Previously on MoreLiver’s:
PEOPLE
Ex-Benedict – Slate
Will he still be infallible? Will he get a pension?
All your papal questions, answered.
Interview with Nick Chamandy, statistician at
Google – Simply
Statistics
Ezra Klein: The Wise
Boy – New
Republic
A tale of striving and success in modern-day Washington
Skin in Which Game? – Epicurean
Dealmaker
Happy Birthday,
Galileo – brain
pickings
In 1615, as the Roman Inquisition was beginning to
investigate his heretical heliocentric model of the universe, Galileo — who
knew how to flatter his way to support — wrote to Christina of Lorraine, the
Grand Duchess Christina of Tuscany.
Bruce Almighty – GQ
From Moonlighting to Moonrise Kingdom, Bruce
Willis has made a career of confounding audiences.
BUSINESS
How to make a killing – The
Economist
Business has much to learn from the armed forces
Startup DNA: the
formula behind successful startups in Silicon Valley. Some personal
observations on a few traits that make startups successful by Yevgeniy Brikman.
The Seven Habits of
Highly Effective Mediocre People – The
Rumpus
Is This Where The Secret JP Morgan London Gold
Vault Is Located? –
ZH
COMET
In the
Picture: comets, craters and crash landings – The
World / FT
Asteroid impacts: How
to avert Armageddon – Babbage /
The Economist
PSYCHOLOGY
Your Brain in Love – SciAm
Cupid's arrows, laced with neurotransmitters, find
their marks
Laughing About Mental
Illness With Maria Bamford – co.create
The comedian Maria Bamford’s new standup performance
lives up to its name: The Special Special Special…She discusses her diagnosis
of bipolar disorder, and pushes back against the stigma our culture has about
mental illness.
The Psychology Of The
To-Do List – Farnam
Street
Will we ever…
simulate the human brain? – BBC
A billion dollar project claims it will recreate the
most complex organ in the human body in just 10 years. But detractors say it is
impossible. Who is right?
Take A Look Inside
the Suitcases of the Clinically Insane – co.create
TECH & SCIENCE
A Most Peculiar Test Drive – Tesla
What's at stake in
the fight between Tesla and the New York Times – Wonkblog
/ WP
Over the past few years, we’ve seen a bunch of
high-profile spats over electric cars. The subject never fails to rile up
emotions. But even by those standards, the recent dust-up between the New York
Times and Elon Musk’s Tesla Motors is striking.
Confirmed: Cosmic
Rays Come From Exploding Stars – Discover
(audio) BizDaily:
Drug-resistant infections– BBC
(mp3)
The deadly diseases that may be spreading... TB
already kills millions. Now new strains have emerged that are drug-resistant.
Health officials want action. But are the drugs companies up to the task? We
hear from both of them - and from India where the
killer infections are on the rise.
The Comeback of the
Watch – Nick
Decrock
Will the (wrist) watch make its comeback in 2013? It
seems, the time is now. Pebble, Apple, Google, ...and many others will soon
disrupt the world of time. Are you ready?
MILSECINT
The Man Who Killed
Osama bin Laden... Is Screwed – Esquire
For the first time, the Navy SEAL who killed Osama bin
Laden tells his story — speaking not just about the raid and the three shots that
changed history, but about the personal aftermath for himself and his family.
And the startling failure of the United
States government to help
its most experienced and skilled warriors carry on with their lives.
Spec Ops Command
Isn’t Sweating Osama Shooter’s Magazine Profile – Wired
Alternative to Bin
Laden Raid: A Teeny, Tiny Missile Strike – Wired
SEALs’ Cover Story if
Bin Laden Raid Went Bad: Downed Drone – Wired
Our Man in Iran – reason
How the CIA and MI6
installed the Shah.
Roll forward the
doomsday train – BBC
The US is
mulling over radical ideas for how to operate and deploy its aging cache of
nuclear missiles – including a vast subway network.
Book Review: Fixing
Drugs: The Politics of Drug Prohibition – europp
/ LSE
In Fixing Drugs, Sue Pryce tackles the major issues
surrounding drug policy. Why do governments persist with prohibition policies,
despite their questionable inefficacy? Why are some drugs criminalized, and
some not? And why does society care about drug use at all? In a highly
polarized debate, in which emotions run high, Pryce attempts to illuminate
these questions and guide us through the problems, possibilities and realities
of drug policy around the world. John Collins recommends this measured tome to
policymakers and those seeking to understand why drugs policies have little
effect.
Anatomy of a Heroin
Ring – Chicago
Reader
How a Chicago drug
organization did business
OTHER
How did the Galactic Empire ever cement its hold on
the Star Wars Universe? The war machine built by Emperor Palpatine and run by
Darth Vader is a spectacularly bad fighting force, as evidenced by all of the
pieces of Death Star littering space. But of all the Empire’s failures, none is
a more spectacular military fiasco than the Battle of Hoth at the beginning of
The Empire Strikes Back.
Gaming the System – Economix
/ NYT
College students who unanimously boycotted their final
exam and all got A’s under a grading curve loophole. It’s a great example of
game theory at work.
The Totalitarian
Temptation: Liberalism's Enemies, Then and Now – Foreign
Affairs
Vladimir Tismaneanu’s new book examines the evolving
interpretations of communism and fascism. It turns out the two totalitarian
ideologies had more in common than is often thought -- and the defenders of
liberalism today would be well advised to learn from the struggles that brought
them down.
With a Focus on Its
Future, Financial Times Turns 125 – NYT
Financial Times
editor Lionel Barber: 'News now is not the newspaper' – The
Guardian
As the FT celebrates its 125th birthday, Barber
outlines his plans for a digital revolution
Wrestling and the
Olympics – Rick Bookstaber
Cinema Tarantino: The
making of Pulp Fiction – Vanity
Fair