Today I Learned

Great Pyramid of Giza, via Wikimedia Commons NOTE: An edited version of this article appeared on The Skeptic (UK). “The limits of my language mean the limits of my world.” Ludwig Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, section 5.6 Language may be the most powerful tool we have, and I believe it must be used responsibly. But what is language? What’s a tool? What does it mean to use it responsibly? Such questions are deceptively simple, because “everyone knows” what langu

Hacker Silhouette, via Wikimedia Commons They want to help keep people safe. That’s a motivation I certainly support, but it’s important to be sure that your actions actually support your goal. On the 1-Dec-2025 episode of Cybersecurity Today, host David Shipley (whom I have mentioned before) talked about a new (at that time) website called Stop Hacklore! They describe themselves as “a group of current and former CISOs and security experts” who “want to offer guidance that ma

Reflections (band), Live at the Skyway Theater 2014, via Wikimedia Commons This keeps happening, and I love it! I wanted to talk about the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, but I like having two topics which tie together in some way. That’s why I sometimes simply search on a word or phrase, then see if there’s anything I find new and interesting. That’s how I learned about the Icelandic band Mammút, for example. In this case, I searched on the word ‘reflections’, and found th

Flag of Russia, via Wikimedia Commons Everyone seems to need a villain. For many, that villain is Russia. I won’t go into the long, complex history, or discuss how our current geopolitical situation evolved, but I do wonder about the degree to which people have an enemy because they want or need one. Several years ago, I posted about Theory X and Theory Y, where X assumes that people are inherently unmotivated and need to be actively ‘managed’, while Y assumes people are gene

Dr Anthony Fauci, beside Trump (the best of us, beside the worst), via Wikimedia Commons Donald Trump’s first presidency was a global embarrassment, starting with the so-called ‘Muslim ban’, and ending with the January 6th insurrection. And then, in 2020, came COVID-19. This was a major global event, and there was no perfect course of action. There were a lot of bad ones, though, and Trump selected many of them. Selecting Alex Azar for Health and Human Services was not necess

Artificial Intelligence Icon, via Wikimedia Commons Everyone is so out-of-touch. Are they? Really? And, if so, why might that be? Many people think it’s an age thing, but I don’t. I remember several variations on the idea that someone who is not a ‘socialist’ (or ‘liberal’, or ‘républicain’) at twenty has no heart, and one who is still such at forty has no brain – I didn’t think much about it when I was young, but now believe that it’s utter bullshit. I have come to realize t

Football, via Wikimedia Commons I wanted to talk about the political football that is Bill C-22 in Canada, so I found a picture of a football, and - What? Wrong type of football? Oh. Right. Sorry. So much soccer lately, and my main interest in the other type of football is the halftime show, particularly when it causes fascist heads to explode, like the 2026 show where Bad Bunny ended up collecting nine Emmy nominations for a performance that was really a full-on attack again

Cyclospora cayetanensis, via Wikimedia Commons I was surprised to learn that Waldo is actually Wally, and that he’s only been around since 1987. I first heard of him as an adult, but always assumed that he had been around for years before that period where he appeared to be everywhere. Just like Robert F Kennedy, about whom I have written several times. Most recently, I described the changes he made to the Food Pyramid, but I have also discussed his anti-vax views and his app

Charity meme, via www.rallycorp.com I sometimes find it useful to dig into assumptions, particularly when they are hiding in the “everyone knows...” category. While charity and philanthropy are related, most comparisons of the two words seem to focus on charity as a short-term provision of aid or support, and philanthropy as more strategic and focused on longer-term, systemic change. But when I started looking into how philanthropy is promoted, I found some interesting assump

Touched by His Noodly Appendage, parody of Michelangelo’s Creation of Adam, via Wikipedia.org Reactions to the above image range from religious ecstasy to abject horror. I find it amusing and interesting, so I guess I’m somewhere in the middle. The Flying Spaghetti Monster was, according to the consensus of scholarly opinion, a satire on creationism, created by Bobby Henderson, a physics graduate at Oregon State University. It was first published as an open letter to the Kans

Louis Armstrong, via Wikimedia Commons Louis Armstrong was one of the truly great musicians, and What a Wonderful World is one of the truly great songs. To get just a hint of his influence, have a look at his discography. Section 1 consists of releases on 78 and 45 rpm, released between 1923 (before either of my parents were born) and 1970 (when I was a toddler), while section 2 consists of LPs and EPs, released between 1944 and 1971. Absolutely unbelievable, and if you think

Artificial Intelligence, via Wikimedia Commons NOTE: An edited version of this article appeared on The Skeptic (UK). We live in a sea of cognitive biases. Everyone is affected. All of us. All the time. Psychologists study them, as do economists, cognitive scientists, and philosophers, but no one is immune to them. Skeptics need to understand them, and I suspect that most are able to rattle off a list as easily as they can a list of logical fallacies. It is essential, however,