Technology & Innovation — March 4, 2011

The (Online) Future for Lawyers

Are the days of billable hours nearly over for lawyers? LawPivot is a site designed to aid startups find legal advice, by using a Quora-type question and answer format.

bigthinkeditor

Tech does a good job disrupting a lot of the lower-end parts of business, from manufacturing to human resources. Now perhaps social media will start coming at the high end. LawPivot is a site designed to aid startups find legal advice, by using a Quora-type question and answer format. …LawPivot is interesting both as a clear business model — charging money in a clearly-defined vertical, as opposed to the usual ad-supported business of general interest question sites — and as a potential shape of things to come. If it works for law, why not consulting, finance, even medicine?

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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