Today I Learned

Escalator, via Wikimedia Commons Whew! So, I CAN spell. I was worried. On the 1-Nov-2025 October Recap  of Cybersecurity Today, I heard something I found very interesting, and decided to look for more information. On investigation, I discovered that the panel consisted of host Jim Love, David Shipley of “Boer on Securities”, and Laura Payne of “White TOK”. Uh, no. Obviously AI-generated, so I dug a bit deeper. David Shipley is actually the CEO (or “head of the pack”) at Beauc

Nachtmahr (“The Nightmare”), by Johann Heinrich Füssli TIL that the German translation of the word “nightmare” is “alptraum”, which led me to the wonderful painting above. While “ alp ” is the German cognate of the English word “elf”, the creature in question bears little resemblance to the Tolkienian Elves most of us are familiar with. Instead, they appear to be more closely associated with the vampire, or incubus, and attack sleeping people, either by giving them “elf dream

Cover Art, Astounding Science Fiction, October 1941, via Wikipedia.org One of my favourite stories by Robert A Heinlein , was actually written by Anson MacDonald. Early in his career, Heinlein wrote under several pseudonyms , but only one of them was “obvious”. I’m not aware of any way to link the names Lyle Monroe, John Riverside, Caleb Saunders, or Simon York to Heinlein. In contrast, knowing that Robert Anson Heinlein was, at that time, married to Leslyn MacDonald made “An

Pac-Man Fever, by Buckner & Garcia, via Wikipedia A Pac-Man song? I should not have found that surprising, but I did. Originally called...

42 and Douglas Adams – Numberphile, via YouTube I suppose it’s not surprising that I’ve mentioned The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy...

Life of Brian – “I’m not”, via YouTube Even though I’ve seen it about a dozen times over the years, there’s always something new to learn...

Recently-calibrated reference dog “Consciousness consists of morphogenetic fields of quantum energy. ‘Quantum’ means a redefining of the...

The Knife performing at Melt! Festival in 2013 Connections are fun, and humans are very good at making them. Let’s start at the end, and...

Stg Schultz, Hogan’s Heroes, via YouTube For those who don’t immediately hear the words “I know nothing. NOTHING!”, this is Sgt Schultz ,...

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr, via Wikimedia Commons Am I being too harsh in what I say about Robert F Kennedy Jr ? I’ve mentioned him several...

Antarctic Krill, via Wikimedia Commons The concept of biomass is both interesting and useful when thinking about life on Earth. In...

elconomeno@email.com , CC0, via Wikimedia Commons Once upon a time, there was a hacker called “XXXX”. Really! Well, sorta. This is a...

Tux, the Linux Mascot, via Wikipedia This is Tux . He is a penguin. He’s also the official mascot of the Linux kernel , which is the...

Cover art for “Apt.” by the artist Rosé and Bruno Mars, via Wikipedia When I first heard APT , I thought it was great that there was a...

Bring out your dead! Via YouTube In the classic scene from Monty Python and the Holy Grail , Eric Idle is moving down the road with a...

Generated by RG, via Microsoft Designer, 2025 “Trust everybody, but cut the cards.” Finley Peter Dunne Trust is a strange thing. I knew I...

Survivorman Logo, via YouTube The TV show Survivor is described as a “ reality-competition ”, but it never struck me as realistic, and I...

Tuwiuwok Bluff, via Haven, Maine fan wiki When I thought about the TV series Haven , I remembered vague details, and thought it must have...

MAMMÚT Everyone has heard the stereotype of the older person complaining about the “new music” younger people listen to, and we can all...

Nine Princes in Amber, cover, via OpenLibrary.org My Dad didn’t particularly like Roger Zelazny’s work. He thought it was a bit too...