Even if we are fated to anxiety by our very nature, we needn’t be anxious about being anxious. Contra those who would abolish every form of friction or frustration, he insists that anxiety is a way of honoring who and what we are. - Washington Post
For years, we have heard a litany of reasons why our capacity to pay attention is disturbingly on the wane. Technology hounds us. Modern life, forever quicker and more scattered, drives concentration away. For just as long, concerns of this variety could be put aside. - The New Yorker
If a computer can write like a person, what does that say about the nature of our own creativity? What, if anything, sets us apart? And if AI does indeed supplant human writing, what will humans—both readers and writers—lose? - The New Republic
When it comes to how you would ideally plan your days, the research suggests that people differ, with some more drawn to clock time and some more to event time. - Psyche
Here on my screen was the distillation of a peculiar American illness: namely, that we have a profound and dangerous inclination to confuse art with moral instruction, and vice versa. - The New York Times
In the same way that a run of the mill Netflix film tells us little about the human experience, the therapeutic language saturating contemporary culture flattens and distorts reality. - 3 Quarks Daily
What kind of right is the right to academic freedom? Is it a legal right or a moral one? This question, long a subject of scholarly contention, is addressed in not a small number of new books. - The New Yorker
Kings, popes, and doges all found themselves gasping for air under a deluge of memorandums and correspondence. Philip II of Spain was frequently driven to despair by ‘these devils, my papers’, with up to 16,000 separate petitions sent to his desk over the course of a single year. - Engelsberg Ideas
Well, why not? People’s moods improve when they receive stamped letters - and “stamps provide 'an amazing body of material to study the history of communication, art, design, but also humanity.’” - The Atlantic
One crafty crafter says customers "were buying the yarn that was inspired by the tour. And then they were going and knitting a sweater … and then they were then wearing that to Eras tour concerts. The music informs the yarn which informs the project.” - North Country Public Radio
“We’re a long way from the ‘wow’ moment of that first iPhone. It’s not all vibes, either" - some of it is legal decisions imperiling Apple’s monopolistic dominance. - The Verge
As a citizen waking up to this terrible truth, as the situation becomes more and more desperate, does the obligation to take desperate measures – in terms of the tactics we’re prepared to undertake, not just the policies we’re looking to bring about – increase? - Aeon
When viewing larger or less-cluttered scenes, participants were more likely to experience time dilation; thinking that they had viewed the picture for longer than they actually did. The opposite effect — time constriction — occurred when viewing smaller-scale, more cluttered images. - Nature
LLMs have begun to disrupt the traditional relationship between writer and reader. Type how to fix broken headlight into a search engine, and it returns a list of links to websites and videos that explain the process. Ask an LLM the same thing and it will just tell you how to do it. - The Atlantic
