Longreads.com publishes a “top 5 stories” post every week. “Sometimes serious, sometimes humorous, always thought-provoking, they all have a certain je ne sais quoi that makes them special—something you’ll want to share with a friend.” Sometimes there are some real gems here that you wouldn’t pick up anywhere else (well, they are all from somewhere else, but often sources I would not otherwise stumble across.) Well friends, here are a few that caught my eye.
- How We Lost Our Minds About UFOs – The author goes through the entire history and comes down firmly on the skeptical side. Weather balloons, experimental aircraft, and Cold War propaganda.
- What Really Caused the Sriracha Shortage? – This is about the sauce made in California with the rooster on it. I include this because I want to make a public service announcement. Sri Racha is a province in Thailand known for spicy sauces that they put on seafood. There are many varieties, and virtually all are tastier than the mass produced pasty substance from California. They are not generally advertised, but some are exported. I recommend “Sriraja Panich Hot Chili Sauce”. Check your local Asian grocery outlet and see what you can find.
- The Last Stand of the Call-Centre Worker – This is a human interest story, but it goes into the unfolding AI takeover of customer service. It has some interesting numbers: 800,000 call center employees in the UK, 3 million in the US, 1.5 million in the Philippines, and 17 million globally. This is going to decrease as AI takes hold. I’ll just say, the new AI systems are going to provide much better customer service than the absurd automated systems we have dealt with over the past several decades (“listen carefully as menu options have changed”), which allowed companies and governments to just pretend they were providing customer service when actually they were just providing less service and forcing customers to waste their own time trying to serve themselves (kind of like self checkouts now that I think of it, but these are also improving).
- Would You Clone Your Dog? – Well, this one is about dog cloning. It’s pretty routine at this point. They remove eggs from the dog someone wants to clone (so only females can be cloned at this point?), fertilize them or trick them into thinking they’ve been fertilized them somehow, and implant them in another female dog who has the clone puppies.
- I Drove a Cybertruck Around SF Because I Am a Smart, Cool Alpha Male and The Most Polarizing Thing on Wheels – I haven’t been in one but I’ve certainly seen them. I grudgingly admire a company having the guts to make a real thing that looks science fiction future-y and sell it to real people in the real market. It shows some imagination.
- Pooping on the Moon Is a Messy Business – Apparently there are little doggy bags of human poop still on the moon.
- Living In A Lucid Dream – Lucid dreaming is certainly interesting. Supposedly almost anyone can learn to do it.
- ‘It Wasn’t Sexual in Any Way!’ 50 Years of Streaking – By The People Who Dared to Bare All – One guy has streaked at 583 public events.