A Few of my Favorite Things I have often written of my love for The Simpsons. I still faithfully watch the television show, having never missed an episode. The latest offering, aired just a few days ago, is one of my favorites. This short post is about why I liked that 22 minutes more than […]
The Worst People in the World I really, really hate those guys. Buford Lister, personal communication I have a list of the worst people I have ever known; it is not a written list. I have it committed to memory; I will never forget who they are. I don’t dwell on it, but I use […]
A Problem with a Goat and a Rope I heard some news the other day. A man named Ingo Ullisch, a German mathematician, has solved The Tethered Goat Problem. Does that mark a significant achievement in the advancement of science? Probably not, but Ullisch did some excellent work. The problem seems pretty straightforward. You are […]
The Art of the Eavesdrop, Part Two Something extraordinary happened to me the other day. I decided to write a post to let everyone know exactly what happened. It was confusing; I remain astonished. My story begins at The Red Cat Café, one of Iroquois County’s finer dining establishments. I was sitting alone in […]
The Art of the Eavesdrop, Part One There once was a famous course taught at Harvard University by three very well-known professors. The course was called Thinking About Thinking, and the professors were Stephen Jay Gould, Alan Dershowitz, and Robert Nozick. The course was taught at The Science Center, a building outside Harvard Yard that […]
I am going to tell you a story. It is not a long tale; it will only take a couple hundred words. The setting is Harvard’s campus, probably in the mid to late 80s. It is hard for me to remember exactly when this happened, but I will never forget what happened. It was summer; […]
The Corndog Conjecture I have written extensively on The Collatz Conjecture, that seemingly simple yet deceptively difficult problem conjured up by Lothar Collatz in 1937. Simply put, take a positive whole number; if it is odd, multiply it by three and add one. If it is even, then divide it by two. Collatz suggested that […]
5863 You can’t spell gravity without gravy. Homer Simpson I decided to pick a number at random and research it. 5863 was the lucky winner. Is there anything special about this number, or is it just a number? Let’s find out. I quickly found that metanumbers.com has a lot of information about 5863. Everything you […]
An Interview with Buford Lister Hannah looked Sid squarely in the eye as she put her phone with the newly purchased unicorn case into her messenger bag. “Well, I am going to try. It is not going to hurt anything if I just ask him. The worst he can say is no.” “Actually, the […]
Wes Anderson Yes, I have a favorite filmmaker, just as I have a favorite band (Arctic Monkeys) and a favorite writer (Kurt Vonnegut). I really enjoy the films Wes Anderson makes. I recently took a film class, and even though we didn’t talk about Wes Anderson at all, I got some insight into why I […]