Piers Morgan: An intellectual, by CNN standards.

The Top 5 foreign countries sending traffic to Afflictor last month:

1. Great Britain
2. Canada
3. Germany
4. France
5. Sweden

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

1. steve mcqueen 2011 film shame
2. where did bat masterson die and how?
3. will we be able put computers inside of living cells?
4. is buzz bissinger into s&m?
5. who makes up names for products?
6. who will be the next steve jobs?
7. can you print a car?
8. is peggy noonan full of shit?
9. are there too many forests and trees?
10. john lecarre interview from the 1960s

Afflictor: Thinking runners in the NYC marathon without health insurance better not collapse this year.

Ugh.

Don’t worry. I’ll quickly sign you up for Obamacare.

HOLY FUCK!

• Old Print Articles: Inventor protects perpetual-motion machine with gun (1895) + Girl scared to death by mouse (1908).

• Featured Videos: The Rolling Stones sing a Bulgakov-inspired song for David Frost (1968) + David Bowie on the Ziggy Stardust tour (1973).

• Recently Posted on NYC’s Craigslist: Elder abuse is just another service I offer + There is no God + The car I’m most likely to wind up in is a police car.

• In 1982, a NYT article nailed the pluses and minuses of the Digital Age.

• Netflix wants to further disrupt Hollywood with a universal film release.

• In 1970, Norman Mailer looked into the computerized future.

• Big Data treats questions as if they are answers.

• A family that lives off the grid did an Ask Me Anything at Reddit.

• When Hurricane Sandy was over, the real trauma began.

• Charles Krauthammer is still trying to sell Paul Ryan’s draconian budgets.

• In 1979, Joan Didion saw the beginning of American maturity devolving.

• Performance enhancement is likely the most ethical choice.

• Lou Reed, may he rest in peace, once wore a virtual-reality helmet.

• Reed worked as a typist in his father’s accountancy firm.

• Two quick points about the interminable length of baseball games.

• Douglas Hofstadter is hoping to take AI way beyond Siri or Watson.

• Brandon Bryant was one of the first recruits in the world of push-button war.

• Baseball player Adrian Cardenas retired from the game. No, he actually quit.

• Children who receive more candy are not necessarily happier.

• There’s a market in the U.S. for big-budget haunted houses.

• We have found “another Earth,” which is very different than Earth.

• Solar-cell prices may go from manageable to microscopic.

• Steve Jobs’ childhood home is now an historic resource.

• Michael Reynolds builds off-the-grid, self-sustaining “Earthships.”

• Google believes its driverless autos are already safer than human drivers.

• In 2005, Sebastian Thrun won a driverless-car competition.

• Brad Templeton doesn’t think the Trolley Problem should be applied to robocars.

• The Hyperloop project has team leaders and a timeline.

• A look at literary criticism in the time of Twitter.

• A new bracelet aims to moderate body temperature.

• A little black box is enabling states to tax drivers based on mileage.

• A brief note from 1898 about childish fanatics.

• A brief note from 1892 about a barking man.

• A brief note from 1895 about a holy frog.

• This week’s Afflictor keyphrase searches.

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

1. we need to talk about kevin film
2. oriana fallaci book about the space race
3. why was secretariat such a great horse?
4. frank rich writing about david petraeus
5. new york cult leader robert matthias
6. what killed edgar allan poe?
7. eric schmidt’s predictions for futuristic living
8. are we living in a post-scarcity world?
9. russian billionaire dmitry itskov
10. vice interview with rand paul

Afflictor: Thinking baseball won’t be the same now that the Kardashians have been inside a stadium.

• Old Print Article: Religious fanatic thinks he must murder his daughter. (1885)

• Featured Videos: Two charming Harpo Marx TV appearances (1958/61) + Richard Brautigan interviewed the year before his death (1983) + IBM CEO Ginni Rometty promises Watson 3.0 will debate and reason + Photographer Edward Burtynsky is interviewed by the Economist.
  

• Recently Posted On NYC’s Craigslist: We think Grandpa died from natural causes + I would be the best MTA chairman ever + It would be great if this person won $2 on a scratch-and-win ticket tomorrow.
  

• Texas may be the future of America–or perhaps not.

• In 1985, the New York Times thought the laptop would be a niche item.

