So I got a CD in the mail with the WA state voter information; it has 3.66M active records (and something close to 5M total; they say something like 6.8M live in WA) on it, and is available for $7 from the WA secretary of state. There are 9 daniel farmers; nothing remarkable, but I’m in there, of course: https://www.sos.wa.gov/elections/vrdb_order.aspx They gave a few other interesting files on the [...]
May 152012
Apr 302012
Peter Neumann introduced me to another Peter, the author of this delightful lil’ missive below. Thanks P^2. [5] Elias, P., “Two famous papers” (Editorial), Sep. 1958, p. 99. TWO FAMOUS PAPERS PETER ELIAS It is common in editorials to discuss matters of general policy and not specific research. But the two papers I would like to describe have been written so often, by so many different authors under so [...]
Apr 212012
Or… sometimes a pipe is just a pipe. I’ve long had an admiration for errol morris, a filmmaker who seems to just keep getting better (I hate him too!) – his The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara was (and is) just a marvel. But his writing for the NYT is what really put me in awe of the man. Through a series of [...]
Apr 212012
A series of events happened lately that caused me to reflect on how simple it would be to kill someone by phone call… or instant message… or perhaps by simply watching a video on a computer or television, ala The Ring (or Ring/リング), where if you watch a videotape you’ll die a week after. Or maybe tuning into do KDIE, with all the death metal hits. Or perhaps less [...]
Mar 292012
Here’s a killer visualization: http://hint.fm/wind/ It’s a living graphic that provokes and rewards curiosity (zoom in and out, look at the eddies and whorls) as well as teaches. Really astonishing. Probably will go away someday, but check this out (the real one @ the link moves ;)) This one does just about everything right.