This week, the nation somberly accepted the terrible news that Mitt Romney has refused to be our next President.

• Old Print Articles: Woody Guthrie’s life as a New Yorker (1942/43) + Young African-American man builds wireless plant in the Long Island woods (1915).

• Featured Videos: Dr. Frederic Wertham and William Gaines square off in Congress over comic books (1954) + A report on the future of mobile telecommunications (1995) + David Graeber maintains that entire industries are pointless bullshit + Whirlpool’s “Miracle Kitchen” features a retrofuture Roomba (1957).

• Recently Posted on NYC’s Craigslist: Somewhere, Johnny Depp is intrigued + Unless you already have one + ‘Shrooms?

• 10 recent Huffington Post headlines.

• Joe Franklin, hoarder of cultural ephemera, just passed away.

• Some conservatives are just now realizing Sarah Palin is an unpopular buffoon.

• Despite what the NYT says, Bill Gates knew computing’s future was mobile.

• In 1954, Popular Mechanics wondered about work in an automated world.

• The Uberization of labor is bad for workers.

• A robotic revolution is coming whether we like it or not.

• Daniel C. Morris contemplates the automated corporation.

• Android receptionists will greet you at a new Nagasaki hotel.

• The American middle class has continued to get grayer and older.

• Predictions about life in 2030 from a variety of thinkers.

• Bill Gates answers question about technology and poverty.

• In 1979, Isaac Asimov considered the future of life on Earth and in space.

• Machine consciousness isn’t on the horizon but could eventually happen.

• Colleen McCullough was a confident and prolific author.

• Yuval Noah Harari’s Sapiens considers our spot atop the food chain.

• Mass shootings are provoked by more than mental illness and video games.

• Silicon Valley employees do strange stuff with sex and drugs, of course.

• Molly Lambert considers the antidote to the tech bro.

• Fifty years on, the Milgram experiment is still controversial.

• There may be consequences for offloading our piloting skills.

• Gene Hackman was more exceptionalist than everyman in films.

• Russ Roberts and Alex Tabarrok weigh the pros and cons of private cities.

• Creating our own realities can be deadly.

• Lee Billings meditates on what contact with alien life would be like.

• Religion may or may not survive in a highly technological world.

• Digital music is in the same kind of funk as CDs are.

• Some show tremendous skills born of genetic memory.

• L.A. has far fewer murders but those who kill don’t often get arrested. 

• In 1902, these were the best methods to tell if someone was dead.

• The American Civil War had global ramifications.

• Christian Marclay explains our fascination with the process of art.

• Solar carports are incredible–and still too expensive.

• A brief note from 1894 about a denial. 

• A brief note from 1897 about a former employee.

• A brief note from 1910 about an exploding dinner.

• This week’s Afflictor keyphrase searches.

10 search-engine keyphrases bringing traffic to Afflictor this week:

1. televangelist gene scott and his porn star wife barbie bridges 
2. lucille maxwell miller kills dentist husband
3. gore vidal on thomas pynchon
4. the hunter who gave u.s. presidents weird chairs
5. walter cronkite calling someone an idiot
6. cronkite report about the d.b. cooper hijacking
7. los angeles religious cult 1940s
8. colin cowherd makes dumb generalizations
9. interview with robert downey sr.
10. wolves eat a russian bridal party

This week, the nation was outraged by the least-immoral aspect of the NFL.

• Old Print Articles: The sport of indoor baseball (1912/39) + A brief history of technophobia (1929).

• Featured Videos: Al Goldstein interviews Gilbert Gottfried (1990s) + Francis Ford Coppola explains the inspiration for The Conversation (1974) + Boston Dynamics’ Atlas robot is now liberated of its safety cord.

• Recently Posted on NYC’s Craigslist: I’ll give you myrrh for a happy ending + Amateurs will probably be considered + No adult wet nursing!

• 10 recent Huffington Post headlines.

• 2 quick questions about the NFL controversy.

• Detainee Mohamedou Ould Slahi writes of Guantanamo horrors.

• From Je Suis Charlie to technological challenges, Dean Baquet weighs in.

• Thomas Piketty talks about the source of perpetual productivity growth.

• Andrew McAfee thinks AI might be arriving sooner than later.

• Embedded in the mechanisms of progress are surprising dangers.

• Many Americans think terrorism is our biggest threat. It is not.

• Astrophysicist Adam Frank analyzes the precariousness of Earth life.

• Bill Gates comments on the existential threat of superintelligent AI.

• Edge.org contributors think about thinking machines.

• Despite what he said, Charlie Smith did not make it to 137.

• Toshiba’s Chihira Aico wants to take your job.

• Tom Carson goes deep into the inscrutable mind of magus Ricky Jay.

• Horseflesh has often been an acceptable meal in the U.S.

• Marilynne Robinson takes on the work of Edgar Allan Poe.

• Emily Prager explains how differently Lolita was viewed in the 1960s.

• In Washington, marriage policy is a bipartisan folly.

• Children are cuter but not inherently more valuable.

• The U.S. education system encourages spiraling wealth inequality.

