- Louis Proyect: Is Kathryn Bigelow our Leni Riefenstahl? (Naked Capitalism) Yes. This has been another episode of simple answers to simple questions.
- Glass SLIDE is installed on an LA skyscraper 1,000 feet from the ground (Daily Mail) Speaking on behalf of my somewhat acrophobic wife, “F%$# no.”
- What is the real reason we sleep? (BBC) We still don’t know, but here are some fascinating theories.
- New Zealand ‘cat burglar’ caught stealing men’s underwear (BBC) Not a perv, it’s an actual cat.
- Fluid dynamics explain how quickly a vampire could drain your blood (Phys.org) No where as fast as in the movies.
- The Plagues That Might Have Brought Down the Roman Empire (The Atlantic) There were a number of plagues that hit the Romans, of the two biggest ones, one appears to be Y. Pestis, and the other appears to be a hemorrhagic fever like Ebola. Get your history geek on.
- Kepler watched two supernovae burst out of the surface of stars (Ars Technica) Get your astronomy geek on.
- Every NYT Millennial Trend Story in 2016 (Fusion) It is funny because it is true.
- How Bush-Cheneyism made Mideast in its Image: Wars, WOT, With us or Against Us (Juan Cole) I disagree with him on a number of levels. First, I think that Obama has deliberately embraced and extended most of the policies, and second, I think that Trump is an isolationist at heart. Still worth the read.
- Infographics in the Time of Cholera (ProPublica) Get your history, statistics, and media geek on.
- The dark web is too slow and annoying for terrorists to even bother with, experts say (Quartz) Not a surprise.
- They Made Him a Moron (The Baffler) An epic take-down of Alec Ross, Hillary Clinton’s former “Senior Advisor for Innovation” at state. A well done demolition of an under done intellect.
I will leave you with Birdy Sanders. This is real: