From today's Astronomy Picture of the Day, NASA and JPL go dramatic, presenting a description of the Curiosity rover's landing process as something like the trailer for a suspense film. Not bad, actually: The Curiosity rover, about the size of … Continue reading
As Steven Pinker pointed out in his recent book The Better Angels of Our Nature (previously reviewed here), violence worldwide has been trending down over the centuries, but not uniformly. An interesting set of graphs from Kieran Healy shows that … Continue reading
I spent my childhood in Carolina Beach, North Carolina, where every summer everyone looked forward to donuts from Britt's, a small shop in the small boardwalk area that served what I've always suspected are the best donuts on the planet. … Continue reading
This is a nifty short video on population growth that's fast-moving and interesting and blessedly doesn't stray into politics or alarmism, though it does make some points that ought to provoke some sober thought. Some might find it a little … Continue reading
These people might need to switch to decaf: I wonder if this is the same guy as the one in the airplane restroom yesterday. … Continue reading
Starting at 3 minutes and 15 seconds there's an interesting (and at times amusing) face-off between the voice search features of the latest versions of Google's Android OS and Apple's iOS (the latter called Siri): (My own experience is that … Continue reading
Here is a video clip shot by a passenger illustrating that TSA agents in special yellow uniforms are now performing backup security screenings on board aircraft. Well, that's my guess anyway. (Thanks to Failblog and SenorGif.) … Continue reading
At the start of last week Greg Sargent made an important point on taxes that bears repeating, since many people (apparently including many journalists) seem unclear on it: The proposal backed by President Obama and most Democrats in Congress would … Continue reading
A near-accident but nobody gets mad: … Continue reading
Mitt Romney has been taking a lot of criticism, from fellow Republicans as well as Democrats, for refusing to make public his tax returns before 2010. As he's correctly pointed out, there's no legal requirement for him to do so. … Continue reading