Reading The Complacent Class, by Tyler Cowen, reminded me of a few questions I’ve puzzled over for the last few years: American colleges like to proclaim that they teach critical thinking skills: Not what to think, but how to think. Meanwhile, students who attend elite colleges typically enter one…

Comparing notes with other unsatisfied owners of the Peggy sofa When I was a kid my grandma had a couch on her front porch that was, as a result of some sort of thrifty post-wartime craft project, stuffed with crumpled-up newspapers. Every couch I have sat on since then has felt unreasonably,…

It is certainly possible that, as per recent speculation, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg is preparing to run for President. It is also possible that Facebook is on the verge of failing “just like MySpace”. And while I’m here, it’s possible that UFOs exist. I doubt it, though. The reality is that…

https://arstechnica.com/science/2017/02/surge-in-opioid-epidemic-death-rate-continues-hitting-2-5-fold-increase/

https://medium.com/humane-tech/tech-and-the-fake-market-tactic-8bd386e3d382#.5q0tp18j1

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.theatlantic.com/amp/article/384767/

Books New discoveries about the human mind show the limitations of reason. February 19, 2017 The vaunted human capacity for reason may have more to do with winning arguments than with thinking straight.Illustration by Gérard DuBois In 1975, researchers at Stanford invited a group of undergraduates…

Uber offices in Berlin last year. Some current and former Uber employees describe a largely unrestrained workplace culture.Credit...Krisztian Bocsi/Bloomberg SAN FRANCISCO — When new employees join Uber, they are asked to subscribe to 14 core company values, including making bold bets, being…

Ryan Hoover 3 min read· Feb 21, 2017 -- Once upon a time, people browsed the world wide web through human-curated directories, like this one: Gorgeous 😍 As more websites were made, algorithmic search became a necessity. Yahoo and others began indexing the web, using the text on the page to infer…

Peter Rojas 4 min read· Jan 23, 2017 -- Voice interfaces were all over CES this year. Gadget makers added support for voice-based computing to just about everything they could, ranging from stuff you’d expect like, TVs, speakers, and smartphones, to ones which are little more out there, such as…

10 years. It's safe to say that a single year at a startup is equivalent to several at a big company, and I've got to be real with you, I feel it. Since my very first startup in 2007, in a basement (c

http://www.theverge.com/2017/1/25/14376710/walt-mossberg-mozilla-firefox-browser-revived

It’s no secret that Apple’s culture of secrecy forbids even the most powerful at the company from spilling details about upcoming products. But, as CEO Tim Cook has illustrated frequently in the past, there are ways to drop hints and talk around the concrete facts. Much like how Cook gave rough…

http://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/Oakland-s-aid-to-homeless-camps-reveals-extent-10891626.php

David Heimann 3 min read· Jan 19, 2017 -- The internet has given us an unprecedented abundance of content. Never before have we been able to learn from others so freely. However, with more information comes more noise. It’s harder than ever before to sort the relevant from irrelevant. With the…

Culture Desk January 15, 2017 Any tribute I could give the tunnel tree, which collapsed last week in a winter storm, would be fatuous; the tree was older than the language in which I can write.PHOTOGRAPH BY CALIFORNIA STATE PARKS / AFP / GETTY Early last Monday morning, a friend of mine sent news…

1/5 Swipe or click to see more 2/5 Swipe or click to see more ASSOCIATED PRESS Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg 3/5 Swipe or click to see more RON KOSEN / SPECIAL TO THE STAR-ADVERTISER Several small parcels of land within Facebook chief Mark Zuckerberg’s 700-acre Kauai property are owned by kama­aina…

Defstartup Unleash Your Gaming Potential with Expert PC and Console Assistance We use cookies on our website to give you the most relevant experience by remembering your preferences and repeat visits. By clicking “Accept”, you consent to the use of ALL the cookies. . Manage consent Privacy Overview…

This has been the winter of our discontent. 2016 was the year the tone changed. There’s always been a lot of criticism and griping about anything Apple does (and doesn’t do — it can’t win) but in 2016 I feel like the tone of the chatter about Apple changed and got a lot more negative. This is…

