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Cookies are Not Accepted - New York Times. Where Germans Make Peace with Their Dead. My great-grandmother Luise Gönner had a keen eye for dead people.

Where Germans Make Peace with Their Dead

She would see them sitting by the side of the road sometimes when she worked in her garden in the morning, or waiting by the village crossroads at dusk, a look of mournful reproof in their eyes. Whether the sight alarmed or consoled her, I can’t say. Luise was born in 1871 and died six months after my mother’s birth, in 1935. I know only the stories about her that my mother heard growing up. She says that Luise was in most ways a sturdy, commonsensical soul, so I like to imagine that she took her visitations in stride: old friends and neighbors stopping by to pick up the conversation where they’d left off.

Fractured Lands: How the Arab World Came Apart. This is a story unlike any we have previously published.

Fractured Lands: How the Arab World Came Apart

It is much longer than the typical New York Times Magazine feature story; in print, it occupies an entire issue. The product of some 18 months of reporting, it tells the story of the catastrophe that has fractured the Arab world since the invasion of Iraq 13 years ago, leading to the rise of ISIS and the global refugee crisis. The geography of this catastrophe is broad and its causes are many, but its consequences — war and uncertainty throughout the world — are familiar to us all.

Scott Anderson’s story gives the reader a visceral sense of how it all unfolded, through the eyes of six characters in Egypt, Libya, Syria, Iraq and Iraqi Kurdistan. It is unprecedented for us to focus so much energy and attention on a single story, and to ask our readers to do the same. We’re saving your reading progress so you can pick up where you left off later.

You can log in to save your progress or resume reading where you left off. Preface. Zen and the Art of Managing Smartphone Photos. Over a week, I tested three backup services with my photo library of about 8,000 images: ’s iCloud photo library, Dropbox and Google Photos, which automatically take your photos and store them in the cloud.

Zen and the Art of Managing Smartphone Photos

I also tested two data backup devices from SanDisk and Synology. My conclusion: For smartphone shooters, the secret to photo nirvana is to take a deep breath and let Google back up and organize everything. Testing Backup Services Apple’s iCloud was straightforward. In the iPhone’s camera settings, flipping on iCloud Photo Library uploads all your photos to iCloud, which is accessible by Apple and Windows devices. Photo Google Photos quickly set itself apart with its smarter auto-sorting features. Dropbox and Apple’s photo services had auto-organizing features, but not the smarts of Google’s service. Another benefit of Google Photos is its free offering is the most generous — enough to let you try out the service thoroughly before deciding whether to pay. Testing Backup Data Devices. The Nazi Underground.

Lower Silesia, in southwestern Poland, is a land of treasure hunters.

The Nazi Underground

Until the end of the Second World War, the region—covered by mountains and deep pine forests with towering, arrowlike trees—was part of Germany. In the early months of 1945, the German Army retreated, along with much of the civilian population. The advancing Red Army killed many of the Germans who remained. Nearly all those who survived were later evicted and forced to move west. Seven Places in Europe We Call Home. ­As Cole Porter sang, “I love Paris in the winter when it drizzles / I love Paris in the summer when it sizzles.”

Seven Places in Europe We Call Home

I am in the drizzle camp, and I’m lucky: Rain erupts all year long, sending the pigeons flapping and the crowds darting under cafe awnings. The 21st-century bustle subsides, and the Paris of the past — damp gardens, Beaux-Arts townhouses, Art Nouveau Métro canopies — emerges into the foreground. It’s perfect weather to revisit the city’s prophets, painters, poets and mystics. And departed spirits. Just outside my door in the Bastille neighborhood is the Café des Anges, a symbol of both the city’s suffering and resilience. Nov. 13 did nothing to diminish my affection for North African and Islamic culture, which pervade Paris city life: Moroccan restaurants, Algerian pop music, corner hammams, water-pipe lounges, exhibitions of the Institut du Monde Arabe.

Arcaded passageways are welcome companions on a rainy day. The Nazi Underground.

Art, Design, Weird Stuff

Eggstatic: Stroboscopic Patterns Animated on Easter Eggs. How to Stay Safe When the Big One Comes. We’ll send you a reminder.

How to Stay Safe When the Big One Comes

Your reminder will be sent For most of the past three years, I’ve worked as a book critic, which is not a job that affords me many opportunities to scare the living daylights out of my readers. (Authors, occasionally; readers, no.) But earlier this month, when a story I wrote about a dangerous fault line in the Pacific Northwest hit the newsstands, the overwhelming response was alarm. “Terrifying,” the story kept getting called; also “truly terrifying,” “incredibly terrifying,” “horrifying,” and “scary as fuck.”

Novelists and screenwriters can terrify people, feel pretty good about themselves, and call it a day. Who will be affected by the earthquake? The Cascadia subduction zone runs from Cape Mendocino, California, to Vancouver Island, Canada. It’s maddeningly difficult to find a good map of the entire region showing relative risk. Finally, here’s a map for Vancouver Island, Canada.