📚 Essays worth your time

What does it look like when the largest funder in the humanities goes all in on social justice?

What does it look like when the largest funder in the humanities goes all in on social justice?

If you memorize the classic fallacies — ad hominem, post hoc, straw man — you inoculate yourself against them. That’s a nice, but false, idea

If you memorize the classic fallacies — ad hominem, post hoc, straw man — you inoculate yourself against them. That’s a nice, but false, idea

"It’s weird: in Updike’s teenage letters he sounds preternaturally sophisticated; in his forties, he sounds like a horny kid"

"It’s weird: in Updike’s teenage letters he sounds preternaturally sophisticated; in his forties, he sounds like a horny kid"

"Antibodies harvested from the blood of...

“Antibodies harvested from the blood of paediatricians are up to 25 times better at protecting against the common respiratory infection RSV than existing antibody therapies, and are now being develope

Why it’s funnier when you’re not allowed to laugh

Michelle Spear in The Conversation: Most people recognise the experience. A solemn setting. Absolute silence. A fleeting visual detail that is, in any other context, only mildly amusing at best. Yet t

Coffee Break: Local Protests Against Data Centers, Surveillance Uniting Broad Political Spectrum

Local protests against data centers and Flock camera surveillance are coming from both sides of the political spectrum.

New Gene Discovery Could Postpone the Bananapocalypse

Bananas could get wiped out, it’s happened before The post New Gene Discovery Could Postpone the Bananapocalypse appeared first on Nautilus.

"What is the nicest thing a stranger has ever done...

“What is the nicest thing a stranger has ever done for you?”

Microsoft team creates ‘revolutionary’ data-storage system that lasts for millennia

Elizabeth Gibney in Nature: Researchers at Microsoft have created a data-storage system that can remain readable for at least 10,000 years — and probably much longer. In the digital age, the need for

Monday links: the proper role of tools

How Can Infinity Come in Many Sizes?

Intuition breaks down once we’re dealing with the endless. To begin with: Some infinities are bigger than others. The post How Can Infinity Come in Many Sizes? first appeared on Quanta Mag

The United States of Beauty

During her time aboard the International Space Station, NASA astronaut Loral O’Hara took a series of photos of the Earth from directly overhead. Seán Doran has stitched those images together into a go

Voyaging on Strange Seas of Thought, Not, However, Alone!: Where I Am Finding MAMLMs Useful This Winter

I do not know how to handle the intellectual crisis tsunami now coming down on me from the creation, development, and societal consequences of MAMLMs—Modern Advanced Machine-Learning Models—other...

Hannah Fry: I really think that in the next five to 10 years, we’re going to see seismic changes

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Is Donald Trump Alive? Now, this is a site that knows...

Is Donald Trump Alive? Now, this is a site that knows how to write factual headlines, e.g. “Donald Trump is alive and ranting and raving about foreign interests infiltrating the Supreme Court that he

The Polemicist's Vice

On the merits and demerits of polemicism

The Brain Science Behind the Munchies

New cannabis research shows why we get snacky when we get high The post The Brain Science Behind the Munchies appeared first on Nautilus.

Timing the Factor Zoo

Can AI Predict Which Factors Will Outperform?

The Thing We Call Exile

Carlos Manuel Álvarez (translated by Will Noah) at Equator: It is five years since I was exiled. My own erasure must be underway. Though for a long time I resisted settling in the US, I now live in Ne

Pensioner facing police investigation for the crime of calling serially dishonest German Chancellor Friedrich Merz "Pinocchio"

In the latest retarded case of political repression to afflict the Federal Republic of Germany, police are investigating a pensioner for the crime of associating the German Chancellor with an iconic c

The hum of a grocery store's freezers delights...

The hum of a grocery store’s freezers delights ambient music fans: “It’s like being in an electrical gong bath”. And: “The obvious reference is Brian Eno’s Ambient 1: Music for Airports.”

On Joy and Resistance

Dan Sinker, shining the light on a few bits of joy. Related, I would totally pick up a copy of People Magazine if it contained some of these joyful photos — or this one with fellow medal recipients.

"A new ethic is quietly emerging among modern...

“A new ethic is quietly emerging among modern travelers. It is called Digital Silence. It is the conscious decision to share the art and the emotion of a place without giving away its exact coordinate

In the New Toy Story Movie, Toys Lose Their Jobs to AI

The tech backlash is now mainstream—and even tech companies are joining in

Butter Tea

In this lovely short film, the traditional Tibetan drink butter tea (bho jha) becomes a bridge between generations, outreach across cultures, and a reminder of the value of mindfulness. From Clarissa

Adviser links: supercharged learning

Mondays are all about financial adviser-related links here at Abnormal Returns. You can check out last week’s links including a look at...

What Eileen Gu Has Done is Totally Ordinary, Usually Invites Zero Controversy, and Has Routinely Benefitted the United States

the heart of witless nationalism is "it's different when we do it"

Paleontologists Solve a Prehistoric Murder Mystery

Welcome to CSI: Cretaceous Period The post Paleontologists Solve a Prehistoric Murder Mystery appeared first on Nautilus.

Trump Pledges Hospital Boat for Greenland—Which, Unlike US, Has ‘Free and Equal Access to Health for All’

“We have a public health service where treatment is free for citizens... It is not like that in the USA, where it costs money to go to the doctor.”

Another Kingpin Falls, Nothing Changes

The killing of El Mencho, Mexico’s most wanted drug lord, won't slow the cartels, reduce violence, or stop the flow of drugs. Members of the National Guard conduct an operation in Mexico City, Mexico

Joachim Trier’s Sentimental Value

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The Ultimate Guide to Russian Literature

Want to love Russian literature but don't know where to start? You've come to the right place.

Turns out Generative AI was a scam

Or at least very very far from what it has been cracked up to be

A fantastical '90s bio-punk thriller, the best movie of 2025, and more

Roundup 02/23/2026

A ripple of excitement pulsed through the crowd. Paul...

A ripple of excitement pulsed through the crowd. Paul Ford is blogging regularly again.

Reading other people's mail

Should we be ashamed?

Revaluation in Japan

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The folks behind Dark Sky spun themselves out of Apple...

The folks behind Dark Sky spun themselves out of Apple and have built a new weather app: Acme Weather. “We missed those days as a small scrappy shop. So let’s try this again…”

Muhammad Ali at Harvard, 1975

(Note: Throughout February, at least one post will be devoted to Black History Month: A century of Black History Commemorations) Enjoying the content on 3QD? Help keep us going by donating now.

The Nativist Dogma Of Ecology

Carlos Santana at Aeon Magazine: You don’t need a degree in biology to see that invasive species occupy a peculiar moral position: they are the one part of nature we are told not to love. As a philoso