There is a small category of technologies where the modern industrial version does exactly what the original did, only faster, and paper is the clearest example.
Most processes have been…
There is a class of behaviour that everybody performs, everybody recognises, nobody controls and nobody can explain, and yawning is the most conspicuous member of it.
It occurs in essentially…
There is an old puzzle about a ship whose planks are replaced one at a time until none of the original timber remains, and the question of whether it is…
There is a misunderstanding built into how these plants are usually described, and correcting it makes everything else about them clearer.
They are not predators in the sense of animals…
There is a category of historical evidence that is systematically misleading in a way nobody notices, and early photographs are the clearest case.
A photograph feels like direct evidence. It…
There is a reported experience so widespread that it barely gets questioned, and the questioning is where it becomes interesting.
The experience is that time accelerates. A childhood summer was…