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I just find this well-crafted optical illusion incredibly satisfying. It took a few replays for me to get a sense of how I’m being tricked. The design of the ramps was worked out by Japanese mathematician Kokichi Sugihara with help … Continue reading →

Image via Wikipedia Martin Gardner died on Saturday. He was 95 years old.  It’s hard to give a sense of Gardner’s wide ranging interests and contributions to someone who’s not familiar with his writings. And he was a writer. According … Continue reading →

At TED, Nathan Myhrvold explains how he and his team came up with the idea of a laser zapper in trying to solve the bigger problem of preventing the spread of malaria. The demo is worth the wait, or just … Continue reading →

A great weekend to be out biking the country roads of Hunterdon County, NJ

I wasn’t a big fan of Michael Lewis’s Liar’s Poker. His too-cool-for-school pose turned me off and his core philosophy was that any investment bank who would hire him must be a joke. And he really, really wanted to work … Continue reading →

John Cleese takes £3,300 taxi across Europe to beat ash flight chaos

A bit of Edmund Tyrone’s monologue from Long Day’s Journey into Night: “…When I was on the Squarehead square rigger, bound for Buenos Aires. Full moon in the Trades. The old hooker driving fourteen knots. I lay on the bowsprit, … Continue reading →