There is a great podcast by economist Tim Harford about things that have gone terribly wrong and what we can learn from them. The podcast is called “Cautionary Tales,” and, believe me, they are. If you’re the kind of person who learns from their mistakes and the mistakes of others, […]
Estimated reading time: 8 minutes
Face it. You didn’t know how to use Facebook when you first used Facebook. In fact, I’m willing to bet that you don’t know how to use Facebook right now. You thought that it would be a great place to keep in touch with friends and family, and that you’d […]
Estimated reading time: 5 minutes
The oldest of my cousins (on my mother’s side) was always the standard by which the rest of us were measured. He was smart, athletic, and an overall well-behaved kid. Whenever one of us did something that disappointed our parents, we would be reminded of my cousin’s achievement and asked […]
Estimated reading time: 12 minutes
I’ve long been a fan of Io9.com, a blog about science fiction and other things to do with science. The writers of that blog have been, for the most part, very reasonable in their approaches to things having to do with science. They’ve come out against antivaxxers and all their […]
Estimated reading time: 10 minutes
When I was ten years old, my mother and father decided that it was better for me to come go to school in El Paso, Texas, instead of Juarez, Mexico. They made arrangements with my aunt and uncle to go and live with them during the week and then go […]
Estimated reading time: 8 minutes
How many of us, as children and even as adults, have called people names because they acted “weird”? I know I have. It’s one of those things about human interactions that anything outside the norm is to be labeled and made fun of, or shunned and kept away. What we […]
Estimated reading time: 1 minute
When the chips are down, we’re all a bunch of primates following the herd. Or are we? And can we leverage this mentality to improve the public’s health?
Estimated reading time: 4 minutes
There was a stabbing last night in the town where I live. I don’t know the full details of it, but it happened downtown. The local newspaper has been adopting social media as a better way to get the news out. Not very many people buy the printed edition of […]
Estimated reading time: 7 minutes