Fire and Knowledge

An unsanitised history of washing is more interesting than it sounds. I’ve never thought of cleanliness as being inherently cultural until now.

If you’re nervous about investing in stocks directly, or you don’t know where to start in mutual funds, here is a nice overview of the “only 7 investments you need.”

Lots of great ideas on how to live greener, from turning off your computer at night to taking a shower with your spouse.

One thing they neglected to mention, which I’ve done for years now, is use handkerchiefs instead of tissues. I used to think handkerchiefs were gross. Now I think tissues are gross. Anyway, by my calculation, I’ve saved about 4,000 tissues from nose death in the last two years. That’s 30 fewer boxes of tissues.

For some reason that makes me happy.

You mean all these vitamins I’m taking may actually shorten my life? Health science is so confusing if you try and follow it.

PZ Myers responds to four bad arguments against evolution. I wish I would have read something like this in high school — it would have saved me from many stupid debates.

HP Labs has built “working memristors, thus adding a fourth basic circuit element to electrical circuit theory, one that will join the three better-known ones: the capacitor, resistor and the inductor.”

This is believed to “pave the way for instant-on PCs, more energy-efficient computers, and new analog computers that can process and associate information in a manner similar to that of the human brain.”

There is a new phishing scam going around to executives. It is an email posing as a subpoena for the United States District Court in San Diego, but when the user clicks a link on the page it installs keystroke recording software to get sensitive information.

Finally, a use for some of those large tombs I never should have bought: DIY invisible floating bookshelves.