Today I Learned

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

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

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

Cover of The Shockwave Rider, by John Brunner, 1975 I sometimes hear references to one “futurist” or another, making pronouncements regarding current trends and where they may lead, and I must confess that I have been unimpressed. My impression is that this area of study is still in its infancy, so the level of scientific rigour applied to the work ranges wildly. Sometimes, I see the incremental analysis of trends and cautious suggestions of possible hypotheses for future res

Appointing incompetent loyalists, via Wikimedia Commons I’d really like to describe the Trump administration as an example of Weaponized Incompetence, but I really can’t. Intuitively, the term seems to fit, but it already has a definition in the psychological literature. Setting Trump aside for the moment, the term refers to strategically avoiding responsibility by pretending to be incapable so that someone else helps, takes over, or stops delegating tasks. Over time, the per

“Beware of the Leopard”, from Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, via Wikimedia Commons In the classic scene from the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (I refer, of course, to the 1981 TV version), Arthur Dent confronts the person trying to bulldoze his house, who explains that the plans for the demolition had been placed on display. “On display? I eventually had to go down to the cellar.” “That’s the display department.” “With a torch.” “The lights had probably gone.” “So had t

Da Vinci sketch of the human brain and skull (c. 1510), via Wikimedia.org NOTE: An edited version of this article appeared on The Skeptic (UK). “No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.” Winston Churchill, 11-Nov-1947 The term “neurodiversity” has been used in recent years to describe the natural variations in human neurolo

Bronze coin of Pontius Pilate, Procurator of Judaea © The Trustees of the British Museum. Shared under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) licence. dixit itaque ei Pilatus ergo rex es tu respondit Iesus tu dicis quia rex sum ego ego in hoc natus sum et ad hoc veni in mundum ut testimonium perhibeam veritati omnis qui est ex veritate audit meam vocem dicit ei Pilatus quid est veritas et cum hoc dixisset iterum exivit ad I

Blown Away Guy – Maxell ad, via Wikipedia.org “Is it real? Or is it Memorex?” For those under fifty, the answer is probably a blank stare. For the rest, I apologize for misremembering the slogan. Imagine my surprise when I found that it was actually “Is it live, or is it Memorex?” Do others remember it that way? Is this an example of the Mandela effect? Nah – I just remembered it wrong. I need to apologize for the image as well, but this one was deliberate. I only vaguely rem

Phrack, via https://phrack.org/ Language is constantly evolving, not only by time and location, but also because of usage and changing cultural associations. When I think of the word “manifesto”, the example which leaps to mind is the Communist Manifesto, obviously due to the title, but also because it is short and clearly laid out. Manifesto is defined as “a written statement declaring publicly the intentions, motives, or views of its issuer”, and such statements are general

Cover of The Alan Parsons Project album, Pyramid, via Wikipedia.org The Alan Parsons Project is one of those acts where many people don’t “know the band”, but will recognize several songs, such as Eye in the Sky , or Prime Time . Those familiar with progressive rock from the 1970’s and 1980’s, on the other hand, likely know them well. The only official members were Alan Parsons and Eric Woolfson , augmented by a large group of session musicians who worked in various capacit

“Martha Root”, dressed as Pink Ranger, Chaos Computer Club, 2025 I feel conflicted. On the one hand, it was illegal. On the other hand, they were bad people and it was very cool. I once attempted to describe the “ hacker mindset ”, which is less about technology, and more about trying to find innovative ways to do things – for many “old-school” hackers, it was far more about solving puzzles. Over the years, the word “hacker” has become more and more difficult to define. Depen

Cartoon by Tom Gauld, 11 th April 2013, for @newscientist One letter can make a big difference. Or one number. I’ve mentioned You Are Not So Smart (YANSS) before. It’s a podcast created by David McRaney , who is a science journalist, author, and speaker who is fascinated by brains, minds, and culture. I’ve been listening to YANSS for years, and it’s well worth the time. On episode 313 , David McRaney and his guest, Erica Chenoweth , discussed the work done by Chenoweth and

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

Charlie Chaplin, in The Great Dictator, 1940, via Wikimedia Commons Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about fascism. While I already had a fair degree of familiarity and understanding of the big picture, I’ve been picking up (and often blogging about) items which are new to me. Predictably, most are disturbing, but I occasionally come across something wonderful. Charlie Chaplin was an immensely influential figure in the history of cinema, and his “Tramp” character has been an

The School of Athens. Print by Giorgio Ghisi, of painting by Raphael, via Wikimedia Commons What most people call “debate” really is not. I found the Wikipedia article quite amusing. My favourite bit was where it says: “...debates emphasize logical consistency, factual accuracy, and emotional appeal to an audience.” I guess one out of three isn’t bad? Even so-called “formal” debate, where there are rules, judges, and guidelines for acceptable conduct, are more about competit