The short descriptions that I write about each article featured in an edition of the letter aren't meant to be definitive statements. They're my impressions of the key points of those article, impressions that could be different from yours. If that's the case, great! We don't need to agree about everything.

With that out of the way, let's get Monday started with these links:

Why We Like Things — A meditation on the idea of good taste — what it is, why it's so difficult to define consistently, and why why the tech world often gets it wrong.

From the article:

We like when people agree with our tastes, and we may even pursue that gratification by winning others to our side. But agreement isn’t always possible — or, in many cases, desirable. Having our tastes challenged can be invigorating: It is, for many, one of the greatest pleasures of a shared cultural life.

'Security by antiquity': Why older tech is sometimes safer from hackers — A look at the counterintuitive idea that obsolete devices, software, and operating systems are safer because hackers and crackers have moved on from them to their more modern counterparts.

From the article:

An organisation locked out of its own computer systems may still be able to retrieve its most important data if staff have made good back-ups, for example on magnetic tape. Interest in magnetic tape is only increasing further today because the cost of random access memory (Ram), a form of computer memory that doesn't rely on tape, is skyrocketing. Meyrath says his company's clients use tape to store all kinds of data – from broadcasters' footage of baseball games to genomes mapped in detail by research facilities.

The ultimate horse — Ever wonder how the modern race horse came to be? It's a fascinating journey of evolution and selective breeding, but one which had a deleterious effect on the species.

From the article:

Horses’ genetic diversity remained large for thousands of years, before collapsing after the introduction of modern breeding. In nature, diversity is maintained by competing selection pressures that balance one trait against another. A wild horse does not just need to be fast. Its bones need to last. It needs to be resistant to disease. Even a domesticated working horse would, before intensive breeding began, face natural constraints on its traits.

The sucker’s dilemma — Falling for a con or scam, as it turns out, has a number of wide-ranging and potentially devastating impacts on both our physical and mental health. And sometimes that comes from sources we least expect.

From the article:

Feeling suckered doesn’t just result from money-losing scams. Everyday experiences can evoke the same emotions. You might feel it on your daily commute after tapping the brakes to let some jerk cut in front of you. Or after you do the hardest part of a work project and your slacker colleagues get an equal share of the credit.