In Ringworld author Larry Niven introduces Teela Brown, who is the descendant of six generations of humans born by dint of winning the “Birthright Lottery” on population-controlled Earth. She is genetically lucky, and at least prior to her adventures on Ringworld lead an effortless charmed life. Maybe luck is an…

My best friend as a teenager went on to a career at Proctor & Gamble where he was officer in charge of making Pampers. We often spoke about how they’re designed and made; a really stunning amount of chemistry and engineering goes into making them. He said that anyone could make a few diapers; the challenge was a…

You’ve obviously never been in the Army...

And... that’s it; we are now officially a third world country. Our way of life now depends on a porn actress’ description of our president’s penis. I think I’ll move to Yemen, where at least you know where you stand.

My students sometime turn in papers triple-spaced with large paragraph breaks and lots of inserted pictures and graphs. There’s probably one good page of text, but they hand in a five page assignment like that and say “See, five pages exactly.”

On the British sitcom Only Fools and Horses an entrepreneur, noting how much time priests spend blessing sacramental wine, gets a priest friend to bless it in wholesale lots and sells it to the parishes as a time-saver.

Lead Actress in a Drama Series

The Americans is certainly the best tv drama ever, and maybe the best tv show. If Kari doesn’t win it just shows that the Emmys mean nothing.

This is dandy, but I really recommend Overdrive. It works with your local library to let you check out and read ebooks and listen to audiobooks. I read/listen on my Kindle, but lots of other devices work too. It’s basically magic.

Indeed, and his worked on anti-gravity.

The Army also considered a one-man flying platform made by helicopter manufacturer Hiller. The pilot stood over a whirling blade; it was basically a flying Cuisinart. Ironically, it failed because it was too stable, and couldn’t accelerate to a satisfactory forward speed.

People have been having trouble charging electric cars in NYC for quite a while.

I’m not crying, you’re crying.

“...BUT, what if there was more happening here?”

Fun fact: the lead photo a tour boat at Niagara Falls. They take you right up to the falls, to the point where the current equals the maximum speed of the boat. It’s quite a ride.

Fun fact: the lead photo a tour boat at Niagara Falls. They take you right up to the falls, to the point where the…

This is silly. Nobody buys mobile hardware any more. This is an app, if anything.

“Dwarf” planet... ? Yeah, so you got a problem with that?

Back in the day the GTI had one of the greatest car commercials ever. It was set to the tune of Ronnie and the Daytona’s Little GTO, morphed into German and GTI: