I’m sure, as James says , that the idea of some kind of Tory-UKIP non-aggression pact will not go away. But that’s because many Tory backbenchers are remarkably stupid. Proponents of a Tory-UKIP alliance ignore the stubborn fact that many voters – voters the Tories need if they are to win a majority…

This morning, like every morning, I sat cross-legged on a cushion on the floor, rested my hands on my knees, closed my eyes, and did nothing but breathe for 20 minutes. People say the hardest part about meditating is finding the time to meditate. This makes sense: who these days has time to do…

'Laverbread, arguably Wales’s greatest delicacy, is a superb savoury foil to bacon and buttered toast.' Photograph: Alamy A man named Rory MacPhee has just been granted England's first licence to gather and sell "sea vegetables", which include seaweed. It may come as a shock to some of the hundreds…

YOU TALKING TO ME? Microsoft C.E.O. Steve Ballmer delivers the keynote address at the 2012 International Consumer Electronics Show, in Las Vegas, on January 9., Photograph by Dan Gluskoter/EPA/landov. To the saccharine rhythm of a Muzak clip, Steve Ballmer crouched into a tackling stance and dashed…

Credit: Jude Buffum Face it, movie fans: the DVD is destined to be dead as a doornail. Only a few Blockbuster stores are still open. Netflix's CEO says, “We expect DVD subscribers to decline steadily every quarter, forever.” The latest laptops don't even come with DVD slots. So where are film…

Like the proverbial leopard, most people can’t change their spots. Most people like to stay in their comfort zone. Most people are averse to change. But “most people” don’t win . Winners ask questions like, “What’s next?” and “What am I getting better at?” Here are three powerful ideas to embrace…

In the 1950s, university researchers put volunteers in tiny rooms and deprived them of sensory input. The results were shocking. A 2008 BBC reenactment of Donald Hebb's isolation experiments BBC Horizon The experiences of prisoners held in solitary confinement—the despair, the disorientation, the…

Sir David Attenborough photographed at home in Richmond. Photograph: Suki Dhanda I t is hard to believe that Sir David Attenborough has ever mistreated a single animal in his life. This is a man for whom the natural world is sacred, after all. Yet midway through our interview, organised to promote…

How the industry kept scientists from asking: Does sugar kill? Chris Buzelli On a brisk spring Tuesday in 1976, a pair of executives from the Sugar Association stepped up to the podium of a Chicago ballroom to accept the Oscar of the public relations world, the Silver Anvil award for excellence in "…

Image credit: When someone wants to tell you a story about a recent customer experience, it usually tends to be more Tales from the Crypt than Happily Ever After. But that’s not to say good service isn’t out there. Here are 11 companies that will restore your faith – at least temporarily. 1.…

We have argued before that career plans are dangerous. Our reasoning is straightforward: If you find yourself in a profession which is evolving rapidly, career planning just doesn’t make a lot of sense. (Five years ago, store managers at Blockbuster might have started preparing for their boss’…

Robert J. Moore is the co-founder of RJMetrics , a company whose software helps online businesses make smarter decisions using their own data. He also previously served on the Investment Team of Insight Venture Partners. One of the fun things that happens when you start a company is that you get…

Stamatis Moraitis tending his vineyard and olive grove on Ikaria. Andrea Frazzetta/LUZphoto for The New York Times In 1943, a Greek war veteran named Stamatis Moraitis came to the United States for treatment of a combat-mangled arm. He’d survived a gunshot wound, escaped to Turkey and eventually…

It was a strange e-mail, coming from a job recruiter at Google, asking Zachary Harris if he was interested in a position as a site-reliability engineer. “You obviously have a passion for Linux and programming,” the e-mail from the Google recruiter read. “I wanted to see if you are open to…

November 6, 2012 Statistics, probability, and Nate Silver In the last few days Nate Silver has become the third most talked-about man in politics, with pundits left and right saying he’s audaciously staked his professional reputation on an Obama win. This is sad and shows how little we understand…

Daniel Shea for TIME "The cave" at President Obama's campaign headquarters in Chicago In late spring, the backroom number crunchers who powered Barack Obama’s campaign to victory noticed that George Clooney had an almost gravitational tug on West Coast females ages 40 to 49. The women were far and…

This post will detail what I did to make approx. 500k from high frequency trading from 2009 to 2010. Since I was trading completely independently and am no longer running my program I’m happy to tell all. My trading was mostly in Russel 2000 and DAX futures contracts. The key to my success, I…

Editor’s note: Nick Shalek is a Founding Partner of Sutter LLC. Previously, he worked at the Yale Investments Office, the firm responsible for managing the Yale Endowment. Liquidity fever is in the air in Silicon Valley. I felt this viscerally last month when a friend from Facebook came to me to…

Design Wants to Be Free The New MakerBot Replicator Might Just Change Your World How Nerf Became the World’s Best Purveyor of Big Guns for Kids Don Stookey knew he had botched the experiment. One day in 1952, the Corning Glass Works chemist placed a sample of photosensitive glass inside a furnace…

Mann directs Penn State University’s Earth System Science Center. Several months ago, he arrived at his office with an armload of mail. Sitting at his desk, he tore open a hand-addressed envelope and began to pull out a letter. He watched as a small mass of white powder cascaded out of the folds and…

Twenty years ago most criminologists and sociologists would have doubted that a metropolis could reduce this kind of crime by so much. Although the scale of New York Citys success is now well known and documented, most people may not realize that the city’s experience showed many of modern America’s…

7:30AM GMT 27 Jan 2012 Bill Gates has frugal tastes. Asked to name his luxuries, he lists DVDs, books and takeaway burgers. It is hard, however, to think that any fast-food outlet would get rich on Gates’s custom. During a long list of engagements beginning well before dawn, he consumes nothing but…

It was a cold winter night on 12 February 2009 when Continental flight 3407 took off from Liberty International Airport in Newark, New Jersey, on what should have been a fairly routine flight. But five miles north-west of its intended destination in Buffalo, New York, the plane stalled before…

Daily chart Crime rates and religious beliefs GOVERNMENTS labouring to deliver effective crime-prevention policies could do worse than consider divine deterrence. In a paper published this summer in PLoS ONE , Azim Shariff at the University of Oregon and Mijke Rhemtulla at the University of Kansas…

From the inception of his Presidential bid, Obama has sought to present himself as a leader with far-reaching ideas, and has prided himself on his ability to look past the politics of the moment. To the degree that he is able to ponder his strategy for the next four years, it’s natural to think he…

Imagine a world in which a man who is repeatedly investigated for a string of serious crimes, but never prosecuted, has his slate wiped clean every time the cops fail to make a case. No more Lifetime channel specials where the murderer is unveiled after police stumble upon past intrigues in some old…