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S1What Today's Rainmakers Do Differently   As “doer-sellers,” professional services partners are responsible for not just delivering services but also the entire business-development process. As “rainmakers,” they must build awareness of their expertise in the market to generate demand, identify and close new client business, deliver the work to the client, and then renew and expand the relationship over time.
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S2Private Equity Needs a New Talent Strategy  Historically, the efforts of private equity firms to address leadership challenges have been limited primarily to replacing portfolio-company CEOs. Now, in an era of higher interest rates and more competition for limited acquisition targets, these firms are realizing that they need to make more-systematic investments in leadership development. The author offers a variety of prescriptions for PE firms, portfolio companies, and dealmakers, including hiring and empowering “chief human capital officers” to create a firm-level talent strategy, developing a leadership playbook, tasking portfolio companies with creating a leadership agenda, and rigorously assessing organizational effectiveness and talent during due diligence for company acquisitions.
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S3Storytelling That Drives Bold Change  When tackling urgent organizational problems, leaders usually work hard to identify underlying causes, tap a wide range of knowledge, and experiment with solutions. But once they’ve mapped out a plan, there’s one more crucial step they must take: crafting a story so compelling that it will harness their organizations’ energy and direct it toward change. Drawing on decades of experience helping senior executives lead large-scale transformations, Harvard professor Frei and leadership coach Morriss present an effective way to approach that challenge. They outline four key steps: (1) Understand your story so well that you can describe it in simple terms, (2) honor the past, (3) articulate a persuasive mandate for change, and (4) lay out a rigorous and optimistic path forward.
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S4It's Time to Define Your Company's Principles  Companies need to develop strong guiding principles that go beyond generic mission statements and values, the authors argue. Well-articulated principles can provide direction for difficult decisions, especially in times of disruption. They should offer behavioral guardrails and be distinctive to the company, open to debate, transferable across the organization, and integral to its mission. Some strong principles include “Focus on the user and all else will follow” (Google), “Privacy is a fundamental human right” (Apple), and “We won’t release a product until we would use it ourselves” (Tableau Software). The authors recommend that leaders begin by identifying what makes the company unique and involving employees at all levels. When communicating decisions, they should reference principles to demonstrate their relevance. Over time, principles can shape company culture and empower employees to make decisions that align with corporate strategy. In this era of complexity and uncertainty, well-defined principles can provide much-needed clarity and direction.
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S5 Building the Neurodiversity Talent Pipeline for the Future of Work  Our special report on innovation systems will help leaders guide teams that rely on virtual collaboration, explores the potential of new developments, and provides insights on how to manage customer-led innovation.Our special report on innovation systems will help leaders guide teams that rely on virtual collaboration, explores the potential of new developments, and provides insights on how to manage customer-led innovation.During recent economic policy updates, Jerome Powell, chair of the U.S. Federal Reserve, announced that the American labor market is suffering from a structural labor shortage. Its origins are varied — demographic variables such as an aging population and early retirements, the tragic loss or persistent absence of many workers due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and a historic drop in immigration, among others — but the numbers are now too large to ignore. At the end of last year, there were approximately two job vacancies for every available worker, expanding the labor gap to around 10 million workers. Political economist Nicholas Eberstadt framed it this way: “Yes, the United States has a Depression-scale work problem.”
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S6How EcoVadis is holding global corporations accountable  Sustainability and business decisions are no longer separate concerns. Amid increasing government legislation on climate disclosure – and pressure from shareholders and consumers – companies must take decisions with sustainability in mind. They need to know how they're doing – and where they must go next to reach their goals.EcoVadis provides that insight into business's environmental, labour and human rights, ethics and sustainable procurement criteria practices, granting them ratings. Their platform now has more than 125,000 companies across the globe that are either being rated or rating themselves, including Johnson & Johnson, L'Oréal, Unilever and Salesforce.
