You Are the Product
John Lanchester reviews three books on social media, the war for attention, and Silicon Valley giants. His conclusion? “I am scared of Facebook”.
Margaret Atwood, the Prophet of Dystopia
A profile of the novelist who has conjured up a series of dystopian worlds that on occasion now seem all too recognisable.
This is What a Feminist Looks Like
President Barack Obama lays out his personal perspective on feminism.
ÔOur Saturn YearsÕ
A detailed look at the “insanely, wildly, beautifully successfulÓ Cassini-Huygens mission to explore Saturn, which ended this month after nearly 20 years when its satellite made a planned plunge into Saturn’s atmosphere and burned up.
Is Amazon getting too big?
A searching piece about Amazon and monopoly, published in a newspaper owned by Amazon’s CEO. If you have the time, it’s also worth dipping into the elegantly wrought 28,000 word ‘note’ in The Yale Law Journal that inspired the piece.
Thus spake Albert
A piece looking at the prevalence of Albert Einstein aphorisms in the public consciousness_Ñ_at an extraordinary level even for someone of his stellar reputation. The story examines his sayings and how they were in some cases applied in his own life and times.
The complete history of Civilization
A history of the seminal strategy computer game provides insight into the process of creation, development using ever-evolving technologies, and how to create sequels when your first edition spans all of human history.
An education in terror
A piece relating the experiences of former IS recruits living in Europe and the military and ideological education they received when living in the caliphate.
Aliens in our midst
Whilst we look for alien life on other planets, this piece examines ctenophores – creatures closer to home that are “profoundly different from any other animal on Earth” – so much so in fact that they may be on an entirely different evolutionary path to their planetary cohabitants.
How Aristotle Created the Computer
A piece looking at the history of computers through ideas, rather than through devices – tracing the path from Aristotelian logic to computer science.