Weekly newsletter 83
A selection of our best article links of the week, plus featured FiveBooks interviews, videos, quotations and more.
(http://thebrowser.com)
Weekly Newsletter
Best of the Week
Kill The Password
Mat Honan | Wired | 15 November 2012
"Nothing you do, no precaution you take, no long or random string of characters can stop a dedicated and devious individual from cracking your account. The age of the password has come to an end; we just haven’t realised it yet" Comments (http://thebrowser.com/articles/kill-password)
The Hazards Of Growing Up Painlessly
Justin Heckert | NYT | 15 November 2012
Ashlyn Blocker, 13, has a congenital insensitivity to pain. It's a very rare condition stemming from a genetic mutation. "Her life story offers an amazing snapshot of how complicated a life can get without the guidance of pain" Comments (http://thebrowser.com/articles/hazards-growing-painlessly)
Wrong Side Of The Fence
Rachel Shabi | Aeon | 15 November 2012
Critical essay on Israel and its rejection of the other, whether migrants or Palestinians. "It turns out being sealed off doesn't make Israelis feel any safer; all it does is amplify suspicion and insecurity, hatred and intolerance" Comments (http://thebrowser.com/articles/wrong-side-fence)
On The Road To Zero Growth
Jeremy Grantham | GMO | 21 November 2012
"We cling to the idea of the good old days. [But] the US GDP growth rate that we have become accustomed to for over a hundred years – in excess of 3% a year – is not just hiding behind temporary setbacks. It is gone forever" (PDF) Comments (http://thebrowser.com/articles/road-zero-growth)
Damien Hirst: Jumping The Shark
Andrew Rice | Businessweek | 21 November 2012
Prices of Hirst's work have been collapsing at auction, since he staged his own $200m sale in 2008. He's in a vicious circle: Trophy-art buyers don't like losers. “Hirst screwed with his market, and it came back to bite him” Comments (http://thebrowser.com/articles/damien-hirst-jumping-shark)
The Last Laughing Death
Jo Chandler | Global Mail | 13 November 2012
The Fore people of Papua New Guinea used to suffer from a mysterious "laughing death" disease they called kuru. Years of painstaking research concluded that it related to their practice of eating their dead Comments (http://thebrowser.com/articles/last-laughing-death)
How To Get Start-Up Ideas
Paul Graham | Paul Graham | 20 November 2012
"Ask yourself: who wants this right now? Who wants this so much that they'll use it even when it's a crappy version made by a two-person startup they've never heard of? If you can't answer that, the idea is probably bad" Comments (http://thebrowser.com/articles/how-get-start-ideas)
The Hard Life Of An NFL Long Shot
Charles Siebert | NYT | 21 November 2012
Superb account of college football star trying to make it in the NFL as an undrafted free agent. Siebert followed Pat Schiller closely for this story and got to know him well. As well he might; he's the linebacker's uncle Comments (http://thebrowser.com/articles/hard-life-nfl-long-shot)
(http://www.amazon.com/Best-of-FiveBooks-2011-ebook/dp/B007GAM6RC?tag=thebro-21)
FiveBooks Interview
(http://thebrowser.com/interviews/kwame-anthony-appiah-on-honour)
Kwame Anthony Appiah on Honour
The Princeton philosophy professor tells us about the meaning of honour, how it's won and lost, and what role it's had in the history of moral change Read on (http://thebrowser.com/interviews/kwame-anthony-appiah-on-honour)
Featured Topic
(http://thebrowser.com/reports/hackers)
Hackers
Cars, nuclear plants, computers, phones, webcams -- they all succumb to hackers in the end Read on (http://thebrowser.com/reports/hackers)
Reader Recommendations
@henrylf 9 Events That Have Shaped The Humanitarian Industry: Starting with Battle of Solferino back in 1859 t.co/mH2WB6GS #browsings (https://twitter.com/search?q=#browsings) More like this (http://thebrowser.com/browsings)
Book of the Week
Book of the Day (http://thebrowser.com/recommended/how-pleasure-works-by-paul-bloom)
How Pleasure Works by Paul Bloom
Susan Gelman says (https://thebrowser.com/interviews/susan-gelman-on-essentialism) : “He says that we like what we like, not because of what it presents to our senses…but through our beliefs about what the item is” FiveBooks Archive (http://thebrowser.com/fivebooks)
Video of the Week
Onion Talks: Social Media
(http://thebrowser.com/videos/onion-talks-social-media)
From the uncanny valley between satire and reality More videos (http://thebrowser.com/videos)
Quote of the Week
Adam Mars-Jones, on parody (http://www.lrb.co.uk/v34/n22/adam-mars-jones/speak-for-yourself-matey)
"Parody can tell you everything about its target, except how people could have taken it seriously in the first place"
More quotes (http://thebrowser.com/quotations)