The New York Times has an interesting article about physicists in the financial world (”quants”):
By their activities, quants admit that despite their misgivings they have at least given cover to some of the wilder schemes of their bosses, allowing traders to conduct business in a quasi-scientific language and take risks they did not understand.
Doug at Bogus Gold pointed out an article on how (start here: On the Limitation of Predictive Models, Even When They Don’t Suck) bad predictive modeling by mathematicians and statisticians is partly to blame for the economic bubble that is now bursting. He should add physicists in there too–it was fashionable for a [...]
……something I saw one time when I was sitting in the car waiting for my mother to finish grocery shopping. The store is at the main intersection of town, where the stoplight is. A truck pulling a small horse trailer turned off the highway and started up a little hill. The trailer [...]
The new 35W bridge (aka “the safest bridge in Minnesota — now”, according to MFH) has some of the most unevenly-colored concrete that I’ve ever seen on a road. Under some combinations of weather and light conditions, the white lane markers blend into the background and are practically invisible. (The white paint has [...]
….for the Entwives desired order, and plenty, and peace (by which they meant that things should remain where they had set them).
That is precisely my mood today.
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Apparently I’ve reached the stage of pregnancy where I absolutely must have a good crossword puzzle book. This happened last time, too. Puzzle book has been obtained, [...]