What’s the big idea?There is no shortage of online tools to help us research restaurants, track up-to-the-minute news and even plan out our zombie escape routes, yet there are very […]
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What’s the Big Idea? Up up down down left right left right B A start. Press these buttons in succession while playing any one of the more than 60 video games […]
Warning: a Scott Walker victory in the Wisconsin gubernatorial recall election may finally inspire the rest of the Democratic Party to start acting like they really want to keep Barack […]
There’s wicked, like the Wicked Witch. Wicked, as in evil. There’s wicked, like “It’s WICKED hot!” Wicked, urban slang for ‘very’. And then there are Wicked Problems; […]
These are crazy times, so why should the art market be immune? However, there’s madness and then there’s sheer madness. Only half over, the month of May 2012 might go […]
There are editors (the initial and final gatekeepers) who are not catching (or do not care about) these blatant displays of academic dishonesty.
Critics of New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s plan to ban the sale of soft drinks over 16 ounces in convenience stores, movie theaters and street carts are having a […]
There are a couple of stories from this past week that I wanted to mention: • A three-judge panel on the First Circuit Court of Appeals, two of whom are […]
Stories of German film director Werner Herzog’s calm under pressure are legendary. Not only did he continue an on-camera interview after being shot in the stomach by a sniper, but he saved Joaquin Phoenix from a car wreck that could have exploded.
Have you ever had a mystical experience?
The past few years have been tough on economics and economists. In a searing indictment written one year after the collapse of Lehman Brothers, Paul Krugman concluded that the central […]
The stereotype of Sweden as a liberal utopia of robust sexual health was somewhat complicated recently in the American imagination by the biker gangs, neo-Nazis, and serial killers that populated […]
While we know superstitious laws are silly, we may be better off obeying them. Doing so will save us the guilt of having gone against conventional wisdom if misfortune should come our way.
What happens when you do make it to the top of your field, only to find that it’s not exactly what you’d expected or been told to expect?
As part of considering the costs and benefits of major regulations, the federal government assigns a dollar value to human life. This is not a real person, just an […]
As paralysis continues to grip the corridors of power in Brussels and Berlin, even the dark humour for which central Europeans are noted is in short supply. But at least, […]
Watch an extended version of our interview with Lynda Weinman, co-founder of Lynda.com: What’s the Big Idea? Lynda Weinman quite literally wrote the book on web design. She was 28 […]
The next housing boom will be far more radical than the last housing boom. Instead of moving middle-class families into McMansions they can’t possibly afford, this next housing boom will […]
A unique history is what distinguishes one family from another, and knowing a family’s distinct set of stories is what binds the group together. While social media connects the larger society, genealogical work is what connects us to our own small group.
So of all the sundry commentaries on young Obama as literary man, the one that’s impressed me the most (except, of course, for my own) is the one by the […]
It must be a terribly confusing time to be a member of the Vatican hierarchy. In an effort to stem the accelerating exodus of Catholic laypeople, they’ve been cracking down […]
By Peadar Coyle It is said that education is something people have strong opinions about. A growing literature has emerged around randomized evaluations of interventions, most notably Esther Duflo’s work on […]
The tight squeeze in science funding means the best are forced to be even better. In an economic downturn, it’s like that across industries, but in no other area do […]
This post is an introductory framework for moral infanticide. Before we can even discuss cases of ending an infant’s life for non-medical reasons, we must understand why infants’ lives can […]
“Philosopher” is one of those job descriptions in America that brings inevitable jokes about unemployability. Carlin Romano’s new book, America the Philosophical, aims at transforming the Rodney Dangerfield of academic […]
With the help of NASA’s Kepler long-range scanning mission, scientists have located a solar system in which two planets are orbiting around two suns, confirming that multiple-planet “circumbinary systems” exist.
I’m looking at Jonathan Jones’ incredibly bizarre article in The Guardian (of all places), which undermines and short-circuits an important moral discussion, about Tony Nicklinson and the right to die. […]
Why is democracy so difficult? Could be because it demands that each of us accept, as the anthropologist Clifford Geertz said to me way back when I wrote this, “that […]
The title of Donald Rumsfeld’s memoir, Known and Unknown, comes from a statement he made during one of his famous “must-see” press conferences otherwise known as “spanking sessions for defense nerds” […]
— Guest post by Tina Cipara, George Mason University graduate student. “For the first time in history, the people of the world can see each other and want to protect […]