The “get-your-ex-back” industry is booming. It really shouldn’t be.

Centuries before audio deepfakes and text-to-speech software, inventors in the eighteenth century constructed androids with swelling lungs, flexible lips, and moving tongues to simulate human speech. Jessica Riskin explores the history of such talking heads, from their origins in musical automata to inventors’ quixotic attempts to make machines pronounce words, converse, and declare their love.

A classic Mac loaded with everything you’d want.

A story of early Mac settings told by 10 emulators.

A tribute to Susan Kare, with a really nice interactive design.

When you picture Helen Keller in your mind, you probably don’t think of the woman and activist who was under FBI surveillance for most of her adult life. Or the person the FBI wrongly named a member of the Communist Party in 1949.

A year after OceanGate’s sub imploded, thousands of leaked documents and interviews with ex-employees reveal how the company’s CEO cut corners, ignored warnings, and lied in his fatal quest to reach the Titanic.

The ceremonial performance of Jewishness in Germany

Billions of these bugs are about to erupt from the Earth — and they rule. (basis of BROOD X)

Sarah Manavis and her partner have a guilty secret. What they love to do most of all in private is… read out loud to each other. And, as she’s discovered, it has many surprising benefits

Mismatched Fighters Help Up-and-Coming Champs Bolster Their Records in a Winner-Takes-All Industry

A quarter century on, the school shooters’ mythology has propagated a sprawling subculture that idolizes murder and mayhem.

Examining why these ubiquitous, obsolete fortifications carry an air of mystery. (Used in THE PROBING)

https://www.wikiwand.com/en/articles/Fort_St._Andrews https://www.wikiwand.com/en/articles/Fort_Frederica_National_Monument

Boomers who once flocked to Florida are increasingly ditching the state for southern Appalachia. (used for KUDZU)

Devolving with The Little Mermaid