Links Dump
drorzel | November 25, 2008
nanoscale views: A (serious) modest proposal
"As part of the forthcoming major economic stimulus package, I propose that the Obama administration fully fund the America Competes initiative immediately."
(tags: science politics academia economics)
'Teaching Unprepared Students' :: Inside Higher Ed :: Higher Education's Source for News, Views and Jobs
"Many experts say that the United States can only truly see gains in the percentages of adults who have a college degree if colleges and universities get better at teaching students who arrived on campus unprepared for college-level work. But…
drorzel | November 22, 2008
CHART ATTACK!: 11/24/84 | Popdose
"When you're on fire like Lionel Richie in 1984, you can do whatever the hell you want. You can write a song called "Penny Lover," which is not actually about somebody who loves pennies, or even about someone who loves girls named Penny. And you can sit back and watch your song reach the Top 10, without batting an eye. "
(tags: music review blogs silly)
Cocktail Party Physics: what is physics?
"I've been traveling giving a lot of talks lately, and I always ask people I'm visiting what makes physics "physics". Why is biophysics bioPHYSICS and not…
drorzel | November 19, 2008
Swans on Tea » How (not) to Cook the Books
Fun with Benford's Law, one of those cool mathematical principles whose name I can never remeber.
(tags: science math blogs youtube statistics)
Chuck Klosterman reviews Chinese Democracy | The A.V. Club
"Reviewing Chinese Democracy is not like reviewing music. It's more like reviewing a unicorn. Should I primarily be blown away that it exists at all? Am I supposed to compare it to conventional horses? To a rhinoceros? Does its pre-existing mythology impact its actual value, or must it be examined inside a cultural vacuum, as if this creature is…
drorzel | November 18, 2008
Is getting takeout that much worse for the planet than cooking at home? - By Jacob Leibenluft - Slate Magazine
Probably not.
(tags: environment science society social-science slate)
Michael Nielsen » Malcolm Gladwell's new book, "Outliers", and the 10,000 hour rule
"One of the main claims of Outliers is that putting in 10,000 hours of practice is a prerequisite for great achievement. I believe this is the wrong way of thinking about the relationship between achievement and the 10,000 hour rule. A clue to a better way comes from some examples which to some extent disprove the claim."
(…
drorzel | November 17, 2008
Kevin Drum - Mother Jones Blog: Conservatives and Unions
"Overturning Roe is certainly a conservative priority, but it's only been on the list for about 30 years. Fighting unions has been on the list for more like 130 years. If it's not central to the conservative identity in America, I don't know what is."
(tags: politics law us blogs society class-war)
Cocktail Party Physics: a spark in the dark
"This also establishes [Francis] Bacon as the earliest to record the phenomenon, known as triboluminescence, a.k.a., "the Wint-O-Green Life Saver Effect." "
(tags: science physics chemistry…
drorzel | November 16, 2008
Information Processing: Central limit theorem and securitization: how to build a CDO
"[T]he mathematical concepts related to the current financial crisis leave over 95 percent of our population completely baffled. If your Ivy League education didn't prepare you to understand the following, please ask for your money back."
(tags: economics math statistics blogs)
Pictures of Numbers: Fixing Excel's Charts
It's really sad how many steps you need to go through to get halfway decent graphs out of Excel.
(tags: science math computing data-analysis)
slacktivist: How I beat the market
"[I]n…
drorzel | November 15, 2008
How the subprime good guys give home loans to poor people, strengthen communities, and still make a profit. - By Daniel Gross - Slate Magazine
"Since 2003, this for-profit firm based in Orange County--home to busted subprime behemoths such as Ameriquest--has issued $220 million worth of mortgages in the Golden State's subprime killing fields. More than 90 percent of its home loans have gone to first-time buyers, about half of whom are minorities. Out of 770 single-family loans it has made, how many foreclosures have there been? "As far as we know," says Bystry, "seven.""
(tags: class-war…
drorzel | November 13, 2008
Dw. Dunphy On... Bob Mould | Popdose
A series of creative peaks that never translated into sales. Copper Blue remains an amazing album, though.
(tags: music review blogs)
scottberkun.com » Do we suck at the basics?
"The longer I'm on this planet, the more I think the problem with everything is someone's failure to get the basics right. "
(tags: blogs business stupid society)
drorzel | November 12, 2008
The Supreme Court grapples with the primordial ooze of the Summum case. - By Dahlia Lithwick - Slate Magazine
"[T]he current Third Aphorism of Religion Cases: Government establishment of religion is only impermissible when it freaks out Justice Stephen Breyer."
(tags: religion politics law silly society culture)
Backyard Nukes? | Cosmic Variance | Discover Magazine
Sure to be a popular solution to the energy crisis...
(tags: nuclear energy physics environment blogs)
Unbelievable Job Candidates « Confused at a higher level
Tough competition for job seekers this year...
(tags: physics…
drorzel | November 11, 2008
The Case of M. S. El Naschie | The n-Category Café
I wouldn't've started a blog if I'd known I could get Elsevier to give me my own journal...
(tags: science publishing academia journals stupid)
Backreaction: Technetium-99
"what a strange element is technetium in the first place, as without stable isotopes, it marks a gap in the middle of the periodic table?"
(tags: science physics nuclear atoms blogs)
Introduction to particle in a box | Dot Physics
"I am going to try and briefly describe the quantum nature of matter. I am then going to show how this relates to light. In the end, I…
drorzel | November 10, 2008
Mars Lander Succumbs to Winter - NYTimes.com
Farewell, Phoenix, thou good and faithful servant.
