Chris study now...
(back around Nov. 8)
Wednesday, November 01, 2006
Monday, October 30, 2006
Time Zones: Coordination vs Sunlight
In response to the recent changes to and from daylight savings time that have taken place across the globe, Tim Harford has a nice piece in Slate examining the tension between maximising coordination and maximising available sunlight.
Harford cites recent work undertaken by researchers in the U.S. looking at the effect of time zones on coordination, with some unsettling results:
"Rather depressingly, David Letterman outshines the sun in his effect on what people are doing. Push the television schedules an hour later and 5 percent of people will be watching television later—nearly a third of those actually watching the television. But if sunset is an hour later (because the individual is at the western end of a time zone), only half of 1 percent of people will watch later television."
Sad.
"Would the United States be better of with only one time zone?" - Tim Harford
(via Slate)
Harford cites recent work undertaken by researchers in the U.S. looking at the effect of time zones on coordination, with some unsettling results:
"Rather depressingly, David Letterman outshines the sun in his effect on what people are doing. Push the television schedules an hour later and 5 percent of people will be watching television later—nearly a third of those actually watching the television. But if sunset is an hour later (because the individual is at the western end of a time zone), only half of 1 percent of people will watch later television."
Sad.
"Would the United States be better of with only one time zone?" - Tim Harford
(via Slate)
Friday, October 27, 2006
Some Hope Post-Bush?
An interesting little piece by Jacob Weisberg appeared in Slate today. It details some of the political buzz surrounding potential Democrat presidential candidate Barack Obama. Obama seems to be defining a new, fairly left-wing, path for Democratic presidential candidates to follow.It certainly gives one hope that there may be some end to the continuing rightward shift of mainstream politics in Western countries. Still, let's not get carried away just yet.
"Obama's new rules" - Jacob Weisberg
(via Slate)
A Return to the Riots?
Nice textured article by John Lichfield today in the Independent reflecting on the French riots a year after their occurrence. Lichfield deals well with the complexity of the issues involved. In particular, he argues (convincingly, in my opinion) that the riots were not actually race-based as many claimed, but rather that those involved were united by their lack of opportunity and poor living conditions.
"The Outsiders: John Lichfield in the Banlieues - one year on"
"The Outsiders: John Lichfield in the Banlieues - one year on"
Thursday, October 26, 2006
Vegemite Ban A False Alarm
Looks like reports regarding the supposed Vegemite ban in the U.S. might have been a little exaggerated. Torie Bosch reports here that the U.S. have denied that it has/will be banned. Probably just a case of some overzealous customs officials taking a dislike to some of my fellow countrymen.
Go back to your lives people.
"Is Vegemite banned in the United States?" - Torie Bosch
(via Slate)
Previousy: Vegemite Banned
Go back to your lives people.
"Is Vegemite banned in the United States?" - Torie Bosch
(via Slate)
Previousy: Vegemite Banned
Wednesday, October 25, 2006
If You're Going to Commit a Crime in the US, Make it BIG!
Two fascinating, but extremely scary, articles by William Glaberson appeared in the New York Times recently. In them Glaberson exposes the arbitrary nature of justice in the tiny courts of New York State. It turns out that no legal qualifications are required of justices in these courts - just successful completion (assessed by means of a true or false test) of the six days of training they are provided with by the state!
The stories that emerge from the proceedings are quite chilling:
"Outside Rochester, in Le Roy, a justice who is still in office concocted false statements, state officials said, to help immigration officials deport a Hispanic migrant worker in 2003. Although the man had pleaded not guilty to trespassing, the town justice, Charles E. Dusen, issued a court order saying he had been convicted. In an interview, Justice Dusen said he tried to right his wrong after the worker’s lawyer complained. But the man was still deported."
Great (disturbing) stuff.
The articles:
In Tiny Courts of N.Y., Abuses of Law and Power
Delivering Small-Town Justice With a Mix of Trial and Error
(via Freakonomics blog)
Look out Tae Bo, it's the Shovelglove Workout!
Hilarious DIY fitness site advocating the use of a "shovelglove". What's a shoveglove I hear you ask? I'll leave the description to the site: "Take a sledgehammer and wrap an old sweater around it. This is your shovelglove." Absolute gold.
The Shovelglove Homepage
(via Lifehacker)
A Full-Face Veil is Rude?!
