Much to the chagrin of musicians and critics alike, the best music does not always make it to the top of the charts. The market, however, does have a tendency to create an equilibrium.
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Critics say film director Wes Anderson has created the most distinct and identifiable cinematic world since Alfred Hitchcock. Anderson says its a team effort, led by long script-writing discussions.
Growing up in the United States in the 1970s and 1980s, “made in Asia” always held a less than positive connotation. Back then, most people believed–mostly because of poorly-made electronics, […]
Abandoning circular growth, the Russian capital has started sprouting limbs across the surrounding countryside
There’s a four-week mission to Mars taking place right now, complete with a Mars landing module known as the LEM, a full-size Mars rover, a mobile quarantine unit, a bio lab and […]
Help the secular community out! Two fellow bloggers have requests that some of you fine people may be able to fulfill: • Greta Christina is writing a new book about […]
The atheist community is abuzz over a discussion at last month’s Women in Secularism conference, in which it inadvertently emerged that there are prominent speakers who have a reputation for […]
To be successful in the 21st century, it’s more important to know what to say to whom, when, and under what circumstances, and for what purpose.
It’s pretty rare that you get to be present at the start of something potentially huge. It’s rarer still when everything about it – from concept, to idea, to funding, […]
I’m so surprised that so many people are convinced that monogamy—heterosexual, human monogamy, in particular—is some type of biological default.
Although I have become increasingly frustrated with Skype over the past weeks due to all sorts of incompatibility issues with other users’ Skype versions, camera problems and painful recording experiences […]
The ultimate goal of any education system should be to give people the opportunity to find and bring to life that which motivates them intrinsically.
Two of the Japan’s major electronics firms, Hitachi and Fujitsu, are working on a new biometrics system which reads the pattern of veins in your hand as a unique identifier.
The nonpartisan yet aggressively reforming mayor of NYC wants to ban sugary drinks of more than 16 ounces from being sold in various public establishments. We Southerners note that the ban would […]
Scientists at a Spanish university have created a material which could be painted on to concrete surfaces to reduce substantial amounts of air pollutants emitted into the atmosphere.
By controlling the delivery of the signaling substance acetylcholine to individual cells, a new chemical chip can regulate muscle function which may have stopped working for some reason.
Improved voice recognition software promises to revolutionize the way we interact with our mobile devices. Expect the technology to spread to your television, your car, your…
Researchers at a British university have turned to Mother Nature to maintain the current rate of progress in the computer industry, specifically a bacterium which contains iron oxide.
Mitt Romney’s plan for education, released last week, sounds a number of predictable conservative themes: union bashing, continued reliance on standardized testing, expansion of charter schools and reform or elimination of […]
Last night Frontline aired the film al-Qaeda in Yemen, which was reported by Ghaith Abdul-Ahad who writes for the Guardian and who, along with Declan Walsh when he was at […]
Most of our early advances in communication technology focused on sharing news over a distance – a good place to start, as it was helpful in avoiding death. We’ve come a long way since then . . .
When you look at the best healthcare systems in the world — that is, the ones that provide the best care and are the most efficient — you will find […]
As Yogi Berra said of baseball, it is 90 percent mental, and “the other half is physical.” This ‘Yogi-ism’ is equally applicable to tennis, a sport in which elite players need to be “intuitive physicists” in order to win at the highest level.
Realizing technology’s promise of accelerating our collective learning – of making us smarter, faster – is a matter of building the right tools, then using each to teach the form of knowledge it conveys most efficiently.
In the midst of an intense meditation on Walt Whitman in his Studies in Classic American Literature, D. H. Lawrence suddenly proclaims: The essential function of art is moral. Not […]
Every May brings with it a new crop of college graduation speeches. This spring, few (maybe none) were as though-provoking as multimedia artist Laurie Anderson’s at the School of Visual […]
I do not want everyone to have the same opinion I have on, basically, anything: from gay marriage to drugs.
What is the Big Idea? Halla Tomasdottir guided her financial services company Audur Capital through Iceland’s economic meltdown in 2008. The company not only survived, but its unique “feminine values” […]
In perhaps this blog’s worst kept secret, I have been writing a book. In fact, I started working on the book before Brian and I even started Waq al-waq. Originally, […]
Space satellite engineers are taking advantage of the power, size and cost of modern consumer electronics to build a new generation of space exploration technology.