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

Side note: I’m taking a break from the blog next week. I’ll resume posting in August.

Articles:

• The Cost of Reopening a Restaurant in a Pandemic (eater.com): Fixed costs, reduced business and new challenges like sanitation stations and PPE for employees make profitability near impossible.
• How Nespresso’s Coffee Revolution Got Ground Down (theguardian.com): Nespresso contends against low-cost competitors and high-end aficionados that threaten its position.
• I Am a Model and I Know that Artificial Intelligence Will Eventually Take My Job (vogue.com): 3D digital models are making steady inroads into the fashion industry.
• Invert, Always, Invert (anup.io): Considering the inverse or negative outcome can unlock a world of possibilities.
• Proteus Technology: New Material is Strong and Non-Cuttable (scitechdaily.com): Innovative new material that "can turn back the force of a cutting tool upon itself."
• Six Ways to Think Long-Term: A Cognitive Toolkit for Good Ancestors (longnow.org): Strategies for winning the battle against short-termism.
• Things Unexpectedly Named After People (rolandcrosby.com): I remember my mind being blown by the fact that the shopping club "Price Club" was named for Sol Price.
• The True Story of the Heartthrob Prince of Qatar and His Time at USC (latimes.com): Good reminder that there’s no such thing as an egalitarian society.
• Tune In, Drop Out (restofworld.org): "In the face of social and professional pressure, many young South Koreans are simply opting out — and the economy is adapting to them."
• We Are Not Prisoners of Group Think (obsessivefacts.com): What to do? Cancel yourself.
• Why Does America Have Old Leaders? (nytimes.com): Generational demographics and wealth accumulation are two plausible factors.
• Why Medium Is Not the Home for Your Ideas (hulry.com): Don’t be at the mercy of the whims of someone else’s platform.
• The World that Twitter Made (blogspot.com): Twitter is at a scale where "interactions stop being inquisitive and start getting accusatory."

Podcasts:

• Decoder Ring: The Karen (slate.com): "The Karen, a white woman who surveys, inconveniences, and terrorizes service workers and people of color…"
• Hidden Brain: Culture Wars and the Untold Story of Lyndie B. Hawkins (npr.org): Conversation about cultural authenticity, appropriation, and ownership through the lens of a middle-grade fiction novel.
• Your ‘Doomscrolling’ Breeds Anxiety. Here’s How to Stop the Cycle (npr.org): I’m glad to have learned there’s a name for this bad habit.