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S7The Crown to Doctor Who: 12 of the best TV shows to watch this November  This adaptation of Anthony Doerr's 2014 bestselling novel about Marie-Laure, a young blind woman working for the French Resistance, and Werner, a German soldier drawn to her radio broadcasts, received tepid reactions when it premiered at the Toronto Film Festival. Indiewire called it "schmaltzy" as well as "speedy, tear-jerking and handsome enough". But that might not bother the book's many fans, who can now appreciate the appealing cast as well as the dramatic story. Newcomer Aria Mia Loberti, who has impaired vision herself, received high praise as Marie-Laure. The Hollywood Reporter called her "radiant". Mark Ruffalo plays her devoted father, and Hugh Laurie the uncle they stay with during the Nazi occupation. Written by Steven Knight (Peaky Blinders) and directed by Shawn Levy (best known for the Night at the Museum films), the four-part series comes with World War Two intrigue, family emotion and a built-in audience. Executive producer Taylor Sheridan adds another Western saga to his empire with this anthology series, each season featuring a different real-life hero. The initial season has familiar genre tropes, all those cowboy hats and horses, but a bracingly different story. David Oyelowo (Selma) plays the US Deputy Marshal Bass Reeves, famous for having arrested more than 3,000 men. An enslaved man who was forced to fight for the Confederacy in the US Civil War, he escaped, and became one of the first black US Marshals. It's a story Oyelowo, also a producer of the show, has wanted to make since 2015, before Sheridan's company was involved. As he told Vanity Fair, Reeves lived "at a time that in many ways defines who and what America is", a history viewed here "through the personal eyes of one black man and his family". The supporting cast includes Donald Sutherland, Garrett Hedlund and Yellowstone regular Moses Brings Plenty.
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S8Festive, fabulous - and sustainable: A holiday gift guide  Gift-giving these days can be a fraught experience. Questions compete for attention: where was it made? What's it made of? What about the producer's working conditions?Clare Brass, a specialist in the circular economy, is pretty blunt about tangible gifts. She's always believed that there is no such thing as a sustainable product. "Whatever you buy has an environmental – and often social – impact. So even if you choose the 'most environmentally-friendly' gift, you're not really helping the planet."
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S9The Legend of Zelda film: past adaptations have gotten Link's character wrong  The Legend of Zelda (first produced in 1986) is one of the most beloved videogames around the world, so when Nintendo announced the development of a live-action movie a couple of weeks ago, it inspired a lot of speculation (and fear) about how they might pull off a film. Despite being haunted by the infamous adaptation made 30 years ago, the recent The Super Mario Bros. Movie was a global family hit. However, for some fans – myself included – it failed to deliver a compelling story about its central characters, which are some of the most iconic in videogame history. If Nintendo’s aim is to put smiles on every fan’s face, then adapting The Legend of Zelda will be a real challenge.
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S10S11S12S13Supreme Court to consider giving First Amendment protections to social media posts  The companies that own the platforms can – and do – remove, promote or limit the distribution of any posts according to corporate policies. But all that might soon change.The Supreme Court has agreed to hear five cases during this current term, which ends in June 2024, that collectively give the court the opportunity to reexamine the nature of content moderation – the rules governing discussions on social media platforms such as Facebook and X, formerly known as Twitter – and the constitutional limitations on the government to affect speech on the platforms.
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S14The challenges of being a religious scientist  Research presented in this article was supported by a grant from the National Science Foundation (Award #1749130, Christopher P. Scheitle, Principal Investigator).Given popular portrayals, you would be forgiven for assuming that the type of person who is a scientist is not the type of person who would be religious. Consider the popular television show “The Big Bang Theory,” which is about friends who nearly all have advanced degrees in physics, biology or neuroscience. The main character, Sheldon – a physicist who is often dismissive of religion – is juxtaposed with his devout Christian mother, who is uninterested in and ignorant about science.
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S15S16How climate negotiators turn national self-interest into global collective action  Global heat has seared to new extremes in recent months, and devastating climate disasters are providing powerful reminders of the costs of climate change, as governments around the world prepare for the 2023 United Nations climate summit that starts on Nov. 30.While a small window of hope remains for meeting the goals of the 2015 Paris climate agreement, the world’s greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise.
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S17Booker prize: rediscovering the first female winner, the often-forgotten Bernice Rubens  One of the most captivating and enigmatic novelists of the 20th century, Bernice Rubens remains largely unknown despite her remarkable literary achievements. She was the second recipient of the Booker prize in 1970 for her novel The Elected Member and its first female winner. She remains the only Welsh winner in the history of the prize – a fact that perhaps speaks volumes for the way Welsh writing in the English language is perceived and recognised outside of Wales.
