May 2009
54 posts
I apologize for the low-volume week — I’ve been very busy finishing Instapaper Pro 2.0.
In the meantime, check out Long Reads on Twitter for your Instapaper-friendly reading needs.
The High Cost of Poverty: Why the Poor Pay More →
Having little money often means no car, no washing machine, no checking account, and no break from fees and high prices.
No More Mr. Nice Guy →
The Supreme Court’s stealth hard-liner.
1984: The masterpiece that killed George Orwell →
In 1946 Observer editor David Astor lent George Orwell a remote Scottish farmhouse in which to write his new book, Nineteen Eighty-Four. It became one of the most significant novels of the 20th century. Here, Robert McCrum tells the compelling story of Orwell’s torturous stay on the island where the author, close to death and beset by creative demons, was engaged in a feverish race to...
Why journalists deserve low pay →
Wages are compensation for value creation. And journalists simply aren’t creating much value these days.
The Master of Money →
There is now a long shelf of books about Warren Buffett, but this is the first time he has gone to any trouble to add to it.
The Wikiback Effect →
If you’re a journalist who cribs from Wikipedia, it will get you back.
(thanks, Menemes)
Superman Comes to the Supermarket →
In November 1960, Norman Mailer first tried his hand at a genre that would come to define his career. This is Mailer’s debut into the world of political journalism, a sprawling classic examining John F. Kennedy.
(thanks, Bharath)
My Personal Credit Crisis →
How love, subprime lenders and willful self-delusion led one man, an economics reporter, to the brink of foreclosure.
(thanks, Whitney)
The Great Hargeisa Goat Bubble →
As you can see, we had entered a classic momentum market, where the price of the goat had decoupled from the fundamental value of the goat … However, vast fortunes can still be made in strong momentum markets, regardless of fundamental values, as long as you are not the one left holding the goat when the reversion to fundamental value occurs.
(thanks, gibber)
Newspaper Narcissism →
Our pursuit of glory led us away from readers.
What Makes Us Happy? →
Is there a formula—some mix of love, work, and psychological adaptation—for a good life? For 72 years, researchers at Harvard have been examining this question, following 268 men who entered college in the late 1930s through war, career, marriage and divorce, parenthood and grandparenthood, and old age. Here, for the first time, a journalist gains access to the archive of one of the most...
The Median Isn't the Message →
My life has recently intersected, in a most personal way, two of Mark Twain’s famous quips. One I shall defer to the end of this essay. The other (sometimes attributed to Disraeli), identifies three species of mendacity, each worse than the one before — lies, damned lies, and statistics.
(thanks, Dave)
Scribd and Google Infest The Modern Sewer →
Why large Internet companies’ erosion of copyright is a cause for concern.
(thanks, Roguemovement)
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When No News Is Bad News →
A former managing editor of The Chicago Tribune probes the collapse of the newspaper industry and tries, mostly in vain, to find hope for the future of journalism
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The Ballad of Big Mike →
When Sean Tuohy first spotted Michael Oher sitting in the stands in the Briarcrest gym — watching the practice of a basketball team he wasn’t allowed to play on — he saw a boy with nowhere to go but up. The question was how to take him there.
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Unhappy Meals →
The story of how the most basic questions about what to eat ever got so complicated reveals a great deal about the institutional imperatives of the food industry, nutritional science and — ahem — journalism, three parties that stand to gain much from widespread confusion surrounding what is, after all, the most elemental question an omnivore confronts.
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The Interpreter →
Has a remote Amazonian tribe upended our understanding of language?
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The Race to Save the Cougar Ace →
Ship captains spend their careers trying to avoid a collision or grounding like this. But for Habib, nearly every month brings a welcome disaster. While people are shouting “Abandon ship!” Habib is scrambling aboard. … [H]e’s the senior salvage master — the guy who runs the show at sea — for Titan Salvage, a highly specialized outfit of men who race around the world saving ships.
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I Miss Iraq. I Miss My Gun. I Miss My War. →
A year after coming home from a tour in Iraq, a soldier returns home to find out he left something behind.
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The Godfather Wars →
In many ways, the men who made The Godfather—director Francis Ford Coppola, producer Al Ruddy, Paramount executives Robert Evans and Peter Bart, and Gulf & Western boss Charles Bluhdorn—were as ruthless as the gangsters in Mario Puzo’s blockbuster.
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Jonathan Lebed's Extracurricular Activities →
On Sept. 20, 2000, the Securities and Exchange Commission settled its case against a 15-year-old high-school student named Jonathan Lebed. The S.E.C.’s news release explained that Jonathan — the first minor ever to face proceedings for stock-market fraud — had used the Internet to promote stocks from his bedroom in the northern New Jersey suburb of Cedar Grove. Armed only with...
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A Rough Trade →
Martin Amis reports from the high-risk, increasingly violent world of the pornography industry
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The Term Paper Artist →
One great way to briefly turn the conversation toward myself at a party is to answer the question, “So, what do you do?” with, “I’m a writer.” Not that most of the people I’ve met at parties have read my novels or short stories or feature articles; when they ask, “Have I seen any of your stuff?” I shrug and the conversation moves on. If I want...
