* Wire: A modern, encrypted communication app. It’s alleged not to have Skype’s backdoors.

* The origin of QWERTY keyboards, which are widely misunderstood. I’m still using a Kinesis Advantage.

* “Handful of Biologists Went Rogue and Published Directly to Internet.” This should really not be shocking or newsworthy in 2016. That it is, is shocking and newsworthy.

* “After Cash: All Fun and Games Until Somebody Loses a Bank Account.” The drive towards cashless societies baffles me, since it further concentrates an enormous amount of power in the hands of unaccountable, indifferent, power-mad bureaucrats.

* “United Launch Alliance (ULA) executive admits company cannot compete with SpaceX on launch costs,” an amazing story.

* Tyler Cowen on * The Curious Connection between Violent Extremism and Education. Note that Diego Gambetta, one of the co-authors, also wrote the excellent Codes of the Underworld, discussed by me at the link in 2010.

* “Prosecutor known for fighting prostitution charged with paying for sex hundreds of times;” the phrase “victimless crime” comes to mind.

* Good news (well, the bringing-killers-to-justice part is good, the death part is not): “A toddler got meningitis. His anti-vac parents gave him an herbal remedy. The toddler died. Now his parents are on trial.”

* How Valley of the Dolls went from a reject to a 30-million best-seller.

* “Lives of the Selfie-Centered: What do teenagers use their phones for? Bonding, backbiting, bullying—and texting naked pictures. Lots and lots of naked pictures” and “Open Secrets: The social media–obsessed teens of Nancy Jo Sales’ American Girls never quite come into focus;” both concern American Girls: Social Media and the Secret Lives of Teenagers, a book likely better read about than read. My Dad sent me the first link and observed that, many moons ago when he was a teenager, the scary, virtue-threatening image technology was the Polaroid, which was seen as a danger of virtue and an inflater of vanity in the same way iPhones and Instagram are seen today. I’m just old enough to remember the earthquake that was the first sub-$1,000 DSLR and having conversations with the first guys who bought them; their usual plans for the new purchase were  described as being along the lines of, “I wanna take naked pictures of chicks, man” (I don’t think teenagers have become dramatically less articulate or thoughtful in recent times, and most of my friends who were either subject or photographer are now boringly employed like the rest of us).

In short, today’s OMG WTF BBQ Instragram and Snapchat kids will in fifteen years time be doing the usual things 30 years old do. By the way, when Intel was founded its oldest employee was 29.

* “The top 10 reasons American politics are so broken,” from Jonathan Haidt of The Righteous Mind fame, an excellent piece. And: Democrats appear to not be insane, though the title is different.

* “Here’s How Electric Cars Will Cause the Next Oil Crisis;” one hopes so! And: “The rechargeable revolution: A better battery: Chemists are reinventing rechargeable cells to drive down costs and boost capacity.”

* “There is a better way to parent than the nuclear family” should be obvious; see also The Anthropology of Childhood.

* Why America abandoned nuclear power (and what we can learn from South Korea); could also be titled, “How to reduce the cost of nuclear power.”

* Seattle’s big new transit plans.

* Kofi Annan on why it’s time to legalize drugs.

* “Why millennial women don’t want to call themselves feminists.” I think the second reason the most plausible answer. (Hat tip Michael Curry.)

* “Why GNU Emacs?” (I don’t use Emacs, though I have installed it at various points and then run away, to easier, friendlier text editors.)

* New finding may explain heat loss in fusion reactors.

* The headline is too polite, but: Left-Leaning Economists Question Cost of Bernie Sanders’s Plans.

* “What Expanded Light Rail Means for Seattle: With new stations opening in March, the city takes a crucial step toward a much-needed transit overhaul.”

* I don’t know if this story is on the level, but: “How schools around the country are turning dead Microsoft PCs into speedy Chromebooks.” See also our post on Geek Heresy and how technology is not going to magically save schools.

* “One Man’s Impossible Quest to Read—and Review—the World.”

* “Risky sex [writing],” though oddly it doesn’t mention The Joy of Writing Sex: A Guide for Fiction Writers, which is pretty good but a smidge too politically correct. Still, overall “Risky Sex” is excellent and is just the right amount of funny.

* Craig Mod on the Leica Q; I’m skeptical and think the Sony RX1R or Fuji X100T are much, much better (and cheaper!).

* Scientists are floored by what’s happening in the Arctic right now.

* The rule of law enforcement, or, a journalist’s diaries / reporting from prison.

* 82% of humanities papers are never cited by another paper (pdf), which is another datum of evidence about the importance of what most humanities professors are doing.

* Inside the English Prose Factory. It is… not very pleasant.

* “Is it time to rethink recycling? If our current approach to recycling isn’t the best for the economy or the environment, why do we do it?” The short answer is, “signalling.” Recycling small items, like carrying re-usable bags to grocery stories, is a low-cost way of appearing to be environmentally conscious without having to do anything significant. I’ve had innumerable conversations with superficial environmentalists who are determined that every bottle go in the right bin, even as they discuss their last trip to South America and their next trip from one coast to the next. Flying is really, spectacularly bad for the environment, but most putative environmentalists are also in love with the idea of “travel” and “broadening horizons.” Still, to point out this dichotomy is to signal something negative about the person making the observation, so you should probably keep this to yourself, unless you are an anti-social person.

* Stop humiliating teachers.

* “How Yahoo killed Flickr and lost the Internet,” a story I didn’t know, or didn’t know at this level of detail.

* “The poor are better off when we build more housing for the rich,” an underappreciated point—but when most people talk about affordable housing, they’re actually trying to signal how much they care, rather than actually understanding and then solving the problem.

* William Gibson: How I Wrote Neuromancer.

* “The Sexual Misery of the Arab World,” an underappreciated point.

* “Should you learn to program? Yes,” by Derek Sivers.

* The dubious effectiveness of D.A.R.E. and problems in nonprofits.

* How Casper Made $1 Million Selling Mattresses in Its First 28 Days.

* “Here’s What We’ll Do in Space by 2116.” We hope!

* Banned by Tesla: a very bad sign for the company.

* “The unsexy truth about why the Arab Spring failed:” the failure of institutions.

* “The Unlikely Writer: Atul Gawande, ‘slightly bewildered’ surgeon and health-policy scholar—and a literary voice of medicine.” A beautiful piece. Note the role of work. I have an increasing allergy to people who say they are “bad” at writing or math.

* There is almost no diversity in the publishing industry. It’s almost entirely composed of white women. Some of the signaling words in the story are annoying but can be ignored.

* “From liquid air to supercapacitors, energy storage is finally poised for a breakthrough.” An important story. Also: “Welsh home installs UK’s first Tesla Powerwall storage battery.”

* “Unobtainium: The Elements of Power: Gadgets, Guns, and the Struggle for a Sustainable Future in the Rare Metal Age.”

* Solar + Storage, another key piece in the energy infrastructure puzzle.