Some of you may have been following the discussions surrounding the recent return of an adopted Russian child to Russia by its overwhelmed American mother ( Read more... )

Does anyone know when 24hrs comics day is this year?

I have been thinking a lot about induction and the larger context of the Peircian triade of in-, de- and abduction lately. For some of my work-related forays into machine learning, but also for my efforts as a historian, the way in which the preconceptions underlying the data influence the potential learning outcomes has been a key element ( Read more... )

Reading through the pages of the report on the demise of Lehman Brothers, it becomes apparent that the problem was less the correct retraction of prior assumptions about the company's risk strategy, but the worry on the part of senior management that overly strong adherence to these assumptions would disadvantage the firm in competition with the ( Read more... )

Your Name Is No Accident
7 Things You Should Know About What Is Going to Happen To You In 2009!
www.Numerologist.com

Apparently the numerologist was not good enough to foresee that there would be an ad in their name erroneously shown in 2010 .... :)

Thanks to interactiveleaf, I was pointed to this recent article on the oldest Hebrew inscription on an ostrakon from a valley close to Jerusalem.

The actual argument that the article can reasonably make is that Hebrew as a written language is apparently much older than previously thought, possibly as early as the 10th century BC. What the article discusses ( Read more... )

The NY Times reports that the American Institute of Law gave up on the death penalty because it cannot be implemented in a way that is consistent with justice ( Read more... )

The BBC trilogy of Walking with Monsters, Walking with Dinosaurs and Walking with Prehistoric Beasts provided most of the daily structure of this vacation ( Read more... )

According to this article from 2005, women fall into four basic body shape categories, which are called "apple" or "inverted rectangular" (bust bigger than hips), "banana" or "rectangular" (waist less than nine inches smaller [in circumference] than hips or bust), "pear" or "spoon"-shaped (hips bigger than bust), and "hour-glass" or "Sophia Loren ( Read more... )

A recent spate of DVDs by David Attenborough's nature series on the life of the mammals brought new questions and ideas to the children's mind.

Ocho realized that nuts were seeds, which made him even more suspicious of almonds.

And Venti wanted to know whom I had to fight before being able to marry _MWife_.