Month: October 2012

Looks like the Ark built for Russell Crowe’s forthcoming film about Noah might be about to get flood tested – and fail. http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/movies/moviesnow/la-et-mn-hurricane-sandy-headed-toward-russell-crowes-noah-ark-20121029,0,5318685.story Side note: guess I’m going for the quirky Hurricane Sandy stories, but I have lots of good friends in the Northeast, not to mention 50 million no-man-is-an-island human beings. Be safe, all.

(or, at least, the male of the species) A friend works in the rubber industry, and they got a new powerful guillotine at the workplace because a new test required a fresh clean rubber surface. Naturally, much more than rubber got cut: pretty much everything around the office that could get cut. Including the tip…

This xkcd may be, if that were possible, even more awesome than usual: The Saga of Epsilon and Zeta

…a thoughtful discussion of trolling: http://thenextweb.com/insider/2012/10/27/the-problems-with-anonymous-trolls-and-accountability-in-the-digital-age/ Well worth the read, from one of my very favourite poets – and people.

Yeah, I know: it’s ‘tenterhooks1‘, and the title is a common erroneous version. Just having fun with it… plus the hooks discussed below aren’t all that pointy… I’m waiting on lots of announcements at the moment: I’ve revised and resubmitted a paper to Research in Science Education (RISE), and should get a final publication decision…

Just marking the final set of assignments from UQ, for the last two courses I’m teaching there. Will upload these grades in the next little while, and that’ll be that… the end of an era. I taught there for 6 years, from 2006-2012. There’s one on-going link: my PhD and masters students. I still have…

I mentioned this paper on Facebook last night, because I’m mildly obsessed with it. Suzie discovered it while working on her Biological Psychology essay on the nature of consciousness1. Thanks to Cassie, here’s a direct link that works: http://oro.open.ac.uk/2191/1/Antizombie_eprint_rev.pdf The article is a bit deep and a bit technical for casual discussion, though, so here’s…

Fascinating discussion of the relative merits of markets and metrics for predicting outcomes. The election context is interesting (and a bit heartening), but almost irrelevant in terms of the interesting stuff about information, stats and predictions. http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/10/24/oct-23-the-virtues-and-vices-of-election-prediction-markets/#more-36594

Thoughtful and perceptive piece, well worth reading. http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-10-24/crabb-tony-abbott-clueless-or-calculated/4331806 As Annabel says, in a way it’s nearly as bad if he does it by accident as if he does it on purpose: “Out of the fullness of the heart, the mouth speaks”, Luke 6:45.

Dredging up some posts from the deep past, just ‘cos I can, and probably have a different audience now who won’t have seen them before: Knowing, Learning and Teaching 1 – Knowing Knowing, Learning and Teaching 2 – Learning Knowing, Learning and Teaching 2a – Learning Again Knowing, Learning and Teaching 3 – Teaching Hope…

In response to some discussion on my Facebook page and elsewhere around the web, as well as the posting of various memes, I was thinking of posting my own Prime Directive – ‘Don’t Be A Dick’. It’s entirely possible to agree with someone without being disagreeable, and IMO getting rude reflects on the character of…

The Australian government has placed a freeze on funding for research, for budgetary reasons. Initially it was for both of the major funding bodies, the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) and the Australian Research Council (ARC), but this morning a further announcement has freed up some or all of the NHMRC funding. I…

This post from Cracked is a bit sweary, but fun: http://www.cracked.com/article_19481_the-8-most-wildly-irresponsible-vintage-toys.html I really do think that, in keeping people ‘safe’ we’ve wrapped the world in cotton wool to such an extent that it’s sometimes hard to see its awesomeness. People will rise, or fall, to our expectations – if we treat them like morons who…

…and we get to learn from his mistakes: http://www.danoah.com/2012/10/16-ways-i-blew-my-marriage.html Well worth a read for the married and those who want to be.

Apologies for the very feast-or-famine approach of this blog this year – nothing for months on end, then multiple posts each day. I think it partly reflects my mental state – whether UQ is a top university in Australia or not, I was depressed there and now I’m not. The ideas are flowing again…

I used to use StatTraq as a statistics tool for this blog, but took it off for some reason years ago. Pity – old stats would have been cool! I’ve just added the Jetpack plugin for WordPress, which will give me stats access again as well as a number of other benefits… so expect a…