Sunday Soup: Cold Temps Outside, Hot Recommendations Here
These are the articles, streaming ideas, and books that caught our attention this week.
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We’re not all business at TheStreet Pro. We can let our hair down, stretch out, and share some of the articles that caught our eye this week and the streaming media we’re consuming when we’re off the clock. If good soup is the ultimate comfort food, then we’ve got another hot bowl for your brain to enjoy today.
If you have a recommendation you’d like to share, feel free to share it in the Comments section below!
Articles 📰
“The heavy sigh and slightly hungover feeling this type of content elicits might best be described as brain rot—Oxford’s 2024 Word of the Year. Brain rot is marked by a “supposed deterioration of a person’s mental or intellectual state, especially viewed as a result of overconsumption of material (now particularly online content) considered to be trivial or unchallenging.”
Why Are ‘Driverless’ Cars Still Hitting Things? Depends on How They ‘See.’
“Late last month, a Tesla TSLA owner shared shocking dashcam footage of his Model 3 appearing to collide with and drive through a deer at high speeds. The car, which the driver says was engaged in Tesla’s driver-assist Full-Self Driving (FSD) mode, never detected the deer standing in the middle of the road and didn’t hit the brakes or maneuver to avoid it. That case came just a few months after a vehicle from Waymo, a leading self-driving company, reportedly ran over and killed a pet dog in a collision the company says was “unavoidable.” Neither driverless cars, according to reports detailing the incidents, spotted the animals on the road fast enough to avoid them.
The Most Controversial Game on the Internet
“[Wyna] Liu is the New York Times editor who makes Connections, the online puzzle that is both the blessing and the bane of my mornings—and the days of millions of other people who regularly spend time tangling with Liu’s creation. Connections, which was released in 2023 by the Times’ Games team, is the second-most-popular Times game after Wordle. The puzzle is all about identifying words that share a common thread, which can be very satisfying. Often, though, that common thread is so thin as to be invisible. Imagine a jigsaw puzzle made of riddles. Think crossword, but evil.”
“Why have Americans become so mean? I was recently talking with a restaurant owner who said that he has to eject a customer from his restaurant for rude or cruel behavior once a week—something that never used to happen. A head nurse at a hospital told me that many on her staff are leaving the profession because patients have become so abusive. At the far extreme of meanness, hate crimes rose in 2020 to their highest level in 12 years. Murder rates have been surging, at least until recently. Same with gun sales. Social trust is plummeting.”
Andre Agassi Loves Pickleball and Is Betting Asia Will Too
“I don’t sort of say, ‘Pickleball over tennis,’” Agassi told the audience. “Pickle’s all about playing. It’s a low point of entry.” That accessibility is helping the sport take off across Asia. In January, Agassi will officially open the Pickleball World Rankings league tournament in India. Some 15,000 Indians participated in the latest tournament this year, up from 3,000 in 2020, according to the All-India Pickleball Association. Many were no doubt inspired by Bollywood celebrities Aamir Khan and Anil Kapoor taking it up."
What We’re Streaming 📺📲
ACQ2 – How ARM Became The World’s Default Chip Architecture (with ARM CEO Rene Haas)
The Big Flop – How Abercrombie & Fitch Lost Its Shirt
From the Ground Up – The Year of Disappearing Brands
The Reading List 📖📚
The Waiting: A Ballard and Bosch Novel (A Renée Ballard and Harry Bosch Novel, 6) by Michael Connelly
"LAPD Detective Renée Ballard tracks a serial rapist whose trail has gone cold, and enlists a new volunteer to the Open-Unsolved Unit: patrol officer Maddie Bosch, Harry’s daughter.
"Complex, satisfying, and full of dexterous twists, The Waiting demonstrates once more that 'you can’t do better than Michael Connelly'."