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S18S19S20John Hlatywayo: remembering a great Zimbabwean artist who was woefully neglected by history  John Hlatywayo, who has died at 96, was a great painter, sculptor and mentor. However he is woefully neglected in the art history of Zimbabwe and southern Africa.Belonging to an early generation of Zimbabwean artists, Hlatywayo was overshadowed by international interest in the nation’s mainstreamed stone sculptors. Yet he was one of Zimbabwe’s most versatile artists. He could work with different media and produce intriguing conceptual pieces. But he was mainly drawn to portraying aspects of people’s daily lives.
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S21'No one would ever speak up again': servicewomen feel military culture stops them from reporting sexual assault  An inquiry into the death of a 19-year-old soldier in the British army found that relentless sexual harassment by her line manager was “almost certain” to have been a causal factor in her death.Royal Artillery Gunner Jaysley-Louise Beck took her own life after receiving more than 4,500 messages and voicemails from her boss over two months. Beck felt unable to report the harassment, as a previous alleged sexual assault she experienced by a different senior colleague had not been handled effectively. She did not want to be labelled a “serial troublemaker”.
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S22Stem cell therapy shows promise for treating multiple sclerosis - new study  Over 2 million people globally have multiple sclerosis (MS), a disease that affects the nervous system and can lead to problems moving, seeing and thinking.While there are treatments that can help reduce the number and severity of MS attacks, many people with MS eventually develop a more severe form of the disease called secondary progressive MS. Unfortunately, there are few treatments for secondary progressive MS. And there are no drugs approved for the most advanced forms of disease.
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S23Psilocybin shows promise for treating eating disorders, but more controlled research is needed  Recently, the spotlight is turning to eating disorders (ED), a group of severe and difficult-to-treat conditions. A survey revealed that 70 per cent of people view psychedelic medicine as a promising avenue for EDs, and numerous reports depict positive results. Media platforms abound with compelling personal stories, from online articles to Netflix documentaries, Reddit threads, TikTok videos and YouTube clips. But the critical question remains: does the scientific evidence align with the hype?
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S24How AI 'sees' the world - what happened when we trained a deep learning model to identify poverty  To most effectively deliver aid to alleviate poverty, you have to know where the people most in need are. In many countries, this is often done with household surveys. But these are usually infrequent and cover limited locations.Recent advances in artificial intelligence (AI) have created a step change in how to measure poverty and other human development indicators. Our team has used a type of AI known as a deep convolutional neural network (DCNN) to study satellite imagery and identify some types of poverty with a level of accuracy close to that of household surveys.
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S25COP28: inside the United Arab Emirates, the oil giant hosting 2023 climate change summit  The United Arab Emirates (UAE), the world’s seventh largest oil producer, will host the 28th UN climate change summit (COP28) in Dubai from November 30 to December 12. Presiding over the conference will be the chief executive of the UAE state-owned oil company Adnoc, Sultan al-Jaber.Given fossil fuels account for nearly 90% of the carbon dioxide emissions driving climate change, many have argued that there is a clear conflict of interest in having oil and gas producers at the helm of climate talks. The UAE is alleged to flare more gas than it reports and plans to increase oil production from 3.7 million barrels a day to 5 million by 2027.
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S26S27Why Royal Mail is struggling to deliver  Senior Teaching Fellow, Strategy & International Business, Warwick Business School, University of Warwick Royal Mail, the UK’s oldest postal service, has received plenty of bad news in recent weeks. It has been fined for failing to achieve its delivery targets, lost an exclusive deal with the Post Office and recorded operating losses of £319 million – £100 million higher than for the same period last year.
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S28S29A Peruvian farmer is trying to hold energy giant RWE responsible for climate change - the inside story of his groundbreaking court case  On a crisp, sunny day high in the Peruvian Andes, two German judges gaze across a mountain lake to the towering white glaciers in the distance. Dark spots are visible on the pristine ice and, in quiet moments, the cold wind carries the sounds of creaking and cracking.The judges, from the German city of Hamm, have flown more than 6,500 miles to witness the melting glaciers for themselves. It is May 2022 and their visit has taken more than three years to organise – and some intensive diplomatic negotiations between Peru and Germany. Also here, more than 4,500 metres above sea level, are five German and Austrian scientific experts flying drones to assess whether Lake Palcacocha poses a significant risk of flooding to the thousands of people in the valley below.
