The weekend is here! Pour yourself a mug of Volcanica coffee, grab a seat by the pool, and get ready for our longer-form weekend reads:
• How the Brain ‘Constructs’ the Outside World Neural activity probes your physical surroundings to select just the information needed to survive and flourish. (Scientific American)
• The Shrinking of the Middle-Class Neighborhood Americans are increasingly living in areas that are either much richer or much poorer than the regional norm. (New York Times) see also What Lies Behind That ‘No Trespass’ Sign: Once upon a time in America, people were free to roam. Then came the Civil War, and in its aftermath a new crime was invented. (The Atlantic)
• Women wanted to fly jets in combat. Breaking that barrier would be the fight of their lives. In the early 1990s, few corners of the military were as misogynistic as the world of fighter pilots. This is the story of the women Navy officers who overcame that culture to fly the formidable F-14. (Vox)
• What’s Up With the Crazy Housing Market? Rising mortgage rates. Faltering home sales. Skyrocketing rents. Here’s how to make sense of a baffling real estate market. (New York Times)
• The iPhone’s Creators Reveal the Consequences They Never Expected: Not even Apple’s own execs—with front-row seats for the development of the iPhone’s key features—quite knew how they would change the world (Wall Street Journal)
• ‘London Bridge is down’: the secret plan for the days after the Queen’s death She is venerated around the world. She has outlasted 12 US presidents. She stands for stability and order. But her kingdom is in turmoil, and her subjects are in denial that her reign will ever end. That’s why the palace has a plan. (The Guardian)
• The Word of the Year Is: Sophistry. Well, it deserves to be anyway Despite the shallowness of their thinking, sophists have far more influence than honest and serious thinkers, especially in matters of politics and policy. This is because the sophist’s rhetoric is always shaped by what their audience wants to hear. (The Honest Broker)
• Is There Anything That Gen Z Won’t Drink? Alcohol brands are thinking outside the bottle to fuel and gratify a new drinking culture (Bloomberg)
• The NASA Engineer Who Made the James Webb Space Telescope Work: Greg Robinson turned a $10 billion debacle into a groundbreaking scientific mission. Every moonshot is the result of marginal improvements. (Wall Street Journal)
• Inside a Superfan’s Secret Friendship With Eddie Van Halen: Over the last five years of his life, the rock icon had a clandestine correspondence with a former music journalist, spilling gossip, gripes, hopes, fears — and revealing himself like never before. (Rolling Stone)
Be sure to check out our Masters in Business interview this weekend with Spencer Jakab, editor of Heard on the Street column at the Wall Street Journal, and author of the Ahead of the Tape column. He began his career as an analyst at Credit Suisse, where he eventually became Director of Emerging Markets Equity Research. He is the author of “The Revolution That Wasn’t: GameStop, Reddit and the Fleecing of Small Investors.”
Cutting China Tariffs? Reducing tariffs is seen as potential weapon against inflation
Source: Bloomberg
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