???? ON THE TUBE TONIGHT-

(all times CLT)

Google Earth’s (villain-ish) origin story: German Netflix miniseries The Bn USD Code fictionalizes the story of two Berlin startup founders who attempt to prove that Google stole their algorithm to create Google Earth. The series traces their beginnings in Berlin as a team of former hackers and art mavericks trying to navigate the startup world with their new bn-USD idea to take people anywhere around the world through a computer program called Terravision. When they later brought their idea to Silicon Valley, it was allegedly leaked to Google and eventually repackaged and released as “Google Earth” in 2005. While taking us through the rise and fall of a startup in the ‘90s, the story also portrays the impact of the events on the two startup founders’ friendship over the years. The two drift apart only to patch things up in 2014 to sue Google in a lawsuit that, disappointingly, leaves them with no financial reward or recognition.

⚽ There are no matches today… or tomorrow… or the day after. Welcome to the last international break of the year.

???? OUT AND ABOUT-

(all times CLT)

Climate-change content: Director and choreographer Zita Thury’s Reset blends contemporary dance, prose and film to tell the story of a coming climate apocalypse. Held at the Hungarian Liszt Institute Cairo at 8pm, the 50-minute interactive show will call on audience members to participate by voting through a smartphone app to decide the fate of its characters.

Clemenza invites you to Break a Leg to his funk and disco sounds at The Tap Maadi, tonight from 9pm. Over at The Tap West in Sheikh Zayed, Egyptian comedians take to the stage for Komedy Koshk, also from 9pm.

Special screening of Omar Samra + Omar Nour’s Atlantic rowing attempt: Beyond the Raging Sea, the 2019 documentary about two Egyptian athletes who attempted to row across the Atlantic to raise awareness of the plight of refugees, has finally been released in Egyptian cinemas and is getting a special screening at Zamalek Cinema tomorrow. One half of the team is triathlete Omar Nour, while the other is newly-wed Omar Samra, the first Egyptian to climb Mount Everest. (It’s your other option if you’re not keen on tonight’s special screening of the Lady Di biopic we recommended yesterday.)

???? UNDER THE LAMPLIGHT-

Whatever your thoughts on Harvard psychologist Steven Pinker, few can argue with the stated aim of his new book Rationality: What It Is, Why It Seems Scarce, Why It Matters. Pinker wants to bring rational thinking back to the center of public consciousness amid a “pandemic of poppycock.” His book is half-primer on the tools of rational thought developed over centuries, half-diatribe on the failure to think straight in the modern era.

The celebrity scientist’s latest love-letter to Enlightenment values comes after a decade spent defending a central tenet of liberal democracy: That under the system, things are getting better. That thesis — explored in 2011’s The Better Angels of Our Nature and 2016’s Enlightenment Now — earned Pinker fans including Bill Gates, Bill Clinton, and Mark Zuckerberg, but also pitted him at the center of the culture wars. Gates was spotted with an advance copy of Pinker’s new tome back in the spring.

For the verbal rational thinkers among you, Pinker has adapted the book into a 12-part radio series, Think With Pinker, for the BBC. And for more on the Harvard celebrity scientist’s controversial place in the history of thought, the Guardian has a good long read.