The Twelve Man / Thirteen Man Problem
Eureka! I finally understand :-). The picture at the bottom, with the men reördered by height, did the trick for me.
So my daughter was excited about today’s Da Vinci Google logo; apparently they were talking about his birthday in art class today.
Should I be afraid that my 6-year old knows how to “Google”:http://www.google.com/ ?
posted at 8:02 pm on Friday, April 15, 2005 in Links, Personal | Comments (2)
13 things that do not make sense – Features
Everyone else has blogged about this by now, but what the heck:
New Scientist 13 things that do not make sense – Features
My favourite:
bq. 1 The placebo effect
bq. DON’T try this at home. Several times a day, for several days, you induce pain in someone. You control the pain with morphine until the final day of the experiment, when you replace the morphine with saline solution. Guess what? The saline takes the pain away.
bq. This is the placebo effect: somehow, sometimes, a whole lot of nothing can be very powerful. Except it’s not quite nothing. When Fabrizio Benedetti of the University of Turin in Italy carried out the above experiment, he added a final twist by adding naloxone, a drug that blocks the effects of morphine, to the saline. The shocking result? The pain-relieving power of saline solution disappeared.
Who woulda thunk it? An interesting twist on the usual “mind over matter” explanation…
posted at 1:03 am on Monday, March 21, 2005 in Current Events, Links | Comments (1)
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Jeff K says:
That’s a very nice article. There are movies out that explain some of those things. Unfortunately the most recent movie I saw was filled with errors and so was an introductory book on philosophy. It seems there are a lot of people who want to get outside of scientific reasoning because it’s “just philosophy”. A problem is the tendancy to solipsism, or something like it these folks have. For example, in this case, it appears the simple release of (a limited amount of) neurotransmitters (or maybe endorphins?) by action of imagination is taken by some to be evidence that their minds “create their own reality”. Alas, no new philosophy or metaphysics is required, just Occam’s Razor & chemistry. Pretty dull, huh? I can also prove solipsism is false in 2 sentences if you would like… hm, I think I just did.
Normally I’d provide a citation to the books & movies, but I’m too embarrassed to admit I read/saw them and they’re too innaccurate to act as true introductions to this.
Dummies
Dummies::Dungeons & Dragons For Dummies:Book Information
Next they’ll be letting just anyone play on the Internet…
posted at 9:40 am on Thursday, March 17, 2005 in Humour, Links | Comments (1)
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Huh — when I were a lad, if you had a troll chasing you with an ax, it were a _real_ troll, and you’d better pray you were faster!
Uphill both ways twenty miles in the snow with no boots on…
The Long Tail: Apple vs The World?
For 22 years, pundits have been predicting the demise of Apple (and in particular, of the Macintosh), because Apple never be #1 against Intel, Microsoft, and HP+Compaq/IBM/Dell.
I’ve been trying for almost as long to convince people that there’s nothing wrong with being content “owning” 10% of the marketplace (Apple’s consistent share of the personal computer space). But it’s a hard sell.
Now people are starting to talk about one factor contributing to Apple’s success:
Seth’s Blog: Thinking about the Long Tail (part 1)
“Seth’s blog: Where is the rainbow? (long tail, part 2)”:http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2005/03/where_is_the_ra.html
There are perfectly reasonable business models out in the Long Tail. And in the long run, I think companies working out in the tail will be more successful than those searching for the next “big hit”, or competing to stay on top of the puppy pile…
posted at 9:01 pm on Wednesday, March 16, 2005 in Links, Random Thoughts | Comments Off on The Long Tail: Apple vs The World?
The African Cliff
I knew it was bad over in Africa, but “this stunning graph”:http://www.marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2005/02/the_african_cli.html really drives it home. Check it out.
(via “Antipixel”:http://www.antipixel.com/blog/archives/2005/03/04/the_african_cliff.html)
posted at 8:07 pm on Thursday, March 10, 2005 in Current Events, Links | Comments Off on The African Cliff
braindead and games
When you’re as braindead as I am these days, “Tetris 1D”:http://www.tetris1d.org/ will appeal to you.