(tags: space planets science astronomy news)
Deep Secrets of 'The Daily Show' - City Room Blog - NYTimes.com
"Mr. Remnick asked the writers and producers what a typical day at "The Daily Show" is like. Based on their responses, here is a summary:"
(tags: television politics news silly)
Spot.us - Home
"Spot.Us is a nonprofit project to pioneer "community funded reporting." Through Spot.Us the public can commission investigations on important and perhaps overlooked stories. "
(tags: news…
drorzel | November 8, 2008
Highlights: Newsweek's Special Election Project | Newsweek Politics: Campaign 2008 | Newsweek.com
I'm about the one millionth person to recommend this, but their series of articles about the election really is excellent.
(tags: news politics US society history journalism)
The New Adventures of Mr Stephen Fry
"[A]bove all let there be pleasure. Let there be textural delight, let there be silken words and flinty words and sodden speeches and soaking speeches and crackling utterance and utterance that quivers and wobbles like rennet. Let there be rapid firecracker phrases and language that…
drorzel | November 7, 2008
Study finds many motorists don't see need to heed speed limits
A result that will surprise approximately nobody with a driver's license.
(tags: social-science news law silly)
Better Late Than Never?: Titanic | The A.V. Club
"If only every woman in the world was periodically forced to choose between two fantastically beautiful men--one rich and civilized yet stuffy, and one poor but free and capable. Then we wouldn't have to keep seeing that plotline over and over again, because everyone would be so bored from dealing with it in real life that it wouldn't be the stuff of clichéd dreams…
drorzel | November 6, 2008
Kevin Drum - Mother Jones Blog: Raw Data
"Which groups did Obama do especially well with? That is, which groups did he swing by margins substantially more than 9 points?"
(tags: us politics math statistics social-science society)
Easily Distracted » Blog Archive » Appalachia and Other Reflections
"I think we can all make things just ever so slightly better, make the air less poisonous, by pushing to the margins of our consciousness the crazy, bad, gutter-dwelling, two-faced, tendentious high-school debator kinds of voices out there in the public sphere, including and especially in blogs…
drorzel | November 4, 2008
The Supreme Court's 100 percent dirt-free exploration of potty words. - By Dahlia Lithwick - Slate Magazine
"Perhaps it's true that the Supreme Court can take away our F-bomb. But they cannot touch our dirty, dirty minds."
(tags: US politics language law society culture)
Watching the election. - By Troy Patterson - Slate Magazine
"I should have gone to bed right then to dream cozily of supercompetent election officials and the straight-backed citizens who owe them trust but greedily did not, and so witnessed MSNBC's David Schuster interviewing the bold bald head of Joe the Plumber, that…
drorzel | November 2, 2008
Tor.com / Science fiction and fantasy / Blog posts / World Fantasy Awards Winners!
Congratulations to all the winners.
(tags: books sf awards literature)
CDF Ghost Muons | Cosmic Variance
More thoughts on the maybe-a-particle, maybe-a-background-effect news from Fermilab.
(tags: science physics experiment particles news blogs)
The Happiness Project: Paradoxes of Happinesss: the sadness of a Happiness Project.
"One of my Secrets of Adulthood is "You can choose what you do, but you can't choose what you like to do." I have a lot of notions about what I wish I liked to do, of the subjects…
drorzel | November 1, 2008
Optics basics: Inverse problems « Skulls in the Stars
An advanced value of "basic," but a good post.
(tags: physics optics science blogs)
Freshman for Life
Blotchmen, in which Rorschach tries to find his missing plums.
(tags: comics books blogs art internet literature sf)
marnanel: And now, today's Blake joke
A literary LOLcat
(tags: literature poetry humanities silly pictures)
The Reality-Based Community: "Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor"
A good response to a nasty attack. It won't win fans among the "new atheist" crowd, but it doesn't need to.
(tags: politics…
drorzel | October 30, 2008
ICA Supreme Cuisine | Wii⢠& DSâ¢
Iron Chef America: The video game
(tags: food games television computing silly)
Setshot: Basketball for the Aging and Infirm: Careers: A 73 year-old college basketball player!
There's hope for me yet...
(tags: sports basketball blogs silly)
Mr. Dawkins, please report to the nearest shark tank, water skis in hand § Unqualified Offerings
More or less what I would've written, so thank Thoreau for sparing you my post.
(tags: religion politics books sf stupid)
Still Searching :: Inside Higher Ed :: Higher Education's Source for News, Views and Jobs
"…
drorzel | October 29, 2008
The Frontal Cortex : Dangerous Models
Why investment bankers are like cod fishermen
(tags: economics social-science science environment animals blogs computing theory)
Fear and Humiliation as Legitimate Teaching Methods :: Inside Higher Ed :: Higher Education's Source for News, Views and Jobs
Teaching lessons from World of Warcraft. Seriously.
(tags: academia education games internet psychology social-science)
Eight Ways To Survive The Next Eight Days Without Losing Your Frigging Mind - 236.com - News
"Force Yourself To Engage In One Non-Election Related Activity Every Day"
(tags:…
drorzel | October 28, 2008
Cognitive Daily: Should you let your toddler watch TV?
No, you dolt.
(tags: science psychology television kid-stuff)
The Bill Clinton President School - World Wide Web Homepage
"Aren't you tired of not being president?"
(tags: us politics onion silly internet)
Microsoft Ad Campaign Crashing Nation's Televisions | The Onion - America's Finest News Source
"The Microsoft ads, which began airing earlier this week, are being blamed for generating critical system errors in more than 70 million televisions."
(tags: onion microsoft silly internet computing)
Slate's interactive swing voter…