Open Thread, 11-22-2012
If you aren’t too stuffed, ask! I plan to get my simultaneous review of The Signal and the Noise: Why So Many Predictions Fail-but Some Don’t and Uncontrolled: The Surprising Payoff of Trial-and-Error for Business, Politics, and Society up over the holiday weekend, but I’m going to be focused on other things besides the blog obviously. […]
Open Thread, 11-15-2012
Your cry is heard!
Open Thread, 11-08-2012
I’m at ASHG 2012, so tell me what’s going on in the world.
Open Thread, 11-01-2012
Inform us!
Open thread, 10-25-2012
Let your voice be heard!
Open thread, 10-17-2012
Speak!
Open thread, 10-03-2012
Speak!
Open Thread – January 15th, 2011
Interesting review of the history of the term ‘group selection’. After taking a long break and coming back to it I’m almost done with War in Human Civilization.
Open Thread – January 8th, 2011
What books are you planning on reading this year? I have The Last Lingua Franca: English Until the Return of Babel in the stack. Also, in case you’re curious: My Pinboard page: http://pinboard.in/u:gnxp My Pinboard RSS: http://feeds.pinboard.in/rss/u:gnxp/ The Pinboard app on my Evo means I’ve started archiving stuff from my phone too. I may start […]
Open Thread – January 1st, 2011
So what should I post about this year? I do get a fair number of ideas from reader comments & emails, so this thread might be useful.
Open Thread – December 25th, 2010
This is a scheduled post (As many of my posts are by the way. Shout out to the stupid readers who occasionally wonder why I’m not partying when a post goes live on Friday night!). Merry Christmas! I’m probably playing around with my HTC Evo 4G if you’re reading this on Saturday, or eating, etc. […]
Open Thread – December 18th, 2010
I really enjoy Frederick Pohl’s The Way the Future Blogs. If Isaac Asimov had made it to the internet age I’m sure he would have blogged quite a bit.
Open Thread – December 11th, 2010
Weird story about twin brothers contesting paternity, Who’s Your Daddy? Paternity Battle Between Brothers:
“With identical twins, even if you sequenced their whole genome you wouldn’t find difference…they’re clones,” said Dr. Bob Gaensslen, a forensic scientist at Orchid Cellmark labs in Texas. “There are a few things in science that are cut and dried and this […]
Open Thread – December 4th, 2010
A few people have asked about me the assertion I made about the decline in violence over time. This doesn’t seem to pass the smell test for many moderns. In particular, I think the objection about the magnitude of modern wars is a valid one…but the main issue to remember is to focus on the […]
Open Thread – November 20th, 2010
A friend pointed me to Mapping the Measure of America. It allows for the creation of maps really quickly without any nerd-grease needed.
To the left is a a map of life expectancy at birth by Congressional District. West Virginia’s 13th Congressional District has the lowest life expectancy in the USA at birth at 73.93 […]
Open Thread – November 13th, 2010
Blogs worth checking out: Reaction Norm, A Replicated Typo, and Dodecad. Heather Mac Donald has some expectations for the Tea Party.
Take a look at the Wikio Science Top 20. Same old, same old. I’m always sniffing around for new science blogs, and am struck by how many of the top bloggers I’ve met personally. Eight […]
Open Thread – November 6th, 2010
A few days ago I was propounding to an old friend my hypothesis that social networks of cultural affinity are determinative in both the nature and trajectory of attitudes and norms within subcultures. In more plain language, you come to an opinion on many issues through your peer-network. The number one predictor of conversion to […]
Open Thread – October 23rd, 2010
Autumn is here. And winter is coming.
The fresco to the left is the cover jacket illustration for Why we’re all Romans, a new cultural history which attempts to argue for the unique debts of Western civilization to Rome (in particular as a mediator of the wisdom of the Greeks and Hebrews). If you’re on […]
Open Thread – October 16th, 2010
Yesterday regular contributor “miko” announced two things. First, he’s signed up as one of the 1,000 for the Personal Genome Project. And, he’s fired up a weblog to chronicle his journey. I know at least one other reader, my friend Paul, is also among the 1,000. Combined with the recent reveal of Genomes Unzipped, we’re […]
Friday Fluff – October 15th, 2010
1. First, a post from the past: 10 questions for Jim Crow
2. Weird search query of the week: “black mormons in utah”. They exist. One of my friends from college ended up marrying one and they live in Utah (he is Mormon as well, though not black).
3. Comment of the week, in response to Facebook […]