Kickoff For May 1, 2023
Welcome to this week’s edition of the Monday Kickoff, a collection of what I’ve found interesting, informative, and insightful on the web over the last seven days.
Let’s get this Monday started with these links:
Concrete Built The Modern World. Now It’s Destroying It, wherein Joe Zadeh looks at the history of concrete, and contrasts our reliance upon it with concrete’s impact on the environment.
Getting Lost in the World’s Largest Stack of Menus, wherein we learn about accidental archivist Frank E. Buttolph, how she curated an archive of restaurant menus (numbering over 40,000) for the New York Public Library, and the unexpected popularity of that collection of menus over the decades.
The Upcycled Car, wherein we learn about ways in which CO2 from vehicles is being incorporated back into new ones in an effort to control emissions and capture carbon.
The Nokia Risk, wherein we get a look at the challenges facing some rich, smaller countries whose economies depend heavily on a handful of firms in volatile sectors.
Misdirectives, wherein high school teacher Ian Altman muses about education versus what teachers really do (or should do).
The Out-of-Control Spread of Crowd-Control Tech, wherein we learn about some of modern, so-called less-lethal crowd control weapons being marketed to the military and the police, and learn that those alternatives aren’t as benign as their makers suggest.
Ghost Ships. wherein we’re introduced to the variety and amounts of data involved in the shipping business, how it’s in a number of incompatible and inaccessible formats (including paper), and why it’s so difficult to change that.
A Poisoned Reality, wherein Jared Yates Sexton recounts growing up in a community which believed that the apocalypse was nigh and which embraced wild conspiracy theories, and how he was able to free himself from all of that.
Duck Off, Autocorrect, wherein Navneet Alang explores why, after decades of existence, the autocorrect functions on our phones are still so haphazard, and how future of autocorrect will be a reflection of who or what is doing the improving.
And that’s it for this Monday. Come back in seven days for another set of links to start off your week.