Graduation Day
Today is graduation day at many colleges and universities across America. It’s been 10 years since I graduated from Washington University in St. Louis, so today makes me think back to that day. I don’t remember much about that day. I know that I coordinated a catered lunch for my group of friends and their [...]
To Reward Yourself or Benefit the Many
This episode contains spoilers about tonight’s episode of Survivor. If you don’t watch the show or have already watched this episode, please proceed. Let’s get this out of the way: Yes, I watch Survivor. I love games, and Survivor is the best game on TV. A very interesting moral and strategic quandary occurred on Survivor [...]
Would You Eat a Cricket?
I asked this to a coworker the other day after I read this article. She looked at me and laughed–nay, she guffawed. “No way!” she said. “Gross!” “What if it didn’t look like a cricket?” I said. “How so?” “What if it was chopped up and molded into a new shape, something tasteful and elegant. [...]
You Decide: Who Gets the Room?
A friend just called me with a very interesting dilemma that–in my opinion–has no clear answer. After debating it for about 15 minutes without finding a clear answer, I proposed a solution: Let’s put it on the blog and let my readers decide. This is a real life decision that you will impact if you [...]
Whose Brain Would You Like to Share?
Last week, scientists revealed some big news: At Duke University, they linked the brains of two rats so they could communicate with each other. The rats didn’t really know they were communicating, but one of the rats relayed information to the other through a form of telepathy. The implications for this are huge. Imagine if [...]
What Is the Most Mischief You Got into as a Kid?
If I wanted to be topical, tonight’s entry would be about the Academy Awards. But I don’t care about the Academy Awards.* So I’m writing about something that is more interesting to me: you. The other day at work, a coworker asked some of our students (I work on a college campus) about the greatest [...]
If You Were a Zombie…
If you were a zombie, which celebrity would you most want to eat? There are several approaches you could take with your answer. The first is a celebrity that is so incredibly annoying that you would totally target him or her if you were a brain-hungry zombie. The second is a celebrity that would be [...]
The Morality of Uninformed Voting
Friend and occasional guest blogger Bryce e-mailed me with a really interesting question tonight: If you were an academy member, would you vote for an Oscar category if you had not seen all of the nominated films/performances in that category? My first instinct was to answer no. Of course not. How could I vote on something [...]
A Guaranteed Soulmate
I just finished watching a really interesting romantic comedy with a slight sci-fi twist (keep reading–it’s very slight!) that posed some great questions that I will now pose for you. And myself. Because I write this blog. The movie, TiMer, presents the idea that (a) every person has exactly one soulmate, (b) every pair of [...]
One-Way Time Travel
I’m currently revising my novel, Wrinkle, to submit to literary agents. The crux of the novel rests on the idea of one-way time travel: You can travel forward in time but not backwards. It’s a one-way ticket to the future. Would you do it? If there were a proven way to safely travel to the future in [...]
To Take the Stand…or Not
[Wordpress doesn't feel like uploading photos today, so please imagine a photo of me in a courtroom wearing one of those curly wigs they wore hundreds of years ago (and still wear in England to this day, I think).] I recently served my civic duty by participating in the St. Louis City juror selection process. [...]
What Was Your Missed Opportunity?
I think we all have at least one “what if” when it comes to investing. Maybe it’s a big company that started small like Apple or IBM or Google or Microsoft, or a perhaps it’s a huge IPO that you missed out on. TiVo, Netflix, and Amazon (specifically, the Kindle) are some of the products [...]
Are Birds and Bees the Best Sexual Examples for Teaching Kids?
I learned what sex was from an eighth grader on the school bus (I was in seventh grade). When he described it to me, I simply didn’t believe him. I was sure that sex didn’t involve any physical contact. That just didn’t make sense. Every day, thousands of children are subjected to the infamous “birds and the [...]
Live More Now or Live Longer Later?
I had this debate the other day, and I want your thoughts. If you could take a pill that would let you get the equivalent of 8 hours of sleep a night even though you actually sleep only 4 hours, but each pill would reduce the overall length of your life by 4 hours, would [...]
JoshVision: Question of the Day
QOD: We were all taught by GI Joe that “knowing is half the battle.” What are the other parts of the battle? Answer: This is a tricky question because as we can see in the chart below, despite what we’ve been taught, Knowing isn’t technically 50% of The Battle. In fact, it’s barely a third. But how [...]
From the Mailbag: JoshVision: Question of the Day
Today I was going to try to field one of NQL’s many questions, but I realized that it was better answered by the answerer of all questions, JoshVision. Thus: QOD: Why is a bar called a “bar”? Answer: The term “bar” originated in the Prohibition era, a sad time in our history when it was illegal [...]
JoshVision: Question of the Day
QOD: One of the most common literary and cinematic devices is the “fish out of water,” the guy who leaves the only place he knows well and ventures into a land or a situation where he’s in over his head. The device I understand. The expression, not so much. If you take a fish out [...]
JoshVision: Question of the Day
QOD: When people speak of a better place or a better situation than the one they’re in, they often refer to “the land of milk and honey.” My question, or questions: Is there an actual land of milk and honey? Where is it? Why don’t people just move there? Also, why milk and honey? Why [...]
JoshVision: Question of the Day
QOD: Who would you rather encounter in a dark alley: A man with a gun, or a man with a bow and arrow? A: I take each and every QOD extremely seriously and thus wanted to conduct all of the necessary research on this particular one, so last night I headed downtown to get my [...]
JoshVision: Question of the Day
QOD: At weddings, the groom slips his hands up the brideʼs dress and pulls out the garter. So in turn, why doesnʼt the bride extract the bouquet from the groomʼs pants? A: While it’s not exactly a tit for tat (pardon the pun) arrangement to have the bride retrieving her bouquet from the trousers of [...]
Questions of the Day: Part Three
Question: Why can’t I have my cake and eat it too? On the literal level, it makes sense that I could both possess and consume cake. Answer: If you eat your cake, it is no longer there. It’s gone, dissolved in the digestive juices of your stomach. While it is still with you for a [...]
Questions of the Day: Part Two
(This is a continuation of last week’s Monday post, found here.) Question: Why did the political parties choose such smelly, dirty animals to represent their parties? An elephant and a donkey? What’s up with that? Answer: I guess these smelly, dirty animals are the ones that the parties identify with most. Have you ever seen [...]
Questions of the Day: Part One
My friend Josh and I had a unique way of staying in touch with each other during our sophomore year of college. Every day, one of us would send the other a hypothetical question, and the other person would answer it and include a new question at the end of the e-mail. We called these [...]
