You ever get that thing, with the sink? You know, the thing? No? Seriously? Come on, I bet you do. Hrm. Maybe I should explain: You know how sometimes, when you turn on a water faucet just a little bit, the water comes out in a thin, steady stream? But by the time that steady stream of water reaches the bowl of the sink, it has broken up into discrete droplets? Have you ever wondered why that happens? I mean, we've all played surface tension games with water. Everyw...

Let's say I own a small factory. The factory produces about $100[1] worth of widgets every day, and requires a crew of seven people to operate at full efficiency. Let's also say that this factory operates in a country where it is customary to pay workers by the day, and that $10 per day is a low but acceptable wage. Now, I could pay my seven workers up to $14 per day, and still make a $2 profit. Very tight margin, but at least there's some money left over for my investors, or for cap...

If economic globalisation is inevitable, it should primarily serve humanity rather than the interests of trans-national corporations. I disagree with this statement. There never has been, and never will be, any consensus on what is in the best interests of humanity as a whole. So we're left with the interests of individuals, and the fundamental principle that each individual should be free to pursue happiness in their own way. Since some individuals will want to pursue happiness by ...

So when I was a kid, I read two and half books. Well, I read a lot more books than that, but two and a half from a particular series: Jim Dunlop and the Wingless Plane . Now these books were old when I got them. They must have been written in the Fifties. Set in a typical midwestern American town, these adventure novels chronicled the exploits of Jim Dunlop and the Wingless Plane. Obviously. The stories were arranged in the Hardy Boys way: Jim and his friend would run around ...

To me, there's a clear difference between "science fiction" and "space opera". The latter may be set in a futuristic or high-tech setting, but focuses on aspects of the story that are independent of the technology involved. Star Trek, for all its amazing gadgetry, was never really about exploring the impact of technological advances on human society. The gadgets, from Warp Drive to Phasers to Transporters to Holodecks, are all just convient brain-candy plot devices for putting the charac...

So the Vatican is evil because it won't advocate condom use as a means to counter the spread of AIDS. Instead, Catholic doctrine teaches that using a condom is a sin. If they really cared about stopping the spread of AIDS, they'd encourage people to use condoms. Right. Because I'm sure there are a millions of good, devout, Catholics out there right now, saying to themselves "I'd totally use a condom before committing adultery with this promiscuous, high-risk sexual partner, but out ...