| 1. A troubling, fascinating new book on the value of secret wars. "An irony of the end of the Cold War was confirmation that it was, in fact, never cold in the first place. In the early 1990s, interviews with Soviet veterans and newly opened archives verified that Soviet pilots covertly participated in air-to-air combat with American pilots during the Korean War for two years. About a decade later, declassification of 1,300 American intelligence documents confirmed an even more striking fact: US intelligence agencies knew about the operation. One intelligence review from July 1952, a full year before the end of the war, estimated that 25,000–30,000 Soviet military personnel were 'physically involved in the Korean War.'" 2. The Arctic seafloor is basically unmapped. "'Especially when you get up north, the percentage of charts that are basically based on Royal Navy surveys from the 19th century is terrifying — or should be terrifying,' said David Titley, a retired U.S. Navy Rea Admiral who directs the Center for Solutions to Weather and Climate Risk at the Pennsylvania State University... When he was on active duty in the Navy, Titley said, 'we were finding sea mounts that we had no idea were there. And conversely, we were getting rid of sea mounts on charts that weren’t there.'" 3. The Influencer, as a category, does not feel sustainable. "I don’t watch TV. No plays, no books. The last movie I saw is … well, I’d rather not tell you. Okay, it was Avatar. In the theater. I just write emails and travel for work. I’m barely home; I’m always at JFK. I’m vegan and straight edge. Getting tattoos is how I relax. It’s my therapy... Everybody responds so well to the ex jokes I make on Instagram about it — like, 'Oh my God, this is worse than my ex,' or whatever. I feel like it makes my audience think, He’s really authentic." 4. Finally something you actually want to read about Q Anon. "As the posts piled up and Q’s plot thickened, his writing style changed. It went from discursive to interrogative, from concise and direct to gnomic and suggestive. This was the breakthrough, the hook, the innovation, and what convinced me Q was a master, not just a prankster or a kook. He’d discovered a principle of online storytelling that had eluded me all those years ago but now seemed obvious: The audience for internet narratives doesn’t want to read, it wants to write. It doesn’t want answers provided, it wants to search for them. It doesn’t want to sit and be amused, it wants to be sent on a mission. It wants to do." 5. The dislocation people experience in a "communication dead zone" after a disaster is only going to get worse. "'We have no cell,' said Mark Bateman, associate pastor of St. Andrew Baptist Church, in an unassuming western neighborhood. 'AT&T and Verizon (the area's two big telecom operators) don't work.''We have barely any way to communicate with our ... 800 members,' he said. 'Some have evacuated, and we have been messaging back and forth with OnStar (the car-based emergency communication and navigation system). We also checked door-to-door in the neighborhood.' Bonus: I wrote about a secretive liberal network that is pumping millions of dollars into Facebook ads; despite all the attention on Facebook and elections, no one had really noticed this. "If you were shown one of these ads and took the initiative to try to learn what the page running the advertising was (say, Better With Age), you’d find precisely nothing in any of the page’s “About” sections except that it is self-described as a “Media/News” organization. Moreover, Facebook offers no information about News for Democracy or any “ad sponsor.” News for Democracy has no website, no contact page, no email. So, what is 'News for Democracy'? [never cold in the first place] | 