The Coming Spring

Flowers Timelapse from Katka Pruskova on Vimeo.

From Wired: "As Math Grows More Complex, Will Computers Reign?"

From an interesting article in Wired from earlier this month:

Computers are now used extensively to discover new conjectures by finding patterns in data or equations, but they cannot conceptualize them within a larger theory, the way humans do. Computers also tend to bypass the theory-building process when proving theorems, said Constantin Teleman, a professor at the University of California at Berkeley who does not use computers in his work. In his opinion, that’s the problem. “Pure mathematics is not just about knowing the answer; it’s about understanding,” Teleman said. “If all you have come up with is ‘the computer checked a million cases,’ then that’s a failure of understanding.”

Zeilberger disagrees. If humans can understand a proof, he says, it must be a trivial one. In the never-ending pursuit of mathematical progress, Zeilberger thinks humanity is losing its edge. Intuitive leaps and an ability to think abstractly gave us an early lead, he argues, but ultimately, the unswerving logic of 1′s and 0′s — guided by human programmers — will far outstrip our conceptual understanding, just as it did in chess. (Computers now consistently beat grandmasters.)

“Most of the things done by humans will be done easily by computers in 20 or 30 years,” Zeilberger said. “It’s already true in some parts of mathematics; a lot of papers published today done by humans are already obsolete and can be done using algorithms. Some of the problems we do today are completely uninteresting but are done because it’s something that humans can do.”

The Making and Breaking of Prince Rupert's Drop

Prince Rupert's Drop is a string of glass with a bulb on the end formed by pouring molten glass into cold water. The glass immediately sets on the outside of the stream, which insulates the inside of the stream causing it to cool more slowly. As a result the bulb on the end is very hard to break but any stress farther up the strong will cause the whole thing to instantly explode. Here it is in ultra-slo-mo (which is very cool):

Imagine a World Without Hate

This moving advertisement for the Anti Defamation League has begun to make the rounds. It's only one minute twenty seconds long and does a lot with that:

Today's Crazy Values In Ceramics

As reported at NBC News (via Miss Celania), a bowl purchased at a garage sale for $3 turned out to be a 1000 year old relic from China. Naturally, following a suitable period sitting on the family fireplace mantel followed by a suitable period for verification, it was off to auction and was sold for $2.2 million.

This stuff never happens to me.

Note: this embedded video is from NBC News, whose embedding sucks, and I am too tight on time to fool with it. You'd think a big media company like that would have a clue, but nooooo ...

Renata Adler Rips The New York Times a New One

A few years ago Renata Adler wrote a book about the decline of The New Yorker at the departure of its long term editor, William Shawn, and happened to quote a letter she had written Shawn declining to review a book about Judge John Sirica, famous from the Watergate scandal. "Contrary to his reputation as a hero," Adler wrote, "Sirica was in fact a corrupt, incompetent, and dishonest figure, with a close connection to Senator Joseph McCarthy and clear ties to organized crime."

This single sentence led to a firestorm, mostly in The New York Times. It published no less than eight pieces critical of Adler and her book and mostly critical of the single sentence quoted above. It also refused to print a letter from Adler defending it. Harpers, however, did publish an essay by Adler. There she discusses the sentence and lays out her substantial support for it and, in the process, demolishes the Times's approach, as well as Sirica. Adler's essay is a masterwork of rhetoric and careful thought.

Conservatives and Sewers (Is One More Full of Shit?)

This short Paul Krugman column from a few days ago is worth quoting in its entirety:

I see that some commenters on my traffic externalities post are speculating what Republicans would say about sewers if they didn’t already exist. Well, we don’t know about Republicans, but we do know what The Economist said, in 1848, about proposals for a London sewer system:

Suffering and evil are nature’s admonitions; they cannot be got rid of; and the impatient efforts of benevolence to banish them from the world by legislation, before benevolence has learned their object and their end, have always been more productive of evil than good.

Sewers are socialism!

It wasn’t until the Great Stink made the Houses of Parliament uninhabitable that the sewer system was created.

(I added the link to "the Great Stink" -- and it's a fun read -- the others are in Krugman's original at The New York Times.)

What Hurts More: AC or DC?

The way to determine this is to to test:

Bottom line: AC hurts a lot more than DC. But they both hurt a lot.

Score 1 for Edison.

Dick Cheney Speaks Candidly About His Memories of the Iraq War

In an exclusive interview given to America's finest News Source, The Onion, Dick Cheney spoke candidly today about his memories of the Iraq war which he started a scant ten years ago today:

Good times, Dick, good times.

