Aphantasia & Rollercoaster King

Hello! This is our 72nd daily newsletter, and after recommending nearly a thousand articles, it comes with some changes. Going forward, you will not see an introduction for the articles I recommend here. If the article has a byline or if there is a summary provided by the publishers themselves, I will include it instead. If not, I will only provide the quote(s) I pull from the article. There are two reasons behind this.

The first reason has been brewing for a while and concerns time. The introductions take up a big part of my time when preparing this newsletter. Stopping them makes this project more sustainable in the long run.

The second reason is more recent feedback I received regarding AI usage. I often rely on AI-generated summaries when writing introductions, and some argue that this goes against what a newsletter like this stands for. I don't entirely agree, but I also see their point, and it's been lingering in my mind more than I expected. Maybe it is better not to write anything at all if the writing is not 100% human.

Please drop me a line at info@theslowscroll.com if you have any feedback or thoughts about these changes.

Featured Articles

Normality and Surprise in an Image-Free Mind

Aether Mug • 24 Oct 2024 • ~4000 words

On discovering aphantasia and talking about it.

There were other hints that something was different about me, although I never made a connection with visual imagery. When I was looking for my first job, I kept getting screening questions about specific episodes of my past experience, like "write of a time when you faced a complex problem in your work, and how you applied reason and initiative to solve it." I just couldn't do it. Even when I was given whole days to reflect on it, I failed to come up with good episodes from my own life. I was quite sure that I had faced some problems in the past, and that I had solved at least a few of them, but none surfaced when I needed them. I had to ask my friends and read old notes and reports to cobble together an answer, and even then I somehow knew it wasn't the best example I could give.

The rollercoaster king: the man behind the UK’s fastest thrill-ride

The Guardian • 24 Oct 2024 • ~6500 words

John Burton was just 27 when he was put in charge of creating Thorpe Park’s biggest-ever project. Once too scared to go on rides himself, how did he become the architect of so many daredevils’ dreams?

Burton had to warm to rollercoasters from a place of cold terror. Even standing near them upset him when he was young. “I used to say to my mum: ‘Don’t make me ride it,’” he recalled. Aged 12 or so, he worked up the courage to get on Nemesis, a rollercoaster at Alton Towers, a theme park near his home. Curiosity became an obsession in his teens, when he started to play RollerCoaster Tycoon, a computer game that allowed him to devise his own rides. He took the job in the aquarium while he was studying architecture at the University of Birmingham. The aquarium was owned by Merlin Entertainments, a live-attractions conglomerate, the second biggest in the world after Disney. When a role came up in Merlin’s creative department, Burton, nearing the end of his degree, applied. He went through months of interviews, almost ruining himself on the train fares to London. In the end he won the job, he said, on the strength of those speculative rollercoasters he had made in a video game.

Recommended Articles

Ancient Mesopotamians had a profound love of beer: a beverage they found celebratory, intoxicating and strangely erotic

Aeon • 24 Oct 2024 • ~3700 words

Ancient Mesopotamians had a profound love of beer: a beverage they found celebratory, intoxicating and strangely erotic.

Beer appears on thousands of cuneiform tablets. We learn, for example, about different types of beer. At one point: golden, dark, sweet dark, reddish brown, and strained beer. Not long after: ordinary, good, and very good – or possibly ordinary, strong, and very strong beer. Then a bit later, some beers of less certain translation: maybe sweet, red, date-sweetened, and bittersweet varieties. Often the two key brewing ingredients were malted barley, like many of our beers today, and the enigmatic bappir – possibly a dry, crumbly fermentation starter. Some beers also featured unmalted barley, emmer wheat, date syrup and/or aromatics. Exactly which aromatics is up for debate, but hops, so crucial today, were not in the mix.

A Radical Approach to Flooding in England: Give Land Back to the Sea

New York Times • 22 Oct 2024 • ~2100 words • Archive Link

When a huge tract of land on the Somerset coast was deliberately flooded, the project was slammed as “ridiculous” by a local lawmaker. But the results have been transformative.

