Category Archives: sciences

what, more links?

Medical Guesswork (Business Week) The navel and the WTO antidote, by Sauvik Chakraverti a slightly naughty chuckle When Bigots Become Reformers: The Progressive Era’s shameful record on race (Reason) Arnold Kling: Bleeding-Heart Libertarianism an annoying conversation that every libertarian has … Continue reading

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scapegoats

Mom is in town, and yesterday we went to the Arts & Crafts exhibit at the de Young. One of the wall placards says, “The problems caused by free trade and the Industrial Revolution had been recognized since the 1830s … Continue reading

Posted in economics, history | 3 Comments

m4th3m4t1c5 R k3wL

Netflix (or should I say N3tfl1×) got the first season of Numb3rs this week, and I watched the first four episodes with mixed reactions. On one hand, any popular presentation of mathematics in the real world is a treat. But … Continue reading

Posted in cinema, mathematics | 2 Comments

the axes of confusion

When economists draw supply-demand charts, they put the independent variable (price) on the vertical axis and the dependent variable (quantity) on the horizontal, contrary to the usual practice in physics and pure mathematics. It’s surprisingly hard for me to adjust … Continue reading

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things that go round

weird orbits (cited by John Baez) rotating infrared Titan

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how sick on average?

I’ve been hearing on the radio a statement that hospital emergency rooms in California admit 25 thousand people every hour. That’s equivalent to the entire population every eight weeks. –??–

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QotD

Solutions to this [public goods] problem in the context of basic research are discussed at some length by Terence Kealey. (The Economic Laws of Scientific Research, New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1996) Knowledge of current cutting edge research – Kealey’s … Continue reading

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