Last weekend my wife, son, and I went to storytime at the library. Fifteen kids, twenty parents, a big mat on the floor. A perfect Saturday morning. Then class starts. “After storytime today,” the teacher begins, “we would appreciate it if everyone could fill out a survey about our performance.” My…

When we get an auto-responder, the feeling is generally one of mild disappointment, indifference, or doom, depending on how urgent your request was. If I took the time to compose something better, I wondered, would anyone take the time to read it? Was there a way—an opportunity, even—to shift the…

Years ago I interviewed to be a book editor at a data-centric company that made me sign a nondisclosure agreement, so I won’t tell you where (but you can guess). I was asked what kind of data I’d use to determine whether a book was worth publishing. I said that I’d look at the author’s previous…

Tom Dilly Littleson O n December 16, 2016, Tanya Gersh answered her phone and heard gunshots. Startled, she hung up. Gersh, a real-estate agent who lives in Whitefish, Montana, assumed it was a prank call. But the phone rang again. More gunshots. Again, she hung up. Another call. This time, she…

I n early 1984, executives at the telephone company Pacific Bell made a fateful decision. For decades, the company had enjoyed a virtual monopoly on telephone services in California, but now it was facing a problem. The industry was about to be deregulated, and Pacific Bell would soon be facing…

We profile the enigmatic CEO and founder Azmat Yusuf

sent them something awesome

“ Marking a book is literally an experience of your differences or agreements with the author. It is the highest respect you can pay him. ” — Edgar Allen Poe *** I bet you already know how to read a book. You were taught in elementary school. But do you know how to read well ? There is a difference…

Work / Opinion Creativebrief managing editor Kara Melchers writes about the importance of side projects and how those peripheral paths can often lead to the dream job. Recently at Creativebrief we were all asked to take part in an online personality test . I’m an ENFP and the diagnosis was pretty…

According to marathon-running mythology, Pheidippides, the ancient Greek athlete often named as history’s first endurance runner, dropped dead at the end of his run. Historians say this false dramatic detail springs more from poetry than traceable records, but the lie has likely endured because…

In the 1980’s a winsome, pint-size European caused a sexual revolution in the US. With a hit radio show “Sexually Speaking,” psychologist Ruth Westheimer—known simply as Dr. Ruth—got prudish Americans to talk about sexual health openly and divorce it from the realm of pornography and perversion.…

5 things I learned from successfully crowdfunding projects

There is no accurate roadmap for grieving, no right or wrong way for coming to terms with loss. The Kübler-Ross model describes "five stages" of grief experienced in succession as one copes with death. Helpful as it may be as a template, mourning often isn't the linear process of passing from one of…

The New Breaker When Leah Culver and Erik Berlin, co-founders of podcast service Breaker , approached me about documenting the launch of the new Breaker brand, I was a bit hesitant. Honestly, I thought, what can we possibly add to this discussion that hasn’t been worn over already? Then, it occurred…

More than a third of young people said they wanted to cut down mobile use.Photograph: Samuel Gibbs for the Guardian A re we falling out of love with our phones? According to a new survey , the amount of time 16- to 24-year-olds spend on their smartphones each day has fallen for the first time since…

Initially, Darren Day told his 12-year-old daughter Macy that the family couldn’t afford to go to HelloWorld. Billed as an “immersive live experience”, the two-day event was going to be a place for young fans to see their YouTube heroes in the flesh, enjoy carnival rides, listen to live music, and…

Public Shaming and Even Prison for Plastic Bag Use in Rwanda

We’re so good at undermining our confidence. We let imaginary voices water down our true nature. We live in a story where we’re the center of attention. There’s an even scarier truth: Nobody cares about you. Nobody is thinking about you. Everyone is too self-obsessed to care about anyone else. Sure,…

A pair of adidas Made for London trainers sit on a powder-blue tray table the size of an A3 sheet. The shoes don't look like much - but then they wouldn't, because they haven't been made yet. The scant ingredients include two kinds of spooled thread, three cups of white plastic beads and a couple of…

Meet The "Young Saints" Of Bethel Who Go To College To Perform Miracles The Bethel School of Supernatural Ministry, which teaches prophecy and faith healing, is upending a small city in California's Trump country. It’s the first day of Prophecy Week at the Bethel School of Supernatural Ministry. Or,…

