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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
Tools, Gadgets and Oreos
If you own some sort of exercise tracking device like a Fit Bit or a Fuelband, you are a ten-percenter. Market research shows that 1 out of every 10 Americans over the age of 18 has one of these high-tech wearables. That same research tells us that one third of those who got them have […]
Fly Catcher
Reading about the latest developments in technology can really make me feel like an old fart. Consider fly swatters. For most of my life, if there was a fly that was annoying you, you rolled up a newspaper or magazine, crept up on the little Musca domestica Linnaeus, and quickly swatted it into oblivion. Those […]
If a Tree Falls
“If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?” This is a classic thought experiment from Philosophy 101, intended to kick off a flurry of questions about the relationship between observation and reality. For science-minded folk who have no patience for such drivel, the […]
Easier is Better
“That which does not kill us makes us stronger.” (Friedrich Nietzsche) We love inspirational quotes to help us through challenging times, and this is one of the classics. My late father had another favorite -“Troubles are often the tools by which God fashions us for better things” (Henry Ward Beecher). The common theme in these […]
DUI…P?
Pot has a lot to learn from alcohol. Alcohol is the senior intoxicant, having been legal in the U.S. since the 21st amendment repealed Prohibition in 1933. Still, pot is catching up; nearly one third of all Americans live in a state where marijuana has been legalized to some degree. Automobile accidents due to DUI […]
How Old Do I Look?
When I was in my fifties, I used to tell people I was sixty; the sought-after response was something along the lines of how good I looked for my age. This cheap trick has lost its thrill, and now I’d prefer not to know how old people think I am. For those who still care […]