Full Width [alt+shift+f] Shortcuts [alt+shift+k]
Sign Up [alt+shift+s] Log In [alt+shift+l]
23
Miles Davis didn’t put out any studio albums from 1973 until the middle of 1981. In explaining the reasons for this lacuna in his recording career, Milesologists can point to a variety of factors in the man’s professional and personal life. But one in particular looms large: the failure of his 1972 album On the […]
2 weeks ago

Improve your reading experience

Logged in users get linked directly to articles resulting in a better reading experience. Please login for free, it takes less than 1 minute.

More from Open Culture

How Frank Lloyd Wright’s Architecture Evolved Over 70 Years and Changed America

In the new Architectural Digest video above, Michael Wyetzner talks about a fair few buildings we’ve featured over the years here on Open Culture: the Imperial Hotel, the Ennis House, Taliesin, Fallingwater. These are all, of course, the work of Frank Lloyd Wright, who still stands as the embodiment of American architecture more than 65 […]

12 hours ago 1 votes
David Bowie/Nirvana’s “The Man Who Sold The World” Played on the Gayageum, a Korean Instrument from the 6th Century

East meets West, and the Ancient, the Modern. That’s what happens every time Luna Lee plays one of your favorites on the Gayageum, a Korean instrument that dates back to the 6th century. We’ve featured her work in years past (see the Relateds below). Above, watch one of her standout performances—a cover of “The Man Who Sold […]

13 hours ago 2 votes
How Our Depiction of Jesus Changed Over 2,000 Years and What He May Have Actually Looked Like

Whether or not you believe Jesus Christ is the son of God, you probably envision him (or, if you prefer, Him) in much the same way as most everyone else does. The long hair and beard, the robe, the sandals, the beatific gaze: these traits have all manifested across two millennia of Christian art. “However, […]

yesterday 2 votes
John Nash’s Super Short PhD Thesis: 26 Pages & Two Citations

When John Nash wrote “Non-Cooperative Games,” his Ph.D. dissertation at Princeton in 1950, the text of his thesis (read it online) was brief. It ran only 26 pages. And more particularly, it was light on citations. Nash’s diss cited two texts: John von Neumann and Oskar Morgenstern’s Theory of Games and Economic Behavior (1944), which essentially created game theory and revolutionized the field […]

yesterday 2 votes
How a Student’s Phone Call Averted a Skyscraper Collapse: The Tale of the Citicorp Center

The Citigroup Center in Midtown Manhattan is also known by its address, 601 Lexington Avenue, at which it’s been standing for 47 years, longer than the median New Yorker has been alive. Though still a fairly handsome building, in a seventies-corporate sort of way, it now pops out only mildly on the skyline. At street […]

4 days ago 6 votes

More in creative

Energy and systems complexity

Wild animals forage. They spend calories and take risks to acquire food. If the required work and risk expended are more than the food they acquire, they go extinct. The goal is to get as many calories as possible for as little effort as possible. If there’s a surplus, their instinct is to have kids […]

12 hours ago 2 votes
David Bowie/Nirvana’s “The Man Who Sold The World” Played on the Gayageum, a Korean Instrument from the 6th Century

East meets West, and the Ancient, the Modern. That’s what happens every time Luna Lee plays one of your favorites on the Gayageum, a Korean instrument that dates back to the 6th century. We’ve featured her work in years past (see the Relateds below). Above, watch one of her standout performances—a cover of “The Man Who Sold […]

13 hours ago 2 votes
Infinity is not a number

Little kids get confused about this… just add a few more to a very big number, and you have infinity. Actually, infinity is a feeling and a concept built on the presumption that it can never be reached. In a metrics-driven world, infinity is a dangerous thing to wish for, because it can never be […]

yesterday 2 votes
How Our Depiction of Jesus Changed Over 2,000 Years and What He May Have Actually Looked Like

Whether or not you believe Jesus Christ is the son of God, you probably envision him (or, if you prefer, Him) in much the same way as most everyone else does. The long hair and beard, the robe, the sandals, the beatific gaze: these traits have all manifested across two millennia of Christian art. “However, […]

yesterday 2 votes
Activation is not a secret

…but it’s often overlooked. A farmer might yearn for twice as much land. But it’s far more efficient to double the yield on the land he already has. Marketers often hustle to get the word out. To reach more people. And yet, activating the fans you already have–the ones who trust you, who get the […]

2 days ago 3 votes