“Discard the junk…you are far better off to read a much smaller amount of good material with care and thoughtfulness.”
– Barton Biggs

Food for Thought:

• WSJ – Dark Days in Chapel Hill. If you ran a college and knew there was substantial money to be had from sports but no requirement to educate athletes, you might cut corners—that’s exactly what the University of North Carolina did for nearly two decades.
• FT – Meet the man who could own Aviva France. Credit AD – When he was seven years old, Max-Hervé George was given a magic ticket by his father. It lets him turn back the clock, to invest with perfect hindsight week after week, steadily accumulating a fortune.
• WSJ – Dave Barry: The Greatest (Party) Generation.  Raising children wasn’t always an all-consuming job. Humorist Dave Barry on his parents’ wild parties and the grown-up escapades of the ‘Mad Men’ era.
• Longreads – Kitchen Rhythm – A Year in a Parisian Patisserie.  An Oxford grad learns to navigate boiling sugar, sleep deprivation, and exacting pastry chefs with whom she can barely communicate.
• KS – When your father is a serial killer, forgiveness is not tidy.  The story of the daughter of the BTK killer.
• The Atlantic – The Gangsters of Ferguson.  Darren Wilson was innocent. If only the city’s cops offered their own citizens the same due process he received.
• WSJ – The Cult of Tidying Up .  Marie Kondo’s book, ‘The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up,’ which focuses on the purging of belongings, arrives at a perfect time and ‘sparks joy’ for book publishers.
• Wired – The Science of Why No One Agrees about the color of the dress – Credit TP – Seriously, why is this a thing?

Business/Economics/Investing:

• Racked – The Fall of the Hipster Brand: Inside the Decline of American Apparel and Urban Outfitters 
• Economist – The truly personal computer.  The smartphone is the defining technology of the age
• BusinessWeek – Who Killed Tony the Tiger? – How Kellogg lost breakfast
• WSJ – Institutions Pour Cash Into Bond ETFs.  Move to exchange-traded funds comes as big investors deal with bond-trading challenges.
• KI – Using Curation to Battle Big Box Stores
• NYT – Tyco’s ‘Piggy,’ Out of Prison and Living Small
• MW – Long-term investor: Irving Kahn, who shorted 1929 Crash, dies at 109

Life/Culture/Art/Science:

• WSJ – Ditching Your Smartphone Bill and Going Wi-Fi Only.  Do you really need a phone company? First it was ‘cutting the cord’ to cable-TV providers—and now wireless carriers.
• Slate – Venmo Money, Venmo Problems.  The mobile-payment service is trendy, easy to use, and growing fast. But is it safe?
• Slate – You’re Paying Too Much for Wireless.  Here’s how Google will change that.
• WSJ – American Real Estate Buyers Take Advantage of the Falling Euro.  U.S. buyers dreaming of a Tuscan villa or a Parisian pied-à-terre are enjoying discounts created by the strong dollar.
• WSJ – Resorts Promise Families the Perfect Getaway—From Electronics.  Looking for a technology detox, more parents book vacations at family resorts touting limited Wi-Fi.