The Best Stories Of The Week
Every Thursday, we highlight the longform articles from the past week that we think you shouldn't miss.
The Mysterious Crash Of Eastern Airlines Flight 980
On New Year's Day in 1985, Eastern Airlines Flight 980 crashed into the side of a mountain in Bolivia. When search parties reached the crash site, they found no bodies, no blood, no black box. Decades later, an expedition set out to try to uncover the truth.
The Dark Origins Of The Incredible Curta Calculator
The Curta, an astoundingly capable handheld mechanical calculator, was developed by Curt Herzstark in the 1930s and '40s — a development that was delayed by Herzstark's internment in the Nazi's Buchenwald concentration camp.
How The Heir To American White Supremacy Changed His Mind
Derek Black's father founded Stormfront, the internet home for white supremacists, and Derek seemed to be headed down the same road, including starting a children's Stormfront as a kid. But then he went to college, and little by little, the foundations of his beliefs were chipped away. A powerfully told story from Eli Saslow.
Owning A Sex Mansion Won't Make You Happy
You'd think that, if you were the kind of person who wanted to start a sex club, successfully founding the world's most elite sex club would bring you joy. But Snctm founder Damon Lawner isn't feeling the joy.
(Fair warning: A few images — particularly the header — are not particularly SFW)
Facial Recognition Is Great — Until It Wrongly Identifies You As A Criminal
Facial recognition systems are supposed to remove uncertainty from criminal investigations — if we can't trust a complex algorithm to identify someone, who can we trust? But that trust has a problem — when the technology gets it wrong, the person it identifies is screwed.
Life For A Star Ballerina, After The Final Curtain Falls
By the time she was 22, ballet prodigy Alexandra Ansanelli was the principal ballerina for the New York Ballet. Six years later, she stopped dancing. Alice Robb documents her rise, and what a star ballerina does after she's done dancing.
Click here for more great long reads, and for more stuff from Digg, check out our Originals archive.
