Random Thoughts

Online Shopping Is Great, If You Like Fewer Choices

Most people would probably say they love shopping online. With the prices of online stores being so much cheaper than traditional retailers, what's not to love? According to recently released research, the increasing lack of product choices found onli ...

Article - News Staff - Nov 2 2009 - 5:36pm

Should Government Do More To Protect Your Virtual Privacy?

The details of your personal life, such as grocery purchases, pizza topping preferences and Amazon wish lists, are collected every day ― by both websites and traditional retailers. Though this data seems fairly innocuous, when it's put together it can ...

Article - News Staff - Nov 3 2009 - 8:03pm

Want To Promote Literacy? Let Kids Read Comics

Comics have typically been shunned by educators and parents who want to promote literacy among children. After all, kids should be reading "real" books, which are more complex and require more effort to understand than colorful, picture-filled co ...

Article - News Staff - Nov 5 2009 - 12:32pm

The Concept Of Fairness

I recently read, in one of the posts, the following statement. "Evolution is not fair, economics is not fair." http://www.scientificblogging.com/news_articles/chemical_engineer_solves_capitalism_problem I'm sure we've all heard the plat ...

Article - Gerhard Adam - Nov 5 2009 - 1:27pm

A law about to destroy legality (or what is left of it) in Italy

The Berlusconi government is about to force a devastating law through the Italian bicameral system. And I am appalled by the absurdity of the situation and by the straight face these clowns who govern my country have put up. ...

Blog Post - Tommaso Dorigo - Nov 14 2009 - 8:42am

Attacking for the sake of it

I wish to report here the moves of a game of chess I played on the Internet Chess Club a moment ago, against a similarly rated opponent. This was a 5' game-all your moves have to be done in five minutes, or you lose on time. Under such circumstances, ...

Blog Post - Tommaso Dorigo - Nov 14 2009 - 5:35pm

An Animal Cruelty Rant

A story in the local newspaper related how a pit bull was turned into the animal shelter after having been found abandoned in a ditch with all of its teeth filed down to the exposed roots, emaciated by starvation (weighing less than 40 pounds), and having ...

Article - Gerhard Adam - Nov 15 2009 - 10:33pm

Lunchtime Science Quote

No fact in the long history of the world is so startling as the wide and repeated extermination of its inhabitants.- Charles Darwin, The Voyage of the Beagle Read the feed: ...

Blog Post - Michael White - Nov 16 2009 - 1:43pm

3,500-Year-Old Mummies Prove Ancient Origin Of Heart Disease

Heart disease is commonly considered a modern condition, but that may change thanks to research conducted by a collaborative team composed of imaging experts, Egyptologists and preservationists who have discovered evidence of the disease, which causes hear ...

Article - News Staff - Nov 17 2009 - 4:28pm

Reporting As Science

Call it contrarian stubborness, but I believe there remains that print journalism a critical aspect of American society. That said, what's journalism? Matt Bowden, in the October issue of The Atlantic, proposes that we are in a "post-journalistic ...

Article - Rod Rose - Nov 19 2009 - 1:44pm