When the Berlin fell (was torn down!) and the USSR tossed itself onto the ash heap of history, Francis Fukuyama suggested that it might be "the end of history ( Read more... )

I went rummaging around the attic yesterday looking for something that as far as I can tell isn't up there. But I did find some other things, including the rabbit ears I was looking for a few months back, not that they'll do me any good anytime soon. I also found a couple old 'personal music players'. One was a cheapie GPX AM/FM radio and the ( Read more... )

When I was a kid I would see things in old movies that were pretty much like the things around me. There were differences, but some stuff still used tubes. Music that wasn't on the radio often was from a phonograph. Cameras used film. Phones had rotary dials. But things have changed. The last few vacuum tubes in the house are the picture ( Read more... )

I brought a set of pan horns to work today and put them on for a few minutes this morning. Carefully arranging my hair, I managed to hide the twine that held them in place. I then went to few different folks and said that I didn't think much of the hype some folks seem to have about today's date, "after all, it's not as if anything really ( Read more... )

Monday there were some helium balloons left and since I'd never tried talking with helium, I went to the trouble of untying one. There was some change in voice, but I caught myself trying to talking in a higher pitch. I wonder how much is the helium and how much of the effect is from "helping" the helium along. After that, KT, JJ, Chaka, and I ( Read more... )

That movie has been showing now. Even Fairmont's little theater did the bit with selling tickets late at night and then showing the picture just after midnight. I am planning on seeing it, eventually, though only to have an idea of what many are going on about rather than as a true fan. While I was around and aware of the first Star Wars movie ( Read more... )

...interracial marriage was a crime in some states of the U.S.A.
...the U.S. Supreme Court was made up of only white men.
...LSD was legal, if barely, in the U.S.A.
...there had been no successful heart transplants in humans.
...Israel had never controlled the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, the Golan Heights, or the Sinai peninsula.

...Swedes drove ( Read more... )

Ever try something or experience something and find you didn't much care for it? But then years later get this strange craving, or the feeling that something is missing when you notice the absence of whatever it was?

So help me, I'm actually missing the EBS tests a bit. I know the EAS (Emergency Alert System) does the same job, and better, but ( Read more... )

While on the treadmill Tuesday evening I watched a NOVA about a search for the ruins of the Lighthouse of Alexandria. The program was interesting enough, showing how things progressed by exploring and mapping an underwater area, searching more within it, and finding ruins that were interesting if perhaps not the original things sought. Some of ( Read more... )

There's likely a simple, though maybe not easy, answer that I've just plain missed. One of the things I've wondered about is what could be called the bootstrap problem. How can crude tools be used to make less crude tools?

That is, you start with sticks and stones, and you eventually end up with precision machined parts accurate to tolerances ( Read more... )