Look at this!

That window opens! 

Now that I think of it, maybe it was open some time last year. Not recently, though. 

It ain't James Bond, but…

German police: Shiny gold Porsche a danger to other drivers

http://bit.ly/2Kwr0rt

Brave New World, Part the Zillionth

Is Anyone Listening to You on Alexa? A Global Team Reviews Audio - Bloomberg

The team comprises a mix of contractors and full-time Amazon employees who work in outposts from Boston to Costa Rica, India and Romania, according to the people, who signed nondisclosure agreements barring them from speaking publicly about the program.

https://bloom.bg/2UQttkl

Here's a headline you don't see often

Mashed potatoes found in front yards perplex a Mississippi neighborhood - The Washington Post

https://wapo.st/2KwTD81

Still out of my price range, but getting closer

Tiny Indiana town of Story is on the market for $3.8M

And as of 2018, only three people — plus four dogs and a resident ghost — lived in the town, located about an hour south of Indianapolis. The only employer is a bed-and-breakfast called the Story Inn.

https://nyp.st/2Koh8Qp

Looking at a 53 million year-old hole

Light, which travels 299,792,458 meters per second took 53 million years to get from what's visible in this picture—a halo of burning gasses around a very big hole in the universe—from there to here. 

This is the first picture of the black hole at the center of our galaxy - The Verge

http://bit.ly/2UO77jv

Off with their heads1

This Tiny Guillotine Decapitates Mosquitoes to Fight Malaria | WIRED

It's a first step toward an eventual goal of a fully automated robotic guillotine, which could help Sanaria produce that elusive mass-produced, effective malaria vaccine.

http://bit.ly/2ULeCba

The best thing about Cold War 2.0…

…is Russian spies, concerning which we eagerly await an avalanche of new novels. Novels about Russian spies are way more fun than novels about spies from some -stan or other, or the Middle East.

To celebrate this happy circumstance we are reading the novel, Red Sparrow, the very novel the movie was based on but way, way better than the movie, much as you'd expect. Plus—the best thing—it's the first book of a trilogy.

Let's keep this going.

We are also reading a book about surveillance capitalism called, well, Surveillance Capitalism, which is the book we're taking a break from to read the above mentioned Red Sparrow. Surveillance capitalism, both lower case and initial-caps, is quite a slog. But it's a fascinating and, one imagines, an important subject about which we will have more to say anon.

Meanwhile, read on.

An editorial note

We've fired our proofreader. There's been a rash of misspelled words (which we prefer to call typos) hereabouts recently, and we've had enough of it.

Henceforth we will defer, on all matters of spelling and grammar, to sheer luck.

You're welcome.