Hey ,Well it's one crazy natural catastrophe after another apparently: Houston's Hurricane Harvey, California & Canada's fires, Northern India & Nepal's floods, Mexico's earthquake, and now Hurricane Irma. Who knows what's next (Nicolas Cage)? Meanwhile, given the dramatic tone of most major news outlets, it feels almost indecent to say I've just had a lovely week in Chicago and the weather is really nice this weekend...Last week I also forgot to mention I'd published a new episode of the podcast. I had a great conversation with marketing strategist turned business creator Frank Striefler, who launched the Siftly job matching online site. Best,Willem

 Weekly Combo Two or three flavours, interesting separately, fascinating together 

Japanese Subway Stations Totally look like Role-Playing Game Dungeons (Kotaku, 2 min read - or however long you want to peruse the maps)This week I mentioned to a friend the proud urban navigation victory of having once traveled to Tokyo and successfully crossed Shinjuku station while still slightly drunk and on two hours of sleep, in order to transit from the western side subways to the eastern side bus transit station. Of course as you may well know I love storytelling and tabletop roleplaying games, so I studied this one closely. I also felt it related to last week's articles about Fantasy maps - dungeon maps being related. And from a wider perspective the idea of overcoming adversity, here interestingly juxtaposed with the mundane commute on the subway to work.Hurricane Irma: A Practically Impossible Storm (Wired, 6 min read)I'm sure you've seen a bunch of updates about Irma this weekend. I liked this one. Perhaps because of the common themes with the previous story about overcoming adversity and the (possible) triumph of the human spirit over danger, may it be of the natural or dungeon kind, though here interestingly contrasted with numbers and scientific facts.To support people in need, you can donate to the American Red Cross here.