Sunday, August 22, 2010

Facebook just put those "Leave a message for your deceased loved one, then pay to see the comments" websites out of business didn't it?

Saturday, August 21, 2010

Who was the first individual (and of what species) that realized that they were going to die someday?

Monday, June 28, 2010

a random anti-Hollywood moment

I liked when the shy glasses-wearing kid in Tropic Thunder became more confident as the movie progressed, but I hated that they showed his transformation by removing his glasses.  When they removed them, he wasn't likely to need the independence from opinion he had developed, because people were likely to treat him differently in the future simply because he no longer had those pieces of clear plastic on his face.

Friday, May 28, 2010

The climate change debate is in a difficult place where the people arguing don't understand the details of what's happening (e.g. fluid dynamics, the reflectivity of clouds, etc.) so all of us uninformed folks have somehow made a decision on joining a side. I understand very little of the physics of climate change, but if lots of people are willing to spend their lives looking at a problem involving lots of painful math, that's a good indicator that climate change is a real effect.

Wednesday, May 5, 2010

Terrible phrase that should never be used

To "wrap your head around" something as in, "It took me a while to wrap my head around that idea". I've used the phrase 3 or 4 times in my life, but it caused an increase in my Douchebag Factor, so I stopped. Please also consider stopping. It just sounds weird and pretentious.

Monday, May 3, 2010

Since researchers have had such a hard time figuring out the causes of diseases from genetics so far, is there reason to believe that epigenetics will have more luck?

Saturday, May 1, 2010

"Some German guy is running around naked. Maybe someone should do something."

--note I saw on a trail register in the Henry Mountains in March