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S30Ultratrails, deep dives, outer space: how extraordinary personalities adapt to extreme conditions  `Kilian Jornet won the 2022 Ultra-Trail du Mont Blanc (distance 170 kilometres, elevation gain 10,000 metres) in 19 hours 49 minutes and 30 seconds. Stéphanie Gicquel skied 2,045 kilometres in 74 days, crossing Antarctica to reach the South Pole in temperatures as low as -50°. Thomas Pesquet completed a spacewalk lasting 6 hours and 54 minutes, 400 kilometres above the Earth.These extreme sports athletes deploy excessive efforts to adapt to environmental conditions or exceptional solicitations. Pushing humans beyond their limits is not trivial on a behavioural or psychological level.
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S31Everybody has a spider story, but these amazing creatures are often misunderstood  The comedian Jimeoin once wrote a song titled Everybody’s Got a Spider Story (I believe; I can’t find it on YouTube now I am looking), in which each verse tells some alarming story of giant spiders crawling on faces or millions of baby spiders bursting out of someplace unexpected. James O'Hanlon’s Silk and Venom: The Incredible Lives of Spiders is, at heart, a call for us to start telling better spider stories – stories that celebrate the incredible biology of these creatures, rather than focusing on the surprise, terror and disgust they evoke in some people.
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S32What are bush kinders? And what makes a good one?  In Australia we have a long history of taking children outdoors to learn about the natural environment. But thanks to computer games, tablets and busy lifestyles, children aren’t getting as much exposure to nature as they used to.“Bush kinders” are one way to counter this. In a bush kinder, children in preschool years are regularly taken into the natural environment by their daycare centre or kinder/preschool. There are also standalone nature playgroup programs offered by organisations like the YMCA.
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S33How your money is helping subsidise sexism in academia - and what you can do about it  Susanne Täuber is affiliated with the Academic Parity Movement and the Network Against Power Abuse in Science. Both are non-profit organizations fighting harassment and power abuse in academia. It’s frightening to imagine where the world would be right now without mRNA vaccines. The COVID-busting technology revolutionised vaccine development at an internationally critical moment – with massive implications for people’s health, wellbeing and the global economy.
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S34S35Repeated concussions can alter heart activity and impact the 'heart-brain' axis  Mild traumatic brain injury or sport-related concussions occur frequently in contact sports such as football, rugby and ice hockey. A concussion doesn’t just affect the brain; it results in stress to the entire body. In our laboratory comprised of exercise scientists and clinicians, we focus on studying heart function in patients with a concussion. After a concussion, there are increased demands on the body to maintain proper brain activity. To compensate for these demands, there are changes in heart function.
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S36S373 ways to encourage kids to be more charitable and kind this holiday season  With the holiday season just around the corner, families and households will soon be gathering to give and receive gifts. Many will also be sending donations to communities in crisis, and organizing charity events and food drives to help others.The reason for our holiday generosity is obvious to us as adults. We hold a sense of moral responsibility to be kind and get a satisfying feeling of having done a good deed.
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S38Qu  Doctorant en écologie forestière, Université du Québec en Abitibi-Témiscamingue (UQAT) Professeur en sciences forestière, Université du Québec en Abitibi-Témiscamingue (UQAT)
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S39Meet Andrew Hauser, the outsider from the UK who'll be deputy governor of the RBA  In a significant step towards reforming Australia’s Reserve Bank, Treasurer Jim Chalmers has stepped outside the bank and outside of Australia to select Andrew Hauser, a British economist, as its new deputy governor. The deputy governor’s job has traditionally been a springboard to the governor’s job, and Hauser will replace Michele Bullock who was herself deputy governor until her appointment as governor on Philip Lowe’s retirement in September.
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S40S41Let's turn down the dial on conflict and focus on solutions  Is Australia’s political system doing a good job of serving its citizens? If not, how can we help it work better?These questions have become even more pressing in recent months. The war in Gaza has spilled over to Australia, bringing new animosity and a threat to our social cohesion. The defeat of the Voice referendum has shaken confidence in the capacity of our political system to meet the needs of Indigenous citizens for better lives and political recognition. Progress on climate change seems unacceptably slow. Meanwhile, fuelled by social media, a steady stream of populism is rushing our way.
