It was one hectic week around here. Apple announced a slew of new products, Amazon announced earnings and Microsoft once again showed, cool or not, that it still knows how to make money. Still, I had enough time to find some stories that are worth reading. Here are my picks for the weekend:

• The Scratch Interview with Jonathan Franzen: I liked this story, mostly because Franzen hates Twitter and the modern technology world, and sometimes I like a different perspective.
• Enduring Exile: Alia Malek writes a poignant story about an Armenian family that immigrated to Syria from Turkey and had to leave again, thanks to the recent strife in that country.
• Why have young people in Japan stopped having sex? The Guardian reports.
• How chess makes me a better designer: Billy French writes a great little post.
• Facebook Feminism, like it or not. Susan Faludi on Sheryl Sandberg and her book, Lean In and its impact on modern feminism.
• Funny math of clothing sizes: It is indeed funny/fuzzy math. Enjoy the story.
• Gambling with civilization: Paul Krugman’s review of The Climate Casino: Risk, Uncertainty and Economics for a Warming World by William Nordhaus is pretty compelling reading.

A Personal Message: As you might know, I am hosting Roadmap conference on November 5 and 6th in San Francisco. It is an event which will shed light on the importance of experience design in a post-connected, post-data society. We are going to hear from many experts and it would be great if you can join me and Katie at the event which is being held at the Yerba Buena Centers for Arts. Hope to see you there. Here is a link if you want to buy the tickets.