The Hundredth Monkey Phenomenon

In a facinating interview about “building sound,” I found this incredible quote:
Knowing about how things work only increases our feelings of wonder and awe about them, just as keeping things mysterious only causes us to argue and opinionate.

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“Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.”
An excellent article from the Old Grey Lady about the state of our diet in America. It’s a retrospective on food science and studies from the last 30 years, and is as liberating as it is enlightening. One choice paragraph from near the beginning of the lengthy [...]

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In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex won the National Book Award for nonfiction, and wins the Rob Gonzalez Book Award™ for being just plain awesome.
To set the scene, the book dives into the history of whaling. In particular it chronicles the rise and fall of Nantucket island, the [...]

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Displaying the stiff-upper-lip spirit that built an empire, he uttered the words that are every air passenger’s worst nightmare: “Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking. We have a small problem. All four engines have stopped. We are doing our damnedest to get it under control. I trust you are not in too much [...]

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My new favorite web site. The current feature History of Religion in 90 seconds. So cool.

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An article in the International Herald Tribune. An exerpt:
KINTBURY, England In the autumn of 68 B.C. the world’s only military superpower was dealt a profound psychological blow by a daring terrorist attack on its very heart. Rome’s port at Ostia was set on fire, the consular war fleet destroyed, and two prominent senators, together [...]

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