Kyle Gann's Arithmetic of Listening goes deeply into this. Given an infinite number of ways of dividing the range from f to 2f, some other equal-division temperaments (31 or 53, for example) get closer than 12TET to maintaining low-integer ratios across key centers, but each additional pitch adds complexity. I'd recommend that book in particular. https://www.kylegann.com/Gannbooks.html
>the assumption that everyone will share the writer's understanding of why it's worth reading.
There is no "why it's worth reading". They write for enjoyment, and don't care if anyone reads it.
"I write this content because I want to, and because I enjoy it. If you do too, great! And if not, also great; I hope you find whatever it is you’re looking for elsewhere."
So you found it not worth your time to read the story, but found that it was worth your time to participate in discussions about it? That's certainly an interesting set of choices.
Or, perhaps, the author wrote the piece to fulfill his own intrinsic motivations, and then published it on his website so that anyone who did happen to find it worth reading could do so, without necessarily expecting anything of "everyone".
He worked with a lot of white musicians and arrangers. In the 1962 Playboy interview, he famously said,
"I think prejudice one way is just as bad as the other way. I wouldn't have no other arranger but Gil Evans -- we couldn't be much closer if he was my brother. And I remember one time when I hired Lee Konitz, some colored cats bitched a lot about me hiring an ofay in my band when Negroes didn't have work. I said if a cat could play like Lee, I would hire him, I didn't give a damn if he was green and had red breath."
Alex Wellerstein, author of the NYer article, has a bit more info on his blog (http://blog.nuclearsecrecy.com/2016/05/23/the-blue-flash/), including an answer to the question of what happened to the core. (It was melted down into the overall plutonium stockpile, apparently.)
A lot of good advice here. Whenever I was laid off, I tried to send out a minimum of ten new contact emails a day. (Longest layoff, two months. Shortest was 14 days.)
Make sure that you sign up for unemployment compensation immediately--sign up before you need it. If you're in the US, there's (often?) a waiting-week period you won't be compensated for; if you sign up immediately, you can get that out of the way first thing. Good luck!
It probably varies by state. You probably also won't get unemployment until after the severance pay and/or paid-off leave period ends but you should absolutely start the process.
If there is ever a problem with unemployment and you have to file appeals, keep applying every week. My wife won her appeal but didn't apply every week so she got nothing.
With the title "Cold Email Opening Lines," I was half-expecting things like "I don't care if you live or die," or "Millennia from now, when the sun engulfs the earth, nothing we do now will have mattered. Buy my service."
I'm 90% sure that there's a lot of Boontling in Pynchon's novel _Vineland_, set in northern CA, though I haven't seen a full glossary. This one doesn't mention it, but as I recall, a "Wheeler" is a tall tale, and the protagonist has that last name--possibly a coincidence, but I remember having found a few others as well.
