again and then we’ll wait until winter is here until we go out to try to by them for our kids. I’m so looking forward to this. Did I ever mention that I truly like online shopping?
Quick reminder: it’s my birthday week and there is a smashing 52% discount on paid subscriptions! So, why wait? Celebrate with me! ?? Today is the last day for the discount, so hurry up!
Here are the five articles I picked out this week! Enjoy!
This Irresistible Revolution
“Do you remember what it was like to wake up before you had a smartphone? For me, it happened either slowly or all at once: perhaps I would smile at my wife, say something sweet or ridiculous to her, judge the light through the window; alternatively, if I had to get up quick, I’d jump up and take the dog outside, shoulders squared against the weather. Now I wake up in exactly one way every day: I reach for my phone.” - hmm, maybe I should get an alarm clock again.
The Weatherman Who Tried to Bring Climate Science to a Red State
We are giving the climate change deniers too much attention. Science needs to prevail and we cannot afford scientific evidence as politics. This story happened in Iowa, which is near to my heart.
领英推荐
Inside Snapchat’s Teen Opioid Crisis
I never warmed up to Snap and honestly it hasn’t been on my radar for a while. I can see how disappearing messages and location awareness can be used for pushing drugs. This is scary stuff.
“Historical Fanfiction.” The Deceptive, Dangerous Simplicity of Originalism in American Politics
“Despite originalism’s reputation as a serious intellectual theory, it’s more like dream logic: it seems reasonable at first, but when you wake up, you can recognize it as nonsense. Originalism deliberately overemphasizes a particular version of history that treats the civil-rights gains won over time as categorically suspect.” - this is a wonderful teardown of the conservative argument to interpret the US Constitution as something that should be stuck in time.
I jumped from a plane – and my parachute failed. As I hurtled towards earth, I felt oddly calm
The horror. And two years later she went sky diving again. What a story.