The Concept of ‘Cat Face’
A longform look at machine learning and where Google have taken it since their acquisition of the British artificial intelligence company Deep Mind.
Plastic Surgery With a Mouse Click
An article that looks at how deep the special effects industry’s abilities run in changing the way that film and TV stars appear. Beyond simply documenting how this industry works, the piece raises some questions about what viewers actually want – reality or artifice?
The Agency
An extraordinary story profiling the Internet Research Agency, a Russian agency allegedly dedicated to spreading misinformation online about Russia’s enemies, both foreign and domestic.
The Hills Have I.P.s
A issue with the internet’s mechanism for identifying device locations led to millions of devices being incorrectly located in an American couple’s front garden. A funny glitch surely? Perhaps, until the FBI show up.
The Eternal Return of Buzzfeed
This piece looks at what a highly successful, disruptive organisation like Buzzfeed can learn from its antecedents as disruptors, who are now part of the establishment it is taking on.
Welcome to Pleistocene Park
An extraordinary piece profiling the scientists in Siberia that are seeking to restore the Ice Age by bioengineering woolly mammoths and other creatures. Their ambition is on an epic scale – to reforge a lost world in order to preserve our present one.
The Architectural Relevance of the International Space Station
A piece looking at the ISS through a recently published history of the project – “a supreme engineering achievement but…also a great architectural one”.
How to Write a History of Video Game Warfare
An interview with the author of an unusual history book. It is the history of a great galactic conflict that involved many thousands of people and lasted several years. All the participants were real people, but the world they fought in – New Eden – was not.
Where oil rigs go to die
A piece tracing the final journeys of oil rigs destined for ship breaking yards.
Going underground: inside the world of the mole-catchers
A look at the surprisingly bitter infighting that exists in the mole-catching community. The profession has been in existence in the UK since the 16th century.