Books
The Man Who Loves Scholars
I am a huge fan of Simon Winchester — a peripatetic Brit who writes brilliantly about geology, lexicography, and sinology. At his best, Winchester turns science into biography by demonstrating how an obscure scholar shaped our view of the world. Winchester majored in geology at Oxford and worked in the field for many years before [...]
Economics and Politics as Choice Architecture
Some years back, I passed through Schiphol in Amsterdam and realized why some designers consider it the world’s finest airport. Its layout is logical and efficient, public internet terminals are numerous and free, and the stores, including a full 24/7 supermarket, are so attractive that locals come to the airport to shop. But it was [...]
Media Wants to Be Digital, Downloadable, and Free
Mooreâs Law famously describes an important trend in computer processing power: the number of transistors that can be inexpensively placed on an integrated circuit increases exponentially. Specifically, Intel founder Gordon Moore observed that chip density doubles about every two years. Thanks to Mooreâs Law, computer processing is now free for most intents and purposes. Metcalfeâs [...]
Outside of the Box
Nobel Prize winning physicist and genius quantum mechanic Niels Bohr once pointed out that "Prediction is difficult, especially about the future" — a fact that he demonstrated empirically with respect to subatomic particles. Former Economist writer and business historian Marc Levinson has demonstrated that the maxim applies to technology businesses as well in a business [...]
Hitchens vs. God and Islamic Jihad
Our crack shot, karate-chopping, head-bashing action-hero Christopher Hitchens calls a spade a damned shovel in today’s Slate. His piece, entitled "Don’t Mince Words: The London car-bomb plot was designed to kill women" begins Why on earth do people keep saying, "There but for the grace of God …"? If matters had been very slightly different [...]
Mother's Day
Mother’s Day began in Greece — and it may end there, too. To the ancient Greeks, fertility was life. They worshiped mothers with a festival to Cybele, the mother of all gods. Modern Greeks worship motherhood, but they also avoid it. The average woman in Greece gives birth to 1.3 children. Over a generation or [...]
Gravity Lessons
Leaders of businesses assaulted by technology can sympathize with Wile E. Coyote. We know how he feels when he discovers that the road beneath his feet has turned to air. We laugh in sympathy as his expression turns sheepish and he pedals frantically. We know that fall is gonna hurt. These days you can find [...]
Are You Ansgarr?
When you spend just a bit too much time around books, book customers, and technology, this starts to look pretty funny… [Update: they removed the embedding. Click here instead.] And when you spend just a bit too much time around librarians, this is pretty funny too.
À la Recherche du Temps Perdu
Cities concentrate people, wealth, culture — and memories. In New York this week, I walked by an Indian restaurant and recalled a lunch almost twenty years ago with friends who tried to persuade me to come work on Wall Street. Across from the restaurant stood a former men’s club where I pitched an IPO fifteen [...]
A Freak of Nurture
Michael Lewis on Race, Class, and Football Michael Lewis (author of the must-read Liar’s Poker and Moneyball as well as the somewhat less terrific New New Thing) recently published The Blind-Side: Evolution of a Game. Despite the title, this book is only partly about football. Lewis likes to describe an industry undergoing a fundamental transformation [...]
The Immortal Game
During the summer of 1972, I worked as a cook in a small resort in New York’s Hudson Valley. It was a small, family-run place patronized entirely by elderly Jews from New York city that hired me, a goyem from southern California, sight unseen. I passed as Jewish well enough — my hair was curly, [...]
Triumph of the Philoperisterons
Every now and again someone comes along and makes me change my mind. They assault my prejudices with facts, challenge my beliefs with evidence, and even cause me to reinterpret certain life experiences. I could defend the old ways of course, but why bother? The other guy is right and I have been wrong. Time [...]
Echo Echo
Recent coast-to-coast flights gave me time to enjoy two cop novels that reveal a lot about the genre and maybe about ourselves. Echo Burning is the 2001 Lee Child potboiler featuring Jack Reacher; Echo Park is the newest Michael Connelly police procedural starring Harry Bosch. Both are airport books that demand little of a reader [...]
Alien Nation: Another Urban Legend?
OK, you want more friends, more involvement with your community, and more contact with you neighbors. Where are you better off living — in the buzz of the city or out in the socially alienating suburbs? I’m a city guy from the burbs — which are the butt of contemporary sociology. Bob Putnam’s Bowling Alone [...]
Sexonomics
During the 1970s, I worked in an enormous machine shop in Sunnyvale, California. It was noisy, messy, boring, and occasionally dangerous. Silicon Valley was popping up all around us, creating technology that would change the world — but we carried lunch buckets and cut metal for a living. Perhaps a thousand machinists, operators, tool and [...]
5. The Ashtray of History
Beijing, China Outside of Tienamen and the national currency, Mao Zedong has now been reduced to a cultural relic. Mao ashtrays are the height of Beijing kitsch, available in the local flea markets. Mao statuary, posters, and Little Red Books are available as well, but these sell mainly to tourists. Vendor: "Get Little Red Book! [...]
Fiasco by Thomas Ricks
On vacation, couldn’t wait to get to Thomas Ricks Fiasco, acclaimed by many as the best writing to date on the Iraq war. Ricks is the Pentagon correspondent for the Washington Post and the author of an account of Marine Corps boot camp, Making the Corps. He is not an anti-war writer and is not [...]
Nothing Left to Lose
For most people, age 27 is prime time. You are usually done with school, although hopefully not with learning. You are making your own way in the world. You are young and strong but ideally less foolish than you had been a decade earlier. You may even be in a stable, more-or-less adult, relationship. If [...]
How Long the Tail — and How High the Head?
This is the question of the season for two reasons: Dead Man’s Chest, the recent installment of Pirates of the Caribbean, which launched last night, and The Long Tail the much-blogged, long-awaited book by Wired’s Chris Anderson. The movie features (what else?) a Kraken, a veritable long-tailed, high-headed Leviathan that unceremoniously sucks ships out of [...]
Ayaan Hirsi Ali Brings Down the Dutch Government
First voting in Kuwait and now Ayaan Hirsi Ali brings down the Dutch government! An excellent day for Islamic women! This is horn-honking, TERRIFIC news. Ayaan Hirsi Ali is the Muslim Somalia-born refugee who arrived in Holland, learned Dutch, was elected to Parliament, spoke out against fascist Islam, and collaborated with Theo Van Gogh to [...]
