This week’s recommended read is a real treat: a Slate article by Ian Leslie June about the value of ambivalence.

This article really spoke to me, as I’m someone who often finds myself saying “I’m not sure, I appreciate both sides of the argument”. And, for those occasions, I’m tempted to print out this paragraph on index cards to hand out to people who don’t appreciate that response (perhaps a long with a set that just read: “It’s a lot more complicated that that”, for people who doggedly press a single side of a debate without appreciating their opposition):

Ambivalence is not the same as indifference, with which it is often confused. Someone in an ambivalent state of mind is experiencing an excess of opinion, not an absence of it. An ambivalent person may feel very strongly about the subject at hand without reaching anything like a coherent point of view on it.

There are some other brilliant snippets in there too, including (and I’ll try not to spoil the article here) a description of a quite fascinating experiment at the University of Amsterdam’s “Uncertainty Lab” – who could resist visiting that? – and a discussion of the impact of ambivalence on political debate.

Anyway, I really enjoyed this article, and I hope you’ll read and appreciate it too.

My relatively short recommended read this weekend is from The Economist a few weeks ago: it’s a great article about the slightly esoteric subject of carbon fibre lift cables. Until I read this article, it never occurred to me that the weight of steel ropes was an important limiting factor on the operating height of a lift, and the effect that had on the height of modern buildings. It’s an eye-opening piece.

The picture of a lift above is one of my own, taken during my trip to the Tyne Pedestrian and Cycle Tunnels in May last year. Of course, it’s an underground lift, and so of questionable relevance to this post…!

Each Easter, devout Catholic men in the Philippines recreate the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. After parading through a gruelling re-enactment of the stations of the cross, they have nails driven through their hands and feet, and are hoisted onto a cross for as long as they are able to remain conscious.

One man, Ruben Enaje, has done this twenty-five times. In this remarkable article by Kit Gillet for The Global Mail, he explains his motivation and describes – in graphic terms – exactly what is is like to be crucified. And yet, for me at least, the article raises deeper and more disturbing questions than it can even hope to answer.

The picture at the top of this post was uploaded to Flickr by bigbirdz, and has been modified and used under Creative Commons licence.

I’m not a particular fan of George Monbiot, though I know that his writing is enjoyed by many people. Yet, I did enjoy one of his columns in The Spectator last month, in which he argued that fluffy white sheep do a huge amount of damage to the environment. Indeed, he claims they’ve done more damage than “all the building that has ever taken place”. Enjoy!

I seem to have featured a disproportionately high number of articles about air travel in this series of weekend reads, and I’m adding to that collection today. Chris Ziegler has written an entertaining and informative post for The Verge, in which he casts aircraft boarding as a microcosm of a broken industry. I suspect he realises that the problem is greater than efficiency alone, but his exclusion of all other aspects of the boarding process does make for an interesting read, and leaves the reader to ponder why the system is as it currently is. Some of the comments are quite entertaining, too!

In order to better understand how password crackers crack passwords, Nate Anderson decided to teach himself the technique in a day. His Wired article describing both the process and the lessons he learned from the experience is a must-read for anyone with even a passing interest in the topic. It fascinated me!

Since Apple’s WWDC Keynote, there’s been no end of stuff written about iOS7. As always with Apple stories, the majority of what’s written has polarised into suggesting that iOS’s new look is either “insanely great” or “the beginning of the end for Apple”. And, as always with Apple stories, the truth is probably somewhere in the middle.

By some co-incidence, I was reading an interesting blog post from Paul Buchheit – one of the original Gmail developers – this week. It’s an old post, written in the aftermath of the announcement of the original iPad. He argues that many successful technology products share the attributes of doing a small number of things extremely well, while (at least initially) doing many other things poorly. The reaction of many commentators will be to criticise what the product lacks, whilst consumers will often be seduced by what the product offers.

It’s an interesting antidote to the reactionary guff that passes for news and reviews in the aftermath of a product announcement, and shifted my perspective to that of the developer in a way that many others try unsuccessfully to do. It’s well worth reading this weekend.

The picture at the top of this post was uploaded to Flickr by Kārlis Dambrāns, and has been modified and used under Creative Commons licence.

It seems almost a little wrong to select something a friend wrote for my recommended weekend read… but this is my blog, and I make the rules. So this week, I’ve selected James O’Malley’s thoughtful blog post about the hegemony of social media and the potential danger the emerging situation poses to the concept of free speech. He poses more questions than he answers, but in so-doing he made me consider restrictions on free speech from a somewhat different point of view.

This weekend’s recommended read is You’re too cheap to fly faster, published on Medium by Jason Paur. His brilliant post explores the reasons why air travel is now slower than it was shortly after the invention of the jet airliner.

The article starts off with a comparison between flight speed and computer speed, and it made me wonder if (or when) the same balance of factors will influence us to start using slower computers… although, as I’m writing this on my (totally brilliant) Chromebook, perhaps I could conclude that we’re already there…!

The beautiful picture of Concorde at the top of this post was uploaded to Flickr by Dan Daivson, and has been reproduced here under Creative Commons licence.

This week, my chosen Weekend Read highlights the logistical importance of the humble shipping container. This short article in The Economist describes the profound impact that the introduction of the shipping container on global trade. It serves as a reminder of the innovative logistical thinking which keeps our world running from day to day, but which rarely reaches the conscious mind.

The picture at the top of this post was uploaded to Flickr by Jim Bahn, and has been modified and used under Creative Commons licence.