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Fast-talking furriners
From Ed Yong’s “Not Exactly Rocket Science,” a report on a recent study of turn-taking conventions among speakers of various languages. The surprising thing is how little variation there seems to be...
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Knowledge is its own reward
In Consultation, by Joseph Schippers Dostoevsky sometimes had his intellectual characters ask each other if they would rather be clever and miserable or stupid and happy. If they claimed they would...
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Weighty matters
An artist's conception of the field pack ancient Roman soldiers wore About seven years ago, I read G. R. Watson’s The Roman Soldier (originally published by Cornell University in 1969; I read a copy of...
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Aptronyms
Helen Scales A new book about seahorses has appeared; the author is a marine biologist named Helen Scales. In its review, The Economist grants that “Scales” is an apt name for a person interested in...
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What Acilius has been up to lately
Over the last couple of days, I’ve posted several little things in several places. I put several links on Twitter, including these: http://tinyurl.com/4eskj4j A fun list of counterfactual history...
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