World’s biggest iceberg heads for disaster
Manhattan Island, New York, to scale South Georgia Island Iceberg A68a 100 Km Manhattan Island, New York, to scale South Georgia Island Iceberg A68a 100 Km Manhattan Island, New York, to scale South G
And a pony at your birthday party
Do you remember your first birthday party? That’s pretty unlikely, even if you have pictures to remind you. So what’s all the hoopla for? Why the cake and the pony and the rest? It’s pretty clear that
The Arc of the Moral Universe Sure Is Following a Weird Trajectory
The arc of the moral universe is long. And winding. Sometimes it zigzags. Sometimes it goes in a circle. Sometimes it misses its exit and has to make a U-turn. Sometimes it gets confused listening to
Progress, stagnation, and flying cars
A review of Where Is My Flying Car? by J. Storrs Hall November 6, 2020 · 12 min read Suppose you were to reach into the mirror universe, where everything is inverted, and pull out a book tha
LatinX-plaining the election
Pre-election Trump rally in Miami, along ‘Calle Ocho’ and through the historical heart of Cuban Miami. Whether it be paella or revolution, nothing that is Spanish is ever simple. -Henri Verneuil, ‘Un
The Disease of Delegitimization
Editor’s Note: “First Drafts” are attempts to work through tensions in our own thinking in real time, with you, the crowd, as our interlocutors. Please feel free to challenge us in the comments. If yo
Learning Through Play
Play is an essential way of learning about the world. Doing things we enjoy without a goal in mind leads us to find new information, better understand our own capabilities, and find unexpected beauty
How we got here, how we get out
Contrary to the promise made by this combined political/sewing machine ad, we again have no evidence of white improvement ( Image courtesy Cornell Library ) Share Here is what we know right now: The P
it is not going to feel how you want it to feel
If Biden wins, it is not going to feel like you want it to feel. That’s what I wrote in the piece that went up yesterday on MSNBC, about the two sets of plans that people were having to hold in their
how email became work
This is the Sunday edition of Culture Study — the newsletter from Anne Helen Petersen, which you can read about here . If you like it and want more like it in your inbox, consider subscribing . There
Resignation Letter — Bari Weiss
Dear A.G., It is with sadness that I write to tell you that I am resigning from The New York Times. I joined the paper with gratitude and optimism three years ago. I was hired with the goal of bringin
The Psychedelic Election
There are many ways in which this election might portend the future, but there’s a seemingly small issue — only on the ballot in Oregon and the District of Columbia — that’s a sleeper, it seems to me,
The Beating Pulse of Donald Judd
Image above : Donald Judd’s 100 untitled works in mill aluminum, 1982–1986, as installed in Marfa, Texas. (Photograph by Alex Marks. Donald Judd Art © 2020 Judd Foundation / Artists Rights Society [AR
Why efficiency is dangerous and slowing down makes life better | Psyche Ideas
‘Slow down, you move too fast … ’ – ‘The 59th Street Bridge Song (Feelin’ Groovy)’ (1966) by Paul Simon We worship efficiency . Use less to get more. Same-day delivery. Multitask; text on one device w
When time stops
Time, like life, hasn't stopped under lockdown. It only feels that way. Amidst the pervasive anxiety about illness and economic hardship, it can be easy to miss somewhat subtler forms of distress — li
"1999 Mount Holyoke Commencement Speech" by Anna Quindlen
Background Anna Quindlen is an author, journalist, and opinion columnist. She originally delivered this speech as the commencement address to the class of 1999 at Mount Holyoke College. 1 Note: Thanks
Finite and Infinite Games: Two Ways to Play the Game of Life
BlogVault Firewall
Blocked because of Malicious Activities
Why Do Corporations Speak the Way They Do?
