Posts By Me

Tim Harford wrote a piece in ft.com earlier this year, documenting the [not-so-surprising] inaccuracy and just-plain "wrongfulness" of economic forecaster[s] [ing]...... In the 2001 issue of the International Journal of Forecasting, an economist from the International Monetary Fund, Prakash Loungani, published a survey of the accuracy of economic forecasts throughout the 1990s. The record of failure to predict recessions is…

Mapdwell's web-based Solar System platform helps users design at-home solar energy systems: it visualizes the costs and benefits of installing a solar roof by layering information about tax credits and carbon emissions savings onto a topographical map of local roofs, and helps determine the most efficient spots for panels. Links Mapdwell

Gough Whitlam dead: Martyr for a moment, hero for a lifetime http://t.co/nd39U3Nvpo— Malcolm Fraser (@MalcolmFraser12) October 20, 2014

If you were playing to win [or perhaps not loose your house], perhaps in a casino, playing a coin-toss game, would you suspect anything was wrong if the coin-toss turned up heads 353 times in a row? What are the chances of that? Would you bet your house on the next throw? July 2014 was the 353rd consecutive month in…

A Solidarity Movement for Gender Equality Put yourself on the map! UN Women Global Goodwill Ambassador, Emma Watson [ @EmWatson ], delivers her remarks during the HeForShe Special Event at United Nations Headquarters in New York on September 20, 2014. http://youtu.be/Q0Dg226G2Z8    

Teachers teaching misconceptions: a study of factors contributing to (US) high school biology students’ acquisition of biological evolution-related misconceptions Research has revealed that high school students matriculate to college holding misconceptions related to biological evolution. These misconceptions interfere with students’ abilities to grasp accurate scientific explanations and serve as fundamental barriers to understanding evolution. Because the scientific community regards evolution…

Book - Limits of Growth

[Source: Club of Rome] I was a school student when this first Club of Rome Report was widely heralded. I was in University studying Geography, History, Literature and Politics when I looked closely at its research and findings. I was teaching when the "20 year old" report was critiqued as flawed and plain wrong. As Limits to Growth concluded in 1972:…

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