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Amish Hackers →
The Amish have the undeserved reputation of being luddites, of people who refuse to employ new technology. It’s well known the strictest of them don’t use electricity, or automobiles, but rather farm with manual tools and ride in a horse and buggy. In any debate about the merits of embracing new technology, the Amish stand out as offering an honorable alternative of refusal. Yet...
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The String Theory →
What happens when all of a man’s intelligence and athleticism is focused on placing a fuzzy yellow ball where his opponent is not? An obsessive inquiry (with footnotes), into the physics and metaphysics of tennis.
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Back Issues →
The day the newspaper died.
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Is Pornography Adultery? →
It may be closer than you think.
What Does Your Credit-Card Company Know About You?... →
Credit-card companies are becoming more interested in their customers’ lives and psyches to help determine who is a good bet.
(thanks, J. Aspaster)
Todd Marinovich: The Man Who Never Was →
Twenty years ago, he was guaranteed to be one of the greatest quarterbacks ever to play the game of football. Engineered to be. He was drafted ahead of Brett Favre. Today he’s a recovering junkie. This month he was arrested again. Scenes from the chaotic life of a boy never designed to be a man.
Don't →
The secret of self-control.
(thanks, Bharath)
The Management Myth →
Most of management theory is inane, writes our correspondent, the founder of a consulting firm. If you want to succeed in business, don’t get an M.B.A. Study philosophy instead.
How To Be A Successful Evil Overlord →
Being an Evil Overlord seems to be a good career choice. It pays well, there are all sorts of perks and you can set your own hours. However every Evil Overlord I’ve read about in books or seen in movies invariably gets overthrown and destroyed in the end.
Life as a terrorist →
In 1987, aged 17, Niromi de Soyza shocked her middle-class Sri Lankan family by joining the Tamil Tigers. One of the rebels’ first female soldiers, equipped with rifle and cyanide capsule, she was engaged in fierce combat.
(thanks, Herman Muntz)
Why Circuit City Failed, and Why B&H Thrives →
Many companies that have gone bust didn’t die because of the recession. They failed for one reason: They treated customers poorly.
Waiting for CNBC: A tragicomedy in one long act →
A tragicomedy in one long act.
(thanks, Whitney)
The Wisdom of Community →
When James Surowiecki wrote The Wisdom of Crowds in 2004, he explored the stock market and other classic social psychology examples, but “web 2.0” was still nascent. It’s time to connect his ideas to the social web, where they can reach their full potential.
Secrets of the Phallus: Why is the Penis Shaped... →
If you’ve ever had a good, long look at the human phallus, whether yours or someone else’s, you’ve probably scratched your head over such a peculiarly shaped device. Let’s face it—it’s not the most intuitively shaped appendage in all of evolution. But according to evolutionary psychologist Gordon Gallup of the State University of New York at Albany, the human penis is actually an impressive...
Close the Book. Recall. Write It Down. →
That old study method still works, researchers say. So why don’t professors preach it?
The joy of exclamation marks! →
Exclamation marks used to be frowned upon. Now look what’s happened! We use them all the time! Hurrah!!! But what is it about the age of email that gets people so over-excited?
The Pulitzer-winning investigation that dare not... →
The outright refusal of any of these “news organizations” even to mention what Barstow uncovered about the Pentagon’s propaganda program and the way it infected their coverage is one of the most illuminating events revealing how they operate.
(thanks, Essays)
Stephen Fry's letter to his 16-year-old self →
Oh, lord love you, Stephen. How I admire your arrogance and rage and misery. How pure and righteous they are and how passionately storm-drenched was your adolescence. How filled with true feeling, fury, despair, joy, anxiety, shame, pride and above all, supremely above all, how overpowered it was by love. My eyes fill with tears just to think of you. Of me.
Money Talks →
Can Peter Orszag keep the President’s political goals economically viable?
The Cost of Downloading All Those Videos →
The controversy over the now-abandoned plan by Time Warner Cable to impose additional fees on customers who upload and download more than a set quota.
American excess: A Wall Street trader tells all →
Fine wines, lobster lunches and million-dollar salaries – life as a Wall Street shark was thrilling at first. But amid the extravagance, Philipp Meyer was sickened by a moral deficit at the heart of America’s financial system.
(thanks, Dan W)
Confessions of an Entrepreneur's Wife →
She was proud to support her husband’s dream of building a great business. But five years is a long time to watch someone focus on his company at the expense of everything—everything—else.
We Could Have Done This the Right Way →
How Ali Soufan, an FBI agent, got Abu Zubaydah to talk without torture.
American Stonehenge: Monumental Instructions for... →
The Georgia Guidestones may be the most enigmatic monument in the US: huge slabs of granite, inscribed with directions for rebuilding civilization after the apocalypse.
Optimism and the world economy →
The worst thing for the world economy would be to assume the worst is over.
Alabama Attorney General's War On Sex Toys →
Have you heard the one about the Southern politician who wants to arrest women for dildo possession?
Unfortunately, it’s not a joke, so there’s no punchline.
(thanks, Logan)