LONG READS

Playboy Interview: Steven Jobs | all about Steve Jobs.com

What Makes a Truly Great Basketball Player?

John McPhee’s 1965 Profile of the Princeton basketball star Bill Bradley, whose achievements broke barriers in the Ivy League, where athletes of the highest calibre usually don’t show up.

The Top Five Longreads of the Week

Showcasing stories from Sloane Crosley; Zadie Smith; Mark Johnson and Saumya Khandelwal; Todd Kliman; and Sheila Liming.

Who’s Afraid of a Spatchcocked Chicken?

The English language separates the ingredient from the animal in most cases. While a student at Cambridge, “Land of Milk and Honey” author C Pam Zhang learned that this squeamishness around meat extended to her peers’ attitudes towards her cooking.

No, Artificial Intelligence Is Not Conscious

Taken to its logical conclusion, this line of thinking is absurd—and damning.

Are Prediction Markets Good for Anything?

We all know they’re casinos. It’s time to look at the data behind the froth.

How To Be Good

An Oxford philosopher thinks he can distill all morality into a formula. Is he right?

Espn

Thebaffler

A secret question hovers over us, a sense of disappointment, a broken promise we were given as children about what our adult world was supposed to be like. I am referring not to the standard false…

Stop Satisfying the Algorithm. Start Reading With Intent.

Your reading life is scattered across browser tabs, email inboxes, and forgotten bookmark folders. None of it is connected, none of it is searchable, and none of it sticks. This is the modern reading crisis and it's exactly why I built Linkwise. Here's how RSS feeds, email newsletters, AI-powered chat, and a distraction-free reader come together into one library that actually makes you smarter over time.

The Tickling of the Bulls: A Rodeo at Madison Square Garden by Jasper Nathaniel

“The drama was in the dirt.”

Every Pixel has a Reason

The Details Behind Linkwise's UI Refresh and hidden features

Building Effective AI Agents

Discover how Anthropic approaches the development of reliable AI agents. Learn about our research on agent capabilities, safety considerations, and technical framework for building trustworthy AI.

The First Amendment Is Stronger Than Johnny Depp

Why not every high-profile case sets an immediate precedent

What Does DEI Even Mean?

People can’t agree on what college diversity offices should do.

The Simple Algorithm That Ants Use to Build Bridges | Quanta Magazine

Even with no one in charge, army ants work collectively to build bridges out of their bodies. New research reveals the simple rules that lead to such complex…

How the Brain Creates a Timeline of the Past | Quanta Magazine

The brain can’t directly encode the passage of time, but recent work hints at a workaround for putting timestamps on memories of events.

China Plays Peacemaker

Brokering the Iran-Saudi deal was a coup for Beijing. Whether Chinese diplomacy makes the world a safer place is another matter.

Will A.I. Become the New McKinsey?

Ted Chiang on how artificial intelligence may strengthen capitalism by promising to concentrate wealth and disempower workers, and on possible alternatives.

Consider Armadillo COVID

Animals could give us the virus—again.

How to Have a Realistic Conversation About Beauty With Your Kids

Study after study confirms that prettiness can be a privilege. But I want my daughters to resist the tyranny of vanity.

Hollow Body - Longreads

On attention to craft in defiance of AI.

The Age of Dinosaurs - Longreads

"Ruminating on extinction, under the slanted tutelage of my child, felt like a responsible thing to do."

The Case for Reparations

Two hundred fifty years of slavery. Ninety years of Jim Crow. Sixty years of separate but equal. Thirty-five years of racist housing policy. Until we reckon with our compounding moral debts, America will never be whole.

Snow Fall: The Avalanche at Tunnel Creek

Fresh powder beckoned 16 expert skiers and snowboarders into the backcountry. Then the snow gave way.

Do Things that Don't Scale

The definitive guide on the manual, hands-on hustle required to acquire early users, build feedback loops, and refine an app's core experience.

Great Myths of the Great Depression

In this essay, Lawrence W. Reed debunks the conventional view & traces the central role that government policy played in fostering this legendary catastrophe.

Short Bio | all about Steve Jobs.com

Short Biography of Steve Jobs

The Tail End

No matter what your age, you may, without realizing it, be enjoying the very last chapter of the relationships that matter most to you. Make it count.

1,000 True Fans

A foundational essay outlining why a successful, sustainable platform relies on a small, deeply dedicated user base rather than massive viral scale.

After 54 Years, Astronauts Are Going Back to the Moon

NASA's Artemis II crew will visit the lunar neighborhood as early as February—the first step in building a moon base.

Swift by Sundell

Weekly Swift articles, podcasts and tips by John Sundell