Category: ideas

Pablo Eisenberg writes that museums ought to stop whining about losing one of their tax breaks. “Most other charitable gifts don’t come with the flexibility and big write-offs available for artworks. What’s more, the museum directors dismiss the fact that only about 10 percent of all donations of art are accomplished through fractional giving. And it paints the restrictions on fractional giving as earth-shattering, as though the end of the museum world is about to unfold. What palpable nonsense.”

That comedian and fake news anchor Jon Stewart has more credibility with much of the public than real journalists or the politicians they cover is old news. But what does such a state of affairs say about our country and this moment in history? Are we sliding towards a desperate decline, or do we just have a highly developed sense of humor? The truth may be more boring: “we live in an era of the most sophisticated and relentless media manipulation ever, but the news media has not adjusted to the new environment.”

Computerized language translation programs are getting better and better. But they still have a propensity for making babel out of ordinary phrases…

String theory, a complex equation-based way of viewing the universe, has been in vogue among the world’s top scientists for decades now. But in the last few months, a growing chorus of voices within the scientific community has begun to claim that not only is string theory likely inaccurate, its relentless promotion as the only viable theory of unification is hurting science as a whole.

“Research reveals that 80 per cent of staff in their first seven years in the classroom produced value-added results at or above the expected level. But this fell to 68 per cent for those with between eight and 23 years’ experience and to 59 per cent for those with 24 years or more.”

A new film version of the classic novel, All The King’s Men, turns on the classic American storyline of a “man of the people” who beats the odds and achieves political success by playing up his touch with the common voter. But as much as Americans love this kind of story, we’ve never come close to acting out the fantasy at the polls. So “does a real-life political truth — the fact that voters generally don’t end up pulling the lever for a reflection of themselves — lessen the achievement of All the King’s Men? Can a novel be a work of art — and still get its field all wrong?”

“In string theory – an idea that’s been around since the late 1970s – the universe is a 10-dimensional place, with six of those dimensions curled up inside themselves like a cat in front of a fireplace. All particles and forces are different resonances and vibrations of these 10-dimensional strings. Strings are far from the only game in town. There are other, potentially equally promising approaches to unifying physics’ two seemingly incompatible visions of the cosmos: general relativity and quantum mechanics.”

“Experts say the Allen Brain Atlas, which will be formally unveiled today, will boost understanding of brain circuits and chemistry — and what goes wrong in conditions ranging from schizophrenia and autism to Parkinson’s disease and drug addiction.”

“A decade ago the cultural critic Mark Dery suggested in his book ‘Escape Velocity’ that the PC revolution could well be called ‘Counterculture 2.0.’ Other writers have also pointed out uncanny overlaps. And some of the anecdotal evidence is familiar.”

“Over the last 15 years, a series of books and articles have told us that women talk a lot more than men do. According to Dr. Scott Halzman in Psychology Today, women use about 7,000 words a day, and men use about 2,000.” But is this really a real, verifiable statistic?