F lying into Egypt in early February to make the most important presentation of his life, Ties van der Hoeven prepared by listening to the podcast 13 Minutes To The Moon – the story of how Nasa accomp
In every dream home a heartache: the Hapsburgian MCU, suburban cosa nostra , synthetic lovers, domestic realism, full-surrogacy , the falling rate of enjoyment , mothers & others , and how the sausage
Welcome to the 1,370 newly Not Boring people who have joined us since last Monday! 🤯 If you aren’t subscribed, join 37,892 smart, curious folks by subscribing here: 🎧 To get this essay straight in you
Read this first: Book Review: Fussell On Class Dear Republican Party: I hear you're having a post-Trump identity crisis . Your old platform of capitalism and liberty and whatever no longer excites peo
S even months ago, Sacha Baron Cohen was in the back of a speeding ambulance. It was an escape car, and he was fleeing a gun rally. The Borat producers had chosen the ambulance as it could blend in, a
In February, 1967, Jim Garrison, the New Orleans district attorney, wrote a five-page memo called “Time and Propinquity: Factors in Phase I,” which revealed some of the spurious connections he was mak
The playbook is clear: Talk death figures and data; If you don’t make it explicitly about people , it’s possible to abstract the horror out a little. Muddy the water further with discussions of ‘pre-e
(Photo By barbara gibson) When the cultural critic and theorist Mark Fisher took his own life on 13 January 2017 at the age of 48, he was a third of a way through delivering a lecture series titled “P
The Biden administration and House and Senate Democrats want to raise the national minimum wage from $7.25 an hour to $15 an hour. The result would be straightforward: higher wages, but also the closu
My test came one drizzly afternoon in March 2017 when I was escorted into the Oval Office. Seated behind the Resolute Desk, President Donald J. Trump declined to rise or extend a handshake to me and m
As England and Scotland start another period of lockdown, we all have to come to terms with following stricter covid-19 restrictions, most likely for a relatively long period of time. The notion of be
For the young artist in quest of achievement, the limited time available, in the face of day jobs, is a classic obstacle, real or perceived. (Joe Swanberg and Greta Gerwig aptly called the film they c
information theory July 16, 2020 To recognize strange extraterrestrial life and solve biological mysteries on this planet, scientists are searching for an objective definition for life’s basic units.
“Lights, please.” For half a century, it’s been one of the most significant phrases in American Christianity. A prelude to something sacred in an unlikely place: the Gospel of Luke, King James transla
T he Doomsday Machine was never supposed to exist. It was meant to be a thought experiment that went like this: Imagine a device built with the sole purpose of destroying all human life. Now suppose t
The newly discovered coronavirus had killed only a few dozen people when Feixiong Cheng started looking for a treatment. He knew time was of the essence: Cheng, a data analyst at the Cleveland Clinic,
There is a law of physics that also applies to politics: energy cannot be created or destroyed. It can only be changed from one form to another. The story of Brexit is a story of energy conversion – t
“I’ve always been doing weird, stupid things and following my heart. It made no sense to handle my career the way I did, but I wouldn’t do it another way.” Photo: Katy Grannan for New York Magazine Th
T he great decline of the British middle class is as stark as it is little discussed. A year ago, Labour’s losses in the so-called red wall seemed to emphasise a historic collapse in its relationship
I keep hearing people complain that the ‘mainstream media’ does not understand economics and that we’re talked down to as if everything must be explained as if the economy is a household. In this thread I explain all you (and they) need to know. Economics in one thread then....
Updated at 5:39 p.m. ET on December 7, 2020. O n the evening of September 11, 1980, my mom was approached by a neighbor who held rank in the Turkish military. He told her to stock up on bread and rice
T he Crown is not a documentary. The presence of actors is a strong clue; the members of the Royal Family wish they were this good-looking. Do viewers need to be warned about this? One British politic
admin November 25, 2020 WORDS & PHOTOS: Emilia Ong In Hollywood disaster movies, there’s always some guy who warns of a coming catastrophe. Nobody listens to him. Not until the shit starts to hit the
In the early two-thousands, Merlin Mann, a Web designer and avowed Macintosh enthusiast, was working as a freelance project manager for software companies. He had held similar roles for years, so he k
COVID-19 has required all of us to scrutinize our actions and sacrifice our desires and even our obligations in order to keep ourselves and those around us safe. I want to examine two cases where reas
L etting the virus that causes Covid-19 circulate more-or-less freely is dangerous not only because it risks overwhelming hospitals and so endangering lives unnecessarily, but also because it could de
W hen Katrina first saw the photo, she cried. The four-year-old girl at its centre is seated at a dinner table, with chips on her plate and a fork in her hand. Behind her, the walls of the room are ba
F or six years now, I have been writing down three good things that have happened in my day, every day. It doesn’t matter how big or small they are. It could be having pastries in bed. Spotting a fox
I remember, as a 17-year-old taking an A-level in history, coming home from school and one of my mums asking what I had learned that day. She knew we were studying the Soviet Union, and it was a subje
Updated at 12:04 p.m. ET on November 7, 2020. Now that Joe Biden has won the presidency, we can expect debates over whether Donald Trump was an aberration (“not who we are!”) or another instantiation
Here’s something that’s changed lately: people are no longer ashamed to speak to the world at large in the imperative mood. It’s normal, now, to give orders to perfect strangers: stop doing this, star
"But for those countless others, in the cities and towns of the USA and in countries far away, to whom America has not been good, the face of America has always and forever been the face of Donald Trump."
I n the institute where I used to work a few years ago, a rare non-infectious illness hit five colleagues in quick succession. There was a sense of alarm, and a hunt for the cause of the problem. In t
I consider Kathryn Bigelow’s new film, “Detroit,” to be a moral failure.It’s clear that Bigelow intended to present a set of historical factsthat would offend viewers’ sensibilities, spark righteous o
U ntil last year I had no idea I was autistic. I knew I was different and I had always been told I was “too sensitive”. But I don’t fit the dated Rain Man stereotype. I’m a CEO, I’m married, I have tw
Tendayi Kuumba and Chris Giarmo, in their element. Photo: HBO From the very first moment dance and vocal captain Chris Giarmo emerges from behind the metallic curtains in American Utopia , it’s almost
The last time I wrote about Brexit was a little over a year ago — Boris Johnson had just become Prime Minister, ash was not blocking out the sun in the Pacific Northwest, and very few people had ever heard of the word “coronavirus”. Simpler times.
Pete Ashton