• We won’t survive without technological progress, but it is a threat.

• Nick Carr thinks our abilities are being degraded by a reliance on tech.

• Carl Sagan gave Stanley Kubrick sound advice for 2001: A Space Odyssey.

• German astronaut Ulrich Walter discusses Gravity and death in space.

• David Carr interviews the backer of the new Glenn Greenwald venture. 

• Stanford’s Balaji Srinivasan sort of wants Silicon Valley to secede from America.

• Jack Dorsey wants to expand Silicon Valley technocracy to the rest of the U.S.

• Neuroeconomist Paul Zak did an Ask Me Anything on Reddit.

• Facebook is exploring a new field called “Deep Learning.”

• Amazon is a wildly successful company that doesn’t have profits.

• Wikipedia is threatened by bureaucracy and a lack of diversity.

• President Nixon was an environmentalist who wanted universal health care.

• Elon Musk argues vehemently against hydrogen fuel cells for autos.

• Kira Radinsky has designed powerful predictive data-mining software.

• Bruce Schneier analyzes some of the most pressing Internet security threats.

• Schneier says control of the Internet is being wrested from citizens.

• An argument against electric vehicles that seems too shortsighted.

• Nate Silver reveals the nature of the new FiveThirtyEight blog.

• Paul DePodesta explains baseball as a risk-management venture.

• Jeweler David Birnbaum thinks he knows the key to the universe.

• Armed robots might soon be fighting alongside U.S. ground troops.

• 9 enemas President McKinley received after being shot.

• A brief note from 1885 about trappers.

• A brief note from 1885 about an adept swimmer.

• A brief note from 1909 about twin babies.

• A brief note from 1903 about schoolmates.

• This week’s Afflictor keyphrase searches.

10 search-engine keyphrase searches bringing traffic to Afflictor this week:

1. woman in the dunes film 1964
2. pictures of the wendy’s girl’s legs
3. president obama had placed her residence under electronic surveillance
4. was timothy leary cryogenically frozen?
5. when did macy’s department store sell airplanes?
6. porn star harry reems
7. interview with roger vadim and jane fonda
8. colin cowherd is always wrong
9. did joe namath and muhammad ali have a fight on tv?
10. darwin’s dice have rolled badly for earth

Afflictor: Thinking the GOP defeat means no one can protect us from Obamacare death panels.

Drop trou, Fatty. I’m here for your appendix.

But I already had it removed.

I’ve got my orders.

Can I get drunk before the operation?

Why not? I’m going to.

• Old Print Articles: Lizards grow in girl’s stomach (1910) + Locals in Albany drink animal blood (1881) + Wealthy Russian breeds beautiful people (1904).

• Featured Videos: Mike Wallace interviews Rod Serling (1959) + Germaine Greer loves confrontation and Led Zep (1971) + Philosopher/composer Erkki Kurenniemi on the future (2002) + Fotomat commercial + The cloning of a sheep named Dolly elicited excitable responses + Spiro Agnew discusses the Chicago riots (1968).

• Recently Posted on NYC’s Craigslist: Wanna experience mace? + Your fake-looking penis isn’t fooling anyone + Banksy’s in town.

• Kevin Kelly sees this century as one of identity crises for our species.

• In the early 1990s, some knew that computing would fit in the palm.

• Denial about the NFL’s concussion problem runs deep.

• Thomas Frank analyzes the sad state of the American creative class.

• Dave Itzkoff is writing a book about the great American satire Network.

• Inexpensive sensors are enabling ubiquitous computing.

• The government shutdown was about ideology, not economics.

• The GOP embraced yahoos until they couldn’t get their arms back.

• Oakland authorities can track you whether you’re guilty or not.

• In 1978, Space Invaders was blamed for a crime wave.

• 141 questions Thomas Edison asked job applicants.

• Ray Kurzweil believes medicine will soon be transformed.

• Singularity University’s Peter Diamandis did an Ask Me Anything.

• For $99, your newborn can receive genetic testing at birth.

• Bill Watterson predicts the comic strip’s future cultural impact.

• In 1962, Orson Welles attempted a Kafka-computer mash-up.

• Starbucks baristas seem like robots, may be replaced by actual robots.

• Solar companies are cutting costs by roboticizing factories.

• Apple’s new VP will be of help with wearables.