The story of how one metric has changed the way you see the world The world feels more dangerous. Our streets seem less safe. The assault on our values is constant. The threats feel real. The enemy is out there — just check your feed. O ne evening in late October 2014, a doctor checked his own pulse…

Jackie Chan, who turned 63 this year, holds the Guinness World Record for the most credits on a single movie. (Fifteen jobs, on a movie called CZ12, or Chinese Zodiac, from 2012, starring Jackie Chan, directed by Jackie Chan, gaffed by Jackie Chan, with catering coordinated by Jackie Chan.) But in…

J ustin Rosenstein had tweaked his laptop’s operating system to block Reddit, banned himself from Snapchat, which he compares to heroin, and imposed limits on his use of Facebook . But even that wasn’t enough. In August, the 34-year-old tech executive took a more radical step to restrict his use of…

2 Sisters Food Group produces a third of all poultry products consumed in the UK.Photograph: Nick Ansell/PA “Have you just got out of prison?” the slaughterhouse foreman asks his new recruit. It is a question seemingly posed in jest, but probably only to mask a genuine suspicion that a spell in…

‘Despite his demonstrable buffoonery, Boris Johnson is astute enough to realise that Tory Brexit is spiralling into disaster.’Photograph: UPI/Barcroft Images A Stephen King film set to the Benny Hill theme tune: that’s Britain’s current political plight. It feels like a horror show without end yet…

Missguided’s Babe Power is the fastest-selling female fragrance of 2017 B abe Power is the fastest-selling female fragrance of 2017 . It comes in an 80ml rose gold “can”, costs £28 and claims to smell of absinthe, moss and candy floss. It’s the honk of the candy floss that stays with you, though,…

The Weird Brilliance of Joaquin Phoenix

all have the same advice

As a summertime service for readers of the editorial pages who may wish someday to write for them, here’s a list of things I’ve learned over the years as an editor, op-ed writer and columnist. 1) A wise editor once observed that the easiest decision a reader can make is to stop reading. This means…

In Ralph Waldo Emerson's famous essay on self-reliance, the 19th-century writer and naturalist sang the praises of spiritual isolation and the evils of distraction, bemoaning the forces that conspired to direct his attention to "emphatic trifles." He would not be cowed, he said, but would stand…

The first voice you hear on the recording is mine. “Here we are,” I say. My tone is cheerful, but a catch in my throat betrays how nervous I am. Then, a little grandly, I pronounce my father’s name: “John James Vlahos.” “Esquire,” a second voice on the recording chimes in, and this one…

The Google engineer who was fired last week over his memo wrote that most women were biologically unsuited to working in tech because they were more focused on “feelings and aesthetics than ideas” and had “a stronger interest in people rather than things.” Many scientists have said he got the…

Clockwise from top left: Nichelle Tramble Spellman, D.B. Weiss, Malcolm Spellman, David Benioff Photo: Getty Images Game of Thrones showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss are no strangers to controversy, be it serious (questions about the show’s handling of sexual violence) or trivial (Ed Sheeran…

Pioneers of sound (left to right): George Philip Wright, Jon Eades and Siavash Mahdavi at Abbey Road Studios, London.Photograph: Sonja Horsman for the Observer F r om Elgar to Adele, and the Beatles or Pink Floyd to Kanye West, London’s Abbey Road Studios has hosted a storied list of musical stars…

remembers Sam Shepard

The label’s become too big to be useful, and tech could suffer for it. Quick: What do an auto leasing provider, a condiment company and the producers of a serious TV drama have in common? If your answer is “almost nothing”, then you’re right. If your answer is “they have such similar roles in…

Sports Running Winner Kilian Jornet, 29, greeted the last finisher, Robert Andrulis, who took nearly 48 hours to finish the 100.5-mile course Daniel Petty, Special to The Denver Post Robert Andrulis gets a hug after being the last finisher of the Hardrock 100 endurance run through the San Juan…

Tony Fadell’s wife likes to remind him when their three children’s eyes are glued to their screens that it’s at least partly his fault. Hard to argue. Fadell , who founded the smart thermostat company Nest in 2010 and who was instrumental in the creation of both the iPod and later the iPhone as a…

The Taylor Report, the UK government’s recent major review of modern work , paid particular attention to the “gig economy”. This is the idea that the traditional model of work – where people often have a clear career progression and a job for life – has been upended. It encompasses “self-employed”…