Bill White: now in Google Books

I'm mentioned twice in Google Books!

Mathematica and insurance research

Seth Chandler of the University of Houston Law Center talks about modeling post-hurricane insurance in Mathematica. Here's the application he demonstrated in the video, and here are the 107 other ones he's written.

Gray on Alpha

Wolfram Research co-founder Theo Gray (a.k.a. Popular Science's Mad Scientist) has a good article in PopSci about Wolfram Alpha.

Mr Illinois

John Cribbet died Saturday, May 23, 2009 in Urbana, IL. He was born in my hometown, Findlay, IL, back in 1918 and he left an impressive legacy at the University of Illinois as a professor of law, dean of the College of Law and Chancellor of the University.

Stop it - you're killing me!

A joke from President Obama's recent commencement address at Arizona State University:

Now, before I begin, I'd like to clear the air about that little controversy everyone was talking about a few weeks back. I have to tell you, I really thought it was much ado about nothing, although I think we all learned an important lesson. I learned to never again pick another team over the Sun Devils in my NCAA bracket. And your university President and Board of Regents will soon learn all about being audited by the IRS.

Once he nationalizes health insurance, he can joke about denying, say, pacemakers or chemotherapy or organ transplants to folks he doesn't like. It'll be a laff riot!

To paraphrase Gandhi

What do you think of limited Constitutional government? I think it would be a good idea! Maybe someone can try it someday and report the results.

They have a cunning plan

Wyoming Senator John Barrasso gave today's weekly Republican radio address, and in it he proudly claimed that the Republican party is even more socialist than the Democrats:

Republicans support a comprehensive energy plan. A plan that puts Americans to work. A plan that harnesses American resources.

O the glory of the Centralized Plan handed down from Washington.

What the hell is wrong with Bill Donohue?

Does he go off his meds once in a while? He needs to sit down, shut his piehole, and read through this encyclopedia of torture. A bit of background here.

Bubba's Book Club

Neil Peart has some new book reviews up.

Obama's "civil discourse"

From Diogenes:

I see nothing wrong with swatting flies.

Let's say that you have a different opinion. You think the lives of flies are sacred, and therefore you think that swatting flies is grossly immoral. You hold this view with the utmost sincerity. Unfortunately for you, I'm making the rules. And I say:

* You can't refer to fly-swatting as "murder." That would be "hate speech," inciting others to violence.
* You can't interfere when I swat flies.
* You must contribute to the purchase of fly swatters.

Now, with those ground-rules established, let's begin a civil discussion of the morality of swatting flies. There's no need for anger, recrimination, or name-calling. We have a sincere different of opinion. Let's-- oh, wait, excuse me a moment [thwack!]-- find some common ground.

7pm CST tonight

Wolfram Alpha goes live at 7pm CST tonight. The whole thing will be screencast live here, for better or worse, from the "launch center" here in Champaign. Here's a bit from BBC 4 about the launch, and a handy guide to British accents (of which there are four in that BBC piece).

What a fascinating modern age we live in!

Worldwide shipping traffic, live.

Just a passing happy thought

One the government controls healthcare, they can use the threat of fines, penalties and punishments to control everything you do that influences your health. And we can expect a celebrated (by the "news" media) increase in physician-assisted suicides. Those will save the government insurance bureaucrats a bundle of money that would have gone toward end-of-life care.

The sound of a dying industry

Lisa and I stopped by Barnes & Noble last night to browse a bit. They had lots of big stacks of books we didn't want or need - stocked, I suppose, in the hope that someone would buy them. We finally found a small connect-the-dots book for the 6-year-old's birthday and trekked all the way back across the store to the checkout counter. Half-a-dozen registers there but only one cashier, and she was attempting to sell some discount plan to the customer ahead of us. Selling these things is a long process when you're next in line waiting for the one open register, and it takes even longer when the customer realizes she will have to fork over 25 bucks for the privilege of saving money. She balked at the price, which she hadn't heard during the hurried sales spiel. Paperwork then had to be undone, a phone call (?!) had to be made, and it dragged on and on while we waited and the line grew behind us like cobwebs in an empty house. Which the bookstore was, pretty much - there were so few customers we parked two spaces from the door. Just our little band of unhappy customers and the annoying jazz they piped in to hide the silence.

During the long wait while we listened to crappy jazz, I formulated White's Axiom: the longer the wait in a bookstore line, the better amazon.com looks.

Speaking of Elizabethan poets

here's the 1917 Oxford Book of English Mystical Verse.

You're welcome.

What's a poetical line like you...

...doing in a Bible like this? "The witchery of paltry things obscures what is right." -- Wisdom 4:12. A welcome spot of "dark speech" in the soggy cardboard of the New American Bible.

For the last few days I've been avoiding what's called "news" - the witchery of trivia, political propaganda and other paltry things. To follow the news nowadays is to be a misinformed citizen. Instead, I'm spending more time with Elizabethan poets, Constitutional history, the worthwhile blogs, etc. It's refreshing.

I prefer to call it the Holy Flu

...if it causes changes like this:

Jenky also suggested that the Sign of Peace should temporarily take on a new expression. Instead of a handshake or an embrace, parishioners are advised to interact with a “nod of the head or a smile.”

LET THERE BE SUNG TE DEUM!

Don't wet my pallet!

This guy unleashes a magnificent eggcorn - he wants to get my pallet all wet (see the end of the article). No, thank you. If I had pallets, I'd like to keep them dry and build a compost heap container with them. You may whet my palate, though, especially for things concerning Wolfram Alpha.

Paul Anka is the king of something

I would have bet cold hard cash that Nirvana's Smells Like Teen Spirit couldn't be turned into a horn-heavy lounge tune straight outta 1965 Vegas with the swingin' Rat Pack. I would have lost. It's a quintessential Rat Pack tune.

The mystery of the dropped 'g'

"Keeping the faith" involves theology, dogma, orthopraxis; "Keepin' the Faith" involves sentimental liberal do-goodery.