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This On Being interview with Maria Popova is a few years old, but just too good not to share. And it couldn’t be more timely, really. And I adore Popova…if you aren’t a regular Brain Pickings reader, you should stop reading this and go there now (but do come back). → Cartographer of Meaning in a Digital Age.
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At first I thought, “yet more wireless earbuds.” But Here One is something else: AI-assisted personal listening. With big implications for the future of all kinds of audio experiences.
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Speaking of amazing developments hinting at a fascinating future, how about growing human organs in animals? → The Early Days of Organ Farming Are a Bit Gnarly. See also: Mice cured of diabetes by cells grown inside rats — are humans next?
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Google News Lab’s The Year in Language: 2016 is interesting and includes some fun interactive widgets to delve into the results (even if the by-state results don’t include Alaska or Hawaii. Grr.).
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Bibliomania: the strange history of compulsive book buying [Thanks, Reader B.!] :: See also, earlier WORKs from Nicholas Basbanes’ book A Gentle Madness that explores this topic.
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Hey, this newsletter is partly intended for word nerds, after all! → Interview with a Lexicographer (Jane Solomon)
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What Lincoln called the “hot letter” is a habit worthy of reconsideration. → The Lost Art of the Unsent Angry Letter
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Research says…at least until the next study. → Smart, Emotionally Stable People Enjoy Morbid Humor
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Cat faces recognized as human and human faces recognized as cats by face-detection algorithms. → Cat or Human
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Today in 1964, Stanley Kubrick’s brilliant black comedy, Dr. Strangelove, Or: How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Bomb is unleashed upon the world after a delay due to U.S. President John F. Kennedy’s assassination. Good reading: Almost Everything in “Dr. Strangelove” Was True, Art of the Title on Dr. Strangelove and the 1964 New York Times review.