Tag Archives: year-in-review

For the first time in four centuries, it’s good to be a beaver. Long persecuted for their pelts and reviled as pests, the dam-building rodents are today hailed by scientists as ecological saviors. Their ponds and wetlands store water in the face of drought, filter out pollutants, furnish habitat for …

One of the more amusing TikToks that followed the announcement of the forthcoming Legend of Zelda movie riffs on a scene from the animated series Drawn Together. In it, the blue-caped Captain Hero sits in a wheelchair at the bottom of a staircase next to the text “Zelda fans when …

In 2023, the world has felt like it was balanced on a precipice. A United States presidential election looms, with a resurgent candidate that threatens to bring with him all the chaos of 2016 and 2020. Artificial intelligence developed so quickly that it seemed to have suddenly sprung into being, …

While Barbenheimer was undoubtedly the biggest movie story of 2023, the year in film was one jam-packed with dozens of truly great movies—not all of which managed to generate the nonstop headlines or mainstream traction that an iconic doll and the “father of the atomic bomb” did. It was a …

Scientists are running low on words to adequately describe the world’s climate chaos. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration could already say earlier this month that there was more than a 99 percent chance that 2023 was the hottest year on record. That followed September’s sky-high temperatures—an average of 0.5 …

The best albums of 2023 were actually released in 2022. Taylor Swift and Beyoncé dominated the year through global stadium tours, blockbuster movies, and countless digital column inches. Beyoncé began the year by performing a lucrative and divisive private concert in Dubai and ended it in Kansas City when her …

Revolt against the machines began at Swingers. And at Bob’s Big Boy, where for weeks Drew Carey picked up the tab. Members of the Writers Guild of America, or WGA, met at both Los Angeles-area diners frequently during their 148-day strike, which hinged on protecting Hollywood’s scribes from being overrun …

Even if you believe, as some do, that the world has moved from Peak TV to Trough TV, there are still more shows released in any given year than any one person could consume (trust us, we tried). Between major networks, cable television channels, and streaming services, there’s just too …

In September, Elon Musk’s brain-implant company Neuralink announced the much-anticipated news that it would start recruiting volunteers for a clinical trial to test its device. Known as a brain-computer interface, or BCI, it collects electrical activity from neurons and interprets those signals into commands to control an external device. While …

The internet sucks now. Once a playground fueled by experimentation and freedom and connection, it’s a flimsy husk of what it was, all merriment and serendipity leached from our screens by vile capitalist forces. Everything is too commercialized. We commodified the self, then we commodified robots to impersonate the self, …