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Finding the fun in good math; Shredding bad math and squashing the crackpots who espouse it.
Mark Chu-Carroll (aka MarkCC) is a PhD Computer Scientist, who works for Google as a Software Engineer. My professional interests center on programming languages and tools, and how to improve the languages and tools that are used for building complex software systems.
Category: bad math
So, remember back in December, I wrote a post about a Cantor crank who had a Knol page supposedly refuting Cantor's diagonalization? This week, I foolishly let myself get drawn into an extended conversation with him in comments. Since...
Posted by Mark C. Chu-Carroll at 12:13 PM • 366 Comments •
Category: bad math
An alert reader just sent me, via "Media Matters", the single dumbest real-life video clip that I have ever seen. In case you've been living under a rock, Bill O'Reilly is a conservative radio and TV talk-show host. He's...
Posted by Mark C. Chu-Carroll at 2:27 PM • 68 Comments •
Category: bad math
I'm trying to get back into my routine, after being really devastated by losing my dog. To people who don't love dogs, it probably seems silly to be so upset over an animal, but he was really a member...
Posted by Mark C. Chu-Carroll at 4:22 PM • 142 Comments •
Category: bad math
Remember a while back, I wrote about a crackpot who pestered me both about converting to Christianity, and his wonderful, miraculous compression system? He claimed to be able to repeatedly compress any file, making it smaller each time. Well,...
Posted by Mark C. Chu-Carroll at 1:28 PM • 24 Comments •
Category: bad math
Like a lot of other bloggers, I often get annoying email from people. This week, I've been dealing with a particularly annoying jerk, who's been bothering me for multiple reasons. First, he wants me to "lay off" the Christians...
Posted by Mark C. Chu-Carroll at 12:38 PM • 26 Comments •
Category: bad math
An alert reader sent me a link to a really dreadful piece of drek. In some ways, it's a rehash of the "Nullity" nonsense from a couple of years ago, but with a new spin. If you don't remember...
Posted by Mark C. Chu-Carroll at 10:47 AM • 30 Comments •
Category: bad math
I'm sure you've all heard about the airplane that ditched in the Hudson last week. (Just 30 blocks from my office!) When it happened, after we found out more about what caused the plane to ditch, I wondered how...
Posted by Mark C. Chu-Carroll at 10:13 AM • 22 Comments •
Category: bad math
People keep sending me links to this, so I'll make a short post about it. In the hubbub surrounding the Obama inauguration, there've been all sorts of incredulous press pieces discussing the supposed outrageousness of the costs of this...
Posted by Mark C. Chu-Carroll at 4:16 PM • 27 Comments •
Category: bad math
As long time readers of this blog know, one of the things that drive me crazy - in fact, one of the things that led me to start this blog - is the rampant innumeracy of our society. The...
Posted by Mark C. Chu-Carroll at 5:08 PM • 51 Comments •
Category: bad math
Writing this blog, I get lots of email. One of the things that I get over and over again is a particular kind of cluelessness about the idea of infinity. I get the same basic kind of stupid flames...
Posted by Mark C. Chu-Carroll at 1:00 PM • 112 Comments •
