This week, I beg the Supreme Leader and Great Person Born of Heaven to grant one wish to an unworthy peasant like me when he weighs which film to ban next.
- Old Print Articles: Army experts see rocket to the moon within 18 months (1946) + A proposal in Italy to establish a Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Machines (1927).
- Featured Videos: AMF automates the fast-food hamburger process (1964) + Ed Sullivan visits Fidel Castro after the triumphant revolution (1959).
- Recently Posted on NYC’s Craigslist: Sony should probably shelve this film also + Princess Kate should at least consider it.
- Sy Berger, just deceased, invented the modern baseball card.
- Russ Roberts and Gary Marcus discuss the future of Artificial Intelligence.
- The Peer Economy is (sometimes) good for consumers but not for workers.
- David Carr considers loathsome citizen journalist Chuck Johnson.
- Yahoo went large with Marissa Mayer when it probably needed to downsize.
- In 2007, Dennis Overbye knew space travel was radically changing.
- Journalist David Cay Johnston thinks the U.S. should be more like Disneyland.
- The Hyperloop may be a reality in 10 years–or perhaps much later than that.
- In the 1990s, Oral Roberts’ religious dynasty went to hell.
- Santiago Calatrava is the world’s most derided architect. Why?
- Two meditations on fame, from Zia Haider Rahman and Stephen Cave.
- Automation may make human interaction may a luxury.
- Claire Cain Miller of the Times examines automation and job loss.
- Roboticist Helen Grenier on technological unemployment and terrorism.
- Automation might be a good thing or it might create “surplus humans.”
- As cars become more autonomous, maps need to radically transform.
- Security expert Peter W. Singer analyzes the Sony cyberterrorism case.
- In China, the architecture is changing to deal with environmental calamity.
- Nations fall apart, but can we predict which ones will?
- Former political prisoner Mikhail Khodorkovsky speaks of Putin’s ouster.
- Some South Koreans have endured “beautification” nightmares.
- In the 1960s, computer “psychotherapist” Eliza was a pre-Siri shrink.
- Some 1990s dot-bombs were actually really good ideas.
- Pedal-and-solar powered pods are coming to the Google campus.
- A brief note from 1922 about a serious dieter.
- A brief note from 1926 about a fare-beater.
- This week’s Afflictor keyphrase searches.