Guest Thinkers — February 22, 2011

BlackBerry and Apple: innovation smackdown

Remember those “compare and contrast” essay questions back in college, in which you had to write intelligently on liberal arts topics drawn from history, philosophy or political science? Within the past two weeks, BlackBerry and Apple both launched new retail stores, and the results couldn’t be more different… Compare and contrast the approach taken to selling consumer electronics gadgets by both Apple and BlackBerry.

Compared to the latest store from Apple in New York’s trendy Meatpacking District, this first-ever “authorized” BlackBerry store in suburban Michigan does look rather forlorn… Information Week describes the store as “a rather cheerless box in a bleak Upper Midwest suburb…”

[image: BlackBerry store and Apple’s new Meatpacking District store]

a computer generated image of a human brain.

Thinking

The great free will debate featuring Michio Kaku and Steven Pinker

Who — or what — really controls your mind?

Building destroyed by the Halifax Explosion. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C.

The Past

The largest accidental explosion of all time

More than a century ago, Halifax suffered an accidental blast one-fifth the size of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima.

a collage of photos of a man with a hat and a book.

High Culture

6 great books with wildly unreliable narrators

Dive into the twisted truths and concealed realities told by literature’s most unreliable narrators.

a group of five matches on a pink background.

The Well

Signs you’re burned out — and how to bounce back

If you don’t feel better after the weekend, the “burnout paradox” could explain why.

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7 min

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with

Laurie Santos

Starts With A Bang

The trick to instantly identifying JWST images

If you can identify a foreground star, the spike patterns are a dead giveaway as to whether it’s a JWST image or any other observatory.

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