Papers, Please
Over the weekend, my daughter and I played an unusual video game called Papers, Please. In this single-player game (which came out in 2013), you work as a border checkpoint inspector for Arstotzka, a fictional country resembling a 1980s Soviet state. Your job is to examine the documents of people attempting to enter the country and decide whether to grant them entry. The game presents moral dilemmas as your daily pay is usually insufficient to cover rent, food, and heat. Your family constantly faces the risk of starvation and illness. This raises the question: Should you start accepting bribes and other dubious offers from spies and smugglers to make ends meet? Despite its intentionally crude graphics, reminiscent of 1980s video games, I found myself completely engrossed in the gameplay. — MF

Prospects of fusion energy

The arrival of reliable cheap fusion energy on Earth would be a revolution nearly as important as AI. Fusion is a synthetic sun, with relatively benign byproducts. For 70 years, experts have predicted it to be “20 years away;”  It is still 20 years away. This excellent summary of the state of the art in fusion energy explains why progress has been so slow and why it may speed up now. Or not! Easy to read and smartly informative, Will We Ever Get Fusion Power is the best thing I’ve read on fusion, a brief and succinct article, highly recommended. — KK

Magic Color Picker

Here's a fun new way to explore and pick out colors. The Magic Color Picker converts your text descriptions into precise color codes. For example, here is the color generated for “sunny day but overcast”. — CD

Self-sharpening pencil

I like this hi-tech mechanical pencil from Japan because it sharpens itself so that it produces a very consistent line, no matter how long you use it. The Uni Kurutoga Advance ($9) contains a novel mechanism that rotates the pencil lead each time it touches the paper, so that it wears evenly and maintains a uniform point. So clever! It currently is only available for very fine 0.5mm lead. — KK

Email like a boss

This is a useful guide to emailing like a “boss” that I found on Reddit. It lists the most positive and effective way to rewrite your messages based on the intention. Here are some examples I want to adopt: If your intention is to say “You’re welcome,” instead of saying “No problem/No worries” say, “Always happy to help.” If you want to know if the recipient understands something, instead of asking “Does that make sense?” say “Let me know if you have any questions.” When you want to convey that you know what your doing, instead of saying “I think maybe we should …” say “It would be best if we …”. — CD 

Virtual city walks

City Walks is a website of videos taken by people walking along the sidewalks of cities from around the world. Just click on a city from the list and the video starts playing. Most cities have more than one video, so you can click the city name to load a new one. Make sure to click the sound toggle on, too. I found the video of a busy open-air market street in Rawalpindi, Pakistan to be especially interesting. — MF

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