WSC 2025

Gordon Moore

Moore's Law

Sam Altman

AI's Moore's Law

Robert Browning

Rabbi Ben Ezra

Ezra Klein

Famous podcaster; Sam Altman, Donald Trump

Donald Trump

Many people are saying

Camille Parmesan

Scientist who doesn't want to have children

Alexandre Manette

Recalled to Life

Sydney Carton

Also recalled to life, but spiritually

Michael Crawford

"Counting Up to Twenty"

Paul Fletcher

Australian broadband

Bent Flyvbjerg

Megaprojects

Ibrahim Ibrahimov

Khazar Islands

Gordon Wu

HMZ bridge

Paro

Robotic seal companion

Donald Horton & Richard Wohl

Parasocial interaction

Roy Perlis

Depression amongst adults and social media

Alison Holman

Boston Marathon bombing and depression

Horace

Ode I. 11

W. B. Yeats

"The Second Coming"

Robert Frost

"Fire and Ice"

Emily Dickinson

"The future -- never spoke"

Johann Kaspar Lavater

physiognomy

William John Warner

palmist

Babalawo

Ifa priests

Hikikomori

shut-ins

Kodakushi

people dying alone and not being found

Seppuku

suicide

Karoshi

death by overworking

Astralagoi

Greek die

Sho & Mo

Tibetan die

Huayru

South American dice game

Rashis

Jyotish zodiac signs

Elijah Bond

Oujia board

tsujiura senbei

Japanese fortune cookies

Kundali

Vedic horoscopes

Michio Kaku

physicist's predictions

Caravaggio

The Fortune Teller - Gypsy

Georges de la Tour

The Fortune Teller - Gypsy Upgraded

Michael Vrubel

The Fortune Teller - Cartomancy

Julio Romero de Torres

The Fortune Teller - Women

Helena Sofia Schjerfbeck

The Fortune Teller (Woman in a Yellow Dress)

Jose Luis Cuevas

Dreams of Rasputin

Georges Bizet

"Trio des Cartes" | Carmen

Carl Orff

"O Fortuna" | Carmina Burana

Benny Spelman

"Fortune Teller"

Al Stewart

"Nostradamus"

Suzanne Vega

"Predictions"

Alex Naranjo, Marlene Vargas

House of Institution

Bao Quang

Temple of Buddha; Cards of Fate

Portia Ousch

surgeons, rebels, and fortune-tellers

Ted Chiang

"What's expected of us"

akinetic mutism

a waking coma

Rosenthal-Jacobson study

pygmalion effect -- teachers and students

Clever Hans

horse who could do math

C. Robert Cargill

Sea of Rust

Sam Hughes

"I don't know, Timmy, being God is a big responsibility"

Martino Martini

Jesuit missionary to Ming China

Scorpion

"Winds of Change"

Jesus Jones

"Right Here, Right Now"

Michael Jackson

"Heal the World"

Alice Coltrane

"Journey In Satchidananda"

Will Smith

"Will 2K"

Vangelis

"To the Unknown Man"

Difang & Igay Duana

Also "Return to Innocence" apparently

Enigma

"Return to Innocence"

Kitaro

"Theme From Silk Road"

Enya

"Caribbean Blue"

Filofei

Russia as Third Rome

Treaty of Chaumont

established great & small powers

Joseph Nye

hard/soft power

Adad-nirari II

Neo-Assyrian Empire

Taizu

Song Dynasty

Komnenian Restoration

Revitalized the Byzantine

Sennacherib

Destroyed Babylon

Hari Seldon

Psychohistorian

Richard Wrangham

fire for cooking

Callinicus of Heliopolis

Greek fire

cheirosiphon

Greek fire flamethrower

Georges de la Tour (again)

The Magdalen with the Smoking Flame

Jan Griffier

Great Fire of London, 1666

Paul Sandby

Windsor Castle from the Lower Court on the 5th of November

JMW Turner

The Burning of the Houses of Lords and Commons, 16 October 1834

Tsukioka Yoshitoshi

The Moon in Smoke

matoi

3D flag

ukiyo-e

Japanese woodblock printing

Alberto Burri

Red Plastic

Yves Klein

fire paintings

George Fideric Handel

Music for the Royal Fireworks

Igor Stravinsky

Feu d'artifice

Claude Debussy

"Feux d'artifice"

Oliver Knussen

Flourish with Fireworks

halyosy

Fire◎Flower

Katy Perry

"Firework"

Joseph Haydn

Fire Symphony

Richard Wagner

"Magic Fire Music" | Die Walkure

Jean Sibelius

The Origin of Fire

Kalevala

Finland national epic

Igor Stravinsky (again)

The Firebird Suite (1919)

Sergei Prokofiev

Winter Bonfire

Jerry Lee Lewis

"Great Balls of Fire"