Friday assorted links

1. The sheep human contest in France.

2. The culture that is Illinois.

3. How does fear of failure affect performance on Master Chef?

4. “The AI startup erasing call center worker accents: is it fighting bias – or perpetuating it?”

5. Kevin Erdmann on rising rents.

6. Do people underestimate how much they will enjoy strangers? (NYT)

7. “Baidu claims it’s the world’s first hardware-software integrated quantum computer and it’s already available to use.”  I have found such past reports unreliable, but…

8. Howard Rosenthal obituary (NYT).