Why We’re Post-Fact
A piece explaining how we came to find ourselves in an era where our political leaders are freed from fact, allowing us all to “indulge in a full, anarchic liberation from coherence”.
The Uninhabitable Earth
Published this month, The Uninhabitable Earth is apparently the most read article in New York Magazine’s history. The piece proposes that the impact of climate change will be felt far sooner and far more severely that people realise. The piece is of interest in its own right, but has also provoked a strong response in the scientific community, including many climate change scientists who believe it overstates the case in an unhelpful manner.
Analysis of “The Uninhabitable Earth”
Climate Feedback is a platform created by scientists to highlight inaccuracy in media coverage of climate change (often that put forward by climate change skeptics) – they invited 17 scientists to comment on the article in their analysis piece. New York Magazine has felt sufficiently stung by the response to republish their piece complete with annotations and sources (this is the version we share here).
Reddit and the Struggle to Detoxify the Internet
Though it is currently the 7th most visited site in the world (and 4th in the US), it’s easy to underestimate the sheer scale of Reddit, the self-styled “front page of the internet”. That scale, and its anarchic traits, have made it the front line in figuring out what is acceptable online behaviour. This insightful and often darkly funny piece meets the people trying to draw the lines.
The dizzying story of Symphony of the Seas, the largest and most ambitious cruise ship ever built
A story looking at the sheer complexity and scale involved in designing the floating cities that make up modern cruise ships. http://bit.ly/wired-cruise
The Lost Joys of the Screen Saver
This piece, an artistic appreciation of computer screen savers, doesn’t hesitate to use three long words where one short one would suffice, and cites sources from Borges to Escher. Alongside that it retains an infectious enthusiasm for these artefacts of an earlier age of the web.
Why Amazon is eating the world
A look at the radical way in which Amazon is systematically turning each component of its business into an productised commercial venture with external clients – starting with their technology infrastructure, then their fulfillment service and so on. The objective goes beyond revenues and profit (though they come – Amazon Web Services has a $14bn annual run rate) to building a “moat” around their market position and ensuring that the pressure of servicing external clients keeps all units in Amazon lean and competitive.
Who Gets A Happily Ever After In 2018?
A look at how the romance fiction genreÕs politics are evolving in the era of #MeToo and Trump.
It’s the (Democracy-Poisoning) Golden Age of Free Speech
A special issue of Wired contains several strong pieces looking at the complex freedom of speech trade-offs required in the new information era. Pieces include – the web infrastructure company Cloudflare being embroiled in a free speech debate when offering services to far-right extremists, Reddit as a case study for civil discourse online, a startup making smartphone-neutralising pouches, six stories of censorship, and a look at a database of extremists called Whack-a-Mole.
John le Carré – Art of Fiction
An archival interview of John le Carré covers his life, writing career and the world of spycraft he depicts in his novels.