Blog 3 Columns

The Incandescent Ban and the Lie of LED Efficiency 0
- Economics
- October 19, 2023
It happened as I went to grab a new package of baby wipes from under the sink. I flipped on my bathroom light, and I noticed something strange—one of my three mirror light bulbs began flickering and ultimately settled at a barely luminous dim setting. My LED light went out. The problem is, I changed
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Are We Addicted to Our Screens? How Can We Break Free?3
- Culture
- October 18, 2023
Habitually reaching into our purses or pockets to check our messages, staying up through the wee hours of the morning scrolling on social media, hearing phantom phone vibrations—these are all sure signs of a screen addiction. Like most people in the world these days, I have struggled with controlling my use of screens and technology.
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Civilization Is Permanence, Barbarism Is Instability 5
- Culture, Western Civilization
- October 18, 2023
In Part 1 of his 1969 documentary series on the history of Western art, Kenneth Clark defines civilization in a rather illuminating manner: Civilization means something more than energy and will and creative power, something the early Norsemen hadn’t got, but which, even in their time, was beginning to reappear in Western Europe. How can
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Some Thoughts on Halloween and Ray Bradbury 0
- Culture, Literature
- October 18, 2023
In 2015, blogger Amanda Russo posted a humorous piece “Why Halloween Is Actually A Pretty Weird Holiday.” As Russo says, on Halloween we encourage our kids to take candy from strangers. We threaten our neighbors with “Trick or Treat.” We spend a chunk of change buying and giving away sugary treats, often to people we
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Why Corporate Feminism Supports Abortion 0
- Culture, Economics
- October 17, 2023
The enthusiasm of corporations around abortion rights recalls Karl Marx’s beliefs in The Communist Manifesto: The “bourgeoisie,” or the economic elite in industrialized societies, “has torn away from the family its sentimental veil and has reduced the family relation to a mere money relation.” In other words, capitalism is the bane of family life. While Marx
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What Is a Person? ‘The Creator’ Movie on AI 0
- Entertainment
- October 17, 2023
The separation between biological human life and clever AI replicas has been the subject of dozens of science-fiction movies and shows. Star Trek: The Next Generation frequently depicted the endearing Commander Data, a sentient android, entangling himself in awkward situations through his attempts to seem more like his human comrades. Blade Runner 2049 dealt with
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Move Over, ACT, and Make Way for the Test of Choice and Innovation 2
- Education
- October 17, 2023
Do you remember taking the ACT test? I do. It was a brisk fall morning, and rows upon rows of us high school students were stuck inside, slaving over test questions, with no sounds but typing calculators, scratching pencils, and the tread of proctor feet moving slowly up and down the aisles. Students today still
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Stop Feeding the Polarization Beast 3
- Politics, Culture
- October 16, 2023
A new academic year has begun, as is evident from the smell of Xeroxed paper in the hallways and the excitement of college freshmen who are new to our classrooms. These first weeks are glorious: students are cheerful and optimistic, believing that this will be the year of straight A’s and good times. The professors
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From Time Immemorial: Questions and Answers About the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict 3
- Breaking News, History, International
- October 13, 2023
Over the weekend, the world was shocked by news of the Hamas attack on Israel, with a massacre against partygoers, brutal house-to-house killings and kidnappings, and the deaths of at least 22 Americans. Now the world braces as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declares war against Hamas, vowing “mighty vengeance” for the over 1,300 Israelis
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The Incandescent Ban and the Lie of LED Efficiency 0