Nikhath Digest

Arts and Culture
I Taught Shakespeare in Botswana / Hilary Mantel / New York Times
Lovely reflection on the joys and challenges of teaching, and what’s wrong with the saying, “Those who can’t, teach,” by the award-winning British novelist (via Namrata)

How Does Iron Chef Work? / Jonas Luster / Quora
The secrets of the show, spilled; prepare to be disappointed…

For Hire! — Bangalore Rickshaw / Xaver Xylophon / Vimeo
A wonderful, whimsical four-minute animated video that manages to capture the unique charms of India

Don’t Eat Fortune’s Cookie / Michael Lewis / Princeton
Leave it to Lewis to come up with this memorable and apt metaphor for our times in his baccalaureate address at Princeton

The Exchange: Gladwell vs. Simmons IV / Malcolm Gladwell and Bill Simmons / Grantland
Fourth annual installment of a freewheeling email conversation about sports between two of the more entertaining writers out there


Politics and World Affairs 
The Mayor of All Mayors / Gabriel Sherman / New York
Lots of genuinely interesting, and new (at least to me) tidbits in this profile of Mayor Bloomberg and his post-mayoral plans

Capital Gains / Rana Dasgupta
A brilliant and beautifully written essay on new wealth, resentment, and elite capture in India, told through the story of India’s roads  

What Did Wisconsin Mean (and Not)? / David Frum / Daily Beast
Short post trying to sum up the lessons and implications of the Walker recall falling short

The 18-Year Bench / Linda Greenhouse / Slate
A call to create term limits for the Supreme Court, part of a larger series called “How Can We Fix the Constitution”


Business and Economics
Why George Soros Thinks the Euro Will Survive / Ezra Klein / Washington Post
Good summary of Soros’ influential speech this week arguing that Germany has three months left to save the Euro—and that it will 

For Leaders, Mastering Traditional Economics Isn’t Enough / Q&A with Justin Wolfers and Betsey Stevenson / Gallup
Interesting interview on the relationship between GDP and well being, on the rise in college-educated women getting married, and various other topics

Twitter Gives You the Bird / Armin Vit / Brand New
On Twitter’s logo redesign: “Twitter has achieved in less than six years what Nike, Apple, and Target took decades to do: To be recognizable without a name, just an icon”

Legalize Airbnb! / Matthew Yglesias / Slate
Interesting piece on the benefits Airbnb brings to communities, and how regulators need to shift their thinking in light of the new “sharing economy” 


Science and Technology
The New Neuroscience of Choking / Jonah Lehrer / New Yorker
On LeBron, and loss aversion: “There is something poignant about this deconstruction of choking…the simple pleasures of the game have vanished; the fear of losing is what remains”

“Hello, I Am Sabu” / Steve Fishman / New York
Profile of the influential hacker behind Anonymous and LulzSec—high-school dropout, Bronx-project resident, self-taught programmer, and caretaker of two young daughters

A Rapper Finds His Muse in the Stars / Anna Louie Sussman / Wall Street Journal
Wu Tang member GZA meets with Neil de Grasse Tyson, physicists, and cosmologists as he preps a new album on the planets called “Dark Matter” (via Ebenezer)

An Astronaut Incredible Photos from “Star Trails” / Julia Jimenez Jaramillo / Slate
Beautiful time lapse photos from space; it’d be cool to send a bunch of artists into space along with scientists and engineers on the next shuttle…

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