• Wealth inequality is not going away–and neither is the focus on it.

• Steven Levy and Google AI guru Demis Hassabis discuss Deep Learning.

• Casinos might be, perhaps, further impoverishing Native Americans.

• Autonomous-car parking is arriving in many varieties.

• At six, Prince Charles was fascinated by tech toys.

• Fred Wilpon was somehow named chairman of MLB’s Finance Committee.

• A dangerous period looms before eventual tech-driven abundance.

• Oymyakon is the coldest town on Earth.

• A brief note from 1942 about a house call.

• A brief note from 1919 about butterflies.

• A brief note from 1858 about a family dinner.

• This week’s Afflictor keyphrase searches.

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10 search-engine keyphrases bringing traffic to Afflictor this week:

1. werner erhard est race car driver
2. dolphins given lsd
3. humans withdrawing from nature
4. denis johnson article about american militias
5. joan didion essay about getting married in vegas
6. stanley siegel talk show host
7. just a chubby guy
8. rudi gernreich 1973
9. henry miller final interview
10. articles about chuck connors mayor of chinatown

This week, Mitt Romney noticed a non-white person at the RNC winter meeting in Southern California.

• Old Print Articles: New Jersey farm raises wild animals for circuses (1900) + First woman to be electrocuted stands trial in New York (1927).

• Recently Posted on NYC’s Craigslist: Sales is not my strong suit + It will be like How to Train Your Dragon with more assholes.

• 10 recent Huffington Post headlines.

• Leon Wieseltier takes on Silicon Valley disruption.

• Taylor Negron was a self-aware and funny character actor.

• In 2007, John Tierney could see where driverless cars were heading.

• Posterity will probably be a kind judge of the Obama Administration.

• The Orrb is like Masturbation 2.0.

• Even by the modest moral standards of the music biz, Kim Fowley was yuck.

• In 1946, G. Edward Pendray saw trade routes in the stars.

• The astronaut-selector for Mars One is interviewed.

• Freeman Dyson wishes he’s been more like Edward Snowden.

• Mikhail Gorbachev tries to make sense of contemporary Russia.

• Beneath it all, Marc Andreessen probably means well.

• The classroom of the future may be led by algorithms, not teachers.

• Ian Bogost believes the efficacy of algorithms is a fraud.

• Nicholas Carr worries about the ceding of moral choices to machines.

• Novelist Hari Kunzru imagines a dystopia of extreme income disparity.

• Roxane Gay argues in favor of je ne suis pas Charlie.

• Neal Gabler examines the business of product naming.

• Stephen Cave looks at geoengineering our way out of disaster.

• Google CEO Larry Page has social shortcomings which might benefit him.

• Google driverless cars must navigate the “noise” of the real world.

• Elon Musk is building a five-mile test track for Hyperloop experimentation.

• Late ’60s techno-optimism faded for some within a decade.

• Peter Diamandis is still a techno-optimist.

• In 1977, Norman Mailer paid tribute to Paddy Chayefsky.

• Reforming the U.S. penal system is now enjoying bipartisan support.

• With tracking of e-book reading, a personal joy becomes commodified.

• Douglas Coupland almost got hooked on Oxy in the U.S. Southwest.

• Budd Schulberg and Leni Riefenstahl collaborated on a project.

• Online anonymity may get easier, not more difficult.

• Lee Miracle is a veteran, libertarian, atheist, poet and militia commander.

• Dynamic pricing is undoing the egalitarianism of the queue.

• Some young people dream of predictive computer systems.

• This year’s most exciting tech ideas are long-deferred dreams.

• The difference between driverless cars and autonomous drive.

• A brief note from 1929 about bakers.

• A brief note from 1905 about a freak pig.

• A brief note from 1926 about a rodent palace.

• This week’s Afflictor keyphrase searches.

10 search-engine keyphrases bringing traffic to Afflictor this week:

1. al goldstein interviewing r. crumb
2. the famous fight between richard pryor and milton berle on tv
3. hugh hefner and the dorothy stratten murder
4. robert matthews matthias the nyc messiah
5. stefan simchowitz art dealer
6. oliver sacks article about insect brains
7. eccentric dr. gruby who treated alexandre dumas
8. vladimir putin sex tape
9. is apple on the decline?
10. worst cat sitter ever stories

This week, we were reminded that the profane is just as vital as the sacred…

…and that everyone needs to stay sharp.

• Old Print Articles: Private zoos become a fad in London (1901) + Marinettii and the Futurists show disdain for sleep and music (1913/25).

• Featured Videos: Stevie Wonder performs a NYC studio concert (1972) + 

• Recently Posted on NYC’s Craigslist:: Pippa is being a pain + Also convince me that hepatitis is fun + Still cooler than a pogo stick.

• 10 recent Huffington Post headlines.

• #JesuisCharlie.

• David Brooks mismeasures the powerful history of satire.

• The 10,000th Afflictor Post!

• The Senate Democratic “minority” got more votes than the GOP.

• Rejuvenated interest in AI has led to a Wild West mentality.

• Neil Postman knew the mixed blessing of the media revolution.

