Opinion & Commentary

Even before the viewer catches a glimpse his first Mogwai, Joe Dante's Gremlins establishes the link between the titular goblins and malfunctioning technology by way of Randy Peltzer and his many incompetent inventions. It's a film very much of its time, with many fascinating things to say about the way Reagan-era Americans looked at technology. It's also a movie that would be impossible to remake today, for one big reason: the smartphone is our Bathroom Buddy.

According to sci-fi novelist Arthur C. Clarke, "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." That's how I feel about American pizza delivery. It's all about an obsession with convenience bordering on the quantum, and it's what makes America the best country in the world.

In the age of the ebook, a ruminative turn to the inner work of building palaces of memory.

In an interview with Elizabeth Kolbert, E. O. Wilson's warning: evolution has its times and its textures, and we risk making out its patterns too late.

The evolutionary ebb and flow of freedom, liberty, and the collective continues on the Web, as it has throughout the history of the public sphere.

The decline of experimental results isn't something many scientists want to talk about, writes Jonah Lehrer. But perhaps when it comes to science, such disappointment isn't a bug but a feature.

An international group of scientists proposes a "knowledge collider" to bring supercomputing to bear on social problems. While crunching the numbers won't be a problem, figuring out what they mean will prove more challenging.

During next week's CES, you'll rarely hear a single word about why you should really care about the devices debuting there... but is that really so surprising when even the electronics makers at CES can't answer as simple a question as why their gadgets matter?

On the brink of 2011, peering out through circles within circles, reckoning changes to come.

Charlie Stross figures we're ready for a pendulum swing back in the direction of Sir Thomas More.