Alain de Botton says we all need to take in less information, because learning more paradoxically reduces our capacity to know more. Excerpt: The obsession with current events is relentless. We are made to feel that at any point, somewhere on the globe, something may occur to sweep away old certainties–something that, if we failed…

Gail Collins, snarking on the Gore dee-vorce: I think the nation as a whole is thinking that if Al and Tipper split after 40 years, no marriage is ever safe. And the fact that Hillary and Bill outlasted them means that we’ve been lied to by a generation’s worth of Lifetime movies. Heh. OK, but…

From a connected friend in New Orleans: 1. Over a week ago a petroleum-engineer-friend told me that “top kill” was doomed to failure because the engineering didn’t even work on paper – no way to deliver enough pressure through the system, as designed, to overcome the outflow-pressure at that depth. He thinks BP is only…

Astrophysicist Brian Greene talks with an Atlantic correspondent about his work with composer Philip Glass on “Icarus At the Edge of Time,” a re-imagining of the Icarus myth. The work debuts this week at the World Science Festival in NYC. Excerpt: Why did you think it was important to recast the Icarus story? Two reasons,…

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