ESSAYS/NEWS
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Chance the Gardener Was Right: Why a 1979 Film About an Empty Man Explains AI Better Than Silicon Valley Can
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I watched Being There when it came out in 1979. I was nine years old. Born in 1970, sitting in a theater that smelled like…
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The Other Italian on the Other Mountain
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On Alessandro Pasetti, the man who handed me a platform, and the fact that Italians cannot help themselves. There are two kinds of Italians. There…
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The Seventh Month
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On ghosts, property values, and the woman at the desk in Orlando who was not supposed to be there. The dead walk among us. In…
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The Song
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On alphabets, tempo, and the particular arrogance of fixing something that was never broken. I heard the song wrong. Not wrong in the way you…
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The Suitcase of Bricks
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There is a moment, and I can tell you the exact moment, when I stopped believing that my way of doing things was the correct…
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The Fixed Point
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Memory The Fixed Point A restaurant closes. A life stays there. There is a legal concept called a fixture. It means something affixed to property…
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Nobody Asks Singapore About Democracy
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I have been writing about Hong Kong for a while now. About democracy, about the Basic Law, about what it means to live in a…
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The System
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The ritual has steps. Everyone who has ever lived in a small town in Massachusetts has stood behind that woman at the convenience store. You…
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Washington’s Bar Exam Ran on Wi-Fi and Somehow That Was Not Even the Worst Part
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A licensing system built on stress, money, and a wireless network that folded on contact.