Tuesday, May 3rd, 2016

1

Hello From the Other Side

According to a recent survey, half of teens think they're addicted to their phones. A digital detox expert described some of the signs: "If your teens would prefer gaming indoors, alone, as opposed to going out to the movies, meeting friends for burgers or any of the other ways that teens build camaraderie, you may have a problem." Earlier this week, my nine year-old son tip-toed downstairs around midnight to try to sneak the iPad. I caught him, immediately tweeted about his attempt, and went back to watching videos on my laptop. Hopefully, he learned a lesson.

+ "The park rangers at Death Valley National Park in California call it death by GPS. It describes what happens when your GPS fails you, not by being wrong, exactly, but often by being too right." From ArsTechnica: Why do we follow digital maps into dodgy places?

2

Dealer’s Choice

"If we continue down the road of inappropriate use we'll lose the most powerful tool we have to fight life-threatening infections." We know that antibiotics are losing some of their effectiveness. And we know that this is in part because of how many of them we consume. So this stat is especially disturbing: One in three antibiotics prescribed in U.S. are unnecessary.

+ Mosaic: Austin, Indiana: the HIV capital of small-town America.

+ WaPo: Seven of the top ten most profitable hospitals in the United States are nonprofit facilities.

3

The Hole Truth

"You know, human beings are territorial, they feel more comfortable in areas they are secure. In a cell you have a routine, you pretty much know what is going to happen, when it's going to happen, but in society it's difficult, it's looser. So there are moments when, yeah, I wish I was back in the security of a cell." Albert Woodfox describes what it feels like to be on the outside after spending 43 years in solitary confinement.

4

Theranos Dive

"There are a lot of directions in which to point fingers. There is Holmes, of course, who seemed to have repeatedly misrepresented her company. There are also the people who funded her, those who praised her, and the largely older, all-white, and entirely male board of directors, few of whom have any real experience in the medical field, that supposedly oversaw her. But if you peel back all of the layers of this tale, at the center you will find one of the more insidious culprits: the Silicon Valley tech press." In Vanity Fair, Nick Bilton looks at the fall of Theranos, and tries to find the culprit behind its mercurial rise.

5

Elvis Has Re-entered the Building

"Christmas being the warmest day of the year in the UK. Kim Kardashian becoming US president in 2020. The Loch Ness Monster found existing. Elvis found still breathing." According to one English oddsmaker, those things are about as likely to happen as Leicester winning the Premier League. Which just happened. From The Guardian: In US sports, there's no comparison with Leicester's impossible dream. (I'm not saying it'll happen, but these days, a Kardashian presidency sures seems a lot more likely than the other possibilities.)

+ FiveThirtyEight: Leicester City's Stunning Rise.

6

Indianarchy

As Indiana residents take to the polls, we're inching towards what looks like it will be an outright, pre-convention, delegate-based win for Donald Trump. Buzzfeed is tracking the latest.

+ In other words, as Vox explains, Donald Trump is really going to be the nominee. This is actually happening.

+ "I mean, what was he doing -- what was he doing with Lee Harvey Oswald shortly before the death? Before the shooting? It's horrible." From Politico: Trump accuses Cruz's father of helping JFK's assassin. And that will barely be a blip in this campaign's newscycle. All the rules have changed.

7

Money to Burn?

"Party planners at Burning Man are careful to hide their luxury dwellings behind large walls dressed as art projects, but Further Future had no such pretension." Nellie Bowles takes a trip to the open desert near Vegas to get an inside look at Further Future, Burning Man for the 1% (not to be confused with the original Burning Man, which also includes the 2%). These events are completely misunderstood. Sure, they seem like corporate boondoggles for hubris-heavy execs looking to trade in some family time for an endless series of Molly-fueled, shirtless hugs. But you forget, they're not just having fun out there. They're vesting.

+ Are tech companies about to take a downturn? They are if you believe one key economic indicator: Falling sales of Ping Pong tables.

8

Keep Your Hands and Feet In

"Erotic sculpture park? Check. Bumper cars designed like genitalia? Check. Snack bar serving aphrodisiac recipes? Check. Sex on the premises? Uh, better not." From the NYT: Brazil Ponders an Erotic Theme Park, With No Sex Allowed. (That's exactly how I'd describe my college experience.)

9

Alexander the Great

Another day, another Hamilton milestone. The hip hop musical just set a new record with 16 Tony nominations. Here's a look at the complete list of nominees.

10

Bottom of the News

"While there are all kinds of variations within partners, mixed-attractiveness couples do go somewhat against the grain." From WaPo: The real reason some people end up with partners who are way more attractive. I'm part of a mixed marriage, and take it from me, it's the puns.

+ Related: Photos from the Met Ball.

+ "What's remarkable isn't so much Allrecipes' dominance but how distant the site feels from the food conversation in the media." Slate on how the nation's most popular recipe site reveals the enormous gap between foodie culture and what people actually cook.

+ "After a teammate dared Osborn to stick out the top of his penis during the yearbook football picture, Osborn did just that." And now he faces 70 criminal charges.