Category: Science Technology History Corner

  The other day, I went to a company thing and the day started off with us watching a TED talk.  I enjoyed it—to be honest, there are

In the middle of the Atlantic piece on ISIS, there is an interview with Graeme Wood who points out that one of the most effective recruiting tools ISIS

In one of her essays, one of my favorite historians, Barbara Tuchman, defined history as “emotion plus action recollected or, in the case of latter-day historians, reflected on

Could those things possibly be satellites?  That is what the SETI Institute hopes to find out.  It should have at least preliminary results sometime this week.  In the

The Revolution matters in American politics; matters in ways that are perhaps inexplicable to most Europeans.  In matters as diverse (and as modern) as healthcare reform, religion in

We live in a complicated world.  The fact that Michael Burry, a man with Asperger’s, was one of the literally handful of people to foresee the housing collapse

In one of her columns, Barbara Wallraff once exclaimed, “What is it about language that gets people so riled?”  Oliver Kamm, in his really quite excellent book Accidence

Have you ever had a feeling that you should or shouldn’t do something?  Did you follow through with it?  If not, did you later regret it? I ask,

We live in a world where we are expected to multi-task and invent new stuff all the time and where for that reason, the older you get, the

Egyptian royalty wore it.  As did ancient Hebrews.  As did the Phoenicians.  Archaeologists still uncover it from time to time.   It is said that Solomon wore it.  It