October 2011
40 posts
On a fine autumn day, three mathematicians go duck hunting
via rodica:
Sighting their first duck in flight, the _applied mathematician_ carefully calculates his angle of fire, correcting for gravity and wind velocity, and pulls the trigger. Forgetting to correct his path for the acceleration of the duck, he misses to the right.
The _pure mathematician_ takes aim, calculating his trajectory based on the apparent motion of the duck, velocity of his projectile and the curvature of the earth. Forgetting to correct for air friction, he misses to the left.
The _statistician_ jumps out of his seat and exclaims:
We got him!
— Francis Chang
Visualizing Yahoo Email in Real Time
Here is a cool page where yahoo shows you the email it is processing in real time. It includes a visualization of the most popular words in emails at a given time. A pretty neat tool and definitely good for procrastination.
The cabal of three bio-statistics professors running the new Simply Statistics tumblr weren’t terribly impressed with this Yahoo! real-time data visualization.
Upon closer inspection, it becomes more interesting, specifically the spam count feature. Go ahead, have a look: visualize.yahoo.com.
Listen
Duran Duran
Hungry Like The Wolf | Duran Duran
Ten Simple Rules for Getting Help from Online Scientific Communities →
ploscompbiol.org
via neverendingaudit:
How to learn decades of netiquette in ten easy steps.
Every line of this brief article* was worthwhile. Don’t be put off from reading it because of the category (as I was, initially). It was listed in Computational Biology.
There won’t be any revelations about etiquette for most of us, for example:
… it is crucial that you not permit the discussion to degenerate into an argument. Even if you receive an impolite answer, stay calm and answer as gently as you can.
Yet I have rarely seen these ideas codified in such a straightforward, generally applicable framework as in this article.
* Full text. It is open access, free, no pay wall to scale.
Ze log: Goodbye to working class solidarity →
lelapin.tumblr.com
Via Fourre-tout
Goodbye to working class solidarity, The real wage gaps are the highest for unskilled workers. In the mid-19th century, it made sense to talk of the common interests of workers of all countries. The Communist Manifesto’s famous call to workers of all countries to…
“… during difficult economic times, many people misunderstand capitalism, and rationalize “a do what it takes” mindset that is ultimately self-defeating. We need the SEC, the EPA, transparent operations, a free press that cares about its mission and people willing and able to speak up [because] they make it expensive to choose the short-term option.”
—
Seth Godin, Short-term capitalism via wka
Emphasis on “the SEC, the EPA, transparent operations, a free press”: Yes! Believe, or govern, as you wish. But as long as those basics are active, enforced consistently, without bias, much of the rest will fall into place.
* There is no shortage of people willing and able to speak up. Unfortunately, it is hard to tell what part to listen to sometimes… Be that as it may, it is preferable to the alternative.
S#*@ scientists say →
boingboing.net
via Boing Boing
Kern Type: An HTML5 kerning game →
type.method.ac
Yes, this is a typography game. Yes, it was fun.
Did you know that you've been hellbanned from hacker news? Right from the first post, so it's probably an issue of manners there, the rest of your posts at a glance look fine. Probably should make another account.
I finally found out why every item I ever submitted to Hacker News disappeared. Thanks to this kind soul.
If he hadn’t told me, another 503 days would have passed, of being at -1, forever alone. My mind can rest easier now.
