Mining Books: Just a Start

Last Thursday, Harvard and Google hosted the largest data release in the history of the humanities, a database of 500 billion words containe...

First, Second, Last. . .(Dead Last)

A few summers ago we were touring in Venice .  Someone asked our guide a question and she said something like this: “Well, you have to reali...

Turns Out You CAN Buy Happiness

I just finished George Dawes Green’s new book, Ravens , about a dysfunctional Southern family, the Boatwrights, who win more than $300 milli...

The Marshmallow Test

A four-year-old is sitting at a table with a marshmallow on it. Does this sound like the start of a good joke? It turns out that it was, in ...

The Second Best Chart of All-Time

Well, maybe not. But you'll agree that when graphical data is presented well (and we don't mean pie charts ), it can speak volumes....

Real Perspective on the "Greatest Generation"

I have an important question to ask you. Who is the greatest baseball player of all time, Ken Griffey, Jr. or Alex Rodriquez? If you are a p...

Technology On the Backside of the Ladder: Cycling Grows Up

When I was in high school I ran the two-mile in spring track. What I remember best about the track season was not the meets themselves, but...

A World That Never Forgets: 8 Short Case Studies

Jessica Winter’s The Advantages of Amnesia   (in the Boston Globe ) raises some perplexing questions about a world where memory is drastical...