Pandemic-related shutdowns mean that the people who need help printing, filling out, and scanning documents - "There are lots of forms, which demand lots of one-on-one help from library staff to find and complete" - can't get it directly, but there's still Wi-Fi in the parking lots ... and long lines of people each time the libraries re-open. -...
In early 2017, a doctor at the Louis Pasteur Center for Medical Research, in Kyoto, saw a television segment about the BakeryScan. He realized that cancer cells, under a microscope, looked kind of like bread. He contacted BRAIN, and the company agreed to begin developing a version of BakeryScan for pathologists. - The New Yorker
"Most music from the past is lost. Written, performed, then fading into obscurity, like the millions of books in our libraries that no one reads, as forgotten as the titles of the lost Library of Alexandria. Lostness is bound up with temporal limits; we cannot maintain an iron grip on the past. The inevitability of time’s erosion of things...
When Generation X was published, Douglas Coupland observed: “information overload meant 50 TV stations instead of ten.” In the current era where internet connections give access to a previously unimaginable wealth of content, this seems rather quaint. Nonetheless, Generation X’s intuitions help us understand the destabilising effects that the online world has on our sense of self today. -...
We are aware, of course, that we might be wrong, because we know that on certain issues we have changed our minds, and therefore must have been wrong at least once. Nonetheless, at any given moment, we believe that we are right. The contrary would be ridiculous. - 3 Quarks Daily
Yes, we need food and water, air and health care. And we're desperate for cultural nourishment as well. For one family at an outdoor event, "After weeks of seeing very little but the inside of our house, it felt almost impossibly bright and colourful. When we reached a magical glade hung with giant, sparkling thistledown, my eight-year-old tugged on...
Parents at elite private schools sometimes grumble about taking nothing from public schools yet having to support them via their tax dollars. But the reverse proposition is a more compelling argument. Why should public-school parents—why should anyone—be expected to support private schools? Exeter has 1,100 students and a $1.3 billion endowment. Andover, which has 1,150 students, is on track...
Even though ambivalence is a common experience, as a concept it’s frequently misunderstood. It doesn’t mean that you don’t care about something or that you’re indifferent. Ambivalence refers to the presence of strong feelings, but in opposition. You love your parents but find them annoying. Your successful colleague inspires you, but you also envy her. - Psyche
"During this period of soul-crushing boredom, it would be valuable to pay more attention to what people are feeling and thinking, rather than trying to distract and lull them; to collect our daydreams, reveries and thoughts from this time, and let expectations and desires find common expression." - The Guardian
"AI as scientist conception runs the risk of missing out on a — the — characteristic feature of AI, particularly machine learning. Once this feature of machine learning is thrown into relief, AI as artist seems a more fitting conception." - 3 Quarks Daily
Recently, researchers have begun to treat bullshitting as having two separate dimensions. “Persuasive bullshitting” is motivated by a desire to impress or persuade. “Evasive bullshitting” is different — as a “strategic circumnavigation of the truth”, it’s the sort that a politician might engage in when trying to cover up a mistake, for example. By definition, the creation of either...
In this new wilderness, democracy is becoming impossible. If one half of the country can’t hear the other, then Americans can no longer have shared institutions, apolitical courts, a professional civil service, or a bipartisan foreign policy. We can’t compromise. We can’t make collective decisions—we can’t even agree on what we’re deciding. - The Atlantic
Business leaders, and their lawyers, have a bias — an unjustified faith, really — that legal ownership matters. Surprisingly often, it doesn’t, and some businesses today voluntarily forgo ownership altogether, even when the law makes protection available. - Harvard Business Review
"Broadly, people seem to wish for a more meaningful life. They wished they’d been more authentic in their activities (1; 3). They wished they’d prioritised friends and themselves, rather than work (2; 4; 5). They wished, in short, that they’d stopped and smelled the roses." - Aeon
"Only 2 percent of conversations ended at the time both parties desired, and only 30 percent of them finished when one of the pair wanted them to. In about half of the conversations, both people wanted to talk less, but their cutoff point was usually different. Participants in both studies reported, on average, that the desired length of their...
