Weekly Filet #137: Why Obama Is Failing. And more.
Five years in, with three more years to go, Barack Obama looks like a failing president. Failing to keep his own promises and those projected onto him. Two analyses, one from the launch issue of Politico Magazine, another from Vanity Fair, while taking different perspectives, diagnose the same issue: Obama won't let knowledgeable people, if any, push him out of the comfort zone.
→ The Lonely Guy (Vanity Fair)
→ Locked in the Cabinet (Politico Magazine)
Ok, this is not going to be an easy read. But a highly fascinating and important one. «If we’re forming a kind of global brain with all our interconnected computers and devices, then the Wolfram Language is the natural language for it.» The next lingua franca, for both humans and robots?
→ Something Very Big Is Coming (Stephen Wolfram)
Good longread on a not so usual job: Pretend to be a hitman, fake crime scenes to bust those who want their spouses murdered.
→ Oops, You Just Hired the Wrong Hitman (GQ)
The perfect soundtrack for cold winter days (for you readers in Australia, Argentina and Brazil: skip this and have a laugh at us freezing inhabitants of the northern hemisphere)
→ pg.lost (Bandcamp)
And now for the best news of the week: «Wasting time, they say, can make you more creative. Even seemingly meaningless activities such as watching cat videos on YouTube may help you solve math problems.»
→ How To Waste Time Properly (Nautilus)