Interesting Links for 03-04-2012

[andrewducker]

• How to quickly calculate square roots
  (tags: maths )
• More details on the UK government web-snooping plans
  (tags: internet privacy government uk )
• France: Still trying to treat autism with psychoanalysis.
  (tags: france psychology autism EpicFail )
• Traditional hospital rotas are killing people.
  (tags: healthcare doctors uk )
• The Fireplace Delusion
  (tags: fire morality psychology religion health )
• Ballet at 1000 frames per second
  (tags: slowmotion ballet video dance )
• Super Mario Brothers Is The World's Greatest Piece Of Surrealist Art
  (tags: video surrealism art mario games )
• Arrested Drunk Guy Sings Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody! - We could not stop watching this.
  (tags: video funny crime alcohol music queen )
• Georgia Passes “Women as Livestock” Bill
  (tags: IfYouTolerateThisYourChildrenWillBeNext law usa abortion women )
• Poland is now talking about the secret CIA prisons that were run there.
  (tags: prison terrorism cia poland )
• On the legality of "Readability"
  I use "ReadItLater" for much the same task on my phone, and very handy it is too.
  (tags: reading copyright readability )
• Empathy doesn't extend across the political aisle
  (tags: emotion politics empathy )

Comments

[cheekbones3]

The fireplace thing I find interesting - he makes it sound like many (most?) will discard strong scientific evidence in the face of something that's seen as perfectly normal and natural, and indeed good.

Surely I'm not the only one that finds it perfectly sensible to believe the badness of woodsmoke, even if I love its smell and being next to fires?

I can see where he's coming from and that his analogy is useful, but doesn't he need to speak to more open-minded people? Or am I just too open-minded? I do actually think that I am if that's possible, the outcome being that I don't have strong opinions on anything (well, not quite).

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

How to quickly calculate square roots

My first thought was "when on earth are you going to have a 5-digit number you want to find the exact square root of, and you already know it's a perfect square"? But I guess the answer is "when some smart alec works out a square with a calculator and asks you what the square root is" :)

But it's mostly sour grapes. Because I was always good at maths, everyone expected me to be good at mental arithmetic, but because I never started to acquire those tricks, I never really got into learning them because most never seemed worth it unless you were expecting to use them all the time, so I've still never acquired them, even though I actually think that sort of thing is probably good mental exercise (whether or not its ever directly useful).

[steer.livejournal.com]

I have a PhD in maths and stats but my mental arithmetic is barely above adequate. I know various of the shortcut tricks but rarely apply them as I generally do symbolic mathematics and so don't work with numbers often. I don't think they're necessarily related skills.

[andrewducker]

Yeah, one is a form of logic/symbol manipulation, and one is rote memory and tricks.

[mac quaes (from livejournal.com)]

Yes, they're not necessarily related skills, but all these tricks are shortcuts and time saving. Also enhance skills of various attributions. Can be seen Arthur Benjamin's skills in this regard.

[mac quaes (from livejournal.com)]

You can find square roots of numbers even if it is not a perfect square. See the Part-2: http://mathema-tricks.blogspot.com/2012/03/v-behaviorurldefaultvmlo.html

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

"Poland is now talking about the secret CIA prisons that were run there."

The first time, I totally read that as "KGB" :)

[bart-calendar.livejournal.com]

I can't think of anything witty to write about it on my blog but this might be good for your link list:

Dave Mustaine finally proves he's an even bigger idiot than Lars Ulrich.

[andrewducker]

ohforgoodnesssake

[bart-calendar.livejournal.com]

Right?

It just seems perfect for your link list.

[andrewducker]

Well, you got it in the comments within 45 minutes of it going up - I suspect everyone that reads it will see the comment. And be thankful that heavy metal singers do not rule the world.

[bart-calendar.livejournal.com]

Eh, I liked GWAR's presidential endorsement.

[andrewducker]

Oh yes. I'd support that!

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

The Obama birth conspiracy theories always seem so random to me. I mean "being Kenyan" seems quite mild compared to rape, murder, tearing up the constitution, war crimes, etc, etc that seem to be par for the course in American politics...

[a-pawson.livejournal.com]

I've never understood why you have to be born there to become President. In a country so young and which claims to be so proud of its people's differing backgrounds, it seems an odd message to send out to anyone becoming a citizen.

[del-c.livejournal.com]

It's rooted in the earliest history of the United States, when there was a real danger of a European aristocrat coming to America, getting himself elected President/King, and ending the experiment in democracy. We don't have rules preventing monarchs from being foreigners, because monarchy pre-dates the nation state. It was taken for granted that the countries of the earth were to be ruled by people from an international ruling class. And we don't have rules stopping Ministers from being foreign, because the monarchs can choose who they like to run the government. But what the Americans wer trying to do was put a firebreak between the old, European way of running a country, and their new, American way.

If a similar group of revolutionaries were designing the Constitution today, they might be more concerned about reducing the influence of their home-grown aristocracy.

[andrewducker]

But those things are only wrong if they're carried out in an Unamerican way.

[skington.livejournal.com]

The birther stuff isn't even the craziest thing in there.

Santorum is his pick for the presidency because the Pennsylvania politician looks "like he could be a really cool president", Mustaine explained, "kind of like a JFK kind of guy".

What is this I don't even...

[nancylebov.livejournal.com]

That empathy link about a crude piece of work. I'm willing to bet that empathy across group boundaries varies a lot-- in particular, hostility between Republicans and Democrats has amped up a lot in the past couple of decades.

[andrewducker]

I've seen it as long as I can remember between supporters of different political parties. Looks like fairly basic dehumanising in-group out-group behaviour.

[iainjcoleman.livejournal.com]

And yet, among politicians (and leading political activists) there is often much more cross-party sympathy than among supporters. It's still basically in-group empathy, but in this case the group is "people who get directly involved in politics". I may have great political disagreements with Conservative or Labour activists, but we can still bond over tales of dogs and letterboxes.

[lizw.livejournal.com]

The fireplace delusion one boggled me a bit. Possibly it's because of living in London, which has restricted the burning of wood and other smoke-producing fuels since 1956 after somewhere between 12,000 and 20,000 people died in the Great Smog - but I'd kind of assumed that the dangers of burning wood were well known.

[pete stevens (from livejournal.com)]

Most modern wood burning stoves burn clean enough that they're fine to use in smokeless zones. The thermal efficiency has also improved from ~20% for an open fire to ~ 75% for a decent stove. So for the same heat output you're now producing 1/4 the amount of smoke, and the smoke is demonstrably cleaner (http://des.nh.gov/organization/divisions/air/cb/ceps/npsap/smoke.htm quotes 85% less particulate matter) - so a net reduction of 96% in smoke output compare to an open fire.

I can't find a reference but it'd be interesting to know how that compares to diesel engines by comparison.

[octopoid-horror.livejournal.com]

Having candles burning in your home is also dangerous to your health (aside from any risk of accidental fires) but this is marketed as a Wonderful Romantic And Feminine Thing To Do.

[naath.livejournal.com]

But fire is PRETTY.

I do lots of things that are bad for my health (like drinking wine); I don't think it is at all surprising that people continue to have pretty things that are bad for them.

[andrewducker]

People do seem to be depressingly ignorant a lot of the time. The sheer fact that standing next to a bonfire will leave you coughing horribly if the wind blows the wrong way ought to be a bit of a hint...