Afflictor: Thinking the equivalent of Mitt Romney’s Birther remark would be that no one’s ever asked to see President Obama’s marriage certificate because they know he has only one wife.
- Old Print Articles: Searching for valuables in rubbish (1886) + Government inspectors examine horse meat (1899).
- Featured Videos: Rod Serling teaches Steve Allen to play the home version of Pong (1972) + Stanford’s race car does 120 mph + Gore Vidal visits Merv Griffin in the wake of Ronald Reagan’s inauguration (1981) + Orson Welles answers questions the day after War of the Worlds (1938) + K•Tel celebrates Israel’s 25th anniversary (1973) + Great Race victor George Schuster appears on I’ve Got a Secret (1958) + Bell Labs shares breakthroughs in computer graphics (1968) + Robots are now inflatable.
- Recently Posted on NYC’s Craigslist: Even my turtles know I’m a fuckup + My memoirs may or may not be racist, but they are definitely awful + My life is governed by a lot of weird, specific rules, and I would like to inflict them on you.
- More and more, jobs will be outsourced to robots.
- Are we overestimating the danger of nuclear power?
- Bill Koch is building a faux Old West town, but you can’t visit.
- What Stewart Brand learned from the “Mother of All Demos.”
- China Miéville discusses the brave new future of books.
- Richard Dawkins guesses what genetic mapping might mean to us.
- Michael Steinberger recalls the strangeness of 1977’s U.S. Open.
- Researchers make advances toward a Fountain of Youth.
- Bio-hacking has not spread as quickly as computers have.
- Humanity’s been doomed many times in the last few decades.
- Venkat Rao argues the future is always arriving, but we deny it.
- When we argue for self-determination, we ignore the facts.
- The strange psychology behind waiting on line.
- The bizarreness of British bio-hackers is profiled.
- How we started using deodorant, stopped smelling like stables.
- Space elevators are cheaper and safer than rocket launchers.
- China is spending infrastructure money on futuristic projects.
- Read a 1992 letter which predicted where printed matter was heading.
- Judges are more lenient with those predisposed to criminality.
- Folding cars are here, but they’re probably not the future.
- Donkeys in Israel being used as wi-fi hotspots.
- A 1931 advertisement for a lit-cigarette dispenser.
- A brief note from 1886 about an elopement’s end.
- A brief note from 1887 about warring neighbors.
- A brief note from 1889 about a music lesson.
- This week’s Afflictor keyphrase searches.