October 2011
33 posts
4 tags
The Embarrassment of Riches →
by Pamela Haag
I will never have a face-to-face conversation with a friend about the things that I write here - I have more money than anyone I know.
3 tags
The Best of Technology Writing →
2006, 2007 and 2008
Anyone with an interest in science and technology should check out the Best of Technology Writing series, published by the University of Michigan Press. Click through to access the three free online editions, which include over 50 great articles and essays.
Over the past few weeks we’ve been featuring our favourite articles from the collection, you can find them all...
4 tags
Disneyland with the Death Penalty →
by William Gibson (via afflictor.com)
“It’s like an entire country run by Jeffrey Katzenberg,” the producer said, “under the motto ‘Be happy or I’ll kill you.”
5 tags
All You Can Hold For Five Bucks →
by Joseph Mitchell (via afflictor.com)
The New York State steak dinner, or “beefsteak,” is a form of gluttony as stylized and regional as the riverbank fish fry, the hot-rock clambake, or the Texas barbeque.
3 tags
Quantum Leap →
by Peter Schwarz (via afflictor.com)
Brain prosthetics. Telepathy. Punctual flights. A futurist’s vision of where quantum computers will take us.
4 tags
Spacewar →
by Stewart Brand (via afflictor.com)
Right now, hundreds of computer technicians are locked in life-or-Death space combat computer-projected onto cathode ray tube display screens, for hours at a time, ruining their eyes, numbing their fingers in frenzied mashing of control buttons, joyously slaying their friend and wasting their employers’ valuable computer time. Something basic is going...
6 tags
The Zombie Hunters →
by Evan Ratliff
One afternoon this spring, a half dozen young computer engineers sat in the headquarters of Prolexic, an Internet-security company in Hollywood, Florida, puzzling over an attack on one of the company’s clients, a penile-enhancement business called MensNiche.com.
5 tags
An Essay in Unitard Theory →
by Michael Chabon
…and all that I needed to effect the change was to fasten a terry-cloth beach towel around my neck…
5 tags
What if He's Right? →
by Tom Wolfe (via Afflictor)
Suppose he is what he sounds like, the most important thinker since Newton, Darwin, Freud and Einstein. What if he’s right?
6 tags
Inside Dope →
by David Grann
The Note is a kind of Skull and Bones for the political class, written in a runic argot that is often incomprehensible to outsiders.
6 tags
What Would Jesus Do? →
by Walter Kirn
Christian bands rock like Americans play soccer: skillfully but somehow not convincingly. Or maybe it’s the power of suggestion that makes the stuff seem counterfeit to me.
5 tags
Never Forget →
by Michael Paterniti
In 1975, in Cambodia, there was a regime so evil that it created an antisociety where torture was currency and music, books, and love were abolished. This regime ruled for four years and murdered nearly 2 million of its citizens, a quarter of the population. The perversion was so extreme, the acts so savage, that three decades later, the country still finds itself reeling.
6 tags
The New Mecca →
by George Saunders
A guided tour through steroidal capitalism, world revolution, and the finest hotel rooms money can buy.
5 tags
The Muse of the Coyote Ugly Saloon →
by Elizabeth Gilbert
I gave a lot of good counsel at the Coyote Ugly Saloon. I certainly gave a lot of advice to men who’d fallen in love with their bartenders. It was a perennial problem. It was, after all, pretty much the whole point of the place.
5 tags
A Thin Line Between Mother and Daughter →
by Jennifer Egan
I remember her picture: somber, willowy, standing on a bathroom scale, her shoulder blades jutting out like wings. I looked at her and felt my whole being compress into a single strand of longing. I wanted that. Anorexia.
6 tags
The Kingdom of Snow and Ghosts →
by Michael Chabon
There may never again be a tedium so wretched and marvelous as that produced by television in the heyday of the aerial.
6 tags
Of the 1%, by the 1%, for the 1% →
by Joseph E. Stiglitz
The upper 1 percent of Americans are now taking in nearly a quarter of the nation’s income every year. In terms of wealth rather than income, the top 1 percent control 40 percent.
7 tags
Crying, While Eating →
by Daniel Engber
I found a picture of my girlfriend on a Japanese fetish site the other day. Yes, that was definitely her, cramming a piece of sausage into her mouth as tears streamed down her face. This was all my fault. I’m the one who put that video online. They never told me that Internet celebrity would be like this
5 tags
The Hadza →
by Michael Finkel
They grow no food, raise no livestock, and live without rules or calendars. They are living a lifestyle that has changed little in 10,000 years. What do they know that we’ve forgotten?
4 tags
The Ups and Downs of Jetpacks →
by Justin Mullins
The first jetpack flew more than 40 years ago, so you might expect that by now designs would be impressively slick — perhaps even ready for daredevil commuters who want to feel the wind on their cheeks. Yet you still can’t buy or even rent one. So what has gone wrong? And will the jetpack ever live up to its promise?