The marsh acts as a natural and hugely effective bulwark against flooding, absorbing and slowing tides before they can encroach inland. Even last winter — the wettest anyone in the area could remember — the village at one edge of the peninsula did not flood. Paths through the marsh remained passable. A steep bank, covered with grass and significantly higher than the old flood wall, now borders the river.

Return of the Puffin 

The Common • 21 Oct 2024 • ~8700 words

A human hand reached into the burrow and lifted the downy chick into the daylight. A man carefully measured its wingspan to ascertain the Kid’s age: eight to fourteen days, old enough to self-regulate its body temperature but young enough to imprint on a new home.

Other ornithologists shared Palmer’s skepticism. They questioned whether the project could succeed; after all, nothing like it had been attempted before. They worried that it would divert scarce resources from efforts to save species whose survival was really in peril. Kress argued that the conservation funding pie was not fixed, that his project could help to grow it, and that the fact that puffins were not an endangered species was a plus, since if the experiment failed it would not significantly dent their numbers.

The Invasion That Wasn’t

The Atlantic • 21 Oct 2024 • ~3700 words

Conspiracy theories in small-town Alabama.

The curious thing about the September panic in Sylacauga is that it was rarely about what was actually happening. People in a small town have good reason to worry about an influx of migrants straining community resources. The schools in Albertville, for instance, have gotten more than 100 new students from Haiti, and are struggling to accommodate their translation needs. The number of Haitians in Sylacauga was never anywhere near that big. But that didn't stop people from insisting that an invasion was already under way - the lull of narrative more compelling than a desire to reckon with things as they were.

How Las Vegas Became the Weirdest, Wildest, and Most Futuristic City in America

GQ • 24 Oct 2024 • ~7500 words

No place in America is more prone to reinvention—and Las Vegas has new food, new art, new sports, new heat, and, yes, a new Sphere. We sent Brett Martin to take stock of the great American city of the future—and find out whether this Vegas is the best version yet.

But, for the moment, let’s just consider the simple fact of the place. What was the last physical object built in America that everybody, grudging or not, desperately needed to see? The closest I can remember is the ripple of Golem-like attention that ran through the room the first time somebody pulled out the original iPod, the palpable hunger everybody suddenly had to lay hands on the thing. You could say it’s a little depressing that the biggest, most ambitious, most universally acclaimed project America is capable of in 2024 is a giant screen. Or, you could consider the paradoxical possibility that an enormous virtual reality machine may be the final Hail Mary for the importance of actually going somewhere. In our virtual world, what was the last cross-cultural phenomenon that—10,000 Dead & Company Reels notwithstanding—you had to travel to an actual place to experience? And when was the last time that place was Las Vegas?

Is Afghanistan’s Most-Wanted Militant Now Its Best Hope for Change?

New York Times • 24 Oct 2024 • ~4050 words • Archive Link

Sirajuddin Haqqani has tried to remake himself from blood-soaked jihadist to pragmatic Taliban statesman. Western diplomats are shocked — and enticed.

To many, Mr. Haqqani was a boogeyman, an angel of death with the power to determine who would live and who would die during the U.S.-led war. He deployed his ranks of Taliban suicide bombers, who rained carnage on American troops and Afghan civilians alike. A ghostlike kingpin of global jihad, with deep ties to Al Qaeda and other terrorist networks, he topped the United States’ most-wanted list in Afghanistan, with a $10 million bounty on his head. But since the Americans’ frantic withdrawal in 2021 and the Taliban’s return to power, Mr. Haqqani has portrayed himself as something else altogether: A pragmatic statesman. A reliable diplomat. And a voice of relative moderation in a government steeped in religious extremism.

Why We Ghost

Nautilus • 23 Oct 2024 • ~2900 words

The psychology of people who cut off all communication—and how that affects their partners.

Over a series of three pilot tests and eight experiments conducted with over 2,000 people of different genders, ages, and cultures, Park and Klein found that people often say they ghost because they don’t want to hurt the ghostee’s feelings, by leaving them feeling rejected, for example. In one of the experiments, people were offered a small cash bonus to ghost a conversation partner, and almost half of them refused the money. They gave up this bonus even though they barely knew their potential ghostees, who were strangers they’d been randomly assigned to chat with online for up to three minutes. “So many people were willing to give up that money,” says Park. “It’s not just that they say that they care, but that they are willing to give up money to show that they care.” This, for her, was one of the most exciting and surprising findings of the research—that some people care enough about not hurting the person they are rejecting that they will make personal sacrifices to avoid doing so.

