Each Friday we compile a list of interesting links and articles our editors find from across the web. Here’s what’s catching our eye this week.
Monks in America diversify in brewing beer:
There’s a big focus on sustainability and green practices: Local farmers use the spent grain as animal feed and compost, and the brewery plans to install solar panels on the roof soon. The entire process is actually very in sync with the monks’ “quiet, meditative way,” according to Friar Isaac.
Robin Marie Averbeck writes about why she is not a liberal at the Jacobin:
I was standing in the National Mall, surrounded by nearly a quarter million people, when I realized I wasn’t a liberal. I had come to Washington, along with 215,000 others, to participate in Jon Stewart’s “Rally to Restore Sanity,” an event inspired by Glenn Beck’s “Rally to Restore Honor.” The festival reached its height as the spectators were treated to a video montage of fire-breathing pundits from all the major news networks denouncing their political opponents. The message was clear: Those who tell you there are fundamental differences between Americans that are worth getting emphatically angry about are lying to you.
Ever wonder how many hard drives have pictures of you on them? Here’s an example from PetaPixel:
It’s been estimated that as many as 880 billion photos will be taken by the close of this year. I’m not quite sure how that statistic could ever be properly calculated, but I think it’s safe to say that with the rise of the digital medium, human beings are taking a s**tload more pictures than ever before. With all those photos being taken, chances are you and I have at one point accidentally wandered into someone else’s frame. It’s likely, however, that you’ll never really know you’ve photo-bombed someones shot. That’s why I was surprised by a Twitter message that I received out of the blue from a photographer I’ve never met.
A nice long read from Grantland on the odd success of Mark Buehrle:
Everyone makes mistakes. One of mine is that it took me a long time to appreciate Buehrle, and not just because every time he pitched for the White Sox, I had to listen to Hawk Harrelson sing his praises. I mean, Buehrle was drafted in the 38th round out of some college no one had heard of,2 he almost never hit 90 on the radar gun, and he didn’t strike anyone out. Sure, he reached the major leagues just 14 months after he signed as a draft-and-follow in 1999, but he was never a top prospect. He wasn’t much of a prospect, period. During his first full season in the majors, I fixated on his mere 126 strikeouts in 221 innings far more than on his 16-8 record, 3.29 ERA, or AL-leading 1.066 WHIP. He was a junk-tossing left-hander, and those guys always get figured out eventually.
From the New York Times: the hope in the return of Lebron James for the city of Cleveland:
My Cleveland is a city of losers — and I mean that as a compliment. No royals retire here for the skiing. The people I grew up with were the descendants of stiff-necked troublemakers from County Mayo or the Abruzzi, men who never bowed to royalty — peasants to everyone but themselves. They were the children of proud women who realized they’d never get a fair shake in Hattiesburg, Miss., or Selma, Ala., and besides, how brutal could a summer in an east Cleveland tenement be?
A long profile at Wired on the creator of Scott Pilgrim and his latest project:
Now, more than 10 years after the first Scott Pilgrim book came out, O’Malley is back with Seconds, his first new graphic novel since the series ended. But instead of returning to familiar ground, Seconds—which goes on sale tomorrow—takes a step forward and delves into the question that looms unasked at the end of every story about growing up: If adulthood is the endpoint of your adventure, what happens after the adventure is over?
Vox explains the six California proposal:
Wealthy venture capitalist Timothy Draper created the plan and funded signature-gathering efforts. His grandfather William Draper was one of the first venture capitalists to invest in tech on the West Coast. Tim Draper started his own venture capital firm, later renamed Draper Fisher Jurvetson, in 1985. The firm now has an estimated $7 billion in assets, and its notable investments include Hotmail, Skype, and Baidu. In late June, Draper spent $18 million or so to win an auction for bitcoins that the government seized from Silk Road, the online drug market.
Mentalfloss has Grammar lessons from the CIA manual of style:
4. The CIA Employs Poetic Realists
Just check out this fantastic entry for the word “die”: “Die is something we all do, even writers who relegate world leaders to a sort of Immortality Club with phrasing like the President has taken steps to ensure a peaceful transition if he should die. Reality can be recognized by inserting in office or before the end of his term, or even by saying simply when he dies.”
Does potato salad belong on Kickstarter? The Verge answers in the affirmative:
People tend to have their own ideas about what “belongs” on Kickstarter. Veronica Mars didn’t belong on Kickstarter because it was a big studio project, people said. Zach Braff doesn’t belong on Kickstarter because he’s rich and famous. My boyfriend objected when I backed a chocolatier in New York whose project is just to make a bunch of truffles. “That’s not what Kickstarter is for,” he said. He may be right — if you look at the data, Kickstarter is actually for wallets.