David Bowie's must-read books revealed As a new version of the exhibition David Bowie Is opens this week at the Art Gallery of Ontario, curators have revealed a list of his top 100 must-read books, giving a fascinating insight into the mind of the influential musician and style icon. The show, which offered unprecedented access to Bowie's own archive, became the most popular ever mounted by London's V&A when it ran there earlier this year. As the Guardian's Alexis Petridis pointed out at the time, the Bowie story is so well-known that "unless it's content to retell a very hackneyed story indeed, David Bowie Is has to find a way of casting new light on some of the most over-analysed and discussed music in rock history." The reading list, with books presented in chronological order rather than order of preference, provides Ontario with a new angle. Political history features, in titles such as Christopher Hitchens' The Trial of Henry Kissinger, and Orlando Figes' A People's Tragedy, as well as collections of interviews.
A Beginner's Guide to Drinking Better Oolong Tea [Photographs: Vicky Wasik, unless otherwise noted] Imagine if you went to a bar and the only beers on the menu were the lightest, most crisp pilsners and darkest, most molassesy porters. No nutty brown ales, bitter-citrusy IPAs, or twangy sours. For a round or two, you'd probably make do. For tea people in the U.S., this is pretty much everywhere. But tell someone you'd like an oolong and they'll likely just stare. Oolongs are the wide, wide category of tea in between green and black, and through skilled, labor-intensive processing, a tea-maker can coax anything from buttery florals to deep chocolate to roasted nuts to tropical fruit out of a single batch of leaves. What We Talk About When We Talk About Oolongs [Photograph: Max Falkowitz] In a way, oolongs are the most cheffy teas out there. So what does it mean to get an oolong right? As soon as you pluck a tea leaf, it starts to oxidize. Oolong tea leaves partially through their long withering process. An Oolong Tour Recommended Vendors
33 Websites That Will Make You a Genius The web is increasingly becoming a powerful resource that can easily help you learn something new everyday. These awesome sites are just what you need. “I have no special talent, I am only passionately curious.” – Albert Einstein There is a good chance you’ll be able to put at least one of these learning tools to good use and come out as a better person than you were last year. BBC — Future — Making you smarter, every day. 2. 99U (YouTube) — Actionable insights on productivity, organization, and leadership to help creative people push ideas forward. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. iTunes U — Learning on the go, from some of the world’s top universities. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. Brain Pickings — Insightful long form posts on life, art, science, design, history, philosophy, and more. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. edX — Take online courses from the world’s best universities. 31. 32. 33. “Intellectual growth should commence at birth and cease only at death.” ― Albert Einstein
WIRED's security special: do not click here Hours after January's murderous assault on Charlie Hebdo's office -- and on free speech itself -- Andrew Parker, director general of MI5, warned that intelligence agencies risked losing their ability to monitor "the dark places from where those who wish us harm can plot and plan". David Cameron pledged "legislation that makes sure we do not allow terrorists safe space to communicate". Encrypted communications, complained the US National Security Agency, the FBI and the Metropolitan Police, favour the bad guys. Only government-accessible back doors in every phone, app or laptop can prevent jihadists from undermining our society. WIRED respectfully disagrees. Access to secure encryption is a fundamental principle of the open internet. That's why we've put together this accessible guide to encryption tools already on the market. We show you how: How encryption protects our intellectual privacy (and why you should care) What encryption can (and can't) do for you Encrypt your life How to use Tor
7 Cool Books That Bill Gates Loves A few hours ago, Bill Gates blogged his suggestions for summer reading. His previous year's suggestions were somewhat weighty tomes, but this year, he's suggesting books that he characterizes as "beach reading." Here are his picks: Hyperbole and a Half, by Allie Brosh Gates comments: "Based on Brosh's wildly popular website, [the book] consists of brief vignettes and comic drawings about her young life. Of the seven Gates picked, two are among my favorite books. Based on Gates's comments, I can tell that the other five are right up my alley, too. As I think about the list, what strikes me as important isn't so much the books themselves but that Gates chooses to share his reading habits with the world. Consider: Gates is the richest man in the world with a net worth exceeding $80 billion. Some do become philanthropists, but often their giving goes towards charities like art museums or their alma maters, charities that keep the money benefiting their own personal circle of privilege.
