I’m a little behind on this – skipped Week 38, but I intend to make What I’m Ready This Week (WIRTW) a weekly thing, most likely updated on Fridays, and I’m hoping for about five links. None of these links are behind a strict paywall — I think a couple are behind soft paywalls (“We’ll let you read a few articles a month before we cut you off). Hope these strike you as interesting as they struck me!

• L.A.’s palm trees are dying and it’s changing the city’s famous skyline
  LA Times
  LA’s iconic palm trees are facing myriad threats.
• To catch a paedophile, you only need to look at their hands
  Wired
  We’re familiar with fingerprint identification, but it turns out your hands can be just as identifying.
• Merci, GOAT
  The Players Tribune
  The message Michael Jordan gave the rookie Knicks point guard Frank Ntilikina. More importantly, what he went through to get to that point. If you don’t at tear up just a little you’re a monster.
• The Definitive Timeline Of Craft Beer Acquisitions
  Vinepair
  A really nice timeline of who-bought-whom. The beer world is weird these days…
• The Polar Expedition That Went Berserk
  Outside Magazine
  This is just a crazy tale of what can go wrong at the bottom of the earth.
• The King of the Ferret Leggers
  Outside Magazine
  Tie your trousers at the ankles. No underwear of any kind. Drop in two hungry ferrets. Cinch your belt tight.
• KD and the VCs: How Kevin Durant Became a Made Man in Silicon Valley
  San Francisco Magazine
  Kevin Durant: NBA All-star, MVP, and… Angel Investor? In a big way.
• Once Teased For Her Love Of Bugs, 8-Year-Old Co-Authors Scientific Paper
  NPR
  Because we all need a heart-warming story about a little girl who loves bugs and the adults who assure her that’s just fine.
• Indie Bookstores Embrace the Side Hustle
  Citylab
  Amazon was supposed to have killed indie bookstores, right? Then why are they doing okay? Diversifying!

Week 37, 2017

This is the inaugural WIRTW, so the list is going to run a bit long, but bear with me — I assure you will not click away from this list without learning something. I’m quite selective about what I recommend, so know it’s not going to be a wasted link.

Let’s get into it!

• Satya Nadella Rewrites Microsoft’s Code

  Fast Company
  His name may not be as familiar as his predecessors, Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer, but Satya Nadella has quietly restored the shine (and valuation) to Microsoft. Unlike the other two, I’d love to sit down and just talk with him. I think this paragraph early in the article sealed it for me:

  The place looks more like a neighborhood bookshop than the command center for the third-most-valuable company on the planet. “I read a few pages here or a few pages there,” Nadella says, in his typically understated manner. “There are a few books, of course, that you read end-to-end. But without books I can’t live.”

• ‘You Can’t Shop Here’

  Esquire
  Plus size men’s clothes that are fashion forward? Say it ain’t so! I may have to take this to heart when I develop my sewing chops!

• AI Is Inventing Languages Humans Can’t Understand. Should We Stop It?

  Fast Company
  Are we paranoid (enough)?

• Instagram Is Pushing Restaurants To Be Kitschy, Colorful, And Irresistible To Photographers

  The Verge
  The article is relatively non-judgmental… but to me this is fantastic. Am I alone among non-Millennials to think this?

• What It Feels Like Being A Trans Person Serving In The Armed Forces

  BuzzFeed
  A graphic interpretation of one man’s journey through the military and afterwards.

• The Famous Easter Island Heads Have Hidden Bodies

  Forbes
  Who knew?!

• Why a New Orleans Museum Displays a Can of Water

  Atlas Obscura
  The headline is a bit disingenuous — it’s less about a specific can of water, and more about the fact that tens of thousands of cans of water are ready to be shipped to disaster areas.

• She thought she was Irish — until a DNA test opened a 100-year-old mystery

  Chicago Tribune
  Readily-available DNA testing has brought up so many questions, but this is a fascinating story about disentangling history from the narratives we taught.

• The Hijacking of the Brillante Virtuoso
  

  Bloomberg
  A freighter worth $100-million in ship and cargo gets hijacked — cut and dry, right? Not even a little.

• The Crow Who Never Learned to Fly, and Then Taught Herself

  Atlas Obscura
  Let me be the first to say at the very least anthropomorphizing is dangerous to both animals and humans. With that disclaimer, go ahead and try not to find this story about perseverance utterly fascinating.

• Welcome to Paradise: Batteries Now Included
  

  Grist.org
  There have been times in California where solar power has generated more than half of the available power for the state… for a relatively short period of time during the day. There’s also times when California Independent System Operator has had to give away solar-generated electricity because we have too much. The solution is storage, but it’s never been tried on the scale we ultimately need. So how about a small scale? Read on…

• The best fonts to use on a resume, according to typographers and designers

  CNBC
  Spoiler alert: not Comic Sans

• The Braves’ New Ballpark Is An Urban Planner’s Nightmare

  Deadspin
  An examination of the socio-economic ramifications of where the Braves decided to relocate.

• ‘Money fell from the sky’: At the doughnut shop across from the Americana, the mall workers rest and dream big

  LA Times
  Finally, one of the most fascinating character studies I’ve read in a long time. Next time I’m in LA you better bet I’m stopping here.