25 Years: How the Web began

25 years ago there was the Internet, but there was no Web. Then, Tim Berners-Lee proposed creating an Internet-based hypertext system and the Web was on its way. Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols revisits the history: 

In 25 years we've gone from the Web being little more than a thought experiment to where we keep up with our friends on Facebook, where we get all our news, and we sit down in front of our Internet-connected TVs every night to watch Netflix movies. Indeed, had I dreamed where the Web would take us today in the early 90s I too would never have believed it.

The Hollywood Reporter's Director Oscar Roundtable

The year's most notable directors join for The Hollywood Reporter's Director Oscar Roundtable. The directors include Quentin Tarantino ('The Hateful Eight'), Tom Hooper ('The Danish Girl'), Alejandro G. Inarritu ('The Revenant'), Ridley Scott ('The Martian'), Danny Boyle ('Steve Jobs') and David O. Russell ('Joy').

Know When to Stop Checking Your Phone and Go to Sleep

By now we’ve all heard the importance of getting enough sleep. Yet many of us let our technology sabotage us getting a good night’s rest. Research has found that anxiety, due to fear of missing out, plays a major role in how we (mis)use our devices. A majority of smartphone users feel uncomfortable if they aren’t in direct contact with their phones 24/7/365, even waking up to check their phones at night. To reduce your nighttime anxiety and get the sleep you need, practice not reacting to your phone’s notifications. Simply don’t check your phone every time it beeps. Try to check your phone only every 15 minutes, then every 30 minutes, then every hour. Once you build up your tolerance, try not checking your phone at all at night. Or if you’re still struggling, keep your phone outside your bedroom at night. It’s unlikely you’re missing something that important.

Source: Adapted from “Relax, Turn Off Your Phone, and Go to Sleep,” by Larry Rosen

The Clock of the Long Now

The Clock of the Long Now is a portrait of Danny Hillis and his brilliant team of inventors, futurists, and engineers as they build The 10,000 Year Clock—a grand, Stone Henge-like monolith, being constructed in a mountain in West Texas.

The film, like the clock itself, celebrates the power of long-term thinking and mankind’s insatiable thirst to solve life’s biggest problems.

How Creativity is Helped by Failure

BBC News Magazine Viewpoint:

"Dare to fail" is a powerful slogan. It doesn't mean we should aim at failure - rather it hints at the paradox that creativity is a journey that involves taking wrong turns along the way. Organisations like Google, Apple, Dyson and Pixar have developed cultures that, in their different ways, create the conditions for empowering failure. They have become living ecosystems of the imagination, fired by the courage to test ideas, to see their flaws, and to be triggered into new associations and insights.