This week, GOP frontrunner Donald Trump threw out the first pitch at a Spring Training game, immediately infusing America’s Pastime with his campaign’s positive vibes.
- Macho loon Vladimir Putin is the world leader Trump most resembles.
- Masha Gessen analyzes Russia under Putin, a capo with nuclear capabilities.
- Mark Leibovich analyzes Marco Rubio, the latest can’t-miss pol to plotz.
- There’s a history of political unrest attending American tech booms.
- Our nativist politics have bashed China, ignored tech unemployment.
- Carl’s Jr. wants to automate, hoping to eliminate pesky human workers.
- Prankster Alan Abel pokes fun at American desires and fears.
- AlphaGo’s game-playing prowess is owed in part to its self-learning abilities.
- In his AlphaGo afterglow, Eric Schmidt talks AI’s job-killing ability.
- The Woz wants machines with human (or better) conversational skills.
- Douglas Rushkoff discusses metadata’s extreme creepiness.
- Dag Kittlaus’ digital asst. Viv is an effort to create not Frankenstein but Igor.
- Machines will attain superintelligence long, long before consciousness.
- Augmented Reality is game-changing but has obstacles to surmount.
- The Hyperloop won’t have actual windows but augmented ones.
- Dmitry Itskov wants to, more or less, xerox his brain into immortality.
- Defeating death is a growth industry with ballooning funding.
- Ian Pearson predicts interconnected brains, talking pets, tiny astronauts.
- Establishing a relatively low-cost lunar colony may now achievable.
- Old Print Article: Gen. Cassius M. Clay, liberator and captor. (1903)
- Old Print Article: A clairvoyant “reports” on a prizefight. (1860)
- A brief note from 1877 about a ragpicker’s discovery.
- A brief note from 1925 about pre-Edison talking machines.
- A brief note From 1883 about wax noses.
- This week’s Afflictor keyphrase searches.