Understand, a novelette by Ted Chiang, is the best sci-fi I read this year so far. Bio-singularity for the win.
https://web.archive.org/web/20140527121332/http://www.infinityplus.co.uk/stories/under.htm

Alcohol ban in every district of Rome except where mayor lives is better than Chris Christie on the beach he closed:
http://www.harpersbazaar.co.uk/culture/culture-news/news/a42660/rome-ban-public-drinking/

Lovely. Probably a good place to plug The Lisbon Orchestra and the flute call of the amolador.

Hans Magnus Enzensberger on The radical loser (01/12/2005)
http://www.signandsight.com/features/493.html

Touristification

we would pity any scientist tasked with observing this fiendish demon from the UpsideDown getting its smooch game on
http://www.azula.com/meet-predatory-bobbit-worm-taller-than-you-004/

I haven’t felt this relieved since when I heard that Vinton Cerf was working on an interplanetary Internet.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-quantum_cryptography

“One of the thing that any sorcerer will tell you is that if you have the name of the spirit, you have the power over it.” ~Harold Abelson

June is gone. It will be a long time before another chance to practice my Portuguese and the art of fine metaphors with Quim Barreros! 🎶#Lx

Cooking something so big that even the name wouldn’t fit a tweet.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lopadotemachoselachogaleokranioleipsanodrimhypotrimmatosilphioparaomelitokatakechymenokichlepikossyphophattoperisteralektryonoptekephalliokigklopeleiolagoiosiraiobaphetraganopterygon