Daniel Rourke /stream

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The Gallery of Lost Art, from the Tate

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Dyson refutes the idea that scientific revolutions are concept-driven, a stance pioneered by Thomas Kuhn in his controversial 1962 book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, and later endorsed by other theory-driven…

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The idea of evolution is of great antiquity. Empedocles, around 440 BC, wrote that there were once "countless tribes of mortal creatures, scattered abroad and endowed with all manner of forms,"…

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Prometheus contains such a huge amount of mythic resonance that it effectively obscures a more conventional plot. I'd like to draw your attention to the use of motifs and callbacks in…

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We have met our match at the genteel pastime of jigsaw puzzles. It seems an algorithm can now whiz through 10,000 pieces in 24 hours. The speedy solver could also help…

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From the oogachaka baby to Nyan Cat, the graphics interchange format, better known as the GIF, has come a long way since the days of floppy discs. The modern-day GIF was…

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"The Rise of the Tweet takes place amid an internet-induced cheapening of language, in both good & bad senses" It’s possible to have a clear attitude toward Twitter if you’re not…

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The following is an excerpt from Ian Hacking's introduction to the new edition of Thomas S. Kuhn's The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, which commemorates the book's 50th anniversary. To be published…

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About five years ago, Rubin’s father mentioned that Avi’s younger brother, Yaacov, had been winning money playing poker online. Soon after, Avi suggested to Yaacov that they play sometime. “He kind…

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Prometheus contains such a huge amount of mythic resonance that it effectively obscures a more conventional plot. I'd like to draw your attention to the use of motifs and callbacks in…

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In a time when likes, reblogs, and favorites determine what gets seen and what doesn’t, all cultural products, movies, music, writing, and visual art alike, exist in an economy of attention.…

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Huddled within one of the most influential theories of human desire and the destiny of democracy is an image of history and its future. This image is of a horizon. In…

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Upon hearing the phrase, we may not know exactly what a “cephalic sniffer” is, nor whether it is a real piece of technology. However, as to what such a nefarious device…

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There are really two points. The first is a bit of technical background you can ignore if you like, and skip to the next paragraph. It’s the idea of “relative entropy”…

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Much has been written about the ‘crisis of capitalism’ and the associated events known, for short, as the ‘Arab Spring’, ‘student protests’, ‘Occupy’ and ‘August riots’. Yet to what extent does…

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The "prisoner's dilemma" is a classic psychology game used to study how collaboration evolves in animal societies. Now, a pair of mathematicians have identified a new way of playing the game…

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As most anyone who's seen me give a talk over the past few years will know, I have a tendency to over-enthuse about the DIY subterranean excavations of William Lyttle, aka…

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Letting microchips make a few mistakes here and there could make them much faster and more energy-efficient. Managing the probability of errors and limiting where they occur can ensure that the…

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The Israeli Defence Forces have been heavily influenced by contemporary philosophy, highlighting the fact that there is considerable overlap among theoretical texts deemed essential by military academies and architectural schools The…

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Mr. Obama decided to accelerate the attacks — begun in the Bush administration and code-named Olympic Games — even after an element of the program accidentally became public in the summer…

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Virtual worlds. Terraforming complexes. Star-spanning generation ships. Science fiction is chock-full of massive technological artifacts born of humankind's desire to create, to explore. What do they all have in common? They…

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While watching Die Hard the other night—one of the best architectural films of the past 25 years—I kept thinking about an essay called "Lethal Theory" by Eyal Weizman—itself one of the…

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“Look,” Thomas Kuhn said. The word was weighted with weariness, as if Kuhn was resigned to the fact that I would misinterpret him, but he was still going to try—no doubt…

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The first step on this trip is mental. We need to begin by no longer treating the Internet like a ghost. It's made of more metal, plastic, and fiber than you…

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The Gallery of Lost Art, from the Tate

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Dyson refutes the idea that scientific revolutions are concept-driven, a stance pioneered by Thomas Kuhn in his controversial 1962 book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, and later endorsed by other theory-driven…

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Viruses are constantly swarming into our bodies. Sometimes they make us sick; sometimes our immune systems vanquish them; and sometimes they become a part of ourselves. A type of virus called…

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Prometheus contains such a huge amount of mythic resonance that it effectively obscures a more conventional plot. I'd like to draw your attention to the use of motifs and callbacks in…

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From the oogachaka baby to Nyan Cat, the graphics interchange format, better known as the GIF, has come a long way since the days of floppy discs. The modern-day GIF was…

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The word "parrhesia" appears for the first time in Greek literature in Euripides [c.484-407 BC], and occurs throughout the ancient Greek world of letters from the end of the Fifth Century…

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The following is an excerpt from Ian Hacking's introduction to the new edition of Thomas S. Kuhn's The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, which commemorates the book's 50th anniversary. To be published…

Bookmark

About five years ago, Rubin’s father mentioned that Avi’s younger brother, Yaacov, had been winning money playing poker online. Soon after, Avi suggested to Yaacov that they play sometime. “He kind…

Bookmark

Prometheus contains such a huge amount of mythic resonance that it effectively obscures a more conventional plot. I'd like to draw your attention to the use of motifs and callbacks in…

Bookmark

In a time when likes, reblogs, and favorites determine what gets seen and what doesn’t, all cultural products, movies, music, writing, and visual art alike, exist in an economy of attention.…

Bookmark

A few days ago a blogger who identifies himself as just "Philip" took to his site to recount his experience of reading War and Peace – specifically, a 99¢ version as…

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Upon hearing the phrase, we may not know exactly what a “cephalic sniffer” is, nor whether it is a real piece of technology. However, as to what such a nefarious device…

Bookmark

Much has been written about the ‘crisis of capitalism’ and the associated events known, for short, as the ‘Arab Spring’, ‘student protests’, ‘Occupy’ and ‘August riots’. Yet to what extent does…

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Grandmasters of comparable skill now come to championship games with computer-generated analysis of their opponents’ opening lines and likely moves. Home preparation has always been important, but computers have made it…

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As most anyone who's seen me give a talk over the past few years will know, I have a tendency to over-enthuse about the DIY subterranean excavations of William Lyttle, aka…

Bookmark

Letting microchips make a few mistakes here and there could make them much faster and more energy-efficient. Managing the probability of errors and limiting where they occur can ensure that the…

Bookmark

The Israeli Defence Forces have been heavily influenced by contemporary philosophy, highlighting the fact that there is considerable overlap among theoretical texts deemed essential by military academies and architectural schools The…

Bookmark

Mr. Obama decided to accelerate the attacks — begun in the Bush administration and code-named Olympic Games — even after an element of the program accidentally became public in the summer…

Bookmark

Kernel on machines and memory, with some nice examples of apps that are exploring our changing relationship with both. We are all digital archaeologists now, writes Robert Carroll. But in a…

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While watching Die Hard the other night—one of the best architectural films of the past 25 years—I kept thinking about an essay called "Lethal Theory" by Eyal Weizman—itself one of the…

Bookmark

The first step on this trip is mental. We need to begin by no longer treating the Internet like a ghost. It's made of more metal, plastic, and fiber than you…

Bookmark

Last Wednesday, with relatively little fanfare, Google introduced a new technology called Google Knowledge Graph. Type in “François Hollande,” and you are offered a capsule history (with links) to his children,…