Full Width 
Shortcuts 
Sign Up 
Log In 
Articles 
Reading List More from Open Culture
It’s practically guaranteed that we now have more stupid people on the planet than ever before. Of course, we might be tempted to think; just look at how many of them disagree with my politics. But this unprecedented stupidity is primarily, if not entirely, a function of an unprecedentedly large global population. The more important […]
Note: Yesterday, Marianne Faithfull passed away at age 78. In her memory, we’re bringing back a favorite from deep in our archive. It originally appeared on our site in June 2012. When you want to learn a thing or two about Jean-Luc Godard, you turn to New Yorker film critic Richard Brody. I do, anyway, […]
Several years ago, Google launched a series of Career Certificates that will “prepare learners for an entry-level role in under six months.” Their first certificates focused on Project Management, Data Analytics, User Experience (UX) Design, IT Support and IT Automation. And they have since released a certificate dedicated to Digital Marketing & E‑Commerce, which incorporates training […]
A 600-year-old manuscript—written in a script no one has ever decoded, filled with cryptic illustrations, its origins remaining to this day a mystery…. It’s not as satisfying a plot, say, of a National Treasure or Dan Brown thriller, certainly not as action-packed as pick-your-Indiana Jones…. The Voynich Manuscript, named for the antiquarian who rediscovered it […]
Several generations of American students have now had the experience of being told by an English teacher that they’d been reading Robert Frost all wrong, even if they’d never read him at all. Most, at least, had seen his lines “Two roads diverged in a wood, and I— / I took the one less traveled […]
More in creative
Complaining is a cultural phenomenon, but it’s particularly prevalent in societies with a consumer culture (the customer is always right) and those where comfort is coming to be expected. Given all the complaining we do (about the weather, leadership, products, service and various ailments), it’s worth taking a moment to think about why we complain. […]
This week I’m in The UnPopulist with an article about the politics of the abundance agenda:
Are more famous figures dying, and if so, why?
There are many ways to prioritize our time and focus, but the easiest and most vivid way is to do the urgent things first. If we wait until a house plant is sick before we take care of it, though, it’s too late. Deadlines, loud requests and last-minute interventions are crude forcing functions. They’re inefficient […]
