Writing Worth Reading
Last updated 8 am GMT
Writing Worth Reading
Worth posting for the headline alone. On the seduction of newspaper infographics. "Visuals are easy to make, but they are also easy to fake, and their allure can turn them into potentially dangerous pieces of evidence"
Conversation with bioethicist Allen Buchanan. Interesting throughout. "It might turn out that the only way to prevent us from going extinct, or to prevent some great worsening of our condition, is to enhance some of our capacities"
Journalist tries virtual reality weapons training: "I am failing miserably. I'm so demoralised that I'm tempted to put down the rifle and leave." But then they bring out the electrodes, and wire her brain to a nine-volt battery
Easy to say that RIM, maker of the BlackBerry, got steamrollered by Apple. But real problem is that RIM failed to adapt to consumerisation of IT. Consumer choice now drives corporate IT departments, not vice versa
For decades, Piltdown Man was thought to be one of the most important discoveries in human evolutionary history. Alas, it was a fraud. But who were the hoaxers, how did they do it, and why? The mystery may be about to be unravelled
"The latest findings on dyslexia are leading to a new way of looking at the condition: Not just as an impediment, but as an advantage, especially in certain artistic and scientific fields." Here's what researchers have found
Interview with Richard Handl, who did try it at home. "First, he got a saucepan. Into it he put his radioactive elements—the americium and radium. He mixed them up with sulphuric acid and beryllium, and turned on the stove"
Super history of blogging platform turned social network, Tumblr. 36 million users; 42 million posts per day; 14 billion monthly page views. This is how David Karp built a company worth ÂŁ500m, in just five years
Company has no use for money it will raise. Mark Zuckerberg wants to keep absolute control. Only reason to go public is to gratify start-up investors and shareholding employees. Which is not nothing. But it's not enough (Free reg/$)
Excellent post on limits of neuroscience. Why it's wrong to make sensationalist claims about the mind, morality from our limited understanding of how the brain works. If only more understood the line between science and speculation
"By friending Wall Street at the start of its journey to the public markets, Facebook is giving its users something unpleasant to think about: Their personal information is helping to make rich people even richer"
Enjoyable essay review of new book that charts a century of memory research. From Frederic Bartlett, who concluded in 1913 that we remake our memories each time we remember them, right up to contemporary research on memory erasure
Image by bramblejungle on Flickr
"When you search, you find what you were looking for; when you browse, you find what you were not looking for"