A completely ridiculous article by Anne Applebaum turned up in my RSS feed from Slate today (yes, we're going through a bit of a rough patch, but I know that Slate and I can get through this).
In it Applebaum actually tries to argue that Muslim women should remove their full-face veils in certain situations (such as when employed as teaching assistant for example). She argues for this by claiming that it is analagous to westerners covering up when entering a temple in ceratin countries.
However, these two situations differ in one crucial respect: there is no deep moral principle behind the decision of the Westerner to dress in a particular way that may be seen as offensive inside a temple, whereas, in most cases, there is a deep religious conviction behind a Muslim woman's decision to don a full-face veil. Thus, to ask a Muslim woman to remove her veil is offensive in a way that asking a Westerner to cover up when entering a temple is not.
"Removing a full-face veil at work is simply a matter of politeness." - Anne Applebaum
(via Slate)
In it Applebaum actually tries to argue that Muslim women should remove their full-face veils in certain situations (such as when employed as teaching assistant for example). She argues for this by claiming that it is analagous to westerners covering up when entering a temple in ceratin countries.
However, these two situations differ in one crucial respect: there is no deep moral principle behind the decision of the Westerner to dress in a particular way that may be seen as offensive inside a temple, whereas, in most cases, there is a deep religious conviction behind a Muslim woman's decision to don a full-face veil. Thus, to ask a Muslim woman to remove her veil is offensive in a way that asking a Westerner to cover up when entering a temple is not.
"Removing a full-face veil at work is simply a matter of politeness." - Anne Applebaum
(via Slate)
Tuesday, October 24, 2006
Orby Goodness
On a more positive note, check out this cool little gizmo from ambient devices. The Ambient Orb glows a different colour depending on the state of some data source (e.g. stock prices go up - orb glow green, stock prices go down - orb glows red). And even more cool: it's wireless and you don't need anything else to run it.
The downside: the wireless network it gets the data from is US only (stupid lone superpower).
(via engadget)
Can You Say Exploitation?
This article in the Sydney Morning Herald illustrates pretty well the negative aspects of the new media in Australia. In it, the authors (Jordan Baker, Cosmina Mariiner and Jonathan Pearlman) attempt to argue that a law against P-platers being allowed on the road at night, recently rejected by the NSW government, would have prevented the recent tragedy near Byron Bay.
The law may or may not lead to a reduction in the road toll, but the authors' attempt to manipulate the grief in the community in order to argue (in a most specious way) for the adoption of the law is outrageous. (At the risk of sounding a little HInch-like.) Those involved should be ashamed.
"Dumped: the law that would have saved them" - Sydney Morning Herald
The law may or may not lead to a reduction in the road toll, but the authors' attempt to manipulate the grief in the community in order to argue (in a most specious way) for the adoption of the law is outrageous. (At the risk of sounding a little HInch-like.) Those involved should be ashamed.
"Dumped: the law that would have saved them" - Sydney Morning Herald
Gollum and The D
Great YouTube video of Andy Serkis as Gollum/Smeagol and Tenacious D doing "You're the one that I want" from Grease!
Monday, October 23, 2006
Economic Rationalism & Australian Farms
A nice piece by Tim Hughes appeared in the Courier Mail today on the Howard government's policy regarding drought-affected farmers. He deals with several issues that have been on my mind over the last few days (although I'm sure he discusses them much more eloquently than I could), as well as raising many more. The main problem seems to be that critical rational judgement is taking a backseat in the government's decisions on these matters and this isn't going to help things in the long run. (Probably quite a good example of the tension between rational and political thought.)Tim Hughes - Rational Policies Vanish
Hands Off Our Space, Commies!
Interesting (if somewhat partisan) article on George W.'s new space policy over at TimesOnline.
"The eyecatching declaration is that the US asserts the right to deny access to space to anyone “hostile to US interests”, although it gives no basis for that right. It also rejects arms control talks that would limit future US actions in space."
Sigh. Life's going to be so boring once George W. stands down (or is it...).
(via Google News)
Vegemite Banned
Vegemite has been banned in the US, supposedly because it contains folate (which they think is only okay in breads and cereals). I suspect the real reason is that one too many smart-arse Aussies have smeared a thick layer of the stuff on a bit of bread and handed to a US friend accompanied by the words "here mate, have a go at this, it's a local delicacy" (if you're in the US, have Vegemite, and haven't tried this, I highly reccomend it - just make sure you have a camera and/or a bucket handy).
