This is one of my favorite long reads of the year, although it is extremely disturbing.
HN thread from earlier this year: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27435384
It's from 2018, but I just read it a few weeks ago and really enjoyed the story.
It's about a couple from Michigan who “hacked” the lottery (and the basis of an upcoming movie starring Bryan Cranston and Annette Bening as the couple).
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2021/apr/28/crime-against-h...
But the piece that most reverberates in my brain is the one about ex-state executioners. It's part of the current vogue in humanizing front line workers, showing the toll modern life takes, and designing new systems from the ground up
https://www.eugenewei.com/blog/2017/6/28/the-truth-is-distri...
* The Iliad * The Odyssey * .....(list continues for a few hundred items)
Once you get through that list, the next thing to check out is Tim Rogers' review of Cyberpunk 2077 (I mean the new Action Button one, of course - https://youtu.be/LnBKX_vdYQI)