SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY

Image via The New Yorker.

Adam Gopnik on the heated debate over whether or not Pluto should be considered a planet: “Those who imagine that picking sides is the small thing, easily overcome by common interests or even common sense, are generally, on this planet and every other, proved tragically, catastrophically wrong.” Read full article in The New Yorker. E.T.P. 6'

 

Photo via WSJ Blog.

UK dreams of a robot heaven: "If everything goes according to plan, robots will decommission British nuclear sites, service offshore oil and gas rigs; zip Brits across the skies and deliver their pizza. Garbage-bots will also collect trash and carebots will look after the elderly. Life will be simpler, easier, and more efficient when humans let robots do all the work, so that we can do everything else." Read full article in the WSJ Blog. E.T.P. 5'

CULTURE & ENTERTAINMENT

Photo: Evening Standard/Getty via The New Yorker

Adam Gopnik reflects in the New Yorker how it seems impossible to revision the literary history of America, or even the very magazine he writes for "without being reminded of how inextricable the drinking life and the writing life—or, to put it more bluntly, alcoholism and art—once were. From St. Clair McKelway to Dorothy Parker and James Thurber, and from Ernest Hemingway to F. Scott Fitzgerald to Sinclair Lewis and beyond, it was not long ago that if you wrote you drank, and if you weren’t drinking it was because you were drying out." Drinking used to be regarded as a complement to the act of authorship writes Gopnik. Read Writers and Rum in The New Yorker. E.T.P. 8'

Photo: Still from the 2nd Episode of HBO Girls, via The New Yorker.

Speaking of writers, also in The New Yorker, Sasha Weiss analyses the evolution of Lena Duhnam's character, Hannah, in the first two episodes of the new season of HBO Girls. Weiss highlights how the show dramatizes the formation of a writer's consciousness, in this case, Hannah's. An interesting reading, if you are a fan of Girls of course, pointless otherwise. Read full article in The New Yorker. E.T.P. 6' (Spoilers alert).

Image via The Telegraph.

 And to close this section: Oscar nominations! This past Thrusday the movies, documentaries and shorts nominated for the 86th Academy Awards were announced: "12 Years a Slave," "American Hustle," "Captain Phillips," "Dallas Buyers Club," "Gravity," "Her," "Nebraska," "Philomena" and "The Wolf of Wall Street" received top honors as the nominees for Best Picture.

Lovely Cate Blanchett will be competing with Amy Adams, Judy Dench, Meryl Streep (of course) and Sandra Bullock in the Lead Actress category, while Christian Bale, Bruce Dern, Chiwetel Ejiofor and Leonardo DiCaprio will compete against a surprising performance of Matthew McConaughey in Dallas Buyers Club, if you haven't seen this one, go ahead and book your ticket. Another surprise, Jennifer Lawrence receives her 3rd Oscar nomination. Really? I mean... really? Hope the Academy does (unsual) justice and recognises the superior performance of Lupita Nyong'o. Anyway, read full list of nominees in the LA Times. E.T.P. 5'.

CULTURE & ENTERTAINMENT

Photo: Salinger in Brooklyn, in 1952. Photograph by Antony Di Gesu/San Diego Historical Society/Hulton Archive/Getty. Via The New Yorker.

The past 5 of September was released in America Shane Salerno's documentary Salinger. According to IMDB: an unprecedented look inside the private world of J.D. Salinger, the reclusive author of The Catcher in the Rye. You can read a lot of opinios on the Internet but there is this very complete piece by Adam Gopnik in The New Yorker that simply tries to answer: Who was J.D. Salinger? and in doing it so, might point out some inaccuracies of Salerno's film. 'There are certain artists, and some art, that become so popular that everyone peers into them, finding whatever they will, however they will'. Salinger was one of them. Read the article here.

 Photo via The New Yorker.

No one joins Facebook to be sad and lonely. But research into the alienating nature of the Internet—and Facebook in particular, and a new study from the University of Michigan psychologist Ethan Kross argues that that might be exactly how it makes us feel.  Do you want to know why? Read this article in The New Yorker.

Photo: DIY Bearding with pets cats and dogs via Dazed Magazine.

I selfie, therefore I am, it's an interesting article in Dazed Magazine about the selfie,  the on-the-go medium of self-celebration and envy, and a form of self-portrait accessible to everyman and everywoman – as long has he or she has a smartphone, and also, an A-Z guide. Have a look here.