Welcome to What We Learned This Week, a digest of the most curiously important facts from the past few days. This week: how design is used to exclude others, the celebrity z-list and a cyclist who is faster than a motorcycle.
THE ARCHITECTS OF PREJUDICE
Design Is Used To Segregate
The thing about systemic discrimination is that it's, well, derived from systems. Some are more overt, like drawing election districts to keep the powerful in power or helping the poor enough to keep them impoverished. Others, and perhaps the more sinister of which, are found the design of everyday objects.
In Lena Groeger's examination of how design discriminates for ProPublica, she points out how simple things like adding extra arm rests on park benches or low bridges over certain highways can have lasting effects on a populace. The world is chock full of these architectural micro-aggressions — a reminder that the world is built for those who design it. Just guess who that might be.
WELCOME TO THE Z-LIST
Celebrity Gossip Has Gotten Much Bigger And Weirder
In the days of tabloids past, gossip reporters only had a handful of celebrities to hound on. Thanks to the limits of television schedules and movie theaters, there were only so many faces and names recognizable enough to put on the cover of a magazine.
Thanks to the internet and it's many platforms, however, access to celebrities and hunger for a shared sense of what they're up has birthed a Z-list of personalities. Unlike A-listers or even B-listers, these personalities — YouTube stars, celebrity adjacent significant others, one-time reality stars — are deftly aware of, and fully embrace the public's hunger for watching a personal trainwreck unfold. Just when the limelight begins to fade, they post something dumb on Instagram — which tabloids are all too happy to mine for traffic.
And in some sense, the Z-list and the tabloids are the perfect symbiotic relationship. The former hungers attention and the latter is all-too-eager to lay these cries for attention at the feet of a insatiable public.
BEST USED FOR HEADPHONES
The Best Way To Wrap Cables Is To Pretend You're A Sailor
It's popular to idolize the humble roadie as the Perfect Cable Wrapper, but really they stole of their tricks from sailors — those salty jerks have had to deal with tangled abominations for centuries. The trick to keeping your lines from tangling is, strangely, to twist them as you coil, keeping them in a nice, tight, circle.
[Digg]
DOESN'T MAKE CENTS?
There Is A Huge Difference In What Millennial Men Are Making
Granted, you could probably point to four people of roughly the same age and find that yes, some people make more than others. Still, it's shocking to see just how wide that gap is amongst young people. On one end you have at Ed Zitron, a 29-year-old PR firm founder who makes $1.5 million annually, and aims to retire in just over 15 years. On the other you have Tyron Harris, a 28-year-old overnight grocery store stocker, who works hard, spends wisely and still lives at the poverty line.
If you were to draw anything from this — and boy is there a lot to unpack when it comes to how people manage their finances — it's that working hard isn't a foolproof way to move up in life.
[Esquire]
IT IS TINY, AFTER ALL
Sleeping In A Tiny House Is Tedious As Heck
Fans of the tidy house movement champion living in a glorified shed as a back-to-basics, liberating experience. It's a not-so-subtle living choice that assumes that we are literally, physically living outside of our means.
However, as Mental Floss's Shaunacy Ferro finds that when it comes to tiny houses, less is not always more. Specifically, unless you have a second sense for the layout of your shack, getting up to pee at night is an awkward, toe-stubbing experience. Which: if you can't sleepily stumble to the bathroom, is it really a home?
NO BRAKES, NO MASTERS
A Cyclist Is Faster Than A Motorcycle Going Downhill
On most occasions, riding a bicycle kind of sucks. While the sport loves to glorify suffering, it still is, well, suffering. Despite your best efforts to be a polite and safe cyclist, motorists will still get upset and try to kill you with their cars. Riding to work is fun, but you will arrive a moderately sweaty mess — which, like, no one is going to openly criticize you for but it will probably shade their perception of you anyway.
But one of the few pure joys is going downhill. You worked your ass off to get to the top of whatever godforsaken mountain got in your way, and you'll be damned if you have to pull on the brakes while in you're in the intoxicating embrace of gravity.
That's what this cyclist did. While the motorcycles filming him have to obey the speed limit, he does not. Who is going to get in the way of a cyclist screaming down a mountain at 50 MPH? It's too impressive to impede. For a rare moment, cyclist and motorist are equals. And it is good.
[Digg]
Previously on What We Learned This Week
Millennials Are Ruining Vacation
Buying Apple Stock Is A Better Idea Than Having A Kid
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.
