“I probably am mellowing. I’m happy about that. I was a pretty angry young man, but if I were angry now, it’d be like, What the fuck is my problem? I’ve got a really terrific life. It’s so rare to be an artist in my position.”

Fuzzy memories of a house overlooking the Sunset Strip that played host to a generation of comics—including Sam Kinison, Andrew Dice Clay, and Robin Williams—launching dozens of careers and about as many drug problems.

How a tattooed video store clerk with a history of drinking and drug use ended up at an Islamic self-help class leading to the birth of ISIS.

Why are so many teenagers killing themselves in Palo Alto?

An ex-SEAL turns to “ocean therapy” to cope with chronic pain and PTSD.

Memories of the author’s teenage years, when his father pulled up stakes on a comfortable life in Baltimore to reinvent himself as the head of a S&L bank in Los Angeles.

On the battle over solar farms in the Mojave desert. An excerpt from Madrigal’s new book, Powering the Dream: The History and Promise of Green Technology.

An insider history of the fall of Myspace; from Rupert Murdoch calling Facebook a mere “communications utility” to the disastrous 2006 deal with Google that demanded huge pageviews and ads everywhere, and finally the present day ruins of a titan.

On 21st-century prospectors:

Shawn Ryan is the king of a new Yukon gold rush, the biggest since the legendary Klondike stampede a century ago. Behind this stampede is the rising price of gold, and behind this price is fear.

A profile of the up-and-coming comedian just after the cancellation of his VH1 talk show, Late World with Zach. His sentiment at the time: “Hollywood is just such a fucking idiot machine.”

Just after midnight, Rye police arrived to bust a house full of partying teenagers. The kids refused to unlock the door, and parents and cops flooded the street. A minute-by-minute account of the standoff.

On a decade-long war:

Hackers from many countries have been exfiltrating—that is, stealing—intellectual property from American corporations and the U.S. government on a massive scale, and Chinese hackers are among the main culprits.

It’s 11 p.m. when Larson at last agrees to meet me in the lobby of the Hampton Inn, next door to the Gurnee Grand. He’s just come out of a marathon closed-door meeting with his fellow exiled senators. Tall, gap-toothed, and handsome, but with a squished, broad nose, Larson appears in a fitted black overcoat, a sedate suit with a Wisconsin flag lapel pin, and an athletic backpack. He looks shockingly young, younger than his thirty years, and seems to be relieved that I am even a few years younger myself. We jump in my Chevy and head for the town’s late-night diner: Denny’s. By the time we settle into a booth, Larson has dropped the routine political affectations—the measured language, the approved talking points, the inauthentic humor. We’re cracking up comparing Republicans to evildoers on South Park and shit-talking mutual acquaintances in Milwaukee. And then, just as Larson is about to take a bite of his veggie burger, I ask the freshman senator if he is scared. “What would I be scared about?” he replies.

Notes from the campaign trail in Nevada with Ron Paul.

Part of Longform.org’s guide to the 2012 GOP field at Slate.

On video game collectors’ “holy grail” – a Nintendo World Championships cartridge:

Wired.com tracked down some of the Nintendo World Championships participants and serious videogame collectors whose lives have touched by these coveted artifacts of a bygone 8-bit era. Here are their stories.

In the days after 9/11, Mark Stroman went on a revenge killing spree in Texas. Rais Bhuiyan survived and, a decade later, tried to stop Stroman’s execution.

The Bachelor’s host, Chris Harrison, is now a divorced bachelor himself. It turns out coaching single men is a lot easier than being one.

The residents of Green Bank, West Virginia, can’t use cell phones, wi-fi, or other modern technology due to a high-tech government telescope. Recently, this ban has made the town a magnet for so-called electrosensitives, and the locals aren’t thrilled to have them.

Perhaps you didn’t know that in addition to being a very funny writer, Kafka’s life yields a lot of comedy too.

The transcript of chats between Silk Road boss Ross Ulbricht and a man he believes to be a Hell’s Angel who agrees to supply “hitters” to carry out 5 assassinations.

He was a fixture in the kitchen of one of Seattle’s most celebrated restaurants, with plans to move to New York City to further his career. Then he robbed a bank.

After DNA test cleared Clarence Harrison of a crime he didn’t commit, he was released from prison and awarded $1 million. But the redemption story he tells publicly hides a more complicated reality.

On the rapid disintegration of the ecosystem in Las Vegas.