The Disney version of Burrough’s classic too tame for you? Check out James Killian Spratt’s graphic novel version, with all of the graphic nudity and violence you could hope for. Currently free online, and to be published at some future point.
(h/t io9.com)
In case you missed it, Virginia Attorney General’s fishing expedition against climate scientist and former UVA faculty member Michael Mann has been shut down by the Virginia Supreme Court.
The principle of academic freedom does not mean blanket immunity from legal scrutiny, but if it means anything, it certainly means that academic researchers should be protected from legal harassment by government authorities whose aim is to suppress research conclusions that they don’t like. Attorney General Cuccinelli claims that: Continue reading “A win for academic freedom”
For Scorecasting (by L Jon Wertheim & Tobias Moskowitz), the question is not whether it is a swing or a miss, rather the question is whether it is a called strike on a 0-2 count. If you read the book, you will find out that the odds of a called third strike on an 0-2 count are different than on a 3-0 count. I’m not sure where this metaphor is going, but my short review is that Scorecasting was a very enjoyable read, even for a data nerd like myself.
It should come as a surprise to no one that I would be very interested in a book about the math, statistics, and incentives of sports. At the same time, I feared picking up yet another Freakonomics retread. Continue reading “What’s the score?”
Over at SF Signal, a post on the post-post-apocalypse by author David Moody:
We’re taught from early days that all stories must have a beginning, a middle and an end. Take my genre of choice – post-apocalyptic fiction. You have the beginning – the event – then the middle as our cast of characters inevitably have to fight to survive in what’s left of their world, but what about the end?…
I get frustrated by the lack of development in much zombie fiction…There’s a blatantly obvious issue which usually gets totally overlooked, and that’s that the zombies are rotting. They might be a deadly threat today and tomorrow, but what about in six months time?
After working like a fiend to finish the latest paper describing my genius idea, things are looking good – the figures are in place, the story is coherent, paragraphs have topic sentences, the methods are all there, and it’s time to insert references. Except PubMed broke my citation manager. The solution? Buy a $100 upgrade. Sigh… I suppose it’s time to finally upgrade to Papers 2. So long, Bookends.
The Finch and Pea 