Daniel Rourke /stream

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Two years ago, I appeared on a panel, ‘Myths of a Near Future’, with writer Bruce Sterling and V. Vale of RE/Search Publications to discuss the work of J.G. Ballard. Held…

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By now, nearly everyone with a passing interest in science or religion is familiar with Stephen Jay Gould’s description of the two disciplines as “non-overlapping magisteria” with separate domains — science…

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Taxidermy (and the chemistry of the morgue) has been something close to a cult obsession with our contemporary gang. We get it, we get it, you often want to howl in…

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This text was originally delivered by Werner Herzog as a speech in Milano, Italy, following a screening of his film “Lessons of Dark­ness” on the fires in Kuwait. He was asked…

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The upside-down values of the art world, popularly infamous, ridiculed, and resented, are by now the mark of the sphere itself, sufficient to establish the cynic’s principle that if you wish…

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What do you think about when you think about ants? An aerial view perhaps, looking down at a line of ants moving along a trail. Go closer. If you stay with…

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This year saw the invasion of telepresence robots—electromechanical avatars that allow you to be there without actually being there. Today, half a dozen companies are selling, or will start selling, these…

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I've been wondering lately when books became the enemy. Scholars have always been people of the book, so it seems wrong that the faithful companion has been put on the defensive.…

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Judging from how the Times magazine’s excerpt from Guy Deutscher’s new book has been one of the most read pieces in the paper for over a week now, the book is…

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Tom McCarthy's rise from an obscure art-house author has been quite spectacular, culminating in C, his third novel, being shortlisted for this year's Man Booker prize. In something that can only…

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Good sense is the most fairly distributed commodity in the world, Descartes once quipped, because nobody thinks he needs any more of it than he already has. A neat illustration of…

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Carl Honoré (In Praise of Slow) says Canada's Baffin Island Inuit "use the same word—'uvatiarru'—to mean both 'in the distant past' and 'in the distant future.' Time, in such cultures, is…

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Is it really true that the washing machine has changed the world more than the internet? When we assess the impact of technological changes, we tend to downplay things that happened…

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THE news of the day often includes an item about some development in artificial intelligence: a machine that smiles, a program that can predict human tastes in mates or music, a…

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A hot summer day, C not yet out, the Booker judges still busy deciding on this year’s longlist, I go to meet Tom McCarthy. On the way to the cafe, I…

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One of the side-effects of having your work appear in a public forum such as this is that people often email me asking for advice on how to break into writing,…

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“It's not my fault. Communication error has occurred,” my computer pleads with me in a voice of lady Victoria. First it excuses itself, then urges me to pay attention, to check…

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In the past year, I've written roughly 5,000 pages of scholarly literature, most on very tight deadlines. But you won't find my name on a single paper. I've written toward a…

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Two years ago, I appeared on a panel, ‘Myths of a Near Future’, with writer Bruce Sterling and V. Vale of RE/Search Publications to discuss the work of J.G. Ballard. Held…

Bookmark

One day in December 1919, the twenty-year-old Jorge Luis Borges, during a short stay in Seville, wrote a letter, in French, to his friend Maurice Abramowicz in Geneva, in which, almost…

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This text was originally delivered by Werner Herzog as a speech in Milano, Italy, following a screening of his film “Lessons of Dark­ness” on the fires in Kuwait. He was asked…

Bookmark

The upside-down values of the art world, popularly infamous, ridiculed, and resented, are by now the mark of the sphere itself, sufficient to establish the cynic’s principle that if you wish…

Bookmark

What do you think about when you think about ants? An aerial view perhaps, looking down at a line of ants moving along a trail. Go closer. If you stay with…

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This year saw the invasion of telepresence robots—electromechanical avatars that allow you to be there without actually being there. Today, half a dozen companies are selling, or will start selling, these…

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We make a mistake when we think of cancer as a noun. It is not something you have, it is something you do. Your body is probably cancering all the time.…

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Judging from how the Times magazine’s excerpt from Guy Deutscher’s new book has been one of the most read pieces in the paper for over a week now, the book is…

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Good sense is the most fairly distributed commodity in the world, Descartes once quipped, because nobody thinks he needs any more of it than he already has. A neat illustration of…

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Is it really true that the washing machine has changed the world more than the internet? When we assess the impact of technological changes, we tend to downplay things that happened…

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A hot summer day, C not yet out, the Booker judges still busy deciding on this year’s longlist, I go to meet Tom McCarthy. On the way to the cafe, I…

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“It's not my fault. Communication error has occurred,” my computer pleads with me in a voice of lady Victoria. First it excuses itself, then urges me to pay attention, to check…

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Two summers ago, the Atlantic published an essay by Nicholas Carr, one of the blogosphere's most prominent (and thoughtful) contrarians, under the headline "Is Google Making Us Stupid?". "Over the past…