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...

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

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 mathematician,...

“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), I...

#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...

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...

Stevie Wonder is one of those truly great artists whose music permeates our culture. I had never actually listened to the album “Songs...

You need to come up with something, so keep it simple. Even if it starts out with only six words, you can always add more later....

The film Highlander (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Highlander_(film)) was enormously popular when it came out, as were several of the...

In Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Potter_and_the_Chamber_of_Secrets), there is a scene...

One of the key catch-phrases of the classic “Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hitchhiker%27s_Guide_to...

The phrase “full of sound sound and fury, signifying nothing” is part of one of the most famous soliloquies in the English language. It...

Risk (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Risk_%28game%29) is one of those games that seems to endure. It’s a simple game, which is probably...