Millions of people love wrestling; millions more loathe it. Many people simply don’t know what to do with it. Although the symbiotic relationship between politics and wrestling goes back centuries, it is fair to say that Trump exploited WWE tools and tricks better than anyone who had come before him. - The Atlantic
Microsoft’s rollout of a Bing search chatbot based on technology underlying OpenAI’s ChatGPT has prompted concerns that Microsoft is unfairly squeezing out its search data customers as it launches a renewed attempt to bite off more market share from Google. - Wired
The excavated imperial tomb also had extra bricks, slathered with lime, which isn't usual. The combination of nails, bricks, and lime "strongly implied the use of protective charms to keep the 'restless dead' from interfering with the living." - The New York Times
And does phone-mediated intimacy combined with a lack of physical meetings - random cruising around town, random hikes, random mall meet-ups included - have an effect on depression and anxiety rates? - Slate
The website is - bizarrely, sometimes - live again. After the viral popularity of Bend, Oregon's last blockbuster social media ad during the Super Bowl, the company might have thought it was time. "If you understand the history of Blockbuster, you will understand its unquenchable thirst for glory." - The Guardian (UK)
In a conversation, when we’re talking with and not at each other, profundity is an impediment to the flow of thought. It’s more fitting in a context such as writing, where the roles of giver and receiver are fixed and do not shift back and forth. - The Atlantic
No matter which way we’ve tried to turn, we’ve encountered ruptures and revisions and counterexamples that obstruct our progress toward a universal definition. Despite this, we’ve continued to talk about “life” as if it were a discrete, agreed-on concept. - Wired
A 2014 study even discovered that van Gogh’s work was perceived as higher quality by viewers exposed to his mental health story. In promoting suffering over seeking help and recovery, the topic of mental health becomes a spectacle rather than a vehicle for social change. - The Conversation
A liberal is someone who’s tolerant of ambiguity, who can join arguments that he doesn’t have to win, who can live with people who disagree, who have different religions or different ideologies. That’s a liberal. But those liberal qualities don’t imply any social or economic doctrine. - Dissent
If the good news is that we are doomed, the better news is that we can’t do much about it. Peter Frankopan points to the arrogance of talk of the ‘Anthropocene’, an age in which humans have replaced nature as the big influence on Earth. - Literary Review
There’s nothing quite like recalling the rich joys of life to make us wonder why memories worth relishing can seem like a scarce resource in a world that threatens to overwhelm us at every turn. - Psyche
More and more scientists are realizing that animals, like people, are individuals: They have distinct tendencies, habits, and life experiences that may affect how they perform in an experiment. That means, some researchers argue, that much published research on animal behavior may be biased. - The Atlantic
Paradoxically, we may come to want the things that we cannot have in an instant, that demand our time and patience before they will reveal all they have to offer: the art that demands that we slow down. - 3 Quarks Daily
In an identity crisis we question our purpose in life, what our role or place in society is, what values we ought to be committed to, or the meaning and significance of our activities. But having purpose, meaning, and a commitment to certain values doesn’t quite individuate us either. - 3 Quarks Daily
The political turbulence of twentieth-century Europe forced both Camus and Orwell to confront the question of truth as a matter of necessity, even and especially among their own colleagues and friends. - The Critic
