Ratings Based on Politifact Scores

Who's More Full of Shit? is a website that aggregates ratings from Politifact, a widely respected website of the Tampa Bay Times that rates the truthfullness of statements by politicians. The methodology of Who's More Full of Shit? is sort of goofy:

True = 0% full of shit
Mostly True = 25% full of shit
Half True = 50% full of shit
Mostly False = 75% full of shit
False = 100% full of shit
Pants On Fire = 200% full of shit

I then add all of their scores together and divide by the total number of rulings, easy as pie!

Nonetheless, one gets a consistent picture of who is reliable and who is not. Rush Limbaugh, Newt Gingrich, Donald Trump, and Michele Bachmann are not looking good. I recalculated the truthfulness % of Obama and Romney based on the Politifact stats, above (true x 100%, mostly true x 75%, half true x 50%, mostly false x 25%): Obama's truthfulness came in at 53%; Romney's at 44%.

A Fantastic Visualization of Prime Numbers and Factors

Without any explanation I can find, here's a stand alone website that spirals numbers on a logarithmic spiral showing factors (and when no factors, primes) for the natural numbers.  (It seems to have problems loading in Firefox, BTW.) It's beautiful in itself -- just simple, elegant, smart -- one of those things words cannot adequately explain -- and a beautiful application of jscript as well. (I checked the evident author -- the "greatgrahmbini" -- interesting YouTube videos -- but....) Via MetaFilter.

And Now for a Few Words in Elvish

It isn't quite what I expected .. it's more like Robert Burns after perhaps a wee bit too much.

There is Such a Thing as Excessive Cuteness

This crosses a line.  I am just saying.

100 Guitar Riffs Just Because

Obama and "The Just War"

In an article in the October issue of Vanity Fair, Michael Lewis profiles President Obama. It's a good read, but I think a puff piece and targeted at the election -- most of the events concern the intervention in Libya in March 2011 (hence the picture at left), yet the article obviously wasn't published until now, a month and a half before voters go to the polls.

The situation with Libya, though, presents an interesting thought problem about when (and when not) the United States and other "first world" nations should intervene in the affairs of other nations. In the middle of March 2011 Gaddafi's forces were moving towards Benghazi -- the revolution's stronghold -- and, based on Gaddafi's statements, tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands might be massacred in Benghazi after Gaddafi took it. The United States and other "western" powers quavered in the Rwandan crisis and perhaps 500,000 died.  But foreign invasions, such as the Iraq War, are expensive exercises usually resented by most of an indigenous population; they are, typically, hopeless exercises in imposing one society's values on another. Humanitarianism is a weak justification for war. Is there ever a place for the Bellum iustum, "the just war"?

The Post in Which I Demonstrate I am Not Hip

Because I am two months late to the party. Or maybe it's hip to be late?

At least I made it to the party ... John.

A Lego/ Raspberry Pi Supercomputer!

A group of computer engineers, including the six year old son of the project lead, built a supercomputer using 64 Raspberry Pi credit card sized mini computers and SD cards and putting them in racks made with Lego.  Each Raspberry Pi has 256Mb of RAM, a processor roughly equal to a 300MHz Pentium 2, and a high quality graphics processing unit "roughly equivalent to Xbox 1 level of performance." Long term memory is, of course, determined by the flash cards used (here 16 GB each).  The overall cost was about $4000 excluding the switches for networking (this was at the University of Southhampton in Hampshire, England, UK; the actual cost less switches was estimated to be less than £2500 ). Via boingboing.

Hurricane Paths on Earth, from 1851 to the Present

From Astronomy Picture of the Day, a map by John Nelson of the paths of hurricanes/typhoons/ cyclones since 1851 (scroll down and over to get the full picture). Data is missing from the southern hemisphere prior to 1978. The storms curve away from the equator due to the Coriolis effect, and according to APOD evidence is mounting that the prevalence of storms is increasing in the north Atlantic and strength of storms is increasing everywhere. However, this increase might be unrelated to global warming.

Nelson's blog --  the IDV User Experience -- is itself a marvel of clear data visualization on numerous subjects.

