The Year in Android Phones So Far
We’ve seen a flood of Android phones so far in 2011. We got our first whiff of the coming deluge in January when we went to the Consumer Electronics Show and saw around a dozen really impressive models on the show floor, all with big displays, 4G radios, beefy processors and promises of epic battery…
What happens in our brain when we see banknotes being ripped up?
Or, put another way, “Is our attitude to money like that to any other tool even though its use is symbolic and is not implemented in its physical structure?” To find out, the researchers from the Center of Functionally Integrative Neurosciences at Aarhus, Denmark, and the Center for Cognitive Science, Turin, Italy, asked experimental subjects…
Should brats get XP penalties? The controversial article about D&D and kids
An article by Uri Kurlianchik was posted to the official D&D Tutorials Archive. Titled “D&D Kids: Punishment,” it has ignited fierce controversy among D&D players and parents for suggesting that in-game punishments are necessary for dealing with unruly children. First, it must be pointed out that Kurlianchik speaks from extensive experience running D&D groups for…
The colorful story of diffraction grating
One of the coolest things about physics is that the same basic concept can pop up in several seemingly unrelated things: say, a CD, the seed shrimp’s antennae, certain fossils in the Burgess shale, and scientific instruments used for spectroscopy. I’m talking about a diffraction grating, which Wikipedia helpfully defines as “an optical component with…