Emmanuel Carrère’s new book, Yoga, has been the subject of gossipy debate about its veracity, but it is seductively open about its own anxiety as a work of fiction.
Johannes Vermeer, one of the most intimate and quiet of artists, who is celebrated for the silence and light of his paintings, has become, paradoxically, a crowd-pleaser.
Johannes Vermeer: Faith, Light and Reflection by Gregor J.M. Weber
Vermeer and the Art of Love by Aneta Georgievska-Shine
The Wagner mutiny exposes the Russian tyrant’s growing weakness. But don’t count him out yet
Ukraine’s counter-offensive is going slowly
Factions close to the Russian president are thinking about life after him
By Jackson Lears
Shaw’s life force, Freud’s libido, Bergson’s ‘élan vital’—all are expressions of a spark that eludes the control of civilized modernity. Review by Jeremy McCarter.
“All history is the history of longing,” Jackson Lears has written.
By Philip J. Stern
The history of the British empire is really the history of ‘venture colonialism,’ developed by bold entrepreneurs, savvy investors—and some shady characters too. Review by Tunku Varadarajan.
By Rebecca Struthers
The craft requires ingenious engineering at a miniature scale and an appreciation for timeless beauty. Review by Michael O’Donnell.
By Patrick Mackie
The continuing appeal of Mozart’s music may lie in the contradictory nature of the composer, balancing elegance with challenging originality. Review by Lloyd Schwartz.
By Sarah Hart
Are great writers and brilliant mathematicians really so far apart? Within the structures of literary works of all kinds, numbers are hiding. Review by Timothy Farrington.
The Globalist Podcast, Thursday, June 29, 2023: Wagner sets up camp in Belarus – but what will they do next and who will they be fighting for? Why do so many people not like the way Joe Biden is handling the economy?
Plus: Japan prepares to release wastewater from the Fukushima nuclear plant into the Pacific and the latest headlines from the UAE.
Across the nation’s middle, unhealthy air from Canadian wildfires sent summer campers home and left residents coughing, and asking when this would end.
Russia’s president indicates that associates of the Wagner group’s leader in government and the military will face punishment.
Scientists knew the planet’s centerline could move. But it took a sharp turn sometime around the start of the 2000s.
A Russian missile strike on a popular restaurant in Kramatorsk, Ukraine killed at least 11 people, wounded dozens more, and showed the peril of trying to claim pieces of ordinary life during war.
The huge eruption of the Hunga Tonga–Hunga Ha‘apai volcano generated more than 2,600 lightning flashes per minute.
Freely accessible large language models have accelerated the pace of innovation, computer scientists say.
The craze for generative artificial intelligence (AI) that began with the release of OpenAI’s ChatGPT shows no sign of abating. But while large technology companies such as OpenAI and Google have captured the attention of the wider public — and are finding ways to monetize their AI tools — a quieter revolution is being waged by researchers and software engineers at smaller organizations.
The midnight zone is the single largest habitat on the planet, accounting for 70% of all seawater, but because of its remote location, it is poorly understood. Little is known about the animals that inhabit these waters, and even less is known about microbial life in this zone.
Times Literary Supplement (June 30, 2023): Evelyn Waugh’s failed marriage and spiritual crisis; The police on trial; Grotesque, unbelievable murder; Lorrie Moore’s road trip; Levity in death and more….
We need to take steps toward a more inclusive future—one that we all can inhabit.
“Technology,” wrote the late historian of technology Melvin Kranzberg Jr., “is neither good nor bad, nor is it neutral.” It’s an observation that often doesn’t stick with people as they think about technologies related to accessibility.
For people who can’t speak, there has been depressingly little innovation in technology that helps them communicate.
A piece of hardware, however impressively designed and engineered, is only as valuable as what a person can do with it. After the iPad’s release, the flood of new, easy-to-use AAC apps that LoStracco, Shevchenko, and their clients wanted never came.
Boomers Daily 