Just as long as they stay away from my Promite everything will be just fine.
(via BoingBoing)
Sunday, October 22, 2006
Dave McKean
If anyone could tear me away from the love of my life (thinking of you Slate), it'd be Dave McKean. It's not just the beautiful darkness of his work that appeals to me, it's also the sheer imagination inherent in it and the way he makes it seem as if the realm of fantasy isn't that far removed from that it which we dwell. (It could also have something to do with his association with one of my favouritest authors ever, Neil Gaiman.)Online gallery of some of Dave's work.
Wikipedia on Mr. McKean.
Dave's own commercial site.
Saturday, October 21, 2006
Iraqi Death Toll - Part Two
Another thought-provoking article on the Johns Hopkins University Iraqi death toll figures (as reported in the Lancet) turned up in my Slate feed today. This time written by Fred Kaplan.
Kaplan gets much more into a detailed criticism of the statistical techniques used. In particular, he argues that the sampling methodology is problematic: "In statistically proper random surveys, each household has the same probability of being chosen. Yet in the Lancet survey, if a household wasn't on or near a main road, it had zero chance of being chosen. And "cluster samples" cannot be seen as representative of the entire population unless they are chosen randomly."
Combine this with the criticisms offered by Hitchens discussed here yesterday and there is little doubt that the death toll figure arrived at is inaccurate at best.
(via Slate [and for those following our affair, there will be an Autumn wedding])
Previously: Hitchens on the Iraqi death toll.
Kaplan gets much more into a detailed criticism of the statistical techniques used. In particular, he argues that the sampling methodology is problematic: "In statistically proper random surveys, each household has the same probability of being chosen. Yet in the Lancet survey, if a household wasn't on or near a main road, it had zero chance of being chosen. And "cluster samples" cannot be seen as representative of the entire population unless they are chosen randomly."
Combine this with the criticisms offered by Hitchens discussed here yesterday and there is little doubt that the death toll figure arrived at is inaccurate at best.
(via Slate [and for those following our affair, there will be an Autumn wedding])
Previously: Hitchens on the Iraqi death toll.
The Art of Mathematics
Justin Mullins creates works of art based on mathematics. They make me feel warm and fuzzy inside. (Which probably says something rather worrying about me now that I come to think of it...)
Works are available from Justin's site here.
Masters on Jones
Some lengthy excerpts from Chris Masters' much anticipated (thanks to the furore over the ABC's decision not to publish) book on Alan Jones are online over at the Sydney Morning Herald. His analysis is a little too multi-faceted to benefit from summary here, so why don't you just head over and read it?
A (nerdy) Glimpse of the Future?
Cool little roundup of reviews of the new Sony Reader over at Engadget. Overall, it doesn't look that good - the e-books available for it are expensive, the interface is a bit clunky, and apparently it has trouble dealing with certain types of acrobat file.
Still, props to Sony for actually taking the first step into this new technology. I think that I'll be waiting a while before doing the whole e-book thing though.
(via Engadget obviously)
Friday, October 20, 2006
Questioning the Iraqi Death Toll
Another good thought-provoking article in Slate (you really should go there and check it out, there's a tonne of worthwhile stuff to be discovered) by Christopher Hitchens. Well written and logically argued, I don't always agree with Hitchens' arguments but they're always worth a read.
In this one Hitchens questions the accuracy and the usefulness of the Iraqi war death toll figure published recently in the Lancet by researchers at Johns Hopkins University: 654,965. Firstly, there is the question of how such an exact figure was determined, as someone who has studied my fair share of statistics I must say that I find such a result unlikely to the point of impossibility, there must be some error margin involved. It seems to call into question then the motivation of the authors, was the research undertaken in the spirit of unbiased scientific inquiry or were there more partisan, political influences involved?
The second point that needs to be made is that the figure reported purports to give the number of deaths as consequence of the war. We are not talking here just about deaths directly consequent from the actions of coalition forces but also about deaths resulting from the actions of insurgents. Indeed, as Hitchens points out "less than one-third of the surplus deaths are attributed, even by this study, to "Allied" military action." Given this I have to agree with Hitchens' point that one might have expected a little more care in the reporting of this story by the media (or perhaps not, depending on your level of cynicism).
In case you missed the links earlier, the article can be found here.
