Afflictor: Hoping that at the Oscars, Seth McFarlane doesn’t screw the pooch.
- Old Print Articles: Recalling when a carpenter became the head of a crazy NYC religious cult (1898) + Hypnotist is charged with manslaughter when he can’t awaken subject (1909).
- Featured Videos: Malcolm Gladwell discusses how much proof we need before we accept something is dangerous + The 1978 short “Libra” imagined a 21st-century Libertarian space utopia + Old-school PSA featuring Abe Lincoln character + The original SNL cast meets Tom Snyder before the show debuted (1975) + James Earl Ray tells his version of events to Bill Boggs + A monkey uses its brain to remotely control a robotic arm + The world’s first 3D pen has arrived.
- Recently Posted on NYC’s Craigslist: And my ferret is a crackhead + One way or another, I’m going to turn this sock of pennies into $60,000 + I need to learn how to better let go of the past.
- A recently retired paparazzi does an Ask Me Anything on Reddit.
- What will we be when drones are the size of flies?
- Architect Michel Holley attempting to build a utopia in Paris. Didn’t happen.
- Barnes & Noble seriously thinks it will have 500 stores in ten years. Seriously.
- No surprise that William Gibson knew where the Web was headed back in 1996.
- Paleofantasies tend to make modern life seem to be unnatural.
- Robert Cottrell of the Browser discusses the Web’s journalistic richness.
- Steven Levitt thinks gun control in America will do little good.
- Jared Diamond reveals what he learned about history from New Guinea.
- Unusual objects and ideas sometimes hold the public in thrall.
- Ray Kurzweil considers–what else?–the human-machine merger.
- America’s future during the first postfamilial age is a matter of debate.
- Some people don’t think we should have a digitized Library of Alexandria.
- Which industries are most prone to the creative disturbance of our Digital Age?
- A former Nazi training camp outside Berlin is now a free-love eco-village.
- Robert Reich contrasts the Gilded Age with our own time.
- Lots of people still tend to equate ethics with religious belief.
- Augmented-reality grocery stores are being built in China in empty lots.
- A brief note from 1900 about deadly toadstools.
- A brief note from 1867 about child’s play.
- This week’s Afflictor keyphrase searches.