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Reading List - GAS, wheat allergies, mindfulness

Every Saturday, I share a list of inspiring or interesting articles that I read during the week. Here’s what I read this week.

GAS is gear acquisition syndrome. Many photographers often suffer from this ailment which can cause mental anguish.

What's the cure for camera agony of any sort? Just work. Shoot. Get interested in something. Take stock of what equipment you already have, and figure out what it can be used for. Go shoot. Get involved in the pictures. If your camera isn't the last word in high ISOs, then find a little more light and shoot at lower ISOs. You'll live. If your camera doesn't have the best dynamic range, then avoid high-contrast scenes (there are scenes the A900 won't handle, either). If your camera won't print really, really big, then make your prints a little smaller. It won't kill you, I promise. It ain't the camera.

The more that people get interested in the pictures they're making, the less they obsess about equipment. Try it. It's really true—it really works.Full Frame

The problem isn't the gluten. It's you.

Researchers have struggled to determine why some people, who lack the characteristic blood, tissue, or genetic markers of celiac disease, experience celiac-like GI symptoms, as well as certain extra-intestinal symptoms, such as fatigue, cognitive difficulties, or mood disturbance, after ingesting foods that contain wheat, rye, or barley. One explanation for this condition, known as non-celiac gluten or wheat sensitivity (NCWS), is that exposure to the offending grains somehow triggers acute systemic immune activation, rather than a strictly localized intestinal immune response. Because there are no biomarkers for NCWS, accurate figures for its prevalence are not available, but it is estimated to affect about 1 percent of the population, or 3 million Americans, roughly the same prevalence as celiac disease.Columbia University Medical Center

Time to stop and smell the air.

Mindfulness has become trendy around the world in recent years – but in Japan, it’s been ingrained into the culture for centuries.BBC Travel

Sunday Reading List

The Sunday Reading List was something I wanted to be a regular feature. I wanted to list the articles (long reads) that I had discovered and completed reading during the week; articles that had an impact on me and that I felt may be beneficial for others to read. But I was inconsistent, posting sporadically over the last few years. Well ... I'm starting over.

the great disconnect

The worry related to how irrelevant the Internet makes you feel has to go away. The ‘fear of missing out’ is bullshit. The first time I accessed my Twitter timeline on the iPhone when I returned home, it felt as if nothing had changed. And nothing did. The same kinds of tweets: political satire, stupid nitpicking about first world problems, the same old banter, the same kind of meaningless memes, snarky remarks and subtweets, etc. etc. The first promoted tweet I saw was for some kind of product or service and began as follows: “Work from anywhere with this…” — another trap of this ‘always-on’ lifestyle. Working from anywhere might be convenient for certain people, but if you stop and think hard about it for a moment, it’s insane. These lines dividing work and leisure/time off, getting progressively more blurred to the point of disappearing, are creating a ridiculous, energy-sucking lifestyle. I don’t want to work from anywhere. I don’t want to bring technological gadgets everywhere so that I may do something work-related no matter what time it is or even if I’m technically on holiday. This blending of work/leisure feels more and more unhealthy to me. It’s like wearing a VR headset most of the time. It may be a fun experience when it’s on and you’re sucked in. But who are you, what are you when you remove it and realise just how exhausted you are? And was it really worthwhile?the great disconnect

Inside iPhone 7: Why Apple Killed The Headphone Jack

The 3.5-millimeter audio jack, however, is neither inadequate nor in obvious need of replacement. Sure, it is certainly dusty. But it is widely used and unencumbered by patents. You don’t have to pay anyone to use it. The signal it transmits doesn’t need to be decoded. And because it is an analog and not a digital standard, it cannot be locked down with digital rights management (DRM). Like the AC power socket adorning the walls of our homes, the headphone jack is a dumb interface. In Apple parlance, “it just works.” Buy a pair of headphones — from an audiophile store or an airport vending machine — and plug them into a headphone jack and you’ll likely hear whatever it is you were planning on listening to. So why send it off for a dirt nap?John Paczkowski, Managing Editor, BuzzFeed San Francisco

building better defaults

Only a fool would deposit $100 into a savings account and come back the next day expecting it to have grown to $200. It’s not until years later that the account begins to see the exponential return on the investment. We know that financial investments and the growth of compound interest takes time — so too the investments we make in the rest of our lives.Building Better Defaults

Weekend Reading

... there's one major reason why traditional workspaces will never disappear: People generally like coming into an office and interacting with their coworkers face-to-face.Why working from home won't become the norm anytime soon

Like it or not, indie apps are becoming like indie games and web pages: markets that behave more like art than technology.The Supply-side Blues

How to succeed: pick the right thing to do (this is critical and usually ignored), focus, believe in yourself (especially when others tell you it’s not going to work), develop personal connections with people that will help you, learn to identify talented people, and work hard. It’s hard to identify what to work on because original thought is hard.The days are long but the decades are short

For ideological reasons, Obama doesn’t like the Israel that exists.A new inside account of Obama’s Israel ire

Kicking off the keynote, Apple’s senior vice president of Software Engineering Craig Federighi said that over 55 percent of active Mac users are using Yosemite. He also announced the name of the latest OS X 10.11: El Capitan.Everything Apple announced at WWDC 2015 in one handy list

Simultaneously writing and releasing the game, like a sort of wakeful brain surgery, Persson and his staff coded while an algorithmically increasing number of players sent suggestions, found bugs, and played and played and played Minecraft, before the full version was released, in 2011.Cover Story: “Playdate”