Friday, March 7, 2014
Incredible flight story that I'd never seen before...
Watch a modern musician make music...
Wait – did someone think he would?
Wait – did someone think he would?
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said there is “no way” he will recognize Israel as a Jewish state and accept a Palestinian capital in just a portion of Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem, rejecting what some Palestinians believe will be key parts of a forthcoming U.S. peace proposal, the Associated Press reported on Friday.Surely there can't be more than zero people surprised by this! Via al Arabiya...
Corruption in science...
Corruption in science... Probably not the kind you're imagining. Consider these thoughts:
Oh, who wrote this rant? Sydney Brenner, biologist, professor, and 2002 Nobel Laureate. He knows a thing or two about this subject...
I think peer review is hindering science. In fact, I think it has become a completely corrupt system. It’s corrupt in many ways, in that scientists and academics have handed over to the editors of these journals the ability to make judgment on science and scientists. There are universities in America, and I’ve heard from many committees, that we won’t consider people’s publications in low impact factor journals.The first thing I thought of were the scrupulously peer-reviewed publications of Michael Mann and the rest of the IPCC gang of climatologists. They are a perfect example.
Now I mean, people are trying to do something, but I think it’s not publish or perish, it’s publish in the okay places [or perish]. And this has assembled a most ridiculous group of people. I wrote a column for many years in the nineties, in a journal called Current Biology. In one article, “Hard Cases”, I campaigned against this [culture] because I think it is not only bad, it’s corrupt. In other words it puts the judgment in the hands of people who really have no reason to exercise judgment at all. And that’s all been done in the aid of commerce, because they are now giant organizations making money out of it.
Oh, who wrote this rant? Sydney Brenner, biologist, professor, and 2002 Nobel Laureate. He knows a thing or two about this subject...
Thursday, March 6, 2014
Firefly freaks out...
Quote of the day...
Quote of the day... This time from Eric Raymond (ESR), on the climatology models that are the basis for the IPCC's prediction of global warming:
It's junk science all the way down.Indeed. Don't miss the comments...
I can't decide...
Epic old man...
Downingia pulchella...
Another sad story of government ineptness...
Another sad story of government ineptness ... this time, it involves American veterans who were killed (or are still missing) in overseas wars. Bottom lines: incredibly large amounts of money while obtaining almost no results. That's a familiar pattern when the federal government is involved, but it's particularly sad and infuriating in a situation like this...
The foreign language effect...
The foreign language effect... I've read about this several times before – another one of those peeks into how the human brain works that is very surprising. At least I find it so!
A science mystery...
A science mystery ... leads to a fascinating discovery about simple, homogenous materials in motion. It never ceases to amaze me how many things we don't know about the world we live in, and not all of those things are esoteric or obscure...
Geek: automated color detection...
Geek: automated color detection... I've tried to do this myself, years ago, when trying various ways of compressing color spaces for a remote control product. It's far more difficult than you might think...
I wonder why...
I wonder why ... Intel is producing a free open-source font? What on earth does that have to do with their business?
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