August Reads

I'm starting a series of posts collecting the best articles / books / etc. that I've read each month. Here we go, the coolest things I've read this August!

Two black-swan events that we are completely unprepared for, because our history doesn't stretch back long enough:

  • An earthquake in 1700 that would destroy Portland, Seattle, and Vancouver if it were to happen again.

  • A volcanic eruption in 1815 that caused a volcanic winter -- blizzards in New York in June, dead crops and famine worldwide.

Other random things:

I also finally read The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, which was way more hilarious than I expected! Fun fact: the book was published in 1979, and one of the computers in the book is called the Googleplex. Google was started in 1998, yet its official naming story does not mention the book. It makes me wonder.