The Post-Partisan Emporium

Some good news.  People still want to read good books with pages made of paper.   What Can We Learn from Barnes & Noble's Surprising Turnaround? Digital platforms are struggling, meanwhile a 136-year-old book retailer is growing again. But why? Ted Gioia I’ve written too many negative stories about digital media platforms in recent months. I’ve started to worry. Am I turning into Dr. Doom and Mr. Gloom? In all fairness, my predictions have proven sadly accurate. After I served up these dismal forecasts for  Facebook ,  Spotify ,  Netflix , and others, their share prices took a steep dive. I’m not sure that’s a good thing—I’d like to see digital media improve and flourish. When they falter, we all pay a price. But each of these companies is now suffering for a good reason. Their dominance led to arrogance, and they decided to  impose all sorts of heavy-handed policies on users. But I finally have good news to share. I have a positive case study—and we can learn from it. Here’s t

The New-Normaling of Blackouts Jon Sanders On Christmas Eve, 2022, in North Carolina, something happened that had never happened before in living memory. People across the state were alerted by their power company, Duke Energy, that there would be  rolling blackouts  in the aftermath of a severe (but “ not exceedingly rare ”) winter wind storm. At least  12 other states  received similar and previously unheard-of warnings. Before, rolling blackouts were a California problem, then they also became a Texas problem. Blackouts are spreading faster than even  Imperial College London modelers  would find believable. Duke was  still warning  North Carolina customers of potential blackouts two days later on Monday the 26th, when people would be returning to work. At this point there was nothing unusual at all in the weather, except that it was colder than normal. The only thing unusual was Duke’s warning, in combination with its  thanking customers  for conserving enough energy to avoid blacko

Molnupiravir, developed by Merck & Co. Inc. and Ridgeback Biotherapeutics LP - Oct. 26, 2021.  The COVID-19 antiviral drug Molnupiravir helps speed up recovery from the virus but does not reduce the hospitalization or death rate in higher-risk vaccinated adults, a new study has found. Molnupiravir, from Ridgeback Biotherapeutics and Merck & Co. is used to treat mild to moderate COVID-19 and can be taken at home, twice a day for five days, within five days of symptoms onset. It works by stopping the virus from replicating, keeping levels low in the body, thus reducing its severity. The study was published in The Lancet on Dec. 22 and has been peer reviewed. For more tedious reading go to the source ***** This is the FUN part of the paper: In conclusion, this trial of vaccinated adults at increased risk of an adverse outcome and unwell with confirmed SARS-CoV-2 infection showed that early treatment with molnupiravir did not reduce already low

Art Sickness Winston Smith Dear Mr Smith, This will be a short letter about the rise of modern and postmodern art, and what I see as the deliberate removal of beauty. It’s been on my mind, so here I go… It has been rather obvious to me that an attack on beauty and art has taken place, alongside the so called ‘death of God’, in Europe since the 19th century. A quick survey of art over the past century shows there has been no pause in this accelerating and corrosive attack. Although I have already touched on the role of art (and its importance) in a previous letter, what I have not touched on is the perceived offensive nature of what I would consider good art. What I mean is there is something fundamentally ‘good’ about certain works of art in my opinion. Powerful artwork has remained powerful because it holds and transmits universal truths between itself and the observer. Whether it be telling a story or simply displaying beauty, works of art which are  true  are confronting in one way