In this one Hitchens questions the accuracy and the usefulness of the Iraqi war death toll figure published recently in the Lancet by researchers at Johns Hopkins University: 654,965. Firstly, there is the question of how such an exact figure was determined, as someone who has studied my fair share of statistics I must say that I find such a result unlikely to the point of impossibility, there must be some error margin involved. It seems to call into question then the motivation of the authors, was the research undertaken in the spirit of unbiased scientific inquiry or were there more partisan, political influences involved?
The second point that needs to be made is that the figure reported purports to give the number of deaths as consequence of the war. We are not talking here just about deaths directly consequent from the actions of coalition forces but also about deaths resulting from the actions of insurgents. Indeed, as Hitchens points out "less than one-third of the surplus deaths are attributed, even by this study, to "Allied" military action." Given this I have to agree with Hitchens' point that one might have expected a little more care in the reporting of this story by the media (or perhaps not, depending on your level of cynicism).
In case you missed the links earlier, the article can be found here.
A Case Against Charity?
Interesting article from Slate in which Tim Harford claims to argue that charity is selfish.
It appears to me that he actually argues for two things: firstly, that people's motivation for charitable donation is not altruism (no great shock there); and secondly, that by diversifying one's charitable investment across multiple charities one is actually doing less good than just giving it all to the most deserving charity - he argues here that people draw a false analogy with diversifying their financial investments.
I disagree with him here: I believe this analogy is appropriate given the limited information of someone donating to a charity. That person is not able to determine exactly which charity is the most deserving. Thus they seek to minimise the risk of a bad 'investment' in a charity by splitting their investment across several. This seems like a sound strategy to me for two reasons: firstly, one does not operate in a vacuum - many other people will be donating at the same time and so the overall benefit to all deserving charities will be large; and secondly, it will reduce the possible waste of resources that may result from excess spending on marketing by charities in order to secure donations in a 'winner takes all' world.
The article can be found here.
It appears to me that he actually argues for two things: firstly, that people's motivation for charitable donation is not altruism (no great shock there); and secondly, that by diversifying one's charitable investment across multiple charities one is actually doing less good than just giving it all to the most deserving charity - he argues here that people draw a false analogy with diversifying their financial investments.
I disagree with him here: I believe this analogy is appropriate given the limited information of someone donating to a charity. That person is not able to determine exactly which charity is the most deserving. Thus they seek to minimise the risk of a bad 'investment' in a charity by splitting their investment across several. This seems like a sound strategy to me for two reasons: firstly, one does not operate in a vacuum - many other people will be donating at the same time and so the overall benefit to all deserving charities will be large; and secondly, it will reduce the possible waste of resources that may result from excess spending on marketing by charities in order to secure donations in a 'winner takes all' world.
The article can be found here.
Classic Tune: Clutch - Elephant Riders
Again from the album of the same name. Clutch really completed their move from hardcore to funky hard rock here. I can't believe these guys aren't more well known, just check out the effortless way they move between time signatures here while still keeping a groove. What more could you want in a band?
Clutch - The Elephant Riders
More about Clutch.
Buy "The Elephant Riders".
Great Song, Great Band - Gentlemen, Afghan Whigs
Love or hate Mr Dulli, this song (from the album of the same name) is one of my all time faves. It's the Whigs doing what the Whigs do best: that swaggery, white-boy soul with a touch of attitude de rock thing.
Afghan Whigs - Gentlemen
More about the Whigs here.
The great Gentlemen album is available for purchase here.
The Implications of a Secure Internet
Very nice article by Bruce Schneier over at Wired discussing the influence of security on architecture. He begins with an historical discussion and then moves to look the implications of security concerns for the Internet. The main problem seems to be that security measures imposed on architecture are for the most part very hard to modify.
Evolution Schmevolution?
From the Age:
"A FOSSIL discovery unveiled at the Melbourne Museum sheds new
light on the evolution of animals from sea to land."
I hope this means we can start to move on from stupid arguments about gaps in the fossil record put forward by crackpot creationists (oops, sorry - I mean advocates for intelligent design). Still, I guess there's some nice symmetry here: it turns out there's no evidence to support their criticisms either, just like their "theory".
Spinalicious - Ice & Violence
Check out this for two completely different interpretations of the same story.
From the Daily Telegraph:
"ICE addicts committing violence in drug-induced rages are fuelling a rise in assaults across NSW, according to Australian-first research."
