Adjacent Weekend

This week: the philosopher Google DeepMind hired to think about what it's building, how Kodak's engineers invented the future and then buried it, the visual history of Black astronauts finally getting its own publication, and more — including Nolan's Odyssey, a mercury-powered neon light from 1675, and whether mountain towns should stay secret.

Meet the philosopher inside Google DeepMind

Iason Gabriel's job title at one of the world's most powerful AI labs is "research scientist," but his actual work is closer to moral philosophy under pressure. This profile digs into what it means to hold ethical ground inside an institution moving at engineering speed — and whether the presence of a philosopher makes the machine more careful or just better at explaining itself.

The Next Web · 12 min

When the Lens Becomes the Limit

In the 1970s, a young Kodak engineer named Steve Sasson built the first digital camera — then watched his employer decide it was too dangerous to release. This essay uses that buried invention as a lens on how institutions protect existing business models by suppressing the futures they themselves create. It's a story about organizational blindness that feels entirely contemporary.

Mind Candy · 15 min

Look up! Parallel Press' Astro Black archives and protects the dazzling visual history of Black astronauts

Parallel Press has produced Astro Black, a publication that draws on what its creators describe as the "fascination Black people have had with the planets and stars" to recover a visual history that mainstream space archives have largely overlooked. It's a design project, an archival act, and a cultural argument all at once — and the images are worth the visit alone.

It's Nice That · 10 min

All the Details of the Epic Making of 'The Odyssey'

Actors scaling mountains in sandals. Six countries. A production that apparently held up the entire Spider-Man franchise. Zach Baron's GQ cover story on the making of Christopher Nolan's Odyssey — now in theaters — is the kind of reported feature that reminds you filmmaking at this scale is still a genuinely strange human endeavor, not just an IP pipeline.

GQ · 20 min

Should We Keep Affordable Mountain Towns a Secret?

West Virginia has been building one of the more serious outdoor recreation infrastructures in the country — trail networks, river access, singletrack — while housing costs spike everywhere else. This piece takes the gatekeeping debate seriously rather than dismissing it: who is outdoor recreation infrastructure actually for, and what happens to a place once it's discovered?

Outside Online · 14 min

A Sloshing-Mercury-Powered Neon Light

In 1675, an astronomer noticed an unexplained glow inside a barometer he was carrying at night. This Hackaday piece traces that accidental observation — mercury slapping against glass in the dark — through centuries of physics and into a modern maker's attempt to recreate it. It's a small, lovely essay about the distance between noticing something and understanding it.

Hackaday · 8 min

A Single Mom, Her Daughters, and Their Chatbots (paywall)

A Washington Post reporter who left the paper after Jeff Bezos intervened in its coverage pursued a story about AI companionship inside one family — and ended up with something more complicated than the usual AI-relationship think piece. The piece holds the technology and the humans using it at equal distance, which is rarer than it should be.

The New Yorker · 18 min

Shamu Saved My Life. Or Did He?

Angie Chuang's essay for Narratively uses an encounter with a performing orca — and the memory of what that encounter meant to a younger self — to examine how we construct the stories that explain our own survival. It's the kind of personal essay that earns its emotional weight by staying rigorously honest about what it can and can't claim.

Narratively · 12 min