Now is definitely the time to take risks. I have two daughters, both of whom are now grown and married, with kids. One has two kids, the other almost has […]
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Many of Johannes Vermeer’s most famous paintings seem almost eerily silent: The Milkmaid pouring cool milk into a jar, The Lacemaker deep in concentration, the Girl with a Pearl Earring […]
Online data fed directly into the brains of human beings via a “software/wetware” interface? We’re closer than you think. But the impact on humanity may be devastating.
So the respected New America foundation—taking its cue from former Princeton president William G. Bowen—is all about reconfiguring higher education along the lines of the 21st century high-tech, highly competitive global marketplace. What we […]
When the Tate Britain recently revealed the latest rehanging of their astounding collection of British art, many long unseen works found a new place in the galleries, but one long-standing […]
The Eye+ Window can display scenic views of any location and uses sensors to track your eye movements and adapt the image as needed, making it seem as though you’re really looking through a window.
Here’s what F. Scott Fitzgerald thought about his classic American novel “The Great Gatsby.”
Among the many things about America that the American Civil War changed was its art. Painting and sculpture simply couldn’t be the same. In these sesquicentennial years, every aspect of […]
We now understand that humans are 90% microbial but only 10% human.
As a follow-up to my earlier post about the mission creep of sexual objectification into places where it just doesn’t belong, here are two more examples. I could write a […]
This past Memorial Day weekend I visited my parents in Virginia. I live in Brooklyn, and their suburb of Washington, DC feels like being out in the country. It’s quiet, […]
Someone might say—and libertarians skeptics often do—that classes in philosophy and literature are given a quite an arbitrarily inflated value by according them credit. Do away with the credit system […]
James Webb will grant a peerless gaze at the universe the likes of which we’ve never seen.
An “ex-gay” Ministry President shows us all how apology is done.
Cybersexism: Sex, gender and power on the Internet Laurie Penny Bloomsbury, 2013 (available from Amazon) Sexism – whether existing in meat- or cyberspace – is the noise people make who […]
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal…” Really?
We are a community of messy, stumbling, fumbling beings tumbling through space wrestling with a confusing gift of consciousness. And that is the great gift of consciousness.
On May 24, 1813, just months after publishing Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen went to a show in search of her female hero. ”I dare say Mrs. D[arcy] will be […]
The original observation was effectively a lack of an observation. The conclusion was dinosaurs.
In traditional Sufism, a seeker would find a teacher and study under him for a number of years in a particular order, or turuq. During that time the seeker would […]
The Straw Vulcan is a nice trope for Hollywood to use such that Captain Kirk can save the day, but in reality we can’t be emotionless.
When I was building Cowbird, I was trying to create a kind of sanctuary for storytellers on the Internet. A lot of the Internet, in recent years, has become like […]
Antiquated phrasings don’t make you any more profound than antiquated notions.
Now that CNN and BuzzFeed have joined forces to create a new online video destination, the meme-ification of the news is almost complete. The viral celebrities, the LOL cats, and the Listicles have won. The […]
A little bit of philosophy can be a dangerous thing.
America’s nuclear waste is all dressed up in dry cask storage, with nowhere to go. In 1987, the Yucca Mountain, Nevada, was designated as a “deep geologic dispersal” site for […]
“When people have problems exercising self-control, restricting their choices can, in some cases, leave them more freedom to choose.”
In a charming essay on envy, A.S. Byatt observes that it “works inwardly; concealment is part of its nature.” Envy is a festering kind of sin. It’s also the Deadly […]
When an unexpected, stressful event happens to us, do we ever stop to ask why? Or is it too late to ask? We fall into an abyss and ask questions later.
We always have to remember that in macroeconomic statistics we care about things like growth and unemployment because ultimately they affect peoples’ lives.