Today I Learned

Survivorman Logo, via YouTube The TV show Survivor is described as a “ reality-competition ”, but it never struck me as realistic, and I...

Is Religion Like a Drug? | Rev | BBC Comedy Greats, via YouTube “You’ll feel that God reached out to you with his love.” “What does that...

Emo Philips, Opening for Weird Al Yankovic at the Apollo Theatre Today I learned the word “ paraprosdokian ”. According to Wikipedia, the...

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...

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...

So, it’s HER fault! :) I recently wrote about why Y2K was such a big deal. To summarize, one major reason was the cost of computer...

Artificial Intelligence is- Hey! Come on! I haven’t even said anything yet! Ahem. As I was saying, Artificial Intelligence is a term that...

“‘Who controls the past,’ ran the Party slogan, ‘controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.’” George Orwell,...

“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 mathematician,...

The Greek philosopher Diogenes is famous for carrying a lantern during the day, claiming he was “searching for an honest man”. Yet...

“That is the question!” Or is it? The problem with many questions nowadays lies in the motivations behind the asking. By quoting out of...

When I write, I sometimes have a topic in mind, and look for an interesting way to introduce it. This time, I ended up going down an...

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...

It’s interesting that everyone needs to come up with their own “process” for writing. And, while there are certain common elements, each...

Mr. Peabody (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mister_Peabody) is a figure whose influence is truly incalculable. For any not familiar with...

Everyone knows what a jerk is. And everyone knows someone who is a jerk. But why? Why are some people jerks? Or rather, why do we...

Yesterday, I sat down to start writing a post, and realized that I couldn’t think of anything to write about. Usually, I think of...

The start of school is often a busy time, but it gave me a bit of time to think about my high-school experience and led me back to...