Biweekly links for 10/23/2009
- Pan-STARRS
- A detection system for near-Earth objects, including objects that might impact. Will survey the entire sky once every week or so, and generate ~ 10 terabytes of data per day.
- Seven Guidelines for Writing Worthy Works of Non-Fiction, Bryan Caplan
- Good guidelines, surprisingly orthogonal to many existing lists.
- Mind Hacks: Hallucinations in sensory deprivation after 15 minutes
- Simply being given a panic button may apparently make people more likely to experience hallucinations.
- A new proof of the density Hales-Jewett theorem
- The first paper directly from the Polymath Project.
- Galaxy Zoo Blog » A startling discovery in the latest paper from the Zoo
- Truly startling. The image on page 2 and the first reference pretty much tell the story.
- The Happiness Project: Who’s in a Starring Role, Who’s in a Walk-On Role? All of Us.
- “It’s a very unsettling and interesting exercise to think about the people in my life and to imagine myself in a minor, supporting role. How do I fit into their fates? Am I helping? “
- Thank you for giving me the opportunity to explain this to you [dive into mark]
- Mark Pilgrim’s excellent book “Dive Into Python” was republished on Amazon.com, under the terms of his GNU Free Documentation License. This is driving his publisher nuts. I’m surprised it doesn’t happen more – why aren’t books by Doctorow, Lessig et al immediately republished by other publishers?
- Chris Lintott’s Universe » Voorwerpen and more : Science in the public eye 2
- Chris Lintott of Galaxy Zoo discusses some of the problems that can arise from doing science in the open. He points out examples where there is a tension between the reliability of results, the need for participants to communicate with one another, and media coverage.
- The New Literacy
- Andrea Lunsford’s work suggesting that students today write a lot more than ever before, for a wider variety of audiences, and as a result are writing better than before.
Click here for all of my del.icio.us bookmarks.
Blake Riley said,
October 23, 2009 @ 9:27 am
Doctorow and Lessig publish under a Creative Commons non-commercial license, so they or their publishers could sue if someone did the same with their books. Doctorow has an exception for translations being published in other countries, if I remember correctly.
Michael Nielsen said,
October 23, 2009 @ 9:33 am
Blake – Thanks. Walt Crawford pointed out the same thing to me. I’d simply forgotten, you’re absolutely right. There is an interesting space for a not-for-profit to republish books for no profit, though.