How Not to Die, According to Harvard Researchers

Want to live forever? Science hasn't quite cracked that one yet, but a group of Harvard researchers has figured out how to give you the best possible shot. 

-Thrillist

Fun for Everyone: The Evolving History of Board Games

The delightful hobby of playing games isn't a modern invention. While people in ancient times didn't have Pokemon Go to entertain themselves, they still spent hours of fun games both inside and outside of their households. It is unknown who the innovators were who first started to play games. Perhaps the earliest games were created in prehistoric times, when gaming tools would have been made of wood or bone. It is impossible to conclude which is the oldest game in the world, but discoveries made at archaeological sites in Turkey, Syria, and Iraq have unearthed an ancient game that is still a mystery for archaeologists.

-Ancient Origins

Backgammon Is Having a Resurgence

In the course of its recent resurgence, the ancient game of backgammon has excited all sorts of sporty elites. Prominent fans include the hedge-fund analysts who treat it as a workout for both the mind and the adrenal glands—a speedy way to wager money playing the odds over and over again. (You can play a satisfying match in fewer than 15 minutes.)

-Bloomberg

Will human sexuality ever be free from stone age impulses?

Literature tells us that our desires know no reason. We read Racine’s Phaedra or Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, and we see people captured by passion, acting in defiance of all sense or explanation. But science is never satisfied with ineluctable mystery, even in the realm of desire. During the past four decades, researchers into human behaviour have begun to investigate sexual desire. More than anything, they want to know: why is it that we want who we want?

-aeon

‘The 120 Days of Sodom’ – counterculture classic or porn war pariah?

Over the past year, politicians on the right have railed against the supposed tyranny of political correctness. Perhaps it’s fitting, then, that as 2016 draws to a close, arguably the most obscene and offensive work of fiction ever written – a work that claims to “say everything” – is going to be sold in America as a mainstream classic for the first time. My new translation of the Marquis de Sade’s “The 120 Days of Sodom” with Thomas Wynn is the first in 60 years. Sade has had a long and colorful history in the United States, and his controversial works were at the center of midcentury debates about censorship. Later, they became a flashpoint in the “porn wars” of the 1970s and 1980s. Now American readers will get to decide whether Sade’s most extreme novel has truly become a literary classic. 

-The Conversation

Le meilleur de Gotlib

La disparition de Marcel Gotlieb, dit Gotlib, dimanche 4 décembre, à l’âge de 82 ans, laisse un vide immense dans le monde de la bande dessinée. Parce que l’humour décapant de ce génie du 9e art n’a pas pris une ride, nous vous proposons de relire une petite sélection de certaines de ses histoires les plus fameuses, avec l’aimable autorisation des éditions Dargaud et Fluide Glacial. L’occasion de redécouvrir des albums cultes comme les Dingodossiers (sur un scénario de René Goscinny) et la Rubrique-à-Brac, ainsi que les personnages les plus emblématiques du dessinateur : Gai-Luron, Superdupont, Hamster Jovial, Pervers Pépère et les policiers Bougret et Charolles (dont l’apparence physique est celle du dessinateur Gébé et de Gotlib lui-même).

-Le Monde

The Man Who Cleans Up After Plane Crashes

Robert Jensen has spent his career restoring order after mass fatalities: identifying remains, caring for families, and recovering personal effects. Here’s how he became the best at the worst job in the world.

-GQ

9 questions (pas si) bêtes que vous vous posez sur la nourriture pendant les fêtes

Est-ce dangereux de mélanger les alcools ? Le caviar a-t-il toujours été cher ? Combien de litres y a-t-il dans un jeroboam ? Les Décodeurs se mettent à table et vous répondent.

-Le Monde

Bill Murray: My Dinner with Santa

Never before has the world seen such a merry meeting. Claus. Murray. Brandy. Naughty. Nice. Naughty. How often do the giants—the true giants, the All-Timers, the icons, the capi di tutti capi—get together? Not often. Not nearly often enough. In these days of manufactured stardom and celebrity du jour, hardly ever. That's why Esquire asked these two guys—these two monsters—to get together, mano a Santa, for a little Noel nosh and Yuletide yammer. The place: Bistro Latino, 1711 Broadway, New York, New York. Santa had the paella. Murray had a salad. Brandy was served.

-Esquire

Le clou de Noël - Le hygge (hou-ga) danois

Entre la simplicité rustique et le décontracté en famille, le «hygge» se glisse dans l’esprit de Noël. Chuuuuut ! C’est un secret bien gardé.

-Le Devoir

Cuckolding fetish relationships: Men wanting partners to sleep with other men reaches new high

A self-confessed cuckold has revealed how he gives his wife 'points' based on the sexual acts she carries out with other men - one of the thousands of males turned on by one of society's most taboo subjects.
The fetish of cuckolding - where men allow other men to have sexual relationships with their wives - is on the rise.

-Independent

Marta Wasn’t Desperate for Money. She Just Knew Porn Was the Life She Wanted

Twenty-three-year-old Marta recently decided to enter the porn industry in Barcelona. Marta, who prefers not to publish her full name, asserts she has never seen porn as taboo; she merely saw a good career opportunity. “I realized that guys were always staring at me,” she explains, “and, well, I could turn them on with just a look. If I could turn guys on without even trying, what would happen if I made an effort? I just started and here I am.”

-Narratively

The Politics of Pockets - The history of pockets isn’t just sexist, it’s political

Hillary Clinton wore a deceptively simple suit when she took the stage at the Democratic National Convention to accept the party’s nomination for president. Its impeccable tailoring announced Clinton’s authority; its snowy whiteness connected her to the suffragette movement; and, with no designer claiming it, the suit seems to transcend fashion — unnamed, it belonged to every woman. All of these points make Hillary’s white suit a significant garment, but the suit did more than make Clinton look powerful. One omission in Clinton’s suit whispered a long, questionable history, and that is this: It has no pockets.

-Racked

Wild Men of Europe

Photographer Charles Fréger examines costumes and masks of folk festivals and traditions of 18 different countries in Europe in his series Wilder Mann.

-5thingilearnedtoday

My time has a fucking bank balance

Our bodies, time and minds have a bank balance. The people around us, the projects we work on, everything we do, it all subtracts from that balance. When you make a payment in any one area, you have to make a withdrawal from a finite resource that you can’t always replenish. Life is about making transactions. And I’m not talking about treating it like it’s some shitty business deal like Donald fucking Trump, I’m talking about the simple fact that every choice we make is a transaction. If I stay up late tonight writing emails and reading The Lean Startup after my partner falls asleep, I am making a deposit into my productivity, into my business, and into my readers. But to do that, I’m making a withdrawal that I can’t deposit into other areas — my energy for tomorrow morning, my sleep, my patience if things go wrong over the next 24 hours.

- Medium

European Cemeteries

Photos from Cemeteries in Europe. Angels, Demons, Skulls, Flowers and Jesus as well. Silent Islands surrounded by loud Cities. Take a look around!

-european-cemeteries.blogspot.ca