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KindleHow Tim Durham funded a libertine lifestyle—dozens of luxury cars, Playboy-themed parties, a plethora of failed businesses—on the backs of unwitting Ohioans, many of them Amish.
Sunday, July 31
Timothy Ferris /
NY Review of Books /
Apr 2004
On why routinizing space travel has failed.
David Gelles /
Financial Times /
Jul 2011
A look at the dating site’s new algorithm.
Codenamed “Synapse”, the Match algorithm uses a variety of factors to suggest possible mates. While taking into account a user’s stated preferences, such as desired age range, hair colour and body type, it also learns from their actions on the site. So, if a woman says she doesn’t want to date anyone older than 26, but often looks at profiles of thirty-somethings, Match will know she is in fact open to meeting older men. Synapse also uses “triangulation”. That is, the algorithm looks at the behaviour of similar users and factors in that information, too.
Saturday, July 30
Hilton Als /
New Yorker /
Nov 1994
A profile of Vogue Creative Director André Leon Talley.
From our guide to haute couture genius at Slate.
The Longform.org Guide to Haute Couture Genius
Our latest collection is up at Slate, five stories on the eccentric men of high fashion.
Robert Sam Anson /
Vanity Fair /
Nov 2000
An oral history.
Tom Freston: We knew we needed a real signature piece that would look different from everything else on TV. We also knew that we had no money. So we went to NASA and got the man-on-the-moon footage, which is public domain. We put our logo on the flag and some music under it. We thought that was sort of a rock ’n’ roll attitude: “Let’s take man’s greatest moment technologically, and rip it off.”
Skip Hollandsworth /
Texas Monthly /
Jul 2000
The coldest of cases: During 1884-85, seven women and one man were brutally murdered in Austin, Texas.
Friday, July 29
Andrew Rice /
New York Times Magazine /
Jul 2011
The intertwined destinies of El Paso and Ciudad Juárez.
Colson Whitehead /
Grantland /
Jul 2011
Live from the World Series of Poker.
Daniel Mason /
Lapham's Quarterly /
Jun 2011
On the history and study of pica:
Indeed, we have long defined ourselves and others by what we do and do not eat, from kashrut dietary restrictions described in Leviticus to the naming of Comanche bands (Kotsoteka—buffalo eaters, Penateka—honey eaters, Tekapwai—no meat) to insults—French frogs, English limeys, German krauts. But poya seemed to beg a different question: what was one to make of people who ate food that wasn’t food at all?
Thursday, July 28
Alexis Madrigal /
The Atlantic /
Jul 2011
A history of the gravestone laser-etching industry.
In anonymous warehouses in Detroit, Goldman Sachs has hoarded a quarter of the world’s supply of aluminum, placing them firmly in control of trading on the London Metal Exchange.
