I hope we never find intelligent alien life in the cosmos. Granted, it would be exciting, especially to science fiction buffs to see how accurate our imaginations were. But even within our own galaxy, the distances are vast and we don’t have the technology to make travel practical. So if there was contact, they would
As a (substitute) school teacher, this topic is of special interest to me. What is intelligence? How is IQ calculated? The National Public Radio program Radiolab recently aired a series of six programs entitled “G” that addresses general intelligence. The first program, broadcast on June 7, 2019, is “G: The Miseducation of Larry P” and
How many languages are there? According to the website Infoplease, there are about 6500 spoken languages in the world (https://www.infoplease.com/askeds/how-many-spoken-languages); other estimates are even higher. The most common is Mandarin Chinese. English comes in third, behind Chinese and Spanish, although it is far and away the most popular second language. The flip side to this
It’s been a long time since I’ve been in wilderness on my own. In the Amazing Maasai Marathon in Kenya, I did find myself alone — no one in sight in the middle of Africa — but that was simply a matter of following the painted rocks. But I’ve recently learned of a phone app
Copyright law is serious business. When I was in publishing, it was not unusual for someone somewhere to take an article out of one of our magazines or a segment out of a book we had published and reprint it or post it on the Internet without attribution. Most people are honest and respect copyrights.
When I was in the publishing business, editing collectible price guides, one of our specialties was radio premiums — those nick-knacks people sent away for to promote their favorite programs during the Golden Age of Radio. Every collector I met remembered the Captain Midnight Decoder Ring. Except it didn’t exist. There was a Captain Midnight
I’ve run across a lot of self-help books and articles in my time, and this one couldn’t help but catch my eye — “30 Behaviors of Unstoppable People” by Benjamin P. Hardy. I’m not inclined to list all thirty, but here are some I thought were most interesting. 4. Never be satisfied.“The drive to close
I can still remember my first try at playing music. It was in grade school with an instrument called a flutophone. (They still exist, as shown at right.) I eventually graduated to a saxophone and was in the band throughout high school. So what are the benefits of playing music? At one point I decided
For my entire life I have been a collector — of Disney, books, games and general memorabilia. In fact, hoarder might be a more accurate description. Now that I’m officially old, as into my seventh decade, I know all this stuff will have to be dealt with someday. My worst nightmare is knowing at some
We live in a material world. This means one of the most important functions of parenting is to teach children how to handle money. According to a 2013 Cambridge University study, kids understand basic money concepts at age three, and money habits are already set by age seven. Jim Brown is a financial consultant and