seen.heard.read Fiction: Ian McEwan‘s Machines Like Me Charlie, the protagonist and I-narrator of McEwan‘s latest novel, has ordered a real-life doll! Actually, it is a synthetic human, one of the fi rst batch and his name is Adam. Torn between buyer‘s regret and curiosity, Charlie does not really know how to behave towards this “ultimate plaything”: show power or empathy, trust or distrust, treat him as a friend or it as a machine? His neighbor Miranda, who Charlie is in love with, shares his experience and co-designs Adam‘s personality. Soon, the main characters fi nd themselves in some kind of love-triangle and are confronted with a profound moral dilemma. Set in an alternative 1980, in which Britain has lost the Falklands war but Alan Turing had a breakthrough in AI, the novel is a brilliant exploration of what it means to be human. McEwan adds an intriguing storyline sur- rounding a dark secret that makes the novel quite the page-turner. The impeccable prose is just the icing on the cake. Machines Like Me by Ian McEwan (9781787331679, Jonathan Cape, trade paperback, April 2019). Podcast: 13 Minutes to the Moon (BBC) In celebration of the 50ths anniversary of the moon landings in July, the BBC has compiled interviews and background material to retell the story of when the US “chose to go the moon”. The podcast concentrates on the fi nal 13 minutes before the actual landing because they are “like a showcase of all the hopes and dreams, the technology and the science”. Narrated by Ex-NASA man Kevin Fogg and with original music by Hans Zimmer, the story of Apollo 11‘s moon landing provides a fresh view on an event that has become a part of the collective memory and has often been spoofed in popular culture. It can be downloaded wherever you fi nd your podcasts. BBC World Service, 13 minutes to the moon (https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/w13xttx2/episodes/downloads) Websites: New decision-making methods There are two methods that combine recent trends in team management: diversity in teams and visualization. To facilitate decision-making processes, these two strategies and tools are certainly worth a try. The fi rst one, Lighting Decision Jam, was developed by AJ&Smart and promises to leave “your team with precise, actionable results” in about 40 minutes. It involves three basic steps – note, vote and decide. The team collects ideas, possible solutions or approaches to a specifi c, given topic in a session of brainwriting. Team members vote on these ideas with stickers and can quickly come to a decision. All that is left is to assign tasks to individual team members. The second method, Manual Thinking, is an open, creative tool working with maps, lines and removable labels of all sizes to collect ideas and visualize possible ways to move forward. It might even be helpful when you personally have to decide where to go on holiday with your family. Everyone gets a say in this method by writing down their ideas and priorities and sticking it on the map. Developed by Luki Huber to optimize creative processes in his design studio. https://ajsmart.com/courses/lightning-decision-jam/ https://manualthinking.com Key Idiomatic English, see page 50 64 N° 5 – Septembre 2019