Why did Joan Didion love Barry Goldwater but hate Ronald Reagan? Historian Sam Tanenhaus helps make sense of Didion's conservatism.

Mark Zuckerberg built a future that nobody wanted. Tech bosses are repeating his mistake

Five Italian divers died in a cave at 55 m. Before anyone delivers a verdict, here are the questions Just Culture demands we ask first — and why their sequence matters.

This blog post takes us back to 2010, retracing and incident where a statistical anomaly led to the discovery of a subtle flaw in the way we were using a security-critical library.

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • HUGO AWARD FINALIST • In this poignant, heartfelt novella from the New York Times bestselling author of Spinning Silver...

A blog series in which I reread LOTR 50 years after I first read it, age 10, over the winter of 1975-76. Pippin and Merry come as a double act (not exactly ‘dumb and dumber’, but not a million miles from that either) in the Jackson film version of LOTR, providing both light relief and…

NFTs, the metaverse and AI are the most recent Silicon Valley enthusiasms. Does anyone remember how to build a consumer product?

To HIV researchers, I am an ‘elite controller’ – someone whose immune system has enabled them to live for decades without symptoms or medication. I hope that one day science will understand this tiny but lucky minority

The violent response to an attempted murder would have happened regardless of Musk, Lee Hurley writes.

Artemis II astronauts updated the iconic 1968 image during their 2026 loop around the Moon.

Brainstorm - Richard Scolyer

A blog about making culture. Since 1999.

By Lee Vinsel

I'm reposting this essay I wrote in 2021 because the online blogging platform Medium has apparently changed its policies and people are having trouble accessing the original. Hopefully, I'll find a better, more durable solution soon. I'm reposting it unaltered, even though I would unsurprisingly do some