The Voynich Manuscript and Truth on the Internet
It can be a little frightening for medievalists to see self-evidently wrongheaded interpretations spread like wood lice.
Why Science-Fiction Writers Couldn’t Imagine the Internet
On Star Trek, humans talked to computers—they even used something like floppy disks and memory sticks—but nowhere did crew members get information from ethereal machines whose locations and identities were…
Fire Management May Date Back 40,000 Years
Researchers Simon Haberle of Australian National University, and fire ecologist David Bowman, in cooperation with the Tasmanian Aboriginal Center, dated charcoal and pollen in the core sample, and determined that…
How the Vietnam War Broke the American Presidency
The war opened the credibility gap. What we’ve learned since has only widened it. LBJ: It’s damned easy to get in a war, but it’s going to be awfully hard…
‘Carceral’ Spikes Amid Twitter Backlash
Of, relating to, or suggesting a jail or prison.
Congress Wants to Change the Americans With Disabilities Act and Undermine the Civil Rights of People With Disabilities
The Americans with Disabilities Act is the most comprehensive and foundational civil rights law prohibiting discrimination on the basis of disability. Yet, 27 years after it was passed, people with…
Fantasyland
by Kasia Babis on the Nib
Why knights fought snails in medieval art
Medieval Memes Look in the margins of medieval books and you’ll find an unusual theme: knights vs. snails. Follow Phil Edwards and Vox Almanac on Facebook for more: https://www.facebook.com/philedwardsi… Lillian…
What Liberals Get Wrong About Identity Politics
Identity politics has its roots in an expansive, radical agenda. But you wouldn’t know that from its liberal critics. “We haven’t taken the intellectual contributions of black women seriously enough…
Technobabble
UK podcast star Helen Zaltzman of The Allusionist helps me figure out why one set of poorly understood pseudo-scientific terms can sink a scene, while another set can make a…