Politics
- About the online reactionary right: Media Manipulation and Disinformation Online (also, The curious rise of the ‘white left’ as a Chinese internet insult)
- The biggest event you may not have heard that much about:
- On the Chinese Campaign Trail: The Path to the 19th Party Congress
- Trump Should Worry: Comey Memo Describes a High Crime and Bombshell: Initial Thoughts on the Washington Post’s Game-Changing Story and We overanalyze Trump. He is what he appears to be. and When Will Republicans Dump Trump? and The 25th Amendment Solution to Remove Trump
- Frenemy in the Making? Merkel Views Macron with Skepticism and Hope
- Theresa May marches into UKIP country and The media’s unbalanced referendum
- Why I’m Rooting for the Hardliner in Iran’s Elections and Rouhani Could Lose Iran Presidency: Seven Charts Illustrate Why
- North Korea’s Latest Missile Test and North Korea: The Military Options and We’re Edging Closer To Nuclear War (and Winners and Losers of the Recent Nuclear Holocaust)
- India is building a biometric database for 1.3 billion people — and enrollment is mandatory
- How Myanmar’s ‘national races’ trumped citizenship
- Where Do Populists Go When They Lose?
- My two messed-up countries: an immigrant’s dilemma and Give Non-Citizens the Vote!
- Are We Having Too Much Fun?
- The Right to Agricultural Technology
Economics & Finance
- John Dee and “The Measurers”
- We Converted $100 Into As Many Currencies As Possible
- Symposium on measures of economic growth (and China’s former statistics chief pleads guilty to accepting bribes)
- Why Are Economists Giving Piketty the Cold Shoulder? and How Do Fiscal and Labor Policies in France Affect Inequality?
- The Men Who Take ‘Women’s’ Jobs
- What is human capital?
- Australian gas ignites confusion
- Friedrich Engels is still shaping Chinese cities, 120 years after his death and Soviet urbanization was highly coercive and Labor Days
- This Caribbean Bank Wants Chinese Money No One Else Will Touch
- There’s Big Technical Reason for Low Stock Volatility and Traders are using a clever trick to make money from the most boring market in years
- In Cashless Sweden, Even God Now Takes Collection Via an App
Science & Tech
- Maybe We Haven’t Seen Any Aliens Because They’re All Dead
- Why Does Heat Kill Cells?
- The Myth That Humans Have Poor Smell Is Nonscents
- On whether prairie dogs can talk
- By 2020, every Chinese coal plant will be more efficient than every US coal plant
- The Great Barrier Reef Is Probably Doomed No Matter What
- The Antikythera mechanism is a 2,000-year-old computer
- Why Quantum Computers Might Not Break Cryptography
- Accelerationism: how a fringe philosophy predicted the future we live in and Do You Want to Be a Cyborg?
- That ransomware attack:
- The ransomware outbreak that’s sweeping the internet, explained
- Wana Decrypt0r (Wanacry Ransomware) – Computerphile (youtube)
- A word from the hero of this story: How to Accidentally Stop a Global Cyber Attacks
- Why hospitals are the perfect target for ransomware and “Why don’t they just update?”
- Hardly Anyone Paying the Hackers? Because Using Bitcoin Is Hard
- LTA trials flashing pavements at pedestrian crossings
- XKCD: Machine Learning
Misc
- Is an Open Marriage a Happier Marriage? and People are marrying themselves, it’s called ‘sologamy’ and Marriage should not come with any social benefits or privileges
- Not enough space: The ‘Coffin Homes’ of Hong Kong
- More than enough space: For 40 Years, This Russian Family Was Cut Off From All Human Contact, Unaware of World War II
- My Family’s Slave
- The Last Person You’d Expect to Die in Childbirth
- When Your Child Is a Psychopath and The Caveman Guide to Parenting
- Japan has a shortage of Ninjas and new recruits lack the skills needed to be one
- Estranged wife gets £453m in one of biggest UK divorce settlements
- First came Brexit, now Britain wants to leave the Eurovision Song Contest
- Singapore ‘vending machine’ dispenses Ferraris, Lamborghinis
- Definitely Not Documenta: Introducing Dogumenta, the First Art Exhibition For, Yep, Dogs
- This humorous history of everything clip made the rounds this week