For a slightly harder time, try “Notepad Invaders”:http://robmanuel.blogspot.com/2005/02/notepad-invaders.html
posted at 12:24 am on Thursday, March 10, 2005 in Links | Comments Off on braindead and games
GeoURL
“It’s Back! Yay!”:http://geourl.org/near?p=http://blog.cfrq.net/chk/
posted at 11:45 pm on Sunday, February 27, 2005 in Links | Comments Off on GeoURL
technical gender
The debate over women in technical fields (in school) summarized:
bq. Reinventing the curriculum will not make me more interested in learning how my dishwasher works.
Well, I laughed…
via Philip Greenspun
posted at 11:34 pm on Friday, February 18, 2005 in Links | Comments (1)
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I’m not sure if it’s the same sort of excitement, but my 2 little girls (9 & 3) were literally jumping with excitement when they saw how “Pinnacle Studio 9” made videos and also yesterday I got her an MP3 player and the first thing she said when it was out of the box was “How do we get songs onto it” and I showed her how the ripper & explorer & USB cable worked. Certainly it’s higher level, but I almost read your post as wondering why someone didn’t learn which buttons to press to operate a dishwasher, which both girls learned at age 2.
I humbly submit that you have to UNlearn a bunch of stuff to design dishwashers and enjoy it. I expect my daughter to get a job where she says, “Okay *BOY* fire up AutoCad, source some motors, tubes, resin and sheet aluminum & rods and render me a dishwasher for the marketing department tout-suite!”
Cool Shirts
I’m not your damn search engine
“I’m someone’s fetish”:http://www.nonzerochance.com/index.php?p=buypage&design=fetish&style=kshirt
“polyamory is wrong!”:http://www.cafepress.com/captainwhimsy.16788296?zoom=yes#zoom (read the back :-)
The architect and the wiki
If you’re having trouble understanding why wikis are so useful, or having trouble explaining it to other people, try this story:
Monkeymagic: The architect and the wiki
bq. The moral of the story (which doesn’t really need saying): its better to start with a load of old crap than aim for an idealised version.
(via “Cutting Through”:http://feeds.feedburner.com/infosential/cdIB?m=130)
posted at 4:19 pm on Wednesday, February 02, 2005 in Links | Comments Off on The architect and the wiki
leahhttpd
It’s a small, lightweight webserver that speaks IPv6. But that’s irrelevant. I’m just in it for the “file not found error page”:http://leahhttpd.sourceforge.net/screens/screen3.png.
:-)
posted at 2:44 pm on Wednesday, February 02, 2005 in Links | Comments Off on leahhttpd
liberty
MSNBC – First Amendment no big deal, students say
bq. The way many high school students see it, government censorship of newspapers may not be a bad thing, and flag burning is hardly protected free speech.
bq. Yet, when told of the exact text of the First Amendment, more than one in three high school students said it goes “too far†in the rights it guarantees. Only half of the students said newspapers should be allowed to publish freely without government approval of stories.
Wow.
bq. They who would give up an essential liberty for temporary security, deserve neither liberty or security. — Ben Franklin
or even better:
bq. I disapprove of what you say, but will defend to the death your right to say it. — Voltaire
posted at 8:55 pm on Tuesday, February 01, 2005 in Current Events, Links | Comments (1)
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I saw that in the news too and was momentarily stunned when I read it. *This posting approved by the Ministry of Truth* It puzzles me that with a similar pluralty of high school students in the U.S. having tried illicit drugs, they would want to see *more* government intervention, but logic does not factor in here. This is an example of the “Tragic Vision” (that is, right-wing politics) at work. Apparently, when looked at as a “Tragic Vision” broad nationalistic and militaristic tendencies become compatible with individual liberty.
Then you realize that the story is couched in notoriously liberal terms by media outlets selling themselves so they picked the two best questions suited in this goal (“The Utopian vision”). End of mystery. (Well except for why young people are becoming right-wing)
Reference: Stephen Pinker, “The Blank Slate”, Chapter on Politics — Utopian vs. Tragic Vision, 2002. (NYT National Best seller 2002).
scalable enterprise marketing solution
Worthwhile: Oh why cahn’t the marketers … learn … to … speak
This sounds like the underpants gnomes:
1). Scalable Enterprise ? Solution
2).
