The Conversation (https://theconversation.com/) publishes news-style articles by working academics and graduate students, so the contributors typically have a technical background relevant to the subjects they are writing about (making the publication comparable to Quanta).
Nautilus magazine also publishes excellent science journalism (https://nautil.us) with high-quality writing comparable to Quanta. In contrast with The Conversation, the contributors are typically professional journalists and writers—the writing quality is therefore often much higher and more literary than The Conversation's, though Conversation contributors have relevant specialist knowledge more often than Nautilus contributors.
Also, Lapham's Quarterly (https://www.laphamsquarterly.org) is perhaps comparable to Noema, as the magazine publishes essays and analyses of modern issues, often via making comparisons between current affairs and important parts of history. This looks similar to Noema's approach of analyzing current events from an academic perspective, from noticing references to academic publications in several essays featured on Noema's front page.
I'm not sure what you mean, but all the publications are non-profit organizations—none of which I am affiliated with.
Lapham's and The Conversation also don't have any paywalls, though Nautilus does have a soft paywall of two articles a month (this is comparable to the magazines mentioned by other users in this discussion, with similarly fairly relaxed or stricter paywalls).
Hadn’t seen Noema before, thanks for the pointer - someone already mentioned nautilus, Aeon.co is quite good with a very diverse set of topics, and Hakai (https://hakaimagazine.com/) has some very good environmental writing.
the biggest argument against this is that communist countries still achieve great things in the face of MASSIVE setbacks and sanctions from capitalist countries with lots of power. Yet after an initial period of food insecurity, these nations tend to do great for a while. For example, the CIA reported that the Soviet diet had less calories and was more nutritious than the American diet.
In 1980, the average life expectancy of a man in Russia was 62.5 years. Women about 10 years longer. In other words, less than the average life expectancy of each gender in the US. According to the journal "Alcohol and Alcoholism", the life expectancy improved by a couple of years in the 90s but subsequently fell back to Soviet Union levels. The aggregate life expectancy bottomed out in 2003 (UN Statistics) and has since improved to about 73 (average of men & women). That's #35 on the list of similar countries, trailing countries like Mexico and Iran. The aggregate life expectancy in the US is above 79. These are all from the UN Population Prospects 2022 Report. You can check them yourselves. Finally, are we supposed to trust the CIA?
i don't know why you're all arguing about marxist-leninist state communism in a thread about anarchism. of course it's bad and does not work. that's what the link i shared says.
> It was one of the fastest decimations of an animal population in world history—and it had happened almost entirely in secret. The Soviet Union was a party to the International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling, a 1946 treaty that limited countries to a set quota of whales each year. By the time a ban on commercial whaling went into effect, in 1986, the Soviets had reported killing a total of 2,710 humpback whales in the Southern Hemisphere. In fact, the country’s fleets had killed nearly 18 times that many, along with thousands of unreported whales of other species.
> The Soviet whale slaughter followed no such logic. Unlike Norway and Japan, the other major whaling nations of the era, the Soviet Union had little real demand for whale products. Once the blubber was cut away for conversion into oil, the rest of the animal, as often as not, was left in the sea to rot or was thrown into a furnace.
Libcom.org is a wonderful place. I still benefit from it regularly after 10+ years of reading wide and deep, there. It's not very similar to Quanta though.
I feel I get a lot of value for the $60 I pay annually to read The New Yorker online. [1]
It's not perfect, but it's become essentially the only place I consume "long-form articles about interesting stuff"-type content, which I think they still do better than anyone.
Agreed about the New Yorker. Likewise, agree with the exact same description for the Atlantic. And I have bounced back and forth between them over the years.
Be sure to find out to see if you can check out issues from your library through Overdrive/Libby. Granted, I have to read it via a browser but can still read for free.
I used to be a fan of The Economist but after a while I figured out that it’s better at sounding smart than being smart. If they ever write about a field you know we’ll you’ll see what I mean.
Maybe it depends on your field a bit. I'm in physics, and a few of their articles on particle physics and quantum computing have really impressed. They hit all of the main points and caveats that almost all other news sources usually miss.
The depth of the reporting also depends on the article. For a particular example, I thought The Economist's article on GPT-3 published in June 2022—before ChatGPT would later be released in November—was particularly good, as the article soberly discussed at length the strengths and weaknesses of large language models, without overhyping the technology (paywall): https://www.economist.com/interactive/briefing/2022/06/11/hu...
However, it's also fair to note that many articles in their weekly issue—often at 600-800 words—just don't have the space to go in-depth enough into an issue, in contrast to a feature in The New Yorker or another long-form magazine like Foreign Affairs.
I've found The Economist to be a useful publication to hear about interesting problems I might otherwise have never heard of, and to read a fact-checked concise overview of a particular topic, before looking for a more in-depth source if there is a motivation to read further into the topic.
I feel that way about Bloomberg Businessweek. There was a time when I was doing a lot of business development work and it seemed I had some insider insight into some story in in every issue. That is, I had been in on a sales call with the people at some company they profiled, or knew some competitors in stealth mode or somebody had told me and my partner more than they should have about what was talked about in some article.
Yes. Though it might be better to say that they are very consistent with their writing style, snobbish attitude, and ideology. Vs. hit-and-miss at times with good, accurate reporting.
Same. I find it hard to read long and complicated articles from a screen, and I would pay a lot for a weekly subscription to dead-tree magazine Quanta.
Right now I print articles I'm interested in, which is far from the most efficient solution.
https://thinking-about-things.com/ is great, it's one interesting article three times a week. I've learned about a lot of interesting blogs/publications from them.
You may also like Emergence Magazine. It's significantly more humanities/culture oriented but similarity wide-ranging and imaginative.
Come to think of it, I think imagination is one of the qualities that makes Quanta so magical. Ostensibly it's a magazine about the interactions of formal and natural sciences, but they're not afraid to include a bold dash of imagination.
If you're interested in retro stuff, I highly recommend checking out Byte Magazine's archive at https://worldradiohistory.com/Byte_Magazine.htm. They have issues dating from 1975 to 1994, and the search functionality is pretty good.
While not all of their content is of high quality, there are some fascinating gems hidden in there. For instance, their February 1992 issue has a section on Archie, one of the earliest internet search engines:
> For many people, particularly programmers and engineers, the Internet means "info- booty": shareware and freeware source code, documents, graphics, and data sets available by file transfer downloads and from E-mail servers. Sites like UUNET and The World each have several gigabytes' worth of publicly available archives. These are but two of the hundreds of sites with archives accessible via these methods. Even admitting a fair amount of redundancy among archives, it still adds up to about 100 gigabytes, and new sites and offerings are coming on-line every day.
> With so many different archives, it can be hard to figure out where (and at what network address) to access the items you want. If you don't know what you want beyond compilers or CP/M applications, it's even more overwhelming.
> The "archie group" at McGill University (Montreal, Quebec, Canada) has one solution to the problem: archie (archive without the v), the Internet Archive Server Listing Service (for access, see reference 2). Archie is a central database of information about Internet-accessible archive sites, plus server programs that provide access by telnet, anonymous file transfer protocol (FTP), E-mail, and the Prospero distributed computer system.
The archive at World Radio History has much broader interest, with hobby electronics, professional electronics, radio and TV management and programming, and some popular music history.
I miss Byte and Nybble mags. There are no good programming/computer mags that take you into the software and teaching programming at different levels.
Not just beginner, intermediate, etc., but software and low level hardware for specific chip sets.
Raspberry PI mag is the closest thing. Maybe I should just downgrade my desktop to a RPI and enjoy the hobby again. Maybe, build a robo-dog/cat/creature.
Liberties Journal continues to impress me. Culture, Politics, Poetry, good stuff. Leon Wieseltier is the former Literary Editor of the New Republic and is now chief editor of Liberties.
Harper’s magazine is great for general interest (much less pretentious than the New Yorker). One of the oldest magazines in the country.
Noema has some good stuff, although check out their advisory board. So many high profile neoliberal ghouls that the first time I saw it I thought it was a joke. It introduced me to Byung-Chul Han, for which I am forever grateful. Hope they can keep it up since they were hiring for a senior editor for a while there recently…
101 comments
[ 3.1 ms ] story [ 169 ms ] threadNautilus magazine also publishes excellent science journalism (https://nautil.us) with high-quality writing comparable to Quanta. In contrast with The Conversation, the contributors are typically professional journalists and writers—the writing quality is therefore often much higher and more literary than The Conversation's, though Conversation contributors have relevant specialist knowledge more often than Nautilus contributors.
Also, Lapham's Quarterly (https://www.laphamsquarterly.org) is perhaps comparable to Noema, as the magazine publishes essays and analyses of modern issues, often via making comparisons between current affairs and important parts of history. This looks similar to Noema's approach of analyzing current events from an academic perspective, from noticing references to academic publications in several essays featured on Noema's front page.
Lapham's and The Conversation also don't have any paywalls, though Nautilus does have a soft paywall of two articles a month (this is comparable to the magazines mentioned by other users in this discussion, with similarly fairly relaxed or stricter paywalls).
It blows my mind that some people think communism hasn't been tried enough times.
"Yes it failed 999 times before, but THIS flavor of communism will definitely work!"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Excess_mortality_in_the_Soviet...
I'm sure the millions of Ukrainians who were forcibly starved during the Holodomor really appreciated the low calorie diets supplied by the USSR.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holodomor
Characterizing the forcible starvation of millions as "a period of food insecurity" is peak techie-communism for me. Thanks for the laugh! :)
> Coal supplied about 55% of China’s total energy consumption in 2021
https://www.eia.gov/international/analysis/country/CHN
> It was one of the fastest decimations of an animal population in world history—and it had happened almost entirely in secret. The Soviet Union was a party to the International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling, a 1946 treaty that limited countries to a set quota of whales each year. By the time a ban on commercial whaling went into effect, in 1986, the Soviets had reported killing a total of 2,710 humpback whales in the Southern Hemisphere. In fact, the country’s fleets had killed nearly 18 times that many, along with thousands of unreported whales of other species.
> The Soviet whale slaughter followed no such logic. Unlike Norway and Japan, the other major whaling nations of the era, the Soviet Union had little real demand for whale products. Once the blubber was cut away for conversion into oil, the rest of the animal, as often as not, was left in the sea to rot or was thrown into a furnace.
https://psmag.com/social-justice/the-senseless-environment-c...
I didn't write that 'comunism' is inherently better in the environmental aspect.
At last it is just another ideological idiocy and kakistrocacy.
https://libcom.org/article/fiery-anniversary-special-review-...
It's not perfect, but it's become essentially the only place I consume "long-form articles about interesting stuff"-type content, which I think they still do better than anyone.
1: https://www.newyorker.com
However, it's also fair to note that many articles in their weekly issue—often at 600-800 words—just don't have the space to go in-depth enough into an issue, in contrast to a feature in The New Yorker or another long-form magazine like Foreign Affairs.
I've found The Economist to be a useful publication to hear about interesting problems I might otherwise have never heard of, and to read a fact-checked concise overview of a particular topic, before looking for a more in-depth source if there is a motivation to read further into the topic.
Right now I print articles I'm interested in, which is far from the most efficient solution.
I get Communications of the ACM, IEEE’s Computer and Software that way.
But I still miss BYTE. The articles are half the fun only - the ads painted a colourful portrait of the computer scene back then.
For more in the same style, try https://asteriskmag.com/.
Come to think of it, I think imagination is one of the qualities that makes Quanta so magical. Ostensibly it's a magazine about the interactions of formal and natural sciences, but they're not afraid to include a bold dash of imagination.
While not all of their content is of high quality, there are some fascinating gems hidden in there. For instance, their February 1992 issue has a section on Archie, one of the earliest internet search engines:
> For many people, particularly programmers and engineers, the Internet means "info- booty": shareware and freeware source code, documents, graphics, and data sets available by file transfer downloads and from E-mail servers. Sites like UUNET and The World each have several gigabytes' worth of publicly available archives. These are but two of the hundreds of sites with archives accessible via these methods. Even admitting a fair amount of redundancy among archives, it still adds up to about 100 gigabytes, and new sites and offerings are coming on-line every day.
> With so many different archives, it can be hard to figure out where (and at what network address) to access the items you want. If you don't know what you want beyond compilers or CP/M applications, it's even more overwhelming.
> The "archie group" at McGill University (Montreal, Quebec, Canada) has one solution to the problem: archie (archive without the v), the Internet Archive Server Listing Service (for access, see reference 2). Archie is a central database of information about Internet-accessible archive sites, plus server programs that provide access by telnet, anonymous file transfer protocol (FTP), E-mail, and the Prospero distributed computer system.
https://worldradiohistory.com/Archive-Byte/90s/1992/Byte-199... (page 147)
Also, there is Communications of the ACM (https://dl.acm.org/magazine/cacm). Many of their articles are free to read.
Not just beginner, intermediate, etc., but software and low level hardware for specific chip sets.
Raspberry PI mag is the closest thing. Maybe I should just downgrade my desktop to a RPI and enjoy the hobby again. Maybe, build a robo-dog/cat/creature.
See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8758915 for the 'end of it' and for the archives https://archive.org/details/DDJDVD6 or https://archive.org/search?query=creator%3A%22Dr.+Dobb%27s+J...
https://www.newphilosopher.com/
https://www.thenewatlantis.com/
https://thepointmag.com/
https://shop.generalsemantics.org/collections/etc
https://www.analogsea.com/
https://magculture.com/blogs/journal/jonathan-simons-analog-...
Please, start a blog or something. I mean you don't have to...but, yeah. Thanks.
https://libertiesjournal.com/
Most articles are focused on public policy but there is a good spread of topics. Strangely, it was acquired by Stripe last year.
* https://asteriskmag.com/ - they just published the second issue. I really enjoy the topics covered and the quality of writing.
Noema has some good stuff, although check out their advisory board. So many high profile neoliberal ghouls that the first time I saw it I thought it was a joke. It introduced me to Byung-Chul Han, for which I am forever grateful. Hope they can keep it up since they were hiring for a senior editor for a while there recently…
https://www.nplusonemag.com/