Roland Fryer, Poker, History, Collecting, Citizenship, Frank Gehry
Lunch With Roland Fryer
John McDermott | Financial Times | 15th January 2016 | | Read with 1Pass
Harvard economist Roland Fryer discusses his work on policing, education, race and inequality. Schools are the key to better and more equal opportunity, the point at which lives can be changed. "There are some students and professors with very poor backgrounds - it’s possible. It’s also possible to drive a car with your feet, that doesn’t make it a good idea. My work is about making it probable” (2,580 words)
Secrets Of The MIT Poker Course
Nick Greene | Mental Floss | 14th January 2016
"Poker Theory and Analytics is a graduate-level MIT course taught by Kevin Desmond, a former pro player and Morgan Stanley analyst. Inspired by Bringing Down the House, the 2003 book about the MIT Blackjack Team who used their card-counting smarts to outwit Vegas, I formulated a simple plan: Take the class, hit the poker tables of Atlantic City, and profit. The Jersey Turnpike, however, has a way of shaking one’s confidence" (3,000 words)
Horizontal History
Tim Urban | Wait But Why | 13th January 2016
History is the interplay of events, more than the events themselves. "I might know that Copernicus began writing On the Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres in the early 1510s. Around that same time Michelangelo painted the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. While both of these things were happening, Henry VIII married Catherine of Aragon in England. The 1510s suddenly begin to take on a distinct personality" (3,100 words)
Narcissiana: On Collecting
Fredrik Sjöberg | Longreads | 12th January 2016
An entomologist reflects. The urge to collect insects goes deeper than the urge to collect art. "No one knows more about the flies on this island than I do. The mere sound can be like recognising someone you know in the crowd on a railway platform. A friend who tells a story, as if in passing, about the yearning of people long since dead for beauty, for the fragrance of an evening in late May when the air is still" (3,700 words)
Memorandum: What Is A Natural-Born Citizen?
Bryan Garner | Atlantic | 14th January 2016
Legal opinion. Ted Cruz was born in Canada to an American mother and a Cuban father. Is he therefore a "natural-born citizen" of the United States — a constitutional requirement for any American president? "All in all, it seems highly likely that the Supreme Court would today hold that the foreign-born child of a mother-citizen is eligible for the Presidency under Article II of the Constitution" (3,400 words)
Frank Gehry, Starchitect
Andrew Ferguson | Weekly Standard | 15th January 2016
When Frank Gehry rebuilt his house in Santa Monica, the result resembled "a county jail that ran out of funding". One neighbour sued Gehry to halt construction, "not realising he already had". And thus Gehry's reputation was made. Paul Goldberger's new biography means to celebrate Gehry's genius, but parts of it read like an indictment. If you want a Gehry house of your own, budget $5m for construction — plus $75m for Gehry (3,400 words)
Video of the day: The Helio Sequence
What to expect: Music video. Geometric and psychedelic animations (3'52")
Thought for the day
People who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do
Isaac Asimov