In 1974 physicist Frank Tipler published the paper “Rotating Cylinders and the Possibility of Global Causality Violation”, in which he shows that a spacecraft accelerating along an infinitely long rotating cylinder would travel backward in time. Through frame dragging the cylinder would create a closed timelike curve.…

Umm... we know for sure that this doesn’t work. If at any time in the future anyone succeeds in building a time machine and sending information back to us, we would already have received warnings about Hitler, climate change and the Cats movie. We received no such messages, so no one ever builds a time machine. QED.

Fun fact: We live in Hilarie Burton’s home town, and our kids went to school with her. They were all in the drama club together, and our younger daughter was on the cheerleading squad with her. Hilarie was in our home many times; we knew her quite well. A lovely young woman.

Back in the days when smoking was still allowed in the back of the plane I always made a point of getting seat well forward in the non-smoking section, to stay away from all that smoke. One time I kept smelling especially strong smoke, but figured it was just the smokers in the back. A flight attendant came by and…

I’m not sure if this counts, but the from The Greatest American Hero is one of my favorites. Believe It Or Not sung by Joey Scarbury spent 18 weeks on the charts, peaking at #2.

This sort of brinksmanship at sea is illustrated in the 1965 movie The Bedford Incident. Sidney Poitier is a civilian reporter on board a US destroyer confronting a Russian submarine in remote US waters. Things don’t go well, a combination of recalcitrant Rooskies, a hard-headed US captain, and a US junior missile…

“...a strange and totally forced Zillow ad...”

Joan: I only say this because I care... there are a lot of decaffeinated brands on the market that are just as tasty as the real thing.

“...stop and frisk...”

“... you might as well have copied them to an external hard drive (or flash drive).” 

It’s funny you should recommend Privacy Badger. I have PB on my iMac, and it lights up like a pinball machine on every Gizmodo page. Here’s what it shows on this Lifehacker page:

Until 1967 Virginia still had miscegenation laws prohibiting mixed marriages; a white person could not marry any non-white person, and of course vice-versa. A good friend of mine (a white guy) met a Japanese woman in Hawaii and brought her home to marry her here in the Old Dominion. On applying for a marriage license…

“All art is subjective.”

Typing loudly on a Mac keyboard is nothing compared to smacking the keys on a typewriter. Early machines were entirely mechanical; the harder you hit the key the harder the type arm hit the paper. When writing about something you cared about you got the pleasure of really punctuating your feelings.

Keith Richards is proof of life after death. Rock on, Keith... !

“... and various seeds...”

Back in the ‘60s we had space age fashions. Everything old is new again.