Archive for June 2008
Jun 27th, 2008 |
By Jonathan Golob |
Category: Featured Articles, Public Health
Dear Bill, Congratulations on your last day at Microsoft and welcome to the world of biomedical research! Everyone I know who endured a ‘billg’ review agrees—you’re apparently a bit of an ass. Quick to question and call bullshit, to point out errors or inconsistency, and to demand the best, willing to yell if yelling is […]
Posted in Featured Articles, Public Health |
Comments Off on For Bill Gates on his Last Day at Microsoft
Jun 26th, 2008 |
By Jonathan |
Category: Your Rights
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed. Enjoying your recently expanded rights under the 2nd Amendment of the US Constitution? Wait, let me adjust that quote above to reflect the Roberts-court interpretation: A well regulated […]
Tags: 2nd Amendment, firearm, guns, Roberts Court, saftey
Posted in Your Rights |
Comments Off on Some Suggestions For Your New Individual Right to Bear Arms
Jun 25th, 2008 |
By Jonathan Golob |
Category: Lead Article, Lit Round-up
If being a gay man is an inborn, inherent trait with some genetic basis–as the massive, overwhelming, credible, sound, tenable, probable, corroborating, confirming, affirmative collection of scientific evidence states–why are there gay men at all? It’s a trait that strongly discourages procreative sex. Less sex with women means less babies and therefore less spreading of […]
Tags: gay, genes
Posted in Lead Article, Lit Round-up |
Comments Off on Wait, Why Are There Gay Men?
Jun 25th, 2008 |
By Jonathan Golob |
Category: Energy, Featured Articles, Transit
Adjusting to higher energy prices? You aren’t the only one. The insanity of shipping even the cheapest goods around the planet, to save a little on labor costs, is finally being recognized as insane: As the cost of shipping continues to soar along with fuel prices, homegrown manufacturing jobs are making a comeback after decades […]
Posted in Energy, Featured Articles, Transit |
Comments Off on Living and Working Energy
Jun 24th, 2008 |
By Jonathan Golob |
Category: Economics
Bored tonight, I’ve been playing around with the S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Indices dataset that was just released. With all the hysterical coverage around the housing bubble, it seemed like fun to use some of my high school calculus. Yeah, yeah, I could just graph the index over time, but why not graph the derivative? Ah […]
Posted in Economics |
Comments Off on Calculus and the Housing Bubble
Jun 20th, 2008 |
By Jonathan Golob |
Category: Environmental
Assuming you drive the same miles per year, which change will save more gas in a given year: * Switching from a Dodge Ram at 13 MPG to a Toyota Tundra at 15 MPG * Switching from a Honda Fit at 32 MPG to a Toyota Prius at 44 MPG. (Mileage figures are from Consumer […]
Tags: cars, efficiency, fuel economy, gas, hybrids, miles per gallon
Posted in Environmental |
Comments Off on You Don’t Understand Fuel Economy; Blame MPG
Jun 18th, 2008 |
By Jonathan Golob |
Category: 2008, Featured Articles, Stats
As we approach November, I anticipate a tidal wave of blog posts on polls. Reading the polling data improperly is hazardous to your health. The disconnect between the polling and the 2004 election results nearly resulted in my death. Avoid my mistakes. 1. Remember that polls are always of a population that may or may […]
Posted in 2008, Featured Articles, Stats |
Comments Off on How to Read a Poll
Jun 17th, 2008 |
By Jonathan Golob |
Category: Environmental, Nukes
From the ominously titled European Space Agency press release, Even the Antarctic winter cannot protect Wilkins Ice Shelf: Wilkins Ice Shelf, a broad plate of floating ice south of South America on the Antarctic Peninsula, is connected to two islands, Charcot and Latady. In February 2008, an area of about 400 km² broke off from […]
Posted in Environmental, Nukes |
Comments Off on Antarctic Winters, Not So Wintery Anymore
Jun 13th, 2008 |
By Jonathan Golob |
Category: Evolution, Featured Articles
No one really argues about the validity of natural selection. Only the most hardened of young Earth creationists contest that organisms with more adaptive traits will preferentially survive and reproduce. The Intelligent Design crowd tends to wave this off as a trivial truth. Of course, they say, better traits are selected for. They instead claim […]
Posted in Evolution, Featured Articles |
Comments Off on Show Evolution of a Complex Trait? Ok.
Jun 11th, 2008 |
By Jonathan Golob |
Category: 2008
(From electoralmap.net via slashdot) Intrade, an online futures trading website, allows you to make investments based on whether or not you believe a given event is likely to happen. Will the average price of gasoline be over $4.00 on June 30th? Will Israel and/or the US bomb Iran by the 30th of September? Will McCain […]
Posted in 2008 |
Comments Off on Intrade Says: Obama Wins