“The creators of the Aibo robot dog say it has ‘real emotions and instinct’. This may seem over the top, but is it? In today’s AI universe, all the eternal questions have become engineering problems.”
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Posted inUncategorized
How to Love a Swamp (and Our Top 5)
“But here’s the thing about swamps: They don’t go down easy. Swamps don’t protest, they insist.” I recently completed a road trip across the Canadian prairies, traveling through the mountains to the southwestern coast of British Columbia. I was relaxed at the wheel, and I enjoyed the chance to think, unencumbered even by radio stations along […]
Posted inQuestionnaire
The Longreads Questionnaire, Featuring Rebecca Solnit
The author of The Beginning Comes After the End talks about jackrabbits, her own “informational hypervigilance,” and the one word she won’t stop using.
Posted inStory
Disneyland of the Dead
London’s Highgate Cemetery shows us just how hard it is to keep the dead buried.
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A banger of a Christmas story, best of 2023, and more
“I have enjoyed many happy Christmases and plenty of disappointing ones, like the one I spent eating alone at a Waffle House due to an ice storm, or the Christmas my father accused all the unmarried relatives of being gay. But of all the sad Yuletides of my life, the one I spent guarding $100,000 […]
Posted inTop 5
The Top 5 Longreads of the Week
Showcasing stories from Jason Motlagh, Rhaina Cohen, Lydia C. Buchanan, Molly Young, and Forrest Wickman.
Posted inTop 5
The Top 5 Longreads of the Week
Featuring stories from Hannah Dreier, Jason Fagone and Julie Johnson, Shruti Swamy, John Jeremiah Sullivan, and Kristen Arnett.
Posted inUncategorized
The Plot Thickens (and the Week’s Top 5)
“Accommodating the dead, like accommodating the living, has always entailed a head-on collision with the awkward reality that we have a finite amount of physical space.” Okay, yes, sure, maybe you weren’t expecting a quote about dead bodies to kick off your Friday morning. But I assure you that our new feature, “Disneyland of the […]
