The Distribution of Users’ Computer Skills: Worse Than You Think.

Across 33 rich countries, only 5% of the population has high computer-related abilities, and only a third of people can complete medium-complexity tasks.

How a Grad Student Found Spyware That Could Control Anybody’s iPhone from Anywhere in the World

Last summer, Bill Marczak stumbled across a program that could spy on your iPhone’s contact list and messages—and even record your calls. Illuminating shadowy firms that sell spyware to corrupt governments across the globe, Marczak’s story reveals the new arena of cyber-warfare.

How a Quack Doctor Killed Thousands of Cancer Patients.

Or, how a charlatan breached basic medical ethics and put millions of women's lives at risk.

“Toni Erdmann” comes in second on the New York Time’s list of 2016’s best movies.

Interesting twist or desperate measure?

The Economist is relaunching on Medium with longform journalism.

Some of this work will be produced exclusively for Medium, meaning you won’t even be able to find it on economist.com or in print.

How did the country that brought us McDonald’s and Spray-On Hair bring us Trump?

Fascism and The Historical Irony of Facebook’s “Fake News” Problem.

In the late 1930s, when Germany turned fascist, Americans were mystified. Our intellectual leaders had long thought that Germany was the most culturally sophisticated nation in Europe. They were all asking how this had happened.

Enough with the “Fake News is Hard” BS.

I swear. If Silicon Valley had to invent a ball point pen, they’d say “it’s just really hard getting the ink to flow smoothly and at a consistent rate out of the pen. You don’t understand how hard it is.”

Relevant: Real Ads, Fake News, Real Confusion.

You Might Not Need TypeScript (or Static Types).

TypeScript got in the way more than it helped. It didn’t reduce bugs, and didn’t enhance our productivity, either.

Women And Men Use Cities Very Differently.

In 1999, officials in Vienna handed out a questionnaire about how people in the city used transportation. The men filled it out in five minutes: go to work in the morning, come home at night. The women couldn't stop writing.

Why won’t biologists say that animals might be conscious?

Animal consciousness is taboo in many areas of biological science. What’s so hard about the inner lives of other species?