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The Complete Changes To Augusta National →
As time ticked on, holes were further altered to address playability, agronomics, spectator convenience and, most recently, 21st-century club and ball technology. Our challenge was to graphically document every architectural change at Augusta National in a manner never attempted before. To do it, we enlisted the talents of computer artist Chris O’Riley to prepare a succession of detailed diagrams based upon our 30-plus years of research.
Luge Yourself →
A longtime fan wanted to know what a luge run really felt like. There was only one way to find out.
The Many Watches of James Bond →
Like all other categories of the franchise, Connery and Craig are miles ahead.
New York City: Drone’s-Eye View →
All of Humza Deas’ New York City photography is stunningly beautiful.
2017: The Year in Volcanic Activity →
While this has been a relatively average year for the world’s active volcanoes, the activity that did take place was spectacular. Out of an estimated 1,500 active volcanoes, 50 or so erupt every year, spewing steam, ash, toxic gases, and lava.
Impostor Syndrome
Time spent fretting about our status as impostors is time away from dancing with our fear, from leading and from doing work that matters.
Seth Godin in Imposter Syndrome
Roger Federer as a Religious Experience →
Bill Gates recommends a book of compiled David Foster Wallace articles called String Theory. Wondering if I’d enjoy the book, I stumbled upon this 11 year old article that examines an already experienced Federer whose career we still enthralled with today.
The metaphysical explanation is that Roger Federer is one of those rare, preternatural athletes who appear to be exempt, at least in part, from certain physical laws. Good analogues here include Michael Jordan, who could not only jump inhumanly high but actually hang there a beat or two longer than gravity allows, and Muhammad Ali, who really could “float” across the canvas and land two or three jabs in the clock-time required for one. There are probably a half-dozen other examples since 1960. And Federer is of this type — a type that one could call genius, or mutant, or avatar. He is never hurried or off-balance. The approaching ball hangs, for him, a split-second longer than it ought to. His movements are lithe rather than athletic. Like Ali, Jordan, Maradona, and Gretzky, he seems both less and more substantial than the men he faces. Particularly in the all-white that Wimbledon enjoys getting away with still requiring, he looks like what he may well (I think) be: a creature whose body is both flesh and, somehow, light.
How Well Do You Know World-Famous Logos? →
We asked over 150 Americans to draw 10 famous logos from memory as accurately as they could. Based on more than 1,500 drawings created over a period of 80 hours, the results reveal that, far from being stamped perfectly in our collective memory, these ubiquitous emblems largely exist as fuzzy visions in our mind’s eye. One in 5 people thinks the Foot Locker referee wears a hat (he doesn’t), and nearly half of people believe the Starbucks mermaid does not wear a crown (she does). That only scratches the surface of what our study found out.
Trump’s Lies →
No other president — of either party — has behaved as Trump is behaving. He is trying to create an atmosphere in which reality is irrelevant.
A Relentless Rivalry With Brother and Caddie, Austin, Has Propelled DJ to the Top of the Game →
At the Ryder Cup every little detail becomes an obsession, from the pleats in the golfers’ pants to how the pin positions favor the collective ball flights of the home team. No minutia is insignificant … unless you’re Dustin Johnson and his brother-caddie, Austin, golf’s most laconic characters. During last year’s event at Hazeltine, Dustin faced a sloping mid-length putt that plainly had two or three feet of right-to-left break. After conferring with his brother, he started his ball a yard left of the hole, missing the putt by at least six feet. Had the tension short-circuited his stroke or perhaps clouded his vision, even though this was just a practice round? In his soft South Carolina drawl, Dustin offered his caddie a different explanation: “Awwwww, man, I had the [green-reading] book upside down.”
