Category: links

I met Matthew Watkins in a field in Somerset, where he was sitting beneath a sign saying “Free Maths Information”. He’s a musicomathematical nomad (or is that a mathemusical itinerant?) with some interesting ideas about the connection between the distribution of prime numbers and fundamental physics. Maths pages here (includes many interesting side notes, such as this essay by Philip K Dick). Music pages here and here (and make sure you check this out). More Big Green pictures here.

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Links for 8th August

Pixresizer is an awesome little app for resizing batches of photos (Windows)
MASH and the Struggle of Life Against Death
If the world’s wealth were divided equally, how much would each of us have? (the straight dope)
Bush gropes Merkel – the press say ‘she asked for it’
Lest we forget Tristram Hunt in the Guardian
on the nation’s failure to celebrate our radical history
‘And humanities graduates in the media, who suspect themselves to be intellectuals, desperately need to reinforce the idea that science is nonsense: because they’ve denied themselves access to the most significant developments in the history of western thought for 200 years, and secretly, deep down, they’re angry with themselves over that.’ The paradoy theory of science journalism, from Ben Goldacre’s award-winning “Don’t Dumn Me Down” article
A simple Coasian test for some kinds of economic bollocks CT article knocking Slate’s ‘Everyday Economics’ columnist (which also contains the wonderful quote ‘This is argument by hypothetical revealed preference , a favourite device of economists when talking about people with lives wildly different to their own but who are not interesting enough to do proper research on.’
‘In essence, the theorem states that in the absence of transaction costs, all government allocations of property are equally efficient, because interested parties will bargain privately to correct any externality.’ Wikipedia article on Coase’s Theorum.
‘one way of stating Coase’s insight is that the problem is not really due to externalities at all, but to transaction costs. If there were externalities but no transaction costs there would be no problem, since the parties would always bargain to the efficient solution. When we observe externality problems (or other forms of market failure) in the real world, we should ask not merely where the problem comes from, but what the transaction costs are that prevent it from being bargained out of existence.’ (David Friedman)
Robert M. Young’s Ideal curriculum for a psychology degree
Free fonts!
Goddammit if this ain’t the truth. Speaking of which: Atheist vitriol (quotes)

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Links for a better today

Lyrebird mimicking camera shutters, car alarms, chainsaws…awesome
Critical review of philip ball’s book ‘Critical Mass’
Schultz & Webb bring you The Availabot!
countryx.org – a new virtual country, based loosely on the idea of the university
object based attention modulates stroop effect
‘irony is social chess, the playful manipulation of lazy expectations’ (slate.com article about comedian Sarah Silverman)
The Age of Irony Comes to an End Why 9/11 means people will start to take things seriously again (Roger Rosenblatt)
Nature’s top 50 science blogs
Technorati Rank of mindhacks.com
allconsuming.org.uk blog for a book that is being written about shopping and politics
Marriage hacks!
List of banned or censored books (including revealing bans by provincial american libraries)
Professor Pressured To Sleep With Student For Good Course Evaluation (the onion)

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Links for 2nd of July 2006

Post author By tom
Post date July 2, 2006
No Comments on Links for 2nd of July 2006

‘The Outiders’ article about ‘high IQ’ and social maladjustment
Why Smart people defend bad ideas
Irreverent review of ‘Why Smart People Can Be So Stupid’ by Robert J. Sternberg at salon.com
‘put whale-hunting rights up for auction, allowing both killers
and conservationists to bid. The chances are that those who prefer
whales to swim free would be able to outbid the few remaining humans
who like eating them.’ (economist article, paywalled)
Northern Green Gathering festival
Brad Warner’s Heart Sutra
Red Deer spoken word antics audio archive
The true story of the guy who tied ballons to his lawn chair so he could fly, and what happened to him (the straight dope)
How to get from the UK to Ireland by train and ferry
‘As they predicted, Kim and Hatfield found a significant positive correlation between level of companionate love and life satisfaction (beta=.34), while there was no correlation between passionate love and life satisfaction.’
‘The transvestites first appeared in March when they raided Magazine Street like a marauding army of kleptomaniacal showgirls, said Davis, using clockwork precision and brute force to satisfy high-end boutique needs.’
Martin Sereno’s presentation on Peak Oil (via onemonkey.org)
See also: Richard Heinberg, The Party’s Over: Oil, War, and the Fate of Industrial Societies

