Saturdays are all about longform links on Abnormal Returns. You can check out last week’s linkfest including a look at the rise and fall of khaki.
Quote of the Day
"The end of the world is a growth industry. You can almost feel Armageddon in the air: from survivalist and ‘prepper’ websites (survivopedia.com, doomandbloom.net, prepforshtf.com) to new academic disciplines (‘disaster studies’, ‘Anthropocene studies’, ‘extinction studies’), human vulnerability is in vogue."
(Claire Colebrook)
Rural America
- The rural Midwest has an affordable housing problem. (theguardian.com)
- Rural America is the new 'inner city.' (wsj.com)
Companies
- Uber is undergoing an existential crisis. (nymag.com)
- The long, sad story of the demise of Sears. (washingtonpost.com)
Media
- What the publisher of the future looks like. (stratechery.com)
- Can a Conde Nast-owned Pitchfork still maintain its indie cred? (poynter.org)
- We are in the golden age of dystopian fiction. (newyorker.com)
The 2017 Abnormal Returns Campaign
Science
- Dirt has its own microbiome which can affect human health. (qz.com)
- Can science crack the peanut allergy? (ft.com)
Longreads
- Finding sustainable investment projects is harder that it looks in practice. (bloomberg.com)
- The (really) big annual Internet Trends report by Mary Meeker is out. (kpcb.com)
- How the self-esteem movement took over America. (nymag.com)
- Maps are by definition abstractions. (farnamstreetblog.com)
- An excerpt from Rick Ankiel's new memoir "The Phenomenon: Pressure, the Yips, and the Pitch that Changed My Life." (sports.vice.com)
