Why Javier Marias hates theatre. I kind of agree with many of the points he makes. Even so I do like to go to the theatre every now and then, though not as much as I used to.
Slavoj Zizek doesn't like theatre performances either.
How Google used artificial intelligence to transform Google Translate. I too had noticed that Google Translate had suddenly become significantly better.
Longreads Best of 2016. I plan to force myself to read at least five articles about a topic that I'm not interested in so as to break through my filter bubble.
An interview with Jürgen Habermas on the new global disorder, democratic polarization and the future of Europe. When I was at university Habermas' and Gadamer's insistence on reason and openness to dialogue was considered obsolete by the post-structuralist leaning faculty where I studied. With Derrida, Deleuze, Lyotard and Baudrillard all dead for a decade or more post-structuralism has gone out of fashion. I still believe the work of Foucault and the forenamed thinkers offers a better analysis of our time than the critical theory of the Frankfurter Schule. But Habermas remains a highly perceptive thinker.
Freeman Dyson on working with the greatest physicists of the 20th century.
Andrew Wiles on what it feels like to do maths.
The pessimist's guide to 2017 as compiled by the editors of Bloomberg. Ignore at your own peril: they got some things right last year...