Mathematical Cold warriors

An oldie but goodie: using game theory to predict iran's nuclear policy, elections, companies and really pretty much anything. It's kind of interesting and amazing to think about, isn't it? This lovely interplay between the precision of the algorithm's calculations, and the messy, human task of assigning weights and costs to people's desires and motivations.

Robots and writing

Robots are cool. The way modern robots "think" is even cooler. Check it out. Also the author of said piece is dead sexy.

On a related note, here are some nice tips for folks who want to write. But a lot of it boils down to the classic: write a lot!

The very definition of badass

WATCH THIS. Get psyched. The 2010 Chinese Martial Arts Tournament hosted by Berkeley is coming up. There will be badassery in all manner of shapes, forms, and sizes here. Put it on your calendar. May 1st. There will be awesome.

Also if you have time read this article from NYTimes magazine. The interesting is not just how to make teachers better, but that really there should be metrics and methods for all manner of professions. For example, there are a lot of effective ways to be researchers and grad students... why is this not taught> There have to be some good ways of figuring out research problems... are we purely limited to our advisers here?

Sleep is for the weak

NYTimes has an interesting opinionator piece on how anxiety about falling asleep can make it impossible to fall asleep. There's also a bit of interesting exploration of about meta-thought in general.

On an entirely unrelated note, Slate has a neat bit on how music sounds different on old instruments. It's intriguing to think that what we think of as the Moonlight Sonata now sounded entirely different to Beethoven when he wrote it (and not just because the old dude was deaf).