Cupcakes: On the edge of being overbaked.
  • Ari Perilstein/Getty
  • Cupcakes: On the edge of being overbaked

Reader staffers share stories that fascinate, amuse, or inspire us.

Hey, did you read:

• About the racially based security measures used in California prisons? Steve Bogira

• That perceptions of safety are based more on an area’s wealth, educational attainment, and creative economy than actual crime levels? Mick Dumke

• What the ideal subway seating arrangement looks like? And that you can take a survey to tell the CTA what type of seating arrangement you prefer? (What they’ll do with the information is anyone’s guess, of course.) Julia Thiel

• That someone made a CTA version of that public transit/median income interactive map the New Yorker did? Gwynedd Stuart

• That “one of the most cited stats” in the “economic consensus view”—high debt-to-GDP ratios threaten growth—seems to be the result of selective exclusions, unconventional weighting, and an Excel coding error? —John Dunlevy

Michael Pollan on his fond memories of TV dinners and Yodels snack cakes and his new food rule: Don’t buy anything you see marketed on television? Kate Schmidt

• That Ferran and Albert Adria of El Bulli fame have opened a new restaurant, Pakta, which serves small plates inspired by Japanese-Peruvian cuisine? Kate Schmidt

• That, OMG, the cupcake market is crashing? Aimee Levitt