The Golden Ratio Debunked?

Keith Devlin takes a mathematicians eye to the claims made for The Golden Ratio and shows that the art and the architecture claimed to have been based on The Golden Ratio is simply not backed up by any evidence. The Golden Ratio does exist in nature but the most famous natural example, the nautilus shell, does not follow said ratio.

It's a long talk but, if you're interested in the Fibonaci sequence and The Golden Ratio, it's worth listening to. He recommends Mario Livio, The Golden Ratio, on which a lot of the proofs for the talk were based.

And now The Golden Ratio from a more spiritual perspective:

Anonymous Posting

There has been some talk lately about eliminating anonymous posting. I find this argument too repulsive to behold. But the proponents of such legislation are correct to some degree - people are hurting others by posing as other people. This needs to be stopped. There are laws in place but this needs to be addressed carefully. I don't want these actions to be automatically treated as criminal behavior but posing as others cannot be considered acceptable. As for example this case in Arizona:

When he finally confessed to creating a fake porn profile for his son's assistant principal, Robert Dale Esparza Jr. of Gilbert, Arizona, "sort of laughed," says Dennis Ogorchock, a detective with the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office Computer Crimes Unit. But soon, Esparza may be laughing from a jail cell. Last year, Esparza created the profile of Frank Hendricsen, assistant principal of Gateway Pointe Elementary School, where his son attended, using the faculty member's full name and photos as a revenge prank, the detective told msnbc.com in a phone interview.
Dad busted for fake porn profile of kid's principal

SpaceX rocket begins milestone mission to space station

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — A private space capsule called Dragon soared into the predawn sky Tuesday, riding a pillar of flame like its beastly namesake on a history-making trip to the International Space Station.

The unmanned capsule, built by billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk's SpaceX venture, is the first non-governmental spacecraft to launch to the space station, ushering in a new era of partnership between the public and private spaceflight programs.

...

The SpaceX launch vehicle is named after the Millennium Falcon of "Star Wars," while the capsule got its moniker from the Peter, Paul and Mary song, "Puff, the Magic Dragon."

SpaceX rocket begins milestone mission to space station

From Sputnik(1957) to Apollo (1969) to today - milestones in man's reaching for the stars. How long are we from asteroid mining, space tourism, and colonies? I think, with the advances in computing power and new materials, we will see commercial activity in space in less than 20 years - a blink of an eye.

The Future is Coming Fast

I remember when the CSS layouts in this video were fantastical, especially the exclusion area. "That's impossible" was a common refrain. Of course, as time went on, kludges were created using a series of divs to orient the text. And now? Just watch the video.

Moore's Law and Privacy

Most people are not appreciating how fast technology is changing. They don't appreciate that we're in a period of exponential growth, and they don't put an thought into how these advances will change their life, politics, and employment in the very near future.

Of concern to me in this post is not the advances in screen technology, construction materials and medical advances but that of computer speed, data storage and data retrival and how these advances affect everyone's privacy.

IA and breadcrumbs

There is a terrific website to help your children learn math, The Khan Academy. They have excellent videos. I wish this resource was available when I was in high school and college. I mention this site, not because it is an excellent resource, but because they have failed, failed miserably in a basic way.

When one goes to a page to watch a video there is breadcrumb across the top.

There is even a nice feature where a drop-down appears and one can select other videos in the same sub-category.

However, should you decide to see a video in another category - you cannot select a higher-level category. You are forced to go back, in a convoluted way, to the "index" page. Part of the problem is that some categories have a LOT of videos. Still, there are nunumerous workarounds to that problem.

There is one other issue. The Khan Academy is trying to increase participation by using gamification techniques. It's an excellent idea, as you watch videos you get "points." It provides an incentive to join the community. That's excellent. However, should you decide to join, you must login with either a Facebook or Google account. Tsk. tsk. Not everyone wants everything they do to be so easily and completely tracked by Facebook and/or Google.

All that being said, I still highly recommend this site.

Too Funny

Kerning refers to the adjustment of spacing between characters in a proportional font. If you didn't get it right away - take a look at the cartoon again.