Samantha Barbas (Buffalo): How the Movies Became Speech. From nonsite.org, Bernie Rhie (Williams): Wittgenstein on the Face of a Work of Art; Magdalena Ostas (BU): Wordsworth, Wittgenstein, and the Reconstruction of the Everyday (and a response to both essays). How Luther went viral: Five centuries before Facebook and the Arab spring, social media helped bring about the Reformation. Of foxes, hedgehogs and the art of financial forecasting: Professional pundits are not usually paid to make correct forecasts — they are paid to sound convincing. Was Freud really a rationalist? Lie back and let Alfred Tauber convince you. It’s time to return to the smoke-filled rooms of political bosses: Political parties and party discipline have gone the way of the pterodactyl. From Regulation, James Bessen, Jennifer Ford, and Michael J. Meurer on the private and social costs of patent trolls: Do nonpracticing entities benefit society by facilitating markets for technology? Steve Jobs vs. Bill Gates: Who's the bigger genius? The ingredients in the modern app phone — camera, GPS, compass, accelerometer, gyroscope, Internet connection — make it the perfect device for the next wave of software — get ready for augmented reality (AR). The introduction to the forthcoming Pity the Billionaire The Hard-Times Swindle and the Unlikely Comeback of the Right by Thomas Frank. In praise of a second (or third) passport: Multiple identities are natural — citizenship laws should catch up. Hundreds of tiny moons may be orbiting Earth. The first chapter from Strings Attached: Untangling the Ethics of Incentives by Ruth W. Grant. From NYRB, a review of Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson. From Cracked, a look at the Top 8 of Everything of 2011. Linda Holmes on the 20 unhappiest people you meet in the comments sections of year-end lists.
