During the waning hours of Thanksgiving Day, I sat in front of a computer screen with a full stomach and a long list of work projects splayed across my computer desktop. The gap between what I was accomplishing and what I hoped to could be explained by three open... Read more

I spent the last month watching, with alternating apprehension and delight, as President Trump’s cynical legal efforts to overturn the presidential election deteriorated into absurdity. After dozens of lawsuits were thrown out of court, and votes were certified in contested states, I thought we’d reached the end of the... Read more

To vaccinate everyone and end the Covid-19 pandemic, you’re going to have to talk to your mom. Probably your grandfather too. Let’s call it the adult children’s crusade. The vaccines are coming, but are the people coming for the vaccines? Forget the anti-vaccine fringe, for a moment; the more... Read more

New Yorkers are still puzzling over a new, state-wide rule that bars, restaurants, and gyms must close at 10 pm to stop the spread of Covid. Was this based on some brand-new evidence that the virus mutates like a gremlin, getting worse at night? You wouldn’t know it from... Read more

The pandemic continues to rage in the US, and the number of people hospitalized with Covid-19 has now surpassed its prior peaks of about 60,000 in April and July. But one trendline is mercifully falling: A much smaller proportion of these critically-ill patients are dying from the disease, as... Read more

An earth scientist colleague wrote to me this week to ask about the election. In the climate-forecasting business, he wrote, one often uses “persistence”—that is, the assumption that conditions remain unchanged from one year to the next—as a control condition and basis for comparisons. He wanted to know what... Read more

On Election Night, she wrote, Wikipedia is likely to impose even tighter restrictions, limiting the power to publish a winner in the presidential contest—sourced, of course, to reputable outlets like the Associated Press or big network news operations—to the most experienced, most trusted administrators on the project. One administrator,... Read more

In last night’s presidential debate, Donald Trump repeated one of his more unorthodox reelection pitches. “People are losing their jobs,” he said. “They’re committing suicide. There’s depression, alcohol, drugs at a level that nobody’s ever seen before.” It’s strange to hear an incumbent president declare, as an argument in... Read more

At last, some good news! It’s been a difficult few months, but Apple is ready to help lift your spirits. On Tuesday, the company finally introduced the iPhone 12, in four different variants and a smattering of delightful colors. Could this be the best thing that has happened in... Read more