
The best things and stuff of 2013 - platz
http://blog.fogus.me/2013/12/27/the-best-things-and-stuff-of-2013/
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shahzad_76
For the politically inclined - the GQ interview with Kim Jong-Il's sushi chef
is brilliant (and will probably become a movie someday because the arc is so
crazy).

Excerpt: "The chef's name, an alias, is Kenji Fujimoto, and for eleven years
he was Kim Jong-il's personal chef, court jester, and sidekick. He had seen
the palaces, ridden the white stallions, smoked the Cuban cigars, and watched
as, one by one, the people around him disappeared. It was part of Fujimoto's
job to fly North Korean jets around the world to procure dinner-party
ingredients—to Iran for caviar, Tokyo for fish, or Denmark for beer. It was
Fujimoto who flew to France to supply the Dear Leader's yearly $700,000 cognac
habit. And when the Dear Leader craved McDonald's, it was Fujimoto who was
dispatched to Beijing for an order of Big Macs to go."

Fogus, thanks for sharing this in your list: [http://www.gq.com/news-
politics/newsmakers/201306/kim-jong-i...](http://www.gq.com/news-
politics/newsmakers/201306/kim-jong-il-sushi-chef-kenji-fujimoto-adam-
johnson-2013?printable=true)

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ams6110
Interesting in that Air Koryo is banned from EU operations.

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dualogy
This was taking place in the 80s/90s. They flew Koryo to China, then somewhere
eastern Europe where they apparently even had private jets stashed back then.

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javajosh
Hi Mike, the movie you ask about in your footnote #3 (the one with the force
bubbles powered on a 9v battery) is "Explorers"[1] - which stars River Phoenix
and Ethan Hawke in their screen debuts.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Explorers_(film)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Explorers_\(film\))

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agumonkey
This movie blew my young mind at the time. A-team meets NASA.

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Expez
The amount of books you're able to get through in a year is amazing! According
to Goodreads, you're also able to do this consistently, which is even more
incredible. How many hours do you spend reading in a typical week?

~~~
marcosscriven
Curious about this too. I've always had to sort of verbalise in my head when I
read, I think because of the way I was taught in primary school. This is
extremely slow though.

I can however read code without verbalising, and with sheet music I can sort
of directly execute the notes with thinking explicitly about the notes I'm
seeing.

I can imagine some people can read prose in a similar manner, and I'd love to
know how.

I've tried to sort of 'relax' my brain while reading, but then it seems
nothing has actually registered!

~~~
amvp
I tried a number of things over the years, and the technique that finally
worked for me was counting in my head as I read. By occupying the verbalising
part of my mind I found I was able to train myself to read without it, and
with a little practice I started to be able to read tat way without counting.

~~~
marcosscriven
Interesting idea. May I ask where you found that technique please?

~~~
amvp
I'm afraid I don't remember. I read somewhere that when asked to count in
their minds, people count in one of two ways. It's my understanding that the
majority do so verbally, sounding out the words in their minds. But some
people count visually, by visualising the numbers, picturing them scroll past
on a tape, for example.

Those that verbalise couldn't simultaneously do another verbal task, while the
visualisers couldn't do another visual task, suggesting that separate parts of
the brain were involved, and occupied by counting.

Now that I knew visual counting was an option (I was a verbaliser) I trained
myself to do it. Unfortunately I'm yet to find an situation were the ability
to choose between visual and verbal counting has been useful.

~~~
WildUtah
"Surely you're joking mr Feynman" is where most of us read about it.

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jeremiep
Great list! My two favourites were "Internal Reprogrammability" which reminded
me of Steve Yegge's "Pinocchio Problem" [1] article and "Ruins of Forgotten
Empires" which made me want to learn more about APL languages.

[1]: [http://steve-yegge.blogspot.ca/2007/01/pinocchio-
problem.htm...](http://steve-yegge.blogspot.ca/2007/01/pinocchio-problem.html)

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chaddeshon
I didn't expect to see Sean Ross' excellent Haggis design diary on your list.
But you are right, it is a great read.

[http://boardgamegeek.com/geeklist/34429/item/734152](http://boardgamegeek.com/geeklist/34429/item/734152)

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cju
A simpler description of the rules of Cannon
[http://www.pyromythgames.com/products/cannon/Cannonrules.htm](http://www.pyromythgames.com/products/cannon/Cannonrules.htm)
(from the same site as the PDF linked by Fogus)

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eaurouge
The Autobiography of Malcolm X is indeed an excellent read. The three phases
of his adult life were completely and radically different from one another.
It's amazing how committed he was to holding himself up to the standards
demanded by his _current_ beliefs, even when it meant renouncing all that he
had previously stood for; and he did so, twice. I think this is the great
lesson from his life and something the public should be aware of, more so than
his "By any means necessary" vs King's "I have a dream".

~~~
danial
I read that a long time ago and remember being inspired by Malik's commitment
to educate himself after he was overcome with dread due to the realization
that he had basically wasted his life up until then.

Like Malik, I too felt I was behind on my reading and picked up a lot of non-
fiction that year because I did not want to waste time on reading fiction (I
don't believe reading fiction is not useful, just stating how I felt at the
time).

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BigBalli
The past: [http://giacomoballi.com/13-most-popular-products-
of-2013/](http://giacomoballi.com/13-most-popular-products-of-2013/) and the
future: [http://giacomoballi.com/13-trends-that-will-drive-the-
future...](http://giacomoballi.com/13-trends-that-will-drive-the-future-of-
america/)

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coin
-1 for disabling pinchzoom

~~~
bhauer
For what it's worth, pinch zoom works for me on a Windows 8.1 tablet.

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hartror
I think I've collected about a year's worth of content from that blog post and
its links. So much for 2014!

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kenjackson
The Carver Mead interview is more than a decade old (and honestly I'd never
knew about it before) -- great find and read. Is his characterization of Bohr
and the statistical thinking (a remnant of poor tools) still believed?

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kinleyd
I liked the inclusion of PG Wodehouse - can never get enough of it.

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yarou
Cool list, will definitely check out when I have some free time. I really
loved the lispy newsletter, looking forward to future editions.

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dcreemer
Thanks for this. There's a broken link from "newsletter" to
www.readevalprintlove.org

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dclara
Interesting list. Will check out later.

