Core77’s editors spend time combing through the news so you don’t have to. Here’s a weekly roundup of our favorite stories from the World Wide Web.
A Scrum Master in Ninja Socks, and Other Tales
When Bloomberg Businessweek published Paul Ford’s epic “What Is Code?” last June, I had every intention of reading it—really—but somehow never quite found the time (it’s 38,000 words long), and subsequently felt a stab of guilt and inadequacy every time I saw or heard it mentioned. When it won a National Magazine Award the other night, it was the last straw. I’m now halfway through, and experiencing a mix of amusement, enlightenment and discomfort/fear not normally inspired by magazine writing.
—Mason Currey, senior editor
Kickass Female Designers
Our loyal Designing Women readers won’t be surprised to hear that I’m always on the lookout for awesome products created by women. So I was excited to read an interview with Terese Alstin this week about her online store No Sir, where she promotes the work of “kickass female designers."
—Rebecca Veit, columnist, Designing Women
15 Surprising Things Productive People Do Differently
Next week marks the beginning of the Lunar New Year—another opportunity to start the year on the right foot. After interviewing over 200 "ultra-productive people” and distilling their responses, here’s a listicle of 15 habits for getting the most out of this monkey year.
—LinYee Yuan, managing editor
The Man Who Invented Whack-a-Mole Has One More Chance
From exploding gas cylinders to pistol-packing “clients”, there are many lessons to be learned by ID'ers in this tale.
—Eric Ludlum, editorial director
Multitasking is Killing Your Brain
We all like to hit ourselves on the head about procrastination and will often blame our lack of willpower or self-motivation. As it turns out, our brains might just be to blame. Studies show our tendency to multitask put us in a feedback loop that rewards us with dopamine hits when we perform small and usually unproductive tasks (i.e. looking at emails and text messages). Learn more about what happens in our heads when we multitask, and maybe even find a way to break the cycle.
- Allison Fonder, community manager
It’s well-known that America completely outproduced the Axis powers, but how was it practically achieved?
I’m reading Arthur Herman’s Freedom’s Forge: How American Business Produced Victory in World War II. How were GM auto plants converted to produce tanks, and what genius figured out how to crank out Liberty ships in under a week? Here’s the story of the beleaguered industrialists you’ve never heard of and the incredible job they did of marshaling resources, ingenuity and the unsung labor of millions.
—Rain Noe, senior editor
Werner Herzog on Virtual Reality
The German director (who previously experimented with 3D film in his 2010 documentary “Cave of Forgotten Dreams”) articulates some of his thoughts on the future of Virtual Reality, and how it will generate a completely new type of expression: “I am convinced that this is not going to be an extension of cinema or 3-D cinema or video games. It is something new, different and not experienced yet.”
—Alexandra Alexa, editorial assistant
http://www.core77.com/posts/46427/What-Were-Reading-A-38000-Word-Article-on-Code-Productivity-Tips-Werner-Herzog-Explores-Virtual-Reality-and-More