• Google is a search giant with a slippery moral code.

• Drones deliver textbooks in Australia.

• NYT tech writer David Pogue likes toys, doesn’t worry about privacy.

• Science gets metaphysical at a desert installation in New Mexico.

• City-states may wrest primacy from nation-states.

• Vietnam’s General Vo Nguyen Giap outwitted France and America.

• The government shutdown may or may not hurt the GOP in red districts.

• A brief note from 1897 about a bee sting.

• A brief note from 1885 about a nosebleed.

• This week’s Afflictor keyphrase searches.

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

1. robocop 1987 film review
2. your private life will suddenly explode
3. plato’s retreat sex club
4. pennebaker film about john delorean
5. how can we survive the end of the universe?
6. who invented electric football?
7. william f buckley and eldridge cleaver
8. early computerized backgammon
9. upton sinclair gubernatorial campaign
10. mazie gordon venice cinema

Afflictor: Thinking Justice Scalia had trouble this week with the devil.

I’m going to let women wear pants and give poor people health insurance.

Get behind thee, Satan!

Wait…does that mean you want me to sodomize you?

No! Jesus will save me.

Busy with other junk, Fatty. Take it like a man.

Did someone mention sodomy?

• Old Print Articles: Witchery suspected in Orange, New York (1905) + Before becoming President, Grover Cleveland was an executioner (1912) + Three Texans search for Jean Lafitte’s buried treasure (1893). 

• Featured Videos: Woody Allen, Nancy Sinatra’s dad, interviewed by a French journalist (1979) + Philip K. Dick interviewed in France (1979) + Atlas, the anthropomorphic robot, can now handle rough terrain + A Mercedes Benz autonomous vehicle takes a long trip + Atlanta-based voice actor Susan Bennett is the sound behind Siri + Norman Mailer, brilliant writer and sometimes a buffoon, explains hipsterism (1960s) + John DeLorean falls from grace (1984/85) + British science historian James Burke predicts life in 2100.
  

• Recently Posted on NYC’s Craigslist: On the bright side, I didn’t eat any squirrels. + But I like when squirrels ear each other + Not even Star Wars fans are this gullible + Were you asleep during the Bush-Cheney years?
  

• Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia believes in the devil.

• The U.S government can’t function with pure partisanship, fueled by insularity.

• Nate Silver doesn’t think the shutdown will allow the Dems to regain the House.

• Slavoj Žižek links the shutdown to the 2008 economic collapse.

• The NFL has long tried to hide that its players wind up brain damaged.

• Major League Baseball is incredibly wealthy, yet struggling in some ways.

• San Francisco’s tech world has remade itself–yet again.

• In 1966, the New Yorker was wrong about computers.

• Perhaps the Internet is the natural thing, and newspapers were the aberration.

• We know we have consciousness, but we don’t know much more than that.

• Literary agent Andrew Wylie hates Amazon and lots of other stuff.

• In 1962, Rene Carpenter worried that her astronaut husband had been lost.

• Retrofitting the Digital Age to the Industrial Age won’t bring success.

• Autonomous vehicles aren’t new, just new to the highways.

• Autonomous vehicles are rapidly gaining consumer acceptance.

• Neuro pricing is creepy, perhaps effective.

• Students are using iPads to play games, which could perhaps be a good thing.

• Apple’s had a slippery place in the mobile market since the iPhone’s inception.

• David Epstein, author of the Sports Gene, appears on EconTalk.

• Tyler Cowen, author of Average Is Over, also appears on EconTalk.

• Singularity University has a religious fervor to it.

• The Economist looks at the upcoming Texas gubernatorial race.

• Craig Venter thinks we’ll soon be able to print out alien life forms.

• Seymour Hersh doesn’t think Osama bin Laden’s killing was faked.

• Cybersecurity expert Jacob Appelbaum thinks privacy is done.

• We might be able to create domed cities on other planets.

• Can traditional automakers repurpose themselves in a shifting world?

• People in Chicago and Leeds can support Revenge of the Mekons.

• A brief note from 1902 about a sore throat.

• A brief note from 1903 about a lightning calculator.

• A brief note from 1890 about a missing body.

• A brief note from 1901 about a leisurely drive.

• This week’s Afflictor keyphrase searches.