27 JUL 2018 by ideonexus

 Human Progress Confounds -isms

It should not be surprising that the facts of human progress confound the major -isms. The ideologies are more than two centuries old and are based on mile-high visions such as whether humans are tragically flawed or infinitely malleable, and whether society is an organic whole or a collection of individuals.43 A real society comprises hundreds of millions of social beings, each with a trillion-synapse brain, who pursue their well-being while affecting the well-being of others in complex netw...
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31 JAN 2015 by ideonexus

 An Aquarium Teaches Kids About Domestic Life

And what, I ask you, are we to think of the viviparous fish, those that actually pair off in no uncertain manner and a little later bring forth living young! (You catch the drift?) What of the Guppyi, the Helleri, the Tetras and Danios and other tropicals with which our apartments are full to overflowing? Well, at least they keep our own offspring off the streets; you can hardly pry them away from the tank. They might miss something. I always say a small aquarium containing several of these d...
Folksonomies: humor satire
Folksonomies: humor satire
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21 JUN 2012 by ideonexus

 Archimedes Discovers How to Measure Volume

Hieron asked Archimedes to discover, without damaging it, whether a certain crown or wreath was made of pure gold, or if the goldsmith had fraudulently alloyed it with some baser metal. While Archimedes was turning the problem over in his mind, he chanced to be in the bath house. There, as he was sitting in the bath, he noticed that the amount of water that was flowing over the top of it was equal in volume to that part of his body that was immersed. He saw at once a way of solving the proble...
Folksonomies: discovery measurement
Folksonomies: discovery measurement
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Asked to measure the volume of a crown, he discovers it will displace water in a tub.

11 JUN 2012 by ideonexus

 The Past and Future of the Mississippi

In the space of one hundred and seventy-six years the Lower Mississippi has shortened itself two hundred and forty-two miles. That is an average of a trifle over one mile and a third per year. Therefore, any calm person, who is not blind or idiotic, can see that in the old Oolitic Silurian Period, must a million years ago next November, the Lower Mississippi River was upward of one million three hundred thousand miles long, and stuck out over the Gulf of Mexico like a fishing-rod. And by the ...
Folksonomies: speculation
Folksonomies: speculation
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"There is something fascinating about science. One gets such wholesale returns of conjecture out of such a trifling investment of fact."

18 DEC 2011 by ideonexus

 Matthew 6:6 - Don't Pray in Public

1 “Be careful not to practice your righteousness in front of others to be seen by them. If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven. 2 “So when you give to the needy, do not announce it with trumpets, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets, to be honored by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. 3 But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, 4 so that your giving may be in...
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Pray in private and don't make a big display for others.