Kickoff for June 24, 2024
Thanks to everyone who took part in the poll about the number of links to include in the letter each week. The voting was close, but 55% of respondents voted in favour of dropping the number of links to six per week.
In July, I'm going to do a little experiment: the five editions of The Kickoff that I send out that month will each contain six links. We'll see how that works out.
With that out of the way, let's get Monday started with these links:
The Female Journalist Who Helped Create the Field of Science Reporting — Wherein we learn about the Science Service, a science news organization started in the 1920s, and about Jane Stafford, the service's medical correspondent who pretty much created the template for effective science writing to come.
From the article:
Over the years, Stafford’s reporting spanned the breadth of medicine and public health, from blood transfusions to schizophrenia, influenza to rat-borne diseases, tuberculosis to toothaches. She wrote hundreds of articles about cancer rates, detection, treatment, and “cures.” During the Depression, she explored the connection between food and nutrition; when the world engaged in war, she wrote about health on the home front, “victory meals,” meat substitutes, and how European snowstorms might affect soldiers’ health.
What Is Left? Rebecca Solnit on the Perennial Divisions of the American Left — Wherein the author of the article ponders the two facets, similar yet opposite, of left wingers in America (and, by extension, elsewhere) — two facets separated by schisms that have existed for decades.
From the article:
It should be a modest request to ask that “left” not mean supporters of authoritarian regimes soaked in their own people’s blood. But the people and groups and agendas grouped together as the left contain not just contradictions but sworn enemies. Some of the loudest pro-Putin people are now clearly part of the right; some continue to claim the mantle of the left, begging the question of what the left is.
The man who tricked Nazi Germany: lessons from the past on how to beat disinformation — Wherein we delve into the what's new is old again files and learn about Sefton Delmer who, during the Second World War, fought to destroy Nazi echo chambers and turn Germans against their leadership, and what lessons Delmer's efforts have for the modern world.
From the article:
You can’t shove “the truth” down people’s throats if they don’t want to hear it, but you can inspire them to have the motivation to care about facts in the first place.
The 'chronoworking' productivity hack that helps workers excel — Wherein we learn about the titular idea in which people work, and plan their work, around their internal clocks rather than on the hours imposed upon them by their employers.
From the article:
"It's nonsensical that we all need to be working together all at one time. You get far more out of people if you operate around different chronotypes." The approach has the added benefit of normalising flexible hours for parents or those with other responsibilities that make it tricky to stick to 9-to-5 restrictions, she adds. "It levels the playing field."
She Built a Microcomputer Empire From Her Suburban Home — Wherein we learn about early desktop computing pioneer Lore Harp McGovern, how she got interested in the burgeoning microcomputer market in the 1970s, and how that interest led her to, with friend Carole Ely, found one of the pioneering (in many ways) computer makers of the era.
From the article:
Harp McGovern didn’t just shatter Silicon Valley’s glass ceiling—the Ice Maiden (or “the awful bitch”) used its broken shards to carve out a place for herself, her company, and her employees along the way. All too often, her successes have been allocated to other people, while her failures have been attributed to her alone.
How Deep Does Life Go? — Wherein we're taken on a journey to the literal depths of the sea to discover that life can not only survive but thrive in what's one of the most inhospitable environments imaginable.
From the article:
These findings from scientific ocean exploration suggest that microbial life may be pervasive everywhere beneath Earth’s surface under conditions long thought to be inhospitable, if not fatal. This raises the possibility that, as Gold postulated, bacterial life may have existed and may still exist on other bodies in the solar system, including Mars. This despite the Red Planet’s hellish surface conditions, continually blasted by lethal radiation from the Sun and the cosmos.
Rebirth of a Legend: Reviving an 800-Year-Old Tea Farm — Wherein we learn about efforts to, and the difficulties involved in, trying to bring a native variety of Japanese tea back into the pots and cups of lovers of the hot beverage.
From the article:
The fact that these bushes were native Kyoto varieties may well imply that these were linked to the tea that Eisai shared with Myōe, which would be like a dream come true for tea lovers. The specialists are still hoping for documentation to reinforce their hopes that the tea plants on the temple grounds are the remnants of the Asahien farm, there is no doubt that these Kōshōji plants are a valuable genetic resource.
The Town That Kept Its Nuclear Bunker a Secret for Three Decades — Wherein we learn about a locale in West Virginia whose inhabitants adhered to the idea that loose lips sink ships, and collectively kept quiet about a safehouse for members of Congress built under a local resort. Imagine keeping a lid on something like that in the age of social media ...
From the article:
Trish Parker, a lifelong resident of western Greenbrier County, says the bunker was the definition of an open secret. “People wondered about it to their husband, their wife, their brother—but they weren’t going to wonder about it to anyone else,” she says. “They just didn’t talk about it to outsiders.”
The Quality of Mercy — Wherein we learn about Gary Settle, a long-time federal prisoner who, after his health began to decline while incarcerated, began to help other ill prisoners gain compassionate release.
From the article:
“Once I got going with it, I had to do it,” Settle said. “What type of person would I be if I did not assist people and their families at this most crucial time when I could?” He went on: “There is nothing I can do about the past, but I get to decide how I live the rest of my life.”