Posts tagged ‘news’
The best kind of garden
December 14th, 2012 at 8:59 pm by Dr. Drang
When our daughter was in kindergarten, her class put on a show at the end of the year. It was during the school day, so I couldn’t go, but my wife videotaped it. The highlight was the final song. As a slide show ran photos of the kids on the first day of school and…
Helmets and health care
September 30th, 2012 at 10:51 pm by Dr. Drang
Did you see this story in yesterday’s New York Times? It’s about bike-sharing programs in cities around the world—existing ones in Amsterdam, Dublin, Melbourne, Minneapolis, and Paris, and the upcoming one in New York—and the effect that helmet rules have on their success. The basic thrust of the article is that forcing riders to wear…
The risk of sitting
April 11th, 2012 at 9:20 pm by Dr. Drang
Last week, everyone was blogging and tweeting about this New York Times article about the health effects of sitting for long periods every day. And I think everyone got it wrong. Let’s start with a disclaimer. Although I have both formal training and professional experience dealing with probability and statistics (it was part of my…
Arrested for breaking the law of large numbers
February 24th, 2012 at 10:59 pm by Dr. Drang
So there’s this article in the New York Times today, by James B. Stewart, called “Apple Confronts the Law of Large Numbers,”1 and it’s been linked to a lot in the Apple-centric corner of the internet, including a Linked List mention at Daring Fireball. Let’s cut to the chase: The New York Times doesn’t know…
Southwest 812
April 25th, 2011 at 11:41 pm by Dr. Drang
The National Transportation Safety Board put out a press release today, summarizing its initial findings in the investigation of Southwest Flight 812. That was the flight that had make an emergency landing a few weeks ago because a five foot long hole ripped through its fuselage during a flight. It’s a very well written summary—better,…
Foamed cement and the BP oil spill
October 29th, 2010 at 11:13 am by Dr. Drang
You may have read recent news reports about problems with the cement used by Halliburton to seal BP’s Macondo well that blew out and led to both the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon rig and the huge oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. If the discussion of casings, foamed cement, and stability has left…
That religion quiz/survey
September 30th, 2010 at 11:05 pm by Dr. Drang
You’ve probably read about that survey by Pew into the religious knowledge of Americans. Like all such surveys, it proves that we’re as dumb as fence posts. The original survey had 32 questions. Pew has put up an online quiz with 15 of those questions, so you can test yourself and see how you stack…
Good Times, bad Times
June 22nd, 2010 at 6:29 am by Dr. Drang
The New York Times has a big article about the Deepwater Horizon, the failure of regulatory agencies to recognize and act on the hazards associated with offshore drilling, and—most interesting to me—the safety device known as the “blind shear ram” that was the last line of defense against a spill. When a newspaper covers an…
God as a thing
May 13th, 2010 at 10:29 pm by Dr. Drang
I was away from the internets yesterday and didn’t see this item until today: A recording of a 1966 Beatles press conference at which John Lennon was quizzed over his controversial comments about Jesus is to be auctioned. This is an August 17 press conference in Toronto, not the one in Chicago on August 11…
Biking season is like deer season
May 4th, 2010 at 9:52 am by Dr. Drang
If you’re a bicyclist who rides in Naperville, you’ll be interested to know that the cost of attacking you with a car has just been set by a DuPage County judge: 21 days, to be served in three-day increments over seven weeks. And although the attacker has been forced to give up her gun owner’s…
