This is a very entertaining, easy-to-digest (don't eat it) book all about, as the subtitle of the book says, "The Curious World of Probabilities". The reading is brisk, and he goes over a number of pretty practical subjects. The Law of Large Numbers… more »

I'm getting prepared to go to Africa this year. True to my nature, I've got books on Swahili, the major language of East Africa, on my reading list in preparation. I first ran across the Swahili language in a used book called "Jifunze Kiingereza", or… more »

I didn't understand what all the kafuffle was about until I saw the movie. Steve Carrell does an absolutely outstanding job as the main character. The main character, Andy, is charming, obviously a little bit naive, but is not a flat caricature of a… more »

It's got Tom Cruise in it, and follows him, but he doesn't take over the show. This is a Spielberg spectacular, and if you're looking for an utterly horrifying, as-realistic-looking-as-you-can-get version of the War of the Worlds story, this is… more »

This is a great book for fans of carnivorous plants. I got my first interest in gardening going to the horticulture department of UBC as a little kid, and the Venus Flytrap was definitely the main thing that got me hooked. I've tried raising them in… more »

Oh boy, did I ever have fun with my web space provider over the past while. I just have a cheapie account with a 300 Mb quota, which has been more than sufficient for my needs. So when the account usage suddenly grows by 100 Mb overnight without me… more »

Well, our canary called Gorbachev, anyhow. He's a fascinating little canary, all white except with a grey smoodge (as opposed to a smudge) on his head. We went to Pisces to take a look at canaries. We were in luck that day, because they put out a… more »

Another pre-print from our very own Morley Bell of the Herzberg Institute with another interesting case for intrinsic redshifts in a paper bestowed with the enormous name, "Evidence that Quasars and Related Active Galaxies are Good Radio Standard… more »

A coworker of mine brought something to my attention. We were informed of trouble in testing one of our pieces. Funny... it had always been working. The test was construction related, and our tester had put in "con" (short for "construction") as a test… more »