John Cleese demonstrates why the best way to deal with zealots (of any stripe) is to make fun of them. (‘Well, what do we live for, eh? To make sport for our neighbors, and laugh at them in our turn.”)

Dan Rayburn speaks for all of us in the digital video delivery business with a good piece lamenting the standard misconceptions too often and easily perpetuated by media journalists. The author says that, “Multimedia communication — particularly video — has caused a strain on public networks, degrading the quality, so privatized networks have become more… Continue reading

Believe it or not, there are some places around the Matrix blogosphere where theists and atheists actually have meaningful debates…

Closing in on the Dawn…before Darwin? In a paper released this month in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Mansy and Szostak showed that the special membranes, fat bubbles essentially, were stable under a variety of temperatures and could have manipulated molecules like DNA through simple thermal cycling, just like scientists do in… Continue reading

My favorite physicist Stephen Barr makes a good point about the problem with single-issue politics: There is in conservatives a strong Romantic streak that loves the lost but righteous cause. They want to ride over the cliff with all flags flying. But that went out with the Jacobites—or should have. I hear some of my… Continue reading