There aren’t any subtitles in this week’s Sunday Edition. Usually the dividing lines are easy to spot and categorizing the articles is simple. This week, however, every single piece covers a range of thought provoking topics.

Looking back, I believe this week’s Sunday Edition is the best one yet. Every piece is worth a click or a save-it-later tap.

Happy Sunday.

Mindy Kaling’s Guide to Killer Confidence — Mindy Kaling:

People talk about confidence without ever bringing up hard work. That’s a mistake. I know I sound like some dour older spinster chambermaid on Downton Abbey who has never felt a man’s touch and whose heart has turned to stone, but I don’t understand how you could have self-confidence if you don’t do the work.

She is so right. And she’s pretty darn funny to boot.

I feel the need to point this out:

When an adult white man asks me “Where do you get your confidence?” the tacit assumption behind it is: “Because you don’t look like a person who should have any confidence. You’re not white, you’re not a man, and you’re not thin or conventionally attractive. How were you able to overlook these obvious shortcomings to feel confident?”

One day this won’t bug me. For now, I sit here hoping I’m not painted with the same brush.

How Much Is a C.E.O. Worth? America’s Confused Approach to Pay — Think CEOs are paid too much? Take a look at professional athletes on television and think again.

My mentor once said he has no care in the world for how much CEOs make in his portfolio companies. If the CEO continually improves and grows the company and grows the value of each share, why should we care how much they are paid? The moment it flips to the point where a CEO is paid more than the value they are adding to the company is the moment the system fails.

Someone is Coming to Eat You — Rands at his best:

How long can they keep it up? I don’t know, but I do know that Apple believes the future is invented by the people who don’t give a shit about the past.

The New Devil’s Dictionary — Someone’s tongue is buried way, way, way in the back of their cheek.

The Olympus M.Zuiko 75mm f/1.8 Review — Great review of an equally great lens. In all honesty, I wonder if I should sell the 40-150mm f/2.8 PRO and find satisfaction in the optical brilliance of Olympus’ best prime lens.

The Changeup: How baseball’s tech team built the future of television — Professional baseball is the most soundly operated professional team sport in the world. Between the constant criminal problems in professional football (football), the endless scandals in professional football (soccer), and the non-stop flow of rule changes in professional hockey, you’d be hard pressed to look at Major League Baseball without being impressed.

This operation extends beyond the field and into the war room. Baseball’s statistical aspect is second to none and its deliverance of high quality coverage across many platforms sets the standard.

The Verge’s look at baseball’s tech team is a fascinating read, and it should be keenly read by other professional sports executives.

A Company Copes With Backlash Against the Raise That Roared — Like everyone else, I was very curious to see if this wage push would work.

And, also like everyone else, I’m not surprised it’s not working smoothly.

An Open Letter to My 15-Year-Old Self Just Before the Start of High School — I turned 24 years old this week. I spent a part of my birthday looking back at when I turned 18. I remember having so many plans, knowing exactly who I was, and knowing the world would be an easy place to conquer.

Just like every other 18 year old on the planet.

And also like every other 18 year old on the planet, I was so full of crap.

David’s letter to his 15 year old self seems to have hit my inbox at just the right time.

(Via Analog Senses)

Product photography on the cheap: creating a studio-like environment at home — Need some steps on how to achieve that minimal, utilitarian backdrop for your product photos? Look no further than Álvaro’s easy to follow guide.

If you do feel like spending a couple bucks, a 5-in-1 reflector should be your first purchase. It includes a diffuser as well, so managing that harsh mid-day light is a breeze. I have a circular reflector, but I recommend getting a more square reflector so you don’t need to worry about it rolling away.

If you’re feeling really inspired, buy a second reflector kit so you have both a reflector and a diffuser. The way these 5-in-1 kits work, it’s difficult to have both with only one kit.

Here’s a closer look at a significant date on the calendar and those who share the day as a birthday.

On This Day in History

• 1497 — John Cabot returns to England after his first successful journey to the Labrador coast.
• 1863 — The CSS Alabama captures the USS Sea Bride near the Cape of Good Hope.
• 1888 — Martha Turner is murdered by an unknown assailant, believed to be Jack the Ripper, in London, England.
• 1890 — William Kemmler becomes the first man to be executed by the electric chair.
• 1904 — The Japanese army in Korea surrounds a Russian army retreating to Manchuria.
• 1914 — Ellen Louise Wilson, the first wife of the twenty-eighth president, Woodrow Wilson, dies of Barite’s disease.
• 1927 — A Massachusetts high court hears the final plea from Sacco and Vanzetti, two Italians convicted of murder.
• 1942 — The Soviet city of Voronezh falls to the German army.
• 1945 — Paul Tibbets, the commander of Enola Gay, drops the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan.It was the second atomic bomb, dropped on Nagasaki, that induced the Japanese to surrender.
• 1962 — Jamaica becomes independent, after 300 years of British rule.
• 1965 — President Lyndon B. Johnson signs the Voting Rights Act, outlawing the literacy test for voting eligibility in the South.
• 1972 — Atlanta Braves’ right fielder Hank Arron hits his 660th and 661st home runs, setting the Major League record for most home runs by a player for a single franchise.
• 1973 — Singer-songwriter Stevie Wonder is in an automobile accident and goes into a four-day coma.
• 1979 — Twelve-year-old Marcus Hooper becomes the youngest person to swim the English Channel.
• 1981 — Argentina’s ex-resident Isabel Peron freed from house arrest.
• 1988 — A melee that became known as the Tompkins Square Park Police Riot in New York City leads to NYPD reforms.
• 1991 — Tim Berners-Lee publishes the first-ever website, Info.cern.ch.
• 1993 — Pope John Paul II publishes “Veritatis splendor encyclical,” regarding fundamentals of the Catholic Church’s role in moral teachings.
• 1997 — Microsoft announces it will invest $150 million in troubled rival Apple Computer, Inc.
• 2012 — New Zealand’s Mount Tongariro erupts for the first time since 1897.

Notable People Born on August 6th

• 1809 — Alfred Lord Tennyson, English poet laureate (1850), wrote “The Charge of the Light Brigade.”
• 1881 — Alexander Flemming, Scottish bacteriologist who discovered penicillin in 1928.
• 1889 — Major General George Kenney, commander of the U.S. Fifth Air Force in New Guinea and the Solomons during World War II.
• 1911 — Lucille Ball, American actress and comedian.
• 1916 — Richard Hofstadter, historian who won two Pulitzer Prizes for his work.
• 1927 — Andy Warhol, American pop artist.
• 1934 — Piers Anthony Dillingham Jacob, science fiction and fantasy author (Xanth series).
• 1950 — Winston E. Scott, US Navy commander and astronaut.
• 1970 — M. Night Shyamalan, Indian-American screenwriter, director and producer (The Sixth Sense, The Village).
• 1991 — Joshua Ginter, some guy.