It’s not a new claim that maybe Shakespeare was someone else, or a collection of other people. How could it be, people wonder, that some under-educated rube from the provinces could write such beautiful, witty, universally acclaimed stuff? Ok. Whatever. Now, out comes a book claiming that Mary Shelley couldn’t have written Frankenstein. She was […]
Author Archive | weeklyrob
Music is Language. Part Three.
Due to a recent confusion I had about “perfect pitch” (also known as absolute pitch), I looked it up and found that it means being able to “identify the letter-name of a sounded note.” I play a note, you tell me what it was. Of course, if you don’t know the letter names, then I […]
Expenses
While contemplating a move to San Francisco a few months ago, I checked out a few “cost of living” calculators to see how much of a hit my lifestyle would take. The short answer: A ton. Calculator #1 says that I’d need to earn 83% more to keep me in the opulence that I now […]
Halfway to Boiling
The main purpose of this post, of course, is to push down the picture from the last post. I don’t want it to appear at the top of the blog. But here’s something I’ve been idly thinking about when I take a break from my currently extremely frustrating job: Water boils (at sea level) at […]
Safer Sunning
Of course, I should have known. I was skimming the FDA’s Web pages for information about sunscreen. One page (inexplicably misspelling “safety” in the URL) said that if I had questions about “Safer Sunning,” I should ask them. Of course, as I said, I should have known that I’d never get a thoughtful response. But […]
Common Side Effects
I happened to be on the FDA Web site today and saw a press release from 2006, stating that they approved a particular sunscreen. At the bottom of the press release, they list the most common side effects of using the sunscreen. Note the last one in the list: “… acne, dermatitis, dry skin, eczema, […]
Race and the Law
There’s a long-ish article at the City Journal about race and the criminal justice system. It seems to be commonly accepted (and frequently claimed) that the system is racist. This article argues that common knowledge is wrong. Why are proportionately more black people in jail than white people? Because they commit proportionately more crimes. The […]
Did You Know (Civil War Edition)….
That Delaware and New Jersey (and a couple of others) voted NO to the 13th Amendment to the US Constitution? That’s the amendment freeing all slaves. (They later changed their minds, but only after the amendment was already ratified, so it made no difference.) That there were some slaves states (including DE and NJ) in […]
Nudge
I’ve written before (and before that) about the idea of “libertarian paternalism.” aldaily.com points to an article explaining it while talking about the new book on the subject: Nudge.
Adverb of the Week
From “The Call of Cthulhu,” by H.P. Lovecraft: “Johansen and his men … clambered slipperily up over titan oozy blocks….” They clambered slipperily. I admire the adverbial experimentation, and if this example stood alone in the story (or huddled with a few friends), I’d have loved it. Unfortunately, the last half of the text is […]