There is a famous parable called the Scorpion and the Fox. Facebook is clearly a scorpion. Central to their business is the collection of as much information as possible about people, so Facebook can help their customers optimally manipulate you. Facebook just can’t help itself but behave the way it does.

Corporate officers of Yahoo! have been successfully sued over their actions that led to multiple breaches at Yahoo! The officers (actually their insurance company) will pay $29 million.

I woke up this morning, the first day of my winter holiday, thinking, while still in that quasi-dream-wake state, about the origins of life. This is what you get when going to sleep listening to biology books.

When I was about 11 years old I learned two lessons: Sea-Monkeys were not really aquatic primates and marketing departments lie. The second was a good lesson to learn.

In 1976 I learned what a googol was through a clever Richie Rich mystery. 21 years later the founders of a search engine botched the spelling of the word when they registered their new domain name, but I think they might approve of the villain’s words on the comic’s cover - NOTHING CAN STOP THE '“GOOGOL” NOW!

Richie Rich comic book covers often showed what the creators imagined what the greatest wealth in the world could buy. In 1976 that included watches that could play music or make telephone calls. 42 years later, in some ways, I am living like the imagined richest kid in the world could.

The new business models enabled by the Internet is highly effective platforms designed to manipulate us. We offer ourselves up for manipulation every day. Even if you think you are immune, the people around you are also being exposed to these manipulation platforms, and they have a very real vote in your life.

Potato vine flower under the microscope.

Looking at my network traffic reminds me that almost all North-South traffic is encrypted these days.

Activating IPv6 on my eero Wi-Fi network.

Sometimes a walk across a college campus can be a great productivity enhancer.

Photo stacking addresses the challenge of very limited depth of field in microscope photography. This post shows the result of my first experiment using this technique.

Ciliates are protozoans that, despite being single cell critters, are surprisingly fast, large, and complex.

Early experiments with microscope lighting - looking at coffee grounds lit from above and above.

Combining an old hobby (photography) with a microscope to create a new hobby (microscopy).

Cyber attacks have taken on a new and dangerous dimension. The goal of these attacks is to manipulate people to believe a certain thing, increasingly identify with that belief, and ultimately to take actions based on that belief.

On July 21, 1969 the first human walked on another world. On December 14, 1972 the last human walked on another world. Will we reach a time when no living human has walked on another world?