About Me

Beginning around the age of nine, I spent a great deal of my time in my local library, my nose buried in various books (these sessions were invariably accompanied by incessant gorging of Lemonhead and Alexander the Grape hard candies).  I was raised in a household in which television was severely restricted, with the exception of educational or public programming.  

Thus it was in the library where I spent many hours per week for almost the next contiguous four years immersing mself in every book covering every subject I could get my hands on.  After all, if I couldn't watch TV like all the other kids I knew, I would have to use my imagination better and derive entertainment via the written word and illustrations alone.

I later found I had somewhat of a penchant for learning about and memorizing facts and figures.  It was this predilection that eventually led me to start this blog.

I am a computer programmer by training and profession, thus I offer higher level overviews of topics in the sciences and other disciplines in which I don't possess expertise.  In such cases I will offer more granularity via citations and article links as necessary.  I welcome any clarifications or corrections from subject matter experts in any topic on which I post.

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How I generate my "random" posts

One could reasonably make the assertion that my Random Factoid blog posts cannot be truly random due to selection bias.  I wouldn't disagree with this premise actually.  Inspirations for posts come to me via many routes: an object or phenomenon I witness while taking a walk, for example, or spontaneous thoughts, ideas, or memories of information/facts. I endeavor, to the maximum extent possible, to keep successive topics independent of each other. The randomization generator, therefore, is my brain! 

​The main selection criterion I employ for my posts is that the topic be sufficiently obscure and interesting to merit discussion.  Naturally the notions of obscurity and interest are subjective, but I do my best to pick subjects that are relevant to the theme and spirit of the blog.  

​The one constraint I impose upon my writing is thus: all of my topics and write ups fall within the consensus mainstream of science, arts & the humanities, and any other sub-discipline I am elucidating upon.  As the old adage goes, "You are entitled to your own opinions, but not your own facts!"

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