As we entered the third decade of the third millennium, many of the science and tech words and phrases in popular circulation had lost all meaning. “AI”, “machine learning” and their newer synonym, “cognitive technology”, for example, had joined the pantheon of synonyms for “snake oil“. Or at least they were becoming placeholders for anything […]
LWON
When LWONers aren’t writing LWON posts for your edification and pleasure, some of them are writing books. Excuse our self promotion, but we think our books are pretty good, and as it is the holiday season, we wanted to make sure our dear readers are aware of the latest ones. See below for the books […]
Sometime in the 1920s, somewhere in France. A young girl from an influential middle-class French family had been found in a field, stabbed to death. There was no obvious perpetrator. The police rounded up the usual suspects – which is to say, immigrants – and found a Jewish door-to-door salesman who had been in the […]
Happy American Thanksgiving! In the past we’ve written group posts about gratitude. This year, we thought we’d do something different: lay bare our hopes for the future. Here is what the People of LWON are most looking forward to in 2020. Craig: The numbers, 2020, are pleasing to the eye and roll off the tongue […]
It’s spider season here on Knifecrime Island, but it looks like I’ve escaped this autumn’s offerings. At least that’s what I tell myself smugly as I prepare my first cup of coffee in the British predawn pitchdark of 6:39 am. Anyone who’s ever watched a horror movie is already reading through thinly slatted fingers. Humming […]
Last week, on a day off from school for teacher planning, or something, I took my daughter to a daytime performance of Mary Poppins. It was the Broadway version and it was the highlight of her fall so far. And mine, let’s just be honest here. I love Mary Poppins. I love her ridiculous hat […]
The TESS telescope is a shiny little thinking metal tube, drinking the light of 20 million stars in our cosmic neighborhood. It launched last year on a voyage to identify planets that look like this one—a miraculous feat, if it succeeds. Among the panoply of planets found so far, there is positively no place like […]
How can I help? I say this to my daughter all the time. I usually mean it as a redirection for some kind of tantrum, or a snafu in the routine of an average nameless morning. It’s better than saying no or telling her what to do, or worse yet, doing it for her. Each […]