Hapgood

So after all the political stories I’ve labored over, I finally made front page on Huffington Post — with a story I wrote in 5 minutes while downing my morning coffee. Oh well, I’ll take it! Thanks to the Off The Bus crowd who have been pushing hard to get these stories by amateurs like Continue reading

…and it’s not even that hard. I’ve said before that one of the fundamental things the university has not come to terms with is that in an environment where failure is inexpensive, undergraduates can be pushed to solve real problems, rather than to practice solving problems they might encounter once they get out of college. Continue reading

The end is near. And that’s a very very good thing. Radiohead is offering it’s newest album on it’s website for advance download. The revolutionary thing? You pay what you want for it. Two dollars, ten dollars. Whatever. You make the call. The experiment has even got mainstream investing sites abuzz, saying that if this Continue reading

I know it’s good form to say where you’ve been when you disappear off the face of your blog for two weeks. Answer: bilge-pumping. That said, we’ll try to do better next time. Now onto to other things. A side project I do got some news coverage this past Sunday. And it was a pretty Continue reading

Via Udell, a link to a paper that attempts to refute David Hockney’s theory that the sudden shift to photographic styles in the Renaissance was due to the use of optical projection. It’s an interesting paper because it introduces what seems to be a new method of objectively measuring geometric deviations of paintings from “reality”, Continue reading

"I will be arguing, and this is a controversial opinion, that Madison’s support for democracy comes not because of a belief in the innate wisdom of the majority in society, but because he believes that in the absence of objective answers it is better for the honor of the individuals in society to allow everyone Continue reading

The hardest thing to answer when you’re trying to start an institutional blogging community is what the legal ramifications of it are. It’s not only hard to answer — it’s impossible. It’s a legal question. You’re not supposed to answer it. The problem is that it’s hard with this sort of thing to start from Continue reading

So, deciding I had not reached my full geek potential, last night I started a league in Fantasy Congress. Fantasy Congress is like Fantasy Football — you pick a team out of all available members of Congress and the Senate, and during a specified season your team competes — if my Senators “stats” (for legislation Continue reading