“Not Medically Necessary”: Inside the Company Helping America’s Biggest Health Insurers Deny Coverage for Care

ProPublica • 23 Oct 2024 • ~4150 words

When companies like Aetna or UnitedHealthcare want to rein in costs, they turn to EviCore, whose business model depends on turning down payments for care recommended by doctors for their patients.

Over the years, medical groups have repeatedly complained that EviCore’s guidelines were outdated and rigid, resulting in inappropriate denials or delays in care. Frustration with the rules has led some doctors to refer to the company as EvilCore. There is even a parody account on X. The guidelines are also used as a tool to cut costs, the investigation found. Company executives “would say, ‘Keep a closer eye on the guidelines for reviews for a particular company because we’re not showing savings,’” said a former EviCore employee involved in the radiation oncology program.

The Gambling Industry’s Cynical Play For Your Vote

The Lever • 24 Oct 2024 • ~4100 words

The industry aims to expand its reach this election season by promising revenue windfalls and downplaying evidence their services are a bad bet.

The industry uses a term called GGR, or Gross Gaming Revenue, to quantify its sales. It represents the total amount that people bet, minus the amount the companies pay out in prize money. Put another way, it’s the amount Americans lose to gambling. Industry analyst group H2 Gambling Capital told The Lever they estimate that the collective GGR from sports betting in the U.S. in 2024 will be $14.7 billion. Forecasting for additional legalization, H2 predicts that by 2027, GGR could top $27 billion a year.

As Corporate Landlords Spread, a Mold Epidemic Takes Root

In These Times • 23 Oct 2024 • ~7750 words

Chronic mold has become an epidemic as severe as lead paint, but neither cities nor landlords are taking responsibility.

For some, the only serious answer is building new, affordable housing — and lots of it — to simultaneously lower rents and improve living conditions. But others warn this response just hits the snooze button on the alarm of a failed housing market; someone still has to own that housing, a landlord like Capital Realty could still snatch it up, and, without proper maintenance, the mold could soon return. Some doctors, like Kwittken, suggest requiring all buildings like Sunset Ridge to become mixed-income, to encourage more “responsible” management, reflecting the cynical yet well-established reality that poor tenants’ complaints are easier for the likes of Capital Realty to ignore.

How elderly dementia patients are unwittingly fueling political campaigns

CNN • 22 Oct 2024 • ~5100 words • Archive Link

A CNN investigation reveals how deceptive political fundraising has misled elderly Americans into giving away millions of dollars.

The controversial feature that fools many donors is a pre-checked box campaigns use to automatically authorize recurring donations. Donors often don’t realize they need to uncheck that box, so while attempting to make a one-time small donation, they are unknowingly signing up for weekly or monthly recurring donations. Sometimes it takes months or years before they realize a campaign has been regularly charging their credit card or taking money out of their bank account.

Your Doctor Won’t See You Now—or Ever Again

The Walrus • 24 Oct 2024 • ~3100 words • Archive Link

Why family medicine is dying.

Their reasons for not pursuing the kind of generalist care they trained for? Morros says they don’t want to have to run a business. If family doctors’ compensation is going to be the lowest of all physicians’, they at least want to rein in their hours and responsibilities. And they want to be able to take a vacation. Morros frames this as “moral injury.” Residents tell her that if they can’t get time away from their patients when they need to, then they’d rather not take on regular patients.

Commercial property’s moment of truth

Financial Times • 24 Oct 2024 • ~2600 words • Archive Link

Interest rates have peaked and activity in several sectors is picking up, but some fear bad news is still to emerge.

Green Street estimates that across the industry many real estate investment trusts and institutional funds are still valuing their properties at roughly 10-15 per cent over what could be achieved right now. The picture varies widely. In areas like apartment blocks, warehouses and some retail properties, rising rents and customer demand are giving investors confidence. Offices are more troubled, partly because of uncertainty about the level of demand in a post-pandemic world of hybrid working. But values also vary hugely depending on location, age and quality.