What the world is reading

The “baby bump” is everywhere—on magazine covers,gyms,beaches,malls,even a movie featuring Jennifer Lopez,Cameron Diaz,and Elizabeth Banks. Dvora Meyers digs up the etymological roots of the term ‘baby bump’ and credits Bonnie Fuller,the Canadian tabloid editor,with turning the term into a pop-culture idiom. The term is about the here and now. “It refers entirely to the landscape of the woman’s body and preserves the idea that she is a single,autonomous person who can still,say,go out late if she wants to,” writes Meyers. But the term,“like all other words and ideas we’ve come to apply to women’s bodies and reproductive functions,has predictably become fraught…Just like the myth of the Super Mom,there is no one word that can do it all.”

Gizmodo.com

How Yahoo killed Flickr

“Flickr is still pretty wonderful. But it’s lovely in the same way a box of old photos you’ve stashed under the bed is. It’s an archive of nostalgia that you love dearly,on the rare occasion you stumble across it. And then you close the box. And you click over to Facebook,to see what’s new,” writes Mat Honan,scathingly,bitterly,angrily in his latest piece on how Yahoo killed Flickr. Back in 2005,Yahoo seemed clued in to the participatory turn that internet was to take when it snapped up indie outfits like Flickr,Upcoming and Delicious. Treating the communities these companies had carefully fostered as mere databases,the Yahoo management was too caught up in the search engine battle with Google to pay any attention to innovation that was much required. “As a result,Flickr today is a very different site than it was five years ago. It’s an Internet backwater. It’s not socially appealing,” writes Honan.

The Atlantic

The most dangerous gamer

“Never mind that they’re now among the most lucrative forms of entertainment in America,video games are juvenile,silly,and intellectually lazy. At least that’s what Jonathan Blow (creator of the video game Braid) thinks. But the game industry’s harshest critic is also its most cerebral developer,a maverick bent on changing the way we think about games and storytelling. With his next release,The Witness,Blow may cement his legacy—or end his career. In a multibillion-dollar industry addicted to laser guns and carnivorous aliens,can true art finally flourish?” asks Taylor Clark,as he slowly attempts to unravel Jon Blow and the mechanics of his mind. “Yet as harsh as Blow can be toward his industry,he applies even stricter standards to his own work,” writes Clark.

The Observer

The ‘ultra pizza’ wars in Naples

Chef Enzo Coccia has succeeded in dividing the city of Naples on an issue close to their hearts—pizzas—writes Tom Kington. Coccia’s spring pizza at his restaurant La Notizia is piled with asparagus,buffalo mozzarella,sheep’s cheese,lard and beans and is a primer to this eccentric chef’s creations that has led to a puritanical outrage on one hand and a devoted cartel of pizzaoili (pizza makers) to experiment on the other. In a country that normally prizes simple ingredients and traditional recipes,pizzaioli are now attempting stilton and port pizzas as well as shrimp,saffron and liquorice pizzas. But Coccia keeps things strictly traditional at a second restaurant on the same street,and all ingredients at both restaurants are rigourously local. He makes a fried pizza with mussels and pancetta based on his grandmother’s recipe,a beautiful blend of tradition and modernity.