Pocket reading list : Part 5
I wonder how many people I've alienated by incessantly posting these articles on facebook/twitter. I guess that is one of the reasons I'm doing this, to see if there are people who still go on facebook looking for something interesting to read. We're at half-a-century now.
The Benefits of Being Cold : An interesting read on how being cold will keep one's metabolic rate high thereby burning more calories and losing weight (while doing nothing). Other than for the fact that it'll take a while to get used to the cold temperature, it's worth trying out one day, just to see if it works.
Endangered Dog Breeds and the Market Forces Behind Them : I'm dumb for not having realized that all dog breeds belong to the same species, given the diversity in their shapes and sizes. And I've also never bothered knowing why a Sheep dog is called so or why a Dachshunds (meaning badger hounds in German) is called so. This is an interesting tale of how wolves came to be domesticated and how various breeds were raised for specific tasks.
The Email Scam with Centuries of History : Everyone has gotten a mail from a rich Saudi or Ethiopian prince at some point or the other. And I've read a couple of interesting articles on how the scammers have changed their game to target the most naive among us. On the other hand, I never knew how much of a rich history there is to such scams.
Stateless in West Africa : Most of us take our citizenship for granted, by birth. Apparently there are those who, for various geopolitical reasons are deemed stateless, without any social safety net to fall back on or without any government to approach when help is needed.
We Should Have a Better Condom by Now. Here’s Why We Don’t : Talking about condoms is faux pas where I come from and one has to learn about them through weird ads, disturbing posters and western movies. It was interesting to learn what the history of the condom is, how many different makes/models of them there are, what their efficacy is and what the future of condom research is.
The Independent Discovery of TCP/IP, By Ants : Ants are, in my opinion, a wonderful organism to study. I was part of a team who worked on an ant colony simulator for a student competition. We learnt about how ants use pheromones to leave tracks while they are searching for food and how the pheromone scent changes when they're on their way back with food. We learnt about how strong and how they work as a collective organism when under attack. This, too, taught me something new about ants and it taught me that there's (still) a lot to be learnt from nature.
The Pro Dumpster Diver Who's Making Thousands Off America's Biggest Retailers : We have been producing more and more garbage over the last decade and I read that most agricultural products, though healthy to eat, are thrown out as they are past an (arbitrarily set) expiration date. And not just food waste but also waste generated from consumer electronic products thrown out as they have a scratch or because they've gone out of model. This is an account of how a man digs through the dumpsters, finding waste (read as money).
The Uberpreneur: How An Uber Driver Makes $252,000 A Year : Given how common Uber has become (even in India!), it seems fairly obvious for people to build on top of it. And this is a story of an entrepreneur who advertises and sells his merchandise on Uber drives.
The Untold Story Of The Invention Of The Game Cartridge : Everyone has used game cartridges and everyone remembers blowing into them to make them work. I loved reading this as it brought back childhood memories, among the few that I actually have, of me playing with them.
How the Tudors invented breakfast : I never really understood what supper was and why in western tv shows, they talk about having supper at dinner time or about having dinner before the sun sets. Well, this helped me finally understand what exactly was going on.
The Benefits of Being Cold : An interesting read on how being cold will keep one's metabolic rate high thereby burning more calories and losing weight (while doing nothing). Other than for the fact that it'll take a while to get used to the cold temperature, it's worth trying out one day, just to see if it works.
Endangered Dog Breeds and the Market Forces Behind Them : I'm dumb for not having realized that all dog breeds belong to the same species, given the diversity in their shapes and sizes. And I've also never bothered knowing why a Sheep dog is called so or why a Dachshunds (meaning badger hounds in German) is called so. This is an interesting tale of how wolves came to be domesticated and how various breeds were raised for specific tasks.
The Email Scam with Centuries of History : Everyone has gotten a mail from a rich Saudi or Ethiopian prince at some point or the other. And I've read a couple of interesting articles on how the scammers have changed their game to target the most naive among us. On the other hand, I never knew how much of a rich history there is to such scams.
Stateless in West Africa : Most of us take our citizenship for granted, by birth. Apparently there are those who, for various geopolitical reasons are deemed stateless, without any social safety net to fall back on or without any government to approach when help is needed.
We Should Have a Better Condom by Now. Here’s Why We Don’t : Talking about condoms is faux pas where I come from and one has to learn about them through weird ads, disturbing posters and western movies. It was interesting to learn what the history of the condom is, how many different makes/models of them there are, what their efficacy is and what the future of condom research is.
The Independent Discovery of TCP/IP, By Ants : Ants are, in my opinion, a wonderful organism to study. I was part of a team who worked on an ant colony simulator for a student competition. We learnt about how ants use pheromones to leave tracks while they are searching for food and how the pheromone scent changes when they're on their way back with food. We learnt about how strong and how they work as a collective organism when under attack. This, too, taught me something new about ants and it taught me that there's (still) a lot to be learnt from nature.
The Pro Dumpster Diver Who's Making Thousands Off America's Biggest Retailers : We have been producing more and more garbage over the last decade and I read that most agricultural products, though healthy to eat, are thrown out as they are past an (arbitrarily set) expiration date. And not just food waste but also waste generated from consumer electronic products thrown out as they have a scratch or because they've gone out of model. This is an account of how a man digs through the dumpsters, finding waste (read as money).
The Uberpreneur: How An Uber Driver Makes $252,000 A Year : Given how common Uber has become (even in India!), it seems fairly obvious for people to build on top of it. And this is a story of an entrepreneur who advertises and sells his merchandise on Uber drives.
The Untold Story Of The Invention Of The Game Cartridge : Everyone has used game cartridges and everyone remembers blowing into them to make them work. I loved reading this as it brought back childhood memories, among the few that I actually have, of me playing with them.
How the Tudors invented breakfast : I never really understood what supper was and why in western tv shows, they talk about having supper at dinner time or about having dinner before the sun sets. Well, this helped me finally understand what exactly was going on.