This Is the Best Section in Every MLB Stadium if You Want to Catch a Home Run Ball →
A study by SeatGeek — in collaboration with ESPN — does just that: it combines seat locations with where home run balls land to determine where fans should sit if they want to catch a home run ball. To determine if a home run was “catchable,” SeatGeek overlaid data from ESPN’s Home Run Tracker with their custom seating charts to figure out an approximate location of where each ball landed. Stadiums that have spots where fans are not sitting weren’t included in the catchable total. SeatGeak, which sells tickets to sports and entertainment venues, then created a measure to determine what sections will give you the best chances of catching a ball for the lowest average ticket price.
The Death Star and the Final Trench Run →
At the end of the original film, Rebel ships fly along the Death Star trench in an attempt to blow up the space station. Look at the photo of the Death Star at the top of this post: can you point to the trench that Luke and the Rebels flew down to fire upon the exhaust port that would ultimately destroy the space station?
Nearly everybody points at the equatorial trench of the Death Star. I asked dozens of die-hard fans, including many co-workers at Industrial Light & Magic, and nearly every single person pointed to the equatorial trench. If you asked me, I would also have said the equatorial trench.
I Just Spent $139 On This Book Because I Am A Weirdo →
I have a rule that has helped me a lot in life, particularly in my education: If there is a book I am interested in, I buy it. Regardless of the cost. Regardless of whether I have a stack of other things to read. Regardless of whether I have any sort of certainty about whether it’s any good. If I want it, I buy it. And when I buy it, I don’t care how much I spent on it or how rare it might be. I treat it just like every other book (which means marking up and writing in it).
How to Write a Thank You Note →
I’m not going to go all Miss Manners on your ass and get into the social intricacies and delicate situations that surround thank-you note writing, as I was taught that a solid thank-you note will transcend all complicated situations—and I have seen no evidence to the contrary.
There is a six-point formula to the proper thank-you: Learn it, know it, memorize it, and it will never fail you.
An American Tragedy →
There are, inevitably, miseries to come: an increasingly reactionary Supreme Court; an emboldened right-wing Congress; a President whose disdain for women and minorities, civil liberties and scientific fact, to say nothing of simple decency, has been repeatedly demonstrated. Trump is vulgarity unbounded, a knowledge-free national leader who will not only set markets tumbling but will strike fear into the hearts of the vulnerable, the weak, and, above all, the many varieties of Other whom he has so deeply insulted.
How Boeing Builds A 737 In Just 9 Days →
If you fly, you’ve almost certainly found yourself packed into a Boeing 737. This workhorse of commercial aviation accounts for one of every three commercial flights, and there are around 2,000 of them in the air at any given time.
Every one of those planes rolled out of Boeing’s Renton Production Facility, where workers build a 737 in just nine days. The factory, near Seattle, pump them out at the rate of 42 per month, and Boeing claims the 1.1-million-square-foot facility is most efficient airplane factory in the world.
Boeing faces fierce competition from arch rival Airbus. The 737 is the best-selling jet ever, with more than 9,000 delivered since its introduction in 1967, but the Airbus A320 is no slouch. The company has delivered about 6,700 of them since the airliner entered service in 1984.
Nasa Captures Wicked Solar Flare →
How Snowden Escaped →
To escape the long arm of American justice, the man responsible for the largest national security breach in U.S. history retained a Canadian lawyer in Hong Kong who hatched a plan that included a visit to the UN sub-office where the North Carolina native applied for refugee status to avoid extradition to the U.S.
Fearing the media would surround and follow Snowden — making it easier for the Hong Kong authorities to arrest the one-time Central Intelligence Agency analyst on behalf of the U.S. — his lawyers made him virtually disappear for two weeks from June 10 to June 23, 2013, before he emerged on an Aeroflot airplane bound for Moscow, where he remains stranded today in self-imposed exile.
‘We’re the Only Plane in the Sky’ →
Nearly every American above a certain age remembers precisely where they were on September 11, 2001. But for a tiny handful of people, those memories touch American presidential history. Shortly after the attacks began, the most powerful man in the world, who had been informed of the World Trade Center explosions in a Florida classroom, was escorted to a runway and sent to the safest place his handlers could think of: the open sky. the open sky.