Out today is @keachhagey.bsky.social's book "The Optimist: Sam Altman, OpenAI and the Race to Invent the Future" a.co/d/4Y0wNCk. I was honored to help w/ research as she wrote a brilliant epic about Altman and the company behind ChatGPT. @nytimes.com called it "excellent and deeply reported." Enjoy!

Mesmerized by the new scores at Willow Place last night by Alon Nechushtan, Xu Zheng, Judith Berkson, Charlie Waters, Brady Wolff & Jesse Gelanik—oh, my lucky ears! Thanks Petr Kotik and S.E.M. Ensemble!

Mars, Greenland, Gaza…. [name the fourth person, entity or thing in this sequence]

In honor of Lunar New Year we made a tuk-tuk out of cardboard boxes—don't ask me why, but it was fun.... Welcome Year of the Wood Snake!

A former FBI agent to @jeffwise.bsky.social in @nymag.com on how Luigi Mangione tripped up and got caught: "Most of the time, criminality involves some touch of narcissism." (Also, the tip here about bus drivers is one that reporters might swipe.) nymag.com/intelligence...

Wrote the linked @newrepublic.com article in 2013, ~1 month after the U.S.-Russia deal to destroy Syria's chemical weapons. Today, with a decade gone by and countless dead, including in Douma, those same chemical weapons sites are being bombed. newrepublic.com/article/1153...

These are gorgeous! Can you imagine designing and engraving lettering like this by hand?.... Check out this neat Sanborn maps project by @brandonsilverman.bsky.social!

Just saw an article on bathing in crude oil in Azerbaijan. I wrote that in ~2010: "While I don't consider myself shy, I can't remember a situation where I've been forced to disrobe before my taxi driver, and I hesitate, which makes things even more awkward" www.thenationalnews.com/lifestyle/tr...

Read French's "A Continent for the Taking" years ago and since then have considered it a model for marrying on-the-ground reporting with scholarship. Was equally impressed by "Born in Blackness" recently. Much looking forward to new work by @hofrench.bsky.social out next summer.

Always a fan favorite! Congrats, Lito—well-deserved!

Dr. Linda K. Jacobs' new book "Captivating Strangers" is a masterfully researched chronicle of this important and interesting community. And, as listeners of "Takers Mad" know, I find fascinating the connection between Buffalo Bill and the 'Bedouins troupes'! www.amazon.com/Captivating-...

Amid her 4th-round IVF, Kat Alexander tried to jump out the window. Her friend Mara Altman wanted to help. What happened next is one of the wildest stories I’ve ever heard. Love 'This American Life'? Ever have a friend in crisis? I highly recommend ‘Episodes’: www.audible.com/pd/Episodes-...