The concept of an operating system is pretty straightforward: it is a piece of software that manages a computer, making said computer’s hardware resources accessible to software through a consistent set of interfaces. Operating systems have a special allure to technology companies because of the…

Op-Ed Contributor Credit...Mike McQuade DALLAS — I am a Republican presidential elector, one of the 538 people asked to choose officially the president of the United States. Since the election, people have asked me to change my vote based on policy disagreements with Donald J. Trump. In some cases,…

Speech recognition systems have improved recently, but no AI system is good enough to understand conversational speech just yet. Speech recognition relies on both listening to what you say and predicting what you will say next, so structured speech is still much easier to understand than…

John Podesta was chairman of Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign. The more we learn about the Russian plot to sabotage Hillary Clinton's campaign and elect Donald Trump , and the failure of the FB

Inside the Internet juggernaut Amazon.com, there’s near constant pressure to perform. In dozens of interviews ranging over two years for my book, The Everything Store: Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon, employees often sounded exhilarated as they boasted that they have never before exerted a more…

Big companies are often criticized for having “missed” the future — from the comfortable perch of a present where said future has come to pass, of course — but while the future is still the future incumbents are first more often than not. Probably the best example is Microsoft: the company didn’t…

In the Game of Thrones -like artificial intelligence competition between Houses Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google, and Microsoft, the company most reticent to speak about its technology has usually been

Larry Busacca / Getty Images Evan Spiegel, Snapchat CEO and co-founder. Facebook emerged during the US election as a central political and news source, but also a hub for hoaxes, propaganda, and outright fake news — an issue that brought wide criticism and concern from figures reportedly including…

What do the Amish lobby , gay wedding vans and the ban of the national anthem have in common? For starters, they’re all make-believe — and invented by the same man. Paul Horner, the 38-year-old impres

Press Escape to close the menu. Follow Us XInstagramFacebookLinkedIn My Account “You’ve got to have a vision to strengthen the grass roots” at the Democratic Party’s local levels, Rep. Keith Ellison said. | Getty 11/13/2016 11:48 AM EST Rep. Keith Ellison, reported to be planning a run for chairman…

News Desk November 9, 2016 The electorate has, in its plurality, decided to live in Trump’s world.Source Photograph by Joe Raedle / Getty The election of Donald Trump to the Presidency is nothing less than a tragedy for the American republic, a tragedy for the Constitution, and a triumph for the…

Over the last generation, there’s been a big shift in the way people find news stories. We used to get our news from the morning newspaper and the nightly news. Now more and more of us pull out our smartphones and look at our Facebook feeds. The result has been a disaster for the public’s…

Op-Ed Contributors Credit...Nathaniel Russell In many ways, there has never been a better time to be alive. Violence plagues some corners of the world, and too many still live under the grip of tyrannical regimes. And although all the world’s major faiths teach love, compassion and tolerance,…

Two former allies of Chris Christie were found guilty of all charges Friday for their roles in the Bridgegate scheme that crippled the New Jersey governor’s White House bid. Former Christie top aide Bridget Anne Kelly and ex-Port Authority executive Bill Baroni face up to 20 years for the most…

Comey says FBI recently learned of messages relevant to caseDocuments unearthed in probe of Clinton aide’s husband Weiner Clinton Demands ‘Complete Facts’ in E-Mail Probe Confidential tip?Send a tip to our reporters By , Andrew M Harris, and Chris Strohm Updated on October 29, 2016 at 2:16 PM UTC…

Researchers suggest anonymity for passengers hailing a ride as a possible solution. A passenger monitors the journey progress through the Uber app in Hungary. Photographer: Akos Stiller/Bloomberg Confidential tip?Send a tip to our reporters By Updated on October 31, 2016 at 5:51 PM UTC This article…

phantom underlines. isn't this amaaaaaazing. i love waiting for 8 seconds and seeing this. look at it. srsly. looooookat it. I spent a week traveling around Taiwan, on my awesome free roaming 2G data plan, and friends, we need to talk about your web fonts. Also cats. They really love cats there.…

You see them everywhere, and maybe, sometimes, you click: those rows of links under web articles, often augmented with eye-catching photos and curiosity-stoking headlines about the latest health tips, celebrity news or ways to escape financial stress. Usually grouped together under a label like…