Oliver Dean Spencer

Oliver Dean Spencer ... distilling thoughts. / Artist. Author. Fiction. (~s)

Magazines

Flips

Technology
Facebook and CMU’s ‘superhuman’ poker AI beats human pros
The Verge - James Vincent
AI has definitively beaten humans at another of our favorite games. A poker bot, designed by researchers from Facebook’s AI lab and Carnegie Mellon University, has bested some of the world’s top players
Culture
Why Don’t People Smile in Old Photographs? And More Questions From Our Readers
smithsonianmag.com - Anna Diamond
Although we tend to think the subjects had to hold their faces still for an uncomfortably long time, exposures from the early days of commercial …
Law
Car Crashes Aren't Always Unavoidable
The Atlantic - Gregory H. Shill
The automobile took over because the legal system helped squeeze out the alternatives. In a country where the laws compel the use of cars, Americans are condemned to lose friends and relatives to traffic
The History of CTRL + ALT + DELETE - Mental Floss - Pocket
getpocket.com - Yowi Fy
In the spring of 1981, David Bradley was part of a select team working from a nondescript office building in Boca Raton, Fla. His task: to help build …
DNA
The first Europeans weren’t who you might think
National Geographic - Andrew Curry
Genetic tests of ancient settlers' remains show that Europe is a melting pot of bloodlines from Africa, the Middle East, and today's Russia. The idea that there were once “pure” populations of ancestral
Military History
The Bizarre Ways America’s First Spy Agency Tried to Overthrow Hitler
The Atlantic - Sam Kean
From undercover heiresses to hormone-injected vegetables, the early days of the Office of Strategic Services were marked by colorful hires and wild schemes. At the start of World War II the United States
San Francisco, CA
The U.S. wants to dump 1.5 tons of rat poison pellets on the Farallon Islands. Biologists say it’s for the bes
Los Angeles Times - Laura Newberry
For most humans, life on these jagged islands off the coast of San Francisco would be a nightmare: Waves lash the shore with treacherous force, the stench of guano fills the air, and the screech of seagulls
Bart Simpson
Mad magazine’s demise is part of the ending of a world
The Washington Post - By David Von Drehle
The demise of Mad magazine is hardly a surprise. Times are tricky for print publications in general — all the more so for a title targeted with exquisite precision at middle-school boys. They are Nature’s
Stop Reclining Your Seat on Airplanes - Outside - Pocket
getpocket.com
A customer reclines in the cabin of a Transcontinental and Western Air Douglas DC-1 Airplane. Photo from University of Southern California/Corbis via …
Jim Beam
A Jim Beam warehouse filled with 45,000 barrels of bourbon caught fire
CNN - By Paul P. Murphy, CNN
(CNN) — A fire at a Jim Beam warehouse in Versailles, Kentucky, was in its third day of burning on Thursday, as Kentucky officials began assessing the environmental impact the leaking bourbon was having
HIV
Researchers eliminated HIV from the DNA of infected mice. It's the first step toward a cure for humans, they say
CNN - By Scottie Andrew and Saeed Ahmed, CNN
(CNN) — Researchers have successfully eliminated HIV from the DNA of infected mice, a promising step toward a cure for the nearly 37 million people living with the virus. In a study published Tuesday Nature
Long-form Journalism
Scientists Are Giving Dead Brains New Life. What Could Go Wrong?
The New York Times - By MATTHEW SHAER
A few years ago, a scientist named Nenad Sestan began throwing around an idea for an experiment so obviously insane, so “wild” and “totally out there,” as he put it to me recently, that at first he told
Hydrogen
11 Household Uses for Hydrogen Peroxide You Never Considered
Real Simple - Amanda Lauren
That trusty bottle of hydrogen peroxide under the bathroom sink can be used to clean and disinfect more than just cuts. Need to seriously clean or …
Streeterville (Chicago)
'It's totally unfair': Chicago, where the rich live 30 years longer than the poor
Guardian US - Jamiles Lartey in Chicago
Walking down 69th Street in Englewood, Chicago, near where she grew up, Michelle Rashad gestures to a rundown retail shop, across from a long open lot. “At this store, there’s a Muslim brother who sells
