Linear Regression...

Linear regression is a tool I've used countless times, without understanding it as well as I thought I did (a common theme in my life :).  In my own experience, it's more common to see the tool misused – especially, for some reason, in psychology and biology.  Here's a very accessible explanation of it, even if you don't have a Ph.D. in mathematics...

The Hazards of p-Values...

The p-values of statistical analysis get people in trouble all the time.  Here's a great explanation of how they do it...

Solid State Disk Drives...

Michael Cornwell, writing at acm.org, has a great article describing in detail just how solid state disks (SSDs) work.  They are far more complex than most people realize, and just like the hard disks that they're replacing, they're getting more complex every day...

Wine Corks...

I recently had a conversation with a colleague who didn't know where wine corks came from.  When I asked him to guess, he thought they were manufactured from some sort of plastic.  When I told him that they were actually made from the bark of oak trees, he was very skeptical.  So we did a little googling and found this great explanation, with lots of photos.

Something else that was a surprise to my colleague: the word “cork” derives from the Latin word quercus, for “oak tree”.  The genus name for oaks is also quercus, and the species that is most often harvested for cork is Quercus suber (though many other oak species can be used to produce cork as well).  Quercus suber is native to the western Mediterranean area, but there are some fine examples in the arboreta of San Diego County, as well as in parks and in landscaping.  It's commonly available in our nurseries...

ObamaCare is Bananas...

Just watch this – it's the best short explanation of the major problems with ObamaCare I've seen yet, in language that anyone can understand...