The Department of Transportation's High Speed Ground Transportation (HSGT) program aims to finance high-speed rail connecting major urban centers at distances of 100 to 500 miles, with trains running at 150 - 250 mph.  But a Washington Post front-pager offers disquieting numbers that give ...

I would love to have seen this presentation by Shinzen Young at the 2000 Toward a Science of Consciousness conference. Even the abstract is interesting reading/ Applications of Mindfulness Meditation in the Study of Human Consciousness Abstract from Shinzen Young's presentation at the Toward a Scien...

HAVE you stocked up on fresh batteries? Have you thoroughly dusted your calculator, and put your computer through its most taxing calisthenics?  If not, I fear for your ability to celebrate the 20-year-old event that takes place worldwide next Saturday, March 14th -- International Pi Day. A no...

As a child Sunday evening meant the resumption of school and children are perhaps even more keenly aware of the declining moments of freedom than their elders. There were only a few more hours as the day darkened.The morning would bring arithmetic and the variegated rhetorics of adult enforcement an...

Will Fitzhugh The Concord Review 7 March 2009 In gymnastics, performances are judged not just on execution but also on the degree of difficulty. The same system is used in diving and in ice skating. An athlete is of course judged on how well they do something, but their score also includes how hard ...

Today, for some reason unbeknownst even to myself, I waded into an on-line discussion, which is usually something I avoid. The topic of discussion was Please Provide Objective Proof For The God of the Bible. After pointing out that the criteria for what might count as objective proof would not allow...

Difficulty: Harder 7x7 A lot of people in the puzzle community are currently having a negative reaction to KenKen because of the excessive hype from St. Martin's and the NYT. I understood KenKen appearing at the US Sudoku Championship as another logic puzzle to market there, but it felt much more fo...

It is not very often that people are without a calculator of some sort close at hand. I’ve seen people whip out various cell phones to calculate tip percentages when at a group dinner. We hardly have a need anymore for true mental arithmetic. But have we lost something in the process of gainin...

I kind of understand what Evan Bayh is trying to do. Despite being in the Senate for a full ten years, and in spite of serving on six full committees, he ranks no higher than fourth on any of them. He does hold two significant gavels: as chair of the Armed Services Subcommittee on Readiness and Mana...

The story in the Chronicle yesterday about California paying its community colleges in IOU's got me thinking about reserves, and the conflicting roles they play. In good years, some cc's are able to salt away some money and put it into reserves. (It's also commonly called a “rainy day fund.�) Th...