Re April 1st

One of my colleagues came into my office the other day, and said to me: If p is prime and greater than 3, prove that p² – 1 is divisible by 24. Interested readers might want to try this for themselves: it’s not particularly difficult. Of course I started in…

This tsunami disaster has shown once again that journalists don't understand the usage of the word “enormity”. I doubt that they are deliberately invoking pathetic fallacy. The tsunami was a terrible tragedy, but I don't see the need to ascribe it to malice on the part of nature.

…to use a hopefully somewhat generic term; or whatever you call that thing that sits at the edge of your screen and has icons for stuff that you launch a lot? Not the menu(s), the single-click launches. Or if you roll that way, what do you have hotkeys for? Here’s…