http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/brainiac/ en Copyright 2013 Fri, 24 May 2013 13:10:00 -0500 http://www.sixapart.com/movabletype/ http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss In early January I blogged about how the Swedish indie band Shout Out Louds was making records out of ice to promote its new single, "Blue Ice." Those records were cool but they melted, which puts them at a disadvantage... http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/brainiac/2013/05/wooden_but_not.html http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/brainiac/2013/05/wooden_but_not.html Fri, 24 May 2013 13:10:00 -0500 There’s nothing more boring or conventional than a textbook, but two hundred years ago they were as cutting-edge as a MOOC, and augured a revolution in the way we think about knowledge. “A textbook is something anyone can read no... http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/brainiac/2013/05/the_textbook_re.html http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/brainiac/2013/05/the_textbook_re.html Thu, 23 May 2013 12:17:00 -0500 Over at McSweeney's, writer Jason Edward Harrington has alighted on a fun conceit: What if literary characters served as each other's Couchsurfing references? Here, for instance, is Sal Paradise from "On the Road" offering a "positive" recommendation for his road... http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/brainiac/2013/05/a_couchsurfing.html http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/brainiac/2013/05/a_couchsurfing.html Wed, 22 May 2013 11:14:25 -0500 Tolstoy famously opened "Anna Karenina" with the line, “Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” It seems, however, that the same may not be true for unhappy marriages. Psychologist Joanni Sailor at Cameron... http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/brainiac/2013/05/the_way_we_fall.html http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/brainiac/2013/05/the_way_we_fall.html Wed, 22 May 2013 10:40:38 -0500 A rose by another name may smell as sweet, but what about a rose made out of the dismembered sex organs of a clam? That, in a way, is the ontological riddle posed by the bizarre sculptures created by German... http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/brainiac/2013/05/_german_artist.html http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/brainiac/2013/05/_german_artist.html Tue, 21 May 2013 12:08:13 -0500 An eccentric, 75-year-old polymath named Ted Nelson thinks he knows who created Bitcoin, and he explains his theory in a highly entertaining video released on YouTube earlier this week. Bitcoin was released to the world in 2008 by a computer... http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/brainiac/2013/05/and_the_creator.html http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/brainiac/2013/05/and_the_creator.html Tue, 21 May 2013 11:05:28 -0500 Public housing has always been a politically charged issue. That’s true in Boston today and, according to a pair of historians, it was true in late-18th century Boston as well, where residents of the burgeoning city had to figure... http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/brainiac/2013/05/beware_the_bost.html http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/brainiac/2013/05/beware_the_bost.html Mon, 20 May 2013 12:03:55 -0500 The too-smart city: Courtney Humphries on philosophical debates around the emerging ‘smart city.’ Smart city technology is anything that takes the chaotic jumble of activity in a city and tries to monitor it for the purposes of creating a... http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/brainiac/2013/05/the_week_in_ide_45.html http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/brainiac/2013/05/the_week_in_ide_45.html Mon, 20 May 2013 09:00:00 -0500 Can you tell the difference between the arid Australian Outback and the desiccated American Southwest? What about a quiet alley in Buenos Aires and a back lane in Barcelona? If you can, you'll do well at Geoguessr, the new hyper-addictive... http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/brainiac/2013/05/a_new_game_asks.html http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/brainiac/2013/05/a_new_game_asks.html Fri, 17 May 2013 09:41:57 -0500 The Great Recession of 2007 hit all American households hard, but a March report from the Center on Wealth and Philanthropy at Boston College shows that the economic downturn was relatively less hard in Boston. The report was written for... http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/brainiac/2013/05/theres_a_lot_of.html http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/brainiac/2013/05/theres_a_lot_of.html Thu, 16 May 2013 13:21:18 -0500 There's a lot of joy and some sadness, too, in Tiny Town, a small-scale world housed in Hot Springs, Arkansas. The elaborate model was carved and assembled over the course of 68 years by Frank Moshinskie and today it's managed... http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/brainiac/2013/05/small_joys_big.html http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/brainiac/2013/05/small_joys_big.html Wed, 15 May 2013 13:35:37 -0500 In the 1990s the Boston Police Department launched Operation Ceasefire, an innovative program aimed at curbing gang violence in the city. The program worked—or so it seemed—and shortly became a model for cities around the country. But more than a... http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/brainiac/2013/05/the_gangs_of_bo.html http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/brainiac/2013/05/the_gangs_of_bo.html Wed, 15 May 2013 12:12:26 -0500 Sleeping in a tent is fun, except for the part about being on the ground. So why not suspend a tent in the trees? That's the concept behind the Stingray, a (literally) high-flying new camping product from the British company... http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/brainiac/2013/05/a_tent_in_the_t.html http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/brainiac/2013/05/a_tent_in_the_t.html Tue, 14 May 2013 10:39:05 -0500 In Season Five of Mad Men, a former advertising colleague asks Harry Crane for feedback on a script he plans to send to the producers of the new cult hit Star Trek, which debuted in 1966. The script stinks, and... http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/brainiac/2013/05/in_season_five.html http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/brainiac/2013/05/in_season_five.html Tue, 14 May 2013 10:10:12 -0500 Thoroughbreds wear blinders to keep them focused on the race, so why shouldn't you do the same next time you sit down to work? That was the insight that came to inventor Hugo Gernsback nearly 100 years ago while he... http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/brainiac/2013/05/the_next_logica.html http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/brainiac/2013/05/the_next_logica.html Mon, 13 May 2013 10:47:36 -0500