Category Archives: sciences

we distort, you deride

A misquoted economist remarks: . . . (“I’m reading right off Fox news!” gets my vote as worst argument from authority ever).

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I always wanted one

A Webwide World by Ken Perlin, NYU, 1998 – Java applet that rapidly generates a fractal planet. Unlike the Planet of the Day generated by ppmforge, Perlin’s planet is three-dimensional and can be rotated.

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old medium meets new

It was a treat to see Eugene Volokh quoted in The Economist — to his own surprise.

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nerds mourn

The sequels to The Matrix are not The Transpose and The Eigenvector but Matrix Reloaded and Matrix Revolutions.

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human mosaic

At age 18 or so I wrote a scene (opening an otherwise unconceived story) set in the distant future, in which one of the characters was a tiger-striped human. Now . . . Look halfway down this page: Human genetics: Dual identities … Continue reading

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more periodic sites

World Wide Words looks into the origins of those phrases that puzzle you. Ponder This: monthly brain-teaser from IBM.

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gadgeteer at play

Matthias Wandel’s insane constructions (link from AlterSlash). From the same site: some surprisingly effective mathematical drawings.

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