Recent Posts
- Daylight Saving Time: A Century of Moving the Hands and Getting Nowhere
- Take the Extra Minute to Rest: The World, Upside-Down
- Bologna: The Meat That Sounds Like a Lie
- The AI Gold Rush: What Happens When Everyone Strikes the Same Claim?
- Why Are the Oceans Salty? Because People Have Been Peeing for 10,000 Years, Obviously.
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Author Archives: The Narrator
Daylight Saving Time: A Century of Moving the Hands and Getting Nowhere
Every year, twice a year, we participate in one of the strangest government sponsored rituals of modern civilization. We change the clocks. Today, we fell back to Standard Time, dutifully moving the hands of our clocks backward one hour. Somewhere, … Continue reading
Posted in Culture, Science, Society
Tagged accident, agriculture, Biel Mean Time, Congress, daylight, Daylight Saving Time, debate, DST, energy, heart attack, history, school, science, Standard Time, Sun, Swatch Internet Time, technology, time, time zone, UTC, War Time
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Take the Extra Minute to Rest: The World, Upside-Down
Last year, I wrote about the moment when a rescuer’s faith is tested, the Paladin’s Dilemma. It’s the crossroads where conviction meets exhaustion, where the light of purpose flickers against the weight of disillusionment. For many in the first responder … Continue reading
Bologna: The Meat That Sounds Like a Lie
There are foods we celebrate because they represent the pinnacle of human culinary achievement. There is chocolate. There is pizza. There is a perfectly cooked steak. Then there is bologna, the meat that looks like a giant pink hockey puck. … Continue reading
Posted in Culture
Tagged bologna, cancer, devon, fleischwurst, food, fritz, health, history, lunch, lyoner, mortadella, National Bologna Day, nutrition, October 24, parizer, polony, sausage, science, World Health Organization
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The AI Gold Rush: What Happens When Everyone Strikes the Same Claim?
I hear a lot of people talk about AI. It is constant at work. My friends are fascinated by it. I hear people talking about it in line at the grocery store and at social events. It is on the … Continue reading
Posted in Economy, Investing, Money, Technology
Tagged AI, bear market, boom, bust, COVID, data center, David Gardner, Dot-Com, freemium, gold rush, infrastructure, investing, Mark Twain, overinvestment, pandemic, revenue, snap test, stock market, Warren Buffett
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Why Are the Oceans Salty? Because People Have Been Peeing for 10,000 Years, Obviously.
My wife and I were sitting in a restaurant when the kid at the next table asked a perfectly reasonable question. “Why are the oceans salty?” It’s a good question. It’s the kind of question that has occupied geologists, oceanographers, … Continue reading
Posted in Education, Science
Tagged biology, chemistry, geology, hydration, hydrology, nephrology, ocean, oceanography, pee, salt, science, water cycle
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No Charge for Rescue: We’re Here to Save Lives
Survey a group of city dwellers about a backcountry rescue and you’ll probably hear some familiar answers. “They were stupid.” “They were negligent.” “Send them a bill.” It comes up again and again. Someone gets lost. Someone twists an ankle. … Continue reading
The Two Elephants in the Room
In response to my SMR article, I received a one word message from a reader: “Fusion?” Okay. That’s fair. When we talk about nuclear energy, there are really two elephants wandering around the room. One is fission, where we split … Continue reading
Posted in Economy, Energy, Technology
Tagged Arthur Eddington, Big Bang, Chicago Pile-1, cold fusion, Enrico Fermi, fission, Fritz Strassmann, fusion, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Lise Meitner, magnetic confinement, Martin Fleischmann, National Ignition Facility, nuclear energy, nuclear waste, Otto Frisch, Otto Hahn, physics, plasma, science, Stanley Pons, stellarator, tokamak, University of Chicago, University of Utah
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Immortality: The Hidden Subtext
A friend of mine recently asked me a question. “You’ve been writing a lot about longevity, immortality and life expectancy lately. Is there a hidden subtext?” I stopped for a moment. I had to think about that. I didn’t think … Continue reading
Posted in Science
Tagged aging, biology, death, DNA, future, immortality, lifespan, longevity, mirror life, mortality, mRNA, science
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Take the Extra Minute to Check the Weather
Peak leaf-peeping season is here. The aspens are turning gold, the air smells like fall and the mountains look like somebody spent the summer painting them. Naturally, thousands of people are going to do what any reasonable person would do. … Continue reading
Posted in Adventure, Search and Rescue
Tagged hiking, outdoor safety, preventative SAR, search and rescue, TakeTheExtraMinute, weather
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