As we are getting near the end of our time in London, we are trying to make sure we get in as many experiences as we can, and today was no exception. After waiting for the weather to clear up, our day started by taking a walk across the Golden Jubilee Bridge, heading towards Covent … Continue reading A Proper British Day →

Today's high school students are faced with a tough choice - to spend upwards of $250,000 to attend a four-year college, or choose another route, such as go to a trade/technical school for significantly less time and money, join the military, or start working. The traditional wisdom for the past few decades has been that … Continue reading To Go or Not to Go, That Is the Question →

Fascinating is the only word to describe this type of research and what it is finding. Computational biologist Yaniv Erlich of Columbia University in New York City and his colleagues have used crowdsourced data (from an online genealogy tool, Geni.com) to make a family tree that links 13 million people. The ancestry chart, described in Science, … Continue reading Data Shows That Environment>Genetics and That the World Is Shrinking →

One of the things I've become quite jealous of while in Europe, and particularly London, is the use of contactless cards by other people. Contactless cards are simply credit/debit cards that a shopper just taps on the contactless card reader at the checkout, and Bam! they are ready to go. The technology works in hundreds … Continue reading Hey, U.S.A., Let’s Get with the Contactless Card →

I'm hoping that those who know me would recognize that the question raised in the title to this post is one that would never even enter my mind. But it was the title of an article in today's Wall Street Journal. The article offered opposing points of view on the question (you can guess which … Continue reading Should I Splurge on $40 Hand Wash to Impress Guests? →

We'd been watching the forecasts closely all week. We had bought train tickets to travel from London to Paris this weekend, and because of some crazy weather, Eurostar was canceling some of its scheduled trains. As of yesterday, three of its trains traveling from London to Paris were cancelled for today, Friday, our planned day … Continue reading Going with the Flow Has Its Rewards, Literally →

OK, I'll admit it. One of the things I was looking forward to as part of being in London for 10 weeks was leaving the bitter cold weather and snowstorms that often are part of winter in the Philly area. Not that I expected London to be a tropical paradise, but its winters seemed to … Continue reading Call It Karma, but When Life Gives You Snow… →

After a post earlier this week about a kid urinating in an elevator and one about my being lower brow than a Neanderthal, I figured it was time to try and inject some class back into my blog, through the worlds of art and music. First, the world of art. Here is a video that … Continue reading A Little Bit of Art and Music Culture →

Of course, that means there's a 60% chance that it will not attract 100,000 followers. But people tend to remember correct predictions, and forget incorrect predictions. And that's why pundits are so popular. They are willing to make bold predictions, but many do so using the 40% rule, using such terms as "there is a … Continue reading There’s a 40% Chance This Post Attracts 1,000,000 Followers →

BusinessInsider calls it Instant Karma. I call it another Clorox Bleachable Moment. According to Oriental Daily, a young Chinese boy was alone on an elevator and decided to urinate all over the buttons. (I'm sure we'll never know why). When the elevator finally gets to the floor he wants, the doors do not open, and … Continue reading This Looks Like Another Clorox Bleachable Moment →