I wasn’t awake ten minutes this morning before I learned that Steve Jobs had died. I was never truly happy with Apple products — too expensive, not expandable enough, not complex enough to satisfy my geek soul — but even long before the iPhone, they had a major if indirect impact on everything I did. …
This seems pretty ridiculous to me, but I can see how it might help some people. If it does, I’m all for it.
In another case of life-imitates-science-fiction, Bruce Schneier reports that someone has discovered the perfect description of today’s “security theater” in a 1956 Asimov story. (For those of you not following along at home, “security theater” refers to all the crap the TSA is doing that is trivial to get around, but that they’re doing just …
I never knew where the Jack-o’-Lantern came from, but a newsletter that I get (for a company that I cannot recommend, so I won’t name) described one version of the legend behind it recently, and it’s sufficiently interesting that I wanted to pass it on. The tale, apparently hundreds of years old, comes from Ireland …
I’ve always said, if it’s worth doing, it’s worth overdoing. 😉 And apparently overdoing this is also pretty lucrative.
Ridiculous. The belief that the Earth is less than 10,000 years old is about on par with the heliocentric geocentric model of the solar system — the evidence is pretty damning against both. However, as I suggested recently to a voluble evolution denier, they’re welcome to try. The discipline of science is self-correcting, and will …
Continue reading ‘“Creationists are infiltrating US geology circles”’ »
I often take my computer and do programming in places where I don’t have an Internet connection for a few hours at a time. It generally works out well: no e-mail or IM to distract me, no fascinating web links to follow and spend time reading. Unfortunately it also means that I don’t have access …
Did you ever hear the story about the first man to run a sub-four-minute mile? As I heard it, after he did so, it suddenly seemed that everyone could do it. I’ve also heard that the first man to lift 400 pounds was tricked into it by his trainer, who told him it was only …
Continue reading ‘“A Little Deception Helps Push Athletes to the Limit”’ »
I’m sure this experiment saved on banana costs — and machine repair and replacement costs, apparently — but a little statistical math could have told him the same thing a lot faster. (The comment about the interview with Fox News amuses me, as even more evidence that regular Fox News viewers are on the low …
Continue reading ‘“Virtual cloud monkeys go bananas writing Shakespeare”’ »
I recently made an entry about trying out Parallels Desktop for the Mac. My two-week trial key still has a few days left on it, but I made up my mind days ago. For what I do (Windows and Linux software development and a few Windows games), Parallels simply offers much better performance. Much better …