3). Profit!
posted at 5:44 pm on Sunday, January 23, 2005 in Links | Comments (2)
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That’s one scary posting title. And I can so identify. When I worked for a dot.com, my supervisor was the head of Marketing. I often felt as if we were speaking different languages.
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Scalability is an important concept, however marketing is full of double-speak. Unfortunately, however, *every* technical field is loaded with evolving language. I found it funny watching a [otherwise unnotable] movie the other day where grandpa was talking about how he souped up his Dodge Charger to his grandson who had a souped up Japanese car and the grandson said, “You’re speaking a dead language grandpa”.
There are other more sinister word meaning changes I’ve found. What is “paranoia” to a layman is now “delusion” to a psychiatrist see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delusional_disorder
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delusional
(I checked that in 2 modern psychiatry texts, btw).That should be quite useful in flame wars, I’ll bet.. isn’t the evolution of language grand?
The Forehead Ticket Trick
What a fabulous idea! Works for airplane tickets and passports and similar items, too…
bq. So, you’re going to a ticketed event, like a concert or a ball game. It’s out of town. You’re carpooling with four other people. How do you ensure that everyone in the car has their ticket with them?
bq. The car doesn’t move until each person takes out their ticket and holds it to their forehead.
(quoted from 43 Folders: The Forehead Ticket Trick)
posted at 10:51 pm on Monday, January 03, 2005 in Favourites, Links, Odd | Comments Off on The Forehead Ticket Trick
Why does the shower curtain blow up and in instead of down and out?
The Straight Dope: Why does the shower curtain blow up and in instead of down and out?
I always thought it was convection; hot air rising out the top of the shower stall sucks the curtain in. But it turns out that cold showers do the same thing, thanks to the Coanda effect.
You learn something new every day :-)
posted at 12:29 pm on Friday, December 24, 2004 in Links, Science and Technology | Comments Off on Why does the shower curtain blow up and in instead of down and out?
Maybe we’ll win after all…
Apparently we’ve developed cochroach contraceptives:
The Straight Dope: Is it possible to control bugs by making them sterile?
Can you see a difference?
The Straight Dope: What’s the difference between apple juice and apple cider?
Summary: the differences ranges from “none” to “extremely little”…
posted at 12:20 pm on Friday, December 24, 2004 in Links | Comments Off on Can you see a difference?
MT Plus Comment Spam Equals Dead Site
I’ve experience the problems described here: The Daily Whim: MT Plus Comment Spam Equals Dead Site
Several times we’ve woken up to a dead cfrq.net server, and (ignoring one disk crash) it’s always been runaway Movable Type comment scripts causing the system to thrash, until some important process gets killed because of the resulting out-of-memory condition. It invariably happens on a Saturday, which means we all get to wait until Monday morning for the server to get manually rebooted.
I’ve installed countermeasures in the past:
* I’ve renamed the comments script
* I close comments automatically after two weeks
* “Comment SPAM interlocking”:http://blog.cfrq.net/chk/archives/2003/10/14/comments-spam-interlock/
And still, I see a constant, steady stream of comment spam that gets posted, even to postings that are closed to comments!
So far my WordPress blog is getting fewer hits, but it’s only a matter of time until the spammers find that one…
*sigh.
posted at 5:54 pm on Tuesday, December 14, 2004 in Links, Miscellaneous, Security | Comments (1)
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Comments have been disabled
Due to a huge influx of comment spam, I have disabled comments on tnir. This affects all blogs hosted on tnir, including Luisa’s and David’s. If you try to post a ccomment, it will let you type it in, but when you click “post” it will give you some…
Boing Boing: S’mores Nativity kit
I saw it, I had to share:
posted at 5:46 pm on Tuesday, December 14, 2004 in Links | Comments Off on Boing Boing: S’mores Nativity kit
These days, I think you should be afraid if she _doesn’t_. ;-)
Y’know in the early 90’s retailers were avoiding programs that required much typing and also totally shunned mice (because the employees they hired had no such skills). Today, computers are in day cares all over the place. As for worries? Well my 9 year old asked me how to make the SIMS2 families have babies (!!!) but in the sense of bringing a baby into the family to take care of! Auuuuggghhh. The 3 year old said, “Make him go potty” about one of the characters in SIMS2. Google ain’t the half of it. But you can be afraid. It’s the parent thing to do.