1. Rehearsal for an inhospitable planet.

"Paper face masks have been common here for a long time, but now the heavy-duty kind with purifying canister filters – of the sort you might wear for a day of asbestos removal – are frequently seen on the streets. On bad days, bike lanes are completely deserted, as people stay at home or retreat to the conditioned environments of hermetically-sealed malls. It’s as if the 21-million-strong population of the Chinese capital is engaged in a mass city-wide rehearsal for life on an inhospitable planet. Only it’s not a rehearsal: the poisonous atmosphere is already here." [Pocket]

2. Imagine that this translator works in 99% of contexts in 10 years. What is that world?

"Microsoft’s Skype software will start translating voice calls between people today. As part of a preview program, Skype Translator makes it possible for English and Spanish speakers to communicate in their native language, without having to learn a new one. It sounds like magic, but it’s the result of years of work from Microsoft’s research team and Skype to provide an early working copy of software that could help change the way the world communicates in the future." [Pocket]

3. A Christian writer connects livestreaming, "Eaten Alive," and Jesus through the concept of incarnational allure.

"In both cases, folks tuned in partially for the excitement of a live event - anything could happen! It might be amazing! It might be terrible! Either way you have something to talk about and a shared experience of … something. That hope for the unexpected, the near-guarantee of the unexpected, is what draws us in. Ultimately, the snake-food host abandoned the task, fearing injury. The Peter Pan musical didn’t have any major mistakes, and generated some debate about race and gender when it comes to casting. But any outcome would have been exciting, because it was happening live before our eyes. This sense of the unexpected reminds me of the Incarnation and Advent." [Pocket]

4. What ethical and political concerns should be brought to bear on automation?

"A recording of Ghost in the Machine, which consists of a presentation by Frank Pasquale, professor of law and author of the forthcoming book The Black Box Society: The Secret Algorithms that Control Money and Information, of his forthcoming essay for Triple Canopy on the political economy of automation." [Pocket]

5. A linguist takes on the phonology of swear words.

"What I find most interesting is the tits/boobs alternation. If you read something meant to be humorous (say in email or on the web) and it mentions breasts, the choice of tits versus boobs (and it generally is one or the other, not any of the remainder) is very much a tone-based and tone-influencing choice: 'He weighed his options carefully and chose the one with the biggest boobs'; 'He weighed his options carefully and chose the one with the biggest tits.' I wonder to what extent tits makes one think of the tips, the nipples, due to the sound resemblance of the words (tits, nipples, tips) and also perhaps to the crispness of the /t/ which may bring to mind pointy nipples (that’s pure speculation). I wonder to what extent boobs sounds rounder and brings an image more of the overall shape rather than the nipples, which have become the one thing to conceal." [Pocket]

cranium. The bones that enclose the brain; more widely, the skull. Joc. (or slang) 'head.'

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