Guide to understanding a net.addict's day: Slow day: didn't have much to do, so spent three hours on usenet. Busy read more

Guide to understanding a net.addict's day: Slow day: didn't have much to do, so spent three hours on usenet. Busy day: managed to work in three hours of usenet. Bad day: barely squeezed in three hours of usenet.

The cloning of humans is on most of the lists of things to worry about from Science, along with behaviour read more

The cloning of humans is on most of the lists of things to worry about from Science, along with behaviour control, genetic engineering, transplanted heads, computer poetry and the unrestrained growth of plastic flowers.

It's going to be a bummer if Mars turns out to be like us.

It's going to be a bummer if Mars turns out to be like us.

There never was a chip, it is said, that Bill Gates couldn't slow down with a new batch of features.

There never was a chip, it is said, that Bill Gates couldn't slow down with a new batch of features.

The tools we use have a profound (and devious!) influence on our thinking habits, and, therefore, on our thinking abilities.

The tools we use have a profound (and devious!) influence on our thinking habits, and, therefore, on our thinking abilities.

One machine can do the work of fifty ordinary men. No machine can do the work of one extraordinary man.

One machine can do the work of fifty ordinary men. No machine can do the work of one extraordinary man.

In a manner which matches the fortuity, if not the consequence, of Archimedes' bath and Newton's apple, the 3.6 million read more

In a manner which matches the fortuity, if not the consequence, of Archimedes' bath and Newton's apple, the 3.6 million year old fossil footprints were eventually noticed one evening in September 1976 by the paleontologist Andrew Hill, who fell while avoiding a ball of elephant dung hurled at him by the ecologist David Western.

Thinking is the hardest work there is. Which is the probable reason why so few engage in it.

Thinking is the hardest work there is. Which is the probable reason why so few engage in it.

In science, "fact" can only mean "confirmed to such a degree that it would be perverse to withhold provisional assent." read more

In science, "fact" can only mean "confirmed to such a degree that it would be perverse to withhold provisional assent." I suppose that apples might start to rise tomorrow, but the possibility does not merit equal time in physics classrooms.