Orange, Pakistan, Coastlines
The History Of Orange
David Scott Kastan & Stephen Farthing | Literary Hub | 27th July 2018
“Early in the 16th century Portuguese traders brought sweet oranges from India to Europe, and the color takes its name from them. Until they arrived, there was no orange as such in the color spectrum. When the first Europeans saw the fruit they were incapable of exclaiming about its brilliant orange color. They recognized the color but didn’t yet know its name. Often they referred to oranges as ‘golden apples’. Not until they knew them as oranges did they see them as orange” (1,900 words)
A Guide To The Parties Of Pakistan
Alun | Republic Of Broken Dolls | 20th July 2018
Highly entertaining guide to politics in Pakistan. “One of the largest and most diverse cities in the world, Karachi is also something of a terrifying dystopia, riven by ethnic conflicts and controlled to a disturbing extent by organised crime. The largest and scariest of the city’s mafia organisations – responsible for murder, torture and extortion on a vast scale – is actually a political party: the MQM. The party’s official slogan is ‘Empowering People’ which is hard not to read as a wonderfully twisted joke” (5,900 words)
Surrendering To Rising Seas
Jen Schwartz | Scientific American | 28th July 2018
Climate change forces Americans to start abandoning low-lying coastal towns. “Retreating from the coasts, in concept or practice, is not popular. Why would people abandon their community, the thinking goes, unless no better alternatives remained? To emergency responders, retreat is a form of flood mitigation. To environmental advocates, it’s ecological restoration. To resilience planners, it’s adaptation to climate change. Everyone agrees, however, that retreat sounds like defeat” (6,200 words)
Video of the day Economics Of Persecution
What to expect:
Mark Koyama on the persecution of minority groups during periods of economic insecurity (1’44”)
Thought for the day
Ideas come and go, stories stay
Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Podcast Fermi’s Paradox | Anatomy Of Next
Mike Solana discusses why we have not yet found evidence of alien life elsewhere in the universe
(39m 05s)