The Economist on how we tlkd b4 txting:
Here’s a good mental habit: when someone tells you that some new phenomenon is ruining the lanuage, the youth, our very ability to think, or what have you, check whether the phenomenon is genuinely new. Chances are, it’s not. Then check to see if people have been complaining about it forever. There’s a good chance that they have.
Here’s a delightfully stodgy (conservative?) piece on classical architecture. I must say, these buildings are beautiful.
The British architectural establishment either ignores or ridicules traditional and classical architecture of this kind. The establishment’s leaders are afraid, or they should be afraid, of classical architecture’s popularity with the general public, whose preference for it over modernist design comes through in every poll. Their fear is justified: they would be unable to satisfy public taste by designing in the classical language themselves, for they have abolished the teaching of classicism in every school of architecture in Britain over the last 50 years.
The Onion: TIME Announces New Version Of Magazine Aimed At Adults. “Time Advanced” is a good name, but I hear they wanted “The Economist” before finding it was taken.
In the 15 years since the first extrasolar planet orbiting a Sun-like star was discovered, astronomers have found close to 500 more.
If you had presented this issue to the great figures in the history of philosophy – anyone from Plato to Nietzsche – I suspect that they wouldn’t even have understood what the question could possibly be. Traditionally, no one worried very much about the distinction between philosophy and psychology. Philosophers were just supposed to think, at a very broad and fundamental level, about the nature of the human condition. And, as a matter of course, they were supposed to make use of all the intellectual resources available to them, including psychology, history, literature, and much else besides.
But when it comes to hemorrhoids—a painful swelling of the veins in the anal canal that affects half of all Americans—new research suggests that you may want to get your butt off the toilet.
I’ll avoid the potty humor.
The future of the stovetop.
A truly surprising figure from Reason:
A new Rasmussen poll says 48 percent of voters regard President Barack Obama’s political views as “extreme.”
A great headline from the NYT.
60 miles, 9 days and counting.
But an uninvited guest has arrived at this banquet of human advancement: evil. Whether men behave better or worse, individually or in the aggregate, than they did before the Enlightenment, is probably a question that we cannot answer approximately, let alone definitively. But what is certain is that moral evil has not only failed to disappear but has taken on a more deliberate, calculated character.
Few things are more enjoyable than a good kiss, but I’d turn down any offer to osculate.
Incredible reconstructions. But really, were the pastels necessary?
Not that I’ve ever liked that term anyway. “Garage Mahal” is a new one, but seems pretty classic.
They’ve been called McMansions, Starter Castles, Garage Mahals and Faux Chateaus but here’s the latest thing you can call them — History.
