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Why Tech Bros Are Now Obsessed with Taste

The New Yorker

In the age of A.I., the term has become as much of a Silicon Valley cliché as "disruption" was in the twenty-tens. With artificial intelligence continuing to dominate corporate strategies and news headlines, Silicon Valley has embraced a new buzzword, one that may feel too close to home for those already feeling embattled by automation. That word is "taste," and in recent months it has become as much of a tech-world cliché as "disruption" was in the twenty-tens. The esteemed technologist Paul Graham posted on X, "In the AI age, taste will become even more important." Koen Bok, a founder of the booming A.I. design tool Framer, said on a podcast that "great taste" is what will create the best new products.


DoorDash Reservations Scored America's Most Exclusive Restaurants

WIRED

After the rise (and fall) of reservation scalping, DoorDash and a host of apps are fighting to book you a seat at the country's most exclusive restaurants. At The Eighty-Six in Manhattan, exclusivity is the point. The luxe, 11-table steakhouse is the sort of place that lavishes caviar and aged mimolette cheese on its potatoes, and crows that your market-price duck was raised by one Dr. Taylor Swift has reportedly dined there in a Miu Miu skirt. Reservations are a scarce commodity that the restaurant, and New York law forbids you from selling one. "Access is the main asset," wrote food writer Helen Rosner in a recent New Yorker review of The Eighty-Six. "The product is the door, and what a door!


Lisa Kudrow Is Back--Again

The New Yorker

In the third season of "The Comeback," Kudrow has brought back her character Valerie Cherish, which had its roots at the Groundlings. A visitor to Stage 24 on the Warner Bros. lot, in Burbank, last November could be forgiven for thinking that the television show being filmed there was a sitcom called "How's That?!" The parking spaces outside were marked with "How's That?!" signs. Inside, director's chairs with the "How's That?!" logo were arranged around video monitors. The set--a New England bed-and-breakfast, with kitschy floral wallpaper--was surrounded by sitcom cameras and buzzing crew members wearing headsets. A studio audience filed into the bleachers, and a warmup comic urged them to "shake those funny bones." Then, with mounting gusto, he introduced the star of "How's That?!": "Here she is . . . the one and only . . . the living legend . . . She emerged to applause, in a potter's smock, wavy red hair under a bandanna, looking like a cross between Lucy Ricardo and Mrs. Garrett ...



Earthquake strikes just outside New York City along ancient fault line

Daily Mail - Science & tech

Horrifying next twist in the Alexander brothers case: MAUREEN CALLAHAN exposes an unthinkable perversion that's been hiding in plain sight Alexander brothers' alleged HIGH SCHOOL gang rape video: Classmates speak out on sick'taking turns' footage... as creepy unseen photos are exposed Model Cindy Crawford, 60, mocked for her'out of touch' morning routine: 'Nothing about this is normal' Kentucky mother and daughter turn down $26.5MILLION to sell their farms to secretive tech giant that wants to build data center there Tucker Carlson erupts at Trump adviser as she hurls'SLANDER' claim linking him to synagogue shooting NFL superstar Xavier Worthy spills all on Travis Kelce, the Chiefs' struggles... and having Taylor Swift as his No 1 fan Heartbreaking video shows very elderly DoorDash driver shuffle down customer's driveway with coffee order because he is too poor to retire Amber Valletta, 52, was a '90s Vogue model who made movies with Sandra Bullock and Kate Hudson, see her now Nancy Mace throws herself into Iran warzone as she goes rogue on Middle East rescue mission: 'I AM that person' Hidden toxins in kids' treats EXPOSED: Health guru Jillian Michaels' sit-down with Casey DeSantis reveals dangers lurking in popular foods An earthquake rattled parts of the New York City region Tuesday morning, sending tremors through communities just north of the city. The 2.3-magnitude quake struck near Sleepy Hollow, New York, at around 10.15am ET. The epicenter was located roughly 25 miles north of New York City and about 4.5 miles beneath the surface. Within minutes, more than 1,000 people reported feeling the shaking, with residents across Westchester County submitting reports to the US Geological Survey (USGS). New York City Emergency Management said in a statement: 'Earthquakes of this size are typically minor and rarely cause damage, but some people in nearby areas like the Bronx may have felt brief shaking.


The Download: autonomous narco submarines, and virtue signaling chatbots

MIT Technology Review

For decades, handmade narco subs have been some of the cocaine trade's most elusive and productive workhorses, ferrying multi-ton loads of illicit drugs from Colombian estuaries toward markets in North America and, increasingly, the rest of the world. Now off-the-shelf technology--Starlink terminals, plug-and-play nautical autopilots, high-resolution video cameras--may be advancing that cat-and-mouse game into a new phase. Uncrewed subs could move more cocaine over longer distances, and they wouldn't put human smugglers at risk of capture. And law enforcement around the world is just beginning to grapple with what this means for the future. This story is from the next print issue of magazine, which is all about crime. Google DeepMind is calling for the moral behavior of large language models--such as what they do when called on to act as companions, therapists, medical advisors, and so on--to be scrutinized with the same kind of rigor as their ability to code or do math.


Prior-Free Dynamic Auctions with Low Regret Buyers

Yuan Deng, Jon Schneider, Balasubramanian Sivan

Neural Information Processing Systems

We study the problem of how to repeatedly sell to a buyer running a no-regret,mean-based algorithm. Previous work [Braverman et al., 2018] shows that it ispossible to design effective mechanisms in such a setting that extract almost allof the economic surplus, but these mechanisms require the buyer's values each


Whodunnit: The Upstate Murder-Mystery Weekend

The New Yorker

Sign up to receive it in your inbox. The event has a storied history among mystery buffs; some of its first scripts were written by the celebrated author Donald E. Westlake, along with his wife Abby, and they often collaborated with notable writer friends, including Stephen King, Edward Gorey, and Isaac Asimov, on everything from performing to graphic design. A half century ago, few, if any, hotels offered "immersive theatre" as an amenity, and the Mystery Weekend became a hot ticket for city dwellers--the first weekend, in 1977, drew more than two hundred participants. Soon, mystery-solving events were de rigueur at many rural hotels, whose owners found that staging crime scenes was a surefire way to lure cosmopolitans to the country during the off-season. In 1992, the reporter Alessandra Stanley noted that the swelling glut of mystery parties came in three categories: serious, "in which participants form teams and spend two to three days"; semi-serious, which "take place in large hotels, over meals, and are meant to be more entertaining than challenging"; and those on cruise ships, which are fully unserious.


Is the Rat War Over?

The New Yorker

Is the Rat War Over? In New York, a rat czar and new methods have brought down complaints. We may even be ready to appreciate the creatures. Rats were leaving Manhattan, hurrying across the bridges in single-file lines. Some went to Westchester, some to Brooklyn. It was the pandemic, and the rats, which had been living off the nourishing trash of New York's densest borough for generations, were as panicked about the closure of restaurants as we were. People were eating three meals a day at home, and the rats were hungry. At least that was the story going around.