Afflictor: Fearing that LL Cool J and Brad Paisley, America’s two dumbest entertainers, are working on a new song to help us forget the Holocaust.
I hope it goes viral like “Harlem Shake.”
- Robots should be calling balls and strikes at baseball games.
- Old Print Article: “Professor” Alphonse King tried to traverse Niagra Falls channel with tin shoes. (1886)
- Featured Videos: The recently deceased Margaret Thatcher scuffles with David Frost (1985) + Bob Dylan visits Steve Allen (1964).
- Recently Posted on NYC’s Craigslist: I was “tricked” yet again by that drug-dealing pimp/bookie + I’m also, conversely, a problem creator.
- Because he wants your money, Louis C.K. did an Ask Me Anything.
- David Graeber explains how to cope with societal collapse.
- Gawker interviews Graeber about democracy and other matters.
- Is Time magazine screwed or completely screwed?
- Michael Wolff wants people to hate Christopher Hitchens as they hate him.
- Harvard philosopher Michael Sandel discusses the marketization of morality.
- Stuart Walton considers why there aren’t a lot of UFO sightings anymore.
- Two more great Aeon essays: Future-proofing cities and the end of sleep.
- Can workplaces be engineered to create serendipity and creativity?
- Brain enhancement may help chimpanzees before it helps humans.
- With no good NBA teams to buy, a Russian billionaire in building cyborgs.
- E.O. Wilson points out that great scientists are often lousy mathematicians.
- Questions we should consider as we move closer to driverless autos.
- Brad Templeton thinks about car design in a world of self-driving taxis.
- Truck-platooning allows for a one-driver convoy.
- A retired male stripper did an Ask Me Anything on Reddit.
- NASA is trying to make travel times brief with a new fusion engine.
- Cell phone inventor Martin Cooper considers the tool’s future.
- A brief note from 1894 about fruitiarians.
- A brief note from 1911 about a dish served cold.
- A brief note from 1884 about a girl, interrupted.
- Answer to a question in the Afflictor mailbag: Baseball’s color line.
- This week’s Afflictor keyphrase searches.