In the Harry Potter books, the titular boy wizard is the subject of a mystical prophecy, destined to come into mortal conflict with the evil Lord Voldemort—and perhaps even capable of vanquishing him. But there’s a wrinkle: One of Harry’s classmates, Neville Longbottom, also fits most of the prophecy’s description: born at the end of […]

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Explaining the government’s order seeking Twitter information in the WikiLeaks investigation on The Alyona Show:

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In the comments to my recent post about differences between how we deal with charges of “racism” and “sexism,” several commenters suggested that the greater nuance I argue we show in dealing with the range of ways the latter manifests simply reflects the more persistent social acceptability of casual sexism. I think there’s probably something […]

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Earlier this week, I learned that the roommate of an old friend of mine—a highly regarded technologist named Bill Zeller—had taken his own life. I didn’t know Bill, but the lengthy and unnervingly lucid and reflective suicide note he posted online may be the most heartbreaking thing I’ve ever read. In it, he reveals that […]

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