Category: ideas

The problem with media watchdogs is that they tend to come at their practice from a preset partisan position, and look only for journalistic offenses that target their side. “But what if there were a device that objectively flagged questionable elements in online news articles, poking and parsing words and phrases, and letting you contribute your own critiques?”

Linguist David Crystal’s new book “makes the argument that the idiolect of texting is… the product of basic, ordinary processes found in other forms of communication. The most obvious case is initialism – with AWOL, ASAP, and SNAFU, for example, having long since become commonplaces.”

“Genius, in the popular conception, is inextricably tied up with precocity–doing something truly creative, we’re inclined to think, requires the freshness and exuberance and energy of youth.” But why is youth the important factor?

“In a counterintuitive study released last month, three scientists have discovered that drivers choosing between multiple routes to reach their destination the fastest can actually end up slowing everyone down. Limiting their options by closing off certain streets could actually reduce congestion.”

The Detroit Science Center’s exhibition “Leonardo da Vinci: Man, Inventor, Genius” features 60 of the Renaissance man’s inventions in wooden models – some of which, like the fly-wheel, you can actually play with.

With all the financial turmoil coinciding with Yom Kippur and the end of Ramadan, clergymen are fielding some tough questions. “The young man, a business student, had a theological complaint to register: Why did Islam make such a big deal about the principle of mutual benefit? What was the matter with just taking care of yourself?”

“Google’s Gmail Labs has a new experimental featured dubbed ‘Mail Goggles’ which will attempt to prevent you from sending out those ill-advised late night e-mails.”

The most famous prayer in the Yom Kippur liturgy asks the Almighty that all vows and oaths taken during the year be lifted. Does that really mean that Jews can break their word? As usual, context is everything – and rabbis and thinkers have been arguing over the Kol Nidre for centuries.

Yes, these are among the 2008 winners of “the Ig Nobel prize, the annual award given by the Annals of Improbable Research magazine to oddball but often surprisingly practical scientific achievements.”

It’s a young man’s world, especially in the entrepreneurial arts, but Clive Thompson says that, given the crises we’re currently facing, we would do well to turn our attention to what the venerable figures of the business world are saying. “Young founders hack information; old founders hack atoms. But we’re moving to a world where we need more and more of the latter.”