For Amazon, a publishing program is the next logical step in its long-term business strategy. For the rest of the book industry, it’s cause for a bad case of nerves. […]
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Does a wandering mind make you less happy than a present mind? This question formed the basis of an important study by psychologists from Harvard University. The answer, I wasn’t surprised to find, is yes. Absolutely.
It’s just willful silliness to argue that questions about how much of “our money” the government can take is logically incoherent.
I don’t think so! In the last one hundred years Germany has made two attempts to own, control and dominate Europe. Each has been repulsed. Can this third attempt succeed? […]
In most circumstances, narcissism doesn’t go over well. But there’s one big exception to the rule: leadership.
–Guest post by Luis Hestres, Doctoral student at American University. Petitioning the government for policy changes is a practice as old as the republic, and doing so online is a […]
Steven Pinker is a cognitive psychologist interested in language as a window into the human mind. In this excerpt from his linguistics lecture for the Floating University, he illuminates some of the mysteries surrounding children’s hardwired ability to learn language.
For most people, there’s little difference between graffiti and street art. To those within that circle, however, there’s a whole world of difference—even enough to drive them to destroy the […]
As we make sense of the world around us, our minds often take shortcuts, generalizing, cutting corners, making connections and engaging in inferences as they integrate all of the incoming […]
Like other local and state governments, Topeka, Kansas is in the grips of a dismal budget crisis. So this week, Topeka’s City Council did something desperate. They debated decriminalizing domestic […]
— Guest post by Luis Hestres, American University doctoral student. Ever since the financial crisis hit the U.S. in late 2008, many political commentators (mostly on the Left) have wondered […]
Rick Field left a successful career in television to become a pickle entrepreneur. Seven years later, his Rick’s Picks are carving out a mini cultural niche of their own in the American culinary landscape.
To be sure, our incompatible ideas of “work” and the workplace are a huge part of the problem. But so is the informal, perfectionist view that parenthood is something that swallows you up whole.
A recent performance of Anne Nelson’s moving 9/11 play The Guys introduced me to the concept of the “square rooter”—people on a team who are only out for themselves (when […]
The field of psychology appears to be way overinvested in lab studies and strikingly underinvested in field studies. Should researchers get out in the real world more?
The GOP debate was last night was terrible. Too many participants, too much time for everyone to crank up their stump speech answers, too little heat on follow up questions, […]
In branding, the conventional wisdom says that using the same computer or cologne as, say, George Clooney will make you feel more like him and, therefore, good about yourself. Conventional […]
I thought I’d have one more 9/11 post—this time on 9/11. I’ve gotten a couple of emails accusing me of hating Muslims. Well, I don’t. I’m, of course, also aware […]
At the time of his arrest by the FBI in 1995, Kevin Mitnick was the most wanted hacker in America. Today Kevin continues his hacking adventures legally, as a computer security expert.
Given the increasingly complacently atheistic tone of many of the BIG THINKERS, I thought I’d introduce some realism about our Constitution’s silence on God. My position will be, of course, somewhere […]
Once Facebook flips the switch on the official public launch of its all-new Timeline feature, nearly any action that you take will become instantly sharable online to your friends as […]
Two prominent tobacco researchers have argued against adopting a “well-meaning” health policy that would see adult movie ratings in the U.S. for films with on-screen smoking.
Word is China’s first full-fledged space station could launch this month. Is it part of a bid to become a world strategic power or a modest increment in space prowess without military meaning?
The U.S. government can borrow money right now at essentially no cost. But for political and ideological reasons the government is leaving what is essentially free money on the table. […]
Joe Therrien, an OWS activist and semi-employed drama teacher, has become infamous since the Nation included him in an article on “The Audacity of Occupy Wall Street,” which began like […]
More women than ever are choosing to pursue a life in science, but high-ranking positions are still held disproportionately by men. What does it take to rise to the top – and why do so few make it?
Shakespeare’s had a tough year. It’s not enough that anthropologists want to shoot lasers at his skeleton to find out if he smoked weed. Now the guy who directed Independence […]
OMG. I better tweet this. Or post it on Facebook. Or click that oh-so-tempting like button. Maybe tumblr? Stumbleupon? Some other sharing service that I’m too slow to have noted, […]
The private credit agency Standard & Poor’s has downgraded America’s credit rating despite a $2 trillion calculating error. Why do these unelected bodies have the power to move mountains?
If people don’t listen to you, it’s not that they don’t respect you—it could be how you’re phrasing your request, suggests a new study published in Psychological Science.