This week, it became clear that the next World Cup may be an even-lower-scoring affair than usual.
- Old Print Article: A Coney Island funeral service is performed by phonograph (1895).
- Featured Video: Bobby Fischer plays chess with Bob Hope (1972).
- Recently Posted on NYC’s Craigslist: It’s like Tinder with Lyme disease + I would like to be less of an idiot.
- In 1952, Wernher von Braun wanted to create a gas chamber in space.
- Robert Bigelow wants to develop real estate in space.
- Neil deGrasse Tyson suggests, cheekily, a militarized space race.
- Like any pioneer, Sally Ride was asked a lot of dumb questions.
- Hive consciousness would solve many problems, create others.
- A thumbnail explanation of Yuval Noah Harari’s feelings about cyborgism.
- Douglas Coupland thinks about the so-called Shareconomy.
- Christopher Mims speaks truths about the Shareconomy.
- You can now rent your car, Airbnb-style, by the hour.
- Developers of the Hyperloop aim to make the service free.
- Modern China’s health-care system is frighteningly porous.
- Computer-enabled immortality would complicate the justice system.
- Paul Krugman wonders if new technologies are more fun than fundamental.
- CERN scientists conducted an AMA about the Large Hadron Collider.
- A rebuttal to those who doubt technological unemployment will occur.
- Perhaps technological unemployment will ultimately lead to contentment.
- Neal Stephenson reveals the existential threats he most fears.
- Sylvia Nasar recalls the third act of mathematician John Nash’s life.
- Michael Lewis writes of behavioral economist Richard Thaler.
- Some believe that local bookstores should be subsidized.
- Silicon Valley engineers are drinking Soylent and Schmilk to save time.
- Prices of in vitro hamburgers have fallen precipitously.
- The compact disc was, if briefly, audio’s dominant medium.
- Like many global cities, Chicago is removed from its roots.
- Mary Ellen Mark brought her camera inside brothels, hospices and squats.
- Freeman Dyson writes about Hubble Telescope photography.
- A brief note from 1929 about a wealthy monkey.
- A brief note from 1895 about an embalmer.
- A brief note from 1930 about a brother’s keeper.
- This week’s Afflictor keyphrase searches.