Guest Thinkers — August 18, 2010

Customers Warm to Coffee Shops That Ban Wi-Fi Access

More signs of a shift in society towards time and space that is unplugged: Cafes are attracting customers by banning Wi-Fi access. “People come here because we don’t offer it. They know they can get their work done and not get distracted,” Los Angeles cafe owner Dan Drozdenko tells the blog Where the Locals Eat.

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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Guest Thinkers

The Future of Laptop Displays

Front-lighting technology similar to Amazon’s Kindle will eventually be standard on computers and up-coming e-devices, meaning the computer display currently burning holes in your eyes won’t last forever. The problem […]