A podcast episode in search of the funniest joke in the world. Don’t expect to actually hear the one joke to rule them all. However, you’ll hear a damn solid joke by a two-year-old and you’ll learn a lot about what makes one joke more funny than another. Also, I think the fish tank joke is quite nice.

Excellent Pro Publica investigation. Why prioritise the environmental impact of your products when you can have ambiguity do most of the work for you? «Recent case law confirms that the term ‘recyclable’ means ‘capable of being recycled,’ and that it is an attribute, not a guarantee.» This is pretty much like my two kids being capable of cleaning up their mess.

During the Covid pandemic, Turkish sociologist Zeynep Tufekci was consistently ahead of the curve, able to point out things clearly that others didn’t see (or didn’t want to see). So I’m turning to her to better understand what to make of all these recent reports of Bird Flu cases in humans. «Almost five years after Covid blew into our lives, the main thing standing between us and the next global pandemic is luck.» Not very comforting.

What to make of the recent developments in Syria, where rebel groups have taken control of Aleppo, the country’s second-largest city. A good briefing on what happened, and what it means for Syria and beyond.

Of all the countless lists of x people we should be paying attention to, this is my favourite. This «celebration of innovators, thinkers & changemakers working to make the future a better place» prioritises the right criteria and is full of people I haven’t heard of before but now want to learn more about.

For a short period of time, the «carbon budget» was a useful way of communicating how little carbon we have left to emit if we want to stay within the 1.5 degree target of the Paris agreement. However, climate scientist Zeke Hausfather argues that «its time to start talking about the carbon debt» instead. «The amount of carbon that will have to be removed by our children and future generations if we ever want to return to the climate of our past.» And here’s the price tag: «For every 0.1 degree celsius we want to cool the climate after we get to zero emissions, we will have to pay around $22 trillion.»

I didn’t think I needed another story on autonomous cars. But then a team of Wired journalists decided to go on a little adventure and tail a Waymo car for hours and hours. So here it is, an entertaining story that gives you the big picture of where we’re at with autonomous driving.

We’re not exactly living in crisis-free times. And yet, thinking of it as an era of polycrisis might not be helpful. «The polycrisis lens is that it globalizes problems, rather than painting them as context. This undermines any sense of personal, community, or even country agency.»

A story about the capabilities of artificial intelligence, yes. But even more interestingly, a story about the human condition. Because what the title doesn’t tell: Not only did chatbots outperform doctors, they also outperformed doctors with access to those same chatbots. Why? Because the doctors kept second-guessing the chatbots when they contradicted their diagnosis.