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Why People Are Actually So Anxious About Attention

Last year, I took a drastic step to protect my attention: I cut off my home internet service. I already refuse to get a smartphone and have long paid for an app to block internet access on my laptop when I need to be productive.

06/05/2026

Harvard Needs a Cap on A Grades

Each year, the undergraduate college at Harvard awards the Sophia Freund Prize to the graduating senior with the highest GPA. For decades, the prize went to one student, sometimes two if there was a tie. In 2025, there was a 55-way tie. The top…

06/05/2026

What if Your Boss Monitored Your Emotions?

The good news, for me at least, is that the computer thinks I have a nice personality. According to an app called MorphCast, I was, in a recent meeting with my boss, generally “amused,” “determined,” and “interested,” though—sue me—occasionally…

03/05/2026

The Internet Is Obsessed With Ovulation

Supposedly, the menstrual cycle is a gift. It’s a product of good design. It’s a miraculous dance of hormones that can’t be contained.

03/05/2026

Your Next Dog May Live Longer

One day last November, my dog, Forrest, sat on the cold marble steps of the Smithsonian’s natural-history museum in Washington, D.C., ready to meet Celine Halioua, a woman who may one day add a tail-wagging year or so to his life, and also the lives…

02/05/2026

The Secret to Success Is ‘Monotasking’

In a world full of distractions, getting your brain to focus on one thing at a time requires radical measures.

01/05/2026

So, About That AI Bubble

Thanks to the rise of Claude Code and other AI agents, revenues are finally catching up to the hype.

01/05/2026

The Avant-Garde Path to God

Early in his 2009 BBC documentary, Why Beauty Matters, the late conservative philosopher Roger Scruton described seeing Michelangelo’s Pietà for the first time.

28/04/2026

The Marathon That Bent Reality

To understand the significance of someone running a marathon in less than two hours, you also need to understand that, until recently, the notion of this actually happening was truly, utterly absurd.

28/04/2026

The Stanford Inside Stanford

When I was a freshman at Stanford University, I learned to shotgun a beer from a guy in a frat. Soon after, he dropped out and started an AI company. Six months later, it was valued at more than $1 billion.

24/04/2026

Dry January, but for Your Smartphone

In March, I put my iPhone into a yellow cardboard box with MO stamped on top—the M looked like a riff on the Motorola logo; the O looked like a flower. Over the next several weeks, I left my phone there for roughly 23.5 hours out of every day.

23/04/2026

The Rise of the House Manager

Here is the promise of a house manager. Hire one, and soon someone else could be doing your laundry, washing your dishes, prepping your meals, and completing those Amazon returns you’ve been meaning to make.

21/04/2026