The Paintings of KwangHo Shin

From Behance the oil paintings of Korean artist KwangHo Shin (신광호) which I fthink are beautiful, technically smart, and moving:

From the BBC: The Lyndon Johnson Tapes: Richard Nixon's 'Treason'

This, if true, and it is at least partially backed up by tapes, is scandalous: according to the BBC (not always the most reliable source) during the 1968 U.S. presidential campaign Richard Nixon, then a candidate in a very tight race with Hubert Humphrey, scuttled the Paris peace talks the U.S. was engaged in with the North Vietnamese. According to the BBC Nixon used Anna Chennault (born Chen Xiangmei (陳香梅), she was a Republican operative who had a very interesting life) to convince the South Vietnamese to reject an agreement the U.S. and the North Vietnamese had worked out because Nixon claimed the South Vietnamese would be better treated by his administration. Of course, they ultimately were not: South Vietnam fell to the North in 1975 after the additional deaths of more than 100,000 people. If the talks had been successful before the 1968 election it seems likely that the democratic candidate would have one.

And as to who that candidate would be, there's another significant historical note in the BBC story: President Lyndon Johnson wanted to go to the convention and re-enter the race and get the nomination himself. He didn't for several reasons. One, apparently, was that he then knew Nixon had prevented the peace accord, a fact he learned through NSA and other surveillance of Chennault and the ambassador, among others. Johnson called Nixon a traitor and said he had blood on his hands.

The claims in the BBC article have been in the public arena for several years, though they've received scant attention. Both Johnson and his Secretary of Defense, Clark Clifford, claimed it was true and not based on speculation. Numerous writers have claimed it was the case, and it seems to be supported (if by innuendo) by the former South Vietnamese ambassador's own memoir.

Via Kottke.

On Whether Radagast Could Indeed Effectively Mush with Rabbits

In an evidently non-canonical portion of the recent movie of Tolkien's classic The Hobbit, the wizard Radagast the Brown travels about on a sled pulled by rabbits. (Wait! Was that a spoiler I should have warned you about? Well, given that Radagast has the same rhetorical value as Jar Jar Binks, I'm going to go with "no.")

Anyway, over at The One Ring.net, Teanne Byerts, who goes by the handle "swordwhale" and is a recreational musher, actually thinks this is a great idea (also not surprising given that Ms. swordwhale's essay is, in fact, on The One Ring.net).  BUT Peter Jackson et al. nonetheless failed by having Radagast's gangline attached to his brush bow, which, apparently, would surely tear his sled apart. He also rides his sled incorrectly and doesn't have a brake. Horrors! Verisimilitude in Tolkien fantasy movies has simply gone into the toilet. It's no wonder Christopher Tolkien hates the movies.

By the way, should your interest in mushing now have been whetted, there is a great series of photos over at The Big Picture (of The Boston Globe) covering this year's Iditarod Trail Sled Race now ongoing in Alaska.

Will It Blend -- iPhone5 vs. Samsung Galaxy S3

The Blendtec blender man calls it a draw, but if you watch I think it is obvious that the iPhone blends a lot easier than the Samsung -- that is, Samsung wins! (My guess is that the Android operating system had no effect on the outcome.)

The Power of Myth

Bill Moyers has put the audio of his famous series of six interviews with anthropologist ethnographer "mythologist" Joseph Campbell online for free. In the series, which was made 25 years ago, Campbell discusses at length (and with broad appeal for many) his theories on the importance of religious stories and myths in all cultures. Campbell, who was greatly influenced by lay biologist and philosopher Ed Ricketts (who also influenced John Steinbeck, Henry Miller, Bruce Ariss, Adelle Davis Henry Miller, Lincoln Steffens and Francis Whitaker) as well as Carl Jung, modern art, Thomas Mann, Hinduism, and Native American culture, believed that myth was ingrained in the "human psyche" and always centered around the trials of a "hero." There's a lot of pop psychology and loose thinking here, but the series is worth listening to nonetheless for its provocative ideas and lovely delivery.

The Incredible Underwater Photography of Alexander Semenov

Alexander Semenov, a Russian zoologist specializing in squid, started taking underwater photographs a few years ago, and his work has simply taken off. Below a selection of close-ups of coral. His site is worth going through for a full selection of his work (or just see my prior post on his photos -- not not really, go to his site).

Mastectomy Tattoos

This is a lovely idea: women who have had full or partial mastectomies have used tattoos to cover or incorporate their scars, turning what can seem a permanent disfigurement into a source of beauty and self expression.

At Babble.com there's a nice gallery -- likely safe for work unless you're surrounded by conservative nuts or work in North Korea. Via MetaFilter.

Life on the Ol' Wabash

This, I am given to understand, is how people in Indiana spend their time.