A collection of some of the best links from around the web, manually curated.
For millions of people in China’s remote far west, dystopian future is already here. A visit to Kashgar, which the Chinese state is using as a kind of frontline laboratory for surveillance – with very real consequences for the muslim minority living there.
The story of an app that found a way for people to say nice things to each other online – and got bought by Facebook after just nine weeks, for 100 million.
These are interesting findings: Online dating seems to increase the number of interracial marriages.
The best text on Facebook and its role in, well, the world, that I’ve read in a long while. It excels in that it addresses the difficulty of grasping Facebook as a company, as a community, as a phenomenon. It doesn’t try to reduce complexity, but embraces it instead. Key quote: «Facebook has grown so big, and become so totalizing, that we can’t really grasp it all at once. Like a four-dimensional object, we catch slices of it when it passes through the three-dimensional world we recognize.»
Become a Uber driver for a week and make all the right decisions so that you are – unlike me – able to pay your mortgage. A great news game.
How barbed wire created the modern definition of private property. How air-conditioning invented the modern world. And does technology inherently create superstar effects and inequality? Interesting interview with economist Tim Harford, the author of a new book on history’s greatest breakthroughs.
A beautifully crafted, beautifully told ode to the group chat, arguably one of the defining forms of social interaction of our age. And I mean that in a good way.
A magical extension to a great podcast. While «Song Exploder» has musicians deconstruct their songs and explain how they came about, «Inside Music» lets you virtually step into songs and explore their fabric – the individual sounds and instruments that make it come to life.
Hadn’t thought about it that way yet: Cities built before the advent of cars might be best equipped for a future with far fewer cars.
It’s not that I’ve wondered before, but suddenly, it seems like a pressing matter: What does it feel like to be a cow? So here goes: Three cows, equipped with multiple sensors each. An algorithm to translate signals from those sensors into sentences. And a chatbot to deliver those messages to you (apparently, you can also write back and «chat» with the cows, because…sure). The project starts on September 4th.
Make sense of what’s happening, and imagine what could be.
Carefully curated recommendations for curious minds who love when something makes them go «Huh, I never thought of it this way!».Undecided? Learn more | Peek inside
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