Redmond’s Empire: How a Seattle-Area Software Firm Accidentally Became the Operating System for Planet Earth If you squint at the globe just right, you can almost see the Microsoft logo pulsing from every major city like a low-battery indicator on humanity itself. From Lagos to Lahore, from São Paulo to Stockholm, the same ribbon-windowed OS…
The Carabao Cup: A Trophy So Small It Might Be a Global Metaphor By Our Correspondent Still Recovering from a Heathrow Pret-a-Manger Somewhere in a London suburb on a damp Wednesday night, under lights bright enough to illuminate desperation but not quite hope, the Carabao Cup is being contested. On the surface it is merely…
Aaron Jones Injury Sends Shockwaves from Green Bay to Guangzhou—and Reminds Us All How Fragile the Gods Really Are By Matteo “Matz” Delgado, Senior Correspondent, Dave’s Locker In the grand tapestry of human folly, few threads are as absurdly luminous as the one connecting a hamstring tweak in Wisconsin to a 3 a.m. spike in…
Cam Akers and the Tragedy of Finite Talent in an Infinite Scrolling World By Our Man in the Departure Lounge, somewhere between Gatwick and existential dread The first time I heard Cam Akers’ name spoken in a Nairobi sports bar, it was by a Kenyan rugby scout nursing a warm Tusker and mourning the concept…
CAPE, CAMERA, ACTION: HOW HBO MAX’S SUPERMAN STREAMING DEAL TURNED THE PLANET INTO ONE BIG GOTHAM By the time the sun rose over Reykjavík last Tuesday, half of Iceland had already binged the first three episodes of HBO Max’s new Superman series. By sunset in Seoul, South Korean subway ads for the show were promising…
When the name “Elizabeth” trends on the wires from Lagos to Lima, it’s rarely because some Windsor great-grandmother has misplaced her handbag. The algorithmic pulse that now dictates global attention has flattened history into a single, slightly dented coin: flip it and you’ll get either a monarch or a meme. In 2024, Elizabeth is no…
Desmond Ridder and the Global Art of Failing Upward by our man in the cheap seats, somewhere over the Pacific In the grand tapestry of human ambition, where hedge-fund bros in Singapore toast their latest SPAC disaster and Parisian art students auction invisible NFTs to oligarchs, Desmond Ridder’s ascent to the Atlanta Falcons’ QB1 throne…
The Curious Case of Isaiah Hodgins: How a Backup Receiver Became a Geopolitical Rorschach Test Somewhere between the 38th parallel and the 40-yard line, Isaiah Hodgins is running a seam route that has improbably turned him into a walking metaphor for late-stage capitalism. The 6’4″ New York Giants receiver—whose name sounds like a British butler…
Amazon Prime: Same-Day Folly in an Age of Collapse By Correspondent-at-Large, Dave’s Locker Bureau of Post-Imperial Logistics PARIS—Somewhere in the 18th arrondissement, a courier on a subsidised e-bike is zig-zagging between cigarette smoke and existential dread to deliver a single tube of Japanese toothpaste to a graphic designer who forgot to floss. She will unwrap…
Amazon Prime Video: The World’s Longest Layover Lounge By our correspondent in a windowless room, somewhere between Schengen and daylight saving time Somewhere over the mid-Atlantic, a Scandinavian flight attendant is apologizing for turbulence while 200 passengers scroll past the same thumbnail of “The Boys.” Three continents, one algorithm, zero surprises—welcome to Amazon Prime Video,…
Madrid, Spain—In the grand casino of global sport, Real Madrid is the house that never loses. While governments teeter, currencies wobble, and the planet itself runs a low-grade fever, the white-shirted mercenaries of the Bernabéu continue to collect pot after pot with the indifferent efficiency of a croupier who knows the wheel is rigged. Last…
Brentford v Aston Villa: A Microscopic Battle in the Theatre of the Absurd It is 15:00 BST on a Saturday that could, in theory, be spent hiking the Dolomites or finally reading the small print on your mortgage. Instead, 17,250 humans cram into a West London suburb that smells faintly of diesel and existential dread,…
