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Friday, August 29, 2003
 
How to detect bogus science

This article proposes seven indicative signs of bogosity in scientific claims, but I find the outlook generally conservative. Applying it with too much zeal will result in false positives, dismissing truly revolutionary accomplishments. Einstein's work on special relativity comes off as bogus when viewed through the prism of #6 and #7, for instance:
6. The discoverer has worked in isolation.

7. The discoverer must propose new laws of nature to explain an observation.

Moreover, it should be noted that the most successful (and perhaps most prevalent) bogus science doesn't trigger any alarms or raise eyebrows. It does so simply by virtue of avoiding making any extraordinary claims - thus staying below the radar of suspicion.

I don't think there are any reliable shortcuts in identifying bogus science. You have to look at things very carefully before you can categorically dismiss them as nonsense. The thing is, this takes time, which is is why everyone needs rules of thumb such as those proposed to decide how to allocate their time in the most productive manner.

What do you think? []  links to this post    6:42:41 PM  
Windows-Linux equivalents

If you're converting to the Linux operating system, as Ton is presently doing, (and as Stephen is endeavoring to do) you may find this table of equivalents / replacements / analogs of Windows software in Linux handy. Very comprehensive, with versions in Russian, Italian, Spanish, French, and German.

And if you need to run the occasional Windows app nevertheless, Wine is a popular Windows compatibility layer that runs within Linux.
What do you think? []  links to this post    6:21:01 PM  


If you're wondering what serious partying looks like in the third millenium and can spare the bandwidth, you could watch these two videos back-to-back:
(Never been to anything like this, thankfully...)

By the way, if you're looking for memorable music videos, Ivar Hagedoorn's music videos page is not something to miss.

What do you think? []  links to this post    6:03:09 PM  
Edges considered harmful

David Weinberger: The Tragedy of Coloring Books. "And then you come to coloring books that train kids to see the world as edges to be filled in. Put down your crayons, kids. I have bad news."

See also this early post by Liz: outlines and boundaries. "I wouldn't use an outline for a poem."

and Ton: Monsters again. "Basically, as soon as you draw lines somewhere (this is a tree, this is a shrub) you get into trouble when you encounter things that are on the border of such categories (is it a small tree, or a large shrub)."

What do you think? []  links to this post    5:39:01 PM  
Conferences: analyzing bang for the buck

Computer science researcher Werner Vogels cooked up an interesting way to put a value to a conference.

I think there are a number of criteria to consider when selecting a conference:
  • Innovation - will you hear new stuff that may challenge you
  • Technical - will you learn about techniques/technologies you will use
  • Political - will you get a better of view at the strategic level
  • Networking - will you hook up with (new) people
  • Career - will this conference help you to advance your professional goals
  • Entertainment - Will you be able to have some fun
  • Location - if the conference sucks can you go somewhere else
From there, he assigns numerical values and computes ratios to rate a number of geeky conferences. As it turns out, Chris Pirillo's Gnomedex comes out on top. Now how would you rate the O'Reilly Emerging Technology Conference, Werner?

What do you think? []  links to this post    4:59:45 PM  
Bloglines aggregator

A few people I trust have written that the Bloglines Web-based news aggregator works well. It looks clean and might be an excellent way to get started if you've never used an aggregator, especially if you move around between computers, as your data is kept on the site instead of on your computer. Here's what Joe Hart had to say about bloglines:

I've found Bloglines the easiest to use among the free news readers. I'm recommending it for students and instructors who want to get started reading blogs and other rss feeds. Bloglines makes getting an account easy and subscribing to feeds very easy (you don't even need to know the full rss address).


What do you think? []  links to this post    4:47:41 PM  
Bye IE

On the recommendation of colleague Todd Bingham, I've switched from Internet Explorer to Mozilla Firebird a while ago and have been utterly enjoying it ever since. I had no problems whatsoever installing, and it runs without a glitch. It will even import your IE bookmarks upon startup. Give it a try - I don't think you'll be disappointed.

Now I'm trying out Jake's spiffy Moz editor for Radio Userland, and so far it looks superior to the one available under IE. What's this icon on the right? Oh, does that mean I can make tables? And fool around with colors?

Yeah
looks
like
I can...
Thanks Jake!

What do you think? []  links to this post    4:35:38 PM  


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