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.

A blog about making culture. Since 1999.

Mismanagement and political campaigning have sucked the joy out of an event meant to bring people together

A list of unheralded improvements to ordinary quality-of-life since the 1990s going beyond computers.

Hey folks! I am working on finishing up some things this week, so I thought I would post the text of the keynote I gave at the Prancing Pony Podcast Moot earlier this December. I've made some minor edits to conform a bit more to the form of a blog post, but this remains very…

World War II has faded into movies, anecdotes, and archives that nobody cares about anymore. Are we finally losing the war?

Woke 2 is Woke 1 with an honest relation to power.

The H5N1 virus has now reached every continent on the planet. What does it mean for some of the world’s unique species?

In 2013, education reformers tried to help poor students the using the best tool at their disposal: The 16th most popular Ted Talk.Special thanks to Marcus Credé! Where to find us: Our PatreonOur merch!Peter's newsletterPeter's other podcast, 5-4Mike's other podcast, Maintenance PhaseSo...

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

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

Like Imperial Japan before us, the United States has substituted tactical and operational planning for strategic thinking.

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

Seven years after his explosive HBO doc, Dan Reed watches Hollywood cash in on a man he calls 'worse than Jeffrey Epstein.'