Rick Rosner: A simple reason to suppose that an action potential is not the atomic action of cognition is that biological systems evolve toward the thermodynamic limit of sensitivity across every domain. And an action potential is a million times larger than the Landauer limit. Scott Douglas Jacobsen: That’s the thermodynamic lower theoretical limit of …
Rick Rosner: So, Trump announced that he’s drafting an executive order to abolish the Department of Education. Which is fucking ridiculous. Education got its own department under Carter, in 1979. Before that, it was part of the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare. Now, the people arguing to get rid of it only look at …
Continue reading Ask A Genius 1282: Educators, Anonymous, Ratings
Rick Rosner: So… I looked it up. It was methylene blue. Scott Douglas Jacobsen: Why do you want to bring up fish tank stuff? Is this to take stuff out of your brain? Rosner: Methylene blue is used to keep fungus from growing in fish tanks. Is RFK using it as a euphemism for his …
Rick Rosner: I was trying way too hard. I’d sell a few people donuts on a Sunday morning, and I was allowed to eat as many day-old donuts as I wanted—so I limited myself to four. So, donut shop. Then I decided to return to high school and switch families, moving to Albuquerque. My dad—my …
Rick Rosner: They never showed James Bond working out. Scott Douglas Jacobsen: He’s got all these skills. Rosner: It’s true. He doesn’t practice. Jacobsen: You never see him practicing anything. Rosner: Many of his skills are improvisational—he takes advantage of things in his environment. But he still has to fight people and dodge bullets. Jacobsen: …
Continue reading Ask A Genius 1279: What about James Bond working out and training?
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: I will play the Addams Family song in my head, and you’ll tell me about your L.A. day. How was your L.A. day, Rick? Rick Rosner: So first, I drove through a movie set, and then a murder scene. A real one. Jacobsen: Was there a murder scene at the movie set …
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: What do you think about Elon Musk essentially taking over finance in America? Rick Rosner: Elon Musk is—I don’t know. I don’t like him holding as much power as he does. Trump is letting him mess with entire federal agencies. We talked about this last night—the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), which …
Rick Rosner: All right. People think it's weird and gross, but I’ll reuse my wife’s bathwater. She gets in the tub and makes it hot. She likes it hot and is not in there long—she doesn’t clean herself there. She soaks to get warm in the winter. By the time she gets out, it's still …
Continue reading Ask A Genius 1276: Bathwater Ode, “I Like it hot”
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: The Twitter account at your "Anon Central" tweeted, "The U.S. has fallen. ItJust doesn't know it yet." But there is no verifiable evidence that Anonymous issued this tweet on February 1, 2025, or that it received 10.5 million views. Rick Rosner: Let's put this in a less histrionic framework. Recently, some have …
Continue reading Ask A Genius 1275: Anonymous, Protests, Biff Tannen, and Errol Morris
Rick Rosner: Richard May—the guy you've talked to a lot. He's a completely reasonable person, not weird in any way. He's got a wicked sense of humor and behaves like a normal guy. For every Keith Raniere serving a life sentence for running a sex cult and committing financial exploitation (often described as stealing tens …
Continue reading Ask A Genius 1274: ‘Sex Tricks’ and Time for Bed
Rick Rosner 