• David Carr looks at the true meaning of the selfie stick.

• Kevin Kelly did an Ask Me Anything at Reddit.

• Elon Musk did an Ask Me Anything at Reddit.

• David Siegel and other Obama scaremongers are doing quite well.

• In 1981, Richard Feynman reflected on the Manhattan Project.

• Updates on next-phase exoskeletons and social robotics.

• If there’s an apocalypse, what will we eat?

• In 1954, the psychological costs of a Mars mission was considered.

• In 1956, Peter Maas profiled the start of Walter Winchell’s downfall.

• Ray Kroc was a money-making machine; McDonald’s today is not.

• When it comes to driverless cars, Big Auto has bought in in a big way.

• Audi’s highway-ready driverless vehicle is relatively uneventful.

• Maps, even those of the human brain, can clarify or obfuscate.

• Geoengineering away climate change seems unlikely.

• “Lord” Timothy Dexter may have been America’s first public eccentric.

• General John Allen looks at the impact of the IS on Syria and Iraq.

• Like all terrorist organizations, the IS is a criminal organization.

• Over the next century, there will likely be far fewer languages.

• A mesh network of workers is trying to build the Hyperloop.

• In most of the world, golf participation is on the wane.

• Architects are attempting sustainable stadia for Qatar’s 2022 World Cup.

• Professor Luciano Floridi might be called Google’s Philosopher-in-Chief.

• Under Ayatollah Khomeini, Iran tried to spur and slow a baby boom.

• Other-Earths were in focus at the American Astronomical Society event.

• The human species has clearly been bad for other species.

• Eastman Kodak Brownies were a democratizing tool.

• In 1950, likenesses of Ted Williams were used to sell condoms.

• The real reason (not online retail) that some malls are dying.

• One troubling thing about the novel In the Light of What We Know.

• A brief note from 1936 about a superman.

• A brief note from 1937 about a nudist colony.

• A brief note from 1910 about finger food.

• A brief note from 1881 about an alcoholic alligator.

• This week’s Afflictor keyphrase searches.

This here is Afflictor post number 10,000 (not counting the 400 or so that were lost when the site was hacked). Thanks to all of you for reading.

Should I stop now? Have you had just about enough?

10 search-engine keyphrases bringing traffic to Afflictor this week:

1. plot to rob president lincoln’s corpse
2. what can i barter for an iphone?
3. life in the year 2040
4. chinese people breathing in bags of mountain air
5. story about the 1870s wolf boy
6. orson welles discussing computers
7. if i have a nanobot i don’t need money
8. wim klein the human calculator
9. inside joe arpaio’s tent city jail
10. patti smith muhammad ali

This week, the prospect of 2015 became worrisome after we met the Baby New Year.

• Old Print Articles: Chuck Connors, “Mayor of Chinatown,” passes away (1913) + Elektro and other robots to be at the World’s Fair (1939).

• Recently Posted on NYC’s Craigslist: “Cash and carry” has never sounded grosser + Apartment as dirty as his mind + Somewhere, George Lucas cries.

• 10 recent Huffington Post headlines.

• James Fallows takes a long look at the problems of the U.S. military.

• Stefan Simchowitz, Google Era anti-gallerist, has the art world aghast.

• Tulowitzkis, like tulips, are prone to overheated markets.

• William McPherson, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, now lives in poverty.

• Ken Kalfus argues against trying to put humans and colonies on Mars.

• Even the deceased aren’t safe from identity theft.

• Margaret Atwood on the prophetic nature of The Handmaid’s Tale.

• In every way, the U.S. torture program did more harm than good.

• The surviving principals discuss 1974’s brilliant California Split.

• Because he’s Alan Dershowitz, Alan Dershowitz comments on Serial.

• Will a serious rival emerge to Hillary Clinton this year?

• Magazines in any form now seem to be beside the point.

• In 1969, Ronald Reagan wanted to subsidize electric cars in California.

• A controversial psychologist bit back at the self-esteem movement.

• Ai Weiwei is watched even more than the rest of us.

• The Peer Economy proliferates in America.

• In 1971, Select-a-Car was an early, automated method of ridesharing.

• Richard Stallman doesn’t want you to use Uber.

• AI and Deep Learning are, perhaps, set to mature at a blinding pace.

• Paul Thomas Anderson is unsurprisingly coy about Thomas Pynchon.

• Pedro Almodóvar is father to many of TV’s desperate characters.

• Billie Whitelaw, Samuel Beckett’s go-to actor, passed away.

• In the 1990s, Los Angeles was the world’s bank-robbery capital.

• NASA is researching putting a floating airship city above Venus.

• In 1981, Ken Kesey and Jerry Garcia discussed drugs with Tom Snyder.

• Airbnb is now bigger than the largest hotel groups.

• The issue of autonomous-car lawsuits may be overrated.

• Chinese companies give their products bizarre Western names.

• A brief note from 1901 about an exploding cigar.

• A brief note from 1888 about a thirsty man.

• A brief note from 1922 about an owl hat.

• This week’s Afflictor keyphrase searches.