Gentle Readers, Back in the day, a lot of prime time programming was within the same continuity. For example, the Fonz was friends with Laverne and Shirley, and ran into Mork from Ork. Facts of Life was a Diff’rent Strokes … Continue reading →
GorT spoke at his son’s school’s Career Day last week. After years of hiring (or trying) people in the computer science field and getting quite a broad set of experiences dealing with them, GorT had enough and decided that there … Continue reading →
President Obama has announced the launch of a Federal task force to combat sexual violence against women students. in other words, this is a group being hired at great taxpayer expense to solve a non-federal problem. Because Obama is growing … Continue reading →
Perhaps you heard that over 2 million people have participated in Obamacare since October. This has been a major story on many Obama-friendly news outlets, as they celebrate how wrong conservatives were to celebrate the broken website issue in October. … Continue reading →
GorT sometimes attends protests Maybe liberals and democrats are focusing on “living wage” arguments so the following doesn’t get much press: A recent CNN poll shows almost 70% of the country believes the economy is generally in poor shape and … Continue reading →
Sexy Actuary is going to be the hot Halloween Costume in 2014. Girls with glasses, meow! Well, Ed Henry, F. Chuck Todd, Major Lt. Col. Garrett and the rest of the White House press corps (not corpses) can stop asking … Continue reading →
What fun! Let’s open up the Czar’s mailbox to see what you all have to say. First up, we have Mark Spahn, of West Seneca, New York, with some questions on our lightbulb guide. Thank you, your Czarosity, for [your … Continue reading →
The lovely and talented Mark Spahn—wait, hold on. We have never seen him. He could be horrifying in appearance. Perhaps. So the monstrous and talented Mark Spahn of West Seneca, New York, sends some thoughts our way on the metric … Continue reading →
GorT, perhaps spurred on by some weird base-10 bug in his base- processor or a virus picked up passing through the Carter Administration, has made some claim for the superiority of the metric system based on its alleged non-arbitrariness. Because of … Continue reading →
GorT’s recent post elicited some interesting responses. First BG writes in regarding flopping and various sports: So basketball and football are better than soccer because the NBA and the NFL are taking steps to deal with the curse of “flopping,” … Continue reading →
A compromise, in the name of peace and sanity, ending the rift between between the Pi’sts and the Tau’ists, the later group includes GorT: From xkcd: Conveniently approximated as e+2, Pau is also known as the Devil’s Ratio (because in … Continue reading →
‘Free’ is more expensive than out of pocket. Dr. J. apologizes for using the same trope in back to back posts, but it really fits today’s post. Kirsten Powers, the pro-life Democrat political commentator was on Megan Kelly’s show this last … Continue reading →
A week or so ago, GorT came across this video in some of his research and reading. I’ve read one of Dave Ramsey’s books and I had mixed opinions: I think that his opinions and recommendations are solid but at … Continue reading →
Q. What do you call a liberal who can do math? A. An ex-liberal. This old saw is still true for some very basic reasons: if the country pulls in x revenue, and spends 2x on programs, pretty soon you … Continue reading →
Mr. and Mrs. Asshat Hefley in the middleof ruining American public education foreveryone because they’re unrealistic, selfishjerks. If you want to know what’s wrong with education today, here’s a shining example of the primary reason: parents. Parents damage education by … Continue reading →
Ladies, have you dreamed of dating a tall, shiny, time traveling sentient robot? Mr. Abrams, I’m ready for my lens flare! If you do, it may be worth your time learning to speak in his native tongue: GorT, you can … Continue reading →
Gentle Readers, Dr. J. was made hip to this a few weeks ago by one of his hip single urban dwelling (HSUD) classmates from Ivy U. Apparently Yelp*, a website and app used to find stores, restaurants, bars, and to … Continue reading →
MLP – Nerdy or Geeky? At the beginning of the month, GorT in true GorTastic style wrote a terrific post on geeks and nerds using the six of us as foils to make his point. Indeed he pretty much had … Continue reading →
Before there were Mean Girls, there were the Heathers… Remember the movie Heathers? If not, it’s in heavy rotation on Showtime this month. For those not in the know, the 1988 movie is about a high school girl, Veronica (Winona … Continue reading →
Not to undo the entire crux of Dr. J’s rational polemic, in which he says that non-letter grades are indeed desirable for little ones, allow the Czar to quote himself: And certainly simpler systems work for K-3 because kids are … Continue reading →
Dr. J. loves this interactive graph from the UK Guardian. The authors created a graph analyzing the reading level of the State of the Union report (or speech) since our nation’s founding using the Flesch-Kincaid readability test. The dots are … Continue reading →
