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Guest Newsletter: Five Books

The Five Books newsletter features in-depth author interviews recommending five books on a theme. In the recent newsletter, Alastair Humphreys, a British adventurer, discusses the concept of "local adventure" and recommends books that give a sense of what it's about. Another interview with P. Djèlí Clark explores historical fantasy books that blend real history with speculative elements. The newsletter also offers additional articles, a video, and a podcast for those seeking more reading material.

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Underflow | 1

The Browser is introducing a new work of serial fiction called "Underflow". It will feature characters such as money-launderers, bankers, scientists, and mobsters. The story will be published twice weekly over the next few months. Readers can opt in or out of receiving newsletters from The Browser. In the first chapter, the main character, Mr. Peters, checks into a hotel in Boston with his personal assistant, Mr. Lipp. Peters is a tech billionaire who recently sold a messaging app called Lynxite. He is working on an experiment in game theory and is looking for privacy during his stay at the hotel. Later, Peters comes up with a solution to the "byzantine generals" problem, which he believes could be applied to coordinating transactions in a digital currency. He shares his idea under the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto, and the paper is called "Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System".

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Fear Pi

The fear of China's geopolitical role by the US has been present for over 150 years. This fear has combined with xenophobia and has persisted even during the Covid pandemic.

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Weirder Bird

The provided text does not contain any specific information or details that can be summarized. It consists of a brief mention of a timeline of Royal PR missteps and some field notes from the author Amy Tan.

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Evil States

A far-right social media figure, Douglass Mackey, was found guilty of conspiring to injure the rights of voters for posting memes claiming people could vote by text. The verdict may have chilling implications for satirical content in the digital space. Meanwhile, the Nocebo effect, where expecting to feel sick increases the likelihood of feeling sick, has been an identified phenomenon dating back to Benjamin Franklin's work with Franz Mesmer's patients.

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