Friday the 13th. Every time I mention the date, everyone seems to shudder and say “ooh, Friday the 13th” as if just uttering the date was going to cause the apocalypse.

Apart from a series of less-than-mediocre films, what’s so horrible about Friday the 13th? Well, here’s my promise to you: this edition of The Weekender will not be scary or gory or horrible. I personally love the number 13 — and plus, tomorrow’s Valentine’s Day.

Here we go: your weekend reading for February 13, 2009, as selected by me.

Does He Love You?
It may not be as powerful or as touching as his first part, Does She Love You, but Pasha Malla’s advice for women who are curious about where their relationship stands is hilarious and heartening all at the same time. And that last quote he includes made me cry. Still does.

The Lecture System in Teaching Science
The best professors I ever had weren’t good lecturers. They were the professors that came to class without a canned lecture, without a slide presentation, without a single-track methodology for teaching, but instead who engaged each and every single student in their classroom through their own individual learning styles.

How To Save Your Newspaper
I’m not entirely convinced that it will work (in fact, I agree more with Clay Shirky when he says it won’t, but I’m not officially linking to Clay’s article here because I promised no doom and gloom this week) but the idea of using micropayments to save the newspaper industry is an intriguing one.

How More Info Leads to Less Knowledge
This article is the complete antithesis of my Weekender series which tries to provide you with lots of information and lots of reading, but Clive Thompson makes a good point: when you’re faced with too much information, it makes it harder to actually “know” anything for sure.

The Hardest Job in Football
I know a camera operator that works hockey games, and the way he describes his job, you’d think that he was doing more work than the hockey players. Ever wondered what it’s like to be staring at all those camera shots and picking the best ones? Read this — you’ll see that the players have it easy.

Withoutlove Valentine’s Brown Bag Campaign
It’s great to dote on your sweetheart on Valentine’s Day, but it’s completely possible to do something nice for someone else as well. This year, don’t buy flowers and chocolate, and instead donate some non-perishable food items to help end hunger. Feed your hungry heart later.

The Canadian Solution
Fareed Zakaria has it right: Americans may think that Canadians are boring, but what they can’t argue with is that our systems works, particularly in a time of financial crisis. Yeah, we can be smart sometimes.

Mindfuck Movies
Amazing list by Matthew Baldwin of movies that make you think, that mess with your head. I’ve been lucky enough to see 13 of the 16 on this list, and I’m definitely seeking out the other three.

How Tweet It Is
Twitter doesn’t quite make money yet, apart from the massive funding it receives because of its enormous potential, and now, cultural cachet. It’s good to know that founders Ev and Biz are focused more on just a business model: they’re interested in taking the ways we communicate and making them better.

Amish Hackers
The Amish are always portrayed as simple, backwards people who live completely disconnected from our current reality. Kevin Kelly shows how that’s not entirely the case, and how there’s a lot of interesting innovation happening in Amish communities.

The Age of Mass Intelligence
You know all those articles and books saying the digital world is making is dumber? Well, it turns out that living in a connected world is actually making us smarter, more cultured, and more diverse. Exactly what I thought.

That’s it for this weekend. If you want to keep on top of what else I’m reading or enjoying on the web during the week, check out my tumblelog Squandrous, my Google Reader shared items, or my Times People profile.