Skeptophilia

Dear readers, I'm going to take a short break from Skeptophilia  -- my next post will be Thursday, November 18.  I'll still be linin...

One of my sensitive spots has to do with embarrassment.  Not only do I hate being embarrassed myself, I hate watching other people in embarr...

Even though in general I don't think synchronicity Means Anything, there's no doubt that it can be pretty peculiar. For example, it ...

Ever heard of Algol ? Known to astronomers as Beta Persei, it's the second-brightest star in the constellation of Perseus.  It was singl...

It's hard to describe why some particular lines of dialogue are memorable, any more than you could say "wow, those three notes in t...

I always find it wryly amusing when I hear someone talk about the Strong Anthropic Principle  -- the idea that the universe was fine-tuned b...

As I write this, I'm waiting for a kiln full of pottery to cool enough that I can open it. Opening a kiln, especially after the final (g...