Technology & Innovation — April 26, 2012

Baratunde Thurston: Cutting Through the Chatternet

Comedian, director of digital for The Onion, and social media wunderkind Baratunde Thurston says we’re living in an age of information overabundance, but that this needn’t be a problem. Just as supermarkets offer us many more choices of cereal than we actually need, the internet and cable television are crowded spaces where a million voices compete for your time attention.

Take a deep breath. You can’t and don’t need to pay attention to everything. Organize your twitter stream into filters. Through word of mouth, find the sources of information that matter to you. Engage in playful and creative ways with social media – ways that allow you to extend your personality, share your talents, and connect with the people you want in your network.

In a noisy world, says Thurston, trust is incredibly important. Don’t try to game the system – find ways to express and grow yourself through it – and seek out others who are doing the same.

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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