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Physicists who think carefully about time point to troubles posed by quantum mechanics, the laws describing the probabilistic behavior of particles. At the quantum scale, irreversible changes occur that distinguish the past from the future: A particle maintains simultaneous quantum states until you measure it, at which point the particle adopts one of the states. Mysteriously, individual measurement outcomes are random and unpredictable, even as particle behavior collectively follows statistical patterns. This apparent inconsistency between the nature of time in quantum mechanics and the way it functions in relativity has created uncertainty and confusion.

"That said, there's another factor driving the reaction of Clinton's supporters, and the best way I can find to approach it is to consider one of the more thoughtful responses from that side of the political landscape, an incisive essay posted to Livejournal last week by someone who goes by the nom de Web "Ferrett Steinmetz." The essay's titled The Cold, Cold Math We'll Need to Survive the Next Twenty Years, and it comes so close to understanding what happened last Tuesday that the remaining gap offers an unsparing glimpse straight to the heart of the failure of the Left to make its case to the rest of the American people. At the heart of the essay are two indisputable points. The first is that the core constituencies of the Democratic Party are not large enough by themselves to decide who gets to be president. That's just as true of the Republican party, by the way, and with few exceptions it's true in every democratic society.  Each party large enough to matter has a set of core constituencies who can be counted on to vote for it under most circumstances, and then has to figure out how to appeal to enough people outside its own base to win elections. That's something that both parties in the US tend to forget from time to time, and when they do so, they lose. The second indisputable point is that if Democrats want to win an election in today's America, they have to find ways to reach out to people who don't share the values and interests of the Left. It's the way that Ferrett Steinmetz frames that second point, though, that shows why the Democratic Party failed to accomplish that necessary task this time. "We have to reach out to people who hate us," Steinmetz says, and admits that he has no idea at all how to do that. "

""Our bodies break / And the blood just spills and spills / And here we sit debating math." -Retribution Gospel Choir, Breaker Design got its seat at the table, which is good because we can shut up about it now. What used to be seen as the territory of bespectacled Scandinavians is now a matter of HBR covers, consumer clamour, and 12-figure market caps. People in suits now talk about design as a way to differentiate products and unlock new markets."