Cool, but why the heck? "Guédelon is an example of experimental archaeology — which is a way to research how people did things in the past by trying to imitate them. It's about 'building to discover.'" - NPR
If we want the university to remain a viable space for knowledge production, then scholars across disciplines must be able to identify the goal of their work – in part to advance the Enlightenment project of ‘useful knowledge’ and in part to defend themselves from public and political mischaracterisation. - Aeon
As of 2023, more than three-quarters of U.S. adults report feeling stressed at work, almost 60% experience elements of burnout, and almost 20% feel they work in a “toxic” environment, according to the American Psychological Association. We often normalize these problems, turning them into topics for happy-hour venting sessions, but they are not trivial. - Time
Lina Khan made her reputation with a very different idea: What if pleasing the customer was not enough? Low prices, she argued in a 95-page examination of Amazon in the Yale Law Journal, can mask behavior that stifles competition and undermines society. - The New York Times
If the academic humanities too often address only siloed experts, then pop philosophy too often addresses an audience of imagined idiots. - Yale Review
Insights from western literature and myth point to the ethical problem at the core of human intelligence. How we understand the role of humans’ symbolic communication, including language in establishing ethical relations, has profound consequences for our society. - The Conversation
"If art is meant to be a portal, then the art of the future will have not one single exit, but unlimited gateways... This transition, as we are now experiencing it in the early days of the AI overhaul, will test our relationship to reality." - Wired
The end of Netflix's DVD service heralds the era of the very, very short tail - because, weirdly, "faced with even more options, people just gave up entirely." - Slate
Crowd science has long been working to understand how throngs can turn dangerous. It has borrowed from psychology and epidemiology, and now is also incorporating complex systems theory, physics, and physiology, combined with plentiful empirical data coupled with computer modeling. Scientists have even started turning their eyes toward the dangerous dynamics of virtual crowds. - Nautilus
The museum provided about 532,000 krone (£61,500) from its reserves to recreate artworks as well as an artist’s fee of about 40,000 krone. But when staff unpacked the newly delivered works, they found two empty frames with the title Take the Money and Run. - The Guardian
We're all West Coasters now: "This same accent that Gen Z has, which sounds a little bit like California English, to be honest, has shown up in places like California, Raleigh, Detroit and Boston." - NPR
"We review every single play or musical that opens on Broadway," says Jason Bailey, an NYT culture editor. "We review hundreds of movies a year. ... That means we should also be reviewing and criticizing the biggest video game releases." - The New York Times
“We designed the telescope to wow the scientists,” Mike Menzel agreed. Now, he said, “We’re here in an art show, watching some images that we helped produce becoming things that are almost iconic.” - The New Yorker
The lonely are at substantially elevated risk for heart disease, stroke, obesity, addiction, and dementia; being lonely increases your overall risk of premature death by more than 60%. And the number of Americans afflicted by loneliness is not small: a recent survey found that more than 50 percent of us reported feeling lonely. - American Scholar
