August 2021 – Ken Schafer

August 29, 2021

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The reasons humans started kissing

“Lip-on-lip kissing is not nearly as universal as we might think it is, so can the diverse number of ways that humans kiss reveal what it is about this intimate…”

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A Big Study About Honesty Turns Out To Be Based On Fake Data

“Renowned psychologist Dan Ariely literally wrote the book on dishonesty. Now some are questioning whether the scientist himself is being dishonest. BuzzFeed…”

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On Getting Help

“TOKYO, JAPAN – JULY 27: Naomi Osaka of Team Japan reacts after a point during her Women’s Singles Third Round match against Marketa Vondrousova of Team Czech…”

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The Best Sites, Apps, and YouTube Channels to Learn Music

“Modern technology makes studying to play a new instrument easier than ever. And the best part? Most of these tools are free or affordable. Two decades ago, my…”

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‘The White Lotus’ Finale Didn’t Need a Dead Body—But It Picked the Perfect One

“HBO/Getty Images/Ringer illustration Mike White is well aware The White Lotus is not a murder mystery at heart. “You know, it’s such a trope at this point. All…”
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Mike White Accepts the Criticism

“Photo: TODD MIDLER/The New York Times/Redux The White Lotus is a show born out of necessity, an HBO series that creator Mike White could produce quickly and…”

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How Data Science Pinpointed the Creepiest Word in “Macbeth”

“It’s not the word you’d expect — and it appears in this very sentence Clive Thompson 21 hours ago · 7 min read “Shakespeare”, by Ungry Young Man Macbeth is a…”
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TV’s White Guys Are in Crisis

“Steve Zahn in The White Lotus . Photo: Courtesy of HBO This summer, television became preoccupied with a question: What should happen to men? Not all men — TV…”

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Hit songs rely on increasing “harmonic surprise” to hook listeners, study finds

“Enlarge / A study of “harmonic surprise”—points where the music deviates from listener expectations—in popular music over several decades found that Childish…”
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What’s the Point of Apple TV Hardware?

“Speaking of Mark Gurman , his Power On newsletter continues to be an excellent read. His main topic this week argues that Apple TV (hardware) is “mostly…”

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A Framework for the Metaverse — MatthewBall.vc

“TeamLab Art Collective Email Email Close I first wrote about the Metaverse in 2018 , and overhauled my thinking in a January 2020 update: The Metaverse: What It…”
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Clubhouse Is The Big Stinker That Nobody Wants To Talk About

“Clubhouse, the voice app that lets you hear other people attempt to hold a conversation, is no longer invite-only , which one would imagine would have given the…”
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The Best Time Travel Movies of … All Time

“From Groundhog Day to Interstellar , filmmakers love messing with timelines. Thankfully, that makes for mind-bending entertainment. Time—ravager of youth;…”
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Opinion | We Can Thank Drug Users for a Key Approach to Fighting Covid

“Guest Essay We Can Thank Drug Users for a Key Approach to Fighting Covid July 23, 2021, 3:00 p.m. ET Credit… Jo Zixuan Zhou By Ms. Szalavitz is a writer…”
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The Customer Is Often Wrong

“I n May, I stood in the rear galley of an airplane and watched as a line formed to berate the flight attendant next to me. We were at a gate at LaGuardia, our…”

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How TV Went From David Brent to Ted Lasso

“Critic’s Notebook Two decades ago, TV’s most distinctive stories were defined by a tone of ironic detachment. Today, they’re more often sincere and direct. How…”
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“I Think You Should Leave” Is a Love Language

“The other night, I ran into my old friend, the comedian and writer Josh Gondelman. It was the first time in a while that we had seen each other in person, but…”
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The Return-to-Office Existential Crisis

“In 2019, Steven Spielberg called for a ban on Oscar eligibility for streaming films , claiming that “movie theaters need to be around forever” and that…”
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You Anon

“For Context Reconsidering pseudonymity and what it means to “be yourself” online. By July 31, 2021, 5:00 a.m. ET In early July, when England’s soccer team lost…”
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The push for a “PBS for the internet”

“The concept of a new media ecosystem that’s non-profit, publicly funded and tech-infused is drawing interest in policy circles as a way to shift the power…”

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What drives belief in conspiracy theories, a lack of religion or too much?

“Jul 27th 2021 AMERICANS WHO believe in the conspiracy theories collectively packaged as “QAnon” have grown quiet in recent months. They gained international…”
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Transmutex | Union Square Ventures

“Electrification of transportation, heating, and various industrial processes is crucial to fighting the climate crisis. Of course that’s only true if we wind up…”
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short lease in a slick machine: a personal essay about apartments

“Jul 31, 2021 1,990 notes Hi Everyone, you may have wondered where I’ve been for the last few months. The truth is, I, like most people must at some point in…”

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How I mastered the Saturday NYT crossword puzzle in 31 days

“Max Deutsch Aug 8, 2017 · 61 min read On July 1, 2017, I asked myself the question: With only one month of practice, can I complete a Saturday New York Times…”
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Talk to The Times: Crossword Editor Will Shortz (Published 2009)

“Talk to The Times: Crossword Editor Will Shortz See how this article appeared when it was originally published on NYTimes.com. Will Shortz, The Times’s…”