icorteso

Cloying

In Spanish, we have a word to describe foods that are sickenly sweet (the word is empalagoso). I never knew it, until now, but the equivalent word in English is “cloying”. This word is often used to describe the taste of overly-sweet wines, for example. When something is cloying, it’s not that it doesn’t tasteContinue reading “Cloying”

Social media politics

In engineering we spend lots of time modeling systems (systems like electrical circuits). We try to describe them just enough so that we can predict their behavior. In the best cases, we can explain why they behave the way they do. In the worst cases, we can’t tell why things are, but we can makeContinue reading “Social media politics”

I wouldn’t lie

I was listening to an NPR show the other night, and the episode was about lying. One of the guests claimed that lying is more about opportunity than it is about character. So, I asked myself, did I ever lie when I had the opportunity simply because it was convenient do so or because itContinue reading “I wouldn’t lie”