"Interactive Plant Technology" -- Really

From our friends at Disney Research. They are our friends. We like them. They will not hurt us. I am scared.

The US Civil War Series at In Focus

In February 2012 Alan Taylor at In Focus, The Atlantic's photoblog, published a three part series of photos from the US Civil War. I've seen a lot of photos from the war, having had an interest in it since I was in the 4^th grade, but I'd never seen most of these before. And they're worth the time to go through -- they're fantastic. Here's the series:

1. The Places
2. The People
3. Stereographs

The Weirdness of Aphids ("Photosynthesis" in Animals)

As stated at Nature:

The biology of aphids is bizarre: they can be born pregnant and males sometimes lack mouths, causing them to die not long after mating. In an addition to their list of anomalies, work published this week indicates that they may also capture sunlight and use the energy for metabolic purposes.

Aphids, according to the article, are the only animals able to synthesize carotenoids (which are used by all animals but are only acquired through diet for all animals except aphids), and they may use carotenoids to generate ATP in a process similar to photosynthesis. Plaints and algae and some fungi and bacteria synthesize carotenoids and use them for photosynthesis. To me, this is just, well, amazing. Via jwz.

Yo Yos in Space

A History of New York in 50 Objects

From the New York Times (and via MetaFilter), a history of New York in 50 objects. As so often for the NYT, beautifully executed. I'm a sucker for this kind of thing.

Statistical Mapping from Humans to Animate Non-Animate Objects

This is cool. I found the link at jwz. I have a feeling I'll be visiting there a lot more often.

Now if I may digress to pointlessly and wildly speculate: eventually (non-human) animal motion might be mapped to humans by using animation motion mapping techniques and translating the coordinates derived (and modeling on them) to electrical stimuli to sent to a (human) brain. Thank you for your indulgence.

"Hurricane Balls"

Hurricane balls are ball bearings welded together by running an 800+ amp current through them, then spinning them on a smooth surface. The video speaks for itself ...

With All due Respect, Scientific American: You ask Stupid Questions, You Get Stupid Answers

Scientific American sent a survey of 14 policy questions to the Obama and Romney campaigns, and now, having received responses from both, it has published the responses side-by-side for comparison. Then SA's editors will decide the ones they like most and publish that analysis them next month.  It's a nice idea, to ask their opinions and compare them, but what they've gotten back isn't going to help anybody or convince anybody of anything.

Esquire Magazine's 7 Greatest Stories

About four years ago or so Esquire magazine published a list of what it termed its seven greatest stories. They're all good. Here's the list (links to the full or the print versions):

• The School The story of the Chechen terrorist seizure of a city school in Beslan, Russia, which resulted, after three days of horror, in the deaths of at least 385 people, including 186 children, and many hundreds wounded.  This is the story from inside the school. The Beslan massacre was the second worst terrorist attack in modern history; it ended on September 3, 2004, almost eight years ago to the day of this post.
• The Falling Man An iconic photograph exists of a man falling from the World Trade Center after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks -- he was perhaps one of several hundred who jumped or fell.  This article tells about attempts to identify the man, the duties of journalists, the reactions of the public, and the responses of the families of victims. Like the Beslan masacre, timely: it's just a five days short of 11 years ago
• What Do You Think of Ted Williams Now? Ted Williams as bloviating egoist, a man who hates to lose, who worked his way from poverty to star to apparent hater of fans but secret lover of adoration, who's a hothead, a fisherman, the last major leaguer to hit over .400, a man with 521 lifetime homeruns, and a man who YELLS EVERY OTHER DAMN PHRASE. 
• Frank Sinatra Has a Cold Frank Sinatra is not interested in being interviewed. Frank Sinatra is very busy.  "Frank Sinatra is Il Padrone. Or better still, he is what in traditional Sicily have long been called uomini rispettati -- men of respect." Frank Sinatra is a hothead -- no, he's not so much like Ted Williams -- Frank Sinatra is mercurial. Frank Sinatra was a singer the way Ted Williams was a hitter. 
• M "M" is Army company M; this article tells the story of the wrap-up of its training at Fort Dix and assignment to Vietnam in 1965-66, where several soldiers were killed, several Viet Cong were killed, and apparently a lot of Vietnamese houses were burnt down.
• The Last American Hero Is Junior Johnson. Yes! An over-the-top take from 1965 on Junior Johnson -- a stock car racer who learned to drive running moonshine whiskey for his Dad (Junior was subsequently pardoned by Ronald Reagan for a moonshining conviction) and was actually known by the nickname "The Last American Hero." Indirectly, this is a profile of the "new South" in 1965, while it was still the nascent "new South" -- today, of course, the "new South" is slowly, sadly becoming the "old south" again.
• Superman Comes to the Supermarket Ostensibly a profile of John F. Kennedy at the 1960 Democratic Presidential nominating convention -- written and published just before he was elected, and with the evident though not explicit goal to help in that end -- this is really a vehicle for Norman Mailer to ruminate on politics and the United States. An enjoyable read, but not informative if you really want to know the ins and outs.

