We have representative governments. But we can't trust our representatives. So we have referendums. But we can't trust voters either. That's what it might feel like after a series of voter referendums ended in results that surprised those who put them forth, and often the rest of the world as well. According to Quartz, this is turning into the nightmarish year of the referendum. I'd ask you for your opinion, but at this point, I'm not sure I want to know it...

+ The latest referendum shocker took place in Colombia, where voters rejected the government's peace deal with FARC. From The New Yorker: "The victory of the 'No' side has triggered a political crisis of unforeseeable proportions in Colombia. Nobody knows what will happen next."

+ Colombia's war zones voted for peace, while those in the cities rejected the deal.

Google just launched its version of every technology product. For those scoring at home, they announced a home device to compete with Amazon's Echo, an assistant to compete with Siri, a couple of phones to compete with Apple, a VR headset to compete with Oculus, and a WiFi router to compete with both established players and a host of new startups. All the products are about the software, and the software is increasingly about AI. From Wired: Here's Everything Google Announced Today. And from Digg: Just The Good Stuff From Today's Google Event.

It's still unclear what impact Hurricane Matthew will have on the US east coast. But Haiti is already feeling its wrath. It's the strongest hurricane to hit Haiti in 52 years.

+ NPR: The situation ... is truly catastrophic.

According to Reuters, "Yahoo Inc last year secretly built a custom software program to search all of its customers' incoming emails for specific information provided by U.S. intelligence officials." (The key phrase they were searching for: Why are you still using Yahoo mail?)

"Polls show that roughly a third of voters have no opinion or have never heard of each running mate." The NYT invites you to take the quiz: How Well Do You Know Tim Kaine and Mike Pence? I don't want to suggest that anticipation is low for tonight's VP debate, but Elvis just shot his TV preemptively.

+ "Trump has chosen not to release his returns. And I doubt he ever will, because they would reveal that the career he boasts so much about is built on sand. That's just one reason the 1995 tax return anonymously sent to the Times is so valuable." Timothy L. O'Brien in Bloomberg: Searching for the Truth in Trump's 1995 Tax Return.

+ I wonder if Trump's big loss isn't one controversy that we should just write off.

+ The New Yorker's Larissa MacFarquhar with a very interesting look at opinions in the heart of Trump country: "When people talk about Trump, they talk about how they don't like the establishment or the élites. When they say that, they mean who they see on television -- they envision people in New York City making fun of them and calling them stupid. Every time you leave the state, you get it -- someone will say, Oh, you're from West Virginia, do you date your cousin? Wow, you have shoes, wow you have teeth, are you sure you're from West Virginia? So when they see that the media élite is driven out of their mind at the success of Donald Trump it makes them want to root for him. It's like giving the middle finger to the rest of the country." (A middle finger we can take. Trump is a whole fist.)

"The woman was perched on a concrete ledge four stories above Madison Street. She was a strange sight there in red-and-black pajama bottoms, a black sweatshirt and pink flip-flops. She hung her legs over the side of the building like a kid gathering the courage to jump into chilly water." Chicago Sun Times reporter Frank Main was one of many people who witnessed a woman jumping off the roof of a building. He decided to "put a face on a person whose suicide sent ripples she probably couldn't have imagined."

Feeling pretty good about your physique today? Well, enjoy it, because according to the NYT, this is probably the least you'll weigh all year.

Courtesy of Quartz, an Oxford University professor explains this year's Nobel Prize in Physics in terms a high-school student would understand. And from Vox: The 2016 Nobel Prize in physics, explained in 500 words. As an English Major, this is the most confused I've been since Alanis Morissette released Ironic.

What if you had an automated tool to inform potential robbers of where you are and what you currently have that's of significant value? You'd probably want to avoid such a tool. Or maybe not. Vanity Fair on the Kim Kardashian's robbery and how Snapchat and Instagram may have helped the thieves.

"Of course you want to make a profit, but it's not about that. It's about continuing something. It's history. We're messing with history here, and I don't want to see it destroyed." A guy who once worked as a dishwasher at Carnegie Deli just offered $5 million to buy it before it closes in December. (He should launch a crowdfunding campaign in the middle of the Yom Kippur fast...)

+ Mental Floss: The most distinctive last names by state.

+ Gary Johnson explains why it's good not to know stuff about other countries. Following that, David Frum won Twitter.