Kickoff For October 10, 2022
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:
Science
How to Successfully Smash Your Face Against a Tree, wherein we’re taken into research that shows woodpeckers don’t absorb shocks with their skulls (as so many people believe), but have evolved a more complete physiology that enables them to withstand the shocks of pecking.
Is the Age of Fusion Upon Us?, wherein Khaled Talaat explores the broad landscape of fusion energy development, why viable fusion is so elusive, and whether or not we’ll see a fusion generator in action anytime soon.
The secret world beneath our feet is mind-blowing – and the key to our planet’s future, wherein George Monbiot takes us into the diversity of life in our soil, a microcosm of species that we don’t know or understand but which keeps us alive.
Productivity
How to Tackle a Mountain of Tasks, wherein Leo Babauta offers some simple, solid advice about how to do just that.
How to find, read and organize papers, wherein Maya Gosztyla explains how she manages the deluge of academic reading and research she does, advice that you can apply any reading and research.
Do I Have Productivity Dysmorphia?, wherein we learn about people who jump on to the productivity treadmill and yet either aren’t satisfied with what they’ve done or just keep doing things because they don’t feel like they’re doing enough.
Ideas
Keeping Time Into The Great Beyond, wherein Vincent Ialenti tries to make sense of the Clock of the Long Now, and whether or not it’s a worthwhile project or a bit of techno-hippyism.
The Human Costs of Moving Away From Fossil Fuels, wherein Devika Dutt and Alden Young explore how a shift away from oil is affecting foreign workers in Gulf states, and how that affects local economies in their home countries.
Deep Time Sickness, wherein Lachlan Summers introduces us to the tocado of Mexico City and, through them, ponders the idea of deep time and how it effects some people.
And that’s it for this Monday. Come back in seven days for another set of links to start off your week.