Longer Links

Some more links, but this time longer than normal, and generally about more engaging stuff. Not that this stuff ain't engaging. And, if you can, read the links within my links.

• I enjoy trying to replicate reality with fiction, at least in mathematical sequences. I'd like to think that I wouldn't be susceptible to things like this or like this, but then, I might. Additional uses; if I ever need to forge numbers (I did that on some of my GCSE geography coursework figures, and so Benford might have been useful) or play games on my friends.
• Geo-engineering. It's one possible solution, or rather one of the possible solutions, to global warming. But the thing is, regardless of what we do there's always a number of things that make me resist purely scientific solutions to problems not limited to science: Does the solution actually solve the underlying problem, which is human behavior? What happens if we put all our eggs in one basket, and it fails? What are the unintended consequences? What are the unknown unknowns, to quote a guy who happened to be right when he was talking in this case - if we block out the sun in Siberia, what happens in Australia that we didn't know was going to happen. How much more expensive will the solution actually be than what it's being sold as? It's the conservative in me (notice the small-c) that makes me wary of using science to solve political problems, as I grow wary when we try to solve religious, political or scientific problems without addressing the the underlying religious, political or scientific problem.
• Of course, sometimes using science can help to mitigate behavioral problems. Arguably, though, this is using technology and/or biology to solve a demography problem. And we all know Malthus is science. Even I know that. But a problem that does arise with this is the "green" groups who resist using technology in this way to promote inefficient ideas. Not that there's anything wrong with that in the first world. But there is when people are starving.
• I read this way. I first noticed this when I read Where the Red Fern Grows in second grade, and I would go through pages and not really notice the words. I can even do this when I read aloud. I, too, thought there was something wrong with me, and that was augmented by the fact that I got in trouble when I would zoom through chapters with 5 or 10 pages missing from my mind.