This week, after much chaos, the GOP finally found someone the extremist wing of the party would accept as Speaker.
- Old Print Articles: Futurists use machines to create dance music (1933) + A look at the Petrified Forest a decade before it became a National Park (1899).
- In the season of the anti-politician, the U.S. may still revert to form.
- Donald Trump is the most insincere person Tom Junod has ever met.
- Adult baby Trump has no interest in actually being President.
- Vivek Wadhwa writes of technologies that will soon impact global politics.
- Our digitized culture may be at risk when Amazon eventually dies.
- Superintelligence may be an existential risk, but so is the lack of it.
- Stephen Hawking answered questions from his much-anticipated AMA.
- Building droneports in fraught corners of the world wouldn’t cost much.
- High-wire artist Philippe Petit has conflicted feelings about technology.
- In China, gene-editing is being used to design pet-sized micropigs.
- Synthetic biology holds great benefits but also significant risks.
- IBM’s Watson, in a post-Trebek role, is training elite runners.
- A Japanese firm is building an automated, indoor “vegetable factory.”
- Nicholas Carr examines the history of automation.
- Once driverless cars are perfected, consumers won’t likely fear them.
- The Trolley Problem has has gained new currency in the driverless age.
- A ghost city is planned for the New Mexican desert to test technologies.
- Some studies suggest “digital amnesia” is a real problem.
- Cass R. Sunstein writes about free wills and free markets.
- Jane Goodall thinks only humans are truly capable of evil.
- Jonathan Franzen is a bothersome man, doesn’t seem to mind.
- If we make contact with alien life, what protocol will we follow?
- A look at some of the non-gun reasons for U.S. mass shootings.
- A brief note from 1903 about an ear transplant.
- A brief note from 1889 about an amused father.
- This week’s Afflictor keyphrase searches.