Is it cheating to pay for a book review?

A few days ago, I arrived home from work to find a package from Amazon. I didn’t recall ordering anything, and when I opened the package, I discovered it was book I’d never heard of by an author I’d never heard of. Included was a gift receipt and a note from the author. The note [...]

A good analysis of the United States v. Jones decision

Over at Freedom To Tinker, my friend Paul Ohm has a good analysis of the Supreme Court’s decision in United States v. Jones. This is the “GPS privacy” case that’s been in the news today. Paul is a lawyer and law professor at the University of Colorado Law School and one of the smartest people [...]

Stop SOPA!

Tomorrow, this site will be participating in the Stop SOPA protest. When you come to the site tomorrow between 8am and 8pm EST, you will see a splash screen in protest of SOPA with information on how to take action. You will be able to continue to the site, and if I have configured things correctly, [...]

The Golden Globes

Apparently, the Golden Globe awards were presented last night. I didn’t watch. Over the last 10 years, television and movies have mostly lost the battle for my time. There are other things I’d rather do like read, write, and spend time with the family. And besides, award shows were more fun when I lived in [...]

An open letter to New Scientist’s subscription department

Dear New Scientist, I received a letter from you today that opens as follows: Dear Mr. Rubin, I admire the boldness of your scientific experiment. You wanted to determine how long you could go without benefiting from the insight and intelligence that New Scientist had been delivering to your door in each weekly issue. The letter [...]

Yesterday’s payroll tax deal

At this point, I’d be happy to trade in my $1,000 tax break for a new Congress. One that, you know, has something resembling a spine running down its back and guts that aren’t quite so yellow. One that makes it clear they do what’s best for the people and not what’s best for the [...]

Security vs. Freedom

I remember a graph from my political science days which had security on one axis (low to high) and freedom on the other (low to high).  As security increases, freedoms necessarily decrease and vice versa. I was thinking of this as I read that President Obama will sign the Levin/McCain detention bill into law. This [...]

Some remedial math for Capital One bank

Capital One Bank’s latest ad campaign annoys me and it has nothing to do with Jerry Stiller, who I think is a great comic actor and who I loved in Seinfeld. Capital One’s latest campaign talks about how great their checking account is because it pays 5 times the national average. Five times the national [...]

Election Day 2011

So I voted, despite being utterly fed up with the current state of politics and politicians in the country. I would have felt guilty if I hadn’t voted. But the truth it, I completely forgot it was an election day, until I saw the tweets start coming in on Twitter this morning. That’s how much [...]

R.I.P. Andy Rooney

I hate it when I check the news in the morning only to discover that someone I admire has passed away. It wasn’t like it was completely unexpected with Andy Rooney. He was 92 years old. The report that I read said he died of complications following minor surgery. Most people I know think of [...]

My letter in the Falls Church News Press

A while back I wrote a post–”The flowers on the street corner“–about a fatal accident that took place at a dangerous intersection near our house. The accident claimed the lives of two elderly people and in the time since the accident, there have been a few more accidents at that same intersection. I wrote a [...]

Promoting science: where is the next Asimov, Sagan and Gardner?

With the 2012 Presidential campaigns moving into high gear, we find that science is once again under attack. There are a few voices out there making attempts to defend science. There are people calling the Republican candidates anti-science, and the Republican party the party of anti-science. But science is not Republican or Democrat. Science policy might [...]

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  • Vacation in the Golden Age

    Episode 32: February 1942

    Stories by Smith, Moore, Brackett, Jones, Sturgeon

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    Episode 33 coming February 20

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    All Clear
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    All Clear
    by Connie Willis

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