Coffee Break

Posted on March 10, 2025

“Rider” by Mohssin Amghar, 2025

  • When This Professor Got Cancer, He Didn’t Quit. He Taught a Class About It. [The New York Times]
  • Doctor’s of Reddit, what do we NOT know about the human body? [Reddit]
  • The Missing $25 Gift Card That’s Rocking the Hamptons [WSJ]
  • Thieves in the Night: A Vast Burglary Ring From Chile Has Been Targeting Wealthy U.S. Households [Vanity Fair]
  • Inside the Biggest Live Game of ‘Dungeons & Dragons’ Ever Played [Rolling Stone]
  • All The Reasons Why Changing Our Clocks Twice A Year For Daylight Saving Time Is A Terrible Idea [BroBible]

Why the US Has Birthright Citizenship

Posted on March 7, 2025

Vox editor Adam Freelander explains the history of Birthright Citizenship in the United States.

“While it’s uncommon in Europe, Asia, and Africa, it’s very common among Western Hemisphere countries, partly because of their history as colonies populated mostly by settlers. But of the many countries with birthright citizenship in the world, the US is by far the largest, with hundreds of thousands of baby citizens born here every year to noncitizen parents. Those numbers naturally raise the question: Is this what birthright citizenship was meant for? And why do we have birthright citizenship in the first place?”

[Vox via Laughing Squid]

Sesame’s Conversational AI Is Almost Human

Posted on March 6, 2025

Sesame, an AI startup founded by the guy that launched and sold Oculus, has released a startling voice demo of their new “conversational partner.”

The company states their goal is to ‘achieve “voice presence’—the magical quality that makes spoken interactions feel real, understood, and valued. We are creating conversational partners that do not just process requests; they engage in genuine dialogue that builds confidence and trust over time. In doing so, we hope to realize the untapped potential of voice as the ultimate interface for instruction and understanding.”

You can try it yourself. Talk with “Maya” or “Miles” here.

[Huw Prosser / The Verge]