Technology & Innovation — September 24, 2010

Film Profiles Facebook Creator

“The world will soon get to know a lot more about the low-profile billionaire, or at least Hollywood’s version of him.” A film based on Mark Zuckerberg opens Friday in New York.

bigthinkeditor

“The company Mark Zuckerberg founded in his Harvard dorm room six years ago was built on the idea that people would want to share personal information—even very personal information—on the Web. Yet the 26-year-old self-made billionaire has managed to keep a low public profile even as Facebook Inc. shot to stardom in Silicon Valley, catapulting Zuckerberg past Apple Inc.’s Steve Jobs to become the world’s 35th-richest American on the latest Forbes list. That is about to change. ‘The Social Network,’ from director David Fincher and writer Aaron Sorkin, about the messy and contentious founding of Facebook, is making its debut at the New York Film Festival on Friday.”

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.

▸

7 min

—

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.

Up Next

Surprising Science

The High Cost of Cheap Meat

“If you adjust for inflation and income, Americans have never spent less on food than they have in recent years. And yet many feel we’ve also never paid such a high price.”