Photo: Monkey Business Images/Shutterstock This article was featured in One Great Story , New York ’s reading recommendation newsletter. Sign up here to get it nightly. I worked at various start-ups f
The Desk on Hancock Hill
The desk on the top of Hancock Hill is metal and dark gray, maybe from the sixties. Its drawers are banged up, and its top is graffitied with initials. When you get to the desk, someone might already
A Sick Giant — Wait But Why
This is Chapter 10 in a blog series. If you’re new to the series, visit the series home page for the full table of contents. Part 5: A Dangerous Trend “The gentle downward slope gets steeper and imper
The Age of Instagram Face
This past summer, I booked a plane ticket to Los Angeles with the hope of investigating what seems likely to be one of the oddest legacies of our rapidly expiring decade: the gradual emergence, among
The 2030 Last-Minute Christmas Gift Guide
Buying Christmas gifts for you friends, family, and loved ones is always hard—and after yet another turbulent year it looked like maybe it was finally time to just cancel the holidays! But things are
On Pioneers, Settlers, Town Planners and Theft.
I often talk about the use of cell based structures (e.g. think Amazon Two Pizza, Starfish model) which are populated not only with aptitude (the skill to do something) but the right attitude (type of
Good Science, Bad Science, Pseudoscience: How to Tell the Difference
In a digital world that clamors for clicks, news is sensationalized and “facts” change all the time. Here’s how to discern what is trustworthy and what is hogwash. *** Unless you’ve studied it, most o
I Biohacked for 10 Weeks to Try to Live Forever
I put on a pair of wool socks, slippers, mittens, earmuffs, and a surgical mask, remove my shirt, and open the door of a coffin-sized chamber, thereby releasing vapor into the room. I glance up at the
Having Kids
December 2019 Before I had kids, I was afraid of having kids. Up to that point Ifelt about kids the way the young Augustine felt about livingvirtuously. I'd have been sad to think I'd never have child
Lucid Dreaming: A Beginner's Guide
John Smith making another title look like child’s play (no audio) From 1994-1995 I had the great pleasure of training with wrestling legend John Smith, 2-time gold medalist and 4-time world champion (
A giant star is acting strange, and astronomers are buzzing
The constellation Orion is one of the most recognizable patterns in the night sky, visible around the world. But if you’ve looked at Orion recently and thought something seemed off, you’re not wrong:
Analysis | The decade has ended, but it will never be over
In the first week of the second decade of the third millennium, it was 68 and sunny southeast of Baghdad. At an outpost known as Contingency Operating Station Hammer, intelligence analysts for the U.S
The Bus Ticket Theory of Genius
November 2019 Everyone knows that to do great work you need both natural abilityand determination. But there's a third ingredient that's not aswell understood: an obsessive interest in a particular to
How Performance Reviews Can Kill Your Culture
Performance reviews are designed to motivate and bring the best out of our teams, but they often do the opposite. Here’s how to bring out the best in your people. *** If you ask people what’s wrong wi
Silicon Valley’s psychedelic wonder drug is almost here
“This could save lives, cure depression, help alcoholism, get people off opioids—why wouldn’t I want to be invested?” Shark Tank host Kevin O’Leary is sitting across from me in a restaurant talking ab
How to Configure Your iPhone to Work for You, Not Against You
This wallpaper trades money and battery life for increased charisma and personal longevity (full explanation in Step #6). The Very, Very Complete Guide to Productivity, Focus, and Your Own Longevity C
Speed matters: Why working quickly is more important than it seems « the jsomers.net blog
The obvious benefit to working quickly is that you’ll finish more stuff per unit time. But there’s more to it than that. If you work quickly, the cost of doing something new will seem lower in your mi
Universal Laws of the World
If something is true in one field it’s probably true in others. Restricting your attention to your own field blinds you to how many important things people from other fields have figured out that are
Innocence lost: What did you do before the internet?
Yawning gap: days of nothing are a ‘soon-to-be lost plane of human experience’.Illustration: Nathalie Lees I n moments of digital anxiety I find myself thinking of my father’s desk. Dad was a travelli
Cop Diary - The Sun Magazine
As we were putting together this month’s issue, The Sun ’s editor, Sy Safransky, recalled an article he’d come across years ago. He couldn’t remember the name of the author or when the piece had been
Spoils of #nature on Instagram
dossier / BESIDE + RADIO-CANADA Natural sites are being overrun by a new wave of tourists just "doin' it for the 'Gram." And the consequences are far from harmless: threatened fauna and flora, exhaust
How to change the course of human history
The story we have been telling ourselves about our origins is wrong, and perpetuates the idea of inevitable social inequality. David Graeber and David Wengrow ask why the myth of 'agricultural revolut