Recommended from Around the Web (Week Ending November 1, 2014)
A roundup of the most interesting stories from other sites, collected by the staff at MIT Technology Review.
Two Years After Hurricane Sandy, a Reminder of What Utilities Faced as the Storm Approached
A look at why the storm’s devastation was so hard to predict, and for utilities to prepare for.
—Kevin Bullis, senior editor, materials
The Search for the Anti-Facebook
Interesting take on why all Facebook rivals are doomed to fail.
—Timothy Maher, managing editor
Mood and Magnetic Stimulation
McLean Hospital reveals a hopeful alternative and/or positive addition to depression drug therapy.
—J. Juniper Friedman, associate Web producer
Ed Snowden Taught Me to Smuggle Secrets Past Incredible Danger. Now I Teach You.
This account of what leaker Edward Snowden had to do to communicate with documentary journalist Laura Poitras suggests that encryption software could do with a redesign. Glenn Greenwald nearly missed out on the scoop because he couldn’t be bothered to learn to use it.
—Tom Simonite, San Francisco bureau chief
William Gibson Interview: Time Travel, Virtual Reality, and His New Book
Sci-fi author William Gibson on predicting the future and the trouble with time travel: “Things have occurred to me in the course of writing science fiction that I put into the story and then went back and removed because I didn’t want anyone to do it.”
—Tom Simonite
It’s Game Over for ‘Gamers’
A victim of “Gamergate” argues it won’t succeed because games have become bigger than the hard-core gaming crowd.
—Nanette Byrnes, senior editor, Business Reports
In Search of Uber’s Unicorn
This Slate story offers a good look at what Uber drivers may really be making vs. what the company claims they tend to make.
—Rachel Metz, senior editor, mobile
The Existential Crisis of Public Life Online
On Gamergate and the “falseness” of a lot of social-media discourse.
—Brian Bergstein, deputy editor
Verizon Is Scared of the Truth
This gamely written analysis of Verizon’s new tech pub, Sugarstring, can be summed up in five words: “Verizon is laughing at you.”
—Kyanna Sutton, senior Web producer