Today I Learned

Tuwiuwok Bluff, via Haven, Maine fan wiki When I thought about the TV series Haven , I remembered vague details, and thought it must have...

Nine Princes in Amber, cover, via OpenLibrary.org My Dad didn’t particularly like Roger Zelazny’s work. He thought it was a bit too...

Monty Python – Spam, via Wikipedia Even fifty years later, the influence of Monty Python  is felt, as older generations reminisce and...

Skeptical Science, John Cook, via Wikimedia Commons Words are fun! Today, let’s ask whether the words “equivalence” and “equivalency” are...

WarGames, 1983: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KXzNo0vR_dU I can only hear that question in the voice of the computer Joshua, from the...

The exception that proves the rule . We’ve all heard the phrase, but I think most people use it without understanding it or knowing where...

Let’s talk about the end of the world, shall we? Or maybe not. Fortunately, some stories of impending doom are overestimated, and some...

One of my all-time favourite songs is Welcome to the Machine , by Pink Floyd. While the song appeared on the 1975 album Wish You Were...

It’s been more than two years since I last posted, so I’m trying to remember which buttons to press to make this happen. Life has a...

When the COVID-19 pandemic began (need to be specific here, to avoid confusion ...), I recall a lot of people emphasizing the need to...

“Give me a place to stand on, and I will move the Earth” “δῶς μοι πᾶ στῶ καὶ τὰν γᾶν κινάσω” Archimedes is described as a...

“Why can’t we all just get along?” This was the question asked by the incomparable Jack Nicholson in Mars Attacks! Nicholson’s...

M. C. Escher has always been one of my favourite artists. From the moment I first saw his work (I think it might have been Waterfall ),...

#TIL that the iconic image of the album cover for the famous album The Wall was not actually the original cover. In fact, the text “Pink...

Over the decades, the way we listen to music has changed, and it’s interesting to wonder about the implications of those changes. Prior...

A farmer asked a physicist to help him figure out how to increase milk production. After gathering data and studying the problem, the...

Recently, I was listening to an old episode of The Skeptics Guide to the Universe , (actually, episode 803, dated 28-Nov-2020 ), in which...

I found the image above when searching for a good image of fire, and it seemed just about perfect on multiple levels. Buster Keaton (...

In the late 1980’s I liked to collect “taglines” to include in my interactions with people. While these included many “pithy” statements...

I’ve heard a number of people say that they “don’t like X”, only to discover that their only exposure has been some “pop culture” version...