I think I've mentioned before that the drain for our driveway and rear walk sometimes has trouble, well, draining. This was a problem yet again last night, and I'm tired of that little stream of water flowing through our basement when the lake forms against the back wall. It's pretty clearly more than just the grate getting clogged that's to blame ( Read more... )

My mother really, really loves Skype. That's really caught me off guard, because for some reason I've never been very excited by it. So I want to know: do any of you folks use Skype regularly? And can anyone suggest why I might be more hesitant about Skype than I generally am about nifty-sounding new technologies? ('Cause thus far, I haven't come ( Read more... )

Here's what I want as my computer desktop image, or maybe as a screensaver ( Read more... )

There's a thought-provoking article on medical ethics in today's New York Times: New Drugs Stir Debate on Basic Rules of Clinical Trials. The crux of the article is this: controlled clinical trials are the gold standard of medical evidence because they give the clearest evidence about whether one treatment is better than the alternatives. If we ( Read more... )

I'm clearly naive and idealistic, but I continue to be astounded when I see mainstream public figures spewing blatant bigotry and hate and fear. I'm not talking Mel Gibson here: his racist outbursts have generally been publicly condemned by just about everyone (including himself, in a series of increasingly threadbare attempts to apologize). I'm ( Read more... )

I'm really trying to figure out what happened here:

( Read more... )

A recent SMBC comic featured "Polish hand magic", a rather remarkable mathematical trick for multiplying on your fingers. I want to talk a bit about the trick, and maybe a little bit about the broader philosophical idea involved. So go read the comic, and then I'll babble a little.
( Read it? Okay then... )

I've followed most of the news about the oil leak in the Gulf, but I haven't read much commentary or analysis about it lately (too many guests and travel). So perhaps those of you who have been following the discussion can answer a question that's come to my mind ( Read more... )

Risotto alla Milanese is absolutely delicious ( Read more... )

This weekend, Kim and I are going to Penguicon, a "Science Fiction and Open Source Software Convention" near Detroit. I've never actually been to a con before, so it should be a fun experience. This one's a little unusual with its "open source" aspect, but Kim figures that's a plus for me: if there's a time when the sci-fi side of things doesn't ( Read more... )