spectology.blogspot.com
SPECTOLOGY: The Hunted: A gonzo racial class for OSR-style games.
http://spectology.blogspot.com/2016/06/the-hunted-gonzo-racial-class-for-osr.html
The study of that which is not. Wednesday, June 15, 2016. The Hunted: A gonzo racial class for OSR-style games. Originally published in the People section of Secret Santicore 2014. So rare are the sightings that some modern scholars insist that giants to not exist, that they are hypothetical inventions to explain the natural sounds the forest makes. In their slow songs, the word the giants use for themselves is “Hunted”. In each of their semi-permanent settlements is a convent for the very old. Those...
dartthrowingchimp.wordpress.com
ACLED in R | Dart-Throwing Chimp
https://dartthrowingchimp.wordpress.com/2015/07/19/acled-in-r
Thoughtful analysis or bloviation? The Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project. Aka ACLED, produces up-to-date event data on certain kinds of political conflict in Africa and, as of 2015, parts of Asia. In this post, I’m not going to dwell on the project’s sources and methods, which you can read about on ACLED’s About page. In the 2010 journal article. That introduced the project, or in the project’s user’s guides. You can find the R script on GitHub, here. It should also be easy to adapt the part...
dartthrowingchimp.wordpress.com
Be Vewy, Vewy Quiet | Dart-Throwing Chimp
https://dartthrowingchimp.wordpress.com/2015/07/28/be-vewy-vewy-quiet
Thoughtful analysis or bloviation? Be Vewy, Vewy Quiet. This blog has gone relatively quiet of late, and it will probably stay that way for a while. That’s partly a function of my personal life, but it also reflects a conscious decision to spend more time improving my abilities as a programmer. I want to get better at scraping, making, munging, summarizing, visualizing, and analyzing data. So, instead of contemplating world affairs, I’ve been starting to learn Python. Using questions on Stack Overflow.
spectology.blogspot.com
SPECTOLOGY: December 2012
http://spectology.blogspot.com/2012_12_01_archive.html
The study of that which is not. Sunday, December 9, 2012. Leaps, bounds, and falls. Strong AI never shows up. It turns out it’s just too hard to code human-like cognition from scratch. By the same token, it’s nearly impossible to build any sort of mind uploading system due to the complexity of the system of nerves, impulses, chemicals, and abstract networks that form the human mind, nor does information uploading or “jacking in” ever work effectively. Space exploration continues mostly through robots, bo...
dartthrowingchimp.wordpress.com
The Dilemma of Getting to Civilian Control | Dart-Throwing Chimp
https://dartthrowingchimp.wordpress.com/2015/07/09/the-dilemma-of-getting-to-civilian-control
Thoughtful analysis or bloviation? The Dilemma of Getting to Civilian Control. A country can’t really qualify as a democracy without civilian control of its own security forces, but the logic that makes that statement true also makes civilian control hard to achieve, as events in Burkina Faso are currently reminding us. But the threat of a coup only enhances their bargaining power with elected rulers, and thus further constrains popular sovereignty. This dilemma is bedeviling politics in Burkina Faso rig...
dartthrowingchimp.wordpress.com
Finding the Right Statistic | Dart-Throwing Chimp
https://dartthrowingchimp.wordpress.com/2015/07/30/finding-the-right-statistic
Thoughtful analysis or bloviation? Finding the Right Statistic. Earlier this week, Think Progress reported. That at least five black women have died in police custody in the United States since mid-July. The author of that post, Carimah Townes, wrote that those deaths “[shine] an even brighter spotlight on the plight of black women. What about black men and white men? And so on for other subsets of interest. Answering those questions would still get us only partway there, however. To make the compari...
dartthrowingchimp.wordpress.com
Fact Check: Are Military Coups Back in Vogue? | Dart-Throwing Chimp
https://dartthrowingchimp.wordpress.com/2011/10/12/fact-check-are-military-coups-back-in-vogue
Thoughtful analysis or bloviation? Fact Check: Are Military Coups Back in Vogue? In a recent piece. Joshua Kurlantzick claims to spot a resurgence of military coups. He writes:. In Latin America, Africa and Asia, coups, which had been a frequent means of changing governments during the Cold War, had become nearly extinct by the dawn of the new century. But over the past decade, the military has made power grabs in at least 12 states, from Guinea to Honduras, from Thailand to Madagascar. Again, no. Th...
duckofminerva.com
Living Academic | Duck of Minerva
http://duckofminerva.com/academia-and-graduate-school
Working Papers & Symposia. Working Papers & Symposia. This page collects, albeit not comprehensively, posts at the Duck of Minerva that focus on what might be called “the profession.” Many of our most consistently popular pieces — including ones that still get significant hits years after their publication — fall into this category and can be found below. Academia as a Vocation. 8220; The Academic Vocation. 8221; (1 June 2009, PTJ), “ Your Life’s Work. 8221; (20 August 2010, PTJ). 8221; (11 May 2012, REK).
duckofminerva.com
Health | Duck of Minerva
http://duckofminerva.com/category/health-2
Working Papers & Symposia. Working Papers & Symposia. What Am I Reading? Inaugural Feature on Global Health #1. I’m on leave this year so my regular blogging might be a little scant, but I thought I’d introduce a new feature which is a periodic series “What Am I Reading? 8221; I’d like to flag what I’m reading on different topics, namely health, the environment, and foreign policy. This first one is on health. Last week I had a piece. My colleague Abigail Aiken finds. There is growing pressure. Laments C...
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