The mobile phone carriers are some of the worst offenders of monopoly power. Case-in-point is the pricing of the text messaging system. A recent New York Times article explores it in some detail - but I don’t think they go quite far enough. Consider that the average per-message cost (assuming you don’t [...]
In my ongoing friendly debate over the merits of evolution vs. intelligent design, I’ve come to the realization that way too many people put faith in information that they don’t really understand. While this sometimes takes a humorous bent, such as the pages detailing the many evils of Dihydrogen Monoxide and the sinister effects [...]
Have you ever had the creepy feeling that something wasn’t quite right, but couldn’t really put your finger on it? Well, this article finally helped me put my finger on it. It also makes me wonder what other “universal constants” are simply the result of a quirk of fate or arbitrary decision. [...]
I just finished reading the novel Digital Fortress by Dan Brown. With the recent release of the DaVinci Code, several of my co-workers have been re-reading Brown’s novels, and as I’d already read both The DaVinci Code and Angels and Demons, one of them loaned me a copy of his earlier novel. I [...]