Curious Loop

Local governments are dangling hundreds of millions of dollars in tax breaks to persuade companies like Facebook, Google and Microsoft to build server farms in their backyards. But the deals are shrouded in secrecy and the average cost of $1 million per job raises questions about their value.

Start up or not to startup

The membership payers do not pay to get news for themselves (they already know the news). … They require newsrooms to operate with values, not news. This slowly forces journalism to mutate into crowdfunded propaganda—postjournalism. … Classical journalism pretended to be objective; it strived to depict the world-as-it-is. Postjournalism is openly normative; it imposes the …

Transcript of interview on how tech changes the world

Film noir The Big Sleep was released 75 years ago. While its plot has been criticised as 'cryptic' and 'confusing', that can also be a virtue, argues Nicholas Barber.

We have been wondering if current methods for art generation could be used for practical applications. We tried CLIP with various "generators" and methods to see if Deep Learning can help with logo design.

The financial promise of email newsletters has launched countless micropublications that have, in turn, created a new literary genre.

In the sport’s post-Depression heyday, one audacious grifter beat the odds with an elaborate scam: disguising fast horses to look like slow ones.

Selling the story of disinformation

For five years, a mysterious figure has been stealing books before their release. Is it espionage? Revenge? A trap? Or a complete waste of time?

The Rich Barton Playbook for winning markets through Data Content Loops Preface: This is part of a longer private memo analyzing Zillow and its recent shift towards Opendoor’s model. May publish rest of memo at some later point. But wanted to share first part, on Rich Barton and Zillow’s initial rise. Have had many recent … Continue reading Making Uncommon Knowledge Common →

When we first started travelling the world aboard jet-powered passenger aircraft you could almost be certain your plane would have engines in the rear.

Statecraft needs stagecraft. We look at the sites of landmark diplomacy -- then and now.

Digging Out

In 1996, Pepsi ran a promotion that jokingly suggested entrants could win a military aircraft. One man took it very seriously.

The turning point in the "mouse utopia" project—a behavioral research experiment that provided mice all the food and water they needed and ensured no predator could gain access—occurred on Day 315. Some of the aberrations recorded may surprise you.

In Pānadurē in the British colony of Ceylon in 1871, a Buddhist monk and a Christian missionary debated each other in front of five thousand people over which religion was the more scientific.

Enjoy a sneak peek from Androids: The team that built the Android operating system.

Customs restrictions, high transport costs, and a short shelf life have made the world’s greatest mangoes — grown in Pakistan — difficult to come by in the U.S.

As well as a filters-style photo editing feature.

When Alfred Hitchcock arrived in Hollywood in 1939, he had an ace up his sleeve, a female protégé who would become a crucial figure in noir—Joan Harrison.

VC money is pouring into servant economy companies like grocery delivery that capitalise on human laziness. This needs to stop.

✓ What is an automatic watch? ✓ What are the different winding weights? ✓ How were they invented, and how do they work? ✓ Find out with us!

Accounts of life in Tinseltown reveal as much as they seek to hide.

When researching construction, you invariably discover that any new or innovative idea has actually been tried over and over again, often stretching back decades. One of these new-but-actually-old ideas is the idea of a mechanical bricklayer, a machine to automate the construction of masonry walls.

How a bad hardware company turned itself into a great movie studio