Rants, Raves, and Rhetoric v4

Tag: wikipedia

  • links for 2007-07-05

    Glimpse of Time Before Big Bang Possible – Yahoo! News “To see how far into history one might gaze, theoretical physicist Martin Bojowald at Pennsylvania State University ran calculations based on loop quantum gravity, one of a number of competing theories seeking to explain how the underlying structure of th (tags: cosmology science.astronomy universe science…

  • Happy Father’s Day

    No matter the amount of contributions of nature or nurture, my father contributed significantly to who I am today. How to think and solve my way through problems was something he was always encouraging (or forcing) me to do. He gave me deep books to read. Hearing him tell me how proud he is of…

  • False Positives

    It’s often argued that the high false positive rate proves the system is poorly run or even useless. This is not necessarily the case. In running a system like this, we necessarily trade off false positives against false negatives. We can lower either kind of error, but doing so will increase the other kind. The…

  • I’ve been tagged

    By George [here] to post seven facts about me. I am the product of miscegenation. I read when I eat alone. There are 455 contacts in my instant messenger. Three of my four grandparents died before the age of 55. My height is 191.5 cm. No one else has my name in Google. (First entry…

  • Godwin’s Law

    Godwin’s Law: As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one. Wowsers…

  • Reactions

    The Athens NEWS: Athens’ Only Locally Owned Newspaper: Ohio University would be safer with concealed weapons on campus if those gaining such a permit had to be subjected to a strict screening process that included an annual mental-health checkup; criminal background check; and training in said firearms use, marksmanship and safety, including an inspection of…

  • Is the Media Left, Right, or Does It Even Matter?

    Newspaper x is Liberal (aka favors the Democrat Party). Television show y is Conservative (aka favors the Republican Party). Neither claims to be biased. Both claim to be party neutral. You could go back 210 years and change x to the Federalist Party (y would need to be another newspaper), but the result is that…

  • No More Public Anonymous Photos

    Early in the history of the WWW, people thought a document which did not have an inbound link, a link from some external location to the file, was private. Search engines looked for content on web sites in locations for which there was not a link already pointing. To truly respect the privacy of those…

  • Unplugged for the Holidays

    How to spend a long holiday weekend – Lifehacker: Whether or not you celebrate Christmas, most likely you’ve got the day off this coming Monday. I hope you’ll spend it doing as little as possible. Forget the email, the IM, the RSS feeds, the Google searches, what Wikipedia has to say about the origins of…