Welcome back to Tidings, our weekly newsletter highlighting links recommended by the Seabird community. As always, there's much more in the app, and we're wrapping up work on some exciting updates. On to this week's recommended reads...
From "everything is television" to "the casino economy," Derek Thompson rounds up 26 ideas to keep top of mind in the year ahead.
Derek Thompson
Meanwhile in Las Vegas, actual casinos are becoming ever more extractive, with more tilted odds and higher minimum bets. A longtime appreciator visits to see why the city's tourism is drying up.
Slate | Luke Winkie
A profile of Rob Boddice and other historians pushing historians to explore the more subjective aspects of experience, from the sensation of pain to our responses to smells.
The Atlantic | Gal Beckerman
On ancestry, nationalism, and the case for liberalism: "When you say that you’ve inherited a triumph, you’re cherry picking. Your ancestors were always on both sides, my friend. Tell the stories of how we won our freedom from outsiders. But also tell the stories of how we freed some of us from the rest of us."
Liberal Currents | Jason Kuznicki
Taking stock of the myriad ways the new Trump administration has brutalized immigrants in its first year, from torture in a Salvadoran prison to a military-style raid of an apartment building and much more.
Mother Jones | Isabela Dias
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A look at the long reach of Chinese surveillance of dissidents abroad, including use of tech developed in the US.
Associated Press | Dake Kang
Not just for users with fond memories of Google Reader: why RSS is still the unsung hero of the web and the optimistic case for more open protocols.
Ben Werdmuller
The dream of a robot to fold your laundry remains a long way off, because robots cannot feel, see, or manipulate fabric with the accuracy of humans, but engineers are working on the problem.
Knowable | Kaia Glickman
Speculative: if autonomous vehicles continue to progress safely, should that change the way we get kids to school?
Forbes | Brad Templeton
A case for the R-rated Sinners as the movie of the year, breaking free of franchise fatigue, and why the Hollywood press doubted Ryan Coogler's success.
American Prospect | A.A. Dowd
Obituary for Raul Malo, the talented, genre-expanding lead of the Mavericks.
The New York Times | Bill Friskics-Warren
"... grown white men in berets loudly singing off-key, elbows linked in a manly way, glasses of red wine in their hands and royalist flags somewhere in the crowd." On the politicization of wine and rustic cuisine on the French far right.
Pellicle | Anaïs Lecoq
Santa as recession indicator? Reading into this year's slowing demand for visits from Santa.
NPR | Greg Rosalsky
An ongoing challenge for Alaskan halibut fishers: outsmarting the orcas who are determined to steal their catch before they pull it from the deep waters to the decks of their boats.
Northern Journal | Hal Bernton
In unfortunate Portland news: David Sedaris visits the city, gets bitten by a dog, laments a lack of sympathy.
The New Yorker | David Sedaris
Finally, in bird news: bird sex has mystified observers for centuries and still offers questions for contemporary research.
The Conversation | Clare Davidson and Aylin Malcolm
That's it for this week! The links in our newsletter were all shared first on Seabird, our minimalist app simply designed for recommending links online. Learn more about us here and join us on the app to discover and share articles like these every day. Your recommendations may appear in a future edition of Tidings.
