In the last few weeks, I read through my huge Instapaper backlog, and these are the articles that really stood out to me. They’re all long form, just so you know.

• The Shooter
  This one is about the man who shot Bin Laden. And it really is more about him and his life afterwards than about the actual killing. I’m not sure how much the article makes these highly specialised soldiers out to be heroes and how much I agree with that, but it nevertheless is a good and insightful article, for sure.

• The Real Cuban Missile Crisis
  In school, I was very interested in history, especially the Cuban Missile Crisis fascinated me. Judging from this article, most of the material I read seems to be exactly the part of the truth that was supposed to be public opinion after these thirteen days.

• My father, the good Nazi
  I’m not sure if this article has a point besides the fascination with the son who can’t seem to grasp his father’s crimes against humanity. Maybe the article appeals to me because it is about Nazi Germany, but written in English.

• The Amazon Effect
  This article was published over a year ago, but that only adds its very own layer of interestingness. It’s about the impact amazon has on the publishing business. I was surprised to learn how much of a percentage of US publishers’ revenue came from ebooks in 2012 already. And I’m wondering how much German publishers trail, even today.

• Operation Delirium – Decades after a risky Cold War experiment, a scientist lives with secrets
  This one is just creepy. Being totally opposed to chemical warfare, what still astounds me is the simple fact that the program was kept running for years and years without anything coming out of it that could’ve been used theoretically or was as little as “promising”. It just shows that the paranoia of the Cold War pushed people to decisions that were absolutely nuts.