Automattic

How four men and one woman, with very different backgrounds and views, shaped the New Deal.

Don’t sell that jet yet! For many companies, keeping it makes sense.

The shocking theft of the Mona Lisa, in August 1911, appeared to have been solved 28 months later, when the painting was recovered.

Solving the “last-mile” problem in public transportation

A lofty idea is blossoming in cities around the world, where acres of potential green space lie overhead.

“My own plan for the coming fourteen months is to knock on doors and stuff envelopes. Maybe even to wear a button. To try to accrete with others into a demographically significant mass. To try extra hard to exercise patience, politeness, and imagination on those with whom I disagree. Also to floss more.”

John Madden has burst upon the American scene as few others in sport, but contrary to his bull-in-a-beer-ad image, he loves nothing more than good quiet conversation, and his skill as a communicator is the key to his success both as a football coach and as a broadcaster.

The Fate of Reading in an Electronic Age

Alanis haters relished pointing out how many of the examples of irony in the lyrics to “Ironic” were, in fact, not really ironic. On this point I’m going to defend Morissette, if only because these are the same awful people that circle typos in newspapers and mail the clippings anonymously to editors with smug putdowns […]

At an orchid show in New York last year, I heard the same story over and over—how one orchid in the kitchen led to a dozen, and then to a back-yard greenhouse, and then, in some cases, to multiple greenhouses and collecting trips to Asia and Africa and an ever-expanding budget to service this desire. […]