Links: Collapsing NYC Skyscraper, NCAA Bagmen, Yahoo, Health Insurance, Etc.

Now that my PhD is done—for the water wave aficionados out there, I will post a link to the preprint of my research sometime soon, I hope1—it’s time to start catching up on things. The writeup on my math, linguistics and writing freshman seminar is in the works. For now, here are assorted links. This …

Links: The Future of the Left, Tech Intellectuals, Self-Serve Gas Stations, Etc

Simon Winchester, My First Mistake. An article by Peter Beinart on the future of the left. Paul Berman argues for music lessons. Is anyone else as confused as I am about how it’s possible that a new ligament in the human knee was only just discovered? Interesting interview with literary agent Andrew Wylie. On The …

Links: The Math of Genealogy, Manic Pixie Dream Girls, Techno-Utopianism, Eric Holder, Pope Francis, etc

A few links, as I prepare some more substantive posts. Laurie Penny, I was a Manic Pixie Dream Girl in the New Statesman. (Opening lines: “Like scabies and syphilis, Manic Pixie Dream Girls were with us long before they were accurately named.”) I recently started using Amazon’s S3 for highly durable, inexpensive cloud-based backup system, …

Links: Probability and DNA Testing, 16th Century Executioners, Walmart as a Bank, Etc.

Jordan Ellenberg has an excellent article in Slate about probability and DNA testing for crimes. This is important to think about, especially as we consider the implications of the recent Supreme Court decision on such testing. (In particular, the larger the database, the bigger the problem.) What was it like to be an executioner in …