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S42S43Marshmallow Laser Feast at ACMI is a sumptuous visual feast - but something is missing  In my office, someone has pinned a cartoon in which two dogs consider an abstract sculpture on a plinth. As he strokes his chin one of them asks, “Yes, but is it food?”.This exhibition featuring artworks by London-based experiential art collective Marshmallow Laser Feast is sumptuous, a feast for eyes and ears at the technological bleeding edge of audio-visual practice. With its swirling murmurations of atoms, cells, blood platelets and gravitational forces, it is straightforwardly beautiful.
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S44S45S46S47S48S49High Court reasons on immigration ruling pave way for further legislation  PhD Candidate, Kaldor Centre for International Refugee Law, UNSW Sydney, UNSW Sydney After ruling on November 8 that indefinite immigration detention is unlawful, the High Court today delivered its reasons for the decision that upturned 20 years of precedent. Its ruling has required the release of some 140 people from immigration detention so far, and set off a political scramble to legislate in response to the outcome.
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S50Why the world's first flight powered entirely by sustainable aviation fuel is a green mirage  A Boeing 787 Dreamliner is set to take off from Heathrow on November 28 and head for JFK airport in New York, powered by so-called sustainable aviation fuel (SAF). According to its operator, Virgin Atlantic, the world’s “first 100% SAF flight” will mark “a historic moment in aviation’s roadmap to decarbonisation”.It is proof of concept, we are led to believe, of the dawn of “guilt-free” flying. Unfortunately, we have been here before, and the results last time were anything but green.
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S51Museum classifies Roman emperor as trans - but modern labels oversimplify ancient gender identities  Elagabalus ruled as Roman emperor for just four years before being murdered in AD 222. He was still a teenager when he died. Despite his short reign, Elagabalus is counted among the most infamous of Roman emperors, often listed alongside Caligula and Nero. His indiscretions, recorded by the Roman chroniclers, include: marrying a vestal virgin, the most chaste of Roman priestesses, twice; dressing up as a female prostitute and selling his body to other men; allowing himself to be penetrated (and by the bigger the penis the better); marrying a man, the charioteer Hierocles; and declaring himself not to be an emperor at all, but an empress: “Call me not Lord, for I am a Lady”.
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S52COVID inquiry heard Boris Johnson 'struggled' with graphs - if you do too, here are some tips  In March 2020, the UK government’s chief scientific adviser, Patrick Vallance, presented to the nation a graph showing “the shape of an epidemic”. The red line depicting the number of predicted COVID cases rose to a steep peak before falling again. Vallance explained that delaying and reducing the height of that peak was essential to ease the strain on Britain’s healthcare system. Boris Johnson, then prime minister, put it much more succinctly: “Squash that sombrero.”In the two years that followed, both men must have spent many hours discussing graphs like this. But as we’re now learning through Vallance’s testimony in the COVID inquiry, it seems the prime minister struggled to understand what was shown in these graphs, despite his daily exposure to them.
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S53Girls less likely to be diagnosed with special educational needs - new research  The point when a child with special educational needs (SEN) is diagnosed is an important moment in their lives. It allows schools to provide them with access to additional resources, such as assistive technology, specialised teaching programs or the services of professionals such as educational psychologists. These resources help to meet children’s academic, emotional or social needs.
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S54How big UK housebuilders have remained profitable without meeting housing supply targets  Edward Shepherd is a member of the Royal Town Planning Institute, the Town and Country Planning Association and the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors.We must “bulldoze through” the planning system to “get Britain building again”. So said Sir Keir Starmer at the Labour party’s last annual conference. He argued it’s time to “fight the blockers” and build the 1.5 million homes that he thinks Britain needs.
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S55Teju Cole on Open-Ended Stories  “Incoming” is a collection of short pieces, written separately, which we assembled with the idea that they were thematically linked and would resonate together. Can you tell me what prompted you to write them, and over what period of time?For many years now, I’ve been trying to understand what constitutes a “story” (as distinct from a novel). Every now and again, I’d note a story idea in a folder on my computer. It might be inspired by something I read in a book, or something I saw on the bus, or something that came to me in the lees of a dream. The folder is still there. But the ideas are kind of inert, probably because they’re too conventionally storylike. A couple of years ago, at the beginning of 2022, I had an idea for a different kind of story, something more open-ended and intense. I worked on the idea—it involved two people sitting in a cabin during a blizzard, trying to get cell-phone reception—and I thought the result was interesting. A few weeks passed before I had another idea. And another few weeks before the next idea. They were arriving incredibly slowly; I was at their mercy. But I knew I had found a way forward.
