John Underkoffler believes that the future of User Interface is imbuing computation with space. In other words, the mouse and icon model will soon give way to computers that understand where in the physical world a thing is located and the computer will be able to interact with objects appropriately...

Thoreau’s glorified camping trip at Walden pond has shaped the American imagination and perspective on writers. Of course, writers holed themselves away in order to write far from the madding crowd long before Thoreau. But Thoreau embodied the rigorous independence, the resistance to the unnecessary...

This week, Nicholas Christakis explores the “widower effect,” the increased probability that one will die because one’s partner has fallen gravely ill or has died.  Christakis contends that not only is the effect a real, measurable phenomenon, but it has a bigger influence than researchers...

When it comes to corporate moral responsibility, the media is consistently double minded. Steve Jobs, one of the most inspired visionaries of our time, is more than just a businessman–and Apple is more than just a business.  From an early age Steve Jobs set out to run his own company and build...

Three years spent repairing old books in the basement of a university library can’t help but leave a girl like me with a definite bias.  I love books–and I don’t just love reading them.  I love the smell of leather, I love the texture of fine paper, and I love the way a well-bound volume...

Steve Jobs’ latest innovation is pioneering a new space for human use of technology.  Last week’s unveiling of the iPad came after many months of speculation, hype, and hope; yet the initial response was far less impressive than either the hype or the thing itself merited.  The first remarks...

Food and sex have shifted roles over the past fifty or so years, argues Mary Eberstadt in a fascinating essay at Policy Review. Once, social stigma condemned extra-marital philandering. Sex was a serious ethical issue, with serious personal and social consequences. Food, however, was something with few,...

There is hardly a student in the United States whose work remains wholly untouched by the influence of the Modern Language Association. Whether a fledgling upstart or a seasoned scholar, anyone doing academic work in the humanities has been guided through the massive collaborative effort of the MLA....

She’s only three, but our differing taste in music is already a source of conflict. When I turn on Johnny Cash or Regina Spektor, she is adamant: “No.  Songs ’bout Jesus.”  In other words, the local contemporary Christian music station. At first this seemed OK.   Like many...

It is no real surprise that one of the primary metaphors in Scripture for the dominion of sin and evil ruled over by Satan is that of Darkness. We are diurnal creatures, light-loving and day-inhabiting. We have colloquially marked the development of culture by harnessing fire, defining anthropological...