World War II at In Focus

Between June and October 2011 Alan Taylor published a twenty (20) part photo series on World II at In Focus, The Atlantic's photoblog. Simply stated, this series is fantastic. Here's a link to the collected entries.

Our Staff is Standing By to Answer Your Questions

The Girls at Galileo Feynman Headquarters man the Post-u-laters® which we use to prepare all of our speculative posts.

"The National Atlas (Part 1)": US Census maps in the late 1800's

Geological map of the United States

Codex 99 has posted another of its periodic essays on historical graphics and culture, this one on the Statistical Atlas -- graphics that were published as part of the United States decennial census in the 1870's through 1890's. They're worth viewing not only because they're beautiful and were groundbreaking but because the information they impart is still of interest. Codex 99's post is part 1 of an anticipated multi-part series; the second part is promised to address the resurgence of detailed graphics by the census nearly a century after this first pioneering work. the maps Codex 99 uses and discusses come from a larger collection at the David Rumsey Map Collection, a wonderful site worth exploring in its own right. Via Tim!

International News Sources

In the Sources tab of this blog I have a fairly detailed list of the sources/websites I visit frequently with a description of each. One of them is Rayogram -- well, actually, a page at Rayogram -- which has pdfs the front pages of major U.S. newspapers as well as links to their websites. I often like the design of newspapers' print front pages over their web pages, and so Rayogram's service is great. Anyway ...

I also have a lengthy list of international news sources in English. These are indispensible since they give a sense of how others see the world outside of the US. So ... here's the list, with links (alpha by country):

• Buenos Aires Herald (Argentina); 
• Australian Broadcasting Corporation (Australia); 
• Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (Canada); 
• The Tornoto Star (Canada); 
• China Daily (China); 
• The People's Daily (China); 
• Euronews (European Union); 
• AFP (French international news service); 
• Le Monde Diplomatique (French monthly); 
• Deutsche Welle (Germany); 
• Der Spiegel (German weekly); 
• Daily Yomiuri (Japan); 
• Japan Times (Japan); 
• Hindustan Times (India); 
• The Times of India (India); 
• Jakarta Post (Indonesia); 
• Jerusalem Post (Israel); 
• Haaretz (Israel); 
• Corriere Della Sera (Italy); 
• Adnkronos (Italy); 
• The News (Mexico); 
• Al Jazeera (Qatar); 
• Moscow Times (Russia); 
• Pravda (Russia); 
• Al Arabiya (Saudi Arabia); 
• IOL (South Africa); 
• Mail & Guardian (South Africa); 
• Costa News (Spain); 
• El Pais (Spain); 
• The Korea Herald (South Korea); 
• The Korea Times (South Korea); 
• BBC (United Kingdom); 
• The Daily Telegraph (United Kingdom); 
• Economist (United Kingdom); 
• The Financial Times (United Kingdom); 
• The Guardian (United Kingdom); 
• The Independent (United Kingdom); 
• The London Times (United Kingdom).

While I've listed what I view as the top international English language news sources (either by influence, reliability, or readership), there are many other solid news sources out there, many of which do not have good English counterparts -- and I'm sure there are plenty of sources, too, I haven't found. For an exhaustive general reference, both for state-by-state U.S. papers and international news sources, see World-Newspapers.com.

