Allusionist: Curse Soup
Somebody has really ticked you off. You're all steamed up inside and you want to vent that rage using words, but you don't want to confront them directly because you're…
Seduced & Abandoned: The Body in the Virtual World – The Feminine Cyberspace
Seduced & Abandoned was one of a series of ICA conferences (spanning 12-13 March, 1994) held under the umbrella title Towards the Aesthetics of the Future that explored the connections…
This American Life: We Are in the Future
One of our producers, Neil Drumming, has recently become fascinated with Afrofuturism. It's more than sci-fi. It’s a way of looking at black culture that’s fantastic, creative, and oddly hopeful—which feels especially urgent…
The dark side of Detroit’s renaissance
However, the whole argument for pouring taxpayer dollars into this area is that its growth will spill over to the rest of the city, opening up jobs and business opportunities…
What Did 17th Century Food Taste Like?
Guessing the true flavors of these ingredients—the taste of premodern chicken, or mace carried in a ship's hold from Indonesia to Europe, or butter that was churned by hand—is at…
Whatever happened to Winamp? (which you can still download, by the way)
Fifteen to twenty years ago, Winamp was the MP3 player that everyone used. It was the first MP3 player not to suck: playlists, shuffle, convenience. I asked friends on Facebook…
A Digital Archive of 1,800+ Children’s Books from UCLA
“Prior to the mid-eighteenth century,” notes the UCLA Children’s Book Collection—a digital repository of over 1800 children’s books dating from 1728 to 1999—“books were rarely created specifically for children, and…
Why net neutrality’s peril raises the stakes for future satellite broadband options
The Federal Communication Commission’s plan to start rolling back regulations on net neutrality comes as bad news for streaming video providers like Amazon and Netflix, and potentially for consumers as…
Rachel Carson on Writing and the Loneliness of Creative Work
Many of the titans of literature have left, alongside a body of work that models powerful writing, abiding advice on the craft that examines the source of that power. Unrivaled…
5 Tips For Talking to Your Definitely Not Racist Family on Thanksgiving
November 17, 2017 | Michael Conti If the thought of Thanksgiving dinner conversation is already giving you the sweats – we got you. It’s hard enough trying to remember what not to talk…