This holiday week, I thought it might be a useful break from our usual programming to present ideas that had an impact on me and might be thought-provoking for you as well. Today’s offering is on how pursuing objectives in a direct manner may not produce the desired outcome. Why? Because many systems are sufficiently […]
Read more...Orlando is home to an over-the-top Christmas display courtesy Tony Hansen, a lighting designer. According to the Orlando Sentinel: Using $10,000 worth of professional lighting and sound equipment that he borrowed from his job as a lighting designer, Hansen’s 25,000-light display is synchronized to five songs, which he broadcasts over an FM-radio frequency so passers-by […]
Read more...Remember, you skeptics live outside Silicon Valley, even an old warhorse like Oracle is humming along,posting a 35% increase in net income. From the Richter Scales:
Read more...Aaaw….From the BBC: A kangaroo met an unlikely death after it bounded into the surf in southern Australia and was mauled by a shark, according to eyewitnesses. Daniel Hurst, who says he saw the incident while out walking his dogs, was accused of being drunk or on drugs after he told the story to friends. […]
Read more...This BBC story shows how naive I am. I didn’t realize Supreme Pontiffs had image advisors: Franco Zeffirelli, the Italian film, stage and opera director, has said Pope Benedict XVI needs a makeover of his “cold” image and “showy” clothes. Zeffirelli told La Stampa newspaper that the Pope communicated in a cold way that was […]
Read more...This article about a cat designed to glow in the dark may well be a hoax, but it appears in a recognized venue, namely, the Korea Times. Either way, it’s a testament to human imagination and creativity. I’ve included the reporter’s e-mail address so skeptics can correspond. From the Korea Times: A cloned Turkish Angola […]
Read more...Does Ben Stein, who writes the more-or-less weekly “Everyone’s Business” column at the New York Times, have any pride of authorship? Stein’s articles have a cobbled-together quality, as if he agglomerated whatever was rattling around in his brain and called it a day when he got to his word count (I’ll concede he might have […]
Read more...Who was it who said money is too important to be taken seriously? I came across this video courtesy Dave Iverson at Economic Dreams – Economic Nightmares. Enjoy!
Read more...A very useful holiday shopping advisory from Eliezer Yudkowsky at Overcoming Bias. Bottom line: you get more credit from buying the top item in cheapie categories than by buying low to moderate priced items in more exclusive types of goods. But the reaction also depends on whether the recipient is able to evaluate what they […]
Read more...Completely deranged. Wonder what he’s on. I think I want some. Hat tip aci.net:
Read more...Never mind global warming. Human observation of the universe may have accelerated its demise. An article in New Scientist discusses the theory developed by cosmologists Lawrence Krauss of Case Western Reserve University and James Dent of Vanderbilt University. They believe that the observation of dark energy made in 1998 may have caused the universe to […]
Read more...No, the headline is not a variant on the now tired joke, “What does a guru order at a McDonalds? ‘Make me one with everything.’” It instead refers to a different sort of messianic endeavor, the quest in physics to come up with a unified theory that integrates all known types of matter and forces. […]
Read more...Time for comic relief. Hat tip Credit Slips:
Read more...From the BBC: An Indian man has married a female dog, believing the union will help him atone for stoning two other dogs to death.P Selvakumar, 33, said he had been cursed since the killings, suffering paralysis and a loss of hearing. The wedding took place at a Hindu temple in Tamil Nadu state. The […]
Read more...Cultural myths die hard. Even though a study in Science earlier this year found that men and women uttered nearly the same number of words in a day, yet women are widely perceived to be more chatty. My pet theory is that men see themselves as talking about things that are necessary and important, like […]
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