Patients put on thinking caps...
Brain-computer interface technology continues to advance, with one patient now able to control a robotic hand with his thoughts. New research shows such results may also be possible with a noninvasive, external interface. By Kristen Philipkoski. Here.
11:35 AM 3/5/05
Short takes: News from all over...
Radio insrugente... fire the consultants... blogthoreau... tsunami victims aid... BBC Jerry Springer moment... who won Michigan... Here.
10:10 AM 2/18/05
Works, the whole works and nothing but the works...
The Brooklyn Museum has set out all, or a great many, of its jaw-dropping objects or artworks for our delectation in its new open-storage display. Here.
7:08 AM 2/15/05
From the assembly line of a genius...
The Metropolitan Museum show of drawings, which reveals Rubens's process of thinking, is sublime. Here.
1:16 AM 1/19/05
Best books: 2004...
Here. Here. And here.
9:30 AM 1/18/05
Long pig...
A story of Christianity, and the proper way to cook a corpse. Here.
12:06 AM 1/16/05
Details, details...
The poet Thomas Lux talks about rendering the unruly stuff of life into metaphors that stick. Here.
11:11 AM 1/18/05
Fatal vision ...
Richard Clarke talks about his frightening scenario of an America hobbled by terrorism and what we can do to avoid it. Here.
1:16 AM 1/15/05
Buy nothing xmas...
This year, gather your family and friends and decide to skip the spending binge. Join the movement to decommercialize Christmas and turn it again into something spiritual, spontaneous, real. Mmm.
7:59 AM 12/14/04
Nation of indifference...
Are we becoming hardened to reports of illegality (up to and including torture) on the part of our government? Read.
7:59 AM 12/14/04
A shaman's call...
In a 1974 performance, Joseph Beuys struck a haunting pose. As a coyote circled him in a gallery, he gathered insulating felt around him to create a conical fortress, his body hidden entirely from view. From the top of this impromptu teepee, a shepherd's crook rose like a spire part mountaintop guru, part signal tower. But, as in all of his enigmatic work, what he was signaling isn't altogether clear. More.
7:59 AM 12/14/04
More money, more problems...
Despite historic campaign finance reform, money still rules politics. More.
7:59 AM 12/14/04
Narcissism and American lit...
American literature confines itself to a vague narcissism of ethnic, religious, sexual, class, and regional franchises. More
7:59 AM 12/14/04
Oliver's Alexander...
Oliver Stone's Alexander pouts, weeps, and holds his breath, while some old geezer tells all between battles. Yak yak yak, blah blah blah... More
7:59 AM 12/14/04
Pop goes the Pope?
Pope John Paul II isn't senile, but he's hardly lucid either. So why not retire? Well, Jesus did not climb down from his cross... More.
7:59 AM 12/14/04
Another take on philistinism...
Philistine commonly means a "person deficient in liberal culture." Yeah, maybe. But philistines might just be people who understand the culture all too well... More.
7:59 AM 12/14/04
A future for Faulkner?
William Faulkner, bored out of his mind in a classroom at Ole Miss, could not guess how much he would one day be studied by academics... More.
7:59 AM 12/14/04
Cummings cuming...
e.e. cummings a spoiled little rich boy. But his selfishness came from his single-minded pursuit of the sublime in art... More.
7:59 AM 12/14/04
Ethics of plagiarism...
The ethics of plagiarism have turned into a narcissism of tiny differences: Those are my words aren't they? Isn't that my idea?... More.
7:59 AM 12/14/04
What threat?
Nanobots, smallpox, loose nukes, oh my! But just which terrorist threats are the ones we should take seriously?... More.
7:59 AM 12/14/04
Stop trying to persuade us...
A PBS documentary makes the case that Americans have tuned out marketers pitching everything from cars to candidates. The result: even more crass attempts to get through, and a fragmentation of American society. Here.
11:06 AM 11/30/04
Patron saint of the nerds...
St. Expedite might not even be a true saint, but that doesn't stop programmers and job seekers from asking for his help. Michelle Delio reports from New Orleans. Here.
1:32 AM 11/28/04
Meltdown: Arctic wildlife on the brink of catastrophe...
Polar bears, the biggest land carnivores on Earth, face extinction this century if the Arctic continues to melt at its present rate, a study into global warming has found. The sea ice around the North Pole on which the bears depend for hunting is shrinking so swiftly it could disappear during the summer months by the end of the century, the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment (ICIA) says. Here.
3:31 AM 11/26/04
Outfox...
The Bergen International Film Festival (BIFF) presented Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch's War on Journalism with the Youth Documentary Award. The film festival was held from October 14 to 20, 2004 in Bergen, Norway and offered a mix of films from all over the world. The five-year-old BIFF is one of the most prestigious festivals in Norway and the presentation was a huge success. The jury, consisting of college students, awarded the cash prize to the film and its director Robert Greenwald. In a response to the award, Robert stated: 'I am pleased that college students around the world are refusing to be outfoxed by Fox News and Rupert Murdoch.'
4:03 AM 11/25/04
Into the den of spies...
Mark Bowden, the author of "Among the Hostage-Takers," speaks about the Iran hostage crisis of 1979 and its architects' present-day struggles with the Islamic regime. Here.
5:10 AM 11/18/04
A brief history of Yasir Arafat...
In 2002 David Brooks examined the career of a "brilliant image crafter." Here.
11:31 AM 11/15/04
Work less...
Your job is pointless, inane. You can be replaced by the cretin sitting next to you. So work as little as possible... Here's how.
6:20 AM 10/28/04
Philosophy, the new rock 'n' roll?
If philosophy is the new rock 'n' roll, is Alain de Botton its Colonel Tom Parker? More likely it's Pat Boone: all ideas made bland, sanitary, digestible... More.
6:07 AM 10/20/04
A waste of truth...
Objective truth is an illusion, says Stanley Fish, and even to worry about the nature of truth is a waste of time. Michael Lynch wonders if that's true... Read it.
1:27 AM 10/16/04
Saint environment...
Environmentalism has flowed into the gaps left by political ideology and religion. To buy organic and recycle makes you so much holier than the next guy... Read it.
6:27 AM 9/30/04
Try and reject...
Fundamentalism, taking holy writ literally and dogmatically, is what science best resists, says Umberto Eco: provando e riprovando--- try, try again, and reject... Read it.
3:55 AM 9/29/04
Woemen...
Women are more prone to create and protect life than destroy it. That at least has been the common belief... Till now.
1:20 AM 9/28/04
Not quite lovely, not quite benign...
Democracy seems a lovely and benign idea, but carries in itself seeds of a dark possibility: mass murder... Read on.
6:15 AM 9/27/04
Post-ideological dangers...
In our post-ideological age, there is still one big idea to fill the void left by defunct belief systems. It's powerful, enjoys worldwide popularity, and it is very dangerous... More.
5:17 AM 9/27/04
Against type...
Do you prefer a shower to a bath? Are you fascinated by fire? Feel uneasy indoors? And what's the point of such questions? Read it.
7:27 AM 9/26/04
Evolutionary one-offs...
Vision and flight have evolved many times over. But what of evolutionary one-offs? The spider with its diving bell. The beetle that sets off explosives... So weird, so wonderful.
6:27 AM 9/26/04
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