Random

For a mathematician, the obvious is just as much of a challenge as the obscure. Each has to have a number put upon it. Because once there is a number, we can all feel the issue has been solved and defined.

I therefore had the iPad temporarily expunged from my inner hard drive when I discovered that a group of mathematicians, from no less a university than La Sapienza in Rome, have created an equation that defines the speed and power with which gossip spreads through the Web's crack-filled veins.

You might think that they ought merely to have … Read more

It must be a relief to many that our petty indiscretions, those that appear online and seem to haunt us daily, will soon become so normal as to be irrelevant.

It must be a particular relief to Nick Levasseur, a Democratic New Hampshire state representative, who, according the Huffington Post, used Facebook to offer his rather strong views on anime. Reports failed to record why Levasseur is so pained by the rather beautiful Japanese style of animation.

However, he is reported to have written on his Facebook page these rather difficult words: "Anime is a prime example of why … Read more

Do people ever meet for coffee intending to just, well, drink coffee? Of course not. So the tech world, aka the whole world, trembled with titillated tension at the mere idea that Apple CEO Steve Jobs and Google CEO Eric Schmidt sat across from each other in some sort of upscale shopping mall and shot the breeze.

Indeed, it was interesting that they chose to sit in the breeze, as surely both would have known that this would make them a little more visible to nerdy passers-by with cameras on their phones and the world's new-found lack of privacy … Read more

Monday I, along with many other lost, delusional human beings, will be watching the NBA's Golden State Warriors play the Phoenix Suns. It will be particularly difficult not to reach for an additional beer or an additional embrace from whoever happens to be seated next to me.

For, according to the Associated Press, the team has finally announced that it wishes to be sold. This is terribly important for San Francisco Bay Area sports, for the tech industry, and for every Warriors-committed resident of this world whose ears have become assaulted daily by the mocking laughter of their friends, … Read more

A 100-a-day habit isn't good for you. Everyone knows that. It's just hard, sometimes, to explain it to kids who think it's so cool.

Cigarettes? Lord, no, those things smell. We're talking texting.

According to ABC News, 16-year-old Annie Levitz from Mundelein, Ill., began to sense a little disharmony in her hands. They would feel tingly, numb, or merely hurt like hell. Had she been practicing her free throws in preparation for March Madness? Had she been attempting to become Mundelein's Chopin? If only. Levitz had merely been texting her friends up to 100 times a day.

Finally, she went to the doctor, who diagnosed her not with text dependency, but with carpal tunnel syndrome.… Read more

It came too late for Jesse James. There was a time, indeed, when John Edwards might have found it very useful, but that time has surely passed.

In life, timing is everything. So while researchers at Karlsruhe Institute of Technology in Germany claim that they have made a breakthrough in invisible-cloak technology, there are far too many mortal souls who can only wish that they would hurry up.

According to the Associated Press, the German scientists managed to successfully hide from greedy eyes a tiny bump in a layer of gold.

When I say "tiny," I mean 0.… Read more

What's remarkable about auto dealers is that they're not merely untrustworthy, but many of them are rather untrusting.

It seems that some sell their cars equipped with Web-based vehicle immobilization systems, just in case the buyer begins to falter on his or her payments.

Imagine the scene, then, in Austin, Texas, when cars suddenly wouldn't start or their horns would blare nonstop for hours. Did anyone imagine that a mass vehicle-immobilization attack was in progress? Probably not. More likely they imagined that some attendees of SXSW had found yet another way to prove to the world just … Read more

Sooner or later, it will all end. Hopefully, this will be before the "Singularity" folks fulfill their metallic dreams.

A woman in Germany, however, fears the end really is very nigh indeed. So, according to the Telegraph, she went to her country's most exalted court to get its judges to understand just how nigh our final breaths are.

The court didn't disclose her name, nor is there any evidence that she was wearing a sandwich board during her appeal. Her fears, though, surround the Large Hadron Collider, situated beneath the border of France and Switzerland. This … Read more

I, like many others, am looking for science to control the world. Humans have used their instincts for far too long. They have bungled too much. Now it's time for the scientific to become beatific.

I am therefore leaping as if it were February 29 to discover that scientists in Europe have finally come up with the perfect formula for the ultimate human condition: marriage.

Regular sufferers here will know that this subject fascinates me beyond the usual level of engagement. A little while ago, mathematicians came up with a formula for choosing a wife. Essentially, it involved selecting … Read more