12 Books Steve Jobs Wanted You to Read | Inc.com Toward the end of his life, Steve Jobs was open to the idea of an afterlife. Not long after his untimely death, a Buddhist sect claimed that Jobs had been reincarnated as a "celestial warrior-philosopher living in a mystical glass palace hovering above his old office." If that's true, perhaps in the moments that's he's not screaming "No! What strikes me most about Jobs's list is that, unlike Bill Gates's list, almost all the books are about a single individual overcoming enormous odds and obstacles in order to transform either the world, himself, or both. 1. 1984, by George Orwell What it's about: One man's desperate struggle against an all-pervasive state that is committed to controlling people's thoughts as well as their behaviors. Fun factoid: The book inspired the famous Apple "1984" Super Bowl commercial that preannounced the Macintosh. Best quote: "Doublethink means the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one's mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them." 2. 3. 4. 5.
10 of the best ways to enjoy Copenhagen … on a budget | Travel See the city from the water As well as the pretty old houses and historic warehouses that line the waterside, many of Copenhagen’s key sites are also best viewed from the canal that runs north-south through the city. A great way to enjoy a water tour is to avoid the expensive tour operators and jump on one of the local Movia harbour buses. These clunky, chugging yellow barges run roughly every 10-20 minutes, starting at Refshaleøen island and finishing at industrial Teglholmen. Eat Noma-worthy food Noma, on the Christianshavn waterfront, may be the “best” restaurant in the world, but you don’t have to pay its eye-watering prices to sample the type of cuisine that has made Nordic dining so famous. Ride like a local Hiring a bike is a must: wide, traffic-separated bike lanes make navigating a breeze even for timid cyclists, and plenty of hotels provide free bicycles for guests so check before you hire. Stylish stays Watch opera on the cheap Embrace street food Get into the groove
Literature from across the globe plotted using Google Maps A new Google Maps mashup is giving bookworms a sense of direction when it comes to picking out new reading material. Launched on 21 May by UK organisation Lovereading, the map plots 200 works of literature according to their key locations across the planet. "We have had the idea of a book map for a while as so many books vividly take you to a specific location -- and I, for one, always like to read a book based on where I am going on holiday," director and co-founder of Lovereading Peter Crawshaw tells WIRED.co.uk. "However it took a bit longer to select the 200 books (that are in V1.0 of the map) and then do all the research and building." Near to WIRED's own offices in London are plotted key locations from the Forsyte Saga, Charles Dickens' Bleak House and Scoop by Evelyn Waugh. It feels like the Book Map could not only be used to help holidaymakers identify books to read on their travels, but could be used to create literary tours of certain places or cities.
Stoicism 1. Sources of our information on the Stoics Since the Stoics stress the systematic nature of their philosophy, the ideal way to evaluate the Stoics' distinctive ethical views would be to study them within the context of a full exposition of their philosophy. Here, however, we meet with the problem about the sources of our knowledge about Stoicism. From these sources, scholars have attempted to piece together a picture of the content, and in some cases, the development of Stoic doctrine. 2. When considering the doctrines of the Stoics, it is important to remember that they think of philosophy not as an interesting pastime or even a particular body of knowledge, but as a way of life. 3. An examination of Stoic ontology might profitably begin with a passage from Plato's Sophist. In accord with this ontology, the Stoics, like the Epicureans, make God a corporeal entity, though not (as with the Epicureans) one made of everyday matter. 4. So where does this leave the matter? 5. 6.
Edge.org Essentialism—what I’ve called "the tyranny of the discontinuous mind"—stems from Plato, with his characteristically Greek geometer’s view of things. For Plato, a circle, or a right triangle, were ideal forms, definable mathematically but never realised in practice. A circle drawn in the sand was an imperfect approximation to the ideal Platonic circle hanging in some abstract space. Paleontologists will argue passionately about whether a particular fossil is, say, Australopithecus or Homo. Essentialism rears its ugly head in racial terminology. Moral controversies such as those over abortion and euthanasia are riddled with the same infection. Evolution too, like embryonic development, is gradual. We define a poverty "line": you are either "above" or "below" it. You can surely think of many other examples of "the dead hand of Plato"—essentialism.