The weekend is a great time to catch up on some of the reading you skipped during the week.  We hope you enjoy this set of long-form links.

Atul Gawande, “Coaching done well may be the most effective intervention designed for human performance. ”  (New Yorker)

Investment

Russia is the new frontier for timberland investment.  (Institutional Investor)

An excerpt from Michael Martin‘s The Inner Voice of Trading: Eliminate the Noise, and Profit from the Strategies That Are Right for You.  (Abnormal Returns)

Michael Lewis visits the economic wreck that is California.  (Vanity Fair)

Twitter is the new hot spot for all manner of research.  (WSJ)

Companies

Will Google’s ($GOOG) ambitions get it into trouble? (London Review of Books via @longformorg)

What business is Amazon ($AMZN) not willing to get into? (Businessweek)

Kindle vs. iPad:  service vs. product.  (Asymco)

Vaccines are now a profitable business for a handful of pharma companies.  (New Scientist)

Society

Will robots steal your job?  (Slate)

What we can learn from policies that spurred the Industrial Revolution.  (Rick Bookstaber)

An excerpt from Colin Woodard’s American Nations: A History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures of North America.  (Businessweek, ibid)

How social influence can swamp quality.  (Freakonomics)

Sports

The many problems (and myths) of Moneyball.  (The Atlantic)

The sad post-football life of Walter Payton.  (SI via @longreads)

What the “Brooklyn Nets” tell us about the economics of the NBA.  (Grantland)

Entertainment

Podcasts are the new comedy club.  (The Hollywood Reporter)

An oral history of the much celebrated Upright Citizens Brigade.  (New York)

An oral history of the cult classic Wet, Hot American Summer.  (Details)

How HBO revolutionized television.  (Slate)

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