ART & DESIGN EDITOR'S PICK Why Do Artworks Have Frames? There’s a workshop at the Getty Center where the paintings aren’t the stars. Instead, the frames take center stage. In this bright and airy room, empty frames hang on the walls, and tools and books line the counters. There you’d find associate conservator Gene Karakker, who retired earlier this summer, choosing from an assortment of […] Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
EDITOR'S PICK PHILOSOPHY SOCIOLOGY The End Of Suffering Most of us would describe ourselves as having a body, a mind and a soul (or spirit), as though these are not the same thing. The soul in particular is understood as being separate, not only from the mind and its thoughts, but from the realm of the physical world, and even physics itself. We […] Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
EDITOR'S PICK PSYCHOLOGY SOCIOLOGY The Importance Of Struggle Without struggle, there is no gain, or transformation. Without struggle, our actions cannot coalesce, to harness the future. Without struggle, life is bland, and rudderless. Without struggle, we remain unprepared to meet the day’s — or life’s — challenges, and whatever magic we may have inside of us, it remains bottled up, untapped. Struggle is […] Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
EDITOR'S PICK PHILOSOPHY SCIENCE The God Gene What makes a person want to believe in God? Is it the many delicate, impressionable years of their youth spent at the crowded Sunday Mass? Is it the comfort derived from the words of a holy book within which is promised a paradise just beyond this taxing life? Or is it an experience in their […] Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
BUSINESS & ECONOMICS TECHNOLOGY The Unstoppable Growth Of The Freemium Economy At a Twitter event for analysts, the company presented its plans — previously disclosed to the SEC — to double its revenue by the end of 2023, with the goal of reaching 315 million monetizable daily users. The company, which is doing well in the wake of last year’s threat of a shareholder rebellion to replace CEO Jack Dorsey, has interesting plans for […] Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
EDITOR'S PICK PHILOSOPHY The Idea Of God Has One Major Flaw I don’t believe, especially as an aspiring scientist, that I can call myself an atheist. At most I can claim to be agnostic for there is no way to prove that God doesn’t exist. Having grown up in the Southeastern United States, I was introduced at a young age to Christianity. It remains the religion […] Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
ART & DESIGN EDITOR'S PICK The Purpose Of Art Art has had a great number of different functions throughout its history, making its purpose difficult to abstract or quantify to any single concept. This does not imply that the purpose of art is “vague” but that it has had many unique, different reasons for being created. Some of the functions of art are provided in […] Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
JOURNAL & RESEARCH SOCIOLOGY Understanding Otakus & Sex Robots Social robots are becoming increasingly prevalent in everyday life and sex robots are a sub-category of especially high public interest and controversy. Starting from the concept of the otaku, a term from Japanese youth culture that describes secluded persons with a high affinity for fictional manga characters, we examine individual differences behind sex robot appeal (anime […] Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
How Will ChatGPT Transform Philosophy Key Takeaway: In 1950 English mathematician Alan Turing proposed an “imitation game” where a judge entered into a typed dialogue with an AI pretending to be human as a way of testing if the AI was intelligent. Lex.page is an AI-enabled writing tool that can generate text or answer questions. In 2018, Google unveiled Duplex, […] Written by Geoffrey Rockwell January 30, 2023January 30, 2023 Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
What Ancient Wisdom Can Teach Us About Finance Key Takeaway: The rate of species extinctions as a result of human activity is at least 1,000 times higher than the natural rate. The effects of business on our climate are also clear, with 71%of the world’s fossil fuel emissions coming from just 100 multinational corporations. They aim to work within the nature and limits […] Written by Atul Shah January 24, 2023January 24, 2023 Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
Why Amazon Became So Successful Key Takeaway: Amazon with a market capitalization of over $1.5 trillion and net revenue of $386 billion in 2020. Customer Service and Convenience is one of the key factors that has contributed to its success. Amazon’s focus on customer service and convenience has played a major role in its success. Innovative Business Model is another […] Written by Andreas Lehmann January 16, 2023January 16, 2023 Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
What The Art Of David Hockney Can Teach Us About Life Key Takeaways: David Hockney is the great modern mark-maker. He brings new joy and richness to the very act of seeing, writes art critic Richard Brinsley Wylie. David Hockney’s latest book, My Window, is a visual diary of what he observed from his bed. At the age of 72, he started using iPhone and iPad […] Written by Martin Kemp January 9, 2023January 9, 2023 Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
Cats In The Medieval Ages Key Takeaways: In the middle ages, men and women were often identified by the animals they kept. Keeping an animal that was lavished with attention, affection and high-quality food in return for no functional purpose – other than companionship – signified high status. Pets became part of the personal identity of the nobility. The 14th-century […] Written by Madeleine Killacky January 6, 2023January 6, 2023 Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
A Look At The Global Economy In 2023 Key Takeaways: EU energy ministers have capped gas prices at €180 (£159) per megawatt hour (MWh) for this winter. The cap is an attempt to control the unruly market forces that saw gas prices spike to nearly €340/MWh last summer. Political intervention risks repeating mistakes made by the US during the 1970s oil price shocks. […] Written by Adi Imsirovic January 5, 2023January 5, 2023 Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
What We Can Learn From Kanye West And Adidas Key Takeaways: Brand collaborations are strategic partnerships between two or more brands. When done well, the collaboration helps both partners grow their brands and amplify a shared message. But just like any marriage, it doesn’t always go well; recent examples include Yeezy’s breakups with Gap and Adidas. Adidas has ended its partnership with Yeezy after […] Written by Pankhuri Malhotra December 28, 2022December 28, 2022 Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
Rethinking Education Key Takeaways: The Industrial model of education that fueled the modern era and its dizzying reach did its job incredibly well. In his writing, Flynn illustrates study after study, spanning nations and decades, in which modern educational gift of abstraction — a transcendent sign of intelligence, as we saw in Raven’s Matrices — has been […] Written by Anthony Fieldman March 2, 2022October 19, 2022 Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
How China Is Transforming Its Economy Through Learning I highly recommend reading the McKinsey Global Institute’s new report, “Reskilling China: Transforming The World’s Largest Workforce Into Lifelong Learners”, which focuses on the country’s biggest employment challenge, re-training its workforce and the adoption of practices such as lifelong learning to address the growing digital transformation of its productive fabric. How to transform the country […] Written by Enrique Dans February 1, 2021February 1, 2021 Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
Why You’re Not Seeing Success With Influencer Marketing With the new year around the corner, now is a good time to re-evaluate your past marketing strategies and gear up for the year ahead. For some businesses, influencer marketing has simply not seemed to live up to its lofty promises of genuine engagement, credibility, and transparency. Some have claimed that it has been failing […] Written by Michael Tan January 14, 2021January 15, 2021 Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
A New Philosophy of Business I’m about to ask you to take a mental leap. For the next 8 minutes, suspend your notions of what a business is, and I’ll propose a new lens for you to look through. There are a lot of questions asked around what “community” means for business. “Where should community fit in my organization?” and […] Written by Empirics Asia September 5, 2018September 5, 2018 Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked