Some Perspectives on Prophecies

Naomi Michalowicz //   Now direct your eyes here, gaze at this people, your own Romans. Here is Caesar, and all the offspring of Iulus destined to live under the pole of heaven. This is the man, this is him, whom you so often hear promised you, Augustus Caesar, son of the Deified, who will…

The Language of Smell

Naomi Michalowicz // My two-year-old daughter has two words with which to describe food: yummy and yucky. For sound, she can distinguish between “big noise” and “very quiet.” She has a significantly broader vocabulary when it comes to sight: big and small, green, blue, or red, and the capacious description that may apply to anything…

Stranger Things; or, Why ’80s Nostalgia is Good For You

Naomi Michalowicz // Stranger Things, Netflix’s hit show about kids fighting eldritch terrors in 1980s suburbia, has just concluded its fourth season. An obvious appeal of the show is its shameless indulgence in ’80s nostalgia, hitting every cliche of representing the decade—bicycles, arcades, music, quaint technology, bad hair, and of course, the full range of…

From Jane Austen to Chatbots: Using Conversation to Judge Intelligence

Naomi Michalowicz // Chatbots, those little pop-up virtual assistance you encounter at the bottom of every page on every website of every company, who cheerfully ask “what can I help you with?”, are not as smart as we’d like them to be. Often frustratingly obtuse, the virtual assistant is incapable of answering your questions or…