August 6th – The Day’s Most Fascinating News

Wanna Hookup?

“Hookup culture, which has been percolating for about a hundred years, has collided with dating apps, which have acted like a wayward meteor on the now dinosaur-like rituals of courtship.” In other words, it’s never been easier to get laid. In Vanity Fair, Nancy Jo Sales provides an update on the state of Tinder and the dawn of the dating apocalypse. According to one twenty-something marketing exec: “Sex has become so easy. I can go on my phone right now and no doubt I can find someone I can have sex with this evening, probably before midnight.” (The wedding toast pretty much writes itself.)

2

I See What You Did There

In the last year, there’s been a dramatic rise in the number of Americans who see racism as a big problem, and white people who think “the country needs to do more to make equal rights a reality.” What changed? We saw the videos.

3

We Don’t Need Another Hiroshima

“At exactly fifteen minutes past eight in the morning, on August 6, 1945, Japanese time, at the moment when the atomic bomb flashed above Hiroshima, Miss Toshiko Sasaki, a clerk in the personnel department of the East Asia Tin Works, had just sat down at her place in the plant office and was turning her head to speak to the girl at the next desk.” On the 70th anniversary of the dropping of the atomic bomb, The New Yorker has republished John Hersey’s 1946 piece on Hiroshima.

+ Digg: Essential reading on the 70th anniversary of Hiroshima.

4

Coffee Talk

“Although it is one of the best-studied compounds in the world, we still have much more to learn about caffeine, including the reasons it affects people so differently – making some people anxious and jittery, and others so happy and energetic that they feel as though they can’t function without it.” Reveal’s Ariane Wu and Murray Carpenter take an interesting (and surprising) look at the world of caffeine — including the 17 million pounds of it we import each year (I assume you know I couldn’t possibly open all these browser tabs without being juiced…). The buzz(kill) about caffeine.

5

And Baby Makes Three (Billion)

“I think it’s sort of akin to the tech industry 30 years ago. There are more and more people proposing strategies, and they all have a kernel of a good idea behind them. But who wins and who loses in the battle is hard to predict.” Fortune’s Gwen Moran asks the question: Who will be the Uber of fertility? (Enter your own surge pricing joke here.)

6

Eye Rolling with the Times

Want to meet a new friend? Go online. Want to maintain your friendship? Go play a video game. For teenagers, many of the rituals of friendship (including losing friends) have moved online. Pew has the latest numbers on teens, technology and friendships.

+ One in ten young people take a selfie every day. (Face it. The world was a better place when we had to pay for film.)

+ Quartz: Smoking marijuana as a teen may not impact your health as an adult after all.

+ PRI: What we’re learning about the teenage brain.

7

Things That Go Trump In the Night

“Similar surges occurred for almost every Republican candidate four years ago, including Herman Cain, Michele Bachmann, Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich (twice).” Nate Silver on why the featured guest in tonight’s GOP debate has no chance to win: Donald Trump’s Six Stages Of Doom.

+ He may not win, but his rise in the polls might be as informative as it is endlessly entertaining. James Surowiecki on Donald Trump’s sales pitch: Why are so many working class voters supporting a billionaire?

+ And to get ready for the most anticipated debate in years, play a game of who said it: Donald Trump or Frank Reynolds from It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia.

8

Goodnight Jon

As the clock ticks down an epic run, Variety takes a look back at 17 famous moments from Jon Stewart’s tenure on The Daily Show. There are online editors who have made careers out of embedding Jon Stewart video clips on their sites. Now all they’ve got is Fallon’s lip sync battles and emoji.

9

Bat Hit Crazy

“As I swerve off the highway exit ramp, the sun breaks through the filtering haze of the lingering marine layer. It pitches my eyes into a deep shadow, a fitting tone for the deeply nefarious act I am about to participate in. Slow-pitch softball batting practice.” SB Nation’s Rick Paulas enters the mysterious (and a tiny bit pathetic) world of seriously illegal softball bats and the men who make them.

10

Bottom of the News

CityLab’s Kriston Capps makes a modest proposal to build a giant wall around San Francisco during Burning Man. It’s a parody, much as you might wish it weren’t.

+ “A prisoner has escaped from an island prison in Norway by sneaking out of a window, stealing an old surfboard and paddling the three kilometres to shore with a toy spade.”

+ Think there’s concern about driverless cars? At one point, people were equally worried about driverless elevators. (Technology has been taking jobs away from people for a while.)

+ 9 Supermarket staples that were created by the military. (Oddly, no Bazooka gum.)

+ It’s not about genetics. One can teach oneself to roll one’s tongue.

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