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S56The Best Podcasts of 2023  It was another tumultuous year for the podcast industry, with layoffs and cancellations at Spotify, Pushkin, WNYC, and NPR, which cut four of its series and ten per cent of its staff in March. But great work continued to be made, including by independent and listener-supported shows. There were bold new projects from veteran producers and creators; series that managed to make unbearable subjects addictively listenable; storytelling with the confidence to engage us without sensationalizing; and even, improbably, a funds-and-consciousness-raising podcast, “Strike Force Five,” hosted by the biggest names in late-night TV. (Cue thunderclap.) Several perennial favorites impressed, among them “Heavyweight,” “Rumble Strip,” “Slow Burn,” “This American Life” (including the “Jane Doe” episode), “Ear Hustle,” “The Paris Review Podcast,” and “La Brega,” whose music-focussed second season was followed by cancellation; may it find another home. My picks for the year’s ten best are below.Jonathan Menjivar’s exploration of class—how we perceive it, how we’ve internalized it, whether we try to change ourselves in relation to it—begins with a discussion of teeth. Menjivar, a longtime audio producer and the son of L.A. factory workers, goes to the dentist and is scolded by a hygienist about the “crowding” in his mouth. “It’s true—my teeth are all jacked up in the front,” he says. “But when she said that, all I heard was, ‘Your teeth are crooked, because you were too poor.’ ” It’s an “emblem of my class status stamped right on my face,” he says. “But I’m done keeping my toothy mouth shut about it.” Menjivar explores issues like class disparity in military service, the role of race in fashion, and trying not to be a “classhole” as he interviews a range of figures, including the comedian and actor Wyatt Cenac, who talks about debt, Hollywood, and the creative life; Terry Gross, Menjivar’s old boss, who grew up working class in Sheepshead Bay and became synonymous with NPR bookishness; and the British pop icon Jarvis Cocker, of Pulp, whose hit “Common People” became an anthem to many. “I wanted to find a different class,” Cocker tells Menjivar. “I wanted to find my own place to live, and people to live in that world with me.”
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S57Judd Apatow's "Bob and Don: A Love Story"  The documentaryâa mix of interviews, archival footage, and home videosâplays a bit like a eulogy, albeit a funny one.Bob Newhart and Don Rickles occupied separate spheres in the comedy world of the nineteen-sixties and seventies, or so it seemed to viewers and listeners at home. Newhart achieved success overnightânot literally, of course, but about as close as anyone ever got in actual show businessâwith his début comedy album, "The Button-Down Mind of Bob Newhart." Released in 1960, the record comprised a series of monologues with Newhart most often playing the ostensible straight man to an unheard interlocutor on the other end of a phone call. It hit No. 1 on the Billboard album chartâa first for a comedy LPâand would go on to win the Grammy for Album of the Year, beating out Harry Belafonte, Nat King Cole, and Frank Sinatra. A former ad man, Newhart had been doing standup for barely a year. He would become a fixture on television in the nineteen-seventies and eighties as the star of the CBS sitcoms "The Bob Newhart Show" and "Newhart."
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S58A Beautifully Mundane Index of Nothing  In a short story that serves as the preface to “Dream About Nothing,” Bobby Doherty’s new book of photographs, the writer Lauren Cook narrates the thoughts of a protagonist who, on waking each day, is struck anew with a form of amnesia. “Every morning I open my eyes and see my room for the first time,” Cook writes. “The hardwood floor, my white duvet. The birds on the fire escape, the potted plants. They’re amazing and they’re all mine and I can barely believe it, that I’m here with them.” The amnesiac’s recursive sense of wonder can help us think about the images in “Dream About Nothing.” Doherty is a commercial, editorial, and art photographer, and, across these genres, his pictures often feature mundane, everyday objects and figures. And yet, through his lens, these are remade, calling forth a metaphorical awakening—the heat and flash of the new. To look at Doherty’s photographs is to think, Was all of this really around us the whole time?Doherty, who is in his mid-thirties, and grew up in Putnam County, New York, began taking photos as a child, after his grandfather gave him a point-and-shoot film camera when he was seven. (“He was a photographer, but also a bodybuilder and an actor,” Doherty told me when we spoke on the phone recently. “A real character.”) Doherty approached photography very seriously from the start. “I was a little investigator with my little camera. I was, like, I’m going to walk around the woods and photograph trash, go through the closets in our house and photograph the Christmas ornaments,” he said. As a teen, he continued to take pictures voraciously, looking for meaning in the objects around him. “I’d take photos in nature, on the street, but also still lifes in my bedroom, where I’d arrange fruit and weird little porcelain figurines on a little IKEA table.”
