Some recent saved favorites from Pocket:
20 minutes at Rucker Park: Thomas “TJ” Webster Jr. waits impatiently for the ball to be tossed in the air. The only white player on the court, he can sense the eyes of the few dozen spectators lounging around the steel and plastic bleachers. – by Flinder Boyd – http://www.sbnation.com/longform/2013/10/15/4837064/rucker-park-basketball-new-york-city-cross-country-journey
How virtual cable and CableWiFi may have killed the Verizon Wireless: By deciding to shutter their joint innovation lab, Verizon (NYSE: VZ) and cable partners Comcast (Nasdaq: CMCSA), Time Warner Cable (NYSE: TWC) and Bright House signaled they believe it’d be more profitable in the long run to pursue their own multiscreen distribution products than to share their – by Steve Donohue – Tags: Advertising and marketing,Business,Cablevision,CableWiFi,Comcast,Time Warner Cable,Verizon – http://www.fiercecable.com/story/how-virtual-cable-and-cablewifi-may-have-killed-verizon-wireless-comcast-jo/2013-10-18
Confessions of a Windows Phone User: Hello. My name is Ashlee Vance, and I have a Windows phone. To own a Windows smartphone in Silicon Valley is to invite ridicule and pity. Every day I pull out the bright yellow Nokia (NOK) Lumia 920, and every day iPhone and Android types look at me with dismay. – by Ashlee Vance – http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-10-14/confessions-of-a-windows-phone-user
Never Shop in October and Other Secrets From a Retail Guru: Mark Ellwood, a journalist and former travel guide author, has a simple shopping mandate: Never pay full price. There’s simply no need, a point Ellwood illustrates at length in his new book, Bargain Fever: How to Shop in a Discounted World. – by Kyle Stock – http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-10-16/never-shop-in-october-and-other-secrets-from-a-retail-guru
Eight miles of water: underground with Manhattan’s new aquatic lifeline: New Yorkers will proudly tell you that the city has some of the finest tap water that you can find. But for nearly a century, all of Manhattan has been served by a single water tunnel that hasn’t been shut down for maintenance since it first opened in 1917. That’s no longer the case. – by Dante D’Orazio – http://www.theverge.com/2013/10/19/4853636/underground-with-manhattans-new-water-tunnel-three-photo-essay
The future of gyms: If you thought gyms were a recent phenomenon, tethered to the trend of self-conscious fashionistas and the scourge of obesity, well, you’d be wrong. – by Paul Sawers – http://thenextweb.com/insider/2013/10/19/the-future-of-gyms/
40% Of YouTube Traffic Now Mobile, Up From 25% In 2012, 6% In 2011: It’s hard to get people to concentrate long on anything on their phones and tablets, yet YouTube seems to be the exception. The video service is quickly going mobile, with small screens making up 40% of its traffic now compared to 25% last year, Google said on its earnings call today. – by Josh Constine – http://techcrunch.com/2013/10/17/youtube-goes-mobile/
Google AI Team Lets You Build Quantum Computing Traps in Minecraft: You hack your way through vines into the ziggurat and then follow dark passageways until arriving in a stone-block room. There’s a sign on the wall. “Look up!” it reads. “Totally not a trap.” You look up and then plunge into blackness. This isn’t just a trap. It’s a quantum trap. – by Robert McMillan – http://www.wired.com/wiredenterprise/2013/10/minecraft_quantum/