A blog about making culture. Since 1999.

OpenAI has some big questions. It doesn’t have unique tech. It has a big user base, but with limited engagement and stickiness and no network effect. The incumbents have matched the tech and are leveraging their product and distribution. And a lot of the value and leverage will come from new experiences that haven’t been invented yet, and it can’t invent all of those itself. What’s the plan?

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

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

This week (and probably next) I want to talk a bit more Tolkien, but in a somewhat different vein from normal. Rather than discussing the historicity of Tolkien's world or adaptations of it, I want to take a moment to discuss some of the themes of Tolkien's work, which express themselves in the metaphysical architecture…

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

I am glad not to be a Greenland shark; I don’t have enough thoughts to fill five hundred years. But I find the very...

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

CINDER HOUSE Available now from Tor and Bramble UK A USA Today bestseller!An Indie Next pick Sparks fly and lovers dance in this gorgeous, yearning Cinderella retelling from bestselling author Freya Marske—a queer Gothic romance perfect for fans of Naomi Novik and T. Kingfisher. Ella is a haunting. Murdered at sixteen, her ghost is furiously […]

The Y chromosome doesn’t seem to do much except determine sex – but its loss in older men might be linked to heart disease, cancer and Alzheimer’s.

William Shatner was excited to go to space last year. He didn't realize he'd be overwhelmed with sadness and go through "the strongest feelings of grief" that he'd ever experienced.

The photographer who snapped the photos of the Artemis II crew’s return to Earth spent years honing his craft on a Navy aircraft carrier.

If you asked me today, and if you'd asked me two years ago, I'd tell you I'm very fond of my house. It's nothing special. It's a townhouse surrounded by other townhouses that look just like it, forming a semicircle of beige brick at the end of a street. There's no garden, because when I

Learner drivers in New South Wales are subject to some of the most stringent requirements before getting their licences – but our study shows it doesn’t necessarily make them safer drivers.

With peptides like BPC-157, we are seeing 'the wholesale substitution of consumer enthusiasm for clinical evidence.'