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enriching the blogosphere

Post author By tom
Post date June 30, 2006
No Comments on enriching the blogosphere

Two new blogs now enrich the blogosphere (warning: personal bias forthcoming)

To mark the start of his PhD, Dan is now blogging at coveredinbees.org about the science of self-organisation/’spontaneous order’ and how it affects political philosophy, and about markets and freedom. And about the war on terror and the state of the world. Read his introductory post to see where he’s coming from.

Sarah Eldridge, is now blogging as part of her work with ICAR (The Information Centre about Asylum and Refugees in the UK). ICAR “is an independent information and research organisation’ based at City University which aims ‘to increase public understanding of asylum issues in the UK, and inform policy and practice through applied research and policy evaluation.’ The blog comments on how asylum issues are handled in the media.

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my wikipedia contrail

My wikipedia contail (after Matt Webb) – those autocomplete options when I type “en.wikipedia.org/wiki/” into my browser

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links for 14th of June 2006

Post author By tom
Post date June 14, 2006
No Comments on links for 14th of June 2006

I don’t like talking about music,” Martha Wainwright sets out her stall. “I don’t like being like, ‘This song should feel like there’s an angel coming up from the earth’. Just sing the fucking song. And if it is like an angel coming up from the earth then we don’t have to fucking talk about it.”
Supposing … Bono’s too annoying to save the world
GO Sheffo! in the guardian
a midlife year out story
An atheist website – with some interesting notes about how belief affects reasoning
what makes urban legends stick (and how to use this for marketing)
On International Towel Day fans of Douglas Adams’ Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy carry their towels with them all day
Rob Newman’s History of Oil (google video)
Edge #182 has Daniel Gilbert talking about happiness and science
Photo essay about Festonia squat community
Wired article about RFID hacking – possible troubling implications for govt. id card scheme?
‘many of the central ideals of the Enlightenment were lost to the rise of the modern nation state’
an interesting thought in a CT post about Madeline Bunting
An ecological study of glee in small groups of preschool children.
But you have one thing that may save you, and that is your youth. This is your great strength. It is also why I hate and fear you. What if Stephen Colbert did your graduation address?
The The 17 Basic Techniques of Tomiki Aikido University of Winchester aikido society (IE only?)
Matt Webb’s Reboot8 talk ‘Making Senses’
Matt Webb’s talk about science fiction and artifacts
‘The man shouted, ‘God will save me, if he exists,’ lowered himself by a rope into the enclosure, took his shoes off and went up to the lions,” the official said.’
Five Ways to Kill a Man

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Links for 18th of May 2006

Post author By tom
Post date May 18, 2006
No Comments on Links for 18th of May 2006

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Links for 1st of May 2006

Post author By tom
Post date May 1, 2006
No Comments on Links for 1st of May 2006

Creationists attack research supporting evolution on the Nature’s newsblog – receive smackdown from Henry Gee
as we pass. as we pass. as we pass what footprints will we all leave?
Michel’s Iron law of oligarchy states that ‘all forms of organization, regardless of how democratic or autocratic they may be at the start, will eventually and inevitably develop oligarchic tendencies, thus making true democracy practically and theoretically impossible, especially in large groups and complex organizations’
How to be a (washington) lobbyist without trying
Professor of Paleoclimatology says There is no evidence of human caused global warming
we float. we float in space. in hope. we carry our own light with us
Boiling Frog Syndrome Entirely incorrect! (snopes.com)
lordoftherhymes.com – Straight out of hobbiton
Pretty clouds – ahhh
a behavioural measure of atheism among americans
A linear rise in standards leads to an exponential rise in the number of alternatives that must be sampled before a suitable match must be found. And how to prove this in matlab (This is not a happy story if applied to dating!)

