Author Archives: rpg

I was remiss in not posting about this last week, so, only a week late, I post now that the winners of the 2008 Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest were announced, with little fanfare and even less financial reward for the efforts … Continue reading →

OK, technology is getting silly. I’m sat in a bar on a ferry in the middle of the Gulf of Finland, between Tallinn and Helsinki, and I can get a wireless signal.

Over the last week or so I have been asked a couple of statistical questions where the root cause of the problems has been the unthinking application of p-values. In both cases, the solution was to use confidence intervals instead; … Continue reading →

I really ought to write a serious blog post at some point. But until then, here’s something I should show The Beast: When I left him this morning, he was catching up on his sleep, having had to get up … Continue reading →

Is Madis Uusorg a polygamist? And why isn’t this in the Olympics?

I had a difficult experience at the start of my PhD. I was about a month into it when I was talking to my supervisor, who I’ll call James, in the lab. Behind him was a sign hanging from the … Continue reading →

The BBC has a story up about a group at Durham University who have produced a map of Arctic boundaries and areas of dispute. Taking a look at the map, I was surprised to read this in the legend: Denmark … Continue reading →

A few years ago some American scientists became Concerned. So concerned about political interference were they that formed a union. And called it the Union of Concerned Scientists.

Over at Scienceblogs, there has been a discussion about the relationship between science (and mathematics in particular) and the arts and humanities. This was started by Chad Orzel, and continued elsewhere. John Wilkins has a fairly up to date set … Continue reading →

Thomas Mailund got upset about the hoops he had to go through to get a manuscript from a company. The company, being Corporate and Evil, bought him off with a logo, which some here might appreciate: