How strong is the pepper spray used by Police? It's twice as strong as the spray available to consumers. Here's a graphic to illustrate its strength. Also, Wired offers some statistics on police use of pepper spray.
I sometimes hear that science is a threat because it turns humans into "machines," and otherwise removes the magic of life. I've sometimes had a fleeting thought of this type, for instance, while first encountering "Terror Management Theory" (I got over it). Does science ruin the magic of life? In this entertaining TED monologue, BBC radio show host Robin Ince argues more science teaches us about the astonishing behavior of the universe, the more we stand in awe. Understanding does not remove the wonder or the joy. He offers many anecdotes and thought experiments. For instance, one of the atoms that is now part of you was once part of Napoleon's knee; "We are all totally recyclable."
I've recently installed two new plugins that DI readers might find useful. I certainly do.
A) DI now has an enhanced search function. It looks exactly like the previous search box (see arrow immediately below), but it will now search for more than the text of posts. It will also search for comment text, comment authors, categories and tags. 
The plug-in that allows this expanded search is called "Search Everything."
B) If you'd like to receive email notifications when future comments are approved regarding a particular post, you can do that by checking a little box beneath the field where you leave your own comment (though there is also an option to follow comments even if you don't wish to leave a comment). The WordPress plugin that allows this magic is called Subscribe to Comments Reloaded.
These are two examples of why I really appreciate the WordPress blogging platform. There is a huge community of people who develop plugins. This site runs with the help of 31 active plugins, and it has become a rather simple process to add or customize most of these plugins.
Here is a "natural" optical illusion I spotted on Reddit.com.
Check out this post on Reddit: "What would you say to your 15 year old self if you could phone him/her up right now? -but you can only talk to them for a total of 15 seconds." Well worth a read. It got me thinking, but I haven't come up with any worthy 15-second advice for my 15-year old self. Sure, I could advise on investment strategies, but that seems to demean the question. Nor would I want to deprive myself of unpleasant (or even dangerous) experiences that I know that I actually pulled through. To do so would be to deprive myself of significant learning experiences. Perhaps I would tell myself: Many of your biggest regrets will occur because you forgot to be self-critical and when, instead, you followed the crowd. This Reddit question reminded me of the following Nietzsche quote:
The greatest weight.-- What, if some day or night a demon were to steal after you into your loneliest loneliness and say to you: "This life as you now live it and have lived it, you will have to live once more and innumerable times more; and there will be nothing new in it, but every pain and every joy and every thought and sigh and everything unutterably small or great in your life will have to return to you, all in the same succession and sequence - even this spider and this moonlight between the trees, and even this moment and I myself. The eternal hourglass of existence is turned upside down again and again, and you with it, speck of dust!" Would you not throw yourself down and gnash your teeth and curse the demon who spoke thus?... Or how well disposed would you have to become to yourself and to life to crave nothing more fervently than this ultimate eternal confirmation and seal?--from Nietzsche's The Gay Science, s.341, Walter Kaufmann transl.