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Links for 5th of April 2006

Post author By tom
Post date April 5, 2006
No Comments on Links for 5th of April 2006

Sheffield Freecycle
Guardian profile of poet Hugo Williams who describes his domestic situation thus: ‘It’s a bit of a cock-up.’
‘To know inauthenticity isn’t the same as being authentic. Or even, just because you ironically know you’re wrong doesn’t make you right’ Brilliant Zoe William’s essay on irony from 2004
My previous link for Adam Curtis’ The Power of Nightmares is now broken. But you can get the shows, steamed or downloaded, along with a full transcipts elsewhere: episode one, episode two and (IMO the best – you don’t need to watch the first two I reckon) episode three
‘The Lonesome Death of Rachel Corrie’
They Follow Each Other On The Wind by Matt (at masochuticon.com)
Gary Younge article about contemporary McCarthyite witch-hunts of liberal academics
Bertrand Russell: ‘How I Write’
‘Is Organic Worth it?’ (Guardian article about organic food)
‘There is a sense that women of my generation are letting the side down if they confess to feeling unconditionally maternal.’ (Guardian article by Lousie Wener, previously of Sleeper fame)

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links for 24th of March 2006

Post author By tom
Post date March 24, 2006
No Comments on links for 24th of March 2006

You can watch Adam Curtis’ The Power of Nightmares 3-part BBC documentary on Google Video. Wikipedia article about the documentaries
Jeffrey Lewis’ website (musician)
‘Is computer science an oxymoron’
Cute baby animals not so cute and innocent
How do we find information in the blogosphere? (plasticbag.org)
Michael Crichton in the NY Times on patenting scientific facts
Casper gives some smackdown to Creationist mathematical conspiracy theories
‘G/localization: When Global Information and Local Interaction Collide’ (Danah Boyd’s Etech paper, 2006)
dirtsimple.org: the mistakes that took years from my life and life from my years (was internalising a dysfunctional logic which stigmatised failure and accorded others the right to judge success…amongst other things).
Quick girls, in all the excitement of liberation you have forgotten how to be treated as worthless sex-objects. Take your clothes off before it is too late and you lose this vital right forever! (i paraphrase)

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links for 12th of March 2006

Post author By tom
Post date March 12, 2006
No Comments on links for 12th of March 2006

India Knight reviews ‘Female chauvinist pigs: Women and the Rise of Raunch Culture’ by Ariel Levy

How we move ever closer to becoming a totalitarian state (starkly titled Obverser article about The Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill which will allow ministers to enact laws without the scrutiny of parliament)

God loses faith in Tony Blair

Where does cheap stuff come from (Guardian article)

‘it’s clear that much of the lore underlying both modern ninja movies and modern ninja schools has both a long history AND little basis in reality outside the theatre.’

‘I believe there is a dimension where / each one of us can be understood’

Jeremy Mercer’s top 10 bookshops

a database of independent bookshops compiled by bookworms for bookworms.

the straight dope behind the story of native americans working on skyscrapers

ADHD and the knowledge economy (New York Times)

‘It is a much-quoted maxim that there are only seven stories. They are, apparently, Orpheus, Achilles, Cinderella, Tristan and Isolde, Circe, Romeo and Juliet, and Faust. All other stories are adaptations of these.’

=’The Gift taken Away’, ‘The Fatal Flaw’, ‘Unrecognised virtue’,the love triangle,spider and fly, boy meets girls/boy loses girl, The Debt That Must be Paid’. Plus ‘The Hero Who Cannot Be Kept Down’

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