Ruth Marcus in The Washington Post: The upside-down U.S. flag flying at the home of Supreme Court Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. — only days after the Trump-inspired insurrection on Jan. 6, 2021 — shouldn’t come as much of a surprise. After all, Alito has been doing the moral equiva … | Continue reading
Edd Gent in Singularity Hub: Getting microbes to eat plastic is a frequently touted solution to our growing waste problem, but making the approach practical is tricky. A new technique that impregnates plastic with the spores of plastic-eating bacteria could make the idea a realit … | Continue reading
William H. Janeway at Project Syndicate: Whether mobilizing for war or (re)constructing advanced manufacturing capabilities in peacetime, success turns on the functioning of complex supply chains. But this truth was long forgotten – or at least under-appreciated. Not until recent … | Continue reading
Eric B. Schnurer in The Hedgehog Review: For thousands of years, humankind has fancied itself the apex of creation and the dominant force in the world. Yet humans are now gripped by the fear that yet another species of our own creation—artificially intelligent machines—will prese … | Continue reading
Raymond Offenheiser in The Conversation: I spent 20 years as the president of Oxfam America, an international humanitarian organization, and have overseen humanitarian responses to some of the biggest crises of the past three decades, from the war in Kosovo to the conflicts in Ir … | Continue reading
Michael Erard in the European Review of Books: Language as self, language learning as magic, the mortifications of the flesh: these themes run through The Centre, a debut novel by British-Pakistani writer and translator Ayesha Manazir Siddiqi. Its narrator, Anisa, is a Pakistani … | Continue reading
Acadian Lane Indigo against ocher, Atlantic Blue abutting shore cliffs, bluffs, and sand, All of the earth on Prince Edward Island The red of dry blood, of weather-worn brick, Of the rutted, twisting road leading down Through the fishing village to the harbor Where lobster boats … | Continue reading
Kate Mackenzie and Tim Sahay in Polycrisis: Biden’s announcement this week to sharply raise tariffs on Chinese imports is an escalation in the yearslong tariff war on China. The new tariffs specifically target green goods, most notably electric vehicles, duties on which have now … | Continue reading
Álvaro García Linera in Metapolis: “Nearly all the economic forces that powered progress and prosperity over the last three decades are fading.” World Bank, March 2023Symptoms of a Torn Time For 35 years, from 1980 to 2005, the moral and labour order of much of the world was gove … | Continue reading
Carlos Bravo Regidor in The Ideas Letter: Carlos Bravo Regidor: Let me start with a deliberately general question: Why does inequality matter? Branko Milanović: High inequality matters because it deprives many people of equal access to various activities: school, health services, … | Continue reading
Large Language Models as Cultural Technologies Posted on Saturday, May 18, 2024 10:49AM by Robin Varghese | Continue reading
Steven Pearlstein in The Washington Post: It is one of the recurring plotlines in the psychodrama of U.S. politics: A talented and charismatic young reformer goes to Washington, is hailed for taking on a corrupt and self-satisfied establishment, but in the end is nearly undone by … | Continue reading
James Stewart in The New York Times: It’s been 14 years since Goldman Sachs was vilified as a “vampire squid” by Matt Taibbi in Rolling Stone. “Organized greed always defeats disorganized democracy,” he concluded then. Goldman has since experienced some hard times, tarred by scan … | Continue reading
The Patience of Ordinary Things It is a kind of love, is it not? How the cup holds the tea, How the chair stands sturdy and foursquare, How the floor receives the bottoms of shoes Or toes. How the soles of feet know Where they’re supposed to be. I’ve been thinking about the patie … | Continue reading
From Medical News Today: The proponents of intermittent fasting often cite benefits such as weight loss, improved blood sugar, and reduced cholesterol. And there is some scientific evidence to support these claims — at least in the short term. But what about intermittent fasting’ … | Continue reading
From BenGreenfieldLife.com: As I’ve been researching and writing Boundless 2.0, I’ve found myself reevaluating many of the health and fitness strategies that I previously endorsed. In this episode, prepare to have your perspective challenged as I discuss some of the significant s … | Continue reading
Walking the Beach, September 10, 2001 I like seashells, Jake announces as he holds up periwinkle after periwinkle, as if each one’s so different it can’t be left where it is. I like periwinkles, he says, the way kids do when they’ve just learned a word and won’t keep from the ple … | Continue reading
Christina Wang at McSweeney’s: Hi there, just stopping by to thank you for your loyalty. It’s flattering, really, how you find a way to wedge me into every email, team meeting, and LinkedIn post. Look, you and I both know why I’m summoned so frequently. I am to vocabulary what a … | Continue reading
Steve Nadis in Quanta: Imagine you had a friend who gave different answers to the same question, depending on how you asked it. “What’s the capital of Peru?” would get one answer, and “Is Lima the capital of Peru?” would get another. You’d probably be a little worried about your … | Continue reading
Sarah A Smith in The Guardian: Few writers have possessed the short-story format as thoroughly as the Canadian author and Nobel laureate Alice Munro, who has died aged 92. Although her early years as a writer were clouded by the feeling, partly the result of pressure from her pub … | Continue reading
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Evelyn Medawar in Translational Psychiatry: Western societies notice an increasing interest in plant-based eating patterns such as vegetarian and vegan, yet potential effects on the body and brain are a matter of debate. Therefore, we systematically reviewed existing human interv … | Continue reading
