“Here’s how the company fought to get its identity back from extremists.”
Peter Rubin
Posted inEditor's Pick
The Twisted, Stolen Legacy of the ‘Matrix’ Red Pill
“The story of how the Wachowskis’ philosophical-crossroads moment was co-opted by bad-faith actors and a political movement is a complex tale about semiotics, the internet, and modern pop culture.”
Posted inEditor's Pick
Escaping Into the Crossword Puzzle
“Part of the appeal of a young woman crossword constructor is that she is focussing her intelligence on a frivolity; she is making her smarts unthreatening and benign. Of course, nothing about my story, neither its reflection of cultural misogyny nor its origins in my willful self-destruction, is benign. Surely this is not what the […]
Posted inEditor's Pick
Boom’s Quest to Make Supersonic Flights a Reality (Again)
“Denver-based startup Boom already has orders for its commercial supersonic planes. But is supersonic travel really the future, or best left to nostalgia?”
Posted inEditor's Pick
Your Favorite Scary Movie: The Oral History of ‘Scream’
“Twenty-five years ago, Wes Craven’s bloody, witty meta-horror film hit theaters and reinvigorated multiple genres. Here’s how the iconic movie was made.”
Posted inEditor's Pick
The Great Offline
“The problem is, of course, that the boundary between the offline and the online is incredibly hard to situate. It shifts as technologies change and become absorbed — to differing degrees, at differing paces — into the collective cultural perception of what counts as real as opposed to virtual. (Does watching cable TV count as […]
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The American Addiction to Speeding
“The nation’s most disobeyed law is dysfunctional from top to bottom. The speed limit is alternately too low on interstate highways, giving police discretion to make stops at will, and too high on local roads, creating carnage on neighborhood streets. Enforcement is both inadequate and punitive. The cost is enormous. And the lack of political […]
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Afrodisiac: A Textual Meditation on Greg Tate
“The only time I ever loaned Greg Tate a book was when I ran into him on Astor Place. I’d just come from the barbershop, where I finished reading Phillip K. Dick’s brilliant Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said. ‘I haven’t read that one,’ Tate said. ‘Can I borrow it?’ Without hesitation I handed him […]
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How the Taxi Workers Won
“Then, in 2011, Uber arrived in New York. Lyft followed in 2014. Tens of thousands of additional cars flooded the streets, and yellow cab ridership fell by half. In late 2014, the medallion bubble burst. By 2018, medallions were selling for as little as $160,000. Seeing an opportunity to make a profit, Marblegate Asset Management, […]
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Can “Distraction-Free” Devices Change the Way We Write?
“These days, we don’t just write, revise, and lay out our work in one program; if so inclined, we can go all the way from gathering research to monitoring reception without leaving our browsers. Some thrive on the streaming of a previously sequential process; for others, it’s like being forced to write with an Instant […]