Kickoff For September 14, 2020
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.
Over the last while, I’ve heard more than a couple of people whine that the world is boring. I hope this week’s reads prove otherwise.
Let’s get this Monday started with these links:
Science
Half the matter in the universe was missing – we found it hiding in the cosmos, wherein J. Xavier Prochaska outlines how his team unraveled a vexing cosmological problem: where the missing matter in the universe is.
Drowning in Light, wherein Dirk Hanson explores how as lighting gets cheaper we use more of it, and how the effects us psychologically and physically.
Four amazing astronomical discoveries from ancient Greece, wherein Gareth Dorrian looks at some astronomical theories that ancient Greek scholars came up with, theories that were only embraced and confirmed many centuries later.
Online Life
It’s Time to Get Back Into RSS, wherein Daniel Miessler advocates embracing RSS feeds again so you can curate your own input garden and make that garden a meaningful part of the consumption experience.
On Digital Gardens, Blogs, Personal Spaces, and the Future, wherein Justin Tadlock years for the simpler days of the personal website, where not everything someone published online was a blog with a content strategy.
Is This Amazon Review Bullshit?, wherein we learn more about fake reviews on the ecommerce site and how to spot them.
Ideas
In valuing only how to argue, we are forgetting how to talk, wherein Nesrine Malik points out that argument and discussion aren’t the same, and that we need more of the latter than the former if we want to better disagree with each other.
Lateral thinking is classic pseudoscience, derivative and untested, wherein Antonio Melechi skewers Edward de Bono’s ideas around creativity and shows that they weren’t as fresh or original as de Bono claimed.
More than arm’s length: reimagining rituals in a technologically mediated pandemic-centric era, wherein anthropologist Caitlin E. McDonald looks at how the coronavirus pandemic has so quickly changed rituals, even small ones, around the world.
And that’s it for this Monday. Come back in seven days for another set of links to start off your week.