Finding The Signal in an Information Overload World
The author blogs at Farnam Street, which I follow regularly.
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Author Archives: gmcdavid
“If you strike me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine”
London’s cabbies just gave Uber its biggest boost yet—by striking against Uber
From Talia, who tweeted “Antifragile Uber: Strike against it then watch it get bigger”
Political Seismology
Eric Cantor’s Loss Was Like an Earthquake
Everybody is talking how it was big and far-reaching surprise, but here Nate Silver has something more subtle in mind: The statistics of Republican primary results look a lot like those of earthquakes, and he presents the graphs to show it. Major primary upsets, like serious earthquakes, are rare but they do happen. Furthermore, they are fundamentally random and unpredictable.
Politics, Pundits, and Probabilty
Nate Silver wrote this before the fall of Eric Cantor: The Political Media Still Fall for the Hot-Hand Fallacy.
He referred to it afterwards:
E-reader news
Samsung, Barnes & Noble team up on tablet design
Samsung Galaxy Tab 4 Nook: B&N to use Samsung Hardware
If this works it will be good news for everybody who uses e-readers, including Amazon Kindle users. Competition will be good for readers. An Amazon monopoly would be bad news.
Turing Test
How a microwave oven really works
In Throwback Thursday: The Physics of Hot Pockets.
And what they do well, and not so well.
Notes on the ancient Roman world
Especially about slavery.
Putin’s Dreams
Of course, they will be officially denied by the Kremlin.
http://io9.com/what-europe-will-look-like-in-2035-if-russian-tabloids-1587988556
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Fun with infinite series
Does 0.999… = 1? And Are Divergent Series the Invention of the Devil?
Which refers to a saying by Niels Henrik Abel
The divergent series are the invention of the devil, and it is a shame to base on them any demonstration whatsoever. By using them, one may draw any conclusion he pleases and that is why these series have produced so many fallacies and so many paradoxes …
From Hilbert Space to Dilbert Space, and beyond 