Category: Random Thoughts & Idle Chatter
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I am not an observant Jew. To put it more succinctly, I am not Jewish at all. Yet I look forward to Passover each year for one gastronomic reason – kosher Coca-Cola. I am not much of a soft drink lover either, tea and water being my beverages of choice. But when I do drink…
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Looks like fun!
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Neil Sinhababu has his own version of the famous train hypothetical. Apparently it's an ethical dilemma or something. Anyhow, he's doing "philosophical research" based on the responses that he gets — so go participate! My response, for those who are curious: How can the train be empty? Even if it's not a passenger train, there's…
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There may be many a slip between the cup and the lip. But do you know that the drinking cup is etymologically a close cousin of the skull? I did but that knowledge is tucked away in a distant enough corner of the brain that it doesn't color the way I look at my tea cup. I am an avid tea drinker. I…
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Yesterday my son sent me the link to a web album of the photos he took on his recent trip to India. One picture which he has named "Benjamin Abroad" in his album, caught my eye for the unlikely (in the Indian context) image and the unusual accompanying words on a business billboard. With the juxtaposition of money changer and carpenter, I would…
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PETA has decided that Michael Vick (whom we have discussed previously on this blog here and here) is a psychopath and should not be allowed to play in the NFL after he gets out of jail. PETA was going to shoot an anti-dogfighting PSA with Vick and support his return to the NFL, but now…
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As per Andrew's request to create a Mummy Obamaicon, I played around a bit with one of my recent photographs and got a satisfactory result. This may be the closest I will ever come to posting my picture on the blog. The image is good enough that those who know me can probably see the resemblance to…
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The Globe has some great pictures of Venice under water and a night-time London from the sky. Check them all out!
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That’s the tally as I skim the responses to the 2009 Edge Annual Question: “What will change everything?”—or, more prosaically, “What game-changing scientific ideas and developments do you expect to live to see?” The respondents tend to represent the science crowd (of the hard, social, and popular varieties), with lots of neuro-this and that-ologists. There…
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My son was on his way home from New Delhi yesterday on Northwest Flight # 59 from Amsterdam to Boston. A few hours into the flight, over Canada, there was a sudden flurry of activity towards the back of the plane. A set of seats was cordoned off with sheets and a plea was made over the P.A. system for any doctors / medically trained persons on board…
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Internet search engines like Google and Yahoo have gathered the data on what web surfers were looking for in 2008 - a compendium of collective curiosity. In fact Goolgle calls its rankings "Zeitgeist"– a window into the public mind, at least the public that had access to the Internet. Not surprisingly, politics and pop culture scored high on the…
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Who’s the real turkey here?
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Does the following story strike anyone else as a case of hilariously unintended irony? Or am I forcing an "unnatural" analogy in my wicked mind? The gnomes, along with plastic flowers and other decorations such as teddy bears, have been called "inappropriate" and tacky by the Diocese of Bath and Wells. The church banned the…
Accidental Blogger 