Jinn of Quality and Risk

Jinn?

According to critics, an eavesdropper, constantly striving to go behind the curtain of heaven in order to steal divine secrets. Grants wishes.

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Projects

Write a book, quickly. Read, more. Sleep, less. Travel in Europe and America, v.soon. Find a job, again.

Bio?

Species: featherless biped, chocolate addict
Roots: born in Sweden — lived also in Switzerland, USA, UK — good genes from Sweden, Norway, India, Germany
Languages: French, English, Swedish, German, Portuguese, Latin, Ada, Perl, Java, assembly language, Pascal, C/C++, etc.
Jobs: factory worker, farmhand, supermarket cleaner, programmer, language lawyer, soldier, lecturer, software engineer, consultant, director of technology, solutions architect, programme manager, methodology lead, quality and risk manager, writer

Links

2002-05-09

Defending Science

The fury inspired by The Skeptical Environmentalist is extraordinary, and raises some questions. The response in many quarters has been apoplectic. The author, Lomborg, is being called a liar, a fraud and worse. [The Economist]

The Litany and The Heretic

Why has Bjørn Lomborg created such a stir among environmentalists? [The Economist]

The Doomslayer

This is the Litany: Our resources are running out. The air is bad, the water worse. The planet's species are dying off ... We're trashing the planet, washing away the topsoil, paving over our farmlands, systematically deforesting our wildernesses, decimating the biota, and ultimately killing ourselves. The world is getting progressively poorer, and it's all because of population, or more precisely, overpopulation. There's a finite store of resources on our pale blue dot, spaceship Earth, our small and fragile tiny planet, and we're fast approaching its ultimate carrying capacity. The limits to growth are finally upon us, and we're living on borrowed time. ... And we know the solution: cut back, contract, make do with less.

There's just one problem with The Litany, just one slight little wee imperfection: every item in that dim and dreary recitation, each and every last claim, is false. Incorrect. At variance with the truth. [Wired]

Enters Julian Simon, the Doomslayer.

Environmentalist Fury vs Statistics

A dissection of the agenda behind the attacks on Bjørn Lomborg's controversial book, The Skeptical Environmentalist: Measuring the Real State of the World.

Filled with scores of charts and graphs, backed by some 2,900 endnotes and 70 pages of references, The Skeptical Environmentalist looks at a host of global environmental issues, including population growth, pollution, deforestation, and climate change. For his trouble in writing it, Lomborg has become the target of an intellectual hate campaign. ... Unfortunately for the doomsayers, their central predictions are simply not coming true. And so their best and perhaps only defense against a dispassionate analysis of their claims has been to smear the analyst. [long article, but useful if you care about the future of our environment and a reasonable approach to actual problems.]

Constructing Accessible Websites

This book should be in the hands of all web designers. Our American friends should note in particular page 331, Accessible Web ADA Myths, which states:

The third myth — that web developers cannot be held liable for inaccessible web design due to client instructions and pocketbook — is subject to debate. Under the ADA, architects of buildings subject to new construction or remodeling have been held liable for failure to design and constuct accessible facilities, although courts have not been consistent in their findings. However, the US Department of Justice has consistently maintained that architects can be held liable for violating the ADA. ...

Similarly, it is now highly likely that web developers could also be held liable, both for the construction of a web site and any time they modify it. This is because the ADA imposes an ongoing duty to remove barriers and to maintain accessible features. Now that Section 508 is law, the ADA will be informed about what it means to design accessible web sites. Even though Section 508 only directly impacts federal agencies, there is also an indirect impact on other entities for a variety of reasons as discussed later in this chapter under When does a Web Developer Follow Section 508 Rules?

[diveintomark]

What Is Foolishness?

The Motley Fool name comes directly from the beginning of Act II, scene vii of Shakespeare's "As You Like It." In the days when Shakespeare was writing about kings, Fools were the happy fellows who were paid to entertain the king and queen with self-effacing humor that instructed as it amused. Fools were, in fact, the only members of their societies who could tell the truth to the king or queen without having their heads rather unpleasantly removed from their shoulders. [Fool.com: The 13 Steps to Investing Foolishly]

Recurring cosmic catastrophe 'a certainty'

Many of the great extinctions that regularly punctuate the Earth's history are consistent with being caused by a devastating influx of radiation from space. Once every one hundred million years or so, massive life extinction is likely to hit our home planet due to the collapse of some supermassive star. This is one of the reasons we should travel to other planets and stars as soon as possible.

The most beautiful experiment...

A candle taps many fundamental laws of the universe... The heat of the flame melts the wax and draws up currents of air to cool the wax at the periphery, thus creating a cup for the molten wax, which remains horizontal thanks to gravity — the same force of gravity which holds worlds together. Capillary action draws the melted wax up the wick from cup to flame, while the flame's heat triggers a chemical reaction in the wax that sustains the flame. Can you think of other beautiful or enlightening processes?

Measure the speed of light at home

The activity requires a microwave oven, a microwave-safe casserole dish, a bag of marshmallows, and a ruler...

Poster: Napoléon's (Death) March

Probably the best statistical graphic ever drawn, this map by Charles Joseph Minard portrays the losses suffered by Napoleon's army in the Russian campaign of 1812. [Edward Tufte's online shop]

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