December 2011
15 posts
How we think
My mother-in-law was driving our family back from a day trip to Joshua Tree National Park (awesome, by the way, and the night sky view there is spec-tac-ular), when suddenly we heard a “thup-thup-thupping” sound coming from beneath the car. My mother-in-law had blown two tires in the past few months, so her first thought was “oh no, is the tire flat again?”
But wait,...
Reminder: Tis the Season Not to Be an Ass –... →
I dislike militant Christians and atheists alike, and John Scalzi says what I think:
But — but — what about all those horrible atheists taking over holiday displays with crucified Santa skeletons? Surely that’s evidence of a war! Well, no, it’s evidence of some non-believers taking a page out of the PETA playbook, i.e., being dicks to get attention and to make a point. I do strongly suspect...
PSA: Stop everything and go watch →
The trailer for Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit is out on Apple’s site.
Science museums for adults →
The Nature Research Center sounds like a pretty neat idea, part presentation space and part lab science space:
At regular intervals during the day, scientists will present to NRC
visitors using the cutting edge technology and media of the SECU
Daily Planet and its 40×40-foot, high-definition screen.
….
The NRC features research labs where scientists from the Museum,
UNC...
Users Know: STFU About What Women Want →
A good response to the really strange blog post by Penelope Trunk:
When a publication like TechCrunch spews some
nonsense about what women want, it means that the
next time I go into an interview with a male founder
(and they are overwhelmingly male for some reason
that I’m not going to address here, but that Penelope
assures us has nothing to do with bias) who has read
that...
Low Expectations →
Matt Gemmell:
The keyboard, touchpad and screen are the computer, in
terms of what you’re directly interacting with. So every part
you’re going to interface with is notably substandard. Right.
You’d assume that the final rating would duly castigate the
manufacturer, but it’s actually 7.8 (presumably out of ten).
Kind of sad, really.
Selective use of technology — The Endeavour →
In his book The Nine, Jeffrey Toobin gives a few details of
Supreme Court Justice David Souter’s decidedly low-tech
life. Souter has no cell phone or voice mail. He does not
use email. He was given a television once but never turned
it on. He moves his chair around his office throughout the
day so he can read by natural light. Toobin says Souter
lives something like an eighteenth...
Oblivious Supreme Court poised to legalize medical... →
This is crazy:
The case focuses on a patent that covers the concept of adjusting the dosage
of a drug, thiopurine, based on the concentration of a particular chemical
(called a metabolite) in the patient’s blood. The patent does not cover the drug
itself—that patent expired years ago—nor does it cover any specific machine or
procedure for measuring the metabolite level. Rather,...
Five Sci-Fi Children's Books That Should be... →
These ideas are amazing and spot-on, and the cover art is well done.
The Innumeracy of Educators, or Mark Twain Was... →
Chad Orzel has some examples of the types of math questions that Orange County school board member Rick Roach couldn’t answer on a standardized test. It’s crazy how simple those questions are, and that Rick Roach couldn’t get any of them correct without guessing is embarrassing.
Writes Chad:
This is yet another demonstration of a problem I’ve been banging on about for...
Don't be a Free User →
A nice rant against free web services. I particularly like the distinction he makes between free software and free web services:
I love free software and could not have built my site without it. But free web services are not like free software. If your free software project suddenly gets popular, you gain resources: testers, developers and people willing to pitch in. If your free website takes...
Evolution always wins. Always. →
If you don’t pay your respects to natural selection and the population biologists that study it, you’ll get burned:
So a scientific advisory panel urged the Environmental Protection Agency to strengthen the second line of defense against resistance, and demand large refuges on non-Bt corn. They proposed that farmers be allowed to plant Bt corn with this new gene on no more than...
The Reason Android is Laggy →
I am not an Android developer, so I have no way to verify what this guy is saying. That said, it does sound quite plausible:
It’s not GC pauses. It’s not because Android runs bytecode and iOS
runs native code. It’s because on iOS all UI rendering occurs in a
dedicated UI thread with real-time priority. On the other hand, Android
follows the traditional PC model of rendering occurring on...
Introducing Evernote Clearly: One Click for... →
Looks like Instapaper and Readability are getting even more competition.
(via sophiashares)