Maybe a Crowd-Sourced Ambassador to Outer Space Isn't the Best Idea

Welcome once again to Reading List, awesome technology and science reads tucked away in one place.

Does SimCity deliver a more painful realization of our society that we'd care to admit? Is crowd-sourcing humanity's first impression to the rest of the universe really a great idea? What will happens once machines can read our emotions? All interesting questions, let's take a look at the answers.

• 2013's SimCity had a very strange bug, or perhaps intentional game design. That is, the homeless populations of cities at times seemed almost out of control. Professor Matteo Bittanti gathered all of the digital ephemera commenting on the problem, tucked away in online forums and threads, and put them all in one book. But the interesting question is if the homeless "bug" in SimCity exists because cities don't have an answer for it in real life. [Motherboard]
• One Earth wants to send a crowd-sourced message into deep space. Anyone can put together a personal greeting that may be loaded onto a digital spaceship, blasted toward the New Horizons satellite before it exists our solar system. Is that such a good idea? Maybe it's best that we simply communicate that we exist. [Aeon]
• Machines are becoming more complex at a startling rate. That's why so many intellectual and powerful people legitimately fear a future filled with complex, intelligent machines. But The New Yorker, hones in on one particular phenomenon as machines begin to discern human emotion. What will that mean for robotics moving forward? [The New Yorker]
• Small towns in Mexico are often strategically ignored by major telecoms, making cell phones use in those towns impossible. But the town of Yaee helped itself by installing its own cellular network. Here's how. [Wired]