Category: Misc

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 […]

Random Thoughts from a Nonlinear Mind: Volume 2: The Athena Chapters, Chapter Fourteen: The Mall Walker! or Six Years Gone…(working title) or Just Do It!: Reflections on my Last Concert or Notes for a TED Talk I Will Never be Invited to Give It was like somebody laid hands on me. Bob Dylan, Nobel Lecture […]

A Story About A Vacuum Cleaner Susie Pennington bounced up the stairs to the second floor of her house. She looked at Melvin, the stuffed octopus that followed her everywhere, and said: “What do you think, is Piper going to be excited?” Melvin didn’t respond; he just flopped around in Susie’s right arm. “I’ll bet […]

The Nobel Prize for physics was announced the other day.  I was shocked when I heard who the winners were.  Was it because I didn’t think Roger Penrose, Reinhard Genzel, and Andrea Ghez didn’t deserve the award?  Not at all, my issue is with the timing of the announcement. Penrose, Genzel, and Ghez were recognized […]

He saw her, she couldn’t have known it, but he was eyeing her the entire time.  His giant sunglasses, the kind old people wear after cataract surgery, disguised his intent.  Or course, he never had any such surgery, but Buford Lister was always ready to take any advantage, any edge, he could muster. She’s got […]