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S59You Need to Watch The Most Misunderstood Robin Williams Sci-Fi Movie For Free on Tubi ASAP  It’s not until about an hour into Bicentennial Man that Robin Williams is allowed to use the most important tool at his disposal: his amazingly expressive face. Playing a robot who longs to be human isn’t easy — just ask Brent Spiner or Tricia Helfer — but one of the biggest barriers to entry is just how robotic movies and TV shows tend to make their robots.In 1999, Bicentennial Man split the difference and allowed Williams’ robot to look more organic as time passed, but there’s something about the design of Andrew at the movie’s outset that doesn’t really represent its nuance and intelligence. Today, if you can look past some of the design choices of Bicentennial Man, you’ll find an understated and tender sci-fi movie lurking underneath.
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S60PlayStation Plus Just Quietly Released the Weirdest Fantasy RPG  Capcom is best known as the creator behind prolific franchises like Resident Evil and Monster Hunter, but amid those mega hits, the publisher often releases smaller (and much weirder) projects. The epitome of that is Dragon’s Dogma, a fascinatingly experimental game with ambition in droves, taking elements from Dark Souls, Shadow of the Colussus, and Lord of the Rings, and throwing it all into a big bubbling cauldron. It’s an experience that can often be baffling and bizarre, but equally inspired and engrossing. With a sequel on the horizon in 2024, PlayStation Plus Extra users can play Dragon’s Dogma: Dark Arisen for free, and it’s guaranteed to be one of the most unique gaming experiences you can have. Dragon’s Dogma takes a page from Monster Hunter, with fantastic enemy design that’s consistently challenging and interesting.
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S61Marvel's Breakout Star of 2023 Knows More About the MCU Than You  The Marvels breakout star goes deep on fan theories, the rules of time travel, and why she’s the Lorax of the MCU.The Lorax is one of Dr. Seuss’ most morally clear characters. The mustachioed “shortish oldish brownish” thing defended the trees — “those Truffula trees!” — and the ecosystem that relied on them. Those who chopped the trees, however, brushed him off: “Business is business! And business must grow.”
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S62Star Wars is Finally Moving to a New Era in 2024  Star Wars television, once an experiment, has become a franchise within a franchise. After the 2019 launch of Disney+ and the success of The Mandalorian, the “Mando-verse” has become the main focus of Disney+ Star Wars originals. These live-action series have explored the New Republic era with smaller-scale stories focused on characters like Din Djarin and Boba Fett, but in 2024, a new slate of series will look to usher Star Wars into its next chapter.Empire Magazine has confirmed that Star Wars will release three series in 2024: Andor Season 2, The Acolyte, and Skeleton Crew. 2024 will therefore be the first year since Disney+ launched without a season of The Mandalorian or a related show, like The Book of Boba Fett or Ahsoka.
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S63Cyber Monday Deal: Get the Asus ROG Ally Handheld Gaming PC for $150 Off  If you’ve been waiting to get a gaming handheld that can play PC games on the go, today is your lucky day.Asus’ ROG Ally is widely considered the best alternative to Valve’s Steam Deck for a number of reasons, and today, on Cyber Monday, it’s $150 off. Though it’s normally $599, Best Buy has the ROG Ally with AMD Ryzen Z1 processor and 512GB of storage on sale for $449.99. A more powerful ROG Ally with AMD Ryzen Z1 Extreme processor and 512GB of storage is also discounted by $100, from $699.99 down to $599.99.
