Sand Dollars “What’s effective is not the placebo, but the meaning of the treatment,” writes the doctor Harriet Hall in Skeptic Magazine. “We enter into a human relationship with a caring person who offers to help us.” Hall is talking about placebos, those pills used by doctors and scientists that don’t contain any medicine, but (More…)
“We will be together. It is destiny.” If I had told this to a cute girl when we were toddlers, then fate would reward me for the rest of my life. At least, this is what I’ve learned from Slumdog Millionaire, the Oscar-sniping pathos machine directed by Danny Boyle. Score one for good old Hollywood (More…)
Love is fragile, awkward, painful, and hilarious. Sometimes awkwardly, painfully hilarious. Love is all of these things, but above all it is something even more–love is not your fault. This is the message I pondered through most of Un baiser s’il vous plaît, a kitschy romantic comedy with an occasional cruel streak that aired today (More…)
(This is part one of a three-part series of posts about weird and wonderful things on YouTube, drawn from my own extensive surfing and observation. Parts two and three will be up soon.) UPDATE: Maybe not so soon, but at some point, hopefully You’ve all experienced it. The Internet is like a rabbit hole. During (More…)
There are varying levels of regret that come with not doing your homework. Level one is the brief pang of irritation when you realize that you will be too busy this week to make up the reading or lecture you missed yesterday. Level two is the acute panic and then furious, unsubstantiated creativity when a (More…)