O Mighty Czar, At risk of further inciting your wrath, I have an observation regarding the “standards-based scoring” post. This final Kuzniewski quote: The zero is the most damning of grades because it’s the lowest and has the most significant … Continue reading →
The Czar is on a full-tilt rage this morning, so look out. The Czar is wont to read local newspapers; as you know, he thinks the entire newspaper industry is a dying business model, but enjoys reading the wit and … Continue reading →
Dr. J. saw this link a few days ago but wanted to post it today, for Super Bowl Sunday. Your Gormogons have Bears, Redskins, and Eagles fans in their ranks. Football is not the official sport of the Gormogons, but … Continue reading →
Dr. J., like GorT loves elegantly visualized information. Indeed, The Visual Display of Quantitative Information, by Edward Tufte is required reading at New Atlantis Ivory Tower School of Medicine. Dr. J.’s favorite example is this map/graph of Napoleon’s invasion of Russia: … Continue reading →
In a simple answer: higher spending and an increased deficit. No, wait, you say, the Democrats fought and fought for higher revenue from the wealthy so we should be seeing a reduction in the deficit. They’re paying their fair share! … Continue reading →
In this earlier post, I raised some of the issues regarding this “fiscal cliff” that the country is facing and that leads most major new outlet’s coverage these days. In this post, let me outline a few answers and issues … Continue reading →
Let’s review a bit of history. Does anyone in the media recall what gave rise to the fiscal cliff? Anyone? Anyone at all? Apparently not. To be fair, ‘Puter shouldn’t judge the Washington press corps for its faulty recollection of … Continue reading →
Thanks to everyone who read our explanation of political polling. In less than eight hours, it screamed to the top of our all-time most-popular features here at the Big G and got considerable attention from much bigger media outlets. That … Continue reading →
The Czar stopped looking at day-to-day polling on Friday, when it became clear that all of it had become complete nonsense. Normally at election time, the media polls favor the Democrats in big numbers in order to starve money from … Continue reading →
Sometimes it is not good to be the Czar. For example, he is helping his sainted mother translate some paperwork from her father, and needless to say, penmanship was pretty bad in that century. One can hardly tell a ѣ … Continue reading →
During the debate, President Obama crowed that he did not raise taxes on 97% of small business owners. Mitt Romney explained to him, to the Presidents obvious discomfort, that the 3% who suffered the tax hike actually are responsible for … Continue reading →
GorT, Sr. enjoyed this earlier post and GorT has been busy so I’ve been lax in posting these. First, let’s show how 2 equals 3: and now, -1 equals 1: Witness the mighty power of the Gormogons!!! GorTGorT is an … Continue reading →
Borrowed without permission from Grey Ops. Dr. J. can’t stand lawyers, other than ‘Puter and perhaps one or two others here in New Atlantis. That is probably one of the reasons he doesn’t like President Obama. He sometimes lies when … Continue reading →
Didja know that President Obama and Mitt Romney already had their first debate? Yes, it was a science debate, which candidates responded to in writing. The Czar heard the Mitt Romney thumped the President pretty hard, so he went to … Continue reading →
Ask and ye shall receive! The Royal Mathematician spake (speaks? spoke? spokes? Spokane?) regarding the Great Square Root of Eleventy Schism of 2012: O Bringer of the Force-Lightning: Here’s the real mathematical scoop on the square root of eleventy: Pretty … Continue reading →
Behold, the square root of eleventy.Look upon it and despair! Today, The Czar, English major and Castle Grammarian, wrote: 5. There is no square root of eleventy. Now correct Dr. J. if he is wrong (specifically Dr. J. is asking … Continue reading →
The Czar loves math as much as you don’t. Here are some fun facts to astonish and amaze your pets. The number four is the only number with as many letters as its quantity stipulates. Which is good, because if … Continue reading →
What? Did you expect pictures of badminton players or the dude from Algeria? Walsh-Jennings and May-Treanor are the role models here! This may sound like Dr. J. coming to the subject late, but Dr. J. has been pondering this issue … Continue reading →
Dr. J. has a touch of the insomnia, so he went to the London 2012 results page and ran the numbers on the Ye/Lochte controversy. This graph represents Ye and Lochte’s split times for each pool length. This is where … Continue reading →
You know, the Czar has said for years that you will likely go your entire life without ever encountering a legitimately natural-forming quadratic equation. But to suggest that algebra itself is a time-wasting distraction is losing the baby with the … Continue reading →
Dr. J. saw this at xkcd.com today: And in the words of Kevin Spacey’s Lex Luthor, “WRONG!” Over 30 years ago, when Dr. J. was about Lil Resident’s age, on a fine summer evening much like the one we enjoyed … Continue reading →
