Johns Hopkins violates academic freedom of faculty blogger, backs off when called on it. I knew there was a reason I kept this thing off-site...

Nationality-based blacklisting from academic publishing. Via Gowers. Given that I apparently live in a rogue surveillance state that tortures people, conducts undeclared cyberwar against the French, etc., this sort of collective punishment for government misbehavior troubles me. I suppose it's better than bombing them, though.

And, to make up for all that seriousness:

PingFS: keeping your data in the cloud by juggling raindrops.

You know how I recently posted that attaching labels to the things they label by curves or slanted lines would be better than axis-parallel polylines? This isn't what I meant. And many more bad ideas in information visualization, via MF.

Hexadecimal metric system. Complete with a new method of writing hexadecimal numbers, using a system of syllables for digits in which the consonant of each syllable tells you the digit value (in the obvious ordering q, b, p, v, f, z, s, d, t, j, c, g, k, y, x, w, h) and the vowel tells you what power of 16 it should be multiplied by.




Comments:

None:
2013-09-15T12:17:01Z
Interesting. But I think that bombing Iran is much better than this collective punishment. It is just and effective.
11011110:
2013-09-15T16:13:27Z
You would rather be bombed than be locked out of the scientific literature? I think that's taking a dedication to academia a little too far.
None:
2013-09-17T06:20:59Z
No. I'm talking about specific targeting of Iranian military posts related to the nuclear project. Not targeting civilians. This is the moral and effective things to do in this case. Not ineffective collective punishments.
11011110:
2013-09-17T06:39:08Z
You have an interesting view on how much of a precision surgical instrument a bomb is. And I'm sure my friends and relatives who happen to live in Santa Fe and Livermore would just love the idea of bombing the nuclear facilities of rogue states. Or did you think I was referring to punishment only of those other rogue states, the ones where people not like you live?
None:
2013-09-17T09:03:05Z
Oh, so you're basically a pacifist. Good to know.
None:
2013-09-17T12:49:06Z
The precision is good enough. Your view, if I understand correctly, is a simplistic form of pacifism: you're not entitled to do to your enemies what you are not willing to do to yourself. Though it is not entirely inconsistent, it is an absurd view that leads with high probability to your own death. In any case, it is morally justified (by most moral systems) to attack a country who is dedicated to your own destruction.