The Paradox of the Elephant Brain - Nautilus - Pocket
getpocket.com - My Pocket Profile
We have long deemed ourselves to be at the pinnacle of cognitive abilities among animals. But that is different from being at the pinnacle of …
Power Causes Brain Damage - The Atlantic - Pocket
getpocket.com
Long-form Journalism
The Polygamist Accused of Scamming the U.S. Out of $500 Million
Bloomberg
On the afternoon of Aug. 23, 2018, federal agents fanned out across the Salt Lake City airport. They were looking for Jacob Kingston. He was 42, with …
Technology
Hackers steal data from telcos in espionage campaign: cyber firm
Reuters - Ari Rabinovitch
TEL AVIV (Reuters) - Hackers broke into the systems of more than a dozen global telecom firms and stole huge amounts of data in a seven-year spying campaign, researchers from a cyber security company identifying
Graffiti
How Graffiti Became Gentrified
newrepublic.com - Daisy Alioto
Two decades after Rudy Giuliani tried to rid New York City of graffiti, the art form is flourishing—with unexpected consequences. Graffiti artists …
Uranium
The Hiding Place: Inside the World's First Long-Term Storage Facility for Highly Radioactive Nuclear Waste
psmag.com - Robert Macfarlane
An excerpt from Robert Macfarlane's new book Underland.Birches, birches, pines, birches, clearing, blue farmhouse. Low river valley, wooden bridge. …
Why Rich Kids Are So Good at the Marshmallow Test - The Atlantic - Pocket
getpocket.com
Lawsuits
Why Sarah Fabian Argued Against Giving Kids Toothbrushes
The Atlantic - Ken White
The sheer effrontery of the government’s argument may be explained, but not excused, by its long backstory. Arguments before the United States Court of Appeals are usually dry, esoteric, and nerdy. What
Johnson & Johnson
Johnson & Johnson faces multibillion opioids lawsuit that could upend big pharma
Guardian US - Chris McGreal in Kansas City
Day after day, the memos flashing across screens in an Oklahoma courtroom have jarred with the family-friendly public image of Johnson & Johnson, the pharmaceutical giant best known for baby powder and
X-rays
Horns are growing on young people’s skulls. Phone use is to blame, research suggests.
The Washington Post - By Isaac Stanley-Becker
Update 6/25: After publication of this story, concerns were raised about an undisclosed business venture of one of the researchers, who works as a chiropractor. This story has been updated to reflect about
Americans are too poor to survive whether or not they're working
boingboing.net - Cory Doctorow
A new study from the United Way claims that 43% of American households are in a status called "asset limited, income constrained, employed" (ALICE), …
Deepfakes Are Coming. We Can No Longer Believe What We See.
The New York Times - By REGINA RINI
On June 1, 2019, the Daily Beast published a story exposing the creator of a now infamous fake video that appeared to show House Speaker Nancy Pelosi drunkenly slurring her words. The video was created
The Ticket Fairy is tech’s best hope against Ticketmaster
TechCrunch - Josh Constine
Ticketmaster’s dominance has led to ridiculous service fees, scalpers galore, and exclusive contracts that exploit venues and artists. The moronic approval of venue operator and artist management giant
Attempt to plug a wasp nest sparked the biggest wildfire in California history
Los Angeles Times - Joseph Serna
The biggest fire in California history was started by a man trying to plug the entrance of a wasp nest with a hammer and stake in Mendocino County, the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection
Puzzles
Mindbender: Can You Make a Square by Moving ONLY 1 Matchstick?
theepochtimes.com - Michael Wing
Puzzles of logic are designed to test and sharpen your powers of reasoning. Reason is as old as the hills, but perhaps that’s why these puzzles never …
Dr John, legendary genre-bending New Orleans musician, dies at 77
The Guardian - Associated Press
Dr John, the New Orleans musician who blended black and white musical styles with a hoodoo-infused stage persona and gravelly bayou drawl, died Thursday, his family said. He was 77. In a statement released

Oliver Dean Spencer

Oliver Dean Spencer ... distilling thoughts. / Artist. Author. Fiction. (~s)