No less a personage than Dick Morris—whom liberals will remember helped Bill Clinton get re-elected—said that he has done the math on November’s election. Polls can be fairly accurate predictors of election results provided they are analyzed based on historical … Continue reading →
You may have missed it, but this week has been really one slap of bad news after another for the Obama campaign. Whether it’s blowback from turning a Medal of Honor ceremony into a political stump speech, or a jaw-droppingly … Continue reading →
Yesterday, Dr. J. discussed three types of doctors. Brilliant doctors with a brilliant bedside manner, brilliant doctors with a less than stellar bedside manner and not so brilliant doctors with a stellar bedside manner. What Dr. J. did not discuss … Continue reading →
As if right on cue, our esteemed Royal Mathematician writes in regarding Dr. J.’s post yesterday: A most happy New Year to all Gormogons whose calendar-origin-of-choice has recently passed, and general seasonally-appropriate greetings to the others: A quick word about … Continue reading →
Dear Messrs. Ryan, Rubio, Jindal, Christie and Generic & Mmes. Haley, Martinez and Brewer, It is only 1461 days until the 2016 Iowa Caucuses! It is never too early to get your grassroots on and glad-hand the Iawonian masses. As … Continue reading →
Who disturbs the Czar’s presence amidst Plants vs. Zombies? Why, two quick emails on Hexagon. The first is actually an interoffice from GorT, which when compiled says that he had a family member work on that very project, and said … Continue reading →
Evidently, Fox News says the truth can be told on a now-revealed Cold War spy satellite. Joseph Prusak, 76, spent six months [working on it]. When he was finally briefed on [Project] Hexagon, Prusak, who had worked as an engineer … Continue reading →
GorT’s liberal friends and family members are likewise propagating the tripe that Dr. Warren spewed and that my esteemed collegue, ‘Puter, so eloquently dissected here yesterday. And it is complete garbage. At face value it is, at best, a call … Continue reading →
The President says we have to raise taxes on the smart and successful because, he says, it’s all there in the math. Since you brought it up, Mr. President, we would very much like to see your math. Ours says … Continue reading →
Once in a while, the Czar says something he believes will generate a lot of grief, and is surprised to find people agree with him. The Czar made such a comment the other day, and has received a couple of … Continue reading →
The esteemed Royal Mathematician, Dr. (KN)J writes in: Dear Dr. J., A recent missive of yours touched on a subject on which I have long been meaning to touch. Namely, the applicability, or lack thereof, of the “ounce of prevention, … Continue reading →
Uncle Jay, again with the great math jokes: Also, this: Cracks up my kids. The Czar of MuscovyБожію Поспѣшествующею Милостію Мы, Дима Грозный Императоръ и Самодержецъ Всероссiйскiй, цѣсарь Московскiй. The Czar was born in the steppes of Russia in 1267, … Continue reading →
Uncle Jay cracks the Czar up with this perfectly valid observation: Math class is the only place where you can buy 60 cantaloupes and nobody asks what the hell is wrong with you. The Czar of MuscovyБожію Поспѣшествующею Милостію Мы, … Continue reading →
Today, June 28th, is Tau Day. Someone restrain ‘Puter because we’re going to get into some math here and I’d like to keep my arms attached. Pi (π) is a concept that everyone reading this (for the most part) should … Continue reading →
This is just plain nuts. DT writes in with something that actually non-plusses the Czar. Oh Captain My Captain, I note with amusement that a journalism major from Berkeley thinks that computer programming is hard. I’ve been a professional developer … Continue reading →
AH writes a nice, thoughtful transmission: Esteemed Czar of Muscovy: I hope you will indulge me with something of an answer to your recent piece on natural selection. I too find it refreshing to discuss the issue using familiar products. … Continue reading →
I did notice that the “M” (Math) was missing in the PSA. I did find it interesting because Math is at the core of sciences, technology and engineering. Personally, I’ve seen an improvement in the math curriculum at my own … Continue reading →
ElJay, who must never be teased, touched, or messed with, wrote in to GorT and the Czar to say: Most vainglorious Gormogons (or words to that effect)! Remember back in ancient history (several years ago) when STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, … Continue reading →
O Most Dread and Awful Czar, As is the unfortunate custom with all things numerate, the media discussions concerning the most recent round of budget nonsense from our elite overlords have never provided any useful context for consideration. As they … Continue reading →
So our dear readers write in to a screaming Czar about mechanical efficiencies when they have access to a time traveling robot?!?! Go figure. Well, before I dive into it, I’ll let GorT, Sr. chime in: I believe [the Czar] … Continue reading →
All-knowing and mighty Czar, Just curious, do you have any information on the efficiency of energy conversion for electric cars? It’s been decades since I took thermodynamics so I’m having a hard time wrapping my rapidly decaying old brain around … Continue reading →
