Is the web making journalism more effective and thus more pleasurable? Maybe.
Context transforms content. It’s not that people like reading at a computer, though many have more opportunities to do so in the modern workplace. It̵...
Category: ideas
epistemology, philosophy, theology, religion
Journalists: your job is to speak truth to power. That’s it.
America would be a stronger, more democratic and far wealthier nation if our journalists asked questions as directly as the team of Frank Dohmen and Klaus-Peter...
Not in it to win it.
A different take on last week’s terrorist attack in Afghanistan that killed a team of U.S. intelligence officers and an Al Qaeda double agent. The argumen...
On seeing the new Titanic a second time.
I’ve read and heard bits and pieces of arguments that claim Avatar is an old, racist narrative: the white man who comes to rescue the dark natives. Yes an...
How did we get so mean?
This “disposition to admire, and almost to worship, the rich and the powerful, and to despise, or, at least, to neglect persons of poor and mean condition...
If you’re wearing a Snuggie, you might need to weatherize your home.
I’ve worn all sorts of ridiculous outfits to stay warm at home. For example: But wearing a blanket as clothing strikes me as more than just an indulgence....
Telling time with corn.
My mother-in-law remembers as a child her mother setting aside a few kernels of corn in early November and placing them in water so that they would germinate by...
Excellence defined.
Arete on Wikipedia.
“President Roosevelt had no legs to stand on, but he sure had spine.”
An entertaining and spirited critique of President Obama by Drew Westen.
Tapping the unconscious for a few extra dollars a plate.
The NYT on the psychology of restaurant menus: Tabla is just one of the many restaurants around the country that are feverishly revising their menus. Pounded by...
Like a great New Yorker cartoon, only, better.
The excellent every day is the same dream has been making the rounds online this week. It’s a very modest experiment but one yields has rich results; yet ...
What’s thrilling is that, as far as our brains are concerned, it’s all virtual reality.
Reading a mostly lame set of predictions for the future, I came across this: “Virtual reality – Glasses which show you a world that isn’t ther...
How to end a game fairly that was played with unfair rules.
From a fascinating discussion of the moral dimension of our economic collapse, Steve Randy Waldman: One group of people who did not violate traditional norms du...
What you see is what you get.
Avatar is as close to perfect as a movie gets – and certainly one that is oriented, by market forces, for a PG-13 release. Others will do a much better job asse...
“Doggone it, people like me.”
It’s no Prime Minister’s Questions but, edited, the following performance is pretty entertaining. Senator Al Franken arguing on behalf of the realit...
The problem with unicorns.
Hybrids are difficult. Perhaps, even impossible. Take, for instance, President Barack Obama. He is a white man and a black man. But to his detractors on the far...
Paul Volcker on recovery, government aid, energy taxes and financial engineers versus mechanical engineers..
From an excellent interview: SPIEGEL: The US has not yet instituted any kind of reform policy. What we see is the government and the Federal Reserve pouring mon...
A society that would survive a 1,000 year journey on a spaceship.
Writer Charlie Stross asks his readers to design a society that could survive a thousand year journey across space. Many of the responses are intriguing, especi...
Open licenses to DIY.
Lindsey Adelman makes beautiful lighting. She also teaches visitors how to reproduce her own works in a detailed PDF document supplemented by links to online re...
Eliminating bias in school testing by swapping teachers during grading.
An interesting proposition, among many: In the Internet age, a student’s work is just as easily available to a professor on either coast. Why then would a...