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The End

October 7, 2014

I resisted the lure of the blogging world for a long time, dismissing it as a passing fad or a fuzzy and lazy form of publishing. It was, I believed, a shortcut to something too indistinct to ever mean anything. I didn’t get it. I think I get it now. Four and a half years […]

Listen Carefully

August 1, 2014

Here’s a thing I’ve noticed. It has to do with accents, but the theory can be applied to a lot of other things, as well: The farther away we are from a place, the more everything seems to look and sound the same. I’ll give you an example, because so far you have no idea what […]

The Quick Brown Fox

May 9, 2014

I waste a lot of time. So far I’ve gotten away with it, because there always seems to be another tomorrow waiting to replace the yesterday I spent cleaning my keyboard and counting deposit bottles and scrutinizing the checking account statement to identify that mysterious nine-dollar charge. Weeks, months, and entire years have vanished this […]

Common Knowledge

March 15, 2014

More than sixty percent of the Earth’s crust is made up of a rock called feldspar. At least this is what I’ve read. It isn’t clear to me how anyone could be certain about something like that, because they’d have to go around digging up the whole world in order to verify that they haven’t […]

Perfectly Unbelievable

February 24, 2014

102

I am wounded by insincerity, and by honesty delivered too late. This goes for my own behavior, as well as that of others, although if I’m the one guilty of guile, I seem to get over it much faster. When I was a junior in high school, I developed what I thought was a close […]

No-Brainer

February 16, 2014

Every time I get a sinus infection, I first assume it’s Bubonic Plague. And it makes no difference that the symptoms are instantly recognizable as those of the non-fatal sickness. As far as I’m concerned, I’m as good as dead. In a similar way, when my hands are cold, I do some online research and […]

Speaking of January 30th

January 30, 2014

110

Three hundred fifty-three years ago, Oliver Cromwell, Lord Protector of England, was hanged in chains at Westminster Hall in London for his opposition to the British monarchy. After the hanging, which took place on January 30, 1661, his head was severed, impaled on a spike, and publicly displayed for the next twenty-four years. What makes […]

More Energy, Less Work (Part 2)

December 13, 2013

Most of us take energy for granted. We drive to the gas station, crank up the thermostat, or flip a switch, and we have all the power we need. And while solar, wind, and other alternative sources are growing more prevalent, most of our energy still comes from the process of taking a raw material […]

More Energy, Less Work (Part 1)

December 6, 2013

I’m a problem-solver. When I read or hear about something people are struggling with, I want to help them fix it. When they’re grappling with a difficult question, I want to help them answer it. A few years ago, I learned that physicists still don’t know how gravity works. I decided that I was up […]

Say Hey! How Did You Get This Number?

August 15, 2013

Here’s the whole story about Willie Mays. But be prepared, because it’s a tale filled with drama and suspense. Okay, no it isn’t. Actually, it’s filled with stupidity and hurt feelings. And a sense of relief that caller-ID wasn’t yet available. Willie was a baseball player, if you didn’t know. One of the greatest, in […]