Capodici et al in Plos One: Cardiovascular diseases (CVDs) and cancer currently represent the leading causes of death and disability worldwide. Studies performed on large cohorts worldwide have identified several modifiable and non-modifiable risk factors. Among them, robust evid … | Continue reading
Subway I knew he was not in the house, my Autistic son whose presence is a heat, a warm breath blown backwards through my mouth into me. I could feel my breath in the empty air and disappearing and I couldn’t feel him. At the stops I am lost the doors clanging open I feel… | Continue reading
Doug Stowe in The Hedgehog Review: A few years ago, when my daughter was a freshman at Columbia University, one of only a few from Arkansas, I had the audacity to propose to then-president Lee Bollinger that the university add a hands-on component to its core curriculum. The core … | Continue reading
Charles Jackson Paul in The Texas Orator: Dr. Scott Aaronson is the David J. Bruton Jr. Centennial Professor of Computer Science at UT Austin. He is known for his work as a computer scientist and research into complexity theory and quantum computing, and more recently for his wor … | Continue reading
Steven Shaviro in his own blog: Bérubé’s new book, The Ex-Human, is about science fiction. Bérubé offers thoughtful close readings of a number of classic science fiction texts: Ursula Le Guin’s The Left Hand of Darkness, Cixin Liu’s The Three-Body Problem, Margaret Atwood’s Oryx … | Continue reading
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Laura Miller in Slate: “I’m a writer; I tell stories,” reads the first line of Claire Messud’s This Strange Eventful History, a novel based on her own family’s past. Admittedly, that’s not the most promising opener, since everyone from ad executives to life coaches goes around ca … | Continue reading
Teddy Amenabar in The Washington Post: Older people who aren’t picky eaters appear to have better brain health than those who prefer more limited diets, according to a large study of British adults. The research tracked the dietary preferences of nearly 182,000 older adults in Br … | Continue reading
In a Station Once I walked through the halls of a station Someone called your name In the streets, I heard children laughing They all sound the same Wonder, could you ever know me? Know the reason why I live? Is there nothing you can show me? Life seems so little to give Once I… | Continue reading
Melissa Heikkilä in the MIT Technology Review: I’m stressed and running late, because what do you wear for the rest of eternity? This makes it sound like I’m dying, but it’s the opposite. I am, in a way, about to live forever, thanks to the AI video startup Synthesia. For the pas … | Continue reading
Shelly Fan in Singularity Hub: Proteins are biological workhorses. They build our bodies and orchestrate the molecular processes in cells that keep them healthy. They also present a wealth of targets for new medications. From everyday pain relievers to sophisticated cancer immuno … | Continue reading
Lucas Chancel in Nature: As radical as they might seem, calls for limits on wealth are as old as civilization itself. The Hebrew Bible and Torah recognized years during which debts should be cancelled, slaves set free and property redistributed from rich to poor. In classical Gre … | Continue reading
Jonathan Kandell in the New York Times: Mr. Simons equipped his colleagues with advanced computers to process torrents of data filtered through mathematical models, and turned the four investment funds in his new firm, Renaissance Technologies, into virtual money printing machine … | Continue reading
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Dominion God separated the light from the darkness, but I have a light switch. Once there was morning and evening, but now someone has torn the heart out of a mountain, and they’re burning it for me. God gave every green and growing thing, every seed and every fruiting tree, to a … | Continue reading
by Ashutosh Jogalekar Once again the world faces death and destruction, and once again it asks questions. The horrific assaults by Hamas on October 7 last year and the widespread bombing by the Israeli government in Gaza raise old questions of morality, law, history and national … | Continue reading
by Jonathan Kujawa One of the great pleasures in life is learning about something today that you couldn’t have imagined yesterday. The infinite richness of mathematics means I get to have this experience regularly. However much I think I know, it is a drop in the ocean of things … | Continue reading
Bread Upon the Water every book just speaks and every light just shines, and every touch just feels and every look just finds and everywhere just is, and every road’s a line So, throw your bread on the water and beat your feet to the chimes and if you have a daughter and count yo … | Continue reading
by Tim Sommers Here’s the gist of it. I think a recent declaration on animal consciousness, being signed by a growing number of philosophers and scientists, is largely correct about nonhuman animals possessing consciousness, but misleading. It insinuates that animal consciousness … | Continue reading
Sughra Raza. Light Play in The Living Room, November 2023. Digital photograph. | Continue reading
by Brooks Riley One of nature’s most endearing parlor tricks is the ripple effect. Drop a pebble into a lake and little waves will move out in concentric circles from the point of entry. It’s fun to watch, and lovely too, delivering a tiny aesthetic punch every time we see it. It … | Continue reading
by Jerry Cayford Robert Sapolsky claims there is no free will. Jacob Marley begs to differ. Let us consider their dispute. Sapolsky presents his case in Determined: A Science of Life Without Free Will: everything has a cause, so all our actions are produced by the long causal cha … | Continue reading
by Nils Peterson Charles Simic says, “[I] suspect that a richer and less predictable account of our lives would eschew chronology and any attempt to fit a lifetime into a coherent narrative and instead be made up of a series of fragments, spur-of-the-moment reminiscences occasion … | Continue reading
by Ed Simon In Renaissance Europe, a Wunderkammer was literally a “Wonder Cabinet,” that is a collection of fascinating objects, be they rare gems and minerals, resplendent feathers, ancient artifacts, exquisite fossils. Forerunners to the modern museum, a Wunderkammer didn’t cla … | Continue reading