("JP")

Instead of describing everything that’s upside down and dishonest about the world of 1984, Orwell chooses the 13th hour as a symbol to show you that something is off and that nobody’s questioning it.

This is the power of symbolism: with one strong, vivid image, you can communicate an entire message or, in this case, build a world and foreshadow the... See more

There’s an old story about Octavia Butler that I often return to: A young man once asked the visionary science fiction novelist the answer to ending all the suffering in the world. “There isn't one,” Butler replied. “So we’re doomed?” he asked, confused. “No,” said Butler. Then she delivered the words that would remake my understanding of the... See more

Compared with the fragmented, D.I.Y. Web I knew, social media felt strangely predictable. User profiles on new sites like LinkedIn or Flickr were templated and surrounded by ads. They offered preset options from categories and drop-down menus—age, location, institutional affiliation—and quantified influence through friend and follower counts. The... See more

Kelly's insight about wine applies perfectly to how we think about personal growth. Just as mindlessly drinking more wine doesn't make us better wine connoisseurs, frantically doing more doesn't make us more successful humans. When we apply Type 2 thinking to our lives, it shifts everything - from how we parent (quality time over scheduled... See more

Favelas, spontaneous architecture

Rio is not known as the safest city. There are favelas 4 situated on the hillside. Yet there is a lot we can learn from them.

The architectural design of favelas is not planned. For decades, people helped each other with constructing the unit next door (on a whim it seems!), resulting in a complex and intricate... See more