Technology & Innovation — January 18, 2011

Is Jobs Entitled to Privacy?

Steve Jobs isn’t saying why he’s taking a medical leave. Slate asks: Is that fair to Apple investors?

Steve Jobs isn’t saying why he’s taking a medical leave. Slate asks: Is that fair to Apple investors? Investors consider him the driving creative force behind Apple’s most successful products. But Jobs’ hesitancy to reveal details about his own health is problematic, making it difficult for investors to consider whether and how his ailments might influence Apple going forward. Investors aren’t just pricing in bad news about Steve Jobs’ health. They’re pricing in uncertainty about whether Jobs’ condition is so bad that he won’t return. Are Apple shareholders owed more information? Or is Jobs’ desire for privacy both lawful and legitimate?

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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Personal Growth

Everyday Heroes (& Looters)

Would we celebrate this tableau of human good nature so enthusiastically if we did not also fear, somewhere in our hearts, that we might have reacted differently?