In the 1990s, a group of psychologists began studying what made experts expert. Their first task was to see whether experts really were expert — whether they were particularly good at their jobs...

“Politics is like the weather: everybody discusses it but nobody actually does anything about it.” The golden dome of the Massachusetts State House rises majestically over the grass of Bo...

How are we to live? Most people seem to agree that there are “right” things and “wrong” things and we should try to do the right ones, but they’re less clear on how to fi...

NOTE: For those who have actually read Infinite Jest, you’ll probably get more out of my very spoiler-heavy summary of what happens just after the end of the book. I don’t remember starti...

The traditional symphony is a highly formal event. Musicians, in formal clothes, sit in a carefully-designed arrangement high above the audience who (also usually in formal clothes) sits in seats and ...

I was going through my weblog archives the other day and found an early post I’d written nine years ago (in yet another piece of blogging software I’d written myself…). But what was ...

If you read the economic textbooks, you’ll find that the job market is a market like any other. There’s supply (workers) and demand (employers). And the incredible power of market competit...

With the recent economic crisis, there has been much talk of John Maynard Keynes and his economics. Keynes, the story goes, figured out the causes of the Great Depression and in doing so revolutionize...

I think it’s time to remind people that D. J. Bernstein is the greatest programmer in the history of the world. First, look only at the objective facts. djb has written two major pieces of sy...

I have two friends — let’s call them Q and R — whose political philosophy I find alien and fascinating. Like me, they genuinely want to help the poor but, like conservatives, they ob...