Category Archives: sciences

unions piss me off

Saw a union picket today with a sign saying Catbert Corporation is Enron II. If you thought your employer was a house of cards, would you spend your time agitating to increase its labor costs, or look for a new … Continue reading

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never say impossible?

Milton Mintz has struggled since 1963 to do the impossible: to trisect the angle, square the circle and double the cube using “only” a compass and straightedge. He shows procedures for the first two, which I have not attempted to … Continue reading

Posted in mathematics | 1 Comment

don’t invest in Picasso

New Book Uses Statistical Methods to Analyze Avant-Garde Art The patterns emerging from Mr. Galenson’s crunched numbers suggested that the careers of avant-garde artists tended to fall into two categories, embodying distinct kinds of innovation. Some painters developed new techniques … Continue reading

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Tranquility

Today is of course the 33d anniversary of Apollo XI. Have there been any soft landings on the Moon since Apollo? Update: One Russian landing in 1976. I’ve misplaced the link to the list where I found it.

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the government we pay for

Steven E. Landsburg writes in Slate of all places: Either a) the justices – having concluded that paying compensation would transform routine government activity into “a luxury few governments could afford” – are prepared to draw the logical conclusion that … Continue reading

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Take Phi

I wonder whether it’s possible to write decent music with a fractional number of beats to a measure; by which I mean not that each measure should end with a fractional beat, but rather — imagine that a lunar month … Continue reading

Posted in mathematics, music+verse | 1 Comment

mad cosmology

Some entertaining notions in Susan Stepney’s notes from a panel at Eastercon 2001: Maybe we’re surrounded by fake scenery, living in a “planetarium” – what are the required capabilities of civilisations that can fool us? info is needed to generate … Continue reading

Posted in fandom, sciences | 1 Comment