Here's a fact that surprises many people – even many computer professionals: one of the most difficult challenges for a computer system ...

Strategy Page has an excellent article about the pervasive corruption in Middle Eastern governments, and the challenges of cleaning it up. ...

Last fall, California's voters – by a 70% majority – passed “Jessica's Law”. This law makes it illegal for sex offenders to live wi...

This morning's news includes a hard-to-believe story of animal cruelty : two 15 year old girls setting a trapped 8 week old kitten on fi...

The way we perceive color is very different from what you might think (if you've ever thought about this at all!). When someone with no...

This evening I sat down to start restoring a fine old Dring & Fage slide rule, and I finally remembered to do something I've been me...

This is a fine example of a watch-style circular slide rule, albeit a very large one – it is 87mm (about 3½ inches) in diameter. Click on...

Via NBC San Diego, this news (more photos here ) of a hit-and-run wreck that seriously injured a mother of four, but spared her kids: Polic...

Imagine you could travel back in time … say, a couple thousand years. Would you be able to teach people about technologies that are now comm...

This slide rule (click to enlarge the photo at right) was made around 1897 and sold by Keuffel & Esser. It may have been actually manuf...

I thought you loved me!

Each summer we depend on our air conditioner to keep our home's temperature at a livable level – otherwise it would be 100°+ in the hous...

Maneuvering a spacecraft in orbit requires some tactics that most of us would find counter-intuitive. This morning I got to pondering exact...

Today's news includes a new weapons deployment : the MQ-9 “Reaper” (aka “Predator B”) is being deployed to Afghanistan and (a little lat...

Jim M. sends this along: It started out innocently enough. I began to think at parties now and then – just to loosen up. Inevitably, though...

Skippy (of Enjoy Every Sandwich) clearly understands New Jersey very well (and that's an escaped New Jerseyite's assessment): New Je...

Rod Liddle's latest piece (in the London Times) is a great example of British humor at its finest. He skewers the BBC over recent even...

Last October – nine months ago, I engaged a contractor to build a “safe house” on our property. This would be an all-concrete and complete...

My brother Scott was in the news today. He planted a “century plant” ( agave americana ) in Virginia Beach several years ago, and it has th...

Google just added a new feature to its blogs: polling. Just as an experiment, yesterday I put up a poll about a simple science question: why...