One group of people is more isolated than anyone else. Become a member to share 10 free articles a month. Men are lonely, you've probably heard. "Few men will admit it, but it's true of most of them," declared Los Angeles Times columnist Jean Guerrero in one in a tsunami of recent takes on the "male loneliness epidemic." Guerrero partially blamed the "virtual world" and its "pornography and ideological provocation." A Guardian columnist theorized, "Many men are socialized to prioritize strength, independence and stoicism, making it difficult for them to open up and form emotional connections." An Atlantic writer agreed, writing, "Friendships are hard to maintain but the social stigma that some men face when opening up and being vulnerable can make things even harder." A "punk-rock psychologist" told Vice that men have low emotional intelligence. BuzzFeed has cranked out 12 posts about male loneliness in 2026 alone (so far, at least). Some of them are pretty brutal--for example, " 27 Loser Men Whose Actions Single-Handedly Prove the'Male Loneliness Epidemic' Is Self-Inflicted ." The inability of men to form friendships, or even make conversation, with each other is a ready setup for a bit.

Communities across the country are trying to keep data centers out. A victory in Maryland shows a blueprint--but no guarantees. Enter your email to receive alerts for this author. You can manage your newsletter subscriptions at any time. You're already subscribed to the aa_Nitish_Pahwa newsletter. You can manage your newsletter subscriptions at any time.

Food Can the Real Restaurant Phone Be Saved? Across the industry, A.I. is poised to take over reservations by phone. But what if parrying with a grouchy maître d' is part of what makes dining out great? Sign up for the Slatest to get the most insightful analysis, criticism, and advice out there, delivered to your inbox daily. The first time I called Kat--the conversational A.I. receptionist fielding calls at fried-chicken-and-ramen joint Katsubō, in Charleston, South Carolina--I heard the convincing din of restaurant background noise before she addressed me in her youthful (cheeky, even?) voice.

No one can say for sure what's going on in the president's head. His 25 greatest obsessions can get us a little closer. This is the year the first baby boomers--those born in 1946--turn 80, and that cohort includes Donald Trump. We have all recently lived through what it means to have an 80-year-old commander in chief, but at a political moment that's simultaneously more horrific, erratic, and just plain befuddling than anything this country has seen in ages, we wanted to understand the brain of 80-year-old president. Plenty of people are trying to discern whether his recent rants and raves are due to a more serious cognitive decline--we understand the instinct; we've done it too --but we went a different (if related) route. The more we dug into Trump's many fixations, the more we realized that this man still thinks he lives in the 1980s. We also discovered--without too much surprise--that he often seems to fundamentally misunderstand the works he treasures most deeply. These items might not replace a brain map, but they do create a certain holistic view of what animates and splinters Trump's mind. Sometimes, they just help explain his worldview. Other times, they seem to have had real influence on policy and the America that Trump is trying to create. Welcome to Trump Brain, the 25 things that define who the president is--and what he wants. Please enable javascript to fully experience this interactive. When millions of people took to the streets in October to protest Trump's authoritarianism, the president responded by dunking on his critics online. Specifically, he posted an A.I.-generated video of a fighter jet, piloted by himself in a literal crown, dropping human excrement onto the crowds. It was perhaps Trump's most juvenile use of A.I. slop yet--the kind of low-quality, feverish content made possible by artificial intelligence. Trump undoubtedly is the perfect president for the A.I. slop era. In some ways, this is because he's the ideal audience for it: Like many older internet users delighted by the technology, Trump seems to enjoy mindless, cartoonish, childish content. One of the videos he shared depicted him playing soccer with Cristiano Ronaldo in the Oval Office.

Unhinged I'm About to Go on a Date With a New Woman. I Know Something About Her--and She Doesn't Know I Know. I don't want to scare her away. I'm not sure what the proper etiquette is for acknowledging that you've recognized a mildly famous person when you match with them on a dating app. This is now the third time this has happened to me.

I was skeptical about ChatGPT and Claude at first. Then I started to come around--and I'm glad I did. Enter your email to receive alerts for this author. You can manage your newsletter subscriptions at any time. You're already subscribed to the aa_Alex_Kirshner newsletter.

Meanwhile its Audacious Project --a funding initiative that gives mature nonprofits the opportunity to pitch "moonshot" plans to a coalition of philanthropists--has raised over $1 billion in each of the last two years, in an epic Robin Hood operation for a handful of large-scale projects on climate, health, education, and criminal justice: The Audacious recipients here this year are taking this brief break from their work preventing 16 million unsafe abortions, helping governments in 20 countries prevent lead poisoning, or intercepting 5 percent of the world's river-borne plastic before it reaches the ocean.

Christopher Havens was approved for release by the Washington State Clemency Board. All he needed was the governor's signature. Christopher Havens has a part-time position as research staff at the University of California at Los Angeles. And he's had a prolific few years. In June 2020, Havens published an article in the journal Research in Number Theory with co-authors from the University of Torino in Italy.

A new scale of humiliation ritual kicked off this week as Elon Musk's lawsuit against OpenAI went to trial in Silicon Valley. The Tesla CEO, who co-founded OpenAI, is suing the artificial intelligence firm and two of its other co-founders, Sam Altman and Greg Brockman, for diverting from its original nonprofit goal of developing A.I. for the public good in favor of for-profit motives. "This lawsuit is very simple: It is not OK to steal a charity," Musk said on the witness stand on Tuesday. The trial is big by every conceivable measure. Both Musk and OpenAI have mustered high-dollar legal armies who are prepared to wage potentially years of litigation, including this federal trial.

Welcome to our latest roundup of what's going on in the indie game space. If you're looking for something new to play this weekend, we've got a bunch of options for you. We've also got some interesting upcoming games to tell you about as well. In a press release announcing that Playdate Season 3 is coming later this year, Panic included a line that I've been thinking about a lot this week. Panic is currently relieved and happy that people can make amazing games for Playdate with just 16 megabytes of RAM, it said, a nod toward the ongoing RAM crisis .