Items to share: 2 June

• Sixty years of progress? (Simon Jenkins: Prospect) A token recognition of the Jubilee 

• Queueing theory: What people hate most about waiting in line. (Slate Magazine)

• Richard Dare: The Awfulness of Classical Music Explained Or at least the pretentiousness of the culture of devotees (comments worth reading, too). 

• Steven Pinker on the false fronts in the language wars. - Slate Magazine Prescriptivists vs. descriptivists.

• Derek Thompson: The New Economics of Happiness (The Atlantic)  And the sequel The 10 Things Economics Can Tell Us About Happiness.

• Monday 31 May 1669 (Pepys' Diary) The final entry. 

• As our languages make clear, context is a human specialty (LA Times)  "Research shows that humans are remarkably good at divining one another's intentions using context — a skill that computers have not yet mastered." Just a taster.

• Daniel Kahneman: Thinking That We Know (3quarksdaily) Almost as good as reading his book.

• The Perfected Self - The Atlantic  The resurgence of behaviour modification in the era of the app. (particularly for weight loss). 

• Noise and Signal — Nassim Taleb (Farnam Street) Why it is a mistake to obsess about indicators

• The Moral Molecule  (WSJ.com) The role of oxytocin in fostering reciprocity and trust (book review).