📚 Essays worth your time

Oscar Wilde said there is only good art and bad art — the artist's morality is beside the point. But it's not that simple 

Oscar Wilde said there is only good art and bad art — the artist's morality is beside the point. But it's not that simple

Darwin spent only five weeks in the Galápagos. He ate tortoise, rode tortoise, and drank tortoise urine

Darwin spent only five weeks in the Galápagos. He ate tortoise, rode tortoise, and drank tortoise urine

Karl Popper is sometimes credited with coining "conspiracy theory." He didn't. The phrase is older and stranger 

Karl Popper is sometimes credited with coining "conspiracy theory." He didn't. The phrase is older and stranger

The State of AI, 2026

A nuanced analysis and a glimpse of the future

Mentioned this in passing a few months ago, but wanted to...

Mentioned this in passing a few months ago, but wanted to remind you that The Art of Star Wars: Andor is coming out in about a week. Looks great.

“Me, Myself, and I”: The Increasing Narcissism of Western Music

Individualistic pronouns have grown more common in pop songs over the past half century The post “Me, Myself, and I”: The Increasing Narcissism of Western Music appeared first on Nautilus.

SpaceX’s IPO: Enriching the Few, Harming the Many

On June 12, Elon Musk’s company SpaceX went public. The company was the largest initial public offering (IPO) in history, hitting a public market valuation of  and becoming the sixth-most valuable US

Diatoms and the Meaning of Life

In 1703, the world’s most esteemed scientific journal published a surprising letter from an anonymous correspondent. (At the time, until well into the twentieth century, anonymity often meant the scie

Epictetus on Love and Loss: The Stoic Strategy for Surviving Heartbreak

"Who is good if he knows not who he is? and who knows what he is, if he forgets that things which have been made are perishable, and that it is not possible for one human being to be with another alwa

The Socialist Future Is Being Written in New York

It’s not unusual to hear chants of “U-S-A” at a political event. But the chant that rang repeatedly around Williamsburg’s 99 Scott Studio after last night’s near-total sweep by socialist candidates wa

Did a medieval flying monk spot Halley’s comet, twice?...

Did a medieval flying monk spot Halley’s comet, twice? It’s complicated. Halley’s Comet came around in 1066 and it’s likely Eilmer of Malmesbury saw a different comet in 1018, not Halley’s in 989.

The Intersection of Corporate and Military Power and That Created Modern GPS Systems

Katherine Dunn at Literary Hub: As Taiwanese manufacturers rushed to fabricate GPS chips in the early and mid-2000s and sat-nav companies rushed to install them in their receivers, Frank van Diggelen

Spotify Stock Has Collapsed 40%—What's Going On?

It's even worse at Netflix. Have streaming platforms peaked?

Unions and the Working Families Party Bet Against the Future Again

Last night, New York City’s labor and nonprofit leaders got a brutal reminder that they no longer politically speak for the working class they claim to represent. In the city’s two marquee congression

Coffee Break: Mamdani Slate Sweeps Congressional Primaries in New York

New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani's slate of progressive congressional candidates swept the Democratic establishment aside in last night's primaries, but some not so happy outcomes occurred in other races

The Unlucky Ones: What It Feels Like to Get Struck By Lightning

A bolt may ignite seeming genius, but is more likely to deliver agony The post The Unlucky Ones: What It Feels Like to Get Struck By Lightning appeared first on Nautilus.

How The New York Times Changed Its Coverage of Trans...

How The New York Times Changed Its Coverage of Trans People. No surprise: it became much more negative, less affirming/protective and more skeptical/restrictive.

Wednesday link: expensive story stocks

How The ‘Super’ El Niño Might Affect the World’s Weather and Economy

Sara Hashemi at Smithsonian Magazine: The forecasted El Niño—a mysterious but well-documented climate phenomenon—has officially begun, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) announ

The Reflecting Pool Chaos Really Isn't Funny

The reflecting pool was a corruption story before it was an arrest story. Watch how the wire wrote it down.

See the Milky Way’s Galactic Bulge, Captured in Unprecedented Detail

60 million stars never looked so good The post See the Milky Way’s Galactic Bulge, Captured in Unprecedented Detail appeared first on Nautilus.

Socialists Won Big in NYC Last Night and Aren’t Done Winning

Everyone agreed that New York City’s primary Tuesday was high stakes. Could Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s charisma, ideas, and volunteer power translate into electoral victories for his allies? And could the

Lifts in Film : a collection of movie & TV scenes...

Lifts in Film: a collection of movie & TV scenes featuring elevators, including Speed, The Shining, Drive, Mad Men, Die Hard, Pulp Fiction, The Silence of the Lambs, and many more.

Intelligence Without Brains: A Radical New Idea

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The Forecasting Fix That Wall Street Missed

CAPE and price/dividend look broken, but new research shows they’ve been misread. Here are 5 takeaways for investors.

Trump’s Iran War: The Midwife To A Renewable Energy Future

The post Trump’s Iran War: The Midwife To A Renewable Energy Future appeared first on NOEMA.

How Physicists Track and Trap the Elusive Neutrino

The hunt for these ghostly particles has required some of the most audacious experimental setups ever built. The post How Physicists Track and Trap the Elusive Neutrino first appeared on Q

Gerrymandle is a daily game where you “draw electoral...

Gerrymandle is a daily game where you “draw electoral district lines to win more seats than your opponents and win the election”.

Eric Schmidt On The Biggest Revolution In The History Of Warfare

From Noema: Eric Schmidt is the former CEO of Google and the former chairman of the U.S. National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence (NSCAI). He is now the CEO of Relativity Space, and has

Radiohead’s Ed O’Brien

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Mombasa: Key outcomes from the Our Ocean Conference in Kenya

A major ocean conference has ended in Mombasa, Kenya, with just a handful of countries... The post Mombasa: Key outcomes from the Our Ocean Conference in Kenya appeared first on Carbon Brief.

How City Rats Are Becoming Resistant to Poison

They’re evolving faster than we can stop them The post How City Rats Are Becoming Resistant to Poison appeared first on Nautilus.

Kelly Hayes interviews Rebecca Solnit . "There is...

Kelly Hayes interviews Rebecca Solnit. “There is no rewind button on history. Once people have power & agency, and have seen what it’s like to have rights, voting rights, reproductive rights, they’re

Why Is There No Great Art Anymore?

Spoiler: there is...

Abelardo de la Espriella Will Face Strong Resistance

Abelardo de la Espriella, the far-right candidate, has been elected president of Colombia by the narrowest margin in recent decades. According to the preliminary count, he received 49.66 percent of th

William T. Vollmann’s Four-Volume Spook Show

Michael Barron at The Baffler: “The permanent underworld of American public life,” wrote Christopher Hitchens, “has only ever been captured and distilled by novelists.” The sentiment comes from his re

PELE International Football Rankings ⚽

What happens when you blend 150+ years of soccer history with player market values into a brand-new model? Rankings, ratings and match projections for all 211 FIFA teams.

Personal finance links: family MVPs

Wednesdays are all about personal finance here at Abnormal Returns. You can check out last week’s links including a look at what...

Cow Trip: A Retired Dad Agrees to Rescue a Baby Cow

This is one of those videos that you start watching and then can’t really stop until you’ve finished. Cow Trip tells the story of an effort to save a baby cow by driving it (and another baby cow rescu

How Bad is AI for the Environment?

A tally of the great planetary damage expected to result from AI growing use, thanks to its insatiable hunger for power.