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…

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

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.

Brainstorm - Richard Scolyer

Deciphering Glyph, the blog of Glyph Lefkowitz.

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.

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

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...

Criticism of public schools is not entirely wrong – but by ignoring unequal conditions, it misdiagnoses the problem and misplaces responsibility.

I work in a sector that speaks out on racism and human rights, yet on this issue I have felt the boundaries of acceptable speech narrow around me

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

Experts analyze why Covid severity has declined, who still benefits from booster shots, and if a once-feared virus is now more like plain old colds or flu.

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

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

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…