Hair Maker
Great inventions are often born at the intersection of two seemingly unrelated observations. Consider hot glue guns and bald guys. Observation #1: Sometimes when you pull a glue gun back from the item being glued it leaves a thin, hair-like strand of hardened plastic. Observation #2: Bald guys have no hair. Although assaulting a bald […]
Building a Brand
Andrew, Katrina, what’s in a name? A hurricane by any other name would still be as devastating. If you want to get the public to pay attention, branding is key. A big part of branding, Shakespeare notwithstanding, is the selection of a name. The names Kleenex, Scotch Tape and Advil are so recognizable that we […]
Just What Do You Think You’re Doing?
Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey is widely regarded as one of the most influential films ever made. Themes of existentialism and artificial intelligence were reinforced by scientifically accurate depictions of space flight and cutting-edge pre-CGI special effects. In one of the movie’s most memorable and prescient sequences, the working relationship between pseudo-sentient mission computer […]
Getting Lost
Recently my wife and I drove 400 miles to attend a wedding. The festivities took place in a small northern California town where neither of us had ever been. Although some planning went into the trip, navigation was never much of a concern. With Siri calling out the turns, we drove confidently into hitherto unknown […]
The Barfomatic
Nausea. We all know the feeling. Sometimes it briefly grabs our attention, and then slips quietly away. Other times, it builds to an inescapable climax and then….. Friends and family all secretly hope it’s something you ate and they didn’t (So glad I passed on the oysters). Many times it’s due to a virus that […]
Darwin’s Business Plan
“If I had my life to live over again, I would have made a rule to read some poetry and listen to some music at least once every week.” Charles Darwin Charles Darwin was not an atheist, and he started out studying medicine and theology before finally settling on natural history. Nearly everyone associates his […]
Searching Big Data for a Win
Experts tell us that there are nearly 8 zettabytes of data out there in the world, and the count is growing fast. Much like the stuff in your attic, a lot of it is redundant. There are things you might find really interesting or valuable, and others you would prefer to forget. On all-too-rare […]
Portrait of a Thumb Addict
Healthy people suck their thumbs. It’s a proven scientific fact. Thumb sucking benefits heart rhythm and breathing, while also regulating the muscles engaged in peristalsis of the digestive tract. Surprisingly, thumb suckers become emotionally independent at an earlier age. TS is definitely “nature” rather than “nurture”- many babies have been sucking for several months before […]
Missing Links
The Drake equation is not well known outside the world of astrophysics, but it has a lot in common with the ROI calculations that motivate venture capitalists. Dr. Drake figured that half a dozen statistical variables could be neatly crunched into the number of intelligent civilizations that could share the Milky Way with us. The […]
Who Wants to Know?
“Where ignorance is bliss, ’tis folly to be wise.” This oft-paraphrased line from Thomas Gray’s 1742 poem has certainly gathered a lot of cred over the past two hundred and seventy-some years. It is sacred tribal knowledge that what you don’t know won’t hurt you, absence makes the heart grow fonder, and that which is […]
