Tuesday, October 20th, 2015

1

Love in the Time of Connectivity

"Most early users didn't have any digital pictures of themselves -- so they'd snail mail or fax snapshots to Match, or need help finding a place to scan them in." In other words, online dating has come a long way. But its trajectory has been quite clear from its earliest incarnations. As Match gets set to go public, FastCo's Steven Melendez looks back at how the company has helped people hook up and find love since 1995. Maybe I'm old fashioned, but I still prefer to meet people through a traditional village matchmaker or during a chance meeting at a rest stop bathroom.

2

The Trudeau Boy

In a landslide win, Canada's Justin Trudeau -- former schoolteacher, snowboarding instructor, nightclub bouncer, and bungee-jumping assistant -- followed in his father's footsteps and became his country's new prime minister, while ousting incumbent candidate Stephen Harper.

+ This would be a good time to find out how much you really know about Canada. (No one even told me they had formed their own government...)

3

Leak Soup

Like the Edward Snowden leaks, the Drone Papers provide a dramatic look at a once-secretive government program. Unlike the Snowden leaks, this program doesn't directly impact Americans in the way the NSA's tactics do. And that could make all the difference. In NY Mag, Benjamin Wallace-Wells on the drama of the Drone Papers: "One question -- maybe the most pressing question -- is how the public feels about that brutal ratio of one targeted death to five or six unintended. The evidence so far is that the public is more or less okay with it."

+ Slate: Why is the American military so bad at teaching others how to fight?

4

Crust Never Sleeps

"Several years ago, pizzas began showing up at the front door of their home in Oswego, Illinois, a middle-class suburb about 50 miles west of Chicago. It might have been a nice surprise, except the Straters hadn't ordered any pizzas." Fusion's Kevin Roose on a suburban family being haunted by hackers.

+ From Wired: The teen who hacked CIA director's AOL email tells how he did it. (Luckily CIA director John Brennan reserved all the really classified stuff for his CompuServe account.)

5

This is 45

In a move that is likely to stir a lot of conversations with doctors, the American Cancer Society has changed its guidelines when it comes to mammograms and exams. "Most women don't need to start getting an annual mammogram to screen for breast cancer until they turn 45."

6

Monkey in the Middle

Between waters and oils and related health fads, the coconut business is booming. And if you're a consumer of those products, there's a good chance that a monkey on a leash was part of the labor force that helped get the coconuts from their tree to your palm. NPR asks: What's funny about the business of monkeys picking coconuts? (Once they unionize, nothing.)

7

Twins

"They were identical twin boys, Wyatt and Jonas Maines, adopted at birth in 1997 by middle-class, conservative parents. Healthy and happy, they were physically indistinguishable from each other, but even as infants their personalities seemed to diverge. By the age of 2, when the boys were just learning to speak, Wyatt asked his mother, "When do I get to be a girl?" From WaPo science writer Amy Ellis Nutt: Becoming Nicole.

8

Leonardoh!

"He's not terribly good with the ordinary aspects of life -- paying bills, say, or car washing. He's too consumed with inventing solutions to the world's problems. Ideas -- really big ideas -- keep bombarding his mind. "It's like the rain forest. Every afternoon, the rains come." Bloomberg's Ashlee Vance on how an F student became America's most prolific inventor. (I'm more like an A minus student in a time of endless drought.)

9

Boxed Out

Houston-based Camden Property Trust has stopped accepting parcels at all of its 169 properties across the country. Why? You're ordering too many packages online. (Coming soon: Uber for hiring a guy to watch your stuff on the sidewalk until you get home. Valuation: $1 trillion.)

10

Bottom of the News

According to the WSJ, if you're annoyed by the loud chewing of others, the problem is you. Man is that wrong.

+ Hey, this is the last day to vote for 826 Valencia and help us take home $250K from the Google Impact Challenge. If you haven't voted, please do so now. It takes 2 seconds, requires no registration, and will make me look heroic to my fellow board members. (Oh, and it's also good for the kids.)

+ We may have hit peak pajamas.