The Browser - Top Of The Week

Are We Too Impatient To Be Intelligent?

Rory Sutherland | Behavioral Scientist | 17th September 2024 | U

Manifesto for reframing time. Our systems are optimised for “faster is better”, with poor results. Rail-ticketing algorithms do not show people the longer, cheaper, more scenic option because it is slower. Emails are instant; the burden of noticing a time-sensitive communication is on the recipient, who is reduced to checking their inbox every 10 or 15 minutes. “We’ve allowed the urgent to drown out the important” (3,800 words)

The Nazi Of Oak Park

Michael Soffer | Chicago Magazine | 3rd September 2024 | U

Profile of Reinhold Kulle, an SS officer who became a high school janitor in Chicago, “one of the most common landing spots for former Nazis” after WWII. So many arrived there that investigators would joke that Nazi-hunting organisations could have simply moved to Chicago. Kulle hid his past from the immigration authorities, and passed himself off as an upstanding member of the Oak Park community (8,000 words)

The Other British Invasion

Ben Yagoda | Guardian | 26th September 2024 | U

American English is generally assumed to dominate the Anglosphere — a fact often lamented by critics elsewhere — but the process works in reverse too. "Britishisms" started making inroads into the US vernacular in the 1990s. For example: some Americans say "cheeky" to denote impudence, "gutted" to mean "disappointed" and "early days" to mean that a process is just beginning (3,600 words)

Batting By The Numbers

Neil Paine & Michelle Pera-McGhee | Pudding | 25th September 2024 | U

Analysis of how baseball's "perfect lineup" has evolved. There used to be set roles in the batting order. The fastest runner batted first, the best batter went third, and so on. That has all changed. The biggest stars and best all-rounders, like Shohei Ohtani, bat second now. The fourth man — the "cleanup" hitter — has to be more patient than powerful. And the bottom of the order is getting faster (6,500 words)

A Month Lost In The North Cascades

Julia Tellman | Cascadia Daily News | 19th September 2024 | U

A man set off for a one-day hike with his dog and was found alive thirty days later "dangerously emaciated and unable to move but still alive". He had made an impulse decision to go "on a mission of discovery to reach Canada", sending his dog home alone and forging on alone into the woods. His survival, without shoes or food, is described as "improbable, amazing and heroic" (1,700 words)

Video: Serenata Ex C | YouTube | JSO Leipzig | 11m 26s

Public performance of a "lost" Mozart composition, the Serenade in C for string trio, which was recently rediscovered in a library in Leipzig. It is thought to have been written in the 1760s, when Mozart was between the ages of 10 and 13.