Welcome to the weekend reading!  My summer Saturdays have been crammed full of travel and family fun, and so it’s been hard to get out this blog post/email.

I’d like to dedicate this short post to my friend David DiSilvestro, a fellow weekend-reader who unexpectedly passed away this week. During his funeral service, Pastor Flemming aptly said that David was “a truth seeker.”  That he was!  He was always asking good questions, and often sent me thoughts, stories, ideas about politics, medicine, and tech.  More than that, he was a good husband and father, and a devoted follower of Jesus. May he rest in peace.

Let’s start with TECH…

From the BBC: Hyperloop One: Passenger pod tested successfully (h/t to my friend Josiah who saw this and passed it on!)

PAGING HYPOCRISY: Al Gore used over 20 times more energy to power his home for a year than the average American: Report.  I know I shouldn’t be shocked by stuff like this, but wow.  I’m all for people having big homes and enjoying the fruit of their labors. But the labor of this man has been to scare everyone about global warming (now “inconveniently” called climate change) and using the profits from his movies and books to do the very things he preaches against!  I guess we’re all hypocrites at some level, but he’s making himself a pretty easy target.

If you read one thing: There Is No App for That: Are We Trading Our Present for Pictures?

Keep an eye on this one: Toyota claims a leap that would vastly increase electric-car range

I feel like this was the biggest tech news of the week: Disney to leave Netflix, launch online-only ESPN service.  Whilst I am all for competition, the consumer side of me sighed a heavy sigh for how painful it’s becoming to get to all the content I’d want to watch.  Instead of being easier, it’s all getting harder because the content is in different places and requiring different subscriptions. Nevertheless, it’s good to have competition, and it will be interesting to see how Disney does with this…

A Matter of Faith…This was good reading/meditation material this week: Twelve Gospel Passages to Soak In

Politics…

Not enough has been made of this: Russia’s Putin orders 755 US diplomatic staff to be cut.  The funny thing is that for a while the President really said nothing. Then he ended up (sarcastically?) thanking Putin for saving us so much money!  (he’s probably right on that one).

Everyone by now knows about this one: Intelligence Agencies Say North Korean Missile Could Reach U.S. in a Year

But I thought that some might have missed this one: If Missiles Are Headed to Guam, Here Is What Could Stop Them.  I found that run down pretty helpful (even if it is from the NY Times!).  It talks about the three different stages of the missile flight, and what we would do in each stage to stop the missile from coming near Guam.

And…what in the world is this all about: U.S. expelled two Cuban diplomats after embassy employees in Cuba developed unexplained ailments…This is one of those headlines you see and have to wonder what kind of spy-like stuff is going on behind the scenes.  Not to be a super conspiracy-theorist or anything…

Society…and random other stuff…

This is just…odd: Is Justin Bieber Sabotaging His Career for Jesus? 

Seven filthy food habits and how dirty they really are.