I think Google is on to something with their new helpouts.  The idea is simple – use the Internet to connect with people who know more than you about something.  It’s something I’m sure plenty of people have thought of, but only now has video chat quality improved enough to... [Read More]

Coincidence is funny. I actually started writing this post a week ago, so today’s XKCD was extremely appropriate. Great comic artists (like Bill Watterson and Zach Weiner, to name some of my favorites) have the ability to poignantly capture Truth in a few pictures and words.  Randall Monroe does just... [Read More]

I'm really interested in opening the doors to the sausage factory that is research (at least a little.) Something I don't think I emphasized enough in the post or on this blog is how useful and important feedback is to research, writing, thinking ... and everything else. So if anything... [Read More]

Saturday Stories! It's amazing what you can see when you look. It seems laughable that people claimed only a few decades ago that stars with ANY planets were probably anomalies. *Sigh* competition between governments forces the reinvention of the space wheel repeatedly. In an intriguing move, Google implicitly admits that... [Read More]

I’ve spent the past seven (wow.) years officially training as an engineer. Technically, I’m shooting for a Doctorate of Philosophy in Engineering, so I think I’m allowed to muse on these things. During the course of literally dozens of classes, I’ve encountered the same concepts repeatedly (this is a good... [Read More]