This week, the nation somberly accepted the terrible news that Mitt Romney has refused to be our next President.
- Old Print Articles: Woody Guthrie’s life as a New Yorker (1942/43) + Young African-American man builds wireless plant in the Long Island woods (1915).
- Featured Videos: Dr. Frederic Wertham and William Gaines square off in Congress over comic books (1954) + A report on the future of mobile telecommunications (1995) + David Graeber maintains that entire industries are pointless bullshit + Whirlpool’s “Miracle Kitchen” features a retrofuture Roomba (1957).
- Recently Posted on NYC’s Craigslist: Somewhere, Johnny Depp is intrigued + Unless you already have one + ‘Shrooms?
- Joe Franklin, hoarder of cultural ephemera, just passed away.
- Some conservatives are just now realizing Sarah Palin is an unpopular buffoon.
- Despite what the NYT says, Bill Gates knew computing’s future was mobile.
- The Uberization of labor is bad for workers.
- A robotic revolution is coming whether we like it or not.
- Daniel C. Morris contemplates the automated corporation.
- Android receptionists will greet you at a new Nagasaki hotel.
- The American middle class has continued to get grayer and older.
- Predictions about life in 2030 from a variety of thinkers.
- Bill Gates answers question about technology and poverty.
- Machine consciousness isn’t on the horizon but could eventually happen.
- Colleen McCullough was a confident and prolific author.
- Yuval Noah Harari’s Sapiens considers our spot atop the food chain.
- Mass shootings are provoked by more than mental illness and video games.
- Silicon Valley employees do strange stuff with sex and drugs, of course.
- Molly Lambert considers the antidote to the tech bro.
- Fifty years on, the Milgram experiment is still controversial.
- There may be consequences for offloading our piloting skills.
- Gene Hackman was more exceptionalist than everyman in films.
- Russ Roberts and Alex Tabarrok weigh the pros and cons of private cities.
- Creating our own realities can be deadly.
- Lee Billings meditates on what contact with alien life would be like.
- Religion may or may not survive in a highly technological world.
- Digital music is in the same kind of funk as CDs are.
- Some show tremendous skills born of genetic memory.
- L.A. has far fewer murders but those who kill don’t often get arrested.
- The American Civil War had global ramifications.
- Christian Marclay explains our fascination with the process of art.
- Solar carports are incredible–and still too expensive.
- A brief note from 1894 about a denial.
- A brief note from 1897 about a former employee.
- A brief note from 1910 about an exploding dinner.
- This week’s Afflictor keyphrase searches.