Category: ideas

“At the time of this writing, there are sixteen thousand two hundred and seventy-seven days remaining in my life. I know this because an app I have installed on my phone tells me so. … And this is essentially the point of the app. It’s supposed to make you think like this – to terrify you into productivity, turning mortal dread into a procrastination preventative.”

“When you 3-D-print an object, it’s a fixed, static thing. If you want something more complex, you need to print it as parts and then assemble it. We thought, instead of assembling intelligence into it afterwards, why not print intelligence into it?”

“By analyzing the MRIs of 949 people aged 8 to 22, scientists at the University of Pennsylvania found that male brains have more connections within each hemisphere, while female brains are more interconnected between hemispheres.

Inspired by the ever-tactful Benjamin Netanyahu’s present to Pope Francis of a history of the Spanish Inquisition, Marc Herman considers what studies have shown that givers and receivers think about gifting and re-gifting.

“Is the idea that the left hemisphere of the brain is more logical and the right more intuitive a scientific fact or a cultural fiction? Commentator Tania Lombrozo turns to an expert for answers.”

In a blog entry rendered entirely in verse, Robinson Meyer points us to an online quiz testing your ability to tell one shade of Silicon Valley’s favorite color from another.

“For those with humanistic and artistic life interests, our economic system has almost nothing to offer.”

“They are to be monuments, architectural techno-visions that reflect the now inexorable digital domination. They are an expression of the worldwide economic and cultural supremacy that Silicon Valley and its leaders overtly claim for themselves.”

(Yes, you read that headline correctly.)