"Like Nora, I had lofty dreams and thought of America as my salvation of sorts. The place where I could achieve things I’d never have an opportunity to experience in Iran. As I watched the movie nestled next to my Midwestern husband, I wondered … what did I sacrifice?" - HuffPost
The internet was hard to use in 1992 - there was no web browser, for instance - so "the service was mediated by local librarians, who would help library-goers take their baby steps online." - NPR
Here’s what has me perplexed: The word itself means doing something excessively, and to do anything excessively means doing it more than is reasonable or acceptable. If that’s still true and the English language hasn’t shifted just yet, then to binge means to do something too much. - The Smart Set
At some point, we have to make a principled decision about what the category is and why that is the best way to think about it, because the world isn’t pre-divided into nice categories that we simply have to notice. - The Reader
Just as Joseph Stalin called artists the “engineers of the soul,” Gemini and other AI bots may function as the engineers of our mindscapes. Programmed by the hacker wizards of Silicon Valley, AI may become a vehicle for programming us—with profound implications for democratic citizenship. - The Atlantic
Part of the official reason for the elimination of flamboyant academic styles such as these was that they tended to be off-putting to new entrants to the profession, and in particular to women. - Unherd
“What separates natural from artificial forces? Does natural intelligence end where I think something to myself, silently, alone? How about using a notebook or calling a friend for advice?” - The Baffler
“The problem isn’t your memory, it’s that we have the wrong expectations for what memory is for in the first place. Severe memory loss is undoubtedly debilitating, but our most typical complaints and worries around everyday forgetting are largely driven by deeply rooted misconceptions.” - Undark
Works of literature and art, for example, can teach us to challenge dominant visions of sleep, allowing us to see sleep as a place where values are formed and cultural debates are shaped. - The Conversation
Should crosswords lead solvers to new words and ideas, or should they be for those who’ve been doing crosswords for a while and “don’t want to be disrupted”? Crossword creator Anna Shechtman says it’s a challenge. “The notion of a sort of apolitical, abstract common knowledge is a fantasy." - Slate
"Morse code outlived the telegraph age by becoming the lingua franca of the sea. But by the late 20th century, satellite radio was turning it into a dying language." The last official transmission went out in 1999 - but it’s not dead yet. - The Atlantic
Like Zola for those with long Twitter memories (your current editor watched that one unveil in real time), last weekend’s epic TikTok drama shows that middle-aged users are taking over the app that originally appealed to the Youth. - The New York Times
Now, in a demonstration of the risks of connected, autonomous AI ecosystems, a group of researchers have created one of what they claim are the first generative AI worms—which can spread from one system to another, potentially stealing data or deploying malware in the process. - Wired
What if instead of digging in the archives and criticising arguments, you could write history directly from the physical remains of the past, reconstructing events with the forensic detail of a crime scene investigator? This would be a history written not from words, but from things. - The Guardian
