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Harper’s (not to be confused with Harper’s Bazaar, which is an especially boring fashion magazine,) The Believer, and The Baffler all have good literary and art coverage as well as long-form lefty political journalism. The New Yorker is good too, and not as New York City centric as you might think, aside from the theater/music/event listings, but it’s weekly, so kinda expensive and easy to fall behind on. There’s some good stuff in Rolling Stone and Playboy from time to time but I wouldn’t keep either one on the coffee table where people could see them.

Interestingly, David Foster Wallace wrote the book Everything & More about the work of mathematician Georg Cantor, who suffered from mental illness late in life. Around the same time as Wallace's book was published, another book came out trying to argue that Cantor's mathematical genius stemmed from his illness. In an interview, Wallace called it "dreck, the very worst kind of appeal to a flabby, unconsidered pop version of what you just now called the 'mad genius' syndrome." Wallace goes on:

...The fact is that it's all but certain that Cantor was bipolar, that his professional insecurities and travails aggravated the illness but didn't cause it, that most of his worst episodes and hospitalizations occurred when he was older and his best work was long behind him. Etc., etc.--some of the unsexy truth gets talked about in [Everything & More].

People like the "mad genius" meme, but it paints an overly simple picture of things. It might be the case (and empirically, the jury is still out) that some of the same predispositions that put people at risk of mental illness in some circumstances can contribute positively to intellectual functioning in others. But that is most definitely NOT the same as saying "with great genius comes great madness." If anything, the madness comes along and puts a sad end to the genius, rather than enhancing it.

Read this interview with Strawson that describes why free will has nothing to do with determinism.

No, George Meyer never really left the show. He did leave temporarily a few times, and hasn't been credited as Writer for any recent episodes, but as far as I know he is still writing for the show.
Oh, and here's another interview with him.

I would recommend the scifi of Iain M. Banks, especially "Use of Weapons", "The Player of Games", or "Consider Phlebas" as good places to start.

"Excession" is great, but you really need to get immersed into the Culture universe a bit first since it can be hard to fathom without the background that the other books give you. (e.g. Nick Hornby).

I'll throw out some other titles in case you haven't read them:

"Ender's Game" - Orson Scott Card (the first couple sequels were pretty good and maybe one or two of the later ones, but it's kind of like a runaway train at this point)

"Jumper" - Steven Gould, also "Wildside". There is a new sequel to Jumper called "Reflex" which I haven't read yet.

"Ringworld" - Larry Niven

Mars trilogy by Kim Stanley Robinson

you mentioned Hyperion which to me seems fairly fantastical, so here are some fantasy/scifi stuff as well

"Book of The New Sun" series - Gene Wolfe. Very good fantasy/scifi

"Wicked" - Gregory Maguire (a truly imaginative and entertaining fantasy book which you probably knkow is about the wicked witch of the west from the wizard of oz)

"Perdido Street Station" and "The Scar" by China Mieville. also incredibly imaginative and entertaining.

enjoy.

The Scar - China Miéville
This is the sequel to Perdido Street Station, set in the same world but thousands of miles away from the damp city setting of the first book. This is set mainly on the open ocean, this allows for all sorts of navel battles, pirates, rigs that pump magic like oil from the ground, flying golems, a backstory involving aliens, etc all told in a gritty yet lyrical style, perhaps best described as maximalist. Miéville's richly spiced crockpot of fantasy genre favourites added to some generous scoops of genuinely new ideas reads like an instant classic. In many ways it is even better than the first book, although they both suffer slightly from having abrupt endings. Nevertheless, this is still a great book.

The Believer is an excellent literary magazine put out by McSweeney's. Dave Eggers has a regular column, and they usually include a postcard of a fine artist's work. The current "music" issue has a few great articles, including a story of travelling to an elliot smith memorial, and a fascinating interview of David Byrne (also by Dave Eggers.)

Really,a fantastic magazine. Long, insightful articles without having to wade through airbrushed naked pictures. To boot, it's printed on really nice paper and just feels good in your hand.