This week, the new union between Presidents Obama and Rouhani, so close to fruition, was in danger of being denied at the last moment.
- Old Print Articles: A postcard from Palestine and the “laughable” settlement called Israel (1928) + Vladimir Bekhterev allegedly spoke ill of Stalin, lost his brain (1927).
- 3 Classic Videos: Christine Jorgensen (1982), Dr. Seuss (1958), Col. Sanders (1964).
- 3 Classic Videos: D. B. Cooper (1971), William F. Buckley (1966), Sir Clement Freud (1973).
- Nicholas Carr brilliantly dissects politics in the smartphone age.
- The Trump campaign is fury directed as much at the GOP as Democrats.
- Steven Levy has a great discussion with Jerry Kaplan about next-level AI.
- Douglas Coupland writes about trivia in a time of ubiquitous information.
- Virtual Reality, a ’90s failure, has entered its 2.0 phase.
- Philip K. Dick Android promises to keep some of us in his “people zoo.”
- Deep Learning and Reinforcement Learning meet in Berkeley’s Brett robot.
- Yale’s David Bromwich worries about MOOCs and virtual learning.
- Eatsa is a digital San Fran automat selling societal withdrawal.
- John Lanchester compares the Wright brothers and Elon Musk.
- Alex Gibney’s new doc explores why Steve Jobs was so deeply mourned.
- Mass extinction has a positive side–but not for humans.
- To anticipate Mars missions, NASA recruits are living in a dome for a year.
- German diplomat Michael Steiner says America considered nuking Afghanistan.
- We’re foolishly not rebuilding U.S. infrastructure at near-zero interest.
- Citi’s “Disruptive Innovations” report suggests basic income.
- Some think fears of near-term technological unemployment are overstated.
- People of awful taste can help companies avoid launching surefire duds.
- Italo Calvino wrote of his obsessive moviegoing habits.
- Even by Hollywood standards, producer Don Simpson was a disaster.
- Recalling the 1983 essay that helped launch Oliver Sacks’s writing career.
- A brief note from 1854 about an athlete’s death.
- A brief note from 1889 about a family business.
- This week’s Afflictor keyphrase searches.