In this week’s edition: The Etsy IPO, Hillary’s emails, #WeaselPecker, dangerous fajitas and more.
You can read it here.
Be sure to sign up.
Category: Misc.
Last Sunday I sent out the first edition of my new email newsletter*, called — you better believe it — Newley’s Notes.
You can read that dispatch here.
To be added to the list, enter your email address here.
I’ll use the brief dispatch, probably sent every Sunday, to:
- Share links to my recently published WSJ stories
- Highlight notable technology industry news, especially concerning tech in Asia
- Point out other interesting stuff related to books, sports, music, science, journalism and more — much like the material I link to in my periodic links posts.
Note that the newsletter will not simply be a regurgitation of what you see on this site. It’ll point to some Newley.com items but will mostly link to other stuff.
*Long-time readers will recall that I’ve blogged about email newsletters several times in the past — as long ago as January 2002, in fact! — so I’m excited to be kicking off one of my own at long last.
For his last Sunday WSJ column, Brett Arends provides some simple rules on personal finance:
Smart money moves aren’t more complicated than you think. They’re simpler.
Cut through all the jargon and pontificating and technical stuff, and everything you really need to know about personal finance fits into less than 1,000 words—no more than three to four minutes.
Click through for his 23 tips.
I first heard about Sturgill Simpson on the NPR “All Songs Considered” best of 2014 podcast.
You just have to listen to his album that came out this year, “Metamodern Sounds in Country Music.” (It currently has 282 ratings on Amazon, 248 of which are five-stars.)
Here’s NPR’s take:
In case you need a clue as to where Simpson is coming from, the title comes in handy: Metamodern Sounds in Country Music nods to the genre-expanding Ray Charles classic Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music, and tells you he’s going to fold country’s conventions over on themselves as if he’s trying to create some kind of musical space-time portal. He shows up on the cover in a photo that looks as if it had been pulled out of a Civil War-era locket, with long hair and untrimmed mustache. The background, of course, is outer space. Here’s a list of the jobs held by the eight people Simpson thanks in the album’s credits: molecular biologist, psychonaut, science-fiction author, astronomer, theoretical physicist, psychopharmacologist and computer programmer. The way Simpson is gunning, he’s going to freak some people out.
The funny thing is, Metamodern Sounds in Country Music is absolutely country, from the roadhouse-ready “Life of Sin” to the lonesome-skyline blues of “Voices” to the revival-tent call-and-response stomp of “A Little Light.” The two covers on the album are of Buford Abner’s “Long White Line” (which appeared on both Charlie Moore & Bill Napier’s Truckin’ Favorites and Aaron Tippin’s In Overdrive) and When in Rome’s 1988 hit “The Promise,” which appeared in the closing credits to Napoleon Dynamite. Both would sound at home at the Ryman.
I’ve also heard good things about his first album, “High Top Mountain,” but haven’t checked it out yet. I will soon, though.
Categories
Gone Fishin’
I won’t be posting anything here until after the new year, though I may be Tweeting sporadically in the meantime.
Happy holidays!
(Image via.)
Categories
The 20 Best ‘Best of 2014’ Lists
- Best Books of 2014 — WSJ
- The books Quartz read in 2014 — Quartz
- The best books of 2014 — The Economist
- 10 best nonfiction books of 2014 — Stephen Carter at Bloomberg View
- The 10 Best Books of 2014 — NYT
- The Best Books of 2014 — Amazon
- The Best Book Covers of 2014 — NYT
- Longreads’ Best of 2014 — Longreads
- The Best Movies of 2014 — Richard Brody at The New Yorker
- Best movies of 2014 with behavioral economics themes — Cass Sunstein at Bloomberg View
- The 20 best movies of 2014 — A.V. Club
- The Best Movie Posters of 2014 — MUBI Notebook
- The 10 Best TV Shows of 2014 — Vulture
- Best TV Of 2014 — NPR
- Best albums of 2014 — Rateyourmusic.com
- The 100 Best Tracks of 2014 — Pitchfork
- Best iPhone photos of 2014 — iPhone Photography Awards
- Top physics breakthroughs of 2014 — Physics World
- The Best Tech Quotes of 2014 — Vauhini Vara at The New Yorker
- Embedded above and on YouTube here: Top 30 Goals World Cup 2014, by HeilRJ.
Categories
Vine of the Day: ‘Best Wezer cover ever’
Embedded above and on Vine here: “Best Weezer cover ever.”
There’s a longer version on YouTube, as well. But I prefer the simplicy of the Vine.
(Backstory: Apparently this wonderful bit of music recital silliness isn’t new, but it’s new to me.)
I’m back in Singapore after my trip to the Philippines.
Thankfully, typhoon Hagupit turned out to be less severe than many feared:
The people of southern Luzon expressed relief Sunday night as Typhoon Hagupit, which they had feared might be a repeat of last year’s deadly supertyphoon, largely spared their region.
Just two days earlier, forecasters had warned of a crippling direct hit on the populous region.
“We’re happy, because we were afraid it would be like Yolanda,” said Jennifer Amonuevo, one of 650 people in Legazpi Port Elementary School in Legazpi City. “Yolanda” is how locals refer to last year’s Supertyphoon Haiyan.
Meanwhile farther to the north of the country, I spent much of Sunday, before the storm arrived, at an evacuation center in the Baseco compound of Manila’s port area.
It’s a fascinating place: full of narrow roads, tiny homes, various shops. And it’s buzzing with activity: food vendors, children running about, pickup basketball games, people coming and going to work.
Due to its location next to Manila Bay — it’s the triangle highlighted in the second map above — it’s vulnerable to storms.
Thankfully, though, the typhoon didn’t make its way north and pummel Manila, as some thought it might.
Here are some iPhone pics from the day — many of which I Tweeted and posted to Instagram — as some in the community took shelter in a large building that is also used as an elementary school.
The evacuation center
Smiles all around
And more smiles
Inside the shelter
Getting settled
Playing ball
View from the evacuation center looking out toward the water
Preparing for the worst
My ride out of Baseco
Video from inside
And, finally, rains hitting Manila on Monday. (I took this pic from a standard taxi, not a sidecar!)
The storm ultimately killed 11 and injured 480, according to local media.
Any loss of life is sad, of course. But compared to the 6,300 or so who perished during Typhoon Haiyan just over a year ago, Hagupit was obviously far less destructive.
Categories
Video of the Day: LEGO Particle Accelerator
Embedded above and on YouTube here:
This is a working particle accelerator built using LEGO bricks. I call it the LBC (Large Brick Collider). It can accelerate a LEGO soccer ball to just over 12.5 kilometers per hour.
By JK Brickworks. (Via.)
Categories
On ‘Interstellar’
The latest in a series of posts about sci-fi and post-apocalyptic movies, which I love:
I’m late in noting this, as it was released several weeks ago, but:
Go see “Interstellar.” While it’s in the theater. In IMAX,* if possible.
Gorgeous cinematography. Powerful music — and use of silence. Conceptually daring. Hugely ambitious in its storytelling scope. Thought provoking.
Not perfect, but a remarkable film.
*A and I saw it at Shaw Theaters Lido here in Singapore.