Leonardo Notarbartolo strolls into the prison visiting room trailing a guard as if the guy were his personal assistant. The other convicts in this eastern Belgian prison turn to look. Notarbartolo nods and smiles faintly, the laugh lines crinkling around his blue eyes.

from Pocket http://www.wired.com/politics/law/magazine/17-04/ff_diamonds?currentPage=all
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A hiss pierces the air as music fans wait in line outside the Brooklyn Bowl in Williamsburg. Across the street from the venue, a man stoops over his tank, inflating balloons and passing them to his associates by the fistful. He shuts off the valve and surveys the scene.

from Pocket http://www.villagevoice.com/content/printVersion/1899742
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One of McDonald’s most divisive products, the McRib, made its return last week.

from Pocket https://theawl.com/a-conspiracy-of-hogs-the-mcrib-as-arbitrage-8da0d480e8f8?gi=31b3ba79edcf
via IFTTT

Recently, Bic launched a campaign to “save handwriting.” Named “Fight for Your Write,” it includes a pledge to “encourage the act of handwriting” in the pledge-taker’s home and community, and emphasizes putting more of the company’s ballpoints into classrooms.

from Pocket http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2015/08/ballpoint-pens-object-lesson-history-handwriting/402205/
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Two years ago, Waterstones in Carmarthen bought in five copies of Welsh Scrabble. Two years later, not one has been sold The makers of Scrabble have sold 100m of the games, in 29 languages, but they have been left lost for words by occurrences in Wales.

from Pocket http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2016/sep/24/scrabble-yn-gymraeg-the-board-game-no-one-wants-to-buy?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other
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It’s possible to hit rank zero in Overwatch’s competitive mode. Dale “Bacontotem” Brown knows. He’s done it. There’s a caveat, though: it takes a hell of a lot of work.

from Pocket http://kotaku.com/the-guy-with-the-lowest-possible-rank-in-overwatch-1785662123?utm_campaign=Socialflow_Kotaku_Facebook&utm_source=Kotaku_Facebook&utm_medium=Socialflow
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A large digital kitchen timer perches near a sink at a Chipotle Mexican Grill in the Meatpacking District of Manhattan. It is reset every 30 minutes, and 12 minutes have passed. There isn’t much sexy about food safety, and that goes for regular reminders to scrub hands.

from Pocket http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/22/business/every-days-a-safety-drill-as-chipotle-woos-customers-back.html
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Every few weeks, photographs of old paintings arrive at Martin Kemp’s eighteenth-century house, outside Oxford, England. Many of the art works are so decayed that their once luminous colors have become washed out, their shiny coats of varnish darkened by grime and riddled with spidery cracks.

from Pocket http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/07/12/100712fa_fact_grann
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Sociologist Lauren Rivera knows what it takes to get behind the velvet rope. She recommends, “Know someone. Or know someone who knows someone. If you’re a guy, bring attractive women—ideally younger women in designer clothes. Don’t go with other dudes.

from Pocket http://insight.kellogg.northwestern.edu/index.php/Kellogg/article/sizing_up_the_nightlife/
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To the American heartland, they’re information-age Robin Hoods, dispensing cheap cable access. To the cable industry, they’re organized crime, pulling in half a billion dollars a year.

from Pocket http://www.wired.com/1994/08/satellite-3/
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