Literature has always been slower than the other art forms to grapple with technological and cultural changes—which is both a source of its continued appeal as well as its potential […]
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Ok, since I clearly have some time tonight, I was going to post on the new communications bill and the second dust-up between the al-Ahmar boys and Salih loyalists, but […]
Too busy today (and possibly tomorrow) for a substantive post, but maybe I can sneak in a new Mystery Volcano Photo. If you recall last time, Chris Reykjavik nailed the […]
In discussing the latest books on technology, The New Yorker’s Adam Gopnik derides Clay Shirky’s utopian views as “history taken from the back of a cereal box.”
In much the same way Hosni Mubarak (former president of Egypt) constantly and consistently made the argument that he was the only thing standing between Egypt and a radical Islamic […]
There have been many things to blog about lately – Salih’s meeting in Amran with shaykhs from Bakil, even while the Hashid governor watched, Bakil.net’s mocking take on Tariq al-Fadhli’s […]
A new study suggests that lefties and right-wingers both accept only the pieces of science that support their values.
David Cameron’s speech is heavy with rhetoric. But if personal responsibility means anything, it is that people must choose to be charitable, not be forced by the state to be so.
Egyptians take note: The months after a revolution can be more dangerous than the revolution itself, warns Anne Applebaum.
Even if Berlusconi leaves the soon, he will leave behind a toxic legacy, one in which the media cynically undermine democratic norms and women have been robbed of their dignity.
The next big thing that will rock the Internet: machine to machine (M2M for short) connectivity. It’s machines rather than people connecting to the Internet.
Research on facial recognition suggests meaningful changes occur during early and middle adulthood. Should we rethink what we believe about cognitive development and aging?
The White House touts as tight-fisted a budget proposing a record $1.645 trillion deficit for fiscal 2011, due largely to a new surge in spending to 25.3% of GDP.
All three kinds appear among the new books about the Internet: call them the Never-Betters, the Better-Nevers, and the Ever-Wasers.
I eat out of bins too. So what? Freegans know the best use of leftover food is to eat it – why arrest a woman for picking up discarded waffles?
How to gauge how sound the academic mainstream in a given field is likely to be, and how justified one would be to dismiss contrarians out of hand.
The coming integration of humans and machines may be a bit further off than he thinks, but Michael Chorost convinced me that we will get there someday.
When the telephone was invented, there were similar fears that human interaction would suffer, but neither it, nor the internet, changes fundamentally human traits like love and friendship.
Regular readers may recall some of my despatches from the Maldives in the Indian Ocean last year. I had been asked to go there in order to meet with President […]
The author of our Declaration, Thomas Jefferson, carefully distinguished in private letters between the modern life devoted to the pursuit of happiness and happiness itself. He says that Epicurean philosophers […]
Onto some news … Japan: The Shinmoe-dake Crater at Kirishima continues to be noisy – producing another impressive explosion Monday morning. However, the order for people in the region closest to […]
As intellectuals go, B.F. Skinner was pretty dismissive of intellectuals—at least the insufficiently hard-nosed and scientific ones who blathered unproductively about “freedom” and “dignity.”
China’s rise as the world’s second-largest economy highlights a new postindustrial reality: Population counts as much as productivity in determining economic power.
The last time valuations soared so high for companies like Groupon and Facebook with modest track records, or no track records, the trend line heralded the dot-com crash.
What happens when a Hollywood heartthrob and the art world collide? Berlin is about to find out as it plays host to James Franco’s first ever commercial gallery show.
The funny thing about all these frothy millions and billions piling up around social media sites and The Huffington Post? Most of the value was created by people working free.
This week, Watson takes on humans at “Jeopardy!” But how close are we to a computer that thinks? Google’s director of research explains how far we’ve come.
Will a Middle Eastern oil disruption crush the economy? New research suggests the answer is no—and that a major tenet of American foreign policy may be fundamentally wrong.
Besides making cities more affordable and architecturally interesting, tall buildings are greener than sprawl, and they foster social capital and creativity.
Among the newly proposed federal budget cuts is $1.1 billion from the Department of Energy Office of Science which funds the majority of physics research at universities and national labs.