Polls and predictions (2012/10/30)
The election season is fascinating for math geeks, because it’s full of numbers, and numbers about numbers, and numbers about numbers about numbers.
[read more...]Wow, thanks. It really is wonderful to be understood and appreciated. (2012/10/25)
Okay, this is a year old and all, but I only found it today. Apparently, according to someone who has letters after his name and is thus more important than I am, Teaching empathy to someone with autism/Asperger’s is almost like teaching a pig to sing - it is a waste of time and annoys the pig (at least most of the time).
[read more...]Standing room only... (2012/10/24)
I’ve seen one too many news stories about how it’s bad for us to sit all the time. I now have a standing desk. It’s a little wobbly, so I’ll have to add some supports to it, which means a hardware store trip. Planning to add four corner supports to it. Initial feedback, yes my feet hurt, but I feel otherwise quite a lot better. I’ve always liked to pace when thinking, and this gets me some of the benefits of pacing without the difficulty reaching the keyboard.
[read more...]Logic puzzle time! (2012/10/22)
Okay, so. There are three doors, two hiding goats, one hiding a car. You pick a door. The host now picks another door, revealing a goat. Should you switch? The answer is, of course, that if you switch, there is a one in three chance that you find the unexpected tiger.
Gricean Maxims, and why I have trouble with them... (2012/10/16)
A while back, I commented on Romney’s “Keep America American”. At least one person told me that I had given the impression that I thought that the people who liked this slogan were racists; this confused the heck out of me, because I thought what I said was that racists liked the slogan, and that I believe it was constructed the way it was in order to appeal to them.
[read more...]I guess you're in big trouble, then. (2012/10/16)
Burying cats: Humans are not sane. (2012/10/15)
Jesse’s cat Maya died today. She was 15ish. Our friend Aud had a cat named Penny, who also died today, so we dug them a grave. It turns out this is a lot of work. Our back yard has fairly dense dirt, full of rocks and tree roots, and it is really hard to get dirt out of a deep hole with a shovel. (We now own a shop vac.)
[read more...]Skin in the game (2012/09/29)
The phrase “skin in the game” comes in and out of fashion. I always rather liked it; it’s evocative.
[read more...]Forced password resets: you're doing it wrong (2012/09/23)
For the most part, I really like Dropbox, but it seems to me that their recent decision to roll out forced password changes is… poorly implemented.
[read more...]Romney's 47%: The distinction between factual and truthful (2012/09/23)
You’ve probably seen it by now:
[read more...]