In his new book, “The Crux”, Richard Rumelt, a professor of business strategy, writes about a conversation he once had with an air-force colonel. What, Mr Rumelt asked, is the perfect fighter jet? The colonel replied: “The perfect design would have contractors in each state and a part made in each congressional district.” The tale is told after Mr Rumelt has described the waste and incoherence of nasa’s Space Shuttle programme—something he blames squarely on Congress.

Ever since Phase 3, Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) has been witnessing a severe decline in quality, with several movies such as Captain Marvel and Black Panther focusing more and more on identity politics and feminism. Nonetheless, we also got some of the finest of MCU in Phase 3, such as Captain America: Civil War, Thor: Ragnarok, Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame. It is only from MCU Phase 4 that Marvel movies have truly become sub-par in every single aspect. Why is it so?

For a good while one could blame Trump for the prosecutorial monstrosity perpetrated on journalist Julian Assange. But now it’s time for Trump to move over. The single worst assault on the first amendment and a free press in recent centuries is no longer solely his. Biden owns it. Biden could end this state persecution of a journalist today, if he felt like it. A persecution that a U.N. expert has called torture. A persecution that could easily lead to Assange’s death.

The news making the rounds today is that FIFA 23 will be retaining loot boxes in its insanely popular Ultimate Team mode. Well, of course, loot boxes are staying in Ultimate Team. EA likes money, and Ultimate Team, via its loot boxes, generates an eye-watering amount of revenue for the company. So much so that smaller markets like Belgium and the Netherlands banning loot boxes in games barely causes EA to bat an eye.

When I first started driving, I had to print out directions from MapQuest before embarking on a trip to unfamiliar destination. If I didn’t plan correctly, I’d just have to stop and ask someone for directions. The smartphone and GPS changed everything. Suddenly, everyone had a little navigator in their pocket and getting lost became a thing of the past. Then, well, the tech sector kind of stopped improving transportation.

Creating our Future is an initiative unlike any other. A national conversation on research in Ireland, it engaged the public on the future on a scale never seen previously. Between July and November 2021 the public were invited to submit their ideas about what researchers in Ireland should explore to create a better future. It sought to engage people who are not usually invited to brainstorm about research and its role in Irish society.

Wireless earbuds are great, but their small batteries have a limited lifespan. Are you willing to sacrifice longevity for convenience? I love my wireless earbuds. Putting them on is akin to slipping into my favorite sweatpants—I instantly feel comforted and insulated from the outside world.

Will.i.am has opened up about 2pac and The Notorious B.I.G. in a new interview saying their their "kind of music doesn't speak to my spirit."

In February 2011, a British Lieutenant Colonel in Afghanistan, in receipt of daily military Situation Reports from UK special forces, wrote of something he described as “quite incredible”. His surprise was regarding the number of Afghan detainees that UK SAS units had sent “back into a building”, only for those prisoners to grab a gun or grenade and to then be swiftly killed by their British captors.

For two months, a 107-member conference committee has been working to finalize an agreement on the US Innovation and Competition Act (USICA) which would provide more than $50bn in corporate welfare to the highly profitable microchip industry with no strings attached.

We’ve been “productive” enough — produced way too much, in fact. And there is too much that urgently needs to be done.

FOR YEARS, STUDYING zoology made me feel like a sad misfit. Not because I loved spiders, enjoyed cutting up dead things I’d found by the side of the road, or would gladly root around in animal feces for clues as to what their owner had eaten. No, the source of my disquiet was my sex. Being female meant just one thing: I was a loser.

With its highways and suburbs, modern America was built around the automobile and powered by fossil fuels. The oil crises of the 1970s provided an opportunity to change course and move to renewable energy, but any momentum achieved then proved to be very short-lived.

Despite what the documentaries tell you, a plant-based lifestyle isn't better for your health and it certainly won't save the planet...

In May, the AMC in Times Square played 70 different screenings of Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness in one day. Doctor Strange was meant to be a unique Marvel movie by virtue of it being helmed by one of those dark sorcerers of the cinematic arts – an auteur – in this case, Evil Dead genre legend Sam Raimi.

I cover the plant-based food industry for Vox, so I get a lot of free food samples. A lot. Some of the products that startups mail me are delicious, many are just okay, and a few have been downright awful, bad enough to make me wonder out loud, “Why are they letting people eat this stuff?”

Innovation prizes aren’t hard to come by. Last year Elon Musk announced $100 million to come up with ways to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. The year before, Prince William and David Attenborough announced an annual £1 million Earthshot Prize for solutions to environmental problems. This year, no doubt, will herald another headline-grabbing announcement.

In 1989, just as leaders around the world were starting to think seriously about tackling global warming, the National Association of Manufacturers assembled a group of corporations — utilities, oil companies, automakers, and more — united by one thing: They wanted to stop climate action. It was called, in Orwellian fashion, the Global Climate Coalition.

That winter of 2003—you remember it, and so do I—the world assembled, arms linked, to protest the prospect of war in Iraq. What times those were, and how the passions swelled. The fervor of the public reached a peak on February 15th, when millions of people in more than sixty countries claimed the streets, voicing their opposition. “listen to us,” a sign in London read. In New York, demonstrators stormed the avenues with a huge inflatable globe. Young and old turned out, and citizens and foreigners. A few weeks later, the United States was at war.

Fear of professional exile has kept Sarah Hepola from taking on certain topics. What gets lost when a writer mutes herself?