Referring to this story about how one unspayed cat can spawn 420,000 cats in 5 years, I wanted to see, just how stupid is this? Of course, it seems pretty stupid on a practical level. But that's not enough to say. There are a few parameters that are relevant in the model. Suppose we start …
Category Archive: General
Apr 13 2010
Penn and Teller Bullshit: A moment of truth?
I am not a gigantic fan of Bullshit, Penn and Teller's Showtime series in which they "are pit bulls for the truth, poised to tear down these myths in the most jaw-dropping fashion possible", according to their website. I have found their shows to be generally of two types: 1. Decent take-downs of low-hanging fruit …
Mar 29 2010
My Detractors (Winter 2009)
Here are the student evaluation comments on my Phys 8 (Physics for poets) class, unedited. I always come away from reading these ambivalent. Nobody ever says I'm stupid, which is nice, I guess. Most of the comments are something like "is arrogant" or "treats me like I'm stupid". I think maybe I need to learn …
Feb 18 2010
This is why I hate NBC
Skip to 5:10 for maximum rage/time. It's the 7th end, hammer rock, crucial shot for the US. Literally 1 second before the rock makes contact, they cut away to hockey. It's like if they cut away as the basketball was heading for the hoop at the buzzer. God dammit. (US lost, anyway.)
Dec 08 2009
Required reading: The cost of dying
60 Minutes ran a piece on the amount of money spent in the last 2 months of life. It's rationing that's irrational, according to the doctor interviewed. Great journalism, great example of what should be a bipartisan issue that has become a partisan one. Text of the story