CookieCutter.com makes and sells exactly what you think they do. The Missouri-based company uses a combination of hydraulic and hand-operated machines to shape steel ribbons into classic shapes like gingerbread men, along with more complicated designs like deer and even the Statue of Liberty.
Reads, Listens
Reading list of books, magazines, newspaper articles, other physical documents, or online posts
Playlist of posts listened to, or scrobbled
Playlist of posts listened to, or scrobbled
🎧 “Malcolm Gladwell’s 12 Rules for Life” Season 3 Episode 7 | Revisionist History
"Crucial life lessons from the end of hockey games, Idris Elba, and some Wall Street guys with a lot of time on their hands."
Revisionist History wades into the crowded self-help marketplace, with some help with from a band of math whizzes and Hollywood screenwriters. It's late in a hockey game, and you're losing. When should you pull your goalie? And what if you used that same logic when a bad guy breaks into your house and holds your entire family hostage? We think the unthinkable, so you don’t have to.
Why one should be a bit more disagreeable and “pull the goalie”.
Pulling the Goalie: Hockey and Investment Implications on SSRN.
👓 What really happened when two mathematicians tried to publish a paper on gender differences? The tale of the emails | Retraction Watch
Retraction Watch readers may be familiar with the story of a paper about gender differences by two mathematicians. Last month, in Weekend Reads, we highlighted an account of that story, which appea…
This article and the related links cover a lot of the questions I had when I read the original in Quillette the other day and only wish I’d had the time to follow up on as a result. Now to go on and read all the associated links and emails….
🎧 “The Hug Heard Round the World” Season 3 Episode 6 | Revisionist History
"Q: Was there a period where you felt you had something to prove? A: The first 45 years of my life."
Sammy Davis Junior was one of the world’s greatest entertainers for the better part of half a century. He was black. But he thought the best way to succeed in the world was to act as if he wasn’t. Did we judge him too harshly?
I’m always astounded by some of the finer points that Gladwell comes up with. Taking a look back at this bit of history has a wonderfully enlightening idea. I was near tears at the end of the Roast segment.
I can also certainly relate to the idea of changing myself so as not to be an “outsider”.
🎧 “General Chapman's Last Stand” Season 3 Episode 5 | Revisionist History
"Good fences make good neighbors. Or maybe not."
General Leonard Chapman guided the Marines Corp through some of the most difficult years in its history. He was brilliant, organized, decisive and indefatigable. Then he turned his attention to the America’s immigration crisis. You think you want effective leadership? Be careful what you wish for.
A piece of history I was surprised to not have heard about with relation to current immigration policy. Also a great example of how policy makers need to be able to think 20 steps into the potential futures to realize the ramifications of what they’re doing an the effects it will have on future generations.
🎧 Should We Break Up Amazon? | Crazy/Genius | The Atlantic
Has the Everything Store become a dangerous monopoly threatening the U.S. economy?
Some time later this year, Amazon could become the first trillion-dollar company in American history. Its valuation has already doubled in the last 14 months to about $800 billion, and Jeff Bezos, its founder and CEO, is officially the richest man on the planet.
There are ways in which Amazon seems to be the greatest company in American history. It’s revolutionized the global shopping experience and expanded into media and hardware, while operating on razor-thin margins that have astonished critics. But some now consider it the modern incarnation of a railroad monopoly, a logistics behemoth using its scale to destroy competition.
So what is Amazon: brilliant, dangerous, or both? That’s the subject of the latest episode of Crazy/Genius, our new podcast on technology and culture.
To build the case for breaking up the Everything Store, I talk to Scott Galloway, a professor of marketing at NYU and an outspoken critic of big tech, and Lina Khan, a researcher at the Open Markets Institute and a leading expert on antitrust policy. Both of them encourage me to see how a company famous for low prices can still behave in an anticompetitive manner. Making the case against heavy regulation for Amazon are Rob Atkinson, the president of the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, a tech think tank, and Michael Mandel, an economist with the Progressive Policy Institute who researches technology and e-commerce. Both encourage me to focus not only on the hidden costs of Amazon’s largeness, but also on the hidden benefits.
hat tip: Atlantic Interview podcast feed
🎧 “Caliphate,” Chapter 10: One Year Later | New York Times
What does the future hold for the ISIS returnee who confessed to murder? And what does he believe now?
🎧 “Caliphate,” Chapter 9: Prisoners, Part Two | New York Times
After three years in ISIS captivity, a young Yazidi girl returns to her family. Rukmini is there to witness it.
🎧 “Caliphate,” Chapter 9: Prisoners, Part One | New York Times
Slavery was enmeshed in the theology of ISIS. Rukmini speaks to an ISIS detainee who challenges her to find the girl he enslaved. She does.
🎧 “Caliphate,” Chapter 8: The Briefcase | New York Times
We found a trove of secret documents after Mosul fell. It led us to the mother of an ISIS official.
I love how this story really humanizes what is going on here compared with the soundbite snippets we hear from the US President at the moment. Things are far more complex and human, than they would seem. And what a fantastic little story this particular episode makes on so many levels. Mothers/sons, wealth/poverty, religion/bureaucracy, journalism/mystery and so much more.
🎧 “Caliphate,” Chapter 7: Mosul | New York Times
What did ISIS leave behind as their hold on Mosul crumbled?
🎧 “Caliphate,” Chapter 6: Paper Trail | New York Times
“Something was off.” Rukmini’s doubt fuels a quest to uncover the truth.
Relistening to recall where we were in the story last so I can finish out the series.
🎧 George Lakoff on How Trump uses words to con the public | Reliable Sources podcast
President Donald Trump has "turned words into weapons" -- and journalists are providing additional ammunition.
That's according to Trump critic George Lakoff, a renowned linguist and professor emeritus at the University of California at Berkeley. Lakoff wrote in a recent article for the Guardian that the president manipulates language to control the public narrative. The press, he said, functions as a sort of "marketing agency for [Trump's] ideas" by repeating his claims, even when trying to fact-check or debunk his statements.
"By faithfully transmitting Trump's words and ideas, the press helps him to attack, and thereby control, the press itself," he writes.
As the guest on this week's Reliable Sources podcast, Lakoff spoke to Brian Stelter about Trump's linguistic frames, what the press should do differently, and why journalists need to tackle Trump's words like a "truth sandwich."
👓 Linux 4.19-rc4 released, an apology, and a maintainership note | Linus Torvalds
This is my reality. I am not an emotionally empathetic kind of person and that probably doesn't come as a big surprise to anybody. Least of all me. The fact that I then misread people and don't realize (for years) how badly I've judged a situation and contributed to an unprofessional environment is not good.
👓 Is it possible to draw Serena Williams without being racist? | The Spectator
I have spent the morning trying to draw a cartoon of a black person without it being racist. It’s bloody difficult. Especially the lips. Make them too big and anti-racist people will accuse you of being a white supremacist peddling, in their words, the old ‘sambo’ myth. But too small and they don’t look like the lips of very many black people. It’s the same with the colour. At first, on my cartoon, I used a black felt-tip pen and so the figure came out very black indeed. ‘Sambo’ territory again, especially when I added big red lips and very white teeth. In the end I used cross-hatching with a pencil but this was, to my mind, unsatisfactory.