good stuff
-
Holding Steady Will Not Sustain Us
Over at American Digest, Van Der Leun gives us a “view from the trenches” that tells us how to Reopen America: Holding Steady won’t be enough to save us. It won’t be nearly enough. To save ourselves we have to find a way to save that couple’s small restaurant. Their restaurant is one — only Read more
-
Oh, and in my spare time, I invented TeX
Writing in Quanta, Susan D’Agostino has a fascinating interview with the computing-est of all computer scientists, Donald Knuth. Who continues his Everest-like trek up his monumental Art of Computer Programming. This (intrinsically) never-to-be-completed opus to the mathematics and techniques of algorithms was, for many of us, the first introduction to formal analysis of algorithms and Read more
-
Captain Tom Shows Us How It’s Done
Captain Tom Moore, HMRA (retired), cooked up the idea of a 100-lap charity fundraiser to celebrate his impending 100th birthday. 100 laps around his garden, with a walker (he IS 99). His goal was £1000 for the NHS. Word got out. Right now he’s raised £13 million. In a just world, Captain Tom’s birthday celebration Read more
-
WuFlu and the Urban Chicken Movement
San Antonios have become chickenistas! Lots of folks are hoping to avoid egg shortages by raising their own chickens. “When we get them in, it’s been a mad dash for the chickens,” said Cathy Sullivan, who works at Strutty’s Feed and Pet Supply store in Spring Branch. “We’ve had shipments of 300 to 350 per Read more
-
Slide Rules!
WuFlu isn’t the only virus in the air; I’ve been getting a lot of chatter and questions about slide rules. Yes, partly because I’m old enough to remember them and remember (vaguely) how to use them. But what’s going on? Never mind. Here’s some great online resources for the curious and really curious History and Read more
-
Coronavirus Cumbia
Mexicans (and their Tex-Mexican cousins) can always turn tragedy into hilarity. Check out these coronavirus cumbias: + Mr Cumbia does a great mash-up Grupo EL CAPI does a straight-up band performance with social distancing Ricardo Munoz does another over-the-top mash-up at ChinoVlogs Erik Arturo and buds ham it up to Mr Cumbia’s soundtrack My fave: Read more
-
(Clinical) Trial of the Century
The World Health Organization steps up to the coronavirus plate with what appears to be history’s most ambitious screening experiment. On Friday, the World Health Organization (WHO) announced a large global trial, called SOLIDARITY, to find out whether any can treat infections with the new coronavirus for the dangerous respiratory disease. It’s an unprecedented effort—an Read more
-
The Perfect is the Enemy of the Good
Many of us university instructors are scrambling to adapt our formerly face-to-face courses into online courses. This, to allow “social distancing” in response to the Wuhan Flu pandemic. Rebecca Barrett-Fox urges us “Please do a bad job of putting your courses online.” I’m absolutely serious. For my colleagues who are now being instructed to put Read more
-
Like, Ambiguous, Dude
I hadn’t seen this hoary old saw in years not since I was studying AI in grad school. The professors always used the phrase to show how difficult natural language processing could be. Tip from Maggie’s Farm, where there’s always something interesting. Read more
-
I Learn Something New Every Day
How did I get to be so old without learning about this? https://twitter.com/Brink_Thinker/status/1219287571517378560 Thanks to GV at American Digest for putting me hip to Kevin W. and his remarkable Facebook page. Read more
The Random Texan 