Random

While the rest of the world is rapt by news of international terrorists and stealth special ops missions, perhaps we should offer a little thought to kissing.

Our new Web-oriented world has brought people together in ways never before possible, but we're still missing some elements of human connection. You know, like the physical kind.

The Kajimoto Research Laboratory at the University of Electro-Communications, however, believes it can bring us that nirvana.

It has create a device that looks like a straw, which doesn't seem entirely sensual. Still, you mimic your kissing motion (everyone's is different, naturally). … Read more

Have you ever had a magician stand right before your eyes and tell you that he has nothing up his sleeve? Have you ever seen a card sharp on a busy street turn up the card you thought of when you know it can't be possible?

And have you ever seen a white iPhone that is exactly the same thickness as a black iPhone?

I ask because I read a curious report in 9 To 5 Mac. It relays details of a Twitter exchange between a reader, Ernesto Barron and Apple SVP of Product Marketing Phil Schiller-- who has … Read more

Many years ago, there was a cricket match between the West Indies and England. (Cricket's a little like baseball, only takes longer and often no one wins.)

The radio commentators were talking about a bowler (pitcher) called Michael Holding. The batsman (hitter) was Peter Willey. One of the commentators then said, quite naturally: "The bowler's Holding, the batsman's Willey."

After a nanosecond of silence, the whole commentating crew was reduced to monstrous giggles. They couldn't stop. There was nothing they could do. Because, well, one of them had suggested that the bowler was holding … Read more

You thought you had killed another one, techies.

With your boundless need to show how clever you are and how you can force people to change their ways of life, you were sure you had put paid to another traditional industry. But you're not as smart as all that.

Yes, Godrej & Boyce--which a news story claimed was the last known producer of typewriters in the world--declared recently that it was giving up trying to market machines that weigh more than the Taj Mahal and write slower than Thomas Pynchon.

According to India's Business Standard, the company just … Read more

Now more than ever, one imagines that we should intensify our search for life out there.

Life down here has become difficult. And how else can we maintain American supremacy, if not by muscling in on outer space?

It seems, though, that economics is putting a difficult hue on our quest. According to the San Jose Mercury News, the SETI (Search For Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence) Institute has announced that it is setting aside some of its telescopes, as it cannot afford to run them.

Indeed, 42 radio dishes, named the Allen Telescope Array, are being silenced until someone can come up … Read more

The scientists are NASA seem so concerned about Internet speculation that supermoons cause natural disasters that they've released a video that's supposed to reassure you on this March 19th supermooning night.

NASA's YouTube video goes out of its way to reassure you that nothing will happen, that supermoons are merely fascinating events in which the moon is ever so slightly closer to the earth.

For example, the video says, a supermoon in 1983 passed without incident. There's something faintly touching, though, when the video's narrator feels the need to refer to an "almost supermoon&… Read more

Perhaps it's happened to you in a meeting or on a date. Perhaps you're one of those inconsiderate people who never obeys the plea to silence your cell phone in the movie theater.

But you might think that, before you go live to present your Final Four predictions on ESPN, you might have remembered to turn your cell phone off.

Not everyone, it seems. For here is Doug Gottlieb, who used to play for Oklahoma State as well as Notre Dame, inadvertently creating one of the more touching technological moments in TV history.

When he hears Super Mario … Read more

There are those who believe that a full moon puts them in a strange mood and even causes them to behave in a peculiar manner.

Some, though, want to credit the moon with even greater powers.

A week before the earthquake in Japan, there was already consternation in some quarters about the so-called supermoon. This will occur on March 19 when the moon comes extremely close to the earth. That's 221,567 miles, to be a little more precise.

Headlines were already being written featuring the evocative word "Moonageddon" relying on the prognostications of astronomers or, perhaps, … Read more

This is it. No, really. I know you might have been temporarily fooled two years ago when it seemed as if the Lost City of Atlantis had turned up on Google Earth.

But this time it's serious. Really serious. How do I know? Well, it's on the National Geographic Channel.

According to Reuters, tomorrow night the channel will reveal the work of Richard Freund, a professor at the University of Hartford, Conn., and his international team of Atlantis-seekers.

You will be wondering where Atlantis truly is. Throughout history there has been speculation that it was somewhere near Southern … Read more