Stream of Reading (Prepare to be Forwarded) – An Archive of What I'm Reading
We’re a month away from going over budget in using this year’s planetary resources. One way to balance our ecological books is to eat more insects. By mid-summer of each year, we use up the Earth. Known as Earth Overshoot Day, it’s the day, sometime in August, when our yearly demand for ecological resources exceeds…
Chris Christie, who acted wickedly in a past life and must now mortify himself as Donald Trump’s personal jester, has debased himself once more, having been seen inexplicably pouring a bag of M&Ms into a box of M&Ms. Instead of shrugging off this scandal on account of being A) an adult, B) a U.S. governor,…
Image: Pete Blackburn Earlier today on this very website, my colleague Sam Biddle referred to a recent photograph of New Jersey Governor Chris Christie pouring a bag of M&Ms into a box of M&Ms as “embarrassing” and inexplicable—an analysis as unfair as it is incorrect. Because in this instance, for what may be the very…
I tried explaining Soylent, the protein shake meal replacement popular in Silicon Valley, to my mom and she tilted her head: “Oh, you mean SlimFast?” she said. I balked. No, Soylent is definitely tech, I explained, and it’s on my beat. It has a minimalist label and comes in iterative versions like software (we’re at…
In recent years, venture capitalists have funded all manner of improbable ideas. An app that lets random people call and wake you up. A bathroom scale that posts your weight on Twitter. And then there is Doug Evans’s brainchild. With no experience running tech companies and a bungled juice-bar chain under his belt, he has…
You’ve Been Eating Sushi All Wrong Your ENTIRE Life! 9. Snapping Photos of Your Sushi Yes, sushi is crazy beautiful, and yes, gramming is an addiction, but for once, just once, leave your phone in your pocket when you eat sushi. Many sushi joints even have “no cell phone” signs posted just to remind you that it’s…
For many, the term “dumpster diving” evokes stomach-turning images of half-moldy rolls and recently-expired tuna salad snatched from the mouths of gnawing rats. But as many sophisticated urban survivalists know, there is an extraordinary amount of perfectly good, even gourmet, food set out every night in sanitary bags outside city delis, bakeries, restaurants, and supermarkets….
If you have hundreds of dollars to burn and don’t mind eating mystery fungus, Gwyneth Paltrow has the smoothie for you. Paltrow is the founder of the lifestyle website Goop, a hell of an aptonym for a site that spreads pseudoscientific wellness factoids and peddles astronomically marked-up beauty products and things you can eat. For…
Just a few weeks ago, West Virginians passed a law overriding the cruel, barbaric raw milk prohibition that’s plagued the state for years. To mark the occasion, these same dairy-loving lawmakers downed what else but a tall glass of milk—raw and dirty just like god intended. In totally unrelated news, a bunch of West Virginia…
William F. Powell, a 27-year-old waiter at the IHOP in Downtown Brooklyn, was arrested recently for allegedly giving out about $3,000 in free beverages to customers over a seven-month period. He faces charges of grand larceny, criminal possession of stolen property, and petit larceny, for the crime of being a cool waiter. “I am the…