It’s always kind of distressing to find something you agree with being said by people who also espouse views you find nutty, repulsive, or reprehensible. It doesn’t make them any less right, but it makes it a little more difficult to be associated with those views. So, for instance, there’s this broadside against ineffective math […]
Month: November 2009
Links for 2009-11-18
Zeroth Order Approximation: Summary dismissal “Not every civil court case proceeds to trial. Some are settled “out of court” by the parties involved. Others are settled by the judge in a “summary dismissal” or “summary judgment”. The suit is deemed to be unworthy of trial, even without a full hearing. In this way valuable time […]
Dorky Poll: How Do You Say That?
As every physics-loving dog knows, the idea that electrons behave like waves was first suggested by Loius Victor Pierre Raymond de Broglie (the 7th duc de Broglie) in 1923. The proper pronunciation of his surname is a mystery even to human physicists, though. So, how would you say it? Louis Victor Pierre Raymond de Broglie’s […]
There’s No Cloning in Football
Sunday night, the Patriots lost a heartbreaker to the Colts 35-34. The talk of the sports world yesterday was Bill Belichick’s decision to go for it on fouth-and-two on his own 28 yard line when he was up by six with just over two minutes to play. They didn’t get the first down, and turned […]
Physics Is Going to the Dogs
There’s been an independent rediscovery of the notion of using dogs to explain physics, as you can see in this YouTube video of Golden Retrievers explaining the structure of atoms: Emmy thinks she should get royalties, in the form of cheese. But then, she thinks that about everything…
Links for 2009-11-17
Why Wine Ratings Are Badly Flawed – WSJ.com “[A] 1996 study in the Journal of Experimental Psychology showed that even flavor-trained professionals cannot reliably identify more than three or four components in a mixture, although wine critics regularly report tasting six or more. There are eight in this description, from The Wine News of a […]
Companions in Zealous Research
Blogging has been light of late because I was in the Houston area for the weekend, at the annual meeting of Sigma Xi, the scientific research honor society (think Phi Beta Kappa, but for science nerds). Every chapter is required to send a representative to the annual meeting at least once every three years, and […]
Links for 2009-11-16
Michael Nielsen » The Wikipedia Paradox “To determine whether any given subject deserves an entry, Wikipedia uses the criterion of notability. This lead to an interesting question: Question 1: What’s the most notable subject that’s not notable enough for inclusion in Wikipedia? Let’s assume for now that this question has an answer (“The Answer”), and […]
Links for 2009-11-15
10 Geeky Laws That Should Exist, But Don’t | GeekDad | Wired.com “1. Munroe’s Law: A person in a geeky argument who can quote xkcd to support his position automatically wins the argument. This law supersedes Godwin, so that even if the quote is about Hitler, the quoter still wins.” (tags: science culture books internet […]
Links for 2009-11-14
WTF, Aerosmith? WTF? | Popdose “Never has there been a band so unbelievably great and so sadly shitty at the same time. That, to me, is the Aerosmith legacy, and it’s only bound to get worse. Yet, there is something that still seems sacred about this band, beyond mere nostalgia. I just think they need […]