I'd been working at the Goblet for a couple of weeks, and I was starting to get a feel for the patterns. Right after work on week-nights was always the busiest. Around eight-thirty or nine it emptied out, then filled up again around ten, then quieted down as midnight rolled around. The last hour before we closed was…

It was in response to the Great Smog that they passed the Clean Air Act of 1956 (hey, it only took them 4 years). Although the Act is no longer in force, I think it's still illegal to burn anything but smokeless fuels in London.

So this is what golfers mean when they talk about a "water hazard", yes?

It's OK, the placebo effect works until the placebo pill that suppresses it takes effect. Still, if you're worried, you could give them another pill that ensures the first pill works by increasing susceptibility to the placebo effect. But then ...

Obviously, the solution is to give your placebo group a pill and tell them that it suppresses their susceptibility to placebos.

For it to run on Gawker, there would need to be a story about a celebrity doing it. If the celebrity involved was a tech startup founder, Gizmodo would cover it. If done in a specific context, it might also make Deadspin, Kotaku or Jalopnik, as appropriate. If the technique actually worked, it would be on Lifehacker.…

I, for one, do not have the slightest intention of trying it to find out.

Evil Overlord List, rule 34: "I will not turn into a snake. It never helps." http://www.eviloverlord.com/lists/overlord.html

Black widow spiders with guns ... the sum of all fears?

I'm not sure that you can call a movie about the scrappy little guys vs. the big heartless corporation exactly "prescient". While that's not quite the theme of Every Movie Ever, it's pretty well-traveled territory. We do love our underdogs.

There's a (largely discredited) theory of the origin of language that says that human language arises from onomatopoeia (mockingly known as the "bow-wow theory"). For a species that uses echolocation, an onomatopoeic language would make a lot more sense, though.

I'm left with the uneasy feeling that he's not merely imitating human speech, he's actually mocking it.

I have no idea what any of this is, but now I am obsessed by the idea of a "hacking arrow". Can I get one, please? Where do you go to get a "hacking arrow"? Is it like a very pointy kind of Microsoft Certification?

I don't think so.

I notice that the Bond who drinks the most has the smallest number of "conquests". Correlation, or causation?

If Bond takes his Heineken "shaken but not stirred", there's going to be a nasty mess.

Robert L. Forward proposed a deceleration system that uses two sails: the primary sail, used for acceleration during the boost phase, is then used to reflect light onto a smaller secondary sail during the deceleration phase. I have to confess that I don't entirely see how this would work, but Dr Forward is smarter…

I always liked Eric Frank Russell's stories, in which space scouts name planets things like 'Eterna', 'Pulok' and 'Binty', much to the consternation of the bureaucrats back home (those three examples are from Russell's witty short story "The Waitabits").

She doesn't say which end, but I think we can guess.

Neal Stephenson: "Ex-cel-lent ... my work here is done."