As a writer —and, more importantly, as a reader —I am growing increasingly concerned about the role of reading in our culture, if for no other reason than the well-being of my grandchildren.
“For a few of us old bibliophiles, there may be a chance to preserve our status as scribes, and to pass on our reading and writing habits to our children, in homes and cloister-schools where screen time is strictly rationed.
But for the growing number who are opting out of literacy, it is not the road to serfdom that awaits—but the steep downward slope to the status of a peasant in ancient Egypt.”
From The Free Press, Without Books We Will Be Barbarians
One of the significant breakthroughs in fashion has all but disappeared into our subconscious: the zipper, the replacement for buttons. It seems another change is afoot.
“AiryString embodies that principle. It’s not a flashy reinvention, it's a recalibration. A century-old mechanism made lighter, cleaner, and almost invisible. In a world addicted to louder, faster innovation, YKK’s breakthrough succeeds by subtracting rather than adding.”
YKK, the largest zipper producer globally, has developed, over 7 years, a zipper without the cloth strip on either side. From Wired, The Zipper Is Getting Its First Major Upgrade in 100 Years
It should be no surprise that I love reading, more non-fiction than I should, but reading nonetheless. I ran across this SubStack, Read Your Color, and have found it to be a great weekly read that comes with great suggestions. In a current offering, on reading difficult books, Steven Reese writes,
“Don’t skip rest days. Reading hard books is metabolically demanding. Your brain is burning glucose working through difficult prose. You need recovery time. Plan lighter reading between sessions. That’s not cheating! Don’t be such a bummer to yourself!
Track your pace, not your speed. Marathon readers measure success by consistency. Did you show up today? Did you read, even if only ten pages? Did you finish slightly less confused than when you started? Progress on hard books is incremental. Celebrate the small gains!”
From Read Your Color, How to Read Hard Books, and while you are at it, take the color test to see what books he will recommend to you. It is so worthwhile.
“On October 9, China announced expansive export controls on rare earths, which are critical to nearly all tech products; then, on October 20, US-East-1, the oldest and largest region of Amazon Web Services, suffered a DNS issue that impacted cloud services that people didn’t even know they used, until they were no longer available.
There is, however, a commonality, one that cuts to the heart of accepted wisdom about both the Internet and international trade, and serves as a reminder that what actually happens in reality matters more than what should happen in theory.”
That commonality is resilience and scale. A great piece from Stratechery, Resiliency and Scale
Chuck Dinerstein, MD, MBA
Director of Medicine
Dr. Charles Dinerstein, M.D., MBA, FACS is Director of Medicine at the American Council on Science and Health. He has over 25 years of experience as a vascular surgeon.
