THINKING ABOUT AVERAGE
LAKE WOBEGON FOLKS are all above average, yet how many of them know the difference between median and mean? This time, I’m not referring to that strip of land between … Continue reading
SEDIMENTARY, MY DEAR WATSON
FULL DISCLOSURE: I’m recycling this wonderfully non-Canonical title from a David Bressan blog in Scientific American. It’s too good to resist for my reflections on Sherlock Holmes and his geologic … Continue reading
MUSINGS ON THINGS JAPANESE AND WESTERN
I’M READING a book that enhances my Nipponophile tendencies. This word comes from the Japanese name for their country, Nihon, and the Greek φιλέω, phileo, to love. Janice Nimura’s book, … Continue reading
GEOLOGICALLY SPEAKING, WHAT TIME IS IT?
LET’S TALK ABOUT geology’s time clock. Stratigraphy concerns what can be learned from the order and relative position of rock layers. The word is a Latin/Greek hybrid: stratum Latin for … Continue reading
HURRICANE ESTHER ’61
AS HURRICANE HERMINE moves her way up the Atlantic coast of the U.S., I’m reminded of 1961’s Hurricane Esther and my own drenching from her. The experience enabled me deftly … Continue reading
TONY’S STRAIGHT SHOOTER
THE FOKKER EINDECKER changed the tactics of aerial combat midway through World War I. Aeroplanes were initially used exclusively for observation, until an observer took a potshot at an enemy … Continue reading
FUEL-CELL TRUCKING
HYDROGEN FUEL CELLS may make it easier for the trucking industry to meet ever-more-stringent emissions regulations. An electric-powered truck would make today’s diesel semis look like soot-spewing dinosaurs. However, technology … Continue reading
TRUTH, AFTER A FASHION
“IT’S ON THE INTERNET, so it must be true.” This may be the dumbest (and scariest) statement ever uttered. Yet it also prodded me to thinking about the concept of … Continue reading
Simanaitis Says 