1.8% of Gun Related Deaths in the Home Due to Self-Defense

To study the epidemiology of deaths involving firearms kept in the home, we reviewed all the gunshot deaths that occurred in King County, Washington (population 1,270,000), from 1978 through 1983. The medical examiner's case files were supplemented by police records or interviews with investigating officers or both, to obtain specific information about the circumstances, the scene of the incident, the type of firearm involved, and the relationship of the suspect to the victim. A total of 743 ...

 When Information is Cheap, Attention Becomes Expensive

Negative reviews are fun to write and fun to read, but the world doesn’t need them, since the average work of literary fiction is, in Laura Miller’s words, “invisible to the average reader.” It appears and vanishes from the scene largely unnoticed and unremarked. “Even the novelists you may think of as ‘hyped’ are in fact relatively obscure,” writes Miller. “I’ve got a battalion of perfectly intelligent cousins who have never heard of either Jonathan Franzen or Dave Eggers...

 Exercises for Emotional Maturity in Children

Let's focus on the skill of expanding sensitivity. Increased attention to music, nature, and animals can increase sensitivity. Once you identify these outlets, set up a series of exercises that use these focal points to draw out sensitivity. For example: Listening: Listen to a piece of beautiful music for 10 minutes. Close your eyes and let the notes guide your mind. Focusing: Choose an animal (even an ant) and follow it for 10 minutes; watch it with full attention. Relaxing: Sit quietly for...

 Cyberpunk RPG

The world of Cyberpunk is a combination of savage, sophisticated, modern and retrograde. Fashion-model beautiful techies rub shoulders with battle-armored road warriors, all of them making the scene in the hottest dance clubs, sleaziest bars and meanest streets this side of the Postholocaust. Each character in this world is playing a role--a face that the person projects to the outside world as the real thing. There are nine Roles in Cyberpunk: Rockerboys, Solos, Netrunners, Corporates, Techi...

 An Ape Reaches for the Moon

Of all the creatures who had yet walked on Earth, the man-apes were the first to look steadfastly at the Moon. And though he could not remember it, when he was very young Moon-Watcher would sometimes reach out and try to touch that ghostly face rising above the hills. He had never succeeded, and now he was old enough to understand why. For first, of course, he must find a high enough tree to climb.

 The Idiotic Design of the Eye

Hermann von Helmholtz, the great nineteenthcentury German scientist (you could call him a physicist, but his contributions to biology and psychology were greater), said, of the eye: 'If an optician wanted to sell me an instrument which had all these defects, I should think myself quite justified in blaming his carelessness in the strongest terms, and giving him back his instrument.' One reason why the eye seems better than Helmholtz, the physicist, judged it to be is that the brain does an am...