The Follower Factory
A look at social media’s “black market” for influence in the form of followers and some of its intended and unintended consequences.
Inside China’s Vast New Experiment in Social Ranking
A look at the new credit scoring tools available in China, made possible by deep integration of services around a small handful of companies, and reaching into almost every part of daily life. As one user succinctly puts it – “If your friends are all high-score people, it’s good for you. If you have some bad-credit people as friends, it’s not nice.”
Tragedy of the Common
Whilst tactics to save rare species on the verge of extinction are well established, we may be missing another even bigger issue – the massive reduction of numbers in common species – from the skylark, to the tortoise, to the vulture.
Touching Death: The Turbulent Life of One of America’s Last Snake-Handling Preachers
A look at the work of snake-handling preachers in Kentucky.
Inside Hillary Clinton’s Surreal Post-Election Life
A profile resulting from the first major interview with Hillary Clinton since her election defeat in November.
Goodbye, My Brother
A former US Marine returns to cities in Iraq where he fought and lost friends, and assesses the situation on the ground today.
A Lot of What Is Known about Pirates Is Not True, and a Lot of What Is True Is Not Known
A piece reassessing the pirates of yesteryear and their impact on society, suggesting it was much more nuanced than is commonly understood. http://www.bit.ly/humanities-pirates
Dispatches From the Alternate Universe Where Hillary Clinton Won
Newsweek collected numerous articles from the sizeable graveyard of pieces reflecting on a Hillary Clinton election victory.
The Deepest Dig
The ocean bed is little understood and mapped by humans, and has been referred to as “the next best thing to another planet” from an astrobiological point of view. We don’t really know it at all, and yet we have figured out how to mine it.