Monthly Archives: January 2010

In the car the other day I mentioned that I was going to start practicing the guitar for real, in such a way that implied that I knew, in some deep sense, how to practice an instrument. A friend inquired … Continue reading →

My friend Grant posed the following interesting question to me: Say you could go back in time to 1999… and you were to show/tell something that shows how much “progress” humans have made in the past 10 years — something … Continue reading →

The late, brilliant Douglas Adams co-authored a book called The Meaning of Liff. From Wikipedia: It is a “dictionary of things that there aren’t any words for yet”; all the words listed are place names, and describe common feelings and … Continue reading →

(Some might consider this a SPOILER) In the last two days, I saw District 9 and Avatar, two movies with several similar characteristics: large aliens, oppression by humans, not-so-subtle commentaries about imperialism, DNA mixing, and a crossover human. Both were … Continue reading →

For better or for worse, there’s a fairly well-established status hierarchy for professionals in the US, with doctors near the top, and janitors near the bottom. Is there a similar status hierarchy for celebrities? I happened across this old interview … Continue reading →