Anti-Woo Cleverosity

Via the Barefoot Doctoral, this:

That New-Fangled Printing Press

Slate has an interesting article about two new biographies of Frank Baum, the author of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. One thing struck me as odd, though. Meghan O'Rourke writes that Baum published Oz in 1900, at the age of 44. After saying that he was a sickly, dreamy child, she continues

But he also reveled in newfangled inventions like the printing press (which, as a teenager, he used to put out a literary journal) and, later, bicycles, Model Ts, and movies.

I'm baffled at the suggestion that the printing press would have seemed "newfangled" in the late 1800's. Seriously? It was invented in the 15th century and my scanty knowledge of U.S. history suggests it was commonly in use at least around the time of the American revolution (and most likely before, of course).

What am I missing?

Blows My Mind

Do you know what blows my mind?

This:



From Astronomy Picture of the Day, this is a Hubble telescope image of the Sombrero Galaxy.

OK, so, it's not all that fabulous, but think about this. In our sky you can see lots of stars in our galaxy. Our galaxy is huge. And then, also in our sky, you can see whole other galaxies. They are so far away that they are, like, the same apparent size as stars.

It is just freakin' amazing the range of orders of magnitude present in our universe. It reminds me of this, of course (from Monty Python's The Meaning of Life, which I remember seeing in the theater in New Orleans as a little kid, with my mom and her friend and her friend's kids):

Open Letter

Via Language Log, check out this brilliant open letter by "eternally stressed semanticist." An excerpt to whet your appetite:

Dear [□ Sir / □ Madam / □ Representative / □ Journalist / □ Idiot],

I know you believe you know a great deal about [□ linguistics / □ children's literature / □ law / □ psychology / □ other (please specify)]

simply because you [□ use language / □ read Harry Potter and Goodnight Moon / □ watch Law & Order / □ have a mind],

or because you've read a newspaper article about [□ the lack of numbers in Pirahã / □ Dumbledore being gay / □ some Supreme Court decision / □ Prozac].

Besides being funny, the letter makes an important point - there is something to these fields. In fact, there is something to most fields, and you could write this letter about any of them.

Depending on the person's attitude, it is either annoying or an interesting opportunity when someone makes a pronouncement that is not just wrong, but wrong in some fundamental way, in a field about which one knows something. I find this happens to me with linguistics a lot, possibly because the combination of "I know something about it" and "People like to comment on it a lot" is so high.

Competitions vs. Grants

The Economist has an article this week about robot cars, which have improved a lot in the past few years, largely (it seems) as a result of the Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) competitions, which set out conditions and then award large prizes to the best competitors.

I say "large," but of course a few million bucks would be miniscule for a robotic car research program, and wouldn't even be a lot of money for grants.

This improvement in “autonomous vehicle technology”, as the jargon has it, is partly a result of prodding by America's defence department, which hopes a third of its ground vehicles will be robotic by 2015. To that end its research arm, the Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), has scaled back the traditional process of handing out large research grants and getting nothing useful in return. Instead, it has been running a series of grand prix for such vehicles. The prix in the latest, due to take place on November 3rd, is $3.5m—of which $2m will go to the vehicle best able to negotiate its way round Victorville, a former air force base in southern California, with $1m and $500,000 to those in second and third places.

Competing are university research teams (some of which have big-name sponsors because of success in past years), amateur enthusiasts, and even a corporation or two.

I really like this idea. It seems to motivate (financially and psychologically) all the right people, and you only have to reward people who succeed. Obviously the money to fund the research has to be out there to begin with, and it will never be fully compensated, but it's great to be able to harness existing money and motivation this way.

Plus, the resulting competitions are really fun to hear about.