1711
New
The latest blog posts to take off on Hacker News. 2,038 posts.
1712
Melting aluminum
Today another in my ongoing, seldom-updated series of posts about building my own backyard foundry. Today I’ll describe how the final step works: actually melting and pouring the metal. First…
1713
Correlation is usually not causation. But why not?
Correlations are oft interpreted as evidence for causation; this is oft falsified; do causal graphs explain why this is so common, because the number of possible indirect paths greatly exceeds the direct paths necessary for useful manipulation?
1714
Isolating Football Player Movement by Eliminating Camera Motion
Note: This post departs from the general format used on this blog. That's because the post is not about a specific analysis I've done bu...
1715
1716
Helmhurts: Placing a WiFi router with the Helmholtz equation
A few posts back I was concerned with optimising the WiFi reception in my flat, and I chose a simple method for calculating the distribution of electromagnetic intensity. I casually mentioned that I really should be doing things more rigorously by solving the Helmholtz equation, but then didn't. Well, spurred on by a…
1717
An Example of Forensic Science at Its Worst: US v. Brig. Gen. Jeffrey Sinclair
In early 2014, I provided material support in what would end up turning around what was, in their own words, the US Army’s biggest case in a generation, and much to the dismay of the prosecution team that brought me in to assist them. In the process, it seems I also prevented what the evidence pointed to as an…
1718
AAAS Blocking Access to the Scientific Literature When They Say It Is “Free”
A blog about microbiology, genomics and metagenomics, sequencing, evolution, ecology, and open science.
1719
An Iron Curtain Has Descended Upon Psychopharmacology
Imagine if a chemist told you offhandedly that the Russians had different chemical elements than we did. Here in America, we use elements like lithium and silicon and bismuth. We have figured out l…
1720
Green Arabia
It was a dark day when Islam met the loudspeaker. All travelers to the Middle East discover that this normally self-assured religion gets insecure in the small hours of night and feels it has to rehearse its foundational beliefs, in public, at 190 dB.
1721
Beware Isolated Demands For Rigor
I. From Identity, Personal Identity, and the Self by John Perry:”There is something about practical things that knocks us off our philosophical high horses. Perhaps Heraclitus really thought …
1722
Computational Knowledge and the Future of Pure Mathematics
Proposing technology for pure mathematics: curating concepts, constructs, theorems, & literature; precise symbolic language; automated computations...
1723
SSRIs: Much More Than You Wanted To Know
The claim that “SSRIs don’t work” or “SSRIs are mostly just placebo” is most commonly associated with Irving Kirsch, a man with the awesome job title of “Associa…
1724
A Nuclear Probe to Explore Earth’s Interior
Our knowledge of the composition and structure of the Earth’s interior through direct observation and sampling is limited to the top few ki...
1725
Why cans of soup are shaped the way they are
What is special about cylinders, and why do they have specific aspect ratios?
1726
1727
GPS and Relativity
People often ask me "What good is Relativity?" It is a commonplace to think of Relativity as an abstract and highly arcane mathematical theory that has no consequences for everyday life. This is in fact far from the truth.
1728
1729
Cylinders in Spheres
What is the largest volume cylinder it is possible to carve from a solid sphere? Also, so you know about the napkin ring problem?
1730
The Disappearing Universe
Even at the speed of light, you’ll never reach these galaxies.
1731
1732
The Largest Black Hole in the Known Universe
It’s a huge surprise, and shows up in the most unlikely of places!
1733
The Colors of Chemistry
This notebook documents my exploration of color theory and its applications to photochemistry. It also shows off the functionality of several Julia packages: Color.jl for color theory and colorimetry, SIUnits.jl for unitful computations, and Gadfly.jl for graph plotting.
1734
Selection bias and bombers (2008)
During WWII, statistician Abraham Wald told the RAF to add armor where it didn't seem planes needed it. But he was right.
1735
NFL players: height and weight over time
An animated look at just how much bigger NFL players have gotten over time.
1736
Explanation of 44.1 kHz CD sampling rate
The CD sampling rate has to be larger than about 40 kHz to fulfill the Nyquist criterion that requires sampling at twice the maximum analog frequency, which is about 20 kHz for audio. The sampling frequency is chosen somewhat higher than the Nyquist rate since practical filters neede to prevent aliasing have a finite…
1737
Why I Am Not An Integrated Information Theorist (or, The Unconscious Expander)
Happy birthday to me! Recently, lots of people have been asking me what I think about IIT—no, not the Indian Institutes of Technology, but Integrated Information Theory, a widely-discussed &#…
1738
1739
1740
Rat Park drug experiment cartoon
Comic about a classic experiment into drug addiction science: Rat Park. Would rats take drugs if given a stimulating environment and company?