Every Friday I highlight the most interesting or entertaining items from my media diet from the past week.

Articles:

• I’m an ER Doctor in New York. None of Us Will Ever Be the Same (nytimes.com): “People are, it seems, woefully bad at grasping how future events will unfold.”
• The Devastating Decline of a Brilliant Young Coder (wired.com): Heart-wrenching story about Cloudflare cofounder Lee Holloway who was diagnosed with frontotemporal dementia at a young age.
• Essential Now, Deportable Later (thebaffler.com): Short piece on the paradoxical status of undocumented workers during the pandemic crisis.
• From the Cholera Riots to the Coronavirus Revolts (reason.com): History offers some lessons on quarantine compliance.
• How a Nuclear Submarine Officer Learned to Live in Tight Quarters (nautil.us): Lessons in isolation, confinement and adaptability.
• Let’s Disrupt the Logic that’s Driving Americans Apart (niemanlab.org): “Although people today hate ‘the other side,’ I remain convinced that once they catch on to the game, they’ll hate being pawns even more.”
• Microsoft’s Digital Storytelling Handbook (microsoft.com): Microsoft’s digital communications arm shares its corporate storytelling approach.
• My Blog is a Digital Garden, Not a Blog (joelhooks.com): Moving away from “content marketing” to provide better resources for the web.
• Prepare for the Ultimate Gaslighting (medium.com): “What the crisis has given us is a once-in-a-lifetime chance to see ourselves and our country in the plainest of views.”
• Restarting America Means People Will Die. So When Do We Do It? (nytimes.com):
• The True Story of the White Island Eruption (outsideonline.com): On December 9, 2019, a volcanic island erupted: 47 people were on the island and dozens were onboard sightseeing vessels in the water.
• Turning My Obsession in the Stock Market into a Side Project (eduardosasso.co): Eduardo Sasso shares the steps he took to create a useful daily newsletter.

Podcasts:

• Rivals: Mike Love vs. Brian Wilson (iheart.com): Brian Wilson was the musical genius of The Beach Boys and Mike Love was the sometimes lyricist and frontman. Despite being cousins, these two have carried an off-and-on feud for over 50 years.
• This Day in Obscure Political History (radiotopia.fm): New podcast featuring short 10-minute explorations of historical events and their relevance to the present.

Video:

• Why Sitcoms Stopped Using Laugh Tracks (Youtube): The laugh track was a solution to unreliable audiences and the multi-camera sitcoms. Fun history lesson.