Oh most eminent and outrageous one— Concerning quadratic equations and their relation to accelerating objects: the comment “Quadratic equations are necessary for an understanding of acceleration” should more accurately have read, “Quadratic equations are necessary for an understanding of the … Continue reading →
Well, we have another Dr. J running amok at the Castle. This time, we have Dr. KNJ writing in with a massively helpful idea: O Most Dread and Awful, etc., etc. I most humbly suggest an approach to the MPG … Continue reading →
The Czar is a big fan of the metric system, and thinks everyone should use it. Yes, even Americans. Sigh. Yes, even you. If you hate the metric system, the Czar knows why: because you are old enough to remember … Continue reading →
CBS News Poll reveals most Americans hate the GOP plan to extend tax cuts to wealthy. Gallup Poll reveals most Americans hate the GOP plan to extend tax cuts to wealthy. Bloomberg National Poll reveals most Americans hate the GOP … Continue reading →
Well, we must have somehow already reached the bottom of the barrel when it comes to political analysis of the recent election. The Czar is unimpressed with this non-shocker story from The Weekly Standard: “GOP Won Greater Percentage of Senate … Continue reading →
Operative JS has not checked in for some time, having been on special assignment deep in the Sudan. JS was told not to return unless there was proof of a deep underground spacecraft made of a living metal capable of … Continue reading →
Time’s Joe Klein writes a little ditty called “Sky Still Not Falling,” which explains how President Obama should not be concerned with his lowest ever approval ratings. Klein makes many valid points: too-frequent polls result in a short-term understanding of … Continue reading →
Pick a mainstream media newsroom at random. There is probably a conversation like this going on within: “Gareth, did you read that 6% of Tea Party members are black?” “Yeah, Cody…and African Americans make up almost 13% of the country.” … Continue reading →
EC writes in to add: [R]emember that the chief agent in dissolving limestone and other carbonate rocks over geologic time is carbonic acid, which is formed as rainwater passes through the atmosphere and picks up carbon dioxide. The results of … Continue reading →
Well, for some reason the big conservative guys are shying away from the Hadley CRU story. Not sure why: even the New York Times picked it up. And nothing says the corrupt data is genuine like the vomit-like spin the … Continue reading →
What a knee-slapping exercise in media gullability. Based on conversations the Czar had in the last 24 hours, as well as a timely email from Gormogons secret operative MC (“BTW, Putin couldn’t meet with Hillary because he and I have … Continue reading →
Rep. Alan Grayson (D-FL) shocked and offended congress watchers when he announced, in a Tuesday speech, that Republicans want people to either not get sick or else die quickly. He has refused to apologize for the comment, and indeed added … Continue reading →
GorT: Irony! If Ms. King wants to restore a ton of land to its natural state, she can start with her own home. If our math is correct here, she’s right: only 3% of her goddamned driveway is undeveloped. The … Continue reading →
Carole King, songwriter (“Up On the Roof”, ‘Puters’ favorite – “The Loco-Motion”, “Don’t Bring Me Down”, “Some Kind of Wonderful”, etc.) was on Morning Joe and said the following: I want them to learn that they’re there, and that they … Continue reading →
The first Gormogon collaborator to point out that the Freemasons had slipped the Czar a ringer of a picture was noted hippiephobe Gullyborg over at Resistance Is Futile!. Visit his blog and drop him a note of thanks. Also, Lane … Continue reading →
Sorry, Volgi. The Czar just loves being embarrassed like this, although he believes the computational method quite sound. Except that photograph submitted to him indeed was incorrect. The Czar asked the okhrana bunch to go pay the dude a visit … Continue reading →
Turns out we screwed up. The picture the Czar found turns out to be of a Promise Keepers’ rally a decade ago. Click here for a version with the site of the missing National Museum of the American Indian circled. … Continue reading →
The big 9/12 protest certainly attracted a ton of people. How many seems to be an open question. The Washington Post reported “tens of thousands,” so a conservative might reasonably expect there to have been at least a hundred thousand. … Continue reading →
In some of my readings this week, I came across this paper (click for PDF). It’s 25 pages long, but thouroughly enjoyable – at least to me. I think many of his points ring true. Having been through the progression … Continue reading →
Speaking of the good father, Joe, you should also mention that his supplemental weekly quizzes were on a twelve-point scale, allowing for easily-scored one-, two-, three-, four-, six-, or twelve-question variants. And, in my defense, I should add that I … Continue reading →
…and Ghettoputer (1983-87). So, GorT ain’t happy about the tire-inflation-as-better-than-offshore-drilling idea, eh? Well, unlike certain oneupsmanship-obsessed techies who are apparently too lazy to bust out their HP35s’es, this guy decided to do the math. In case you follow in Teen … Continue reading →
