Let’s Slice Open the Biggest Contemporary Art Museum in the US
Compared to the swooping architecture of other fine-art institutions, the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art (aka Mass MoCA) is a hulking, big-boned anomaly. “We don’t just collect art and hang it on white walls,” says director Joseph Thompson. The cavernous complex displays works that couldn’t fit anywhere else. This spring, architecture firm Bruner/Cott & Associates…
Cantina Talk: Rey May Break the Force's Status Quo
As the release date for Star Wars: The Last Jedi approaches at ludicrous speed, stories on the creation of the movie—and teases about what might happen in it, or even after it—are beginning to pile up on all sides of the information superhighway. Don't know what to listen to or who to believe? Dear friends,…
Pornhub, the World's Biggest Adult Site, Gives Blind Users an Upgrade
Accessing the web presents unique challenges for the blind and visually impaired. Text-to-speech programs can be unreliable. Too many developers don’t follow best practices for navigating sites without visual cues. Destinations that lean heavily on images can prove inscrutable. They don’t have to, though. And Pornhub, the largest adult site on the web, is taking…
How'd the Cohen Hearing Go? That Depends on Your Filter Bubble
Donald Trump’s former attorney, Michael Cohen, is a flawed man with nothing left to lose, charting a path to redemption by finally coming clean about crimes and misdeeds allegedly committed by the president of the United States. Either that, or he’s a cheat and a crook who can’t be trusted, who’s already pleaded guilty to…
The Alien Overlords of Captive State Might Be Coming—for Us
The world suffers an imbalance. An alien authority known as the Legislators has invaded Earth under the false promise of “peace, unity, and harmony.” Governments have been seized. Militaries demobilized. Cities walled off. The great, last hopes of the contemporary age have fully rotted, giving way to a climate of fear and subjugation. Social fractures…
Ed Skrein Leaving Hellboy Proves How Easily Hollywood Could Stop Whitewashing
Ed Skrein is not an A-lister. He's a good actor who showed up in Deadpool and starred in Transporter Refueled, but he's not a certified star. But now that he's quit the Hellboy reboot, his is a name Hollywood likely won't forget for a while. Yesterday, in an unprecedented move, the British actor gave up…
Mr. Know-It-All: Should I Let My Spouse Look at My Browser History?
Is My Browser History Fair Game for My Spouse? Before there were browser windows, there were regular windows—ones you could see through. And one day in 1914, Florence Carman saw too much. Florence’s husband, Edwin, a local physician on Long Island, had an office on the ground floor of their home. One of its windows…
While You Were Offline: Twitter Just Gave Tim Allen an Evolution Lesson
From the white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia (and death of Heather Heyer) to the terror attacks in Spain, this last week has been an especially rough one both online and off. Sure, a few small, funny things have been happening on the internet amidst all of it, but those blips have been largely drowned…
Cantina Talk: Here Is All of Star Wars in Just 5 Minutes
After what seemed like the motherlode of Episode IX information last time, we're back to relative silence about Star Wars' next cinematic installment. Maybe that's because principal photography on the movie is wrapping right now, meaning the production is moving into its next phase. And, as if the release of both Episode IX and The…
America Needs a New Thanksgiving Movie. Let's Make It Coco
It’s an annual fall ritual for which few culture-writers would want to give thanks. Every November, representatives from your favorite websites—including, yes, WIRED—gather to discuss Thanksgiving-week content. (Or “gobblecon,” as it’s called in the biz). And without fail, someone in the room eventually asks that most doomed of questions: “What about a round-up of great…