Daniel Honan
Former Managing Editor, Big Think
From 2011-2014, Daniel Honan was the Managing Editor at Big Think. Prior to Big Think, Daniel was Vice President of Production for Plum TV, a niche cable network he helped launch in 2002. The production team he oversaw won over two dozen Emmy awards. Daniel has created numerous shows and documentaries for television, and his film credits include Stealing the Fire, a documentary on the black market for nuclear weapons technology.
Follow Daniel on Twitter @DanielHonan
The character assassination of Edgar Allan Poe
"Poe is one of the writers who make us who we are," wrote E. L. Doctorow. So how is it that Poe's countrymen could be so hostile to the man? As it turns out, there was villainy at work.
Lessons from a Game Designed to Break Your Heart
"The game begins in the spring, when everything else begins again, and it blossoms in the summer, filling the afternoons and evenings, and then as soon as the chill rains come, it stops and leaves you to face the fall alone." - A. Bartlett Giamatti
What Washington Can Learn From the Yale Political Union
How can the ethics of compromise and confrontation, as practiced in Washington, be improved?
What We Can Learn From Rafael Nadal, the Albert Einstein of Tennis
“What we’re seeing here, this guy is the Leonardo da Vinci—the Albert Einstein—of tennis.”
Steven Pinker and the Scientific Worldview
The scientific mindset, Steven Pinker argues, is "indispensable in all areas of human concern, including politics, the arts, and the search for meaning, purpose, and morality."
How Do We Understand Our Quirky, Unconscious Reactions to Trayvon Martin?
We are in need of tools to help us truly examine our own attitudes.
Don’t Throw Archimedes Out With the Bath Water Just Yet
The idea of the "Eureka! moment" might very well prove to be the most useful concept that Archimedes passed down to us.
How to Survive and Thrive in a World of Digital Darwinism (Don’t Be Lame)
How do you get a million and a half people to read a blog post on tax policy? Obama digital wunderkind Teddy Goff has a simple mantra: don't be lame.
Is The Great Gatsby the Most Overrated Literary Novel of All Time?
In the spirit of maintaining an open mind, and in an attempt to purge myself of past prejudices, I will be re-reading The Great Gatsby this weekend.
We may be getting dumber much faster than we think
A study shows a substantial decline in general intelligence of 1.23 IQ points per decade or 14 IQ points since Victorian times.
Dawn Kasper’s Spontaneous Web
And so in putting together a playlist of videos as part of an original MOCAtv series called "YouTube Curated By," Kasper selected some moments of real-life risk-taking and spontaneity.
Brooke Candy’s Awesomely Erratic Freestyle Mix
"None of my videos have any common tie to them," says Brooke Candy, a rapper who has offered her picks of YouTube as part of an original MOCAtv series called "YouTube Curated By."
You Are Not So Smart and You Are in Very Good Company
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.
How to Think Like Shakespeare: The Positive Value of Negative Capability
How can a uniquely Shakespearean habit of mind can be applied to our own lives in order to help us think more creatively?
Imagine No Religion. Here’s What It Looks Like.
Imagine there's no religion. That's what the Dutch painter Hieronymus Bosch did in his iconic painting "The Garden of Earthly Delights."
Raging Machines: Compressorhead, the First Robot Rock Band
The robot band cannot replicate the punk attitude of the Ramones or the soulfulness of B.B. King. Yet.
Skip Arnold’s Guide to YouTube as a Performance Space
Skip Arnold tends to put his body in strange places, often while naked, and often in great discomfort. For instance, the naked man strapped to the hood of an eighteen-wheeler driving along […]
Outsider Thinking: What Science Can Learn From Art
Just as artists are using technology to enable participation, doctors need to do that too.
For Your Eyes Only: Henry Kissinger’s Dirty Laundry, Courtesy of Wikileaks
collection covers US involvements in, and diplomatic or intelligence reporting on, every country on earth. It is the single most significant body of geopolitical material ever published.
When Was the Last Time This Happened?
Today’s date is 4/5/2013–all different digits. When was the last time this happened?
Accelerating Change: Exploring the Marijuana-Gay Marriage Analogy
The rapid transformation in public opinion on legalizing marijuana mirrors changes in support for gay marriage in a number of interesting, yet also contradictory ways.
Quick, Read this Post on 3D Printing Before It’s Out of Date
The field of 3D printing is advancing rapidly due to a convergence of technologies, or what might be called "a perfect storm."
Cindy Bernard’s Playlist: Music as Self-Empowerment
Music, the Dionysian art form, plays a unique role in establishing one’s identity and sense of self-empowerment. And music is particularly significant in the life and career of the Los […]
The Beholder’s Response: How the Brain Responds to Ambiguity in Art
As a spectator you generate a fair amount of creativity in reconstructing an image in your head in a way that is unique for you and is slightly different for me.
Neil deGrasse Tyson’s Universe of Ideas: Who to Follow & What to Read
What Tyson has done is presented science from another angle. Call it the "we don’t know it yet" angle.
Koons on the Freeway: What’s Wrong with this Picture?
We spend 80 million hours a day watching videos on YouTube, and we would certainly like to have a few of those hours back. That is, of course, if we are […]
Four Things You Need to Know About the Same Sex Marriage Debate
The Supreme Court could make history with its rulings on the legality of both California's Proposition 8 ban on same-sex marriage and the federal Defense of Marriage Act.
Penn Jillette: Why I Like Donald Trump, aka Scrooge McDuck
"Having strong opinions is part of the joy of being alive, and loving people in spite of those strong opinions is one of the other joys of being alive."
John Wood’s Battle for Global Literacy
"Let's collectively be the Andrew Carnegie of the 21st century," says John Wood, who details his experience of building and scaling the non-profit Room to Read.
A Trip Down Shepard Fairey’s YouTube Rabbit Hole
Shepard Fairey's aesthetic, which has so much to do with appropriating and re-imagining images -- is best understood through the lens of his many colorful influences.