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S648 Years Later, a Highly Anticipated Action Movie is Finally Moving Forward  If there’s one Hollywood studio with a lock on the page-to-screen pipeline, it might just be Lionsgate. It’s behind some of the biggest adaptations in history, running the gamut from massive triumphs like The Hunger Games to forgotten duds like I, Frankenstein. It even managed to score the rights to one of the most prolific properties in anime history, Naruto, but getting a live-action adaptation off the ground will be easier said than done. Naruto is one of the biggest manga-turned-anime ever. It’s also one of the longest-running: the 72-volume manga ran from 1997 to 2014 in Weekly Shōnen Jump, which was almost concurrent with its anime adaptation. That gives Lionsgate a whole lot of material to pick through, and some massive shoes to fill, so it should be no surprise to learn that their Naruto adaptation has been in development purgatory since 2015.
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S6527 Years Later, The Quirkiest Starship In Sci-Fi History Just Got a Major Upgrade  In terms of interior beauty, the only starship in all of science fiction to have a more iconic look than the bridges of the various starships Enterprise is the TARDIS from Doctor Who. Although the Doctor’s TARDIS is technically an obsolete Type 40 TARDIS, which, way back in the 1976 4th Doctor adventure, “The Deadly Assassin,” the Time Lords made it clear that the Doctor’s time-space capsule was outdated to the point of being a joke. And yet, this bigger-on-the-inside flying blue box has now been kicking around sci-fi TV for exactly six decades. And as Doctor Who celebrates its big 60th birthday, the TARDIS has been expanded in a way that hasn’t really happened since 1996. Here’s why the new TARDIS interior may be the best one yet, but also why it's such a significant reboot for Who canon. Spoilers ahead for Doctor Who, “The Star Beast.”
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S67You Cannot Miss Tonight's Spectacular Beaver Moon --  The 2023 full Beaver Moon rises tonight and sets early tomorrow morning. Here’s everything you need to know to see this month’s full Moon (with a special guest appearance from Jupiter), including why it’s called the Beaver Moon, and what to expect from next year’s full Moon lineup.The Beaver Moon rises shortly before sunset today. While the full Moon is low in the eastern sky, an optical illusion will make it look much larger than usual, but it will also look like a dim ghost of itself compared with the bright daytime sky. The result is an ethereal sight that’s well worth taking the time to see.
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S68The Best Star Wars Game of the Century Just Got a Massive Cyber Monday Discount  Turning a movie franchise into a video game doesn’t always end in success, but when it comes to Star Wars, the odds are actually pretty good. From Knights of the Old Republic to Rogue Squadron to a half-dozen LEGO titles, the Star Wars games can be shockingly good. And earlier this year, another game joined that pantheon.Star Wars Jedi: Survivor is the stunning second chapter in the story of Cal Kestis. It’s an absolute must-play for any Star Wars fan, but also simply one of the best action-adventure titles seen in years. With a massive sale happening at retailers like GameStop for Cyber Monday, this is the perfect chance to jump into Jedi Survivor. Here’s why.
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S69The Sexiest Sci-Fi Mech Game Just Got a Huge Discount on Steam  With under 24 hours left in this year’s Steam Autumn Sale, you’ve got under a day to get over that decision paralysis and pick up any of this year's award contenders or those games that have been collecting dust on your wish list. While there are plenty of games to choose from, one that should be on your radar is Heaven Will Be Mine. This queer visual novel about mech pilots is a great entry into visual novels for newcomers — and one of the best (and weirdest) mech games around. Now 70% off at a price of $3.74, Heaven Will Be Mine is a deal you can’t miss.Heaven Will Be Mine is a lot of things. It tells an alternate history set in the 1980s where mankind is forced to team up and travel to the stars, due to the arrival of an eldritch space horror, leading eventually to three separate space-faring factions dominating our skies. Mech lovers, you get to play as a pilot, controlling a merch called “Ship-Self.” And finally, it is horny. Like really horny. Heaven Will Be Mine is all about the intense sexual desires that each pilot has and their efforts to relieve those tensions.
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S707 Huge Questions We Still Have About Tesla's Cybertruck  Despite the first Cybertruck deliveries being slated for later this week, there’s still a lot we don’t know.That means — despite some specs like a payload capacity of 3,500 lbs, a towing capacity of more than 14,000 lbs, and 100 cubic feet of exterior storage — Tesla’s most anticipated truck is still largely a mystery.
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