What book do you love; reread regularly; and yet there's a section you usually skip?

Me: First Pern trilogy. Love the books but always skip the section about Pridith and Wirenth because I don't want to cry. (Whew, that manages to avoid a spoiler.) #cosobookclub

Dinner parties aren't dead. They've just evolved. https://www.vox.com/the-goods/2019/10/14/20899335/dinner-parties-entertaining-millennials-nothing-fancy-alison-roman

Imagine a transit map that named all the subway stops after female figures. New York has a 2.0 version created by writer Rebecca Solnit and geographer Joshua Jelly-Schapiro https://www.afar.com/magazine/city-of-women-map-2-dot-0-names-nyc-subway-stops-after-female-figures

The top three most popular emoji are the joy smiley face emoji (conveys teary-eyed laughter), used a whopping 9.9% of the time; the red heart emoji, used 6.6% of the time; and the heart eyes smiley face emoji, used 4.2% of the time. https://www.fastcompany.com/90421227/according-to-unicode-this-is-the-emoji-we-use-the-most

Mel Brooks gets at the core appeal of physical comedy with his famous dictum about the difference between tragedy and comedy: “Tragedy is when I cut my finger. Comedy is when you fall into an open sewer and die.” https://www.newyorker.com/culture/richard-brody/the-demise-of-physical-comedy

Three More Arrested as Suspects in Golden Toilet Heist https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-oxfordshire-50071192

The stethoscope faces obsolescence. It’s becoming less relevant with the spread of AI-powered handheld devices. https://apnews.com/6cf7790448ee48b3a4844213c78e783b

Note to self: If you want to charge your phone, plug in BOTH ends of the power cable.

...Oh yeah, good morning folks.

The popularity of food delivery apps is giving rise to more virtual restaurants. https://www.apnews.com/6da0840ac53748199a2fdbb945143aae

Esther Duflo Is Not ‘Wife of’; She’s a Nobel Laureate in Economics

The reporting choice exemplifies how we devalue women's achievements by crediting their accomplishments and identities to the men in their lives. https://theswaddle.com/indian-media-esther-duflo-is-not-wife-of-shes-a-nobel-laureate-in-economics/

Requiem for an Egg Cream: In Search of a New York Classic
(Whispered confession: I never cared for them.)
https://www.seriouseats.com/2014/07/best-egg-cream-new-york-nyc.html

'The perfect combination of art and science': mourning the end of paper maps https://www.theguardian.com/travel/2019/oct/20/the-perfect-combination-of-art-and-science-mourning-the-end-of-paper-maps

The hotel “apologizes for any uneasiness caused.” https://www.theregister.co.uk/2019/10/22/japanese_hotel_chain_sorry_that_bedside_robots_may_have_watched_guests

"...[T]he transport of animals goes far beyond emergency response.

"In 2018, the ASPCA reports that they relocated over 40,000 animals from areas of “high homeless pet overpopulation” to “areas with a higher demand for adoptable dogs”. Although our data represents only a snapshot in time, we can get an idea of where, geographically, these areas may be."
https://pudding.cool/2019/10/shelters/

Help journalists read through family border separation complaints https://www.muckrock.com/news/archives/2019/sep/11/family-border-separation-crowdsource/

A Field Guide to Sweet Potato Varieties (and the Dirt on Yams)
https://www.seriouseats.com/2019/10/a-field-guide-to-sweet-potato-varieties-and-the-dirt-on-yams.html

A Talking Skull Automaton Could Command $9,000 at Potter & Potter https://thehotbid.com/2019/10/21/a-talking-skull-automaton-could-command-9000-at-potter-potter/

Milwaukee police officer buys children car seats instead of ticketing their mom
https://www.cnn.com/2019/10/21/us/police-officer-buys-children-car-seats-trnd/index.html

John Sonmez is not a Simple Programmr

In case you missed the misogyny-in-action on programming Twitter over the past few days
https://dev.to/kodaman2/off-topic-john-sonmez-is-not-a-simple-programmr-g22

Key takeaway from the 5th LeanIn/McKinsey study of the state of women in corporate America: The glass ceiling isn’t the biggest obstacle women face. The broken rung is. https://leanin.org/women-in-the-workplace-2019