Culture

Are we in fact living in a simulation? This is the question postulated, wrestled with, and ultimately argued for in the latest provocation from acclaimed documentary stylist Rodney Ascher (Room 237, The Nightmare) through archival footage, compelling interviews with real people shrouded in digital avatars, and a collection of cases from some of our most iconoclastic figures in contemporary culture.

A Good American tells the story of the best code-breaker the USA ever had and how he and a small team within NSA created a surveillance tool that could pick up any electronic signal on earth, filter it for targets and render results in real-time while keeping the privacy. The tool was perfect - except for one thing: it was way too cheap. Therefore NSA leadership, who had fallen into the hands of industry, dumped it - three weeks prior to 9/11.
This is the story of former Technical director of NSA, Bill Binney, and a program called ThinThread.

Mikel Arteta has been named Premier League Manager of the Month for March. And considering they were rock bottom in mid-September, having lost the first 3 matches, look where they are now. There's an argument to be made that Arteta should be manager of the season right now.
But Arsenal suffer a string of defeats and struggle to find their form putting their top 4 place at risk. Losing vital players to injury means Mikel Arteta looks to his more inexperienced players to bring momentum back to the squad.

In the second episode, the murder of a political staffer in 2016 spawns a myriad of unfounded conspiracy theories as the man's family and the truth hang in the balance.
Following Seth Rich's murder, his parents filed a lawsuit with Fox News after conspiracy theories about his murder spread across the internet. Mary Rich told NPR that the combined trauma of her son's death and the attacks by conspiracy theorists caused intense and lasting distrust. After the case was resolved, Rich's parents said in a statement at the time that they were 'pleased with the resolution of this matter and sincerely hope that the media will take genuine precautions in the future'.

This episode is all about Williams Racing. After over forty years in F1, the family from which the team is named has sold up, and the not-ominous-sounding-at-all Dorilton Capital has moved in and is ringing the changes. They have got a motor sport man through and through to run it though: former Volkswagen WRC principal Jost Capito. The new boss soon starts scything through the team with ruthless German efficiency.
George Russell soon gets in the mood also, like a prefect joining in with the teacher grassing someone up, saying some team members need to be given the shove. The team does come through to score a valiant eighth and ninth in Budapest. The new regime is rocking and rolling.

This is the first of two episodes dissecting the psyche of Daniel Ricciardo. A second big money move in two years now sees the Australian set foot on the shore of the McLaren Technology Centre, only to find the territory is already occupied by Lando Norris. The Australian looks like he was really hoping to flash the car up into Q3 with his teeth, only to find it isn’t that easy.
Ricciardo is really struggling to get his head around the idiosyncratic MCL35M, but it gets worse: his boyish, funny, charismatic team-mate Norris is doing him over every week. The relations between the two drivers deteriorate also. Can Ricciardo recover his form?
The footage is interspersed with short scenes featuring Ferrari drivers Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz.