WIRED

DEEP INTO MY many-hour hang with the tech world’s greatest living novelist, Robin Sloan, he says something profound about science fiction. It’s the insight I’ve been waiting for, the key to understanding not just him but maybe all of storytelling. I glance down at my voice recorder, just to make sure it’s on. “Memory is full!” it says. Full! With that mocking little exclamation point. I do not panic. Instead what happens is: I simply go insane. Part of me stays there with Sloan, chatting about sci-fi. The rest of me is, I don’t know how else to put this, yanked, as if by some cosmic cartoon cane, offstage, into the other-dimensional wings of reality, where time is irrelevant and space sort of fizzles. In that realm, I know my task:…

RE: KURZWEIL “His techno-optimism seemed harmless to me when I was 18, and now seems monstrous.” —@E_Baillieul, via X RE: “SHE CONTAINS MULTITUDES” It was easy for me to understand why you felt conflicted about selling content to men while posing as some young, attractive woman. When I did it, I felt bad too, especially when I realized that these marks were just normal people who didn’t know any better. They just wanted to spend time talking to a beautiful and fun woman, just like anybody else. I received DMs on Reddit from people who had grown suspicious of the models they had sent money to. I did my best to explain how the industry works behind the scenes, and I’ve even shared screenshots with them of some of the…

IN THE BEGINNING was the Word, and the Word was in plaintext, and the Word was in plaintext because plaintext was the Way. It was good. On the sixth day—I’m skipping ahead here—the internet was born. The Word needed to be rewritten in HTML. Now there were two Words. It was not good. On the eighth day, after a bit of rest, Markdown was born. Markdown made it possible to bring forth the Word as HTML on the web, PDF in the library, LaTeX in the publishing house, even Microsoft Word DOC in the office—all generated from the same plaintext. The people saw that in this form the Word was more flexible. It was good. The internet rejoiced and put Markdown in all the things. This is where the real problems began. TODAY, MARKDOWN IS…

THE PLACE Gate Change Gnar THE PORTAL Strava THE PROMISE Race anyone, anytime IT WAS 2 AM at Denver International Airport, and Jared Murphy was only a few hours into a planned 17-hour layover. His options at this quiet hour, in the expansive halls of the concourse, were pretty much nil. There would be no nibbling on ahi tartare at the Crú Food & Wine Bar for at least another seven hours, and the Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory’s signature caramel apples had long since been cached for the night. Some may have looked upon this over-night interval as a welter of halogen-lit misery. But Murphy, a competitive runner since high school, was an avid user of the exercise app Strava, and he frequently checked the app while traveling to see where locals liked to run. In particular,…

DEEP INTO MY many-hour hang with the tech world’s greatest living novelist, Robin Sloan, he says something profound about science fiction. It’s the insight I’ve been waiting for, the key to understanding not just him but maybe all of storytelling. I glance down at my voice recorder, just to make sure it’s on. “Memory is full!” it says. Full! With that mocking little exclamation point. I do not panic. Instead what happens is: I simply go insane. Part of me stays there with Sloan, chatting about sci-fi. The rest of me is, I don’t know how else to put this, yanked, as if by some cosmic cartoon cane, offstage, into the other-dimensional wings of reality, where time is irrelevant and space sort of fizzles. In that realm, I know my…

The deadliest environmental threat to city dwellers worldwide isn’t earthquakes, tornadoes, flooding, or fire. It’s heat. In Phoenix, Arizona, where almost 400 people died from heat exposure last year—and where falling on the pavement can leave a third-degree burn—the question isn’t whether this summer’s temperatures will kill people, it’s how many. The answer hinges, in part, on a small team the city created in 2021 to deliver aid during heat emergencies: handing out supplies, opening relief centers, and even driving a bus to bring cool air to where it’s most needed. The team is also trying to make Phoenix cooler over the long haul by finding space for shade trees—which is a major challenge in the city center. As the adage goes, the best time to plant a tree is 20…