Stupid is as Stupid Does
"We underestimate the stupid, and we do so at our own peril."
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April 2021
Perfecting Ways to Kill Ourselves
Ghost’s canine bots are the scary older brother of every other dog robot you’ve ever seen, and a good reminder that we're getting increasingly efficient at finding ways to kill ourselves.
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December 2020
How Far We Fall
“This virus has humbled me as a professional and a person,” said Michelle Odden, associate professor of epidemiology at Stanford. “I did not think this level of failure in a federal response was possible in the United States.”
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December 2020
Letter to a 10-year-old boy – Charles Schultz on Citizenship and Democracy
A letter sent fifty years ago from Charles Schulz to a ten-year-old boy shows how much hasn't changed in American society and politics.
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July 2019
Top AI researchers race to detect deepfake videos: “We are outgunned” – Washington Post
Welcome to the current state of deepfake videos where you could ask yourself how much more screwed could we be? And the answer would be, none, none more screwed.
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June 2019
The Lost Photographs of Tiananmen Square
Three decades after Jian Liu shot 60 roles of film of China's 1989 Tiananmen Square protest, he finally has them developed and released to the world.
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May 2019
We’re About to Anger the Volcano Gods. Again
Samsung's AI lab releases video showing how it can manipulate a single image to emulate someone talking. An AI startup creates a near perfect reproduction of a popular podcaster's voice. It's only just the beginning.
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May 2019
Archaeologists find richest cache of ancient mind-altering drugs in South America – Science
When José Capriles arrived in 2008 at the Cueva del Chileno rock shelter, nestled on the western slopes of Bolivia’s Andes, he didn’t know what he would find within.
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May 2019
Running Out of Children, a South Korea School Enrolls Illiterate Grandmothers – NYT
As the birthrate plummets in South Korea, rural schools are emptying. To fill its classrooms, one school opened its doors to women who have for decades dreamed of learning to read.
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May 2019
Manufacturing Ignorance at Scale
How does ignorance get strategically manufactured? Flooding the field with dubious content and spreading it with homespun networks.
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May 2019
No Taxation without Representation? US Senate 2040 Edition
Via Ezra Levin on Twitter https://twitter.com/ezralevin/status/1125051905368047617
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May 2019
Medieval Scholars Joust With White Nationalists. And One Another – NYT
Each May, some 3,000 people descend on Kalamazoo, Mich., for the International Congress on Medieval Studies, which brings together academics and enthusiasts for four days of scholarly panels, performances and after-hours mead drinking.
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May 2019
Lessons from a genocide can prepare humanity for climate apocalypse – Technology Review
The fantasy version of apocalypse always begins with the longawaited event—a missile launch, escaped virus, zombie outbreak—and moves swiftly through collapse into a new, steady state.
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April 2019
Self-Driving Cars: What Could Go Wrong?
Self-driving cars are only as smart as the artificial intelligence controlling them. A new study indicates that the darker your skin, the more likely you are to be hit by one. There's a simple, and unfortunate, reason why.
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March 2019