Kevin Kelly shares a meaty and fascinating list of travel tips learned from wandering the world for 50 years:
Organize your travel around passions instead of destinations. An itinerary based on obscure cheeses, or naval history, or dinosaur digs, or jazz joints will lead to far more adventures, and memorable times than a grand tour of famous places. It doesn’t even have to be your passions; it could be a friend’s, family member’s, or even one you’ve read about. The point is to get away from the expected into the unexpected.
If you hire a driver, or use a taxi, offer to pay the driver to take you to visit their mother. They will ordinarily jump at the chance. They fulfill their filial duty and you will get easy entry into a local’s home, and a very high chance to taste some home cooking. Mother, driver, and you leave happy. This trick rarely fails.
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Crash a wedding. You are not a nuisance; you are the celebrity guest! The easiest way to do this is to find the local wedding hall where weddings happen on schedule and approach a wedding party with a request to attend. They will usually feel honored. You can offer the newlyweds a small token gift of cash if you want. You will be obliged to dance. Take photos of them; they will take photos of you. It will make your day and theirs. (I’ve crashed a wedding in most of the countries I have visited.)
ProPublica: What is a pig butchering scam, and how to avoid falling victim to one.
At Taco Bell, a Romance Is Born. Bettina Makalinta and her husband went to Taco Bell on their first date. “Taco Bell isn’t ‘real’ Mexican food, but it has always, at least in my lifetime, been knowing about this: A Cheez-It tostada lands at Taco Bell, because its audience is stoners and silly people.”
Business school professors trained an AI to judge workers’ personalities based on their faces. “The purpose of this automated eugenics is the same as every ‘rational’ account of hierarchy in human history: to retroactively justify winners, and to condemn losers before the game even starts.” — Cory Doctorow
Cory suggests a possible explanation, almost in passing: Assuming the test has any accuracy — a big “if” — it is simply detecting people with money and social status to make themselves look conventionally attractive.
I love this article by Joel Stein, about his fashion makeover. I laughed out loud at the headline and description alone — “A sartorial remaking, inspired by Ted Danson’s character on ‘A Man on the Inside’” — because I had the same impulse after watching the show.
My resolve to become natty only lasted a couple of days. I bought a cardigan sweater for about $110. I got away with spending much, much less money than Stein did.
I do at least want to wear nicer T-shirts. My T-shirts get stretched at the collar after I repeatedly push my massive Charlie Brown head through the neck hole.
Last night, we watched the movie “The Man From Earth.” I liked how the main character dressed: Cargo pants, a crew neck sweater and a corduroy sports jacket.
I love RSS but find all RSS clients annoying. I’m trying bazqux now and I like it.
Until a week or two ago, was sure I wanted an RSS reader that also supported email newsletters, but now I think you know what’s great for reading email? Email is great for that.
I’m looking at a 15-hour flight in about two weeks and then another one a week later. I need to try this to get an upgrade.
A big reason I enjoy reading /r/AITA is so I can say, “Yes, often I’m TA but at least I’m not that guy.” I suspect this is a common motivation.