Wednesday assorted links
1. Trouble in Peru (NYT).
2. The wisdom of polarized crowds (pdf).
3. The year of Ben Stratechery.
4. Big advance in text-to-speech technology, the remaining blips: “For example, our system has difficulties pronouncing complex words (such as “decorum” and “merlot”), and in extreme cases it can even randomly generate strange noises.”
5. I just pre-ordered the new Edward Tenner book, due out in April.
6. 2017 in architecture (uneven, the reality and the piece).