A Learning &This week's theme is our relationship with AI. Beyond convenience, we consider how people find time to rest.
Editor-in-chief
Tyler
An album track nobody was promoting crossed the sea two years later, carried by TikTok users in Thailand. Its journey followed none of the familiar rules.
One bulb worth a house. Widespread bankruptcy and a country brought to its knees. Much of the story may be a later embellishment.
Osaka, 1730. The practice of agreeing a price for rice in advance is said to have begun beside a Japanese river.
The price of paint once determined whose robes would be blue. A short history of ultramarine.
Dried fruit can contain far more sulphites than wine. Yet wine is always the one that gets blamed.
Seven is special; four is avoided. Giving numbers meaning belongs as much to humanity's cultural history as to fortune-telling.
The origins of astrology lie in calendars. Following the reasons people began to read the sky reveals a quieter story than prophecy.
We think of time as a straight line. The Maya calendars drew circles. A calendar embodies a civilization's view of the world.
Search gives us what we seek by the shortest route. A library shelf offers something we were not seeking.
Stir it every day and a nukadoko still will not obey you. Kitchens and meeting rooms both need the skill of working with what cannot be controlled.
Two themes, connected.
An unlikely intersection our editors found this week.
One new perspective, every week.
We have been talking about AI lately. Somehow, every conversation ended with sleep. The more decisions we can leave to machines, the more we are asked how to rest. That is this week's intersection.
This week began with antiques and somehow ended with sleep. World events and the lanes at our feet meet on the same desk.
ABC is not a place that hands out answers. We set questions alongside one another and connect the dots, quietly putting together reading that brings the world a little more clearly into view.
Editing from Sawara
