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Muslims, Terrorism, Extremism, Moderation, and Statistics

I want to point you to some very goode Bayesian statistical analyses of why, in most situations, fearing Muslims as terrorists is irrational. But first, I want to remind you that, during the entire...

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To the martial sound of flutes

After this they joined battle, the Argives and their allies advancing with haste and fury, the Lacedaemonians slowly and to the music of many flute-players — a standing institution in their army, that...

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More martial music

Miami Dolphins Cheerleaders “Call Me Maybe” vs U.S. Troops “Call Me Maybe”

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Of terrorists and the problem of tracking misspelled names

Finally, an aspect of the bombing case that ties in with my actual area of expertise: software. FBI missed Tamerlan Tsarnaev’s Russia trip because of misspelling, Sen. Lindsey Graham says The FBI did...

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James Surowiecki on the right way to crowd source a manhunt

The big computer story of the Boston bombing, of course, was the dramatic failure of Reddit’s crowd sourced attempt to help in the manhunt by sifting suspicious photos, a failure for which Reddit has...

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Criminal hard luck story of the day

Mormon bishop with Samurai sword runs off attacker.

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More on terror watch lists and spelling errors

Evidently, the story with the spelling error isn’t that the US didn’t know that Tamerlan Tsarnaev travelled to Russia, because his name was misspelled. Rather, the story is that different government...

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Albion’s Seed

One of the books I finished reading recently is Albion’s Seed; my Goodreads book review of it is here. I come at understanding this book from the perspective of someone who grew up in the suburbs of...

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“You cried for America / And its medicine cupboard.”

An old college friend of mine, now living in Switzerland, writes about rereading this line from Ted Hughes, in a book of poems for Sylvia Plath, and reflecting on how seeing her as “a writer in exile,...

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On Angelina Jolie, BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes, cancer risk, and gene testing patents

I’m planning to get back to my nature/nurture series sometime soon, with a post about genes and the environment, at which point I’ll also be writing about genes and cancer. But in the meantime, the...

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A round up of (mostly) tech links

First, though, the link whose only connection to IT is the fact that it comes from a blog written by a guy I used to work with, back when I was doing tech support and he was programming for a small...

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Polio eradication challenges

I posted on Facebook a link to the post Why you should worry about a case of polio in Somalia, and am engaged in a discussion there about polio eradication efforts, so I figured I’d reproduce my...

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Meeting of the Minds, 2013

Last week, Joel and I went to a conference called Meeting of the Minds. I’ve blogged about this conference in previous years. It’s Orange County’s biggest mental health conference, but on by the county...

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Things it may be unwise to do on the Internet department

Driver Brags About Hitting Cyclist on Twitter, Finds Out the Police Know About the Internet

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Η ΤΑΝ Η ΕΠΙ ΤΑΣ

In 1940, my father lived with his family in Yannina. He was ten. The family lived, during his early childhood, in various towns along the north of Greece, because my grandfather was an officer in the...

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A couple of recent Civil War related links

David Frum writes about reading The Battle Cry of Freedom. Forgetting Why We Remember. And, a non-Civil War link: Photo of the Day: For Memorial Day, Boston Remembers Marathon Victims.

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Lessons from my mother’s genome

It’s oddly reassuring to see that my mother has a significantly increased risk of being afflicted with myeloproliferative neoplasms. No, I don’t want my mother dead any time soon. I don’t even want her...

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Lady in Red

“Twitter is a menace.” A photo of pepper spray burning a woman in a red dress. It’s been a week for Turkey’s democracy to show its less liberal side, and a week for Erdogan’s domestic critics to hope...

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Always look on the bright side of life

When faced with a massive government data mining program that includes you and me, has been going on for seven years under two different Presidents, with the knowledge of the relevant Congressional...

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Happy Anniversary!

Happy 48th anniversary to Griswold v. Connecticut.

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