When is something wet?
Defining when something is wet is surprisingly hard. In fact, there still isn't a commonly agreed upon scientific definition. Despite this, we can describe the general »
Endemic species
Most discussions about environmental conservation focus on whether plants and animals are native to a particular habitat, but in the Galapagos, the government also focuses on »
Why do we still have electronic toll transponders?
Given that authorities can reliably send bills to owners of cars that fail to pay tolls by using OCR to read license plates, why do drivers »
Why do people pretend to know about startups?
When talking about startups, people often nod along, pretending to know about companies that they've never heard of. Unfortunately, it's hard to know whether they're just »
Data cleaning company
The ETL process of massaging training data into a consistent and normalized format is often one of the most difficult and time consuming steps in machine »
Gambler's fallacy
Users tend to think software is malfunctioning if the same number is randomly generated at an "unnaturally" high frequency. But if each event is »
Why do we get embarrassed?
Embarrassment is a punishment that we impose on ourselves to prevent "socially unacceptable" behavior. The problem is that we each have our own definitions »
How should text be oriented on a vertical banner?
On vertical banners, text can be rendered so that letters are stacked on top of one another, read from top to bottom. But other times the »
Does jailing old people make sense?
On principle, prisoners should all be treated the same way. But, it may be worth questioning whether it makes sense to continue to keep people behind »
Investing in ergonomic tools
When you use tools everyday, it makes sense to invest in ones that work. This may sound obvious, but a surprising number of people use awkward »