Jul 20, 2016
So I Am Not Teaching Calculus After All
Well, no sooner had I posted my note about teaching calculus again this fall when UMUC changed my schedule. This is not unusual for me (though I may be unusual in this…
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Archive page 34 of 73
Jul 18, 2016
NaN versus NA in R
R has two different ways of representing missing data and understanding each is important for the user. NaN means "not a number" and it means there is a result, but it cannot…
Jul 17, 2016
Read My Response to What Parents Need to Know about Pokémon GO
There's been a lot of talk about the Pokémon-based robberies, the Pokémon stabbing, and even a guy who quit his job to play Pokémon full time. There's often a reaction when something…
Jul 16, 2016
Musings on Teaching Calculus Again
I am teaching calculus again this fall after a few months off from teaching. This will be interesting. Last spring I taught calculus for the first time and it was the first…
Jul 14, 2016
Again, I am Going to Mars...
Society's 2016 Convention. Following up on the principles I outlined in my talk from last year on governing future Martian colonies, this year I will be outlining the complexity of funding public…
Jul 5, 2016
Makinster's Lectures on Eastern Philosophy
A few of weeks ago, I posted a couple of essays I wrote during a Coursera course on Buddhism and meditation. At the time, I also found an excellent introduction to Eastern…
Jul 4, 2016
Listen to My Interview About "the Purge" on KPHX
On Saturday, I discussed the ethics of The Purge on Breakthrough Entertainment on KPHX in Phoenix. While The Purge is a bad horror movie, some of the underlying ethical ideas exposed raise…
Jul 4, 2016
Watch My Interview With Mars One Candidate Heidi Hecht
Watch my interview with Mars One candidate Heidi Hecht. We mostly discussed the economics of interplanetary trade and the applications of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies in lagged trading environments. ::youtube{video="xKb9h87snUM"}
Jul 3, 2016
Runaway Trolley, Never Coming Back
The trolley problem is a relatively standard problem in ethics that arose from Phillipa Foot in 1967: Suppose...the driver of a runaway tram which he can only steer from one narrow track…
Jul 2, 2016
Thoughts on Monty Hall
Perhaps the less said about the Monty Hall Problem, the better, as many barrels of ink have been spilt in debate over the correct solution. The Monty Hall Problem is a standard…
Jul 1, 2016
Someone Will Win and It Probably Won't Be You
As MegaMillions marches toward half a billion, its third largest jackpot, it's only been five months since the colossal 1.6 billion dollar Powerball jackpot. The two big jackpot games in the United…