Blog
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Wikipedia — “Eiffel Tower” (lead section)
The Eiffel Tower ( EYE-fəl; French: Tour Eiffel [tuʁ ɛfɛl] ) is a lattice tower on the Champ de Mars in Paris, France. It is named after the engineer Gustave Eiffel, whose company designed and built the tower from 1887 to 1889. Locally nicknamed “La dame de fer” (French for “Iron Lady”) for its use…
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Quran, Surah 55 (Ar-Rahman) — Pickthall 1930 translation
In the name of Allah, the Beneficent, the Merciful. 1 The Beneficent 2 Hath made known the Qur’ân. 3 He hath created man. 4 He hath taught him utterance. 5 The sun and the moon are made punctual. 6 The stars and the trees adore. 7 And the sky He hath uplifted; and He hath…
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The Coming Technological Singularity (1993)
Abstract Within thirty years, we will have the technological means to create superhuman intelligence. Shortly after, the human era will be ended. Is such progress avoidable? If not to be avoided, can events be guided so that we may survive? These questions are investigated. Some possible answers (and some further dangers) are presented. _What is…
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Great Expectations — Chapter I
My father’s family name being Pirrip, and my Christian name Philip, my infant tongue could make of both names nothing longer or more explicit than Pip. So, I called myself Pip, and came to be called Pip. I give Pirrip as my father’s family name, on the authority of his tombstone and my sister—Mrs. Joe…
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The Kentucky Derby Is Decadent and Depraved
By Hunter S. Thompson — Scanlan’s Monthly, 1970 | | I had just arrived in New York in April, 1970 and I was staying with a Newspaper Owner called Dan RATTINER, who invite me to stay at his place in the Hamptons. I had been there a week when a call came through from the…
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Federer as Religious Experience
By David Foster Wallace — The New York Times, 2006 Roger Federer as Religious Experience Almost anyone who loves tennis and follows the men’s tour on television has, over the last few years, had what might be termed Federer Moments. These are times, as you watch the young Swiss play, when the jaw drops and…
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Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
By Hunter S. Thompson — Rolling Stone, 1971 Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas We were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert when the drugs began to take hold. I remember saying something like “I feel a bit lightheaded; maybe you should drive. …” And suddenly there was a terrible roar all…
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Have You Ever Tried to Sell a Diamond?
By Edward Jay Epstein — The Atlantic, 1982 Have You Ever Tried to Sell a Diamond? An unruly market may undo the work of a giant cartel and of an inspired, decades-long ad campaign The diamond invention—the creation of the idea that diamonds are rare and valuable, and are essential signs of esteem—is a relatively…
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The End of Wall Street’s Boom
By Michael Lewis — Condé Nast Portfolio, 2008 The End To this day, the willingness of a Wall Street investment bank to pay me hundreds of thousands of dollars to dispense investment advice to grownups remains a mystery to me. I was 24 years old, with no experience of, or particular interest in, guessing which…
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Pearls Before Breakfast
By Gene Weingarten — The Washington Post, 2007 Pearls before Breakfast Can one of the nation’s great musicians cut through the fog of a D.C. rush hour? Let’s find out. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/04/AR2007040401721.html?referrer=emailarticle By Gene Weingarten Washington Post Staff Writer Sunday, April 8, 2007; W10 HE EMERGED FROM THE METRO AT THE L’ENFANT PLAZA STATION AND POSITIONED…
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Host
By David Foster Wallace — The Atlantic, 2005 About this story: Readers of the April 2005 Atlantic were treated to a cover story unlike anything the magazine had published before—David Foster Wallace’s profile of John Ziegler, who was then a talk radio host in Los Angeles. In print, Wallace’s signature multilayered footnotes appeared in colored…
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Fatal Distraction: Forgetting a Child in the Backseat of a Car Is a Horrifying Mistake. Is It a Crime?
By Gene Weingarten — The Washington Post, 2009 The defendant was an immense man, well over 300 pounds, but in the gravity of his sorrow and shame he seemed larger still. He hunched forward in the sturdy wooden armchair that barely contained him, sobbing softly into tissue after tissue, a leg bouncing nervously under the…
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Science and Religion
By Albert Einstein — Albert Einstein, 1939/1941 Note This text is from an address at Princeton Theological Seminary on May 19, 1939. It presents with extreme clarity what are the different realms of religion (values) and science (facts) and also their connections. This cross-fertilization becomes problematic only when each realm wants to impose itself on…
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The Economic Organisation of a P.O.W. Camp
By R. A. Radford — Economica, 1945 INTRODUCTION AFTER allowance has been made for abnormal circumstances, the social institutions, ideas and habits of groups in the outside world are to be found reflected in a Prisoner of War Camp. It is an unusual but a vital society. Camp organisation and politics are matters of real…
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Frank Sinatra Has a Cold
By Gay Talese — Esquire, 1966 In the winter of 1965, writer Gay Talese arrived in Los Angeles with an assignment from Esquire to profile Frank Sinatra. The legendary singer was approaching fifty, under the weather, out of sorts, and unwilling to be interviewed. So Talese remained in L.A., hoping Sinatra might recover and reconsider,…
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The Harvard Black Rock Forest
By George W. S. Trow — The New Yorker, 1984 The Harvard Black Rock Forest IT is my plan to begin in the middle of things, with a man alone on a tract of land. It is 1892. The man is young and healthy; the land has been damaged. The young man is a forester,…
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Maybe She Had So Much Money She Just Lost Track of It
By Jessica Pressler — New York Magazine, 2018 It started with money, as it so often does in New York. A crisp $100 bill slipped across the smooth surface of the mid-century-inspired concierge desk at 11 Howard, the sleek new boutique hotel in Soho. Looking up, Neffatari Davis, the 25-year-old concierge, who goes by “Neff,”…
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Racer X
By Kenneth Li — Vibe, 1998 At dusk, they take over the road. Roaring and buzzing like locusts, the swarm of asphalt-scraping Japanese cars — with swooping rear wings and brightly colored logos — merges from the side streets of Uptown Manhattan onto the traffic-congested Henry Hudson Parkway. Zigzagging back and forth like jet-fueled go-carts,…
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The Thriving Cult of Greed and Power
By Richard Behar — Time, 1991 Scientology: The Thriving Cult of Greed and Power. Even as the cult of Scientology tries to destroy the truth, the truth shall be loosed over the planet forever. Time Magazine May 6, 1991 page 50. Special Report (cover story) Copyright © 1991 Time Magazine This young Russian-studies scholar had…
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The Coming Technological Singularity
By Vernor Vinge — VISION-21 Symposium, 1993 Department of Mathematical Sciences San Diego State University (c) 1993 by Vernor Vinge (This article may be reproduced for noncommercial purposes if it is copied in its entirety, including this notice.) The original version of this article was presented at the VISION-21 Symposium sponsored by NASA Lewis Research…