As you probably read last week, Elon Musk (founder and CEO of Tesla Motors and SpaceX) is sure that we’re living in a computer-generated simulation. Over at The New Yorker, Joshua Rothman takes a hard look and tries to determine the actual odds of humans inhabiting a simulated world.
It’s All a Game
Colonized
A Canadian Ph.D. student wrote (and successfully defended!) a 52,000 word dissertation that features almost no punctuation. Titled “Indigenous Architecture through Indigenous Knowledge,” the dissertation has no periods, commas or semi-colons, a choice intended to “make a point” about colonial and aboriginal identity. Canada’s National Post has the story.
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Building Covers
Year in Reading alumnus Chris Ware drew the cover of this week’s New Yorker. (If you liked his latest, Building Stories, you might like reading our review.)
The Salman Rushdie Channel
Slate’s got a video interview with Salman Rushdie in three parts, and his speaking agency has released a rare video from one of Rushdie’s previously unrecorded talks, where the man describes writers as much more vulnerable than ideas.
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#onenovel
Twitter fans: Our book question has spawned a mini-twitter trend: #onenovel. Join in!
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Religion by any other name. Musk and the others are fundamental techno-extremists. What did DeLillo say in Mao II? Or was it White Noise? What happens when the old god dies? Where does all that faith go? Apparently it goes into your iPhone. Nothing new, same old, same old, the king is dead, meet the new boss…