I thought I’d offer some random observations… First off, I agree with my fellow BIG THINKER Kris that it’s most unreasonable to fear terrorist retaliation. That’s not only because the odds […]
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French writer and philosopher Pascal Bruckner says the values that accompany our time’s ceaseless drive to be happy are counterproductive—what we need, he says, is a new humility.
We like to think the traits that make life sweet are those that make it long. But a recent long-term study of longevity over decades suggests that’s not so.
Robert Kaplan’s op-ed on Patrick Leigh Fermor in the New York Times, “The Humanist in the Foxhole,” stands alone as a cool piece of writing worth studying. Kaplan writes: Unlike […]
Six months out of the year I try to spend as much time as possible on the roof of my building in Brooklyn, where I’m cooled by a non-air-conditioned breeze, […]
With the increasing cost of health care and the constant threat of litigation, doctors and hospitals are under enormous pressure to keep patients and their families happy.
For decades, Mars has been the focus of intense interest and here are some of those updates that have recently transpired. NASA is preparing to launch its latest Mars probe, Curiosity (or the Mars Science […]
SUPER 8 is the only movie I’ve seen this year that’s worth thinking about. I haven’t, of course, seen that many. Posts on movies now in theatres on blogs by […]
Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, especially in the arts. Paint, sculpt, or build it right and others will try to follow your path. That truth makes Frank Lloyd […]
Something rather weird happened last Thursday. In one the the regular “Spring Cleaning” briefings on its developer blog, Google announced that they would limit the number of requests you may […]
Yesterday, we passed the birthday of Adolf Hitler (April 20, 1889). So let’s take a moment to reflect, something that becomes increasingly important as the memory of his infamous reign […]
What if colonisers and colonised swapped places (and climates)?
Is free will real, or is just one of our happy illusions? As it turns out, the answer might not matter as much as our belief in the answer does. […]
There’s a lot of stuff that comes through my Twitter stream. In addition to independent tweets, there also are my posts from here and Mind Dump, my Delicious bookmarks, things that […]
This is the first of a few guests posts that will come up while I’m out in the field in the Sierras. Today’s post is my a longtime friend of […]
Feudal society had many elements of commons production and huge disparities in incomes. Just like digital manor economies today. The digital peasants are getting restless.
A happy adolescence increases the odds of a happy adulthood, says new research. There’s a catch, of course: those who have enjoyable teenage years are more likely to get divorced as adults.
I’ve been traveling too much: Minnesota, Texas, India, Florida. All fun, but I’m behind on my blogging. Let’s see if I can get back on track… Goofing around with Easter […]
Has it been a whole year already? Today Dangerously Irrelevant is one year old!
How has growing up amidst the specter of war shaped the modern teenager? And how do we explain to the young why one man’s death is something to celebrate?
Who you gonna call? Somebody inside your data community, that’s who.
Today’s post is the one hundredth post for Dollars and Sex and to mark this occasion I thought I would provide a retrospective of the fifteen most popular posts to […]
In his new book, 1493, Charles Mann gives us a rich, nuanced account of how the Columbian Exchange continues to reunite the continents and globalize the world.
Joyce Carol Oates has written a beautiful book about grief following the loss of a spouse. As Oates is one of the most prolific American writers much has been written […]
Apparently it’s Richard Elmore Day in my electronic inboxes today. Here are two great quotes… From Using technology to move beyond schools (Elmore & City): With rare exceptions, schools currently […]
John Jeremiah Sullivan has written a beautiful, beautiful piece about David Foster Wallace in GQ. It isn’t easy to write about Wallace; how Sullivan chooses to do it is illuminating. […]
Jeffrey B. Rubin, PhD, is the author of the new book, The Art of Flourishing: A New East-West Approach to Staying Sane and Finding Love in an Insane World, available […]
These days, it seems like the reasonable promise of biotechnology has become INDEFINITE LONGEVITY. Actually, that goal was first articulated by the French enlightenment thinker Condorcet. In order for our […]
No sooner had Britain voted in a referendum on a new voting system, the demand for a new referendum came bellowing from north of the border following the resounding victory […]