Burning Man 2012: Fertility 2.0

This is "El Pulpo Mecancio," not the actual Burning Man man

At In Focus, The Atlantic's photoblog, a superlative series of photos was taken by Jim Urquhart of Reuters and assembled by Alan Taylor of In Focus documenting "Burning Man 2012: Fertility 2.0." The festival ended a couple of hours ago.

The Art of Memuco (Guillermo Munro)

Guillermo Munro -- who uses the handle Memuco -- is a graphic artist for China Daily and on the side produces a prodigious amount of information graphics, illustrations, and paintings. Of the information graphics, he focuses on environmental issues (apparently often without commission) and has generated a series of beautiful posters on endangered animals. This one, on Rhinos (particularly "part 2" -- scroll down), is on the shortlist for an Information is Beautiful Award in the category of infographic/infodesign.

Despite all this great stuff I found looking at his sites (he has two essentially duplicative sites -- this one is better), getting to the work is not so easy, he's very protective so you can not see it high res, and his graphics contain a number of typos. Ah, well. We all make lots of typos. But his work is beautiful.

NY AG Subpoenas Tax Records of Financial Services Firms, Including Romney's Bain Capital

The lede of an article Saturday September 1 in the New York Times:

The New York attorney general is investigating whether some of the nation’s biggest private equity firms have abused a tax strategy in order to slice hundreds of millions of dollars from their tax bills, according to executives with direct knowledge of the inquiry.

The firms, which include Bain Capital, appear to have treated/converted their management fees as investments. This allows the income from them to be treated as capital gains rather than ordinary income. That means they're taxed at 15% rather than 35% and may not be subject to Medicare taxes.

I've commented previously on Romney's and Bain's suspect movement of tens millions to offshore accounts and concerns about his non-released tax returns here, here, here and here.

The New York Attorney General will definitely come under fire for investigating this and some Republicans and pundits will claim the investigation is politically motivated. The suggestion not to investigate due to politics, of course, is also patently tying politics to the investigation, so there's no easy answer. I think the tax treatment is suspect and it is appropriate to investigate; it's not a frivolous investigation.  The New York AG is one of the few AG's in the country who has this type of broad investigative power, by the way.

Why the "Bet on God" is a Bad Bet

Many people believe in "God," I suspect, to be safe. If He/She/It, exists, well then great! Their belief will "get them into Heaven," they believe, and they'll reap infinite reward. And, if not, there's no loss. This bet is formally known as "Pascal's Wager," after Blaise Pascal, a famous 17th century mathematician/physicist/philosopher who discussed it in his book Pensées (French for "Thoughts").  The bet, though, is not a good bet. The problem is that it assumes that if 'God" exists, then "God" necessarily will open the doors to "Heaven." "Heaven" is also assumed to exist, of course. The bet also assumes there is no downside in living one's life in a potentially false belief. If the only possible assumption is that believing in "God" will open the doors to "Heaven," the bet isn't necessary: the idea that it's good to get an infinite reward is jejune. Yet if one purports to know the assumption is true, then the bet is a tautology; you've assumed the conclusion. But those aren't the only possible outcomes.

Behind the Scenes of the Korean War in Color Pictures

Via MetaFilter color pictures at Imgur of behind the scenes in the Korean War.

Tigran Tsitoghdzyan

Via My Amp Goes to 11, the artwork of Tigran Tsitoghdzyan, an Armenian artist who according to his website has been exhibiting since he was ten years old. His work is oil on canvas; the work on his site from 20 years ago was expressionistic with a growing trend towards realism since then.

The Moon. That is all.

Health Systems and Health Costs -- Canada versus the USA

Paul Krugman tells us what we (should) already know: Canada has a single payer health system (i.e. a government run system), has as good or better health outcomes, and medical care is much cheaper in Canada. Well, some of us already knew that, like Sarah Palin, who has taken her family to Canada to take advantage of its health care system. Well, that was a long time ago, before she realized it was socialism.