Riveting story by Michael J. Mooney over at D magazine, about one of the most incredible nights of bowling you’ll ever read about. Not gonna lie; this story made me pretty emotional. Underdog sports stories are a weak spot of mine, but even I wasn’t prepared for how this story would end…
interesting
There are 92 posts filed in interesting (this is page 9 of 12).
Designing a Public Toilet That Lasts
Fascinating story about why Portland’s public toilets are among the best:
On Jan. 31, Portland officials will christen the city’s fifth loo, at NW Couch St. and 8th Ave., with an inaugural flush. With inspirational artwork furnished by students at the nearby Emerson elementary school, it could be the most popular yet. But how did these sleek compartments of metal and plastic, which may smell slightly of urine, become a cult hit among Portland’s bathroom aficionados?
Simple: They’re not as crappy as other cities’ toilets.
My Favorite Longreads of 2011
I spend a lot of time reading, whether on the internet or on my Kindle through Instapaper. The latter is an activity I heartily recommend for anyone.
This year, a myriad of compelling, informative, moving longform content was published online, available for free. Here are some of the pieces I found the most interesting. As some of these cover some pretty dark territory, I certainly didn’t “enjoy” reading them all, but if they’re on this list, I found them to be works worthy of your attention. Many of them have significantly changed how I think about the topics they cover, which I believe to be a sign of any well-written content:
How 480 Characters Unraveled My Career – Nir Rosen’s apologia explains how a few careless tweets destroyed everything he’d been working towards for years.
Our Desperate, 250-Year-Long Search for a Gender-Neutral Pronoun – Maria Bustillos breaks out her forensic grammarian hat over at The Awl.
Leaving in a Huff – Eric D. Snider reconstructs the Moviefone meltdown with hilarity and truth.
The Sad Beautiful Fact That We’re Going to Miss Almost Everything – Linda Holmes presents the ultimate conundrum of following pop culture.
Our Universities: Why Are They Failing? – Anthony Grafton not only presents a sobering portrait of American education, but also points to flaws in how we write and conceive of it.
Sweet Emulsion – Scott Tobias explains why we should care that the days of film are numbered.
The Neverending Nightmare of Amanda Knox – A gripping Rolling Stone feature on how young Amanda Knox unwittingly wandered into the midst of an international scandal.
The Hellish Experience of Making a Bad Horror Film – Leigh Whannell describes the nightmare that was making Dead Silence. Glad to see he has a sense of humor about it!
Sex Trafficking of Americans: The Girls Next Door – A Vanity Fair piece on the horrors of domestic sex trafficking.
A Day at the Park – Shawn Taylor movingly describes the emotional struggles of a black father in America.
Parents of a Certain Age – Lisa Miller explores the idea of parents getting pregnant for the first time when they’re in their 50s. Arguments for both sides are presented but Miller definitely has a specific position on the subject. I found her explanation behind it to be thought-provoking.
The Shame of College Sports – Taylor Branch provides a sprawling look at the injustice of college athletics and the travesty that is the NCAA.
The Statistics Behind The Red Sox’ Historic Collapse
Love when Nate Silver brings the power of statistical analysis to something like this:
[Y]ou get a combined probability of about one chance in 278 million of all these events coming together in quite this way. When confronted with numbers like these, you have to start to ask a few questions, statistical and existential.
How to Survive Falling Out of a Plane
Admit it: You want to be the sole survivor of an airline disaster. You aren’t looking for a disaster to happen, but if it does, you see yourself coming through it. I’m here to tell you that you’re not out of touch with reality—you can do it. Sure, you’ll take a few hits, and I’m not saying there won’t be some sweaty flashbacks later on, but you’ll make it. You’ll sit up in your hospital bed and meet the press. Refreshingly, you will keep God out of your public comments, knowing that it’s unfair to sing His praises when all of your dead fellow-passengers have no platform from which to offer an alternative view.
Let’s say your jet blows apart at 35,000 feet. You exit the aircraft, and you begin to descend independently. Now what?
The Design of Pruney Fingers
Turns out those pruney fingers you get when you’ve showered for too long aren’t just some by-product of water-absorption. From Forbes:
[W]hy would water absorption lead to wrinkles with that signature shape? And why would water absorption lead to wrinkles on the finger tips but not all the other spots on the body? And why would water absorption lead to wrinkles at all, given that water absorption should generally lead to swelling and consequently taut skin? No, water absorption can’t explain it. […]
[I]n fact, it has been known since the 1930s that nerve damage to a finger abolishes the pruney response. Pruney fingers are neuronally modulated. That’s even further reason to suspect that our prunes are adaptive.
World Lessons Learned
Benny Lewis shares life lessons he learned while travelling around the world for almost a decade (via Kevin). Here’s my favorite one:
Too many people presume that when they have that one thing they can work towards for years then “everything will be alright”. This is delusional. When you get it, there’ll be something else missing in your life. I fundamentally believe that long-term pure happiness from one particular situation or achievement is a pipe-dream, but we can learn to be content with what we have, live in the now, all while enjoying the progress and changes we are making. If your whole life is working up towards one really big major goal that you hold on to for years, then you will have a major anticlimax after the dust settles. Work towards it, but stop deferring your happiness.
Get there slower and enjoy the ride.
Why I (Probably) Won’t Buy an Engagement Ring
Meghan O’Rourke wrote this piece about the shady origins of diamond engagement rings a few years back, but Slate is re-running it this week for their wedding-themed issue. It’s as relevant today as it was back then:
[T]here’s a powerful case to be made that in an age of equitable marriage the engagement ring is an outmoded commodity—starting with the obvious fact that only the woman gets one. The diamond ring is the site of retrograde fantasies about gender roles. What makes it pernicious—as opposed to tackily fun—is its cost (these days you don’t need just a diamond; you need a good diamond), its dubious origins, and the cynical blandishments of TV and print ads designed to suggest a ring’s allure through the crassest of stereotypes.