A month or so ago, I stopped at a vending machine at my college to get a snack. I was irritated to find that there was a large paper posted over the front of the machine, blocking my view. Nut then I noticed what was written on the paper.
It was an advertisement for CollegeDegreeFund.com. I [...]

“It only takes time for a man to grow older, but how many of them grow up?”
~Gloria Naylor, Mama Day

No, it’s not Abdiel Blog’s Birthday: that happened about a week ago. But I completely forgot to post then, and so I thought I would mention the occasion now.
On May 16, it was one year since Abdiel Blog began. Here are a few of the year’s highlights:

The First Post: It was called “welcome, and wasn’t [...]

After posting a little while ago about infinity, I realized that I have a couple of mathematical readers. So I thought I would share a bizarre equation I read about a few weeks ago. It is incredibly frustrating, because no one I talk to can figure it out, but it’s worth blogging about because it [...]

In my diary one day, I wrote the following mantras I have used to help me do things right. It’s funny how easily I forget the jelly bean principle; when I find myself staring at a decision, the long-term goal is always ready to abscond to the short term urge. And so having on [...]

We used to have an old Oreo cookie tin with instructions on it: “How to eat an Oreo.” The step-by-step procedure directed every fortunate eater to take the cookie apart by slowly twisting each section in an opposite direction, and then to lick the frosting out and nibble the wafers separately. I always wondered what [...]

A big jar of jelly beans. Back when I was young—goodness knows how long ago—I used to dream about having a big jar of jelly beans on my desk, that I could luxuriously dip my hand into whenever I wanted. There was a store in the mall, a place where jelly beans were stored in [...]

BBC News comes to the rescue and tells us all how to pronounce that country’s name without looking like a fool or resorting to the old name, “Burma.” Mayanmar has been in our newspapers for months, and it’s about time we knew how to say it:
The following pronunciations are all attested in English pronouncing dictionaries:

MYAN-mar [...]

You may have noticed (if you are a very faithful reader) that a while back I promised to write a series of essays corresponding to Francis Bacon’s. And if you did notice, you may be wondering why you haven’t seen any yet.
I could tell you that I had irresponsibly forgotten about the project, but that [...]

So you thought that the last exotic destinations post was just a joke. Nobody even knows where Heaven or Hell are, right? Enter Google.
Google maps not only will tell you the locations of Heaven (Loveland, OH), Hell (Putnam, MI), and Purgatory (Litchfield, ME); it will lead you to a host of exotic destinations you never [...]