And from the Sydney Morning Herald:
"The synthetic drug ice can bring on violent behaviour in users,
but is not behind a dramatic rise in assaults in NSW, new research
shows."
Way to scaremonger DT.
From the Daily Telegraph:
"ICE addicts committing violence in drug-induced rages are fuelling a rise in assaults across NSW, according to Australian-first research."
And from the Sydney Morning Herald:
"The synthetic drug ice can bring on violent behaviour in users,
but is not behind a dramatic rise in assaults in NSW, new research
shows."
Way to scaremonger DT.
Thursday, October 19, 2006
When I Grow Up I Wanna be...
Nothing's gonna build your child's self-esteem like a toilet costume!
So wrong it's almost right.
(via BoingBoing)
Saucy Ms. Dewey
Saucy Ms. Dewey search.
Is it wrong that I now want all my programs to have a Ms. Dewey-based interface?
(via Lifehacker)
Is it wrong that I now want all my programs to have a Ms. Dewey-based interface?
(via Lifehacker)
Nasty Paul McC?
"Former Beatle Paul McCartney's estranged wife Heather Mills has reportedly accused the iconic musician of violence, murderous excess, sexual chauvinism, alcoholism and drug-taking throughout the course of their brief and ill-starred marriage"
And I thought Paul was supposed to be the nice Beatle?! Who knows what the rest of them were up to then! (Although I'm pretty sure that John and George have settled down somewhat now...)
Link (via Google News)
And I thought Paul was supposed to be the nice Beatle?! Who knows what the rest of them were up to then! (Although I'm pretty sure that John and George have settled down somewhat now...)
Link (via Google News)
Wednesday, October 18, 2006
Stolen Generation Compensation
The Tasmanian premier has committed to $5 million compensationfor members of the stolen generation. I'd like to see how much this amounts to per person but still, it's light years ahead of the Howard government.
Perhaps I won't have move to New Zealand after all, just to Tasmania...actually - lets stick with the NZ plan.
Link
Perhaps I won't have move to New Zealand after all, just to Tasmania...actually - lets stick with the NZ plan.
Link
To Catch a Terrorist?
For those who may be interested, here is a pdf of a presentation I gave on detecting word substitution in terrorist communication.
The presentation is basically a critique of a paper that can be found here. The paper tries to find a method by which to automatically detect when terrorists are substituting words in their communications in order to get around watch-list based detection systems.
Unfortunately, in my opinion the paper has some serious flaws. I suspect most of the decent work in this area is not seeing the light of day (Damn you NSA!).
The presentation is basically a critique of a paper that can be found here. The paper tries to find a method by which to automatically detect when terrorists are substituting words in their communications in order to get around watch-list based detection systems.
Unfortunately, in my opinion the paper has some serious flaws. I suspect most of the decent work in this area is not seeing the light of day (Damn you NSA!).
Decent Blog Editor - Qumana
Well, it took a while but I think I've finally found a decent desktop blog editor: Qumana. There's a daily download type thing over at Lifehacker. And another review over at Techcrunch.
Who would've thought that it'd be so difficult to track down a decent one with so many people blogging these days?! I must have tried abut 6 or 7 other programs before finding one that had the level of functionality I was after (and believe me, my standards weren't high).
So why do I like it? Three words: easy to use! As you probably know, this blog is hosted on Blogger, one of the main blogging sites on the interwebs. Given the popularity of a Blogger account, I don't think it's asking too much of editing software for it to be easy to link to my blog. Not a priority for most developers apparently... Qumana on the other hand was a delight. Enter your blogs URL, enter your user id and password and you're away.
Once I started using it, things continued in much the same vein. Click on the new post button, type in some stuff in html or using the (extremely user-friendly) WYSIWYG editor, check the spelling, click on the publish post button. It's that easy.
Now if only they made something for coding...
Powered by Qumana
Killer GTD App - GTDTiddlyWiki
One for any fans of Getting Things Done by David Allen. A great, quick way to keep track of all those pesky lists and projects. Just like what I was contemplating coding up for myself...only a thousand times better. A permanent resident on my main thumb drive.
Check out the brief review over at Lifehacker.
Also, some discussion of its use over at 43folders
And the app itself.
Check out the brief review over at Lifehacker.
Also, some discussion of its use over at 43folders
And the app itself.
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