Tag: science
The Galileo Gambit: Scientific Liberty, Consensus, and the Cost of Persuasion
Rewilding the Web: my workshop report from Edinburgh
Notes from a wonderfully interdisciplinary Edinburgh workshop on 'Rewilding the Web', ranging coopetition and biological variety through the philosophy of self-organisation, polycrisis governance, protopian science fiction, and moderation seen through the lens of artisanal cheese.
How Infrastructure Works
NAMED A BEST BOOK OF 2023 BY PUBLISHERS WEEKLY "Revelatory, superbly written, and pulsing with wisdom and humanity, How Infrastructure Works is a masterpiece." — Ed Yong, author of An Immense World A new way of seeing the essential systems hidden inside our walls, under our streets, and all around us Infrastructure is a marvel, meeting our basic needs and enabling lives of astounding ease and productivity that would have been unimaginable just a century ago. It is the physical manifestation of our social contract—of our ability to work collectively for the public good—and it consists of the most complex and vast technological systems ever created by humans. A soaring bridge is an obvious infrastructural feat, but so are the mostly hidden reservoirs, transformers, sewers, cables, and pipes that deliver water, energy, and information to wherever we need it. When these systems work well, they hide in plain sight. Engineer and materials scientist Deb Chachra takes readers on a fascinating tour of these essential utilities, revealing how they work, what it takes to keep them running, just how much we rely on them—but also whom they work well for, and who pays the costs. Across the U.S. and elsewhere, these systems are suffering from systemic neglect and the effects of climate change, becoming unavoidably visible when they break down. Communities that are already marginalized often bear the brunt of these failures. But Chachra maps out a path for transforming and rebuilding our shared infrastructure to be not just functional but also equitable, resilient, and sustainable. The cost of not being able to rely on these systems is unthinkably high. We need to learn how to see them—and fix them, together—before it’s too late.
World Eaters
An urgent and illuminating perspective that offers a window into how the most pernicious aspects of the venture capital ethos is reaching all areas of our lives, into everything from healthcare to food to entertainment to the labor market and leaving a trail of destruction in its wake. The venture capital playbook is causing unique harms to society. And in World Eaters , Catherine Bracy offers a window into the pernicious aspects of VC and shows us how its bad practices are bleeding into all industries, undermining the labor and housing markets and posing unique dangers to the economy at large. VC’s creates a wide, powerful wake that impacts the average consumer just as much as it does investors and entrepreneurs. In researching this book, Bracy has interviewed founders, fund managers, contract and temp workers in the gig economy, and Limited Partners across the landscape. She learned that the current VC model is not a good fit for the majority of start-ups, and yet, there are too few options for early stage funding outside of VC dollars. And while there are some alternative paths for sustainable, responsible growth, without the help of regulators, there is not much motivation to drive investors from the roulette table that is venture capital. World Eaters is an eye-opening account of the ways that the values of contemporary venture capital hurt founders, consumers, and the market. Bracy’s clear-eyed debut is a must-read for fans of Winners Take All , Super Pumped , and Brotopia , an appealing “insider / outsider” perspective on Silicon Valley, and those who are fascinated to look under the hood and learn why the modern economy is not working for most of us.
Lifehouse
A manifesto and guide for building mutual aid groups and reclaiming power in a time of perpetual crisis We are living through a Long Emergency: a near-continuous train of pandemics, heatwaves, droughts, resource wars and other climate-driven disasters. In Lifehouse, Adam Greenfield asks what might happen if the tactics and networks of care that spring up in response to these times might be brought together in a single, coherent way of life? Using examples from the Black Panthers’ “survival programs,” the astonishingly effective Occupy Sandy disaster-relief effort and the neighborhood-based mutual aid groups that sustained many during COVID lockdowns to the large-scale, self-organised polities of municipalist Spain and Kurdish Rojava, Greenfield argues for rethinking local power as a bulwark against despair — a way to discover and develop the individual and collective capacities that have gone underutilized during all the long years of late capitalism, and a means for thriving in the face of impending catastrophe.
Challenger
From the New York Times bestselling author of Midnight in Chernobyl comes the definitive, dramatic, minute-by-minute story of the Challenger disaster, based on fascinating in-depth reporting and new archival research—a riveting history that reads like a thriller. On January 28, 1986, just seventy-three seconds into flight, the space shuttle Challenger broke apart over the Atlantic Ocean, killing all seven people on board. Millions of Americans witnessed the tragic deaths of the crew, which included New Hampshire schoolteacher Christa McAuliffe. Like the assassination of JFK, the Challenger disaster is a defining moment in twentieth-century history—one that forever changed the way America thought of itself and its optimistic view of the future. Yet the full story of what happened, and why, has never been told. Based on extensive archival research and meticulous, original reporting, Challenger: A True Story of Heroism and Disaster on the Edge of Space follows a handful of central protagonists—including each of the seven members of the doomed crew—through the years leading up to the accident, and offers a detailed account of the tragedy itself and the investigation afterward. It’s a compelling tale of ambition and ingenuity undermined by political cynicism and cost-cutting in the interests of burnishing national prestige; of hubris and heroism; and of an investigation driven by leakers and whistleblowers determined to bring the truth to light. Throughout, there are the ominous warning signs of a tragedy to come, recognized but then ignored, and later hidden from the public. Higginbotham reveals the history of the shuttle program and the lives of men and women whose stories have been overshadowed by the disaster, as well as the designers, engineers, and test pilots who struggled against the odds to get the first shuttle into space. A masterful blend of riveting human drama and fascinating and absorbing science, Challenger identifies a turning point in history—and brings to life an even more complex and astonishing story than we remember.
37’s Signals
Explaining why analog television sets never had a channel 37, despite TVs generally able to tune it. Turns out some scientists simply needed that channel more.
Cosmic Mistake
Why your zodiac sign—that thing that supposedly defines your personality—is probably wrong. Sorry, Gemini.
Headbanger’s Ball
How do woodpeckers avoid brain injury? It all comes down to their bones.
Stuck On You
Suction cups are the tiniest little vacuums around, and there’s one U.S. company that sells millions of them every single year. Here’s how they caught on.
Live and Let Dye
These days, artificial food coloring is seen as a major health risk—admittedly, for good reason in some cases. But, shockingly, things used to be way worse.
We're Literally Navel-Gazing
A good sign that you're a human is the existence of a belly button. Everyone has one, and everyone participates in acts of navel gazing sometimes.