flickering pictures

Check out this simple and fascinating primer on how to visualize ten dimensions by Rob Bryanton, author of Imagining the Tenth Dimension. Every so often — and it doesn’t happen often — I’m just really glad we have physicists.
(Apologies if this video loads slowly — Bryanton’s site got Boing-Boinged and doesn’t seem to be […]

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The Vatican has rejected yet another potential U.S. ambassador — Caroline Kennedy this time — because even though she’s Catholic, she isn’t anti-abortion. And as if to drive home the point, the Vatican chose Easter to express its outrage at Washington’s “calculated insult to the Holy See.”
Washington’s previous nominee, a former lawyer for Reagan […]

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Insanity is often seen as a tendency to think irrationally, act unreasonably, and distort reality. But could these things actually be good for you? If distorting reality makes you happy, can you really be considered insane? And isn’t “going to your happy place” just the creation of a fictional reality to make […]

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In yet another thought-provoking research breakthrough that is sure to make a non-deafening non-impact in the mainstream non-media, a new brain study calls into question the idea of human free will.
Though CNN had other more pressing issues to cover, the story was picked up by Wired:

You may think you decided to read this story — […]

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The last lecture by Dr. Randy Pausch, a computer science professor at Carnegie Mellon, on “How to Achieve Your Childhood Dreams.” He’s amazingly chipper, despite the fact that his pancreatic cancer is likely to kill him in the next few months, and it’s got a bit of a “Chicken Soup for the Soul” feel […]

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