Daniel Rourke /stream

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As digital screens proliferate and people move from print to pixel, how will the act of reading change? America was founded on the written word. Its roots spring from documents—the Constitution,…

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In the past, daydreaming was often considered a failure of mental discipline, or worse. Freud labeled it infantile and neurotic. Psychology textbooks warned it could lead to psychosis. Neuroscientists complained that…

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Video games have come a very long way since the 1980s... As Tom Bissell, a journalist, former Salon writer and lifelong gamer, explains in his new book, "Extra Lives: Why Video…

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Sometimes it's really hard to let go. Like that vinyl collection you've got stashed away in the attic or those VHS cassettes of movies that you've already replaced on DVD that…

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Earlier this week, the New York Times company forced the iPad Pulse News Reader app to be pulled from the App Store. The reason? It took the Times’ RSS feed and…

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How do Americans spend their leisure time? The answer might surprise you. The most common voluntary activity is not eating, drinking alcohol, or taking drugs. It is not socializing with friends,…

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One of the most beautiful aspects of the genetic code is its simplicity: three letters of DNA combine in 64 different ways, easily spelled out in a handy table, to encode…

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Atheists like Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens confront the faithful head-on, but there may be another way to dispel religious beliefs. I am not so sure about this. In my experience,…

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WHEREVER their investigations lead, all analysts of religion begin somewhere. And in the final lines of his densely but skilfully packed account of faith from the viewpoint of evolutionary biology, Nicholas…

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In a meeting today in Sacramento, commissioners might vote to register items left behind on the moon by Apollo astronauts "as an official State Historical Resource," the L.A. Times reports. After…

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Gamasutra is teaming up with game criticism weblog Critical Distance to present Christopher Hyde's round-up of the wealth of excellent games being produced outside the realm of 'AAA' titles in 2009,…

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Among the defining attributes of now are ever tinier gadgets, ever shorter attention spans, and the privileging of marketplace values above all. Life is manically parceled into financial quarters, three-minute YouTube…

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In the 'deep web', Freenet software allows users complete anonymity as they share viruses, criminal contacts and child pornography. The modern internet is often thought of as a miracle of openness…

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One of the epigraphs that punctuate Invented Knowledge is from Pascal: "It is natural for the mind to believe and for the will to love; so that, for want of true…

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As digital screens proliferate and people move from print to pixel, how will the act of reading change? America was founded on the written word. Its roots spring from documents—the Constitution,…

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While mainstream literary figures sometimes praise their fellow writers, rarely do they present themselves publicly as hardcore pop culture fans. Since the publication of his novels Motherless Brooklyn and Fortress of…

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Video games have come a very long way since the 1980s... As Tom Bissell, a journalist, former Salon writer and lifelong gamer, explains in his new book, "Extra Lives: Why Video…

Bookmark

Earlier this week, the New York Times company forced the iPad Pulse News Reader app to be pulled from the App Store. The reason? It took the Times’ RSS feed and…

Bookmark

Analytic philosophy has a complex history of more than one hundred years and this movement is so variegated that it can hardly be characterized by a single feature. Most of those…

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How do Americans spend their leisure time? The answer might surprise you. The most common voluntary activity is not eating, drinking alcohol, or taking drugs. It is not socializing with friends,…

Bookmark

One of the most beautiful aspects of the genetic code is its simplicity: three letters of DNA combine in 64 different ways, easily spelled out in a handy table, to encode…

Bookmark

Atheists like Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens confront the faithful head-on, but there may be another way to dispel religious beliefs. I am not so sure about this. In my experience,…

Bookmark

WHEREVER their investigations lead, all analysts of religion begin somewhere. And in the final lines of his densely but skilfully packed account of faith from the viewpoint of evolutionary biology, Nicholas…

Bookmark

In a meeting today in Sacramento, commissioners might vote to register items left behind on the moon by Apollo astronauts "as an official State Historical Resource," the L.A. Times reports. After…

Bookmark

Gamasutra is teaming up with game criticism weblog Critical Distance to present Christopher Hyde's round-up of the wealth of excellent games being produced outside the realm of 'AAA' titles in 2009,…

Bookmark

Among the defining attributes of now are ever tinier gadgets, ever shorter attention spans, and the privileging of marketplace values above all. Life is manically parceled into financial quarters, three-minute YouTube…

Bookmark

In the 'deep web', Freenet software allows users complete anonymity as they share viruses, criminal contacts and child pornography. The modern internet is often thought of as a miracle of openness…

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A recent essay in the New York Times by Dennis Overbye has managed to attract quite a bit of attention around the internets — most of it not very positive. It…

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One of the epigraphs that punctuate Invented Knowledge is from Pascal: "It is natural for the mind to believe and for the will to love; so that, for want of true…

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Last year the National Debt Clock in New York City ran out of digits. The billboard-size electronic counter, mounted on a wall near Times Square, overflowed when the public debt reached…