Adaptive time-stepping and white-noise forcing
Last month I implemented the Bogacki-Shampine Runge-Kutta 3-2 method so that I could do some low-accuracy, but efficient, time stepping in some of my code. The method has adaptive time-stepping, where…
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Unemployment and Infidelity
Earlier I was wondering why people quite their jobs after having an affair. This morning I just read an excellent piece by David Simon (via Jon Gruber) which so nicely calls…
Freakonomics: save the earth, drive your car
In a fairly ridiculous post, Freakonomics bloggers argue that public transit in America can be often less efficient than driving. Now, the description of their conclusions as I have put it,…
Apple Fail #2: Selection
Since 10.8 (or was 10.7?) you can get yourself into a situation where you can’t select the last item in a column. Yes, that’s right, Apple’s updated UI is so…
The GOP bubble suggests that we should worry about their policies
I like this provocative post from Matt Yglesias where he argues that the inability of the Republican party to predict their own loss, correlates with poor policymaking. The connection from that…
Why do people quit their jobs after having an affair?
CIA director Petraeus quit his job after an affair came to light and a Lockheed Martin executive was fired after having an affair with a subordinate. In the second case, that’s a…
Explicit racism and political party affiliation
My jaw hit the floor after reading this AP article (via Andrew Sullivan) summarizing the results of a study on racism in America. Specifically that paragraph that states that 79% of Republicans…
The non-divide between Romney and Obama on foreign policy
Watching the presidential debate on foreign policy, I think that Romney is working hard to convey a large difference between him and Obama on the different issues—whether a genuine difference…
Promises and incumbents
Its interesting that in last nights presidential debate Mitt Romney appeared to make substantially more promises about what he will do if elected president than Barak Obama made. I could be…
Designing better intersections
I read this great post this morning by Tom Fucoloro about how downhill bike boxes may increase collisions, but most interesting was the video towards the end that he included…