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Winning, but before a true prize even existed

This year, 2024, marks the 42nd year (should be 43 years in a row since the tournament was canceled in 2020 due to COVID) that I have picked at least one NCAA men’s basketball bracket. I have copies of many of them, including the one from 1981, when I picked my Louisville Cardinals to win the championship. That was the year they lost their first game on a halfcourt shot. Some people might be deterred after that jarring experience, but not me! Then again, I was only 5 when it happened.

Figs are fun

figs are fun

It is really remarkable that after writing online stories for 25 years, I have a topic today that I’ve both never written about and something I know more about than almost anything else.

That thing is figs.

How did we get to this point? My uncle had a fig tree in his backyard, and we lived at his house 16 years ago. Coincidentally, my father-in-law also had fig trees, so when we bought a new house 14 years ago, we accepted a gift of a fig cutting and planted it in an auspicious backyard location.

Book review: "The Genesis Machine" by Amy Webb and Andrew Hessel

Great book that runs the gamut of synthetic biology

The term "natural" used to be substantially easier to apply to basic items like fruit and animals. It is both exhilarating and frightening to consider "improving" genetic material, but humans have a knack for putting their marks on everything imaginable.

Super Recognisers unite!

During high school and college, I worked at Kentucky Kingdom amusement park in Louisville, Ky. Besides battling racuous crowds and the blazing heat, one thing that was interesting to me was trying to keep track of the different people I was seeing throughout the day. As a games attendant (a.k.a. carnival barker), I would attempt to personally say things to people that I saw multiple times, whether at different games or at different parts of the park. This was mostly just a sales tactic, and I think the customers likely thought I was training to have my own magic show.

Knitting

I did this. It is fun.

From the Archive

Introducing 'The Animal Holiday Party'

The Animal Holiday PartyAs a writer, I am usually sitting on a few mildly interesting ideas for books, articles, etc. Last year, I wanted to create a children's book about the winter holidays, but I wanted to avoid writing about Christmas or any specific religious holiday.

Twitter, circa 1935

Twitter may have seemed like a new idea when it was launched a couple of years ago, but it wasn't. Check out this Robot Messenger that was used in 1935 at public places in London. For a fee, users could write a message on the "notificator," which would be visible for at least two hours. At least with Twitter now, your friends aren't lost after two hours!

Words ... words ...

Last weekend, I was tangled in a crazy game of H-O-R-S-E with my cousins.

For those of you unfamiliar with the game, or think it is somehow tied to the Kentucky Derby, the game is simple. Make a basket (shoot, don't weave), and if the person behind you misses, they get a letter. You keep playing until you spell "horse." There are many versions of the game, including H-O-R-S-E-S, P-I-G, and a personal favorite, D-R-O-M-E-D-A-R-Y.

But which is more important to the game – athletic skill to make a shot, or being able to spell?

MySpace looking to 'make a difference'

As people are constantly complaining about whether or not MySpace is a good community building site or detrimental to the youth of today, there's little doubt that a ridiculous number of people have created profiles on the popular social networking site.

Now, instead of just going to pimp your profile or watch videos of animals doing strange things, there's a legitimate reason to visit the site, or at least, MySpace Impact.

More domain names coming your way

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers has added .post and .travel to its list of allowable domain names. Businesses and groups apparently will have the right to apply for these domain names soon, it's not quite clear just when someone would expect to actually see them live on the web. For more information about the additions, read a recent USA Today story about it.

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