by david allan van nostrand | Nov 3, 2025 | Americana, Language, Point of view, The Wayback Machine
Recently I came across the term “mosquito swarm.” I pictured a high-pitched whining mob of vicious mosquitos looking for blood in swamps, but I searched the term anyway to see what the machine would try to feed me. In most cases the first several results had paid to...
by david allan van nostrand | Sep 8, 2025 | Anthropology, Human Behavior, Language, Point of view
All of the letters and sounds in the word ask are also in the word aks. When the letters S and K trade places, the word ends up sounding like axe, the woodsman’s sharp-bladed implement for chopping trees. People who say “Axe me” are fortunate that Little...
by david allan van nostrand | Dec 9, 2024 | Actively observing, Point of view
Half Full or Half Empty? Objectively speaking, the glass contains water up to the half-way point. The rest is a matter of interpretation. Half-fullers interpret the reality in a positive context. Half-emptiers interpret the reality in a negative context, focusing on...
by david allan van nostrand | Apr 15, 2024 | Human Behavior, Point of view, The world around us, Using Information
Typical Is Not Average Measures of central tendency are the basic mathematics of a thing Non-statisticians call those measures averages. The one most of us have in mind when we say average is the arithmetic mean. Arithmetic means (referred to as means) are the...
by david allan van nostrand | Mar 4, 2024 | Human Behavior, Point of view, Sociology
Reefer Madness was a deliberately false and misleading film made to influence parents’ thinking about the dangers of marijuana. As they watched the story, parents learned that pushers get high school kids hooked on marijuana, which makes the kids go insane...
by david allan van nostrand | Mar 20, 2023 | Point of view, The Wayback Machine, Wordplay
You Bet Your Life was a 1950s TV quiz show with a studio audience. The real draw was the host, Groucho Marx, who turned interviews with contestants into laughs with his wisecracks. Before the contestants were introduced, Groucho and announcer George Fenneman showed...
