Perhaps the ultimate postmodern irony is to be both – to sell out to the system while sending it up. It becomes impossible to distinguish the boss from the bohemian. - The Guardian
In a widely cited paper from 2007, on a number of common measures of innovation and wealth creation, cities deliver benefits that exceed what we would expect by a simple scaling up of the numbers of people involved, and at lower cost in terms of the infrastructure required. - Aeon
“Powers and Thrones” reminds us why modern scholars cringe at any reference to the term “Dark Ages.” The idea that the early Middle Ages were an era of barbarism and ignorance is refuted by Dan Jones’s vast array of evidence to the contrary. - The New York Times
While depressed people are not literally in a different world, they are in a different state of consciousness – one they can become awake to and, hopefully, awake from. - Psyche
Previously philosophy was a kind of luxury: You can indulge in it or not. Now you really need to answer crucial philosophical questions about what humanity is or the nature of the good in order to decide what to do with, for example, new biotechnologies. - The New York Times
Sound familiar? "Collective narcissists tend to respond to the perceived threats of other groups in outsize, often aggressive ways. ... Meanwhile, group narcissists glorify positively valued in-group members and tend to overlook their moral transgressions." - The Atlantic
Daniel Heath Justice's "podcast, which will be peer-reviewed before its release—a first in North America—is part of a bold new take on research that treats new media as scholarship, defying the traditionally rigid informational hierarchies in academia." - MacLean's (Canada)
"The lives of buchonas, their flamboyant styles and their taste for plastic surgery are regularly chronicled in Spanish-language media outlets. Vloggers do roundups devoted to top buchonas. And internationally, people have adopted the style." Then there's the music. - Los Angeles Times
Not entirely clear, but "Diana’s posthumous framing as a rebel against the establishment with an undercurrent of feminine fragility resonates — even among those who weren’t old enough to witness her dancing to Uptown Girl ... the first time around." - Hyperallergic
In the early years of the 18th century a select group of philosophers began to conceive of laughter as something that might police the boundaries of sociable conduct. - History Today
We are at a critical juncture: a relatively long period of stability in mainstream thinking about economic globalisation has given way to a situation of dramatic flux. - Aeon
Creating hypotheses has long been a purely human domain. Now, though, scientists are beginning to ask machine learning to produce original insights. They are designing neural networks that suggest new hypotheses based on patterns the networks find in data. - Scientific American
All together, about a dozen AI datasets vanished—hastily scrubbed by their creators after researchers, activists, and journalists exposed an array of problems with the data and the ways it was used, from privacy, to race and gender bias, to issues with human rights. - Slate
Though the term “metaverse” suggests a fully articulated sci-fi realm, Zuckerberg is using it to glamorize a network of virtual and augmented reality apps and gear, like headsets. - The New York Times
To earn the title of Grand Master of Memory, one must be able to memorize a 1000-digit number in one hour. The next hour you are faced with memorizing the order of ten packs of cards. And finally you get two minutes to memorize a single pack. - LitHub
