Measurement and Uncertainty Smackdown. With America being ruled by the Innumerati of all political persuasions anything that helps simple quantitative reasoning is worthwhile.
The basics of this I learned in High School Chemistry (Thank you, Mr. Wheeler) and my first two years at Carleton. Of course, back then (1967-70),
….there is no reason that students in introductory courses couldn’t do the monte
carlo method.
was not quite so obvious.
I was cleaning out a closet this afternoon and came across the center pages of the program for Minicon 12, which I attended back in 1977. At 2:30 PM, on Saturday, April 9, there was this event:
Debate: “Resolved: Science Fiction Should Get Out of the Classroom and Back into the Gutter Where It Belongs” with Lester del Rey and Ivor Rogers
I must have been there, but I do not remember anything about it. It is an old issue and not to be taken too seriously,
Generally I am quite happy with Ubuntu Linux, but there are some annoyances. One is that the official Ubuntu repositories are not keeping up with the major releases from Mozilla (why?). I was running Firefox 3.6.20 on this box using Ubuntu 10.10 (Maverick Meerkat) while Mozilla is now at Firefox 6.0. Fortunately the fix is very simple:
sudo apt-add-repository ppa:mozillateam/firefox-stable
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install firefox
So I am now running 6.0. Since I have added the repository I should now be able to stay current without any special effort.
Irish Class, August 22, 2011
mia_mcdavid has a bill hook machete, very well employed in her large garden. The hook was a length of steel rod riveted to it to gather in the brush so it could not escape. Unfortunately, a week ago the hook broke when I was using it. Continue reading
From Hilbert Space to Dilbert Space, and beyond 
