Monthly Archives: April 2013

Quality control, part 2: the sciences

Posted on April 28, 2013 by Alex R. Howe

In my last post, I discussed the implications of interconnected world of the Internet as it failed to track down the Boston bombers before traditional methods did. In this post, I discuss the broader implications as they pertain to my … Continue reading →

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Boston, Reddit, and the problem of quality control

Posted on April 21, 2013 by Alex R. Howe

By now, you probably know all about the bombings at the Boston Marathon last week that left 3 people dead and 176 injured. It has its own Wikipedia page now, if you’re not up to speed. In the ensuing investigation, … Continue reading →

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Fun with word counts

Posted on April 14, 2013 by Alex R. Howe

Quick, which one of these books has more words in it? Have a guess? The book on the left has 516 pages, which at about 330 words per page means it probably has about 170,000 words, give or take. That’s … Continue reading →

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Red suns

Posted on April 7, 2013 by Alex R. Howe

The most common type of stars in the universe are Type-M dwarfs, better known as red dwarfs. These are stars that are less than about half the mass of our Sun, less than a tenth as bright, and much cooler, … Continue reading →

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