Better Conversation-Starters Sometimes our social interactions seem to happen by default, and we don’t get much out of them. Consider the stock greeting: “How are you?” What information are you likely to get when you ask this tired question? Tired answers, like: “Busy,” “fine,” “okay,” or “good.” And what did you learn from that? How […]
Electronic Personhood Did you hear that the European Parliament has proposed to grant “personhood” status to intelligent machines (aka robots)? If you don’t believe it, here’s the exact language: “At the least, the most sophisticated autonomous robots could be established as having the status of electronic persons responsible for making good any damage they may […]
The REAL Causes of Death Most of us are afraid of the wrong things. When we worry about being killed, what often comes to mind is a terrorist attack, natural disaster, homicide, an airline crash—or, perhaps, the result of a drug overdose or some idiot’s car running a traffic light. But a comprehensive study of […]
The Slack in the Labor Market The U.S. unemployment rate has been dropping steadily ever since it reached 10% during the awful depth of the Great Recession; the Bureau of Labor Statistics says that today only 4.1% of Americans are out of work, the lowest rate in nearly two decades. But most of […]
The Personal Trainer On Your Wrist When you think of artificial intelligence, enhancing your lifespan is probably not the first thing that comes to mind. But a new kind of fitness app is giving us a glimpse of a future where your lifestyle can be monitored in real time for its impact on […]
Cause for Alarm? Quietly, without a lot of fanfare, the U.S. national debt moved past $20 trillion last September 8. On March 15, it exceeded $21 trillion. The next time the debt ceiling will come up for a vote is March 1, 2019, at which point the total could be another $2-3 […]
How to Argue These days, it seems like everybody is arguing about everything, and with perhaps a bit more… energy than in years past. And it turns out that most of us are going about our arguments all wrong. Author Daniel Pink has pointed out that most of the arguments going on today involve two […]
Tech Advances to Watch What are the most important technological advances from the past year? Every year, MIT Technology Review provides its answers to the question, with an eye toward the innovations that will have the greatest impact on consumers. This year’s list includes 3D metal printing; that is, printing metal parts quickly and cheaply, […]
The Future of Retail Chances are you know there is a sea change going on in the retail industry. But you may not realize how far and how fast the online tide is rising. Singularity University founder Peter Diamandis invites you to recall the powerful retail networks created by Sears, J.C. Penney and Macy’s. Since […]
How To Get More Sleep Chances are, you don’t get enough sleep at night. According to Matthew Walker, of UC Berkeley’s Sleep and Neuroimaging Lab, most of us get about four to six hours of actual sleep, which is not the seven to nine hours we need. What to do? Walker says that […]
