A Chromebook Is Probably Better Than A Mac And Other Facts
Welcome to What We Learned This Week, a digest of the most curiously important facts from the past few days. This week: Chromebooks are good, Trump's hair is a weave and big waves are scary.
TELL YOUR PARENTS
Most People Would Probably Be Just Fine With A Chromebook
In Matt Novak's refreshing personal essay for Gizmodo, he lays out his decision to buy a $179 Chromebook over a $1300 Macbook Air. Which, if you just compare those two numbers should make it fairly obvious why he opted for Google's cloud over Apple's clout. Still not convinced? Think about how you use your computer, and just how much of what you do is — or can be — done in a web browser. Yes, a Chromebook probably wont replace your work laptop, which might need to run photo/video editing software or some other legacy program — looking at you Excel and Adobe Reader. But for personal use, do you really need anything other than a screen and a keyboard that can connect to the internet? Probably not! And for something costs, at most, $200, you could do a lot worse in terms of personal tech purchasing decisions.
[Gizmodo]
SAME SHIT, DIFFERENT DEVICE
A Teen With A Smartphone Is Still A Teen
In Jessica Contrera's look into the life of 13-year-old Katherine Pommerening's life for the Washington Post, there is a sense that a teen spending most of their free time on a smartphone is bad. Which is probably true. It's probably not great, emotionally, to maintain an outward appearance of cool on Instagram, Twitter and Snapchat and to have to abide by the unwritten rules that surround them (deleting photos with not a lot of likes, keeping a high snapchat score and so on). But then again, since when has the social life of teens ever been healthy? In the days of AIM, teens would spend most of their time sitting on their parents' computer — plotting, flirting, befriending, preening their profiles — the coolest of which could leave them on 24/7 and put up an equally cool away message. And before that teens would pass notes and beg their parents to put in their own phone line. Technology changes, but teens have not. Whether or not this is a good thing isn't clear.
WAVE GOODBYE
They Don't Call Them Rough Seas For Nothing
For being a big blue expanse of nothingness, the open ocean can get pretty nasty. Take this footage from a vessel that was just motoring along in some rough seas in the Southern Ocean until a giant Well-Fuck-Me wave just appears and seemingly engulfs the entire vessel in seawater. I'm sure after the 50th time this happens it's not really that scary anymore, but good lord I think "being jaded about massive waves" just isn't worth it.
[Digg]
TIME HEALS ALL WOUNDS?
The Man Who Shot Reagan Is Not That Person Anymore
In 1981, John Hinckley believed that Jodi Foster would love him if he shot Ronald Reagan. And so he did. Since then, he's spent the rest of his life at Washington DC's St. Elizabeths Psychiatric Hospital. But as Eddie Dean reveals in the Washingtonian, there is so much more to Hinckley than the fact that he tried to assassinate the President of the United States. He has cats. He likes to record music. He shops for books at Barnes and Noble. He gets to stay with his aging mother for months at a time. It's very clear that his therapists want to see him be a healthy member of society again. It's also very clear that the general public — and more specifically the citizens who live near Hinckley's mother in Williamsburg, Virginia — would like to see Hinckley locked up until the day he dies. Naturally, Hinckley has come to terms with this. The public has not.
THERE REALLY IS NO SPLITTING HAIRS
Donald Trump Is Wearing A $60,000 Weave
You really need to read Ashley Feinberg's investigation into Donald Trump's hair and the shadowy hair-restoration specialist that's responsible for it. It truly is one of those procedural stories that only makes more sense with every sentence. In short, though, here's the gist: Donald Trump's hair is basically a wig sewn into the existing follicles. The last know address of the hair restoration specialist who owns the patent on this technique is the 25th floor of the Trump Tower — the same exact floor as Donald Trump's own office. Of all the explanations for the enigma that is Trump's mane, this is, by far the most sane and believable.
[Gawker]
AT LEAST IT SAVES THE TREES?
Of Course Humans Have Invented The Sport Of Cutting A Car In Half With An Axe
Watching these two decidedly average men whack away at cheap hatchbacks with what is surely a dull axe is entertaining, to be sure. But it is a far cry from the Street Fighter bonus stage where your fighter is tasked with destroying a car with their bare hands. Mostly, we're just waiting for one of the men to hit a glancing blow and end up thunking the axe into a limb.
[Digg]
Previously on What We Learned This Week
Trash Fires Are Hard To Put Out
The Rent Versus Buy Debate Is Silly
For more Internet distillations like this, check out our back catalog of Digg Roundups. And for more stuff from Digg, check out our Originals archive.
