Longform

What happened to the minds behind Napster, Gnutella, WinAmp, and BitTorrent after their creations irrevocably changed business and culture.

A lifetime worth of little scams adds up.

The unedited transcript of an interview with Julian Assange for the cover story of Forbes’ December issue. His next target? A major U.S. bank.

Its editors still live in different cities, still work different careers, and still treat Boing Boing as a (lucrative) hobby.

A globe-trotting, pre-CCTV profile of architect Rem Koolhaas.

DecorMyEyes is a online eyewear store with an unusual business plan; the owner harasses and intimidates customers who complain in order to get negative reviews posted across the web, in turn making his website more visible to Google searchers.

“Twenty-two years after being sent to prison for an unspeakable crime he did not commit, Calvin Willis walked out a free man, the 138th American exonerated by DNA evidence. He has won his freedom, yes, but how does a falsely accused man reclaim his life?”

The apparatus of counterinsurgency and occupation has funneled billions of dollars into Afghanistan, and much of it has ended up in the hands of insurgents. For those who have profited—be it through aid, extortion, corruption or legitimate business—there is very little incentive to bring the conflict to an end.

The latest WikiLeaks unveiling has exposed more than 250,000 sensitive messages from American diplomats. Among the revelations: the plan for a unified Korea, the Chinese government’s hacking strategy, and negotiations with countries for housing Gitmo detainees.

In 1976, newly appointed Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens voted to reinstate capital punishment in the United States. Thirty years later, he argued that it’s unconstitutional. Here, he explains why he changed his mind.

Scenario-based forecasts on the future of America, in the style of the C.I.A’s National Intelligence Estimate.

A profile of Focus Features CEO James Schamus.

On America’s two literary fiction cultures and why one will endure.

Michelito Lagrevere is a 12-year-old Mexican matador sensation.

A profile of Chicago soul great Syl Johnson.

The team of assistants that made Gandhi.

A veteran black Metro columnist, adrift in a rapidly shifting D.C., rankles an incoming generation of gentrificationists.

Brian Windhorst was one of the first reporters to cover LeBron James. He was there in high school. There at the draft. There in Cleveland. And now he’s there in Miami, though the relationship is far from what it used to be.

Published on the eve of Iran’s 2009 presidential election and subsequent protests, a look at the booze-fueled, hijab-less underground party scene in the capital.

A stylized account of the fall of ant colony.

Nobody knows the full story of why legendary surfer Andy Irons died in a Dallas hotel room earlier this month. But some who knew him have come forward to discuss the demons he’d battled for years.

How Cantor Fitzgerald is bringing the principles of day trading to sports betting in Vegas.

The story of John F. Kennedy’s assassination, written and published the following week.

Jay-Z on his new book Decoded, his parents’ record collection, and the real reason rappers have a tendency to grab their junk on stage.

“From the start, it was a bad case.

A battered 21-year-old woman with long blond curls was discovered facedown in the weeds, naked, at the western edge of Miami, where the neat grid of outer suburbia butts up against the high grass and black mud of the Everglades.”