Kickoff For November 19, 2018
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.
At the end of each edition of the Monday Kickoff, I ask (beg?) you to support this project (and, by extension, my other online work). In case you’re wondering, I don’t use what’s dropped into my hat to feather my nest. What people send my way helps pay for the services that I use, for domain renewals, and for donations to the organizations I back. This past while, I’ve sent the micropayments I’ve received (and quite a bit of my own cash on top of that) to the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the Wikimedia Foundation. That’s on top of the monthly donation I make to the Internet Archive.
So if you’re interested in supporting my work and supporting some good causes, you can find out how to do that at the end of this post. Thanks!
With that out of the way, let’s get this Monday started with these links:
Ideas
The Uneasy Yoke, wherein Blair Hurley recounts how religion has touched and shaped her, even though she doesn’t practice any of the faiths she’s explored.
The Miracle of the Mundane, wherein Heather Havrilesky examines the joys of living a simple, ordinary life, and discovers that living such a life isn’t as easy as it seems.
Autism from the inside, wherein we discover that the way people look at autism, and what they think they understand about it, is all wrong. As the father of a young woman with autism, this article hit home in ways I didn’t expect it to.
Arts and Literature
Imploding with Cool, wherein we join writer Iain Sinclair on his literary perambulations around London and discover how much the city’s tone and texture has changed over the decades. Sometimes, not for the better.
Why Literature Loves Lists, wherein Brian Dillon examines how lists are used by both fiction writers and essayists, and explains the structure and comfort that lists offer writers.
What is cyberpunk?, wherein Alex Spencer examines the origins of the SF sub genre, and looks at cyberpunk’s descendants and its discontents.
Presenting
How to give an effective presentation, wherein Mark Pollard explains that a presentation is more than a set of slides, and walks us through how to plan, structure, and give a presentation worth sitting through.
How to write a talk, wherein we’re given some solid, easy-to-do advice on how to come up with an idea for a presentation, develop it, and get ready to give it.
What I wish I knew when I first started speaking internationally, wherein Amber Case offers some useful tips for people who speak at events overseas (or even in their own countries